Transcending Darkness

by Airicka Phoenix

Despite the knot in his chest, Killian felt his mouth twitch.

  “Killian,” he said.

  She nodded slowly. “Why do they call you the Scarlet Wolf?”

  It was his turn to shift his gaze to the window, away from the question and those damn eyes. The surreal sensation of being asked was a new one; no one had ever asked him before and he was ill prepared with a response.

  She didn’t push.

  “Thank you for not leaving me with Arlo,” she murmured. She dropped her chin to study the clasp on her purse. “I don’t know how to repay—”

  “I don’t want repayment,” he cut in sharply, annoyed by the very idea. “And I didn’t do it for you.” And he hadn’t.

  His reasons for not leaving her alone in that warehouse had nothing to do with him being a good guy. Honestly, he would have left her there without a thought if it weren’t for the fact that she reminded him of someone he had once loved. Maybe that made him an asshole, but there were hundreds of different groups of organized crime in the city. No way in hell was it possible to save every single victim. Juliette was no exception. It made no difference to him that his body was willing to overlook all his own rules for one night with her. He wouldn’t be who he was if he let his cock do all the thinking.

  “How long have you been in the Dragon’s debt?” he cut into the awkward silence that had descended upon the car.

  Juliette moistened her lips. “Seven years.”

  Seven years to pay off a hundred grand made sense. She wasn’t paying the loan. She was paying the eighty percent interest and probably would be for the rest of her life. It was how loan sharks made a big chunk of their profits, by bullying and milking their victims for all they were worth. Odds were she would never be free of Arlo.

  “So you’ve done this before then.”

  “This?” she asked, genuinely puzzled.

  “Been with a man,” he clarified.

  She hesitated a full heartbeat before answering, “Yes.”

  Killian studied her. “How many?”

  She shifted in her seat. “How many…?”

  “Men.”

  She licked her lips again. “I … I don’t know.”

  Normally, he didn’t ask the woman he was planning on fucking for a number of past lovers. Most being escorts, he assumed had had plenty and that was how he preferred his women—experienced. Asking was just redundant. Virgins were messy and delicate and he wasn’t gentle. He didn’t possess the patience a virgin would require. But he sincerely wanted to know with Juliette. It was insane, but the thought of her having so many men she couldn’t possibly keep count annoyed him. While he was perfectly aware that it was the twenty first century and women were allowed to have as many lovers as they wanted—it was her body after all—the idea of any man touching her pricked him with an irrational sense of irritation.

  “You don’t know?”

  “I never thought to keep track,” she snapped, her cheeks a deep scarlet. “A few.”

  He willed his voice to remain calm. “Are you clean?”

  “Of course!” she snapped.

  “When was your last john?”

  The look of absolute horror and outrage would have been highly entertaining if he wasn’t serious about his question.

  “My … john?” Disgust curled her lips. “I’m not a prostitute!”

  “Your last lover then,” he corrected, refusing to let her back out of the question.

  “I don’t know,” she retorted with a sharpness that would have gotten her smacked if he were anyone else. “A while.”

  A moment passed while he contemplated his next question. One arm lifted and he propped the elbow on the handle of the door. His chin rested lightly on his loosely fisted fingers. He observed her through the three feet separating them with a solemn curiosity that made Juliette fidget. But she kept his gaze, unwavering and unflinching. The hypnotic dance of fire in her eyes pulled at him. The allure was too tempting to ignore as was the hot pool of desire forming in the pit of his stomach.

  Mind made up, he lowered his hand and pushed the buttons built into the door. Juliette gave a startled jolt when the privacy window behind her rolled down, revealing Frank and Marco.

  “Pull over, Marco.”

  The limo cut seamlessly off the road and came to a gentle stop. Juliette was watching him, her eyes filled with that fear he hated so much.

  “You’re free to go,” he told, motioning with a jerk of his chin towards the door. “You can leave now and not have to go through with this. I won’t stop you. But if you choose to stay, you will not be given a second chance to say no.”

