Page 49 of Ciaran

Millie tightens her arms across my back, urging me to press my body closer. Her muscles clench around me, drawing out my climax as she comes for the second time. She mutters something into my neck, but I can’t make out the words, only that the sentiment mirrors my own.

Holy fucking shit. There was sex, then there was intense, eye-opening, fuck-me-backwards sex. I’m boneless, sated, and so fucking happy that I sink on top of her, sweat trickling down the back of my neck. She strokes my hair, and we lie here for a few seconds, catching our breath.

Conscious of how heavy I am, I roll to the side and flop onto my back so I can remove the condom and drop it on the floor. Feeling for her hand in the dim lighting and finding her, I knit our fingers together and stare at the ceiling, trying to process the tornado of emotions swirling through me.

Millie’s breath hitches. Is that… is that… Christ, is she crying?

I turn my head in time to catch her dash a hand across her face.

“Oh, Jesus. Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

She shakes her head. “Give me a minute.” Her voice is thick and husky. She draws in a shuddering breath, then blows it out slowly through pursed lips. She does the same thing twice, three times.

My panic builds the longer the silence stretches between us. After too fucking long of a wait, she rolls onto her side and strokes my face.

“Thank you.”

Okay. Did not expect that.

“For what, Mia?” The nickname seems natural after what we’ve shared.

She offers me a wistful smile. “My mom used to call me Mia when I was a little girl.”

I capture a lock of her hair and twirl it around my finger. “Would you rather I didn’t, then?”

“Oh no, I like it. A special name just for us.”

“Please tell me what’s wrong.” Before I really start to lose my shit.

Her ragged breath doesn’t quell my worries. “I don’t know where to begin.”

“Right. Okay.” I pull my lips to the side, trying to find the right words. “Let’s start with, did I do anything wrong? Because I gotta tell you, I haven’t had a woman cry on me after sex before.” And that’s a first I can happily do without.

A soft smile settles my anxiety a little. “Sorry about that. And, no, you didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, what we just did might be the only thing that’s felt right in a very long time.”

My heart thumps against my ribcage because, yeah, that excites me. A lot.

“Good to know, but that doesn’t tell me why you’re crying.”

She moves forward and presses a kiss to my lips. My dick jerks to life, but it’ll have to wait. The last thing I need is more tears after round two, ‘cause it’s a cast iron guarantee that we’re having round two. And three. And four.

But before I get another taste, I have to know what’s spinning inside her mind.

“Just tell me. Nothing you could ever say will bother me or change the way I feel about you. But I need to know why there were tears after I came inside you. Because I’m telling you, that was the best sex of my life, and I kinda hoped you felt the same way.”

“I do,” she says. “God, I do. It was… I don’t have the words to describe how you made me feel.” She lets out a quiet sigh. “I need to tell you how it was with Tanner, then you might understand the reason why what we shared made me cry.”

O-Kay. So, the “Nothing you can say will bother me” was a gigantic fucking lie. The last thing I want to hear about is all the years Tanner got to fuck her while I silently mourned the lost chances and tried to forget her by dating other women. I’d rather rip my fingernails out with pliers and pour acid onto the raw skin underneath than listen to that.

“I’m not exactly pumped to listen to you talk about your sex life with Tanner.”

She reaches for my hand and links our fingers. “It’s not a fairy tale, Ciaran. It’s a nightmare. The reason I cried was because that was the first time I’ve ever come with a man inside me. And let me tell you, it’s…bliss.”

My eyes widen as shock rolls through me. “You never… with Tanner?”

“No.” She laughs bitterly. “Tanner was all about Tanner. Nothing else mattered except his own gratification.” She stares into space, her facial features downturned, so sad, so lost.

I kiss her because this isn’t my Mia. When I draw back, the darkness has faded, a wavering smile fixed in its place.

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