12. Kieran

Chapter 12

Kieran

H ot shower spray beats on my back, more punishing than pleasurable—same as the grip I’ve got on my cock. My forehead thuds against the tile wall, water misting from my mouth as I gasp and tug in quick, graceless jerks. Against the darkness of my eyelids, I see her on her knees, soft golden eyes looking up at me with surrender. Messy hair and flushed cheeks. That fucking mouth swallowing me down. My balls tighten and I chase my release, then groan in misery as it dances away.

“Talia,” I whisper.

The fantasy shifts. She crawls up my body wearing a wet black tank top and a tiny thong. Unsmiling. Her hair in that goddamn bun. I can’t move—don’t want to—as she settles with her knees on either side of my head and pulls the scrap of black away from her pussy .

“Eat me out, Kieran, ” she demands before smothering my face with heaven.

I detonate with a hoarse shout, my hand cramping, ropes of cum hitting the glass, my legs, a bottle of shampoo. My knees almost go out and I lurch sideways, my shoulder smacking into marble. The pain makes me laugh, a crazed sound that echoes in the bathroom.

There’s a stitch in my side that makes every breath hurt. Everything fucking hurts, all the time. I’ve grown so used to pain and guilt, I can’t handle that I’ve started feeling something different. Something like dawn after four years of twilight.

Because of her.

Leaving her shivering in the pool was the hardest thing I’ve done in ages. I don’t even care anymore whether she needs to tie me up or smack me around to get off. I’d tie myself up if it meant any part of me could be inside her. I’d punch myself in the fucking face.

I want her to destroy me.

I think it might be my only road to salvation.

By the time I get myself dry and into some sleep pants, I feel relatively sane again. The itch under my skin is gone. I may even be able to sleep tonight.

Then I open my bedroom door.

“Motherfucker!” I holler at Sven. “You tryin’ to put me in a wooden box? What’re you doing lurking outside my door?”

He sighs. “I was about to knock, jackass. I came to let you know I set up Dr. Stirling in the second guest room. She’s in the kitchen now.”

My face goes numb. “What? She’s still here? I thought she left.”

He glowers at me. “Whispering now isn’t going to erase the squealing you did two seconds ago.”

I laugh in spite of myself. “Fuck you.”

He rolls his eyes. “She can’t drive home, Kier. When I brought her the towel, she could barely keep her eyes open.”

“Okay,” I say, even though none of this is remotely okay. She’s still in my house. “Why is she in the kitchen?”

“For one of the smartest people on the planet, you sure can be an idiot. She needed food, so I told her to have at whatever she could find.”

He’s right; I’m a jackass.

“All right. Thank you. I’ve got it from here.”

He squints at me.

“I’ll behave myself, okay?”

He grunts. “Gabe’s on duty if you need him.”

I nod. He gives me another withering look, then finally ambles away. I listen for the sound of the front door closing and three beeps as he sets the main house alarm. Then I walk silently down the hallway, pausing at the corner so I can spy on Stirling without her seeing me.

Sitting on a couch with a plate in her lap, she nibbles half-heartedly on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She looks tired and adorable and real . Her face is clean of makeup. Her hair is a disaster: wet and frizzy and piled atop of her head in a listing knot.

I’m so charmed by her hair it takes me too long to realize what she’s wearing. Then I almost rub my eyes because I can’t believe it. Sven must have raided my closet while I was in the shower, the wacko, because she’s got on one of my old Stanford pullovers and a pair of my sweatpants.

I’ve never seen a woman look good in my clothes. Ever. They’ve always been too big. It’s weird when your girlfriend looks like a child wearing her daddy’s T-shirt. Stirling, however, looks perfect. Exactly like a woman in her man’s clothes should.

She’d probably call me sexist if she knew I thought that, but it’s not a gender prejudice thing. It’s biological instinct, one a thousand times more intense than I’ve ever felt. Quite simply, I want to mark her, mate her, and breed her.

I rub my chest, wincing at the sting of heartburn, and step into her line of sight. Her eyes lift from the sandwich, widening a little. Her lids are puffy. Was she crying?

The sting in my chest intensifies. “Ehm, hi.” Internally, I cringe. “Sorry I didn’t come back to the pool. I?—”

“Sven told me,” she says with a small smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “It’s okay. Thank you for the heated robe.”

“You’re welcome. I’m just gonna…” I point toward the kitchen .

“It’s your house.” She looks ten types of uncomfortable. “This is really…”

“Weird?”

Her eyes sparkle for a second. “Yeah. Pretty weird. I can finish my sandwich in the room.” She makes to stand.

“No, stay,” I say quickly. “I’m going to grab a snack and crash.”

She slumps. “Thanks. I’m sorry about this. I don’t know why Sven wouldn’t let me order an Uber. Or why I listened.” The last bit is mumbled.

I’m not sure why she listened to him, either, but the longer I look at her, the more grateful I am for Sven’s persuasive powers.

