Did it truly matter? Wasn’t this what love was meant to be? Willing to accept brief discomfort if it meant sharing with another person.
As he stared across the room at her, watching the way she slowly kicked her legs in the water and the soft, lyrical sound of her laughter, he was sure he was willing to give her anything she wanted so long as he could keep her.
“Uilleam isn’t like most men.”
Though she spoke softly, her voice carried well across the room, his smile growing.
No, he very much wasn’t, and he appreciated that she knew as much.
More curious than he probably should have been, he carefully crossed the floor, keeping his steps light. The man in him simply wanted to know more about her, but the fixer, that side of his brain he could never cut off despite how he would like to at times, wanted to learn her secrets.
Every forbidden little thing that no one else knew.
He thrived on secrets—had learned to coax them from even the most unwilling. Information was very much power, after all.
And if he wanted information on her other than what was already posted for the Gazette Post, he would have to get it from her directly.
She was still speaking softly when he was nearly upon her—still oblivious to his presence behind her. “How could I ever forget?” she said with a light laugh before a distinctly feminine but muffled voice spoke on the other line though he couldn’t make out what they were saying. “One of these days.” Her voice had changed a bit there at the end, sounding a little unsure now. “Bye, Iz.”
His curiosity getting the best of him, he hardly waited until after she ended the call before asking, “Who’s Iz?”
Karina very nearly dropped her mobile into the water, fumbling with it a bit before managing to keep hold of it. “It’s alarming how well you sneak up on people.”
He shrugged, walking around her to the stairs of the pool and slowly made his way down into the heated water. He didn’t miss the way her eyes trailed over him, her vexation forgotten momentarily as her mind ventured elsewhere.
He knew the feeling well.
“A necessary skill, I assure you.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
He waited a beat before asking, “So?”
She turned to better face him, her hands resting on either side of her, the position managing to push together the cups of her bikini and gave him a far too tantalizing view.
He had considered, for a moment, keeping his distance from her, but that was clearly going to prove impossible. Before he’d even had a mind to do it, he was wading through the water until he was standing in front of her. Placing his hands on both of her knees, he pushed them open so he could stand between her legs.
Oh, but he loved the way she gasped, a soft, airy sort of sound that went straight down to his cock. He could sate himself with her for an eternity, and it would still never be enough.
“Who is Iz?”
She had nowhere to hide now, not when he had her caged in with his hands gently resting on top of hers. She chewed on her lips, her expression changing to one he didn’t think he had ever seen on her before.
Shyness.
“Iz is short for Isla. She’s my … sister.”
Now that he thought about it, he was vaguely sure he had heard her mention a sister before, but he was also certain she hadn’t given him a name then. “Your only sibling, then?”
Karina sat forward, wisps of her hair falling over her shoulder, proving far too tempting for him to ignore. He curled them around his fingers and followed the strands down from the top of her shoulder to where they ended just beneath the swell of her breast.
He didn’t miss the way her breath stuttered then either.
This want he felt for her would never end, he was coming to understand. If anything, it increased tenfold with every passing day.
“She’s the only one who matters,” she said softly, seeming to remember that he had asked her a question.
Did that mean Isla was simply the person she had been closest to in the home where she had lived, or was she actually her sister?
“Aurora might have mentioned you had a brother,” she confessed quietly, shifting forward the slightest bit, bringing them all but flush against each other. Having her there, he could almost, almost forget who she had asked about, considering Aurora hadn’t mentioned that little fact to him nor had he actually talked to his brother in quite some time.
For as long as he could remember now, it had just been like that. Several years ago, back when they had both been living under the same roof and their father was still alive, he couldn’t imagine ever going so long without speaking to Kit.
He had loved him more than he’d loved anyone—had worshipped the very ground he walked on as most younger siblings would to those who were older than them.
But when Kit had turned seventeen, a day that Uilleam had never, in all this time, been able to wipe from his memory, everything had changed.
September 20
Years ago …
The screaming had long since stopped startling him.
Uilleam was too used to it now. Someone was always yelling at the top of their lungs, and between the repeated tantrums his father, Alexander, threw, he had grown rather used to it at this point.
Except when he heard his brother—whose exclamations he wished he didn’t recognize—Uilleam never stayed tucked away in his room where it was safe for him.
Where he was sure he would not cross his father during one of his rampages.
Instead, he ventured out, not even bothering to keep his steps quiet as he quickly darted upstairs. He wasn’t thinking about the pain or bruises he might sustain should he dare come between Alexander and Kit during one of their heated exchanges.
Though he liked to think he lessened them to some degree.
He wasn’t physically dominant over his father and doubted he ever would be, considering the sheer size and weight of the man, but he had his mind, and that was far more valuable.
So instead of attempting to pull his father off his brother if a time called for it, he created something of a distraction.
