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His chest pressed against mine, his hips locking me in, making it unbearable to stand here, inhaling his musky scent mixed with the smell of alcohol wafting off of him, and God, I needed to know what was his damage. Why did he look at me like this when we both knew that he only wanted to kill me, or at the very least, to shut me up.
Why didn’t he do it last night?
Why did he bring me here?
His nose pressed to my neck, right where my pulse throbbed, and the low groan rumbling from his chest almost brought me down to my knees. If it wasn’t for his hand wrapped around my throat, I knew I would have already been on the floor, unable to keep myself upright.
“Strawberries,” he murmured, his lips softly touching my jaw. He didn’t kiss me, didn’t try to do anything else but hold me here. I suddenly wished that he would ravage me, that he would show me what he was made of, because I was tired of just existing, wishing for someone to fucking show me that I wasn’t as damaged as my ex made me out to be. “What am I going to do with you?” he asked, but I had a feeling he was asking himself more than me, so I kept my mouth shut, holding myself still as he explored my body with his other hand, wrapping it around my waist.
His grip should’ve hurt, it could bruise, and the possessive way he held onto me as if he couldn’t let go, made me heady with desire. My thighs clenched, my stomach rubbed against his hardening length, while my eyes fluttered closed, unable to look at him any longer.
“Look at me,” he all but growled, and as if an invisible string held us connected, it pulled at me, making me open my eyes, clashing right with his. Aching hunger reflected back at me from those depths, yearning I could understand, and I wanted him to take me, to appease the beast hiding behind the man.
His thumb pressed into my cheek as he held my jaw in his hand, but I welcomed the pain, the suffocating need to have him look at me this way for all eternity—unhinged, hungry, craving for more than he could ever voice.
I didn’t know when my hands found the will of their own, but it was like having an out of body experience. I watched as my hands wrapped around his neck, pulling him to me, pressing myself to his hard body, and as if something snapped in him, that one touch from me was all it took to release the hungry beast from its cage.
His lips smashed against mine, taking, bruising, claiming me as his. Within seconds he lifted me up in his arms, pressing me against the wall as my legs wrapped around his waist, grinding over his length, ripping out sounds of desperation from deep within his chest. Teeth clamped over my lower lip while those eyes I wanted to get lost in darkened, drinking me in through hooded eyelids, his tongue darting out to lick over the bottom lip he bit on.
“I don’t know what it is about you,” he rasped between the kisses, between every push of his hips against my core, “But I need you,” he groaned. “God, I need you.”
I'd often heard the stories of soulmates, of people that knew they were supposed to be together even when the rest of the world was against them. But I'd never heard of two people being this desperate for each other, for every kiss, every touch, and I didn’t want to question it.
I’d been living in limbo, going through the motions for so fucking long, I forgot what it felt like when fire licked all over my body, making me feel alive. I forgot what it felt like being held like this, being needed like this, and I fucking missed it more than I wanted to admit.
One hand tightened in my hair, exposing my neck to him, to his hungry, wicked tongue, licking over the pulse point on my throat, panting as if just seeing me like this satisfied him more than anything else.
“Do you want this?” he suddenly asked, looking up at me, his eyes filled with fear and the knowledge of rejection. I didn’t want to be just another person that would reject him, that would send him into that dark pit he was obviously living in. The pleading on his face was enough for me to nod. “Words, Evelyn,” he murmured. “I need your words.”
“I want this,” I breathed out. “I want you.” Even if it killed me, I wanted to keep feeling like this—free, unhinged, young again. “But I need to know your name,” I said, looking into his eyes. “What’s your name?”
“Cillian,” he answered in a whisper as if it brought him more shame than pride. “Cillian Nightingale.”
7
CILLIAN
Her eyes shonelike the stars on a clear summer night; when the taste of happiness and salty ocean air in Croyford Bay were still the only things I knew. When I didn’t need alcohol and pills to drown out the wicked thoughts threatening to take over my mind. She felt like mine, tasted like mine, but the moment I said my name, I could see that fire extinguishing, the stars dying out, and I knew she wouldn’t want to be mine now she knew who I was.
She wanted this, needed this as much as I did, but as if somebody flipped a switch, her touch went cold, her hands frozen at the nape of my neck. A myriad of emotions blasted over her features until she hid them behind a carefully crafted mask that I couldn’t stand to see. No matter how much I wanted to stand here, to hold her, to show her the deepest, darkest parts of me, I knew that it would be futile, because the moment was ruined the second I'd said my name.
My dick cried as I let her go, weeping for the contact we'd shared mere seconds ago. But I could see her walls erected high, the tremble in her hands and the goosebumps covering her arms, and I couldn’t exactly blame her. My name sometimes felt more like a burden than something that belonged to me.
It was the name of a Boogeyman that haunted the streets of Velvet City. The name they uttered in fear, the name they ran away from, and she knew it. She was one of those that hoped they would never cross paths with the infamous Cillian Nightingale.
I took a step back, creating distance between us, giving her the space she obviously needed, while hating it at the same time, wishing that things were different. Wishing I was somebody else, someone that didn’t have to become a monster in order to eradicate the Bratva from this area.
I wished that my last name carried better memories, better childhood, better fucking family, but it was futile wishing we were somebody else. It never brought anything but more misery, because we knew that nothing could ever change just because we wanted things to be different.
My blood hummed, the itch in my gut to forget, to drown myself in one of my vices stronger than ever. I couldn’t hide the tremble in my body as she closed her brilliant green eyes, unable to even look at me. I tried to be a better man. I tried getting rid of all these thoughts, but even going to rehab, right after Ophelia came out of the hospital almost three years ago now, didn’t help.
I'd stopped using things that might as well kill me, but I couldn’t eradicate the addiction from my DNA. I was addicted to the high, to that black pit I would always descend into when the drugs finally melted through my bloodstream, when the alcohol numbed the pain in my mind. I was addicted to the feeling of numbness that only ever came when I used, and right now, the need to forget and hide was stronger than ever.
And what was I thinking, kissing the one girl I shouldn’t want? She was my prisoner, the person I should’ve killed the moment she came to her apartment, but I couldn’t bring myself to do so. And now we were here, both of us struggling to come to terms with what just happened, and I hated myself all that more for putting her in this situation.
Her stomach grumbled, reminding me that she probably hadn't eaten since yesterday. The side of myself I thought I’d lost, pushed at my buttons, needing to take care of her. To make her feel better, to get her to smile.
I would kill to see one of her real smiles directed at me, instead of this fearful look that transpired on her face when she finally opened her eyes.
