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  I wanted to tell him everything. I would tell him. After he made love to my body, I’d trust him with my truth. For the first time since Nick, I felt close enough to someone to take this chance. It had been nearly three years. I wanted to finally make this leap of faith because of this beautiful man. Killian would keep me safe. He filled my mind with his strength, my heart with his devotion, my spirit with all of his spirit. He gave me everything I needed to trust him.

  Our lips met on a sigh at first. I kissed him tenderly, showing him what I wanted to give him—my heart. The intensity of his posture, his touch, and his face all showed how he saw and understood. He returned my kiss with reverence.

  “Claire Montgomery, you are an amazing woman.” He looked into my eyes, brushing hair away from my face while kissing his way down my jaw, neck, and collarbone. “Thank you, baby. I will never betray your trust. Never.”

  His kisses were as earnest as his words. He tipped me down and covered my body with his, but he never ceased those caresses. While his lips still suckled and nuzzled my neck, he skated his fingers along my rib cage, taking the fabric of my sweater with them. I helped him pull the garment over my head, letting it fall behind me to the floor so I lay before him in my bra and skirt.

  He pulled in an audible breath, releasing it with slow reverence while bending to kiss and lick my newly exposed skin. I sighed as his praising whispers rained over me, sending tingles through parts of my body that had likely never known arousal before. He covered every dip and swell, awakening torrents of pleasure through me, as I stroked the graceful muscles of his back and tunneled my hands through his thick hair.

  My bra was an early casualty, as was the skirt. Soon I only wore a lacy white thong and was spread out for him like a virginal offering to a dark and glorious god. When Killian’s gaze raked over me, I felt exactly that perfect too…that expectant and new. If that was really the case, the sacrifice would’ve been a willing one. I stared up at him with that thought in the forefront of my mind, hoping he knew how far I was in this with him. He hungrily wet his lips while running the tips of his fingers over my nudity, grazing his fingers from my shoulder to my hip bone and back again.

  “So beautiful.” The syllables spilled from him on fierce grunts. “So beautiful and so mine.” His black gaze drilled into mine, daring me to say otherwise. As if that were an option anymore.

  “Yes, Killian. Yours.” I was done running. I didn’t have an ounce of fight left in me now. I didn’t want to fight any longer.

  In a passionate sweep, he tore off his sweater and tossed it atop my things. He stood to kick off his pants too. Good God, he’d already ditched the underwear. I sucked in a ragged breath when his arousal sprang free, stretched and stiff and proud. I would never tire of seeing the effect I had on this man. It made my ego stand and curtsy. Yes, girlfriend. You did that to him.

  Before he could lower to me again, I was compelled to rush forward instead. He was as breathtaking as a bronze Greek statue with the firelight dancing across his defined nudity—especially the steely shaft between his thighs, glistening with the moisture that announced his body’s readiness for me.

  In a word, he looked…delicious.

  I have to taste him.

  Before Killian could protest, I knelt in front of him and took him in my hand. I savored every inch of his cock in my fist before looking up, beholding his face in the most beautiful combination of agony and ecstasy.

  “You’ve slain me,” he grated. “Because honest to fuck, I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

  I smiled up at him as I moved closer, sneaking a little lick of the drops on his tip before fully wrapping my mouth around his erection. His smell and flavor filled my senses, affecting me like an exotic drug, making me moan in appreciation. His head fell back as I slid my lips down his length, taking him into my throat as far as I could before having to stop.

  “Claire!” he rasped. “Sweet God, that’s so—”

  His own groan served as his interruption, strangled as if begging me to stop, but I didn’t heed. While tightening my lips, I flattened my tongue to the underside before sliding back up to his cock’s dark-purple head, licking generously at the crest when I reached it.

