Page 71 of A Beautifully Crafted Lie

He rolls his hips against mine, stroking my clit with his erection. I whimper. “And how would you like me to give you this escape you crave, Mo Stóirín?”

“Fuck me.” My pulse shoots past the eagles and the skies above them, into the heavens beyond this world. “Fuck me like the blonde wanted you to.”

Something inside of him snaps, his control along with it. “No.” His words are a dangerous rumble of thunder. He pins me to the wall with his hips, releasing my ass and breast. Bracing himself against the wall with a handful of my hair wrapped around his palm, he murmurs, “You’re different.” I gasp as he tugs my hair down my spine, angling my head to deepen our gaze, exposing my throat. “Mine.”

For once, I don’t care if he sees me as his possession. I want to be possessed by him. “Then show me.”

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Mo Stóirín,” he growls.

“I’m not play—” It’s hard to speak when I can barely breathe, when every tortured breath has my skin grazing against his chest. “I’m not playing a game.”

“Once we do this, there’s no going back. There’s no pretending it never happened.” His eyes search mine, ligaments dancing along his jaw once more, and I imagine running my teeth along that sharp line.

“You talk too much.” My body aches to feel him move against me, to ride along the length of him, but he has me firmly pinned. I can barely think, barely breathe. “I want to know what you feel like inside of—” He cuts me off with a ravenous kiss, tenderly stroking my tongue with his. He sucks my bottom lip into his mouth as I imagine that mouth on every inch of my body. Then we’re moving, hands gripping my ass to hold me to him.

I don’t open my eyes to see where he’s taking me, not caring as long as he’s kissing me. My hands rake through his hair, still damp with sweat from training, digging into the nape of his neck.

His thumbs reach around my hips, and he peels me from his body, throwing me onto his bed. I yelp in surprise. The dagger in my belt tears through the duvet, causing feathers to fly around us as they explode into the air.

Propping myself onto my elbows, I’m frozen in place, staring at the man in front of me. I watch him peel his armour from his body and pull his black shirt over his head. Slowly. His eyes rake over my body as he tosses it to the floor beside him, discarding it like waste. If I thought him to be handsome before, it was an insult to the man standing before me now. Skewing his bloody bottom lip with his thumb, he quirks his mouth into a wicked smile, turning my insides molten.

His hair, roots as dark as night, resembles the shadows he commands, the tips barely brushing his shoulders as silver as the moon. I study every hard line of his body, every dip and smooth plain, every muscle rippling beneath his tanned skin. He’s a six-foot-six two-hundred-and-fifty-pound hazard to my health.

My stomach flutters when the mattress dips under him. His shadows kiss my exposed skin. Cool and soft.

Grabbing hold of my thighs, he flexes his fingers above my knees before pulling me to him, and my head falls against the bed. I reach for his belt and the button beneath it. I want to see him, touch him. All of him. Sex doesn’t have to lead to anything more than an escape.

He wastes no time pulling my top over my head, halting my efforts to undress him first. “Greedy, aren’t you?” A sensual chuckle rumbles up his throat, and I melt.

“Now, be a good girl and stop trying to get me naked before I so much as get your boots off.” I narrow my eyes at him in response. Reaching for him again, I try to bring him closer, but he only smiles that wicked, crooked grin, clicking his tongue in reprimand. His shadows pin my hands to the bed, ice against the fire burning through me.

“Do you have a safe word, Mo Stóirín?” I’m momentarily taken aback, unfamiliar with the concept. My stomach flutters.

Whether responding to the look on my face or reading my mind, he answers, “Choose a word. One word. If you say it, I’ll stop. No questions asked.”

“Ginger,” I answer breathlessly, thinking of the root I dislike.

“Ginger?” He raises a brow. “Yeah, that will do the trick.” His smile is relaxed, yet something in the curve of his mouth dares me. “Do you trust me?”

His thumb traces the curve of my bottom lip. I instinctively relax my jaw, gazing up at him as he looks down at me. Our height difference becomes evident, with my chin aligning with his navel. The pad of his thumb glides over my teeth, skimming my tongue. I eagerly enclose my lips around his thumb, yearning for more. The intensity in his eyes mirrors my desire as I feel his cock twitching beneath his leathers.

He slowly removes his thumb from my mouth. “You asked for an escape.” With a seductive smile, he places that same thumb against his lips. “I can’t wait to taste the rest of you.”

Butterflies dance frantically in the pit of my stomach, their imaginary wings brushing against my insides. I bite down on my lip. What am I doing? What the fuck am I doing?

“You want me to weigh in for clarity?” A voice drawls in the darkest depths of my mind.

“No!”

In one swift motion, he secures his shadowy restraints, and I gasp. My attention snaps to the figure before me, noticing the intensity in his eyes.

“Hands above your head.” His command is forgiving, demonstrating the confident control he’s possessed since the first night I laid eyes on him. The control he’s only ever lost when pushing me against the wall. Everything this man does is deliberate, intentional, either to coax a reaction or to hide his own.

My arms above my head with my wrists bound together, I feel him trace a line down my neck and between my breasts. “Who would have known that the promise of fucking instils manners in you? If I’d known sooner—”

“Shut up!” I exclaim in a whisper, my core tightening further.

“I love these.” His mouth closes around my nipple, warm and soft, his tongue circling around it. My head rolls back in a moan as I bring my hands to rest between his shoulder blades. His mouth leaves my skin. “What did I say about your hands?”