Page 118 of Vicious Hearts

Her eyes narrow. “I heard what I heard, Cillian.”

“I know you heard what your mind is telling you—”

“Stop,” she hisses quietly. “Don’t do that.”

I pause, taking a drink.

“This wasn’t ‘my emotional state playing with my mind’, okay? This wasn’t someone imitating him, and I’mnotfucking crazy.”

“I know you’re not.”

“It washim, okay?! I fuckingheard it!”

“Your father isdead, Una,” I growl. “I saw his corpse with my own eyes. Fuck, I walked over it, twice. Ares put a hole through hisheart.”

Her jaw clenches as I shake my head.

“Believe me, I of all people know death, and that man isdead.”

“He’snot.”

“Una—”

She stands, whirling and suddenly throwing the glass in her hand as hard as she can at the wall, shattering it.

“Then who the fuck was I talking to?!”

Tears roll down her cheeks as she starts to shake, hugging herself and looking left and right like she’s ready to explode.

“Who!? Because I’m not fucking crazy, okay?! I’mnotfucking—”

She collapses when I grab her in my arms and yank her against my chest. Una sobs into me, shaking and sucking in air as her small hands grip my shirt fiercely.

“What do you need,” I growl into her hair.

“I need to feel something other than the sensation of running withouteverfucking stopping foronce in my life,” she chokes. She lifts her head, her eyes big and so full of pain and need as they look into mine. “I need to feel something that isn’t sadness.Please.”

My hand lifts, cupping her face possessively. Something dark and voracious flickers, sparks, and catches between us like wildfire.

Like a force of fucking nature.

A compulsion.

The crackle of a storm cloud right before it thunders.

“Please,” she chokes. “Please, let me feel—”

She whimpers, moaning as my mouth captures hers. As my lips bruise hers so hard as to make her feel it always.

“Please,” she whispers into my mouth as I scoop her into my arms and storm down the hall to my bedroom. “Make it hurt.”

26

UNA

I gasp,choking on my breath as Cillian slams me against the bedroom wall. For a moment, as he kisses me, I’m worried that what he knows now about that first night at the club will change how he looks at me.

How he touches me.

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