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)
Touching something wild.
Something incandescent.
Something that built white-hot until his vision flashed blank, as he felt the sudden hard jerk of Brendan’s body; the sudden taut strength ripping through his lover in hard shudders; the sudden swelling inside Cillian, pushing him just a little further, spreading him wider, opening him up to take the slick flood that abruptly poured into him in washes of heat that licked over his inner walls and spilled into him in dirty little rushes of forbidden pleasure.
He couldn’t take it anymore.
Brendan’s kiss, Brendan’s touch, the way Brendan had given his body love through pain, through control, through a complete and utter dominance that was only surrendering to everything Cillian craved.
He barely managed a gasp of Brendan’s name, his breath ripped from him, his body seizing.
Before the world went white, and his pleasure grasped him in tearing claws that dragged him from sense, from thought…
And plunged him into an ocean of colliding sensations—clenching down on the thick shape of Brendan’s cock, his own cock pulsing, dripping, spilling, pouring all over him in a dirty mess, slick hot threads stretched between them, glistening and beading on their skin, such lips, such lips, that tongue—that crashed down on him, dragged him under, crushed the air from his body and drowned him deep.
God, was he in deep.
And he didn’t know if he’d ever find pleasure like this again, once he lost these wild and dizzying, soul-searing moments with Brendan Lau.
l
LIQUEFIED, SATED, CILLIAN TUCKED AGAINST Brendan, breathing in the scent of their mingled sweat and heat, giving himself just a moment to come down when he could hardly remember who he was or what color the sky should be after that had so thoroughly just…
Fuck.
He’d done this before with strangers, hookups, but it had never cut him so deep, left him so raw, flayed him so perfectly until he was a trembling mess inside, his emotions more torn and bruised than his body. Being with Brendan like that…
It felt like every touch had sliced him open, cut deep, created this dark and hungry cavity inside him where some intimate thing had been implanted, a strange new organ throbbing slow to the beat of his exposed, sensitive body; his exposed, sensitive heart.
“So that’s what it feels like,” he mumbled into Brendan’s overheated shoulder without really thinking.
“Mm…?” Brendan let out a drowsy sigh, one broad hand lightly cupping the back of Cillian’s head. “What what feels like…?”
Cillian’s heart tried to rise up his throat, then slammed back down to punch him in the stomach.
He’d…fuck.
He’d said that out loud.
And if he tried to dissemble away from it, Brendan would be able to tell.
He opened his eyes, staring across the sharp rises and falls of Brendan’s chest filling his vision, gleaming soft in the firelight.
What if he just…said it?
What if he told Brendan that somehow, somewhere, in the midst of wild sex and late nights reading lines over and over again, in the midst of quiet moments and those little confessed things about what made them move, laugh, love, bleed as men, as people…
He’d come to love him?
Terror was a thick thing inside Cillian, but so was hope, the two warring for space until they filled him up in a tangled mess. He forced his tongue to move, stiff but managing trembling, soft syllables.
“…what…it feels like to do that with someone you love.”
Please.
He squeezed his eyes shut, tensing, begging.
Please don’t let this break him.
But Brendan’s silence nearly tore him to shreds, a stillness settling between them that seemed to bring the cold from outside within, leaching away the heat from the room until the bubble of relaxed warmth shattered.
“Cillian…” Measured. Even. Neutral. “What are you saying?”
Oh, God.
This wasn’t going well, was it?
But he’d started this, and he was going to finish it. Even if it blew up in his face…
He could at least say he’d been honest about his feelings.
His arms practically shook too much to hold him, as he braced his hands against the mattress and pushed himself up. Brendan’s arm had still been draped around him, heavy and warm, but now it fell away to let him up as Cillian settled to look down at him, searching that handsome face for…anything.
Any emotion at all, rather than patient, waiting stillness. No condemnation there, no anger, no rejection, but…
Nothing else, either.
Cillian’s throat hurt. His chest hurt. His heart hurt, but he compacted his courage into a ball inside himself and held fast to it.
“I…I love you,” he whispered. “I know this isn’t forever, Brendan. I know. I know you’re just doing me a favor. I know it’s not real. But I fell for you anyway, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
He waited for Brendan’s expression to change. Something, any response at all, even if it was Brendan laughing and thinking he was joking, brushing him off, letting him save face by laughing along and pretending sure, fine, he hadn’t been serious.