  Confusion folded the skin between her eyebrows. Her eyes darted from him to the door and back. He didn’t need to read minds to know she didn’t understand why he was giving her the option of leaving. He let her wonder. He let her decide. He had never, not once ever forced a woman to do something she didn’t want to do. He didn’t hurt women. If Juliette wanted to leave, he would let her and never think of her again.

  “I want to stay,” she whispered, after what felt like hours of deliberation. “Please.”

  The quiver in her voice made him doubt her, but the determination in her eyes … oh, it was powerful and fierce. Whether she wanted him or not, she would give herself to him and he wanted her enough not to stop her a second time.

  “Remove your blouse.”

  Chapter 4

  As though that were the cue, the privacy window geared to life and rolled back up. The limo eased onto the road and they were moving once more. It made her wonder just how many other girls he’d had in his fancy limo. How many other girls had been given the option to leave and opted to stay? She wondered how many of them were still alive.

  Pushing them and everything else from her thoughts, her fingers lifted to the buttons on her blouse. They trembled and refused to bend as she struggled to undo the fastens.

  Across from her, he painted a hot path with his eyes along every inch that was exposed over the U-shaped collar of her camisole. Against the material, her nipples hardened as the air conditioned temperature nipped at sticky flesh. Her heart beat hard against her chest, cracking with a vengeance that could no doubt be heard for miles. There were no other sounds in her ears. Not the grind of rubber over asphalt. Not the purr of the engine. Not the rustle of clothing as her blouse came free and slid off her shoulders. She shut her eyes and willed herself not to yank it back on.

  It was Arlo’s promise that kept her mouth clamped shut tight. It was the promise of freedom. In return, all she had to do was sell her soul and belittle everything about herself. But it was worth it. It had to be. It would be, because it meant no longer being under Arlo’s crushing thumb. It meant not working herself into the ground with nothing to show for it. It meant no longer walking down the street in fear. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for that. One night with a stranger meant nothing in comparison.

  But maybe she should tell him she’d never been with a man. While she wasn’t sure that would make any sort of difference, it still terrified her. She had lied to him and he had warned her about that. It was just that he seemed like the sort who wanted someone experienced. Confessing to be a virgin would have no doubt either turned him on or turned him off and Juliette couldn’t risk her sliver of hope on a hunch. So the lie had slipped a little too easily from her lips. A little too casual. It had curdled in the pit of her stomach like sour milk. It burned her cheeks with shame. While she wasn’t a saint and had told plenty of lies in her life, they had been petty lies. Things she could easily walk away from. Things that didn’t include lying to a man who held her life in his hands. But she couldn’t risk the alternative. She needed to do this and she needed to do it well. Plus, who was to say he would even notice? It couldn’t be too hard to fake being experienced.

  Yet the idea made her stomach churn. It wasn’t so much the idea of sleeping with Killian as it was the fact that it wasn’t by choice. There was nothing remotely wrong with him, except him being a stranger �
�� and a criminal. The latter kept prodding at her. She silenced it by reminding herself that he didn’t traffic in people. He had said as much. While she had no reason to believe him, she found that she actually did. That made her decision slightly easier. That and the knowledge that he was her only hope of survival.

  “Come here,” he instructed once she had bunched the fabric in her clammy hands. “Stay on your knees.”

  Setting aside her purse and blouse, Juliette slipped unsteadily off the bench. The soft carpet whispered against her knees as she slid the first step forward. The slight burn of her skin was nothing compared to the mortification of kneeling before another person. A stranger no less. There was nothing remotely romantic or sexual about it as most people would assume. It was degrading.

  “Closer,” he prompted when her body refused to follow the urging of her brain.

  Sucking in a breath that smelled of new leather, liqueur, expensive cologne and wood polish, Juliette shuffled across the distance keeping her separate from the wolf. She stopped when his body heat washed over her and his knees were mere inches from brushing against her. She held her breath and waited for her next set of instructions.