Lighting one of his mother’s prized drapes on fire that would send everyone rushing over to put out the flames. Or going down to the garages and kicking the side of his father’s Aston Martin until he set the alarm off and then ran to hide before anyone could see what he had done.
He had never mentioned what he did to Kit—he didn’t do it for the thanks. He did it because Kit was his brother, and he loved him.
So when he reached the bedroom on the floor above his own, he slowed and peeked around the corner, prepared to do whatever it took if it meant his brother didn’t have to suffer for the night.
But he was surprised to find that he’d been wrong. Kit wasn’t in any sort of danger from their father.
Not when their uncle Zachariah was here, standing impossibly calm in the face of Alexander’s wrath. But of everyone Uilleam knew, he was the only man who didn’t let Alexander’s temper quell him.
He wondered if the man had grown used to his mood swings since they had grown up together … or if he knew something about him that others didn’t.
Perhaps a weakness of some sort.
Some piece of knowledge that would keep Alexander from going too far where he was concerned ...
How desperately Uilleam wanted to know then.
“They have to grow up at some point,” Zachariah said, Uilleam listening intently. “You can’t shelter them forever.”
Now, he wished he had come sooner, if only so he could know what they were discussing. And why Kit was standing with a suitcase in his white-knuckled grip.
“Then let’s hear it,” Alexander demanded, taking a menacing step forward, so close now that even Uilleam could see the wariness in his own brother’s eyes.
A small distraction couldn’t hurt …
“If you want to leave,” Alexander continued, “then you hold your head up like a man
and you say it. There won’t be anyone to coddle you, boy. You walk out these doors, and you lose everything.”
Would that be such a bad thing? Uilleam thought suddenly.
Sure, he lived here in a castle so grand it defied logic. He even knew that his family was worth a lot of money, but he couldn’t imagine that all the material possessions in the world were worth suffering under the hands of Alexander.
But Kit, the son their father thought was so weak, tilted his head up a fraction and met Alexander’s gaze. “I want to leave.”
Uilleam smiled, overjoyed that his brother managed to say the one thing he knew he never could, but those words still fractured his heart as he thought about what that would mean.
What would that mean for them?
Who would read him stories and teach him about dinosaurs?
Who would be there to make sure he didn’t tumble off the roof again if he slipped when he was up there?
Who would save him from Alexander?
“Get out,” he snarled, Alexander’s face twisted in disgust.
Uilleam had expected as much.
Zachariah nodded, his shoulders seeming to relax now. “Kit, pack your—”
“He takes nothing more than the clothes on his back. And by the time I step foot back into this room, he’d better be gone.”
Uilleam quickly ducked back behind the wall as his father stormed away, knowing that this night of terror would go on for hours more now that he was riled.
It never ended well for anyone who crossed paths with him.
“We should go,” Zachariah suggested quietly. “It’s better this way.”
Even as Uilleam made to move out of sight again, his uncle had already seen him, walking over to rub the top of his head as he always tended to do no matter how old he got.
He used to find it comforting, but now Uilleam wished he would take it back if that meant this night had never happened.
“Are you going somewhere?” he asked his brother, forgetting all about his uncle.
Kit heaved a heavy breath as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. “I am.”
Did he really intend to leave and never come back? “Then take me with you,” Uilleam said quickly, the thought sending elation through him.
As much as he loved his mother, he cared for Kit more, and he doubted he would think twice about their father once he no longer had to put up with him.
For once, since he had ventured upstairs to listen, Uilleam thought his brother looked pained—as if he had an answer Uilleam wouldn’t want to hear.
“I can’t,” he said after a moment. “And you know this as well as I do.”
How could one little sentence wound him the way it did?
Some part of him had to know he would receive that answer. That he would be stuck here for years to come.
Only now, he would be alone.
Because they both knew that once he left, Kit would never return.
It was in their nature.
“You’ll be fine,” Kit promised, crouching so that they were nearly at eye level.
But Uilleam didn’t want his brother’s platitudes—not when he knew what awaited him.
The only thing he could do now was harden himself, remember that he only had himself to rely on—that seemed to work for everyone else …
“Uilleam ...”
He blinked, retreating from his thoughts, his gaze meeting Karina’s worried one. “Sorry?”
“Where did you go just then?”
The thought of sharing that vulnerable day made his insides twist. Maybe one day he’d be able to tell her all about it when he didn’t feel it as strongly, but for now … “Yes, a brother. Kit. I can’t say when you’ll ever meet him considering how rarely we see each other these days, but soon.”
Karina was keen enough to know when he was attempting to change the subject, and to his benefit, she let him, but she did reach up with both hands to cup his face. “Family isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
Truer words had never been spoken.
Needing the distraction, he looped and tightened his arm around her waist, pulling her from that ledge and into the water with him. She didn’t hesitate to wrap her legs around his waist, his free hand drifting down to the curve of her arse.
