Page 22 of Chasing the Fall

Lining myself up once again, I slam into her in one fast, brutal thrust that sends her body sliding up toward the head of the bed. She reaches a hand out and slaps it against the headboard, bracing herself as I pump into her over and over, my eyes near to crossing from the tightness that sheathes me.

I’m being too rough, but her face is a mask of pleasure. Desire. Need. My own lust recognizes it, thrills in it, and thunders through me.

Reaching down, I slip my hand between her legs and circle her clit, pounding steadily into her. I know if I keep my pace steady and stimulate her, she should come…and I really, really want to feel her tighten around me.

She moans, her eyes falling closed and her lips parting. One hand leaves the headboard to clutch my arm, her nails digging deep. The rise and fall of her hips beneath me loses its rhythm, her legs starting to shake against my shoulders, and a thin sheen of sweat blooms over her heated skin.

She’s close.

“Come on my cock, baby,” I tell her, my voice strained with my own effort to hold back. As if I’ve given her permission, she stiffens against me and her inner muscles draw tight and tighter and then—

It happens. She explodes around me, a low keening sound leaving her lips, and I follow, pumping my own release into her.

I collapse, rolling to my back and pulling her against my side so I don’t crush her. We don’t talk, both of our hearts needing oxygen more than we need words in this moment. I turn my head and drop a light kiss on her temple.

Tallulah Gentry doesn’t know it yet, but she just signed her soul to the devil, and his name is Bran Kelly.

Slowly and with excruciatingcare, I ease myself from the bed. Tally slumbers on, shifting to turn onto her side when I move but otherwise not rousing. Moonlight falls across her lax features, the play of shadows making her dark lashes stand out in stark relief against the pallor of her skin.

I stand for a long moment beside the bed and stare down at her as I pull on a pair of sweatpants.

How the hell did we get here? She was a fucking virgin. I would never have guessed, never have thought…

My stomach clenches at the memory of her tight cunt squeezing my shaft like a velvet fist, the coiled tension in her limbs as I held on to her, the little choked gasps she made when I thrust into her wet heat.

Shaking my head, I leave the room, pulling the door closed behind me. I'm a dead man; that's all there is to it. The problem is that I can't bring myself to be sorry for it.

I’ve never had another woman who fit me so perfectly in every way, and I can’t give her up. Not now, when I’ve only just figured it out. It’s not a matter of size…we’re about as opposite as we can be where that’s concerned. It’s something different. Something more.

In the kitchen, I pour myself a drink and stand at the counter sipping it. The whiskey burns, searing through the guilt and shame that plagues me no matter how certain I am that Tally’s mine.

I’m keeping her.

It’s just that I’ve never disobeyed a direct order, not once since coming to work for the Irish as a teenager. Since taking this job it's been one act of disobedience right after another, though, and Kael isn’t apt to take it well. Mentally I tick through each offense.

I didn't take her to Philly.

Definitely didn’t keep my hands to myself.

My mind drifts to the shooter at the cabin.

Didn’t even really protect her.

My jaw tightens, and I drain the last of my drink. That will be the last time I fail her. Thurston's misstep had become my boon.It never should have happened the way it had, but if I’m honest with myself…I don't hate how things turned out.

Tally is mine.The words sing a refrain in my head and heart.

Now I just have to make sure she understands that, and navigate the situation in such a way as to escape with my dick intact…

Headlights sweep the front picture window, lighting the living area as a vehicle pulls to a stop in the driveway.

I set the glass on the counter with a soft clink. No one with anything good in mind comes to a man’s house in the dead of night.

My gun is in the bedroom, but I have another. I pull the middle drawer in the island out and reach for the weapon I have taped to its bottom, then cross the floor to peer out from between the slats of the blinds.

A single man climbs from the car, closes the door carefully, and opens the back door to pull something from the back seat. He carries it to the porch, and…waits. As I watch from the window, he simply stands in front of the door, for all the world like he knocked ten seconds earlier and is just waiting on someone to open it for him.

The knot of tension between my shoulder blades eases slightly. This is East Coast Irish modus operandi; he has to be one of Kael's men.

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