But he wanted Juliette. He wanted her to stay. He wanted to keep her tied to the bed until his body no longer burned for her. He wanted to feel her bow and writhe and shatter beneath him until every ounce of his need for her was sated. God, he wanted to tear into her and consume her until there was nothing left. He wanted to own and mark every inch of that flawless body so that there was never a doubt of who she belonged to. He wanted to do things to her, dark and dirty things that would horrify her if she ever knew. What the hell was it about her that made the beast in him so crazy?
“Killian?” As though awakened by the mere power of his thoughts, Juliette shifted. The sheets rustled beneath her as she lifted her head and searched for him. Pools of murky brown fixed on his face. Hers softened into a sweet, shy smile that made it all the harder to let go. “Hi.”
The knot in his stomach tightened. His jaw creaked. The frustration built into an unbearable thrum. It must have shown on his face because the smile on hers slipped. She drew away, pulling the sheets up with her.
“What?” she whispered. “What’s wrong?”
Most of the women he took to bed knew the rules. They knew when it was time to get their things and depart without being asked. Juliette wasn’t one of them and yet that wasn’t the actual problem. The problem was that he didn’t want her to leave. Not yet. But he knew it wouldn’t be one more time or another six more times. Something about her was making it impossible to get enough and that alone sent the red flags waving.
“It’s time to go,” he blurted with a bit more heat then was necessary. “Your things will be by the door. Frank will call you a cab.”
It was impossible to pinpoint an exact emotion; so many flickered across her face in rapid succession. But the one that kicked him in the throat was the hurt and confusion that crinkled the skin between dainty eyebrows. A small hand lifted and pushed coils of tangled hair out of her eyes as she tried to process what he was saying. It didn’t take very long.
“Oh,” she whispered finally. “Right. Sorry.”
He made no move to stop her when she scrambled off the bed with the sheets and searched for her clothes. She dressed quickly before turning to the bed. She wet her swollen lips and adjusted the hem of her skirt to cover those beautiful legs. Her eyes never touched on him, he noted. They clung to the space just above his head when she spoke.
“Thank you for everything,” she murmured quietly. “I’ll see myself out.”
One more time, the beast pleaded. Just one more.
But she was already gone. The doorway stood empty and dark. In the silence that followed her departure, he could just hear the soft clip of footsteps as she hurried away. He knew she had reached the corridor leading to the stairs when the sound stopped and then there was nothing but his own breathing.
Unfurling himself from the bed, Killian got to his feet. He yanked on his trousers and dress shirt, not bothering to tuck in or button either. Aside from his security, no one else lived in the three story estate. He could walk around naked for all the difference it would have made.
The place held the chill of predawn. Killian wandered the hallways as he too often did when his insomnia was at its worst. That night was no exception and it had nothing to do with Juliette and everything to do with the nightmares. There were too many and they hounded him like dogs. There were pills, he knew. Medication to dull the senses for a few hours and knock him out cold. He had tried a few, but it was a loss of control he couldn’t allow himself. Not in his line of work when his senses were all he had keeping him alive. So he wandered an estate that had become his prison too early in life. He followed the ghosts of his past through the empty corridors and listened to his lost childhood echo through every room.
Despite all the money and power, it was a solitary existence. It was a self-proclaimed isolation and it was how he liked it. People had a tendency of dying around him and he already had too many deaths on his hands. He knew he would wind up killing Juliette if he didn’t keep her away.
At the top of the backstairs, Killian paused. His hand tightened around the cold iron banister until the knuckles blazed a harsh white in the semi darkness. He stared at the pool of black at the bottom with a numb sort of trepidation, a fear that reared its head every time the idea of being forever alone gripped him. It wasn’t ideal. Who in their right mind wanted to die alone? But how could he allow an innocent into his world knowing he would ultimately destroy them? How could he let himself love when he knew it would eventually get torn away? He knew he could easily fall for someone like Juliette. They might not have shared more than a few steamy hours together, but he could see a tomorrow with her. He could also see her broken and bloody in his arms and that nearly made him double over as pain wrenched through him.
Why are you even thinking about this? The voice in his head demanded viciously. One night with the girl and you’re hearing church bells?
Not exactly church bells, he thought absently as he started downward, his fingers moving unsteadily over the buttons of his clothes, fastening them and tucking his top into the waistband of his trousers. But it did make him want things he had no business wanting.
At the bottom, he turned right and headed in the direction of the conservatory. The chamber of glass and steel had been his mother’s favorite place, aside from the gardens. Every happy memory circled around that room, memories of kneeling next to her while she filled the place with every bloom imaginable, memories of her stories. She was forever telling him stories of the impossible. His father would tease her about filling Killian’s head with nonsense, but she would swat him away and continue with her tales.
“The world is already an ugly place,” Killian had overheard her telling his father once. “Our son deserves to know happiness.”
His father had shook his head, but he’d been smiling. He would have given her anything. Even as a child, Killian had known his parents were the center of each other’s universes. It was in every glance, in every smile and caress. They looked at each other the way his mother used to tell him about in her stories, like there was no oxygen in the world until the other was in the same room. And he had wanted that for himself. He had wanted to love like that.
“One day, you will find your fairytale, a mhuirnín,” his mother would tell him when his father would go away on business and he would find her curled up in the window seat of the front room, watching the driveway with a look of absolute heartbreak on her face. She would pull him into her lap and cuddle him close. “When you do, don’t let anything in this world touch her.”
At the time, he had thought she meant not to let another man take away what belonged to him. It wasn’t until much later that he realized she meant his world was poisoned and everything brought into it would die. He had just been too young to understand it sooner.
He made it as far as the sunroom when his progress was interrupted by the hulking silhouette moving towards him from the opposite direction. It was impossible not to recognize it immediately.
“Frank?” Killian waited for the giant to draw closer. “Everything all right?”
Frank gave the faintest inclination of his head. “Yes sir. Just walking the girl to the gates.”
Killian frowned. “Did a cab pick her up already?”
It was well after midnight and most cab companies rarely ventured that far north and if they did, it usually took at least thirty minutes. It hadn’t been that long since Juliette had left his bed.
Frank shook his head. “I offered to call her one. She insisted on taking the bus.”
“The bus?” Killian checked his watch, not that he needed to. “It’s three in the morning. If the bus even runs this far out of the city, I don’t think it actually runs this late.”