by Henry, Jane
I place our bags by the front door, and shut and lock it behind us. This is a fairly large and spacious room, with a small entryway foyer in front of us, a small dining area with a circular table and bar off the kitchenette. Beyond the dining area is a sitting room with built-in shelves stacked with books, comfortable-looking leather furniture, and a spacious armchair.
“Ooh,” McKenna says. “I could get used to a place like this.” She’s focused, of course, on the books, while I’m looking at the layout and high-tech security features. Bars and alarms on the windows, though we’re several floors above the ground. Speakers, a small desk with a computer and charging station for electronic devices. A small red light blips above every window and the door, and right outside the door that led us here, we’ve a guard in place, like all the men of the clan do.
I stretch and yawn, pretty tired myself, but I want to look at this place. It feels almost like arriving to have a place here in the McCarthy mansion, if only for a little while.
“Tully!” I run to the door, but she’s only calling out in excitement, not fear, as I first suspected. Still, my heart pounds hard and fast.
“Look! There’s a hot tub.”
I lean in the doorway and watch her as she takes in every detail. Even though her mum was married to a man of the Clan, rumor had it he gambled all his money and her mum was not much better. McKenna grew up with humble means. I did as well, though I’ve gotten a bit more used to the McCarthy ways.
“There are little soaps shaped like roses,” she gushes. “Bottles of body wash, and look, those washcloths are folded so they look like swans.” She opens the medicine cabinet, and her eyes widen. “Oh my goodness. Organic cotton swabs and sea salt scrub, and there’s a little paper thing here that says I can write down whatever I need, and when the staff comes twice a day—twice a day—they’ll bring me what I’ve requested.”
She suddenly frowns, turns, and looks at me seriously. “Did someone have to die for us to get this place?”
I can’t help but laugh at that. “No, lass. Keenan’s given us this room to keep us safe. Even though this might feel like a luxury vacation, we need to keep in mind our purpose here.”
She turns and waggles her eyebrows at me. “Oh, aye, I do know, but I’ll definitely enjoy it while I’m here.”
“Will you?” When she looks at me, I crook a finger at her. I want to know if she really will.
Hesitantly, she walks my way, biting her lip as she comes. “What?”
“Come here.” I point to the ground in front of me.
As she walks to me, my dick gets hard just watching her move, just watching the way she looks at me from beneath those lowered lashes.
I flick a finger under her chin. “Now that we’re here, there’s no getting away, you know.”
She swallows, and I swear her pupils dilate. “I’ve noticed. There are… bars on the windows and such, hmm?”
I nod. “Aye. So no one can get in…”
My voice drops and I bring my mouth to her ear. “And no one can get out.”
She nods, placing one hand on my shoulder, the other around my waist.
“Whatever will you do with me?”
It’s a dance between the two of us, back and forth. She’s just stepped back into my circle.
I nibble at her earlobe, gently biting until she squirms. “Whatever the fuck I want, McKenna.”
I slide the pad of my thumb along the thin skin at her wrist. I can feel her pulse quickening.
“So you’d better behave yourself, lass. No backtalk. No mouthing off. None of those little fits of rage you have from time to time.”
She gasps. “I do not have fits of rage.”
A beat passes between us. I lean in and speak in her ear. “Are you talking back, then?”
She swallows and shakes her head. “Of course not.”
I slide my hand from her lower back to her arse and give her arse cheek a good, hard squeeze that makes her come up on her toes. I chuckle, and she shivers ever so slightly at the sound.
“You’ve wanted this, haven’t you?” she whispers. “Me. At your mercy. Unable to escape.”
I feel my lips twitch up as I whisper in her ear, “You have no fucking idea.”
“What do you want from me?” she asks, and I can tell she’s somewhere between curious and aroused, just at the sound of her voice. She knows she can’t get away.
I run my fingers through her hair until I come to a hard plastic clip. I release it, letting her hair cascade down around her shoulders.
“I want you here, with me. I don’t want to fight you. I want to know you’re safe, and that you won’t let your hot head or temper fuck with your safety.”
She doesn’t talk back or get all huffy like I expect her. Instead, she sighs a little. “Why, Tully? Why me?”
How do I explain my attraction to her? The men of the Clan don’t find it that difficult to find partners, or at the very least women who are interested in spending the night with him. Finding someone who's interested in more than that is definitely a little harder to do.
What appeals to me about her? I can't really say. There's something about her that's innocent, despite her sharp wit and quick temper. Hell, it's even the sharp wit and temper that appeal to me. She is no meek little lamb, though she might seem like one. She's not very experienced, and I like that. So many women at the clubs that I go to have been around. There's an innocence about McKenna that no one can replicate.
She’s also smart as hell. I've never been with a woman like her before, and I like it. There's nothing we can't talk about. Nothing I can't ask her, and I know that she's so capable of taking care of herself she isn't using me or the Clan. But how the hell do I say that? I don't. I'm not the kind of guy that speaks these things easily. Is any man?
“I like everything about you,” I finally say, even though I know it's a cop out.
She grins. “Everything?”
I smirk. “Could get rid of the smart mouth.”
