Pressed against Daniel’s desk, I go rigid as Killian reveals my pale thigh, and I don’t need to look to know his father has left a mark. That’s what Payne men do. Instead, I watch the violent emotion swirling in my stepbrother’s eyes as he inspects it. He’d be still, if not for the twitch of that muscle in the back of his jaw.
“He did this.” It’s more of a challenge than a question, the laser heat of his eyes burning into my bruised skin.
“Don’t,” I plead, voice thin. “It’s not worth it, okay? Let’s just get through this dinner and go home.”
His gaze snaps to mine, eyes blazing. “Twenty minutes.”
I blink at him, finding it difficult to think when he’s so close, caging me in like this. “To finish dinner? But we’ll need to eat dessert, and then—”
“There are a million things I’d do differently if I could,” he says, cutting me off. Despite the naked fury in his features, the way he grazes his fingertips over my thigh is feather light. “I would have made a move that night. I would have claimed you, worshipped you.” There’s no mistaking the hard bulge pressing against the thin material of my dress or the low strain of his voice. It’s the one that wakes me from sleep while he’s already inside of me. My body aches at the thought. Eyes dark, he continues, “He never would have touched you, because I wouldn’t have allowed it. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I struggle to imagine it.
Before I can, he leans in, brows crouched low. “One by one. Every finger of his that’s ever touched you. All we’ll need is twenty minutes.” His hot lips press against my neck, and I shiver against him. “That’s how long it’ll take to cut them off.”
I know then that I’m not the person I used to be. That girl would be aghast at such a gruesome thought. She’d gasp and thrash and cower away from it. Instead, I turn it over in my head, touching it with my thoughts in the same way Killian is touching me now. Slow and careful, but possessive and indulgent.
Daniel would scream.
I shudder out an exhale, responding, “No.” Reaching up to hold his shoulders, I worry, “My mom…” He freezes, and from the clench of his jaw, this is an inadequate reason to restrain ourselves.
When I kiss him, it’s only half tactical. It’s the only way I can think to extinguish the blaze of violence in his eyes, but it’s also oddly necessary. I don’t know why at first, beyond the heat that settled into my bones for him weeks ago. It’s lost in the fog, in the way his tongue feels invading my mouth. This is how Killian kisses—as if he’s certain he’s not welcome, but he’s made a choice to claw his way inside, regardless.
I slide back against the desk, but I frantically bring him with me, parting my thighs for him. All it takes is a hand on his backside, yanking him up against my center, and finally I understand why I need it so badly.
The sound he makes is tight and frustrated when he rears back, hand shooting out to catch my chin. “Story,” he says, tension visible in every hard line of his face. “Don’t fucking tease me.”
I’m already breathless, and there might have been a time that flash of warning in his eyes would scare me off, but I can’t remember it. I reach down to pull my skirt up, curling my leg around his calf to bring him closer. “Why would I?” I ask, hooking my fingers into his waistband.
“You think I won’t?” It’s spoken as a threat, made even more evident by the hardness pressing into me. “I’ll fuck you right here, in the same room he used to—”
I can see the moment it clicks for him. This is where his father used to take me—in the chair directly behind him. Pulled into Daniel’s lap, my eyes once fixed unseeingly to this very desk as he touched and took.
It’s time for me to take it back.
Killian’s mouth comes down onto mine in a hard, bruising kiss, but I meet him teeth for teeth, tongue for tongue. He reaches for his belt and there’s no denying the hard erection pressing at the cotton of his pants. I reach for him, impatiently unhooking the buckle and lowering the zipper. He groans when I touch him, dipping my hand into his pants and feeling the velvet of his skin. He jerks me forward and goes back under my skirt, yanking my panties to the side.
“Always so fucking wet,” he mumbles, rolling his thumb over my clit. There’s no other foreplay, no coaxing or coddling, just the shock of him entering me in a single powerful thrust. It’s all I can do to bite down on the cry I want to make, but he doesn’t give me time to adjust, tangling one hand into the hair at the base of my skull as the other takes a greedy handful of my ass.