Page 24 of While You Sleep

A bedroom.

His bedroom.

I shivered, running my hands over my bare arms, hugging myself.

The room was clean and tidy, a large bed in the center, black lacquered bedside tables, soft light coming from the lamps on each one. There was a fireplace on the opposite wall, two chairs in front of it, with a matching black, glossy table between them. The door near the bed was open, the bags Conor brought up just inside what I assumed was a large closet, and I guessed the bathroom was beyond that.

“This is your room?”

“Yes.”

I was finding it hard to breathe again. “You want me to sleep in here, with you?” I don’t know what I expected. Separate rooms maybe? That he’d have his way with me, then leave my bed and go to his own, that he’d only come to me when he wanted to scratch that itch. Sharing a room, a bed? No, I definitely hadn’t expected that. I couldn’t do that, and not just for the obvious reasons. This man was a killer. How would he react when I lashed out at him in my sleep?

“Where else would you be?” he said, his accent thick.

His hand slipped away from my back, and a second later, the click of the door closing us in together had me jumping like he’d fired his gun.

Did he really think I could just move in here with him and we’d play husband and wife? “Why would you want me in here with you? This is insane. We don’t even know each other,” I said, staring out the window into darkness, finding it hard to meet his gaze, finding it hard to breathe.

“I know you better than you think,” he said.

* * *

Cillian

I hadn’t let down my guard, not once, not until this moment. Now Sophia was in my home, safe, with me.

She finally turned to me, and I barely stopped myself from dragging in a harsh breath.

My new wife looked like a wee fairy princess. My sleeping beauty.

Her long blond hair hung in loose waves almost to her waist. Her dress was modest but hugged her body. She had ample curves, but she still looked fragile. Breakable. I’d have to try really hard to be careful with her.

She was still young, eight years younger than me. Innocent. Pliable. My new bride was showing some backbone, but there were a lot of things she didn’t know—about this life, about men—and whether she liked it or not, whether she’d admit it or not, eventually she’d be looking to me for guidance. Then I’d mold her into the ideal wife, and the kind of mother I wanted for my future children. The kind of mother I’d never had.

I’d never wanted any of this, but looking at her now? I was filled with possessiveness. Something about her brought out the monster in me, but instead of craving blood and death, Sophia made me want things I’d never had before, and it roared mine.

She was the first thing I’d ever truly wanted for myself, that I’d allowed myself to have, since I was a boy. Wishing for things as a child, wanting things, had been pointless.

She blinked up at me now, her rosebud lips coated in pink. Her mouth full and pouty. I wanted to taste her again. The desire to kiss wasn’t something I’d experienced before meeting her. But now, god, I couldn’t get enough of those lips. I wanted to fist all that perfect blond hair while I watched that pretty mouth stretched around my cock, watch her struggle to take all of me. I wanted to see that pink lipstick smeared on my dick when I held her legs wide and thrust inside her.

I didn’t know if she was a virgin or not, not for sure, and I didn’t care. What she did before I found her was of no consequence, but what I did know for sure was she’d never been with a man like me.

I wanted to shatter the innocence and fear I saw in her blue eyes and turn it into raw hunger. I didn’t believe in love, I was incapable of the emotion, but the savage feeling growing inside me right then was all-consuming, and I wouldn’t be happy until she craved me, and only me, for the rest of her life.

I closed the space between us, and the fear I saw on her face heightened. I got it. Despite making her come so hard, she squirted all over my hand, we’d only met a couple of times before today, at least while she was awake. She didn’t know me, and thankfully, being sheltered as she’d been by her father, she might have heard of me, but nothing specific. How would she feel if she found out about the things I’d done for Seamus, that her husband was O’Rourke’s monster, his twisted bastard son and as fucked up as his sadistic father?

I hated her looking at me like that. Most people feared me; I didn’t want that from her. When I’d allowed myself over the last twelve months to imagine her here with me, there was never fear in her eyes when she looked at me, not in this room.

“I won’t hurt you, Sophia,” I said, forcing myself to gentle my voice as I tucked her hair behind her ear. She shivered as my hand traveled over the lace of her wedding gown, over her shoulder, then around to her back. I slid my hand under the thick curtain of her hair, finding the zipper and slowly tugging it down.

She froze. “I—I thought we might…take it slow. Get to know each other before we…” She glanced at the bed and back at me. “Before we, uh…”

“Fuck?”

She swallowed. “Y-yes.”

I took her delicate jaw in my hand. “You are my wife, Sophia. From this night on, you’re in my bed. I don’t want to scare you, pet, but I’m no gentleman. I’ll treat you with respect, but I’m not a good man or a patient one. You are mine now, and I won’t wait to claim every inch of you.”

---