“No apologies necessary,” I say casually. “He’s got oversized protective urges to go with his oversized biceps. Best to just go with it. Avoid his temper tantrums.”

I’m lying through my teeth. Sven’s protective urges have never extended to any of the women in my orbit. Stirling has no idea how rare it is for him to even speak with anyone besides me, Gabe, or Dylan . If I didn’t know my head of security is gay, I might wonder if he has a thing for her.

Jerking into motion, I cross to the kitchen, ignoring the unholy mess. Tomorrow is soon enough to feel embarrassed on behalf of my entire genetic line. The fridge is stocked with prepackaged meals from my chef, though most of the food sits untouched because I’ve been drunk or high for the last two days.

I grab the first thing I see—yogurt, unfortunately— and snag a spoon from the drawer. Knowing I should leave her be and retreat to my room, I still round the couch and sit a few feet away from her. Moth to flame, tides to moon.

I’m so fucked.

“Yogurt?” she asks skeptically.

“Too tired to make anything.”

I peel the seal off the cup and lick it clean—slowly, because I can’t fucking help myself. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch her try her best not to stare at my moving tongue. She finally resorts to pretending something interests her across the room, but her pink cheeks betray her. My blood surges south, only without the needy edge of before. Fucking strange, but all I really want to do at the moment is tuck her under blankets and kiss her forehead.

Frowning, I toss the circle of foil on the coffee table and start shoveling yogurt in my mouth.

She scoots to the edge of the couch. “I’m going to?—”

I swallow fast. “Did you graduate high school early or do accelerated degrees?”

She stills. “Graduated early.”

I think of the email from my PI that for some unknown reason I haven’t opened. “What were you, sixteen?”

“Yes.”

She sounds hoarse; I glance at her, bemused by the wariness in her eyes. I belatedly realize why it’s there—she still thinks we’re in a normal therapist-patient relationship where she stays untouchable while I spill my guts.

It makes me smile .

“When’d you get into the kink stuff?”

“Kieran…”

I focus on eating to keep from laughing at the whining pitch of my name. When I finish the yogurt, I drop it on the table, then lean back and tuck my arms behind my head. She tries not to look at my bare chest. Oh, she tries. Adorable.

“Humor me, Stirling. You won’t be able to sleep right now, anyway.”

She frowns. “Why not?”

I nod to her half-eaten sandwich. “If you sleep now, you’ll have shit dreams. Give it thirty minutes.”

She sighs, then slides her plate onto the table beside my yogurt cup. I close my eyes and wait, feeling almost… content.

“I was twenty,” she finally says. “I accidentally walked into a seminar on BDSM.”

My eyes fly open. “Accidentally?”

Her lips twist into a half-smile. “I thought it was a lecture on cognitive neuroscience.”

“Of course you did.” I chuckle, imagining a wide-eyed, twenty-year-old Stirling. Super nerdy. Maybe a little awkward.

“It was a shock,” she says dryly.

“I bet. So, what? You heard about tying people up and got a tingle?”

She glares at me, which only makes me smile wider.

“I’m messing with you. I know I’ve given you shit about it, but I’m not totally ignorant. Even been to that club down on Wilshire a few times.”

“Crossroads?” she asks in a strangled voice.

I nod, eyeing her. Then it clicks. “You worked there?”

“Yes, as an educator. Until two years ago.” She finally sits back but looks unbelievably tense.

“Relax. I probably won’t remember any of this tomorrow, anyway.”

I’m lying. She knows it. To my surprise, however, she blows out a breath and melts into the cushions, crossing her arms over her chest. It hits me that she’s probably naked under my clothes since she wore her underwear in the jacuzzi.

Jesus Christ.

I lower my arms and shift to face her, hiking a knee up to create some breathing room in the crotch of my pants. Given the topic, I have a feeling I’ll need it.

“Paint me a picture—you went to the seminar and decided you wanted to be a dominatrix?”

“Ha. No. But I did trade contact information with the woman who spoke, Charlie Rhodes. She became my mentor a few months later.”

“Took you that long to get the nerve to call, huh?”

She huffs a little laugh. “Sure did. Anyway, she took me under her wing. She had a space where she saw her clients, and I ended up working there with her while I got my PhD. Then she and Dominic Cross opened Crossroads.”

“Yeah, I know Dom. I’ve met Charlie a few times, too.”

Her eyes widen. “ What ? ”

Damn, I love surprising her. I might be slightly obsessed with seeing that look on her face. “Dom’s a friend of a friend. He’s actually who connected me with Sven after—” My teeth click as I snap them shut.

I thank my lucky stars that Stirling’s so tired she doesn’t notice my almost-slip. She frowns thoughtfully, her eyes soft and unfocused.

“That makes a lot of sense, actually, given Dom’s military background and Sven’s, uh, extreme competency.”

I smirk. “I’m gonna tell him you said that. And then I’m going to get him a keychain that says ‘Extremely Competent Bodyguard.’ He’ll treasure it always.”

“Very funny.”

I grin. “Thanks. I thought so.”

