Page 121 of Brutal Vows
He rolls me to my belly and fucks me straight through hisown orgasm, pumping hard and groaning as I bury my face in the pillow and scream.
He says something in Gaelic. It’s broken and breathless, like a plea.
When the motion of his hips has slowed, he lowers himself on top of me and pushes my hair off my face so he can kiss my jaw and cheek.
We lie like that for a long time, both of us speechless and stunned, watching the room grow brighter with the rising sun, until finally, he exhales a heavy breath.
I whisper, “You okay?”
“Aye.”
“Why are you lying?”
He lifts my hand and stares at the ring on my finger. Then he turns his face to my neck and breathes me in.
“Just thinking of something someone once told me.”
“What?”
“That a man who’d marry a woman for any reason other than love has the soul of a monster.”
“Ah. Yes, well, that person was rather annoyed with you at the time.”
He pushes the ring up with his thumb, exposing the slanting black line of cursive below. His voice lower, he says, “Aye. But you were right.”
Something in his tone sounds an alarm bell in my mind. I don’t know the cause, but suddenly, without warning, he’s upset. I say gently, “I don’t think you’re a monster.”
There’s a brief pause. His voice comes even lower this time. “But you don’t know me, do you, lass? You don’t really know me at all.”
He doesn’t speak to me for two hours after that.
We rise from bed. He orders from room service and makesphone calls. He takes me into the shower and washes my whole body, including my hair. He washes himself, rinses us both, then lifts me up against the shower wall and fucks me.
His silence is especially unnerving then. Even when he climaxes, it’s with nothing more than a grunt.
After the shower and breakfast, he makes more phone calls from the other room and continues to ignore me. I sit on the edge of the bed in the hotel robe, disoriented by this abrupt change.
Maybe I was right about the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde thing.
Maybe he’s only wonderful at night.
In bed.
While he’s fucking me.
A nocturnal sex vampire who rises at sundown and turns into an irritating, baffling Irishman during the day.
Since he’s still pacing around in the other room growling in Gaelic into his cell, I pick up the hotel phone and dial the Four Seasons. The operator puts me through to Gianni’s room.
“Hi, Mamma. It’s Reyna.”
“Reyna who?”
I sigh heavily. “Glad to see you haven’t lost your special spark since your only daughter married a stranger and your grandchild ran off to Mexico with the pool boy.”
“I’m on my third mimosa. Things are a little fuzzy over here.”
“What happened after we left? Have you spoken to Lili? What’s Gianni doing?”
