35. Talia

Chapter 35

Talia

B arefoot but still in our wet clothes, I guide Kieran by the hand through the warm, empty house and into the dojo. When he sees the flickering candles along the walls and the two cushions in the middle of the bare wood floor, he laughs.

He lifts my hand, warm lips pressing to my cold fingers. “Did I ruin the surprise, Birdie?”

My heart, still pounding from his question outside, leaps again. I don’t answer, instead tugging him toward the pillows. We sit facing each other, our knees touching, hands clasped between us.

Kieran’s eyes shine with amusement as they track over my face. “You’re nervous,” he whispers.

“Shut up.”

His crooked grin widens even as his eyes sharpen. “Tell me. ”

The eloquent speech I’ve been working on for days evaporates. I blurt, “When I walked into that graveyard, I’d never felt more alone in my entire life. I’d also never been drunk before. When I first saw you, I thought there were two of you.”

His rumbling laugh vibrates in my chest. “Two of me?”

“Two of the most beautiful, hungry-looking boys in the world,” I confirm. “Obviously, my blurred vision corrected itself.”

He nods, still grinning. “Obviously.”

I groan, knocking my knees against his. “This is supposed to be a serious moment.”

He bites his lips, eyes wide and shimmering with mirth. The urge to laugh is so intense I have to close my eyes and belly breathe to keep from losing it.

“Is that what tantric breathing sounds like?” he asks curiously.

“Kieran, I swear?—”

“Sorry, sorry.” He doesn’t sound sorry at all. “I’ll be serious.”

I peer up at him, gratified to see he isn’t laughing anymore but watching me with tenderness and warmth. Clearing my throat, I squeeze his hands. “Seventeen years ago, you took pity on an angry, lonely girl and listened to all her teenaged woes without judgment. In the darkest time of my life, you gave me hope when you said I would be okay, that someday the world would kneel to me.”

“In my defense, I didn’t realize you’d pursue the goal so literal —Oof .” He chuckles as he rubs his stomach where I punched him.

“Are you done?”

He winces. “Maybe?”

“Oh, for fuck’s—” I yelp as he tackles me backward. His palm cups my head, preventing it from slamming into the wood.

“Birdie,” he murmurs silkily, his nose running along mine. He leans back just enough for our eyes to connect in the candlelight. “My fragile hummingbird who grew into a lioness. My warrior queen. Fuck science—I know in my heart that we’re magic. My gran brought us together that day and spoke her last prophecy through me. You took a piece of me with you, and now I’m whole again.”

Tears roll from the corners of my eyes. Kieran catches them with his thumbs before they reach my hair.

“I’m so mad right now,” I whisper through quivering lips. “You hijacked my romantic gesture.”

His smile makes my toes curl. Lips grazing mine, he whispers, “Marry me, Talia.”

I’m sure he can feel my heart thrashing against his chest, just like I can feel his. Elation and panic make me tremble.

My voice wavers. “We’ve been in a relationship for four weeks. And that’s being generous. Impulsivity is also a well-known symptom of PTSD. You might feel differently in a few months.”

“Is that so, Dr. Stirling?”

I choke on a breath as he rolls his hips against my center. Sparkling waves of heat spread through me.

“You know what I think?” he continues, his eyes sober and focused. “I think I’ve never been more sure of anything as I am of the fact you’re mine and I’m yours. I’m putting babies in you. We’re growing old together. The end.”

More heat pulses through me, this time with my heart as the source. I wrap my legs around his hips.

“In that case, ask me again in a year.”

A smile plays around his mouth. “I can do that.”

I grin and pat his cheek. “Such a good boy.”

He laughs, the unfettered, joyous sound rippling across my skin, stretching my grin even wider. When his mirth fades, he gazes down at me with carnal intent. My breathing turns choppy as he lifts his hips from mine. Sliding a hand between us, he cups me through soaked linen. The base of his palm moves in slow circles over my clit as his fingers stroke me through layers of fabric.

“I think I deserve a treat,” he says huskily. “Since I’m such a good boy.”

I’m panting now. “Yes, I think you do.”

He observes my hips circling against his palm, his cock turning to steel against my thigh. When he licks his full lower lip, I’m surprised my clothes don’t start steaming.

His eyes flash to mine. “Actually, a treat isn’t going to fill me up. I deserve a feast.”

I moan breathlessly. “Don’t leave any crumbs.”

“Like I’d ever waste a single morsel of you,” he murmurs .

He peels off my wet clothes and his, then adjusts me so I’m propped on the cushions. Warm, strong hands grip the backs of my thighs, lifting and spreading my legs. Diving forward, he breathes me in, hot breath fanning my center.

“Mmm, delicious.”

I try to lift myself to his mouth, but his grip keeps me pinned. “Kieran,” I whine.

