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I catch a glimpse of the look in Connor’s eyes, too, before the screen goes dark, and he takes a step back from me, shoving the phone back into his pocket. The motion shifts his considerable erection, and I see the muscle in his jaw leap as he tries to discreetly rearrange that, too.
My entire body feels like it’s throbbing. I can’t breathe, can’t think, and all I want is to tell him to come up to my room, finish what we started, and more. But I know better.
I’ve waited this long. I can wait a little longer.
“Go up to your room, Saoirse,” Connor says tightly, and my pulse leaps at the sound of his voice, the warning in it. Under those words is something else, something telling meif you don’t, I’m not responsible for what happens next.
“Connor—” I breathe his name, biting my lip as my gaze flicks to his hard cock, straining against his jeans. I can’t help it. I want him so badly I can barely think, and I’ve never felt this way before.
“Go!” His voice is almost a snarl, and I gasp, spinning and heading for the elevator with my heart pounding in my throat. For a brief moment, I almost wonder if he might chase me, follow me into the elevator and repeat that first night. But when I turn to face the lobby from behind the closing doors, all I see is his back as he strides angrily in the opposite direction towards the hotel bar.
My disappointment feels almost palpable.
I lean back against the glass wall, trying to catch my breath. I can still taste the whiskey from his kiss; my lips are swollen and faintly sore from the ferocity of it. It feels as if my heartbeat has taken up residence between my thighs.I hope the wedding is sooner rather than later,I think dizzily, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the state of the Kings.
I need Connor in my bed, so I can get this over with. So this can pass, as he insists it will, and I can stop feeling undone by him. So I can take back my power in the relationship—what little I will have.
“Saoirse?”
My name, said in that Irish accent, by a voice I know. I turn halfway to my room and see Niall striding towards me, following me to my door. I pull my keycard out of my pocket, intending to slip inside before he can catch up, but as I push the door open, he follows me in, and I whirl, glaring at him.
“What are you doing?” My voice rises to a higher pitch than I’ve ever heard it. “You can’t be in here! My father—Connor—”
“Your father is headed to bed. I just came from talking to him.” Niall’s mouth quirks up on one side as he stands in front of the door, his eyes raking over me in a way that makes my heated blood race even faster through my veins. “And as for Connor, why is it that I think he’s the reason you’re in such a state?”
“That’s none of your business,” I manage to spit. “You need to go—”
“Easy, lass,” Niall rumbles, his voice deep and rich, almost smoky. It curls around me, over my skin, and I feel breathless—or is it just because I’m so turned on already that anything, any hint of masculinity, makes me feel as if I could come on the spot? I’m so wound up that I feel as if I could burst, longing for something I don’t even fully understand.
“What are you so worried about?” he continues, his eyes narrowing. “I only followed you in here to see if you were alright. You look—” He hesitates, as if he doesn’t know quite how to describe how I look, or possibly just doesn’t know how to do so politely. “Do you think I’m going to take advantage of you, lass?”
“I—”
He steps toward me, and I catch my breath, frozen in place. He’s big, as tall as Connor, just more leanly muscled instead of broad. His black hair falls messily over one side of his face, his blue eyes twinkling, but I can see the heat underneath it. “What, Saoirse, do you want me to?”
He’s mocking me.I know he is. This is Niall, a man who grew up with me and Liam and Connor, and even if we didn’t know each other well, we knew each other well enough. He knows he could never have me—
But what if he could? Later, when you’re free?
He has no idea of Connor’s arrangement with me. I’m going crazy, even thinking it.
“You wouldn’t dare,” I whisper, but my gaze flicks down to his long-fingered hands, imagining them on my waist, my hips. Imagining them touching me everywhere that Connor says he only wants briefly, just long enough to claim it first for himself before going elsewhere for his pleasure.
Niall looks down at me, his darkened blue eyes meeting mine, and I see that hint of longing in them again. “No, lass,” he says finally, taking a step back. “I’m only teasing you. Of course, I wouldn’t do such a thing. Not without knowing you wanted it.”
Those last words hang between us as I stare at him in shock. His jaw tightens as if he realizes he might have said too much, but he doesn’t move to go, and I don’t step back. My heart skips a beat in my chest, and my mouth feels dry. “What do you mean?” I whisper, feeling as if the world is tilting.
I’m reminded, suddenly, of the way I overheard him once telling Liam what a fool he was for not wanting the engagement. I think back to the night of Caterina and Viktor’s second wedding when I’d confronted Liam on the balcony and the way Niall had looked at me as he’d walked away.
Then, it hits me, and I feel like a fool for never seeing it before.
All this time, all our lives, I’ve been promised to either one McGregor brother or the other. And Niall has been there all along, Liam’s best friend, watching it happen. Watching Connor leave, watching Liam take his place, both at the table and in my life, knowing that he can never have what either McGregor has because of the name he was born with and the family he was born into.
Not a place of his own at the table or next to me.
He wanted me when I was Liam’s. And I realize, as he stands there looking mutely down at me, that he wants me now.
But he has as much honor as any man who sits at that table—more, even. And he would never touch me unless he thought I wanted him, too.