“Oh, really?” she asks. “You’d like it if you didn’t have to fight me anymore?”
I pull her hair, and she squeals.
“It’s a lie,” she says, baiting me. “You wouldn’t like it if I suddenly became all meek and submissive.”
“Not so. I’d love submission from you.”
She laughs. "Oh, you love that all right. When you have to wrestle it from me, or spank it out of me. Don't you? "
“Aye, lass. I do.”
I walk her backward to the bed, intent on making her mine tonight. Uniting us again. Showing her that on this property, with me. I'm the one in charge.
"Strip."
Her eyes are focused on mine and she obeys, fumbling to remove her clothes. I stand, my hands anchored on my waist, as I watch her. First, she removes her skirt, then her stockings and shoes. Next comes the blouse. She takes everything off carefully, folding it, and placing it gingerly on the corner of the bed. She watches me as she takes off her panties and bra, her eyes never leaving mine, until she’s completely naked, and the little folded pile of clothes bears testament to her obedience.
For now.
“Lie back on the pillows,” I instruct, my eyes never leaving hers. “Stroke yourself.”
Her eyes widen, but she does what I say. I watch her, fully clothed, as she drags her fingers through her pussy. She moans a little, and her eyelids flutter, as she gently strokes and circles her pussy.
I’m envious of her fingers right now. I want my fingers to be between her legs, my tongue bringing her pleasure. But I need to watch her obey me.
My trousers tent with my erection as I watch her hips jerk, and she pants. Her movements grow more hurried.
“Stop.”
She starts at the loud sound of my voice and scowls at me.
“I’m almost there,” she whispers.
“I said stop.”
Her lips thin, and she looks at me as if she would bite my head off if I allowed it.
This won’t do.
This won’t do at all.
I shake my head, prowling over to her. She watches me through narrowed eyes, her fingers splayed across her thigh. I know what she wants. I know what I want, too.
I kneel beside her on the bed, but I don’t touch her. One hand on either side of her. I position myself above her so I can look in her eyes.
“You’re beautiful when you’re angry. You know that?”
“Then you must think me radiant,” she says, her voice tight with anger. “Since you love to piss me off.”
I lean down and brush my lips across hers, surprised when her body arches into me and her breathing quickly hitches. She’s stifling a moan when I pull away.
I bend down and whisper in her ear. “Absolutely fucking radiant. I love when I get to you, and the color of these cheeks—” I brush my finger over the apple of her cheek, watching her pale skin flush pink, then I trail my finger to her arse and cup her cheek hard, so that she hisses in a breath. “Match these.”
Her lips twitch. Her eyes dance, and suddenly she’s covering her mouth with her hand, giggling like a little girl. My heart surges in my chest, my cock painfully hard.
“You think this is funny?” But I’m having a hard time keeping a straight face. In seconds, I’ve got her pinned on the bed while I tickle her, and she’s convulsing in giggles.
“Tully!” she gasps and pants, “Oh my God, stop!”
I capture her wrists between my fingers and drag them above her head so she’s bared and vulnerable.
“I want you to read to me.”
She cocks her head to the side. “What do you mean? That is literally the last thing I expected you to say.”
“I want you to go in the living room. Choose a book. Sit on my lap, and read to me.”
I release her wrists and tip her to the side to deliver a teasing smack.
“Okayyy,” she says, shaking her head and reaching for her clothes.
“Ah-ah, love.”
Her eyes come to mine. “What?”
“No clothes.”
She smiles, as realization dawns on her. “You’re going to enjoy having me here, aren’t you?”
“Every fucking minute.”
* * *
Chapter 8
McKenna
His devious nature knows no bounds. It’s as if he’s stayed up nights plotting how to sexually torture me. It isn’t like I don’t enjoy it, though, and I wonder when things are good like this why I fight him so much. When I’m with him, the unsettled feeling of my heart’s at rest. I feel safe and… vulnerable.
Not so sure how I feel about the vulnerable part. I suppose that’s the part that makes me fight him. Maybe.
He heaves me up into his arms and carries me out to the living room. I shiver.
“You cold?”
“A little.”
He cranks a thermostat on the wall and snags a folded blanket as he walks by a chair.
“Oh, it’s a pretty blanket,” I say, fingering the crocheted squares. “Handmade?”
His brow furrows and he looks down at the blanket in his hands. “Maybe? I don’t pay much attention to those things.” That’s polite for, “I don’t fucking care.”
For some reason that strikes me as funny, and I can’t help but stifle a giggle.
“What?” He gives me a playful smack to the arse.
“Oh, nothing.” I’m not sure how to explain it.
You’re adorable when your dark brows go all stern and your eyes are focused on something? You’re very manly? Cave-manly?
Adorable isn’t the right word. There’s nothing about Tully that’s cute.
I think.
He plunks a book off the shelf and settles into an overstuffed armchair.
“Gulliver’s Travels? Really?”
“What’s it about?”
“Oh, it’s a story about a man who takes a trip and ends up in a place where all the people are tiny… so he’s like a giant? But the book is like three hundred years old, and rather… tedious… it can be a little dull with the way the prose carries on and on…”
He wraps his fingers around my jaw and makes me look at him.
