by Holly Hart
Kieran raises his eyebrow. “Way to put a guy down –”
I elbow him gently. “You know what I mean. What the hell do I do about it? When I was giving that speech just now, Casey was the only thing that kept me going. I can’t throw that away; not like this; not for nothing!”
Kieran gets one of those looks on his face like he’s worried I might hit him. It wouldn’t be the first time, but I motion irritably at him to get on with it. It’s not like I’m going to hit my twin brother at my own father’s goddamn wake. He shrugs and tells me what I already know – even if it is the last thing I want to hear.
“You need to tell her the truth. If you keep hiding it, it’ll come out – sooner or later. Get ahead of it.”
Ridley chooses that exact moment to sidle up to us, and I shoot Kieran a warning look. I trust both my brothers with my life, but Kieran’s the one I know I can trust with my secrets. The way Ridley looks – with eyes half-glazed, a mostly-empty pint of Guinness in his hand, speckled with white dry bubbles all the way down the glass to the black dregs at the bottom – I don’t trust him to know what goddamn state he’s in.
“Jaysus, Rid,” Kieran mutters, “yer a mess.” He shoots me a look that says – we’ll deal with this later – and then says, “Dec, get our brother a glass of water, will ye? He’s near ready to pass out.”
“Fuck him,” Ridley slurs, staring directly at me.
“Yer pardon?” I shoot back, stunned. “If yer talking to me, you better be ready to account for yerself, now. Ye hear?”
The way he looks, I doubt he even hears me. For all I know the words just bounce right off that thick Irish skull of his.
“How dayr’e dishonor our pa like that?” Ridley slurs, leaning against Kieran for support. My twin stares at me awkwardly. “Who’s this piece of ass anyway? Whyd’dya bring ‘er ‘ere? We all know what you’re like, Dec: ye’ll chew her up and spit her out, jus’ like the rest.”
Kieran grabs Ridley by the lapel and tries to knock some sense into him. “Rid, save it, you’re making a scene!”
I feel the telltale signs of rage building inside me: the way my jaw clenches of its own accord, like a bear trap springing closed; the way my knuckles and toes all curl as one. Somehow, I force it back. Fighting is not going to get me anywhere; and it’s the last thing that’ll help here.
I know that the survival of this family through the inevitable coming storm – a dozen mob families ready to pick over our bones – will take every one of us pulling on the same oar in unison. And as much as I want to lay Rid out with a single punch, that’s the quickest way to blow this whole thing up.
Besides, I think with unusual clarity, he’s right.
“Sit him the hell down,” I growl in a low voice at Kieran. We manhandle Rid into a nearby dining chair, and somewhere in the bustle, Kieran relieves him of the last few inches of Guinness he’s still trying to sink down his throat.
“You want to know why I brought her here.” I say, grabbing Ridley’s chin and forcing him to stare me directly in the eyes. “It’s simple: because I needed her here. I wanted her tangled around my arm – not so that people could check her out like the damn Mona Lisa, and tell me how well I’ve done, but because I need her to hold me up. Look at you, Rid…” I say, resting my forehead against the wall.
“Declan,” Kieran says in a low, warning voice.
“You’re a mess. This thing, it’s affecting us all differently. Maybe I’m not the same guy I used to be, you ever think –”
“Declan!”
“Leave him be, brother,” Kieran says, grabbing my shoulder and tearing us apart. “He’s too far gone. Besides,” he nods to the open door, and Casey’s ashen face. “I think you’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
I look round just in time to see Casey turning on her heel and rushing down the hallway.
“Fuck,” I groan, desperately trying to figure out how much she could have heard. “Look after this –”
“Go,” Kieran says, cutting me off and pushing me towards the door. “Go fix this, will ya? Go get your girl.”
I get myself out of the living room, ducking condolences and muttered apologies for my loss on both sides. By the time I’m free of the dark suited mourners, the front door has already clicked shut.
I swear under my breath and chase after her.