Her lips skimmed over his cheek and down over his jaw. “Already?” she asked, giving her hips a little flex in case he didn’t know what she meant by that remark.
Even if they hadn’t gotten on the subject of his brother, he would have still been as hard as he was. From the moment he’d entered this room, he was already imagining pulling this bikini off her.
“We could be doing something far more important than talking about family,” he reminded her, smiling when she gasped as he pressed her back against the glass of the window.
There couldn’t possibly be anyone better for him than her—not when she completed him so well.
She might have been a virgin when they’d met, but that hadn’t stopped her from giving in to what he wanted from her.
Not once had she faltered or shied away when he’d taken her to Hush—when he had buried his face in her pussy as she’d stared out at a room full of people. God, that night was seared into his brain, hardening his cock to a painful point.
No, she’d given in to the desire that had become something of a state of existence for him when he was with her.
“Show me,” she whispered in his ear, her voice making his grip tighter.
Uilleam didn’t have to be told twice as he reached behind her back and untied the strings, pulling the material away to toss behind him in some general direction of the floor, but he was too captivated by her to divert his attention for even a moment.
Pretty pink nipples begging for his attention—the flush that had turned her skin a rosy shade.
She made it easy, too easy to forget himself—to become lost in her and the peace she provided.
But that was the last thing he wanted now.
He craved the exact opposite of her.
He wanted the chaos that came on the heels of need. When it clogged every thought and reason fled.
Setting her back against the slight ledge there, he released her long enough to start on her bikini bottoms, adrenaline spiking through him as he slowly and methodically undressed her. It might have started as a desire to sate himself, but now … now, his only concern was getting her off as quickly as possible.
He gathered her wrists and held them still as he leaned in to kiss the hollow of her throat, nearly smiling when she tilted her head back to give him better access. Fuck if he didn’t crave this naked inhibition from her—the way she seemed as lost in him as he was in her.
Every shiver and gasp. The restless shift of her hips as he descended her neck, doing his very best not to leave too many marks along the way, but the sight of them burgeoning along her skin—the way she shamelessly encouraged him, his name falling from her pouty lips ...
“I—”
Before she could finish whatever she had been about to say, he cupped her breast and sucked the nipple into his mouth, laving it with his tongue, gently biting it the way she liked that sent a ragged moan spilling out of her.
The sound was magnified tenfold in the empty room, but it only managed to spur him om—made him grip her a little tighter.
But it wasn’t enough.
Not for him.
Certainly not for her—not when she was all but grinding herself against him now.
“Ask,” he said, coming back up to look at her, but as she thought to turn away from him, he gripped her chin, turning her face back around until she met his stare. “Ask nicely.”
But if he thought he would intimidate her, he should have known better. He hadn’t been able to do that since the day he met her.
“Or?” she asked, her own hands coming to rest on his abdomen, sliding down farther and farther until they dipped below the surface of the water and she had his cock in her hands.
As
white-hot heat streaked through him, the answering sound he made was less than human—but the way she gripped him through the cotton was indescribable. It took a concentrated effort not to thrust and slack himself that way.
Because fuck if he wasn’t already thinking about how good it would feel to get off with her, but patience was his friend.
“Challenging me is never wise, poppet. You should know that.”
He grit his teeth as she stroked him, not even bothering with pretense anymore before she pushed her hand past the waistband and gripped him, repeating the action.
“The way I see it, my love, I’m the one that’s winning.”
A challenge if he ever heard one.
He didn’t care whether she meant it as one or not—he couldn’t stop himself from reacting once she issued it.
Her soft laughter lit up his senses as he pulled her away from the glass and all but dragged her over to the stairs leading out of the pool, but he didn’t have to take her out of it to serve his purposes.
He would have her right here, right now.
For as long as it took for her to learn a very valuable lesson.
He didn’t lose—not in this nor anything else.
His need wasn’t so great that he forgot himself completely. He was gentle enough as he pushed her to her knees, making sure she kept her hands level on the floor before he took a step back to gaze upon her.
The curve of her spine, the way her front was nearly submerged in the water even as the rest of her was very clear to his gaze.
Uilleam took his time tracing over one hip with his fingers, watching the water droplets cascade down her glistening skin—noticing the way she tried to contain a shiver, but even if she wanted to, she couldn’t hide her body’s reaction to him.
He saw it even when she didn’t want him to.
“Now, what was that you were saying, hmm?” He smacked her thigh when she thought to close them, daring to disrupt his view.
They couldn’t very well have that, could they?
No, he very much wanted to see the heart of her—glistening lips and a ready cunt he was dying to fuck. He doubted very much he would ever tire of wanting to fuck her—with his fingers or his tongue, and especially with his cock.
White Rabbit Page 4
