Chapter 22: Cruel Paradise: Chapter 22

When I wake the next morning, he’s gone again. It hurts even more this time than it did the last.

I spend the day wandering aimlessly through town. I think it will become my new routine. When the sun is setting over the ocean, I head back to the same restaurant I’ve visited for the past two nights, knowing I’ll find him there.

Or he’ll find me. Magnets have a funny way of attracting each other like that.

This time when he arrives, he’s in a gorgeous navy blue pinstripe suit with a white silk pocket square and black leather loafers polished to a mirror shine.

His hair is perfect. His beard is trimmed. He’s not wearing a tie, so the strong column of his throat is exposed, tattoo and all. The combination of sleek sophistication with raw masculinity is devastating.

As is the British accent.

Instead of Chris Hemsworth, tonight he’s James Bond.

Leaning an elbow on the bar, he says to Harley, “Vodka martini. Shaken, not stirred.”

Harley stares at him, nonplussed. “You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me.”

I lift my wine glass to him in a mock salute. “Amen.”

Killian smiles blandly at the bartender. “And don’t shake too vigorously. The ice will bruise the vodka.” He turns to me, sending me a hot, half-lidded look. “Hello there.”

“Hello yourself, Mr. Craig.”

He lifts his brows. “Who’s Mr. Craig?”

I look him up and down. “Daniel Craig. As in, the actor? As in, James Bond?”

Killian laughs a husky, sexy-as-hell, ovulation inducing laugh. “No. Sean Connery is the best and only Bond. All those other blokes are just window dressing.”

“I’ll give you the macho, devil-may-care thing. You’ve got that one pinned down. But Sean Connery had a super thick Scottish accent.”

Killian leans closer to me, smirking. “A super thick Scottish accent like this?”

Yes, exactly like that. I could strangle him with my bare hands.

“Were you an actor before you turned to a life of crime?”

He switches back to the posh British Bond accent. “No. I was a farm boy. Acting didn’t come until after I turned to a life of crime.”

He holds my gaze. His own is unflinching. He’s just told me the truth, strange as it is.

“A farm boy,” I muse, warming to the idea. “In Ireland?”

He nods.

“Did your parents make you do chores?”

He nods again.

Fascinated, I try to picture it. Killian as a young boy, on the farm, completing his daily chores. Mucking out horse stalls. Feeding the chickens. Milking the cows.

Impossible.

“Do you have siblings?”

His pause is infinitesimal. “One.”

I search his face, knowing he left something unsaid. “One…?”

“Left,” he says, his voice lower. “I have one sibling left now.”

“That’s right. Your brother. You told me.” After a beat, I say, “Wait. Left?”

Hesitating, he moistens his lips. “There were eight of us. Only two are still alive.”

Surprised, I stare at him. Accidents? Illnesses? Something worse? What would take six siblings in the same family before middle age? I’m dying to ask, but I don’t want to pry.

Idiotic, considering I’ve swallowed the man’s ejaculate.

Reading my expression, Killian says softly, “There was a fire.”

My heart stops. My hand flies up to cover my mouth. “Oh god. I’m so sorry.”

He reaches out to stroke a lock of my hair, gazing at it intently as he runs it slowly through two fingers. “Thank you.”

“And…and your parents? Are they still alive?”

His eyes very far away, he murmurs, “Gone. Everyone. Everything. Anything that mattered. All that was left for me was revenge.”

He’s somewhere distant for a moment before he snaps back to himself. His hazy gaze sharpens. His eyes gather the light, glinting dangerously like the edge of a blade. He drops his hand to his side and straightens, facing the bar.

Harley sets a martini in front of him with a dramatic flourish. “If your vodka’s bruised, King Arthur, feel free to lodge a complaint with management.”

He dodders off, cackling.

Cheeks ruddy, jaw tight, Killian grabs the martini and downs it in a single swallow.

Meanwhile, I stare at his profile with one word that he said echoing over and over inside my mind.

Revenge.

The fire that took his family wasn’t an accident.

I feel as if a forbidden, locked door has cracked open, revealing a sliver of light.

He was a boy, his family was killed in a fire, and all that was left for him was to avenge their deaths.

I say quietly, “You knew who did it.”

He sets the empty martini glass carefully on the bar. His throat works. He doesn’t look at me.

“You killed him. Or them.”

He’s stiff and unresponsive, his silence giving an answer without words.

“And that’s how it all started,” I whisper, knowing as I say it that I’m right. “The farm boy got a taste for vengeance, and he never looked back.”

He turns to me abruptly, bristling, his eyes ablaze. He says gruffly, “I look back every fucking day. Remembering where I came from and why I do what I do is the only thing that keeps me going.”