  Killian dug his hands into my hair. He squeezed harder when I took him to the back of my throat, this time pumping my hand around the base and skimming my fingers across his heated sac. A few repetitions had him groaning my name—and my heart leaping with joy. The thrill of serving him like this yet wielding such power over him… It was a giddy new sensation for me, and it intensified when he twisted his fingers into my hair, prickling my scalp with something close to pain. I sneaked another look up, finding his eyes screwed shut as he panted for air. His chest, hard and gleaming bronze in the firelight, was an even bigger turn-on to behold because of the erect pinpoints of his nipples.

  “Stop!” He stilled my movement by holding my face.

  I peered up at him with his cock still buried in my throat, feigning innocence in my wide eyes. “Hmm?”

  His eyes narrowed as if contemplating reprisal, but he slid his flesh from my mouth instead. “Stay right where you are.”

  He circled around and then fell to his knees behind me. “I need to be in this sweet pussy when I come—at least this time.” His tone was a devilish growl in my ear as he nudged his moist length against the entrance to my equally wet sex, prodding me, inciting more arousal along my trembling hole.

  “Killian.” It was my turn to gasp for air. He sucked at the sensitive skin of my nape while snaking a hand around to my front and pinched my breasts and nipples. With the other, he teased at my inner thighs and clit until I cried out in need. “Killian, dear God!”

  “That sounds so perfect, sweet one.” He bit the bottom of my ear to grind in his point. “My name always sounds wonderful on your lips but even more when you beg me with it.”

  “Th-Then I’m…officially…begging. Please, Killian. I need you inside me!”

  “Mmmm. I could get really used to this.”

  “Killian! Damn it!” I was going insane. He’d started to pitch and roll his hips. It always felt like paradise when he did it from the front. Now, it felt like purgatory—a hot, sinful, decadent damnation that I longed to burn up in, cell by glorious cell.

  “Are you wet for me, Claire?”

  I managed to nod. I could barely think. And was embarrassingly ready to have him inside me.

  “Say it, baby. Say the words.”

  “Yes, I’m wet for you, all right? God…Killian…my pussy is always so ready when you’re around.”

  “That’s my beautiful, dirty girl. Now bend forward and let me see.”

  I mewled a little, beyond self-conscious with the action. He’d already felt my readiness, so why did he have to observe it too? But when he pushed me forward to my hands and knees and prodded my legs apart, exposing my pussy to his gaze, I couldn’t deny the hot sluices of new arousal that coursed from me.

  “Shit,” he muttered. “My sweet Claire. Look how juicy and ready you are.”

  With one hand on my hip, he used the other to swipe at my folds, gliding easily through my wetness. My head dropped. He knew how to make me feel like the trashiest slut and the most treasured lover in a single, amazing moment.

  “Show me more,” he ordered. “Spread wider for me.”

  I complied without thinking. I would do anything he wanted right now. Gripping my hips, he seated his cock again at my core, working his shaft into my wetness, pressing in with aching slowness. Inch by searing inch, he filled me deeper and deeper until his thighs butted against my ass.

  “Finally.” Though his voice was a whisper, his grip was a command. “Home. Right where I belong.”

  He slid out fully and then slammed back in. Again. Again. His thrusts rocked me forward, making me cry out from the agonizing pleasure.

  “Killian!”

  “I know. I know, baby.”

  “Please…don’t stop.”

  “Never.” He spok
e it against the top of my spine before pressing a kiss there. “I never want to stop with you, my fairy. Ever.”

  “Oh,” I whispered. His words wove as much magic into my soul as his sex pounded into my core. I became aware of every breath he took. Every groan he emitted. Every thrust he dealt. We were twined. Joined. One fire. One fever.

  “Hold on, baby. Hold on tight.”

  He started moving. Really moving. If that wasn’t enough, he braced a leg next to my waist, positioning his cock to drive deeper into me. I swore my eyes crossed. I could barely breathe as my orgasm mounted, fast and furious and blinding. I couldn’t find my voice to warn him to slow down. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

  “Killian,” I finally panted. “I c-can’t s-stop it.”

  “That’s it,” he growled back. “Let it go. Come with me, baby.”