  “Closer.”

  Bemused, Juliette lifted her eyes to his face. The question sat poised on her lips when it was answered with a simple parting of his knees.

  Alarms jingled between her ears with the ferocity of fire alarms. Her spit turned to ashes pouring down her throat with her audible gulp. She stared at his thighs, clad beneath material that probably cost more than her entire house and felt the urge to vomit in his lap.

  You can do this, she willed herself when it became painfully apparently just what he wanted. Don’t think about it. Just do it!

  But it was easier said than done when she caught sight of the long, hard bulge outlined by the front of his dark trousers. Her stomach muscles seized in an odd mixture of surprise, terror, and curiosity. The latter was a knee jerk reaction that was quickly smacked down before it could take hold.

  Juliette wasn’t a stranger to a man’s cock. While one had never been inside her, she had seen plenty of them. Possibly too many. It was the hazards of being a maid. She’d lost count of the number of times she’d walked into a room with the intent to clean only to find some asshole standing naked waiting for her. But aside from that, she’d been in what she had foolishly considered a steady and passionate relationship for three years. Stan had loved his penis. So much so that it had rarely seen the inside of his pants. Plus there was that weekend his parents had gone away and they had spent the better part of two days doing everything but have sex. Oh, but he had begged her to change her mind. It was the one decision she had prided herself on when things went to hell and Stan found solace between Karen’s pasty white thighs … until she found herself kneeling between the knees of a man she didn’t even know, prepared to do more than suck his cock to keep from being killed or worse.

  Maybe she really was a prostitute.

  The thought was in no way comforting. It only made her all the more anxious to leave.

  Stop thinking! The voice in her head hissed and she had to agree with it. Thinking wasn’t helping.

  Sucking in a deep breath, she reached for his buckle. The cool metal kissed trembling fingers only to be captured a second later. Long, tapered fingers curled effortlessly around the expanse of her hands. The hold was firm, but gentle in his restraint.

  Confusion and surprise flicked her gaze to his face, to those intense, black eyes and full mouth. It was probably a bad time to notice when she was trying to keep her mind blank, but he really was ridiculously beautiful. The knowledge didn’t ease the anxiety eating at her insides, but the fact that he wasn’t some fat, hairy slob was a kind of small comfort.

  “I thought…”

  She was drawn off her knees and pulled up onto his lap. His toned thighs cradled her backside as she was made to straddle his hips. Cool leather shifted beneath her knees, a contrast to the scalding hot palms that released her hands to curl around her waist. She was pulled closer. So close, they shared the same air with every exhale. So close she could count each individual lash circling his darkened eyes. One hand pulled forward and captured her chin between long fingers. Her face was tipped even closer.

  Juliette gasped, a weak, pitiful sound that seemed to ignite the fire in his eyes. The light flickered with a glimmer of triumph that stole a shiver through her.

  “You should have left, a ghrá.” His low, seductive drawl snagged on the few wisps of air she’d managed to coax into her lungs and tore them from her. She floundered while he watched her with those predatory eyes. “You should have escaped whilst you had the chance. Now you’re mine, little lamb.”

  Mesmerized by his eyes, lured by his scent, captivated by the feel of his hands gliding to her hips, Juliette could only hold her breath while he dared her to do something she had no experience in. Every prickling sensation was brutally aware of his callused fingers inching up the soft skin of her thighs and dipping beneath the fabric of her skirt to graze her hips. Juliette’s whimper crashed into the back of the teeth she clamped over her lip, but the sound still filtered from her throat in an embarrassing moan.

  Damn it. She wasn’t supposed to be enjoying herself. That hadn’t been part of the plan. But there was no stopping it now. Her body was freefalling into a whirlwind of everything it had been deprived of for the last seven year. It was thrumming for everything he was offering her without a shred of care. It made no difference that her mind was against the whole thing when he had so expertly tamed her body to his will.

