“Okay,” I whispered, both in response to his actual words and the unspoken conversation, the exchange that likely only took place in my desperate imagination.
Liquor always made it harder for me to mask, which usually worked in my favor, but in this case, made it impossible for me to shroud my disappointment as I tried to swallow the sharplittle pang of rejection that shot through my chest. I knew I was being unreasonable, I just…Iwanted.I craved.
Kieran ran one hand over his face, releasing a groan of frustration, laced with both desire and self-restraint.
“No, really,” I said. “It’s okay. I get it. We’re drunk. Do you wanna just…do something else?”
I was wracking my brain for some other method of entertainment that might also keep his mind off the day he’d had. I had books and a few stacks of playing cards, somewhere. I wasn’t all too interested in going out tonight, but if it would help…
“Do I want to—” Kieran repeated, staring at me with a deadpan expression. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“I’m just saying?—”
“Shut the fuck up, and take your godsdamned clothes off,” he snarled. “Just because I’m not sober enough for breath play doesn’t mean you’re getting out of this, Arken. Wewillbe fucking tonight. I’m going to fuck you like a whore until you’re babbling just as stupid as this gin is making me feel.”
Every single thought in my mind emptied as my lips parted, his words leaving my pulse pounding, my cunt clenched.
Holy fucking Hel.
Kieran jerked his chin in the direction of my bedroom.
“Go on.”
Even a whisper of authority from his mouth was enough to send me spiraling, and I moved as swiftly as I could manage without tripping over my own feet and embarrassing myself. I was definitely still drunk. Some swerving was involved, and he chuckled beneath his breath, low and dark as he trailed behind me, already unbuttoning his shirt.
I didn’t bother with a striptease—had no patience for being graceful or seductive after those words spilled from his filthy mouth. The things that man was starting to say, the morecomfortable he got, were ruining my fucking life in the best of ways. And Iknewhe was still holding back.
Kieran was just so godsdamned convinced that he needed to hold himself back from me. I had caught him tempering the sharpness of his tongue on more than one occasion, swallowing whatever barbed retort had come to mind.
He still hadn’t figured out that I liked him mean. I liked him vicious. And I reveled in the way his rough edges sharpened me, too, like a blade against a whetstone in his skillful hands.
Don’t you know, Captain? I fell for your violence long before I ever knew you could be gentle.
My mind drifted back to the day this all began.
“Do youenjoybeing put under duress, Arken?”
Yes. Yes, and Iachedfor it. I wanted it more than I felt like I’d ever managed to want anything, both in that moment and right here and now. Only Kieran fucking Vistarii could manage to leave me both unbelievably satisfied and utterly famished within the same godsdamned breath.
The gentleclinkof his belt hitting the floor disrupted my obsessive internal monologue. I wanted to drop down to my knees alongside it, to worship this man in more ways than one, but he crooked his finger, beckoning me forward with a bemused expression on his face.
I kicked my clothes aside and drifted forward, still in my bra and panties, but he seemed to like taking those off himself.
“You know, Arken,” he said slowly, teasing at the strap on my shoulder until it fell off. I could smell the gin on his breath, mixing pleasantly with his natural scent. “Just because I’m holding myself back tonight doesn’t mean thatyouhave to hold anything back…”
He stroked the column of my neck with his knuckles before toying with the other strap. I glanced down hungrily at where hiserection was tenting his underclothes, the dark fabric the last of what remained on his body.
“Who said I’m holding myself back?”
Kieran simply chuckled, pinching at the lace beneath my collarbone, using both hands to peel it back, exposing the rosy peaks of my breasts. I shivered as he dipped his head, tongue darting out to lick the tip of one, just once.
He slipped two fingers between my thighs then, rubbing against the thin veil of cotton with a calculated amount of pressure. It was enough that I couldfeelmy own arousal begin to soak through, my weeping cunt pulsating with every slow stroke back and forth, but not enough—never enough.
“Are you?” he murmured.
Am I?
Maybe I was. The whiskey had awakened a certain degree of confidence—a hunger in me that I typically couldn’t act upon until we were so feverishly entangled that I lost my grip on self-control entirely. And in my desperate desire to pull Kieran from the depths of his dark, defeated mood tonight, I had yielded to certain urges, pushing past my own insecurities to see how he might react.