Page 86 of Irish Reign

Once, I thought the most terrible thing about this position was having my ass exposed. Now, I know there’s something worse.

I look over my shoulder at Braiden looking down at me. At my back. At my tattoo.

I expect to see disgust. Revulsion. Hatred for the weakness I let destroy us.

But none of that is on his face. Instead, I see compassion. Understanding. Love.

He slips one foot between mine, tapping my ankles wide. He closes the distance between us, and his cock is hard again, hot, demanding. He grips my hips with both hands, tight, tight, tighter, until I feel the bruises bloom.

I catch my breath against the tendril of hope that uncurls in my belly. He fits his cock to my straining pussy lips and drives in just the way I need—hard enough to make me gasp, to push me onto my toes.

I’m still wet from his merciless teasing with the vibrator. I’m soaked. I’m ready.

He hisses as he pounds into me, muttering something between his teeth, and it takes me too long to figure out what he’s saying: “Is liomsa tú. Is liomsa tú. Is liomsa tú.”

You are mine.

You are mine.

You are mine.

This is the man I need. This is the way I need to be fucked. This is all I desire in the world.

His fingers tear into my left hip, like he’s going to carve me apart at the joint. His right hand shifts. It lands on the small of my back, covering up the black mark. He owns mysegno. He takes it because it’s a part of me, it’s who I am, and who I’ll always be.

“Is liomsa tú!” he shouts, and then he’s coming hard, filling all the empty places inside me.

I come too then, but it’s not like any orgasm I’ve ever had before. It’s not in my pussy. It’s not in my clit. It’s in my entire body, in every nerve I possess. It’s in my brain, and it’s in my heart, and it’s in the blackened flesh of my tattoo. It’s everywhere, and it’s everything, and I give myself over to it, and to Braiden, and to everything we are together.

I lose track of time and space and the limits of my body. Somewhere, sometime, somehow Braiden pulls me up beside him, against the pillows at the top of the bed. He works the clasp on my collar and sets the perfect emerald aside.

He wipes me clean with a warm, wet cloth, and he holds me close when I start to shiver. He puts a cool glass against my lips and helps me to drink. He places a square of chocolate on my tongue, and he covers me with a blanket while I let it dissolve.

He talks to me then. He tells me I’m hispiscín. That I’m his good, good girl. He tells me that I’m strong and beautiful and brave and that he’s never known another woman like me. He tells me he can’t believe he almost lost me, and he’ll never let me go again. As I drift off to sleep, he’s saying he loves me, he loves me, he loves me.

43

SAMANTHA

Iwake sometime after dawn. A mourning dove is outside the window; her soft flustered cooing sounds like a lullaby luring me back to sleep. Braiden lies beside me, his breaths deep and even.

When I stretch, my thighs ache. My arms are sore. I can count the tiny muscles between my ribs.

Staring at the ceiling, I think about an old joke—there’s no such thing as bad sex or bad pizza. I don’t know about the pizza part, but sex with Braiden is always fantastic. Plain vanilla fucking—the way we did it in the basement of the Hare construction site—is like making an argument in district court, having a judge rule from the bench in my favor. Wearing my collar, even when I top—or try to—is like winning in the court of appeals.

But surrendering to Braiden completely? Accepting the truth, that he’s my Dom, and I’m his sub, that he’s the one incomplete control… The power he gives back to me, protecting both of us with my safeword… The trust I put in him… The absolute skill he has to draw out the strength in me…

All of that is like getting a unanimous decision from the Supreme Court.

Once I start thinking about being a lawyer, I can’t forget the stack of papers we took from Russo last night. I can see the edge of the pile, on top of the dresser. Braiden left the documents there, next to my clothes, before we headed to the shower.

I need to know what’s in those pages.

On the one hand, they don’t matter at all. Russo is dead. I killed him. Those papers could include signed confessions to tax fraud, bribery, extortion, and murder, and Russo won’t serve a single day in jail.

But on the other hand, I have to know what they say. I have to learn why Russo called me to his home in the middle of the night. I have to find out if I truly earned his trust after weeks of coddling him at the freeport.

Braiden stirs as I slip out of bed. His fingers trail over the warm sheets I’ve left behind, and his brow starts to furrow.

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