“Babe.”
“Mm?”
“I don’t care if you read about Mary Fucking Poppins or whatever the fuck, I just want to hear you read to me.”
“Naked.”
“That’s right.”
“On your lap.”
“Uh huh.”
“While you most likely fondle me?”
A deep chuckle. “Precisely.”
I shake my head. “You’re a wicked man, Tully.”
He leans down, kisses, then bites my shoulder. I gasp and squirm, then he kisses it again.
“Why, thank you.”
Shaking my head, I open the book with trembling fingers, since I know any second he’s going to start to do some naughty things to me, and my body’s already primed and ready.
I begin to read. At first, he nuzzles my neck, his lips at the tender spot there making me moan a little. But I keep on, and keep reading.
I flip the page on a gasp as the nuzzles become suckling, and little tendrils of arousal pulse through me. I keep reading.
My voice becomes tremulous when I feel his hands at my thighs, gently parting my legs while he continues to suckle my neck.
“Read,” he orders. “If you stop, I’ll whip you.”
“Hey!” I protest, and he only gives my bare thigh a sharp slap.
“I warned you.”
I cringe, but keep reading.
His fingers are at my core, spreading me apart, lazily stroking, and my hips jerk at his touch. He chuckles, the sound low and sexy as he whispers, “Keep reading.”
I swallow hard. And I do.
I read, not even processing what I’m saying or what’s going on, and my voice goes between husky and sexy depending on what he’s doing. And still, he works his fingers between my legs like a magician as I read on.
He moves one large hand to my breast, and cups the left, then the right, dragging his thumb along the peaked nipples.
I pause too long, lost to the sensation, when I feel his punishing grip on my thigh.
“What’d I say?” he growls in my ear.
I swallow hard and part my legs, my voice rising in pitch as I continue to read. For the love of God, why couldn’t he pick something sexy? This book is mind-numbing, the words incongruous against the sexy touch of his hands on me.
I quake a little when we finish the first chapter. I’m nearing orgasm, and not sure he’ll allow it.
Will he? God, will he?
He’s punished me before by not letting me come, and I wouldn’t put it past him to do it again.
The book nearly falls from my hand as I near release, but his low voice in my ear warns me.
“Keep reading,” he whispers. “Don’t you dare stop.”
I read on, as I start to lose control, my thighs jerking and my hips rising as spasms of pleasure overtake me.
“Read, McKenna.”
I read, as the words nearly blur on the page and my hand shakes, pleasure gripping me so hard and fast it’s all I can do not to not let the book drop, let alone read.
“My God,” I gasp, as pleasure ricochets through me, and still I read.
“And Gulliver,” I say, my voice not much more than a whisper. “Lived happily ever after.”
I slump against his shoulder, exhausted and sated, and hopeful he didn’t realize I just totally phoned that in.
His chuckle leaves me hopeful.
“And they all lived happily ever after on page fifteen? Really?”
I shrug. “Well, you know. I had to do what you told me to, but it was getting a little… hard.” I give him a wink at the feel of his thick, hard cock beneath my arse.
He shifts me to the side and unzips his trousers, removes his cock, and lines it up at my entrance.
“Now, lass,” he says. “I want you to sing.”
* * *
Four hours
later, we’ve made love three times, and he’s made me read, sing, and recite poetry while he did wicked, devious things to me.
And it was wonderful.
I imagined it would be awkward, climaxing while I sang the lyrics of the old Irish ballads I learned as a little girl.
“And Molly Brady, no longer afraid, for she—oooohhh.”
I’ll never forget it, not ever.
It’s late into the night when he orders hot tea and scones.
“They’ll get your cats in the morning.”
“Thank you.”
He turns down the thick, quilted duvet. “It’s the least we can do.”
How’s he so genial, now? I wish I knew how to tame that wildness in him, to keep this man with me. I suppose bringing me to climax so expertly might have a thing or two to do with it.
Finally, I get ready for bed and nestle under the thick, cream-colored sheets.
“My God, they’re like silk,” I tell Tully, running my palm over the soft, velvety sheet with a gentle sheen.
“Glad you like them.”
He’s lying at my back wearing only boxers, one heavy arm draped over me. “Now, get some sleep. You must be exhausted.” But his admonition ends on a large yawn.
I turn around and kiss his cheek. “We both are.”
Moments later, he’s snoring softly behind me. I close my eyes, his heavy arm somehow more comforting than the duvet that lies over both of us. At home, my sheets are cheap and functional. I didn’t even know there were sheets like this. I keep my flat cool to keep the cost of heating down, and it feels incredibly luxurious to sleep with my toes fully warmed. I fall asleep in a hazy sort of wonder.
I dream fitfully, my mind a jumble of things I haven’t yet sorted out. I’m at school, but Tully’s the headmaster, and Mary’s my teaching assistant. I walk into the classroom to find not my students, but the men of the Clan assembled, shoved into desks too small for them, their knees nearly stuck beneath the desks.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. “And where are my students?”
I wake with a start to Tully shaking my shoulder.
“Time to get up, love. You have to get ready.”