It’s getting dark outside, and the cool fall air is already beginning to bite. I see Casey, already thirty yards away, running as fast as her conservative black heels will carry her.
“Casey!” I shout after her, “Stop!”
She doesn’t turn her head. She doesn’t look back.
I take the porch steps two at a time, desperately trying to shove the growing fear within my mind into a box where I don’t have to think about it. I can’t lose her now. She’s the only girl who has ever made me feel this way, the only girl I’ve ever seen as more than the sum of her tits and ass, the only girl I think I might love –
“Casey, goddamn it – stop, will ya?” I shout, sprinting after her.
I close the distance between us in twenty or so long, easy strides. As I reach her, Boston’s skyscrapers twinkle in the evening light. I pull her back by the shoulder, and she spins. She’s been crying. The tiny amount of makeup she applied is streaking down her face.
“Leave me alone, Declan,” she cries. “Leave me be,will you? You’re too good for me; don’t you get that? I’m just an anchor weighing you down, and if your family sees that, then I sure as hell do.”
I stand in front of her, my mouth bobbing up and down. I’m stunned. The words that just came out of her mouth are so far down the list of things I expected her to say they don’t even feature in the first thousand pages. Hell – the first thousand volumes.
Guilt eats at me. Whatever she heard, it sure as hell was not that the reason I screwed her in the first place to prove a point. Somehow I’ve come out of this looking even better in her mind. Fuck, that makes me feel like crap.
Kieran’s advice echoes in my mind. “You need to tell her the truth…”
But I ignore him. I have to. If I tell her now, then all of this is over for sure.
“Casey…” I whisper, holding her shoulder tight so she can’t get away. “I…”
I don’t know what to say. I just know I can’t tell her the truth. I can fix this, I know I can; but I also know that I can’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
Least, that’s what I tell myself.
“I’m sorry for whatever you heard; for everything Ridley said. He’s drunk, and he’s a mess when he drinks.” I grin, diving into those deep green eyes of hers. They are like a pool, washing away my guilt: some of it.
“I wasn’t lying when I said that stuff to him. I do need you. I need you and I think…”
“I think that I –”
Chapter Sixteen
Casey
“Say it again,” I gasp. There’s a ribbon blindfold lying untied on my forehead, and a cloth gag loose by the side of my mouth. Declan tore it off seconds after he started. He said that the way I moan is too delicious to stifle.
“Isn’t that my line?” Declan whispers, trailing a feather down the curves of my stomach. He’s standing by my hips, and as I lift my chin to watch him, I see the way my stomach muscles ride and twirl like there is a creature living under my skin.
In a way, there is: it’s called desire.
“Please …” I whisper, as sparks crack across my skin. I feel like an electrical storm is brewing, and breaking off my body, and that I might burn to a cinder.
"… I need to hear you say it.”
I watch. As Declan leans down, my eyes are entranced by the shock of silver hair over his temple. He does everything slowly: entirely in control; so unlike my life right now.
He plants a kiss on my inner thigh, and as I flinch, my restraints jingle against the leather chair. I’m tied down, entirely at his mercy, and I’ve never felt this excited. He’s made me into his explosive , primed and ready t
o explode. I’m just waiting for his order to ignite.
He twirls the foot long feather across my naked skin. I’m clothed only by a pair of black lace underwear, so he’s got a whole world to play with. My eyes follow the feather’s strands as they dance across my skin.
“Please, Declan.”
I don’t know why I need to hear it so badly. Maybe because hearing it means that all of this is somehow – I dunno – something more? Does that make any sense? Maybe it doesn’t have to make sense. Maybe all that matters is that right now, he’s fanning the flames of my lust, and those seven words are all the key elements that’ll make this whole thing explode.
Even now, he takes his time. He drags his face up my body, plowing a delicious furrow up my chest with the stubble on his chin. “I think,” he growls, holding my gaze with his glittering, multicolored orbs, “I’m starting to love you.”
I arch my back as his lips meet my chin, and as they walk upward to meet mine. He kisses me, pressing my head back against the leather, and the feather disappears and it’s replaced by his hands. His skin is burning up, or maybe that’s mine – or both. I can’t tell and I don’t care.
