Page 79 of The Final Contract
The audacity.
I turn slow, hand reaching next to me without even needing to look. My fingers land on cold steel—Killian’s knife—and I draw it in one fluid motion. He doesn’t flinch.
“Let me tell you something, Stacy.” My voice drops, sharp enough to cut without the blade. “You seem shit at respecting boundaries, and Stasia has to behave and playDesperate Housewives, but I don’t. So I’ll make this crystal clear for you. Leave Daniel alone. Stop being a pathetic little pick-me. Show my sister—his wife—the respect she deserves. Otherwise…” I tilt the knife, smiling razor-sharp. “I’ll cut off your tits and shove them down your throat.”
Her face drains. “How dare?—”
“Try me.” I stab the knife into the cutting block, hard enough it stands upright. Then I turn back to the cake, calm as ever, adjusting a candle.
Stacy makes a strangled sound and storms out with a huff.
Behind me, Killian growls low. His heat presses into my back, his hands gripping my hips. His mouth dips to my neck.
“I’m so fucking hard right now.”
I smile, and his hand slips beneath the hem of my dress, finding my panties. He growls again when his finger slides between my legs and comes away wet.
At the same time, he pulls his knife free from the block.
The cold tip grazes my sternum through the fabric of my dress, making me shiver. Slowly, tenderly, he drags it upward, the flat edge gliding over one nipple, then the other, until they’re pebbled hard beneath the thin material. A taunt. A promise. A seduction from the blade he knows better than his own hand.
I gasp, arching against him.
“At the birthday party?” I whisper, breathless.
“Are you ever satisfied, little killer?” he rasps, pressing the blunt edge of the knife in just enough to remind me of its presence. “Have I not been fucking you well enough?”
I look back at him, catching his mouth in a hungry kiss. His tongue tangles with mine as the blade teases higher, then lowers, while his free hand strokes me beneath my dress.
“I’m satisfied every time you touch me,” I whisper against his lips. “I just can’t get enough.”
He holds my stare, and I hold his, heat crackling between us?—
The door bursts open. Kids flood in, shrieking with laughter. In an instant, the knife is gone, slipped back into its sheath; his hand pulls from between my legs. Killian steps aside like nothing happened at all.
I take a shaky breath, trying to look composed, the kitchen suddenly too small.
He leans down, voice low in my ear. “I can’t get enough either, little killer.”
He presses a kiss to my cheek, a promise wrapped in heat.
“And I don’t want to.”
Being with Seraphina feels easy. Natural. Like I’ve been meant to sit beside her all along. Watching her with her family, hearing her laugh spill into the night, I catch myself thinking about things I don’t usually let myself think about.
Like how my mother would love her.
She’d take one look at Sera—all fire and sharp edges, with a heart she tries to hide—and she’d adore her. The thought’s dangerous, but it settles in me anyway, curling somewhere deep where I keep things I don’t want to lose.
The night’s winding down, most of the guests long gone, and it’s just us now—Sera, her sister, Daniel, and me. Plus the two plainclothes I arranged. She hadn’t even realized who they were until I pointed them out earlier, and the shock on her face had been worth it. Good men. They blended in exactly like they should.
We’re gathered around a fire pit in the backyard, the soft crackle of flame carrying over the quiet. The plainclothes at the front of the house. Daniel’s got a beer in hand, leaning back easy, and the girls are off on one of their stories, laughing so hard they can’t finish a sentence.
“This one patient,” Stasia starts, wheezing through her laughter. “Didn’t realize we were twins. Total dickhead. So?—”
Sera chimes in, grinning wide. “So we didn’t tell him. Everyone on the floor played along.”
I lean forward, elbows on my knees, smirking at the way their laughter feeds off each other.