  Hard hands curled into the globes of her backside and she was dragged over the hard lump nestled beneath his pants. The heat of their bodies coming together burned through fabric. The rigid length of him slid perfectly up the heart of her being, hitting every critical point right to the taut muscle at the top. The slow grind elicited a rush of unexpected heat to plow into her. It welled up through her in a single swoop of arousal that had her grabbing for his shoulders. One of them groaned, low and guttural that sounded infinitely too loud in the fraught silence. It was only when he pushed down on her hips while lifting his and she gasped that she realized—with some degree of horror—that the sounds were coming from her.

  “That a girl,” he drawled in that delicious accent of his. “Tell me what you like.”

  She couldn’t think of a single response to that. She couldn’t think period. Her mind had become a wasteland of desire and guilt. The two coiled around each other in a vicious war that made her want to cry.

  It had been years since she’d come anywhere near an orgasm. Years where she hadn’t even touched herself and the need was killing her. Worse than that was the knowledge that she had all but abandoned her morals in the time it took to climb into a stranger’s lap, but she wanted this. She wanted him. As wrong as it was.

  Yet the moment she peered into those impossibly dark eyes, there was no denying the sweet flutter of arousal that swept through her belly. She couldn’t ignore the ache. Her body was lost in a sea of desire and nothing else mattered. The fact that his eyes were promising things that made her pussy clench and her nipple tighten didn’t help calm the waves washing over her.

  His hands felt their way over her eager body, fanning the fires bursting through her in a rainbow of colors. Against her mound, his cock worked her approaching climax with a skill that had her delirious for something only he could provide. All the while, he continued to fuck her with his eyes. He plunged deep inside her and rode her emotions hard. She could have orgasmed from the look alone.

  “I want a taste of your pussy, little lamb,” Killian hissed into her ear as he twisted his fingers around the straps of her camisole. “I want to open you wide right here and feast on you until you can’t walk straight.”

  Christ, how was she supposed to keep her head when he was saying things like that?

  “Please,” she breathed. She begged. Her fingers tightened around fabric of his blazer. Her body arche
d deeper into his. “I need—”

  “Up,” he commanded.

  Juliette wasted no time scrambling off him. The roof of the limo grazed the top of her head, forcing her to stay stooped as she dropped unceremoniously into the seat next to him. She waited with her breath held as he shrugged out of his blazer and carelessly pitched it aside. His tie followed in a streak of solid emerald slashing into the air before fluttering to the ground. Juliette hurriedly kicked off her shoes. The black heels struck the carpet with a muffled thud and lay forgotten.

  Killian lowered himself down on his knees in front of her. It didn’t seem to bother him in the least to be kneeling at her feet. He didn’t seem to care about anything but getting his hands on her hips and jerking her roughly down the leather seat. Her skirt bunched in a wrinkled mess about her waist, exposing the painfully plain material of her panties stretched over the lips of her pussy.

  “You’ve soaked through.” The pad of one thumb traced the wet patch in lazy circles from hole to clit. Each pass over the nub they could both clearly see poking up against her panties increased the flow. “Can you feel just how wet you are?”

  He gave her no chance to respond when his hands closed around the supple flesh of her thighs. Her knees were lewdly splayed and the place in between was filled by his lean hips. Her choked gasp was met by the vicious glint in his eyes as he pressed over her, pinning her to the leather with his torso. For a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. Her lips parted. They tingled in eager anticipation as he drew closer. Her fingers tightened in the sleeve of his dress shirt. The fabric wrinkled and she knew she was damaging it beyond repair, but the only thing she could bring herself to focus on was the mouth a heartbeat away from hers.

  He shifted his weight higher. The leather beneath her squeaked with the adjustment. On either side of her hips, the seat dipped beneath his hands as he settled, aligning the full weight of his erection against her mound once more. A sound escaped her that she couldn’t even identify. It was something between a whine and a whimper, but it came from somewhere deep in the pit of her body. Her companion rocked his hips forward and her entire body jerked. Her cry was louder, desperate, and it rang through the car.