The words rain down on me like a patchwork of kisses, but he’s doing that too. I wish I could kiss back, but I’m tied down, and it’s all I can do to watch as his lips descend onto me, kissing my lips, my eyelids, my forehead, and then down, down my body…
He takes my right nipple in his mouth and twirls his tongue about it. I close my eyes and a moan escapes my mouth.
Declan lifts his mouth from my skin, and I’m suddenly bereft of his touch. I need him inside me, now. I’ll do anything to get it back.
“Do you trust me, Casey?” he asks. I haven’t taken my eyes off him this entire time, and right now is no different. I’m sure I see a shadow flicker across his face as he says the word trust, but I dismiss it. It’s the last thing I care about right now.
“Of course…”, I whisper.
“How far are you willing to go?” he asks, trailing his fingernails down my stomach. “How far are you willing to let me go?”
My body jerks at his touch, and I bite my lip. “Anywhere,” I breathed, “everywhere.”
He leans over my restrained body and plants a deep, hungering kiss on my mouth. It is the kiss for life, like he is a drowning man and I’m breath, life and salvation all wrapped up into one. I hang on as he drags his mouth away from mine.
“If you want me to stop –”
“I won’t.”
“You might,” he growls, “and besides, I’ll feel better if I know you trust me. If you ever want me to stop just give me a safe word. It can be anything; you choose…”
My mind runs dry, and I scan the room for inspiration. Nothing my gaze touches will work. Vibrator? He might just think I want more. Whip? I sure as hell don’t want to go down that road … It’s the same for the roads of “chains”, “gags”: everything I see.
In fact, the only damn thing that might work is my handbag, discarded on a neat counter. It is lying completely open, the way I left it, and there’s a tube of lipstick –
“Lipstick,” I say.
He nods, and it’s the last thing I see. After that, everything moves so fast. He picks up the two ends of ribbon still resting by my head and ties them tight over my eyes. I’m blind, and the silk licks at the skin on my eyelids like a fevered lover.
“Lipstick,” he nods. At least, I think he does, because I can’t see a damn thing. The loss of sight is new to me, and every other sense begins working overtime. Suddenly I can hear everything in the room. My ears are straining, picking up the way that his stubble brushes against his skin when he turns his head, and the rustle of his jeans. I can smell him, too – the sweat on his skin, layered over his spicy, musky aroma.
I flinch as a cabinet opens and closes somewhere in the room – and I wait.
And wait.
I can hear him moving, and my nervous anticipation reaches fever pitch. He’s coming towards me, I know it, he’s –
I hear a click, and the strike of the match, and the smell of burning phosphorus fills the room. A thousand scenarios fill my mind. Maybe he’s going to touch it against my body, or drip candle wax over my skin… I turn the safe word over in my mind, even feel my lips begin to form it –
But I wait.
And then something sears against my skin. My entire body goes tight with tension, my back arches and my ankles and wrists tug against their restraints.
“It burns,” I cry out in a breathy, shocked whisper. “You –”
“Do you trust me, Casey?” Declan says hoarsely. “Wait! Feel it.”
Against all my better instincts I bite down on my lip and wait. Declan runs the flame up my inner thigh, and a shiver ran through my body. There’s no smell of burning hair, nor singed skin, it’s –
“Ice.” Declan whispers into my ear.
He trails the ice cube across my thighs, and rivulets of water flow off it like tributaries, each one tickling and licking at my skin. I feel like the water’s going to start bubbling on my burning skin and disappear into steam. All I want is the one thing I know Declan’s not going to give me. Not yet, at least. His cock, inside me. My body’s crying out for it – begging for it.
He moves again, and I turned my head towards him even though I know I’ll see nothing. I hear him rummaging – but this time he comes back quicker. I hear the click of a switch, and then a buzzing fill the room.
A vibrator. No – more powerful.
A Hitachi magic wand?