  We both stilled as our releases tore through our bodies. I could feel his cock twitching in my sensitive channel as he exploded, spilling his hot fluid. I cried out and gripped the rug while my pussy clenched him tighter, my eyes rolling back in my head while my orgasm continued in wave after wave of shimmering, stunning bliss.

  Holy hell, what this man could do to me.

  Finally, I closed my eyes and collapsed to the floor. Killian fell with me, still inside me. We lay together, joined intimately for long minutes, enjoying the effortless combination of our bodies while rain pelted harder at the windows. After a while, Killian pulled the fur up around me, and we listened to the fire and the rain duel each other.

  The world, with all its drama and threats and strife, was nonexistent. We were untouchable.

  “I want to freeze this moment.” I knew it was silly, but it was what I felt. Pure. Uncomplicated. Or, as he’d expressed in another context that still oddly applied, home.

  “I know what you mean, baby girl.” He played with my hair, his naked form spooned behind me.

  I pulled in a deep breath. The time had come. There would be no moment more perfect than this for leaping into the hugest trust I could show this man.

  “Killian?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Ask me now.”

  It was the ideal time. I had to keep telling myself that. I’d just shared the deepest parts of my body with him. Why shouldn’t the darkest parts of my past follow?

  “Hmmm?” Though confusion edged his voice, he continued stroking my hair and back in a languid flow. “Ask you what, fairy?”

  “The game. Truth or dare.” It felt easier to do it that way. If it was a game, the confession couldn’t really hurt me, right? “Ask me now.” I rolled over and gazed at him, conveying my deeper meaning. “Ask me, and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

  His return stare held the solemnity of understanding. “Truth or dare, fairy.”

  I breathed in deeply. “Truth.”

  He did the same. He knew. I sensed it just by studying his face. Somehow, he already knew that this information might change everything for us. But he asked anyway. “What is Margaux holding over your head?”

  I settled in his arms and told him the entire story. I didn’t leave anything out, from the day she and I met in college until the day our parents became engaged. I cried—more than once. He wiped my tears every time and then held me closer. Not once did I feel his judgment or condemnation, only his listening ears and open mind. I was stunned yet wondered why. I should’ve given him the benefit of the doubt sooner.

  When I finished with the last ugly detail, I finally had the nerve to look up into his eyes. For some weird reason, I still expected to see disgust and rejection hiding at the back of his gaze. Killian only wrapped his arms around me and pulled me closer.

  “That’s what you were afraid of all this time?” A grin sneaked across his lips.

  I fired back an exasperated glare. “Would you be serious? I’m a criminal! I’m scared to trust anyone.” I lowered my head, pushing it into his chest. “I was terrified to trust you.”

  “Because from the second we met, you felt the walls around your heart start to crumble.”

  I shot my gaze back up. “You could tell?”

  “Don’t worry. You covered it well. I only know it’s what I felt.”

  Despite how his words made my pulse race, I ran a soft hand over his sculpted chest. “So now you get it. The last time I trusted someone with my heart, he shattered it—and turned me into a drug-fencing accomplice. When keeping someone’s secrets has led a girl to a broken heart and a potential rap sheet, you can understand why she isn’t so eager to try again.”

  He laughed—laughed—in answer to that.

  “Being young, naïve, and in love doesn’t make you a felon.” He kissed the top of my head. “But it does add wicked appeal, which means I’m doomed.”

  I turned my caress into a little smack. “I was an accessory to a crime, Killian. And Margaux knows it. She won’t stop holding it over my head until the statute of limitations runs out on this thing, and maybe even after that. If anyone finds out…if my father finds out…” I hadn’t spoken the words in so long. Doing it now made my voice crack, unlocking the dam on a torrent of helpless tears too.

  “Whoa,” Killian murmured. “Fairy…come on. It’s not horrible.”

  “No,” I sobbed. “It’s worse. It was stupid, and now it’s hopeless. Futile.”

  He huffed, clearly perplexed. “I don’t understand how this involves me. And us.”

  I sighed and gripped his neck. “Because Margaux wants you for herself, okay?”

