Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 123873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 619(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 413(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 619(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 413(@300wpm)
“It frightened me,” Cillian admitted. “I’m not good at doing things that frighten me, but…I wanted to be brave. You were worth it.”
“I don’t know if I am.” Another stolen taste, whetting his appetite, barely flirting skin to skin and yet electrifying his lips as he breathed in the scent, the taste of Cillian. “But I want to be.”
“…Brendan.”
“I’m sorry.” Closing his eyes, Brendan rested his brow to Cillian’s chest, curling his hands against his waist. “That’s the one thing I didn’t say in front of the entire damned world. I’m sorry I let fear chase me away. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I shut you out because I was so fucking afraid of how your light could burn me.”
Those stroking fingers wove deep into his hair, soothing, soft. “But you’re here now…aren’t you?”
That plaintive, uncertain note in Cillian’s voice nearly broke Brendan’s heart.
“I am. And I missed you so damned much.” He put every ounce of sincerity he could find into the words—struggling to speak from his own heart, instead of reciting some perfect, practiced line befitting an actor. “I want to be with you, Cillian. If you’ll have me. No pretend. No short-term, no open-end, no ‘just for kink.’ Just…us. Together.” He raised his head, finally looking at the gorgeous man sprawled out underneath him with that lustrous dark brown hair tumbled against the sheets, those pale brown eyes dilated in the dark. “I love you.”
A slow, shy smile spread across Cillian’s lips. “…love you too, you giant arsehole.” Cillian’s fingertips traced down onto Brendan’s cheek, leaving warmth wherever he touched. “You’re all I’ve ever wanted.”
“All? I don’t know, that award you just won seems pretty high on the list…”
“…I’d never have won it if not for you. You challenged me to try harder. To do better.”
“Because I knew you could.” That light touch pulled on all Brendan’s strings, tugging at heart and body until he couldn’t stand it anymore—the yearning, the ache. He turned his head, tracing his lips to Cillian’s fingertips. “…Cillian.”
“Brendan…” Cillian nearly whimpered his name, the sound sweet and agonizingly enticing. “God, kiss me?”
The yearning, the ache… Brendan groaned, sliding his fingers up Cillian’s waist, his gaze dropping to that sinful mouth. All that red bleeding everywhere, as if its lushness couldn’t contain itself and spilled over, begging Brendan to lick that color away, taste it, claim it for his own.
“If I start…I won’t be able to stop.”
“Then don’t stop.” Cillian captured his face in warm palms, looking up at him with molten eyes. “Be with me the way you wanted to the first time. No play, no kink…just us.”
“Just us,” Brendan breathed, and stretched himself atop Cillian, lowering himself down to kiss him.
…only for a vibrating ringtone from inside Cillian’s tuxedo to quiver between their chests, and Brendan slumped, groaning.
“Maybe not just us.”
Cillian thudded his head back against the sheets with a helpless laugh. “I’ll shut it off.” Fishing his phone out, he glanced at the screen, then grimaced, swiped it, and tapped the volume buttons until the corresponding beeps went completely silent. “There,” he said, and tossed the phone over his head, sending it disappearing into the sheets.
“I’m guessing from the face,” Brendan said dryly, “that was your mother. I’d expect she’s not happy.”
“She’ll learn to live with it. It’s my life.” Cillian fingered the buttons at the throat of Brendan’s dress shirt, lashes lowering shyly. “…our life, I hope…”
“…our life. Cillian, I…I’ve been trying to reach you for months.” He stole that hand away, curled it in his, lifted it to his lips to kiss over Cillian’s knuckles again and again. “I called and texted so many times—emails, everything…”
Cillian’s eyes widened. “You did…? For me?”
“I wanted to apologize,” Brendan said. “To make right. If you hadn’t shown up tonight, I was coming out to that goddamned frozen island even if it meant taking a canoe and challenging your mother to a duel for the right to see you.”
“You wanted to come to me that much?”
“More than I can describe. For all I knew you’d disappeared off the face of the earth, and I’d never be able to find you again.”
“…sorry,” Cillian said with a sheepish smile. “We had pretty bad winter storms this year. The wind knocked out power, internet, cell service, everything for months. I was pretty much stuck out there while my mother had a silent, months-long temper tantrum because she knew I was leaving again, as soon as I could. Takes a while to get repairs out there when the whole coastline is iced over. And by the time we got service back my plan in the U.S. had lapsed, and I, uh…”
“…out with it.”
“I…um…” Cillian colored deeply. “I was having a bit of a moody fit out on a parapet, and dropped my phone into the courtyard. Smashed all over the stones. Pieces everywhere. I couldn’t retrieve your contact info, or anyone in L.A., or…” He squeezed Brendan’s fingers tight. “Or I’d have called you long before now.”