I’ve only ever seen them in porn, but the second I hear it, I know what it is. He doesn’t give me a second to get ready. He runs it up my thigh, and even from inches away, it feels incredible as the powerful vibrations travel through my body to a clitoris that’s begging for attention. The sparks and fire that were already licking at my skin erupt into a maelstrom.
“Please…” I moan.
I need him to press it against my pussy. I need to grind my hips toward it, need to feel the waves of pleasure overtake me that I know my body’s capable of producing – that it’s begging to give me.
His fingers trail across my skin, and he inches the vibrator closer to my pussy.
“What do you want?” He asks.
“You,” I moan.
“No,” he growls. “What do you want?”
My mind strained to figure out what the hell he’s talking about. Doesn’t he understand that he is what I want? He’s all I want.
“You, Declan,” I say.
He brings his palm down on my thigh and the sound of the slap echoes around the room. It doesn’t hurt, not really, but it stings – and sends a jolt of pleasure vibrating around my body.
“No, Casey,” he whispers – his lips an inch away from my ear, “tell me what you really want.”
And then I get it. I know. He wants me to be coarse, to tell him my real desires, not just romanticized platitudes. So I do.
“I want your cock,” I say – and it’s my turn to growl, this time –, “in me, now. I want you to grip my thighs and pulled me in and fuck me as hard as you can, Declan. I want you to do it; and to not stop this time; so I”m crying out your name so loud your neighbors hear.”
I can’t believe the words that are pouring out of my mouth, but it’s all true: every word.
“Better,” he murmurs, and he strokes the vibrating wand across my pussy and I grind against it, and little shocks of desire flood through my body. He holds it there, and my head falls back and –
He pulls it away and I let out a moan of frustration.
I hear a snick, and a clip, and my underwear falls away – cut right off. He grinds his palm against my pussy and finds it wet and ready, and then shoves two fingers roughly in my mouth. I taste my own juices, and even that builds my desire.
He tosses the vibrator aside and it falls to the floor with a thud, still buzzing. He undoes his belt and his jeans drop; I hear the sound of falling cloth puddling on the floor. Then
I have to bite my lip, because he’s in me.
He fucks me hard, in deep, long thrusts. After the long, testing foreplay, I’m already on the edge. It won’t take much to send me over, and the way Declan’s hips are crashing against my inner thighs, I doubt it will for him either.
“Jesus, Declan,” I moan, the words coming out in between thrusts. It sounds like the wind’s catching them, but it’s just my own lungs betraying me.
He pulls one hand off my ass and places it on my throat and squeezes. I can breathe – just, and yet somehow the lack of oxygen seems to drive my orgasm to heights I didn’t know it could reach.
“Fuck,” I moan. “Jesus, Declan, oh my gosh –”
And it happens. Stars explode behind my eyelids, and my entire body goes weak, as little shocks of electricity seem to explode into life and disappear all at once, and everywhere, at random. My nipples feel like little balls of fire, and I lie back against the leather, spent.
Declan pulls his huge cock out of my body, and I moan with disappointment. But it’s only so that he can reach forward and unbuckle the restraints holding first my arms, then my ankles. He pulls me loose, and my entire body feels like jelly.
He holds me to his powerful, muscular chest, and as we lie together, exhausted, my breath tickles his skin.
“Say it,” I whisper, still blindfolded.
For a long second, I don’t know whether he’s heard me. And then, just when I’m beginning to wonder if he has, and he’s just ignoring me – he does.
“I think I’m starting to love you, Casey,” he whispers, playing with my hair.
A phone rings, and I jump, startled out of my sleep.
We’re still naked as the day we were born, and I’m just about to tell Declan to smash it to pieces so we can go back to sleep when he moves.
“Crap,” he groans. “It’s my burner. I’ve got to get this.”
A little shadow of disappointment crosses my face, and I pull the blindfold off, only to see Declan’s naked ass as he bends back up with a little black Nokia in his hand. It’s a good ass. The phone beeps as he touches a button, and he presses it against his ear.