She shakes her head at my childishness, then looks me in the eye. “I never saw you there. At Crossroads.”

I can’t read her tone. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was disappointed. “It was only a few times right after they opened. I didn’t participate in any of the… festivities.”

She smiles.

Eyetooth.

“Do I sense an undercurrent of squeamishness, Mr. Hayes?”

I chuckle. “I won’t yuck your yum, but I haven’t been back since I saw a naked woman tied to a cross and whipped while fifty people watched. Granted, I did enjoy watching her come repeatedly afterward. ”

A haughty brow cocks. “Is this more of that ‘women should be treated like porcelain’ mentality?”

“Maybe. Or maybe I was born vanilla.” I pretend to have just remembered something. “I did take a class at Crossroads back in the day. An intro to rope bondage. Some crazy Dubliner taught it.”

She sputters. “Liam Roark?”

“Sounds familiar, yeah. He said I was a natural.”

She looks dubious, but there’s real curiosity in her eyes when she asks, “Have you ever used what you learned?”

“Nah. Choking is about as freaky as I get.”

She fights a laugh. “Choking isn’t vanilla.”

“You would know, wouldn’t you?”

She rolls her eyes. God, I love it when she does that.

“I bet I could still find my way around some knots. Liam was a good teacher. Almost too charming, though. I was half in love with him by the end of it and I’m straight as an arrow.”

Her tinkling laugh is so pretty it makes my chest squeeze.

“That’s Liam for sure. A lot of hearts broke when he moved back to Dublin a couple years ago.”

“Yours?”

“Definitely not.”

I fake affront. “It’s the Irish accent, isn’t it? Total turn-off.”

“Shut up.”

She can tell me to shut up all day if she keeps smiling. “What then? Blue eyes don’t do it for you, either? ”

She groans. “Stop. Liam and I were friendly, but we were both dominants. I didn’t have a submissive bone in my body back then.”

She gasps a tiny bit, then flushes. Not in embarrassment, though—more like horror.

Buzzing fills my ears. “Back then?” I repeat.

My brain stumbles as it struggles to process what she’s revealed. Back then she didn’t have a submissive bone in her body, which means now…

I can almost feel the snick as a section of her puzzle box unlocks.

I’ve tortured myself wondering how I could be so attracted to her if we’re as sexually compatible as opposing magnets. The argument she’s fond of—that it’s my subconsciousness defending itself by objectifying her—is a load of horseshit. She doesn’t know how hard I’ve fought it. How many fruitless hours I’ve spent trying to convince myself she isn’t my type, that I feel nothing when I look at her, that it’s merely her mind that intrigues me.

Fact is, three weeks ago she lit the book of my type on fire and started writing a new one. Now every damn page is her. I can’t even look at other women because I’m obsessed with the one in front of me.

She’s not immune to me. I’ve seen glimpses of interest from her over the last weeks. Sparks that have drifted past her ironclad control. The blushes. That wild pulse. But I’ve been mostly resigned to the fact she likes the look of my face and body, maybe entertains fantasies of dominating me .

Tonight threw me for a loop because her mask came off, and what I saw beneath it contradicted what I thought I knew. In the jacuzzi, I saw a woman afire with simple, uncomplicated lust. And when she saw me in the pool, she looked like she could already feel me inside her.

Maybe this thing between us is twisted. Scratch that—I know it is. She’s my therapist and I’m a fucking mess. But it doesn’t change the fact our bodies are screaming to thrust and sweat and fuck. And it doesn’t change the fact I lied to her on Wednesday about my fantasy. Yes, I’ve thought about her sucking me off. I’m human. But when I pictured— picture— my hand on her throat, we’re face to face. Belly to belly. Chest to chest.

Equals.

“Can you forget I said that?” Her voice is weak as a kitten’s, her eyes panicked.

I clench the back of my neck, feeling like I’m a shaken bottle whose top is about to pop off.

“We have to stop talking about this,” she rambles. “I’m sorry. This whole conversation is inappropriate. I don’t want to give you the wrong idea.”

Too late, Stirling. Far, far too late.

“Tell me what you mean.” My voice snaps with command, but unlike every person who’s heard this tone from me, she doesn’t back down. Her spine straightens instead, fire kindling in her eyes.

Something inside me bends. Breaks. Before she can shut me down completely, I whisper, “Put me out of my misery, Talia.”

She blinks rapidly. I must imagine it when her eyes look glassy for a second.

After a hard swallow, she says, “I haven’t been a paid dominatrix for four years. Two years ago, I stopped working as a kink educator and took a break from the lifestyle to… figure things out.” She picks up her plate and stands. “That’s all I’m going to say. Good night, Kieran.”

I watch her walk away. Her head held high. Elegant and magnetic despite her exhaustion, despite the sagging chaos of her hair and my too-big clothes.

Slowly, I become aware of my harsh breathing and tense body. I relax in increments—legs, stomach, shoulders, neck. Finally, hands and feet.

Then I close my eyes and smile.