Page 71 of Fearless

I stare at her while I try to think of what she needs. She said I’m good at that. She didn’t have to say it.

If this is what’s haunting her, then she needs me to take it away.

She needs me to be the bad guy.

Because the demons in your mind can’t bother you when you’re busy fighting the one in front of you.

CHAPTER TWENTY

MEISIE

Lie down for me, Meisie.

Why do I listen to him? Maybe I’ll ask Trish if I ever get out of here.

Right now, it’s easier to pretend I’m scared of him. No lost time spent in conversations with a psychiatrist inside my head.

He gets onto the bed beside me, the mattress shifting under his weight. But he doesn’t lie down. No. That would be too simple. Too normal.

Instead he sits up on his elbow and trails his fingers across my collarbone. Between my breasts, down my stomach.

I suck in a breath as he trails past my belly button, toward the place I really don’t want him to go. But his fingertips sink lower, abandoning my scar, heading for the bundle of nerves between my legs.

“Do you want to know why I rebuilt it?”

I don’t answer, instead just stare up into his now sea-green eyes. Maybe it’s just a trick of the red light in the room, but they’re glowing.

“Because nothing in this fucked up world that’s broken can’t be fixed. Not me, not you—” he cocks his head again “—not your fucking fort.”

Cillian ducks his head and catches my nipple in his mouth. He nips me so hard that I gasp and buck under him. His lips chase a tremor through my body as he kisses his way down the center of my stomach, over my belly button.

Lower.

When his lips touch my scar, a horrified moan breaks out of me. I twist to try and get him off me, but I guess he takes some sick delight out of torturing me, because then he grazes my scar with his teeth.

“Not even this.”

He looks up then as I stare down at him. We stare at each other for a long time. What’s going on behind those eyes?

I’m still trying to work that out when his face turns hard.

For a second, I’m awestruck by how cold and dead he looks.

He wedges his knees between my thighs, splitting my legs wide open. But his eyes are on me.

“Time to leave the past where it belongs, princess.” He slaps my pussy with the flat of his hand, a faint smile touching his mouth when a small gasp tears out of me. “The fucking past.”

He sinks two fingers deep inside me, working them in and out in a slow, steady rhythm.

“N-No!” I have to force the word out of a strangled throat. “Stop! Get off me!”

“And why would I do that?” he asks, frowning as if he’s genuinely interested in my reply. All the while completing ignoring my struggles.

“Peaches!”

Miraculously, he yanks his fingers out of me. My body sags. He releases my hands and sits back on his knees. There’s no way I can miss the hard-on tenting the front of his pants, but he seems inclined to ignore it.

I let out a sigh and bring the two halves of my shirt back together with trembling hands. And he lets me.

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