Page 80 of Iron Cross

Just one more taste, one more moment, one more heartbeat. And one turns into another, into more than you have.

How I had loved that passion and fire, and I was burning, dying in agony. Yet he still moved his hips, giving my body pleasure while my soul was in pain.

He broke the kiss and cupped my face in his hands.

“You can’t leave me.” His voice was husky, thick. I opened my eyes and they blurred with tears but… was he crying too? “You can’t leave me, Kira. Don’t ever… I can’t let you go.” He ravaged my mouth again, his shaft inside me getting harder and harder. Against my lips, he said, “I’m not a man without you. Just a shell.”

“You’re lying,” I whispered, even as I knew that he never lied.

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.” I hit him in the ribs with my fist. “Don’t lie to me anymore.”

“You first,” he accused. “Tell me why you’re crying.”

“Because it hurts.” The words spilled out like the hot water crawling out of a boiling pot. “It hurts so much to be nothing to you.”

It wasn’t pain fromnow.It was an imagined hurt, when I had watched him on the gossip columns with women at his side. When I had imagined him, in an attempt tohate him,placing his cock inside Malinda, kissing her as he kissed me. Was it stupid? Yes. But I felt it all the same.

“You were never nothing.” His fingers tightened around my face. “You were my fucking air, and youleftwithout a word withourbaby.” His lips curled back in a pained grimace. “I should have been there with you. I would have left all of this for you.”

The connection was messing with my heart, his hard cock pacing languidly in and out of me as the rest of me was in turmoil.

I held on to my truth. To my reality. Because he could so easily change my mind with his trickery.

“You lied to me. Again and again.” I shook my head. “You said you were nothing like your father, and when I knew what he really was I… what he did to his wife…”

“I would never have done that to you. No one gets to touch you but me. No one. Ever.” He swore, with so much conviction I wanted to believe him. “I lied. That’s true. I’m not a fucking businessman or an artist. I’m a killer. You know that now.” He stole my lips and stole my air again. “And now I’m telling you the truth when I say thatyouaremine. My wife.”

Just when my legs weakened, their hold around his waist drooping as I shook from exhaustion, he pushed me into the wall, shoving clothes, blazers and dresses off their hangers, letting them pile below us in a heap.

His cock was demanding, thick and heated inside me, and I adored every bit of it. I needed him. I wanted him. I loved him, and hated him all at once. I wanted nothing to do with him, even as my arms clung onto his shoulders, pulling his chest against mine, relishing in his warmth.

His movements became jerky and frantic, hard and desperate. His body heated even more, his cock thickening inside me, and I knew it was time. My body responded with eagerness that shamed me as I arched involuntarily, parting my thighs further, welcoming his pleasure as if it was my own.

Even with his cock still buried inside, our juices spilled out, coating my inner thighs.

It was so dirty. So visceral. Everything that stood for Eoghan fucking Green.

“I have been faithful to you,” he continued. His voice crooked, his breath warm against my ear. “Because you were always my wife. My woman.” He placed a kiss on my cheek. “How could I take anyone else when you existed?”

He kissed me, his tongue delving inside me. Still, I ached for more. I felt greedy and hungry for more. My nails clawed at his back, pulling him towards me.

“Our handfast vows are taken only once.” His forehead came down to land on my neck. “And there is no death do us part. It is taken until the end of both our lives.”

Again with the stupid fucking handfasting. These people were a fucking cult. I froze, remembering my words with Malinda, and what she had said. How she told me I was nothing. Maybe not outright, but she did say it in not so many words.

“You…” I didn’t know how to talk about this. I didn’t know what to say, or even what I wanted. “You never took those vows with me. Which means that…”

“No, I didn’t.” He still didn’t move from inside me. I wasn’t sure he ever would. “You’re not one of us. You weren’t born into this life. I thought it would frighten you. But I made those vows on our wedding day, if not in words, in my soul.” He lifted his head, and those black eyes stared down at me with great sorrow. “I didn’t want to frighten you with a blood oath, sweet Muse.”

Another tear. Another perfectly reasonable explanation. But I wasn’t sure I believed it.

“I thought that if you wanted something, you always got it.” I swallowed hard, feeling the dryness in my throat. “That if you had wanted that, then we would be.”

“What I wanted wasyou.” His hands came to my face, cupping them in a grip that kept me from looking away from him. “You!More than a ceremony, more than a piece of paper. I’d take you in any way I could.”

He kissed me again. The same insatiable kiss. The selfish kiss of a man who needed to consume. When he broke off, he waspanting, his breath heavy, his chest heaving against mine. I was the same. Breathless and greedy.

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