“Tell me a secret, Birdie.” His breath and the vibration of his voice make my pussy clench. I’m embarrassingly close to orgasming from air.

I admit softly, “I fell in love with you when I was fourteen and a part of me never stopped loving you.”

He flicks my clit with his tongue, sending electric currents zinging through my limbs. I gasp, my head arching back.

“Another.”

“I was twenty-three when I saw your face on the cover of a magazine. I almost passed out in the grocery store checkout lane. I bought it and read the article a thousand times. I still have it in a box under my bed.”

A rumble of pleasure in his throat, he drags his tongue up my slit. But the pressure is nonexistent and he avoids my clit.

“More.”

Lifting my head, I glare at him. He offers me a grin. My resistance melts away, my head thudding back to the floor.

“I’d never felt sexual attraction before meeting you. My first orgasm was while thinking about you.”

His tongue spears me without warning, a single penetration that makes me wail. When he retreats, I exhale shakily and close my eyes.

“Another.”

“Every sexual partner I’ve had, I was initially attracted to because they reminded me of you at eighteen. But I didn’t realize it until recently.”

He dips two fingers inside me and pumps them lazily. My back bows, my eyes rolling up and closing in relief. It’s short-lived—he pulls them out seconds later, and I open my eyes to see him licking me off his fingers.

I don’t make him ask again.

“When I was fifteen, I made myself forget you. Consciously, at least. But when I saw you on that magazine cover, it all came roaring back. For weeks, I Googled you obsessively, learning everything I could about your life. I even drove by Lumitech a bunch of times, hoping to catch a glimpse of you.”

“My little stalker,” he whispers, rubbing his chin gently against the sensitive space above my clit. “I wish I’d seen you.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” I say dryly. “To say we wouldn’t have been a good match back then is an understatement.”

Kieran chuckles, his hands fanning over my thighs, spreading warm prickles of sensation across my skin. He strokes my belly, my arms. Grazes fingertips over my breasts and flicks my nipples until I’m rocking against the cushion. I close my eyes and submit to the sensual torment. The ache inside me crosses the line from pleasure to pain, becoming a sharp, insistent throb. Denying my nature, I don’t fight it—him.

“Such a good girl,” he whispers, squeezing my breasts before dragging his hands back down to my thighs. He spreads me open and blows onto my pussy. My raw moan echoes against the bare walls of the dojo.

“Where were we? Ah, that’s right. At twenty-three, you made yourself forget me again?”

“Yes,” I admit breathlessly. “It wasn’t easy, seeing as you decided to become a famous billionaire in my damn hometown.”

A puff of silent laughter hits me, then more kisses and soft licks—my inner thighs, my mound, every centimeter of my pussy except my clit.

Cupping my hot cheeks, I ramble, “I succeeded until two years ago. I was newly single, sexually confused, and wine-drunk. I found old pictures of you online from a vacation you took with your parents. You were coming out of the water on a beach.”

I feel his smile against me. “Tahiti.”

“You were so much bigger than any man I’d been with. More muscular. You were scowling. Angry and fierce and powerful. But I still saw the boy from the graveyard. My first fantasy.” I look down to find his eyes on me. Lowering my hands to his head, I push my fingers through soft, wet hair. “That was the first time I imagined being dominated by you.”

The tip of his tongue drags through me, making me shudder. “Finish it,” he whispers with a devious smirk, “if you can.”

His mouth finally covers my clit, subjecting the over-sensitized bud to deep, pulsing suction as he simultaneously shoves two fingers inside me. They curl and pump hard, dragging over my G-spot with devastating precision. The air fills with decadent sounds: my wetness and thready moans, his guttural grunts of approval and pleasure.

My legs begin to shake.

My voice, too.

“When Gail called me and said you needed help, I thought… thought I could repay you for— Oh God —what you did for me in the graveyard. B-but if I’m honest with myself, I think… I think deep down I wanted to see if— Ah! If you could be what—what I always dreamed you were.”

The rhythm of his hand never faltering, he lifts his head long enough to demand, “Tell me.”

“Mine! I dreamed you were mine!”

He bites around my clit, then lashes it with the tip of his tongue. My bones tingle. The roots of my hair vibrate. My awareness of the room—the whole world—narrows to a dense, shining point situated somewhere near the base of my spine. Then it detonates. My climax tears through me with concussive force, waves upon waves, reducing me to atoms in its wake.

Kieran rises above me, thrusts inside me, and the sudden pressure and fullness makes every sensation so much more . His hips slam into mine over and over, setting off an unending chain reaction. I sob and cling to his shoulders. Our lips fuse together in a sloppy, consuming kiss.

“Yours, Talia. Always.”

Just when I think I can’t possibly experience any greater pleasure, he groans and stills inside me. In the candlelight, his eyes are my personal starry sky, his features fierce and wolfish.

Impossibly beautiful, like some forgotten dream.

Or a remembered one.