His normal voice is back. That rich, lilting Irish brogue, thick with emotion now. He’s himself again, all hard edges and sharp angles, a whirlwind of chaotic feelings contained by an iron will underneath a pretty, polished shell.

But I’ve peeked behind the curtain now. I’ve gotten a look at the backstage of his Broadway show.

Killian Black is a criminal not because he was born bad or because he’s good at it or because there’s nothing else he’d rather be.

He’s a criminal because the world broke his heart, and the only way he knew how to deal with the magnitude of his pain was through violence.

Through vengeance.

Through the spilling of blood.

Holding his gaze, I say, “I was wrong about something.”

He snaps, “What?”

“You’re not like my father. He loves hurting people. He gets off on it.”

Killian stares at me, his chest rising and falling rapidly, his jaw and his hands clenched. His eyes are dark, so dark they’re unfathomable.

I whisper, “I don’t think you like what you do at all.”

He falls so still he doesn’t appear to be breathing. His lips part, but he remains silent, his expression stunned.

We stay like that, locked in a breathless, intense bubble, until Killian exhales and the bubble bursts.

He grabs my arm and strides toward the back of the restaurant, steering me through the crowd.

“Where are we going?”

He doesn’t answer. He simply keeps walking, holding my arm firmly in his grasp.

We pass table after table until I realize we’re headed toward the kitchen. Killian throws open the swinging kitchen doors and guides me through aisles crowded with sous chefs cooking or plating food, all of whom give us only a cursory glance before turning back to their work.

He turns me left past a huge walk-in fridge, then right past a row of metal baker’s racks stacked with serving trays and water carafes, then yanks open an unmarked door.

He pulls me inside, shuts the door, and kisses me with so much raw passion it takes my breath away.

The kiss goes on and on. It’s greedy and possessive, like he’s staking a claim. When he finally breaks away, my knees are shaking and my heart is beating like mad.

We’re in a small supply closet. Shelves stretch from floor to ceiling on all sides. They’re stacked with dish towels, cleaning supplies, and miscellaneous other items I glimpse only quickly because Killian has pushed me up against the shelf of towels and is kissing me again.

Groaning, he reaches between my legs and squeezes.

I know what he needs. It’s the same thing I need. That release only the other can give, the whip-crack burn that arrives with the speed of lightning and hits with the force of a bomb.

I tear at his belt. He yanks at his zipper. His hard cock springs out into my hands. We keep kissing frantically as he shoves my skirt up my thighs. He can’t wait long enough to remove my panties, so he simply pulls them aside.

With fumbling hands, I guide him to my entrance. I lift a knee and brace my foot against a shelf, gasping in pleasure when he pushes inside me.

Grabbing my ass with both hands, he thrusts deep, grunting. I cling to his shoulders as he fucks me, fast and hard, his fingers digging into my bottom and his face turned to my neck.

A stack of towels falls from a top shelf. Spray cans of industrial window cleaner clatter to the floor. A big sack of flour topples over, splitting a seam when it hits the tile and sending a white pouf into the air. It settles over our shoes like a dusting of snow.

He leans down and bites my hard nipple right through my dress.

I come hard but silently. My mouth is open but no sound comes out. The pleasure is too intense.

As I jerk and convulse around him, Killian slows the motion of his hips, the way he likes to, so he can feel my every throb and twitch. Panting, he puts his hand around my throat and his mouth to my ear. His voice is raw with emotion.

“I want you to lie to me. Just this one lie. Just this once.”

I moan, not understanding.

He raises his head and looks at me with burning eyes. “Tell me you’re mine.”

My heart clenches to a fist. Nose to nose, we stare at each other. He thrusts slowly in and out.

It’s a lie. A small, simple lie. There can’t be any harm since we both know it.

I draw a ragged breath. “I…I’m yours.”

His lids flutter. Thrusting harder, he moistens his lips. He wants more. And god help me, I want to give it to him.

“I belong to you. Only you.”

His moan is soft but his eyes are softer. Inside my chest, something delicate begins to tear apart.

“I’ll always be yours,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “No matter what. Body and soul. Heart and mind. All of me will belong to you forever.”

He kisses me suddenly, his mouth devouring. His thrusts turn fast and desperate. He makes a sound deep in his chest, a purely masculine sound that could either be pain or pleasure.

Biting my lips, he fucks me until he breaks away with a garbled groan.

I sink to my knees on the flour dusted floor, wrap my hands around his engorged cock, and open my mouth over the crown.

He fists his hands into my hair and comes, staring down at me.

I have to close my eyes as I swallow so I can’t see the look in his.

The look that tells me the lie he asked me to tell is going to turn out to be anything but small and simple.