  Killian echoed my sigh, though his was angrier. “Oh. That.”

  “Yeah. That. From day one, she issued a warning to the rest of the team, right in front of her mother, laying dibs for herself.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Dibs?”

  “She’s into you, Killian. If she finds out that we are…whatever we are…learning that I’ve knowingly outdibbed her—”

  His growl was sharp and instant. “Neither of us planned this, damn it. It just…is.”

  “A woman like her doesn’t understand that. She’s been brought up to think of relationships like everything else in her life, as controllable commodities. She won’t be above taking retribution, and she’ll bring back all the dirt about Nick and the drugs to do so. And it doesn’t just affect me now. It affects my dad—and now you too. Do you get it now?”

  “Claire. Look at me.” His words were firm yet warm. He pulled me closer. “I’m not afraid of bullies like Margaux Asher,” he asserted. “Do you understand that?” The certainty in his beautiful eyes and the steadiness in his grip, now beneath my chin, restarted the sting behind my eyes. My chin wobbled all over again. “I eat pushy bitches like her for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. She’s not going to stand in my way. In our way.” He leaned and kissed the tears off my cheeks as he continued. “I will find a way to deal with her and keep you safe as well. I will not let her come between us. Now do you understand?”

  I swallowed, struggling for the nod he demanded but unable to deliver. “She’s worse than she looks, Killian. Under all that makeup and hair product is a woman who covers her issues with ruthlessness, power plays, and bartering other people’s confidences.”

  “Pfffttt. Trust me, baby, she’s an amateur in the secret-keeping world. A wobbling lamb.” His voice was lethally soft on the declaration. I watched an odd darkness move through his eyes, reflected by the storm clouds outside the windows. Unbelievably, the effect made me shiver, even in his embrace. The second I did, he blinked and moved away, offering to put more wood on the fire.

  I observed him with adoring eyes—and, for the first time in three years, with hope in my heart. Maybe I’d met someone who really did have the power to stand up to Margaux, to deliver me from the dark cloud she held…and would hold, no matter where I went on the planet. The icing on that big, amazing cake? If that knight of salvation was also the man who’d captured my heart…the prince I’d fallen completely in love with. Killian Jamison Stone.

  Chapter Seventeen


  Killian

  “So in conclusion, Mr. Stone, we are—how do you say it in America?—kicking ass.”

  I leaned forward at my home-office desk, giving an obligatory chuckle in response to the Chinese man whose image filled one of the two other boxes on the video call. Cheng guffawed like he’d just performed the hottest stand-up comedy act in Vegas.

  “I think we can all agree that my Beijing visit yielded optimal results,” I stated. “We’re glad to know your production orders are back up so soon, Mr. Cheng.”

  “Up, up, and away!” The man flashed a double thumbs-up.

  I could practically see my own relief mirrored back from my monitor when Cheng turned solemn again. “Well said, Mr. Stone. And I apologize for the judgments we all made about your family’s character. Clearly, your success has come at a price, including those who improperly attack you. How do you say it in America? ‘Those in glass houses should not throw stones’?”

  I didn’t dare inform the guy that the expression originated from a source higher than all of us combined, though I gave another confident smile. “I appreciate the support, Mr. Cheng.”

  “You always have it. The character of your family has prevailed through this crisis. It is clear to many of us that your enemies should focus less on flinging their sludge at you and more on cleaning their own pigsties.”

  As I exchanged pleasantries with one of our biggest allies in Asia, my cell phone detonated with vibrations. I rapidly wrapped up the call with Cheng, and as soon as he disconnected, I scrabbled for the phone, now at the edge of my desk.

  What the fuck?

  My nerves tightened and my gut clenched. A string of texts lit up my screen, and despite Cheng’s effusive prelude, I braced for the worst.

  What the hell have you done this time, Trey?

  My stare narrowed in shock as I punched the incoming texts to life, giving first priority to Claire’s note.

  Sometimes, the stars simply align. Let’s celebrate. I’m on my way over.