Page 153 of Go Luck Yourself
I throw my arms around his waist and arch into it and this is a form of wooing too, this is a conversation in the way his nails stroke across my scalp and hold me to him—I’m sorry, I’m sorry—and the way my hands cut up under the hem of his coat and clamp to his spine—I came back, I came back.
His fingers clutch into a fist in my hair and he pulls me away an inch. “Kris,” it comes out breathy and he’s smiling so big, his eyes darting all over my face. I’m smiling too because his hands are on me again, and it’s that simple. That necessary.
Heat crashes into me—from him.
And from the realization that we’re in a room full of people.
And most are looking at us now.
There are photographers. Journalists. Cameras flash and, ah, well, this is probably no less headline grabbing than tinsel-bombing him. I almost apologize before I rememberheinitiated this.
Siobhán whoops. Iris claps. I cast my gaze around, then look at Loch in wincing embarrassment.
He takes my hand, his smile wicked, and drags me out of the ballroom.
My lips are kiss-swollen and that knot in my chest is gone, so I follow him, I’d follow him anywhere.
He leads me through the castle, passing groups who call out to him; he doesn’t stop.
“Loch.” I hurry to walk alongside him. “I didn’t mean to take you away from your people. You can stay—we don’t have to—”
“Shush now, boyo,” he orders and yanks open the doors to the library.
It’s empty. The lights are off, the far windows showing the starlit night sky.
The doors slam behind us and I’m immediately shoved up against one, Loch’s fingers around my neck, pinning me there, and I melt, an elastic, pathetic mess in his hand.
“You came back,” Loch says, the fervor in his eyes set to ravenous as he fixes the whole of his attention on me.
My fingers are twisted around his wrist where he’s holding my throat.
My smile slips. “I’m sorry I—”
“I will na hear a single apology from you.” He kisses me, bruising, demanding, back on me hard and fast, pushing me up the door with his hand and the force of his body until my legs spread and I’m practically taken off my feet.
He peels back, panting into our space, whiskey and woodsmoke and his spicy cologne. His heated gaze dims, seemingly muted by physical control. “You came back.”
It’s a question this time.
“Yeah,” I gasp.
“There’s more we need to talk about.” Another roll up at the end, a question.
I pause, a hundred thoughts fighting for dominance.
“No more lies,” I say, and I mean it to come out declarative, but it’s probing.
Loch nods immediately. “No more lies. None.”
The awareness of his eyes on me, the intention behind them, is as effectively restraining as his hand gently pressing on my neck. He’s waiting, waiting for permission, and I realize he’s never been in control of this. He’s always been reading me.
“Loch.” It’s a husky plea.
His brows pinch in a relieved groan as his teeth go to my neck, that sharp pain alternating with the burn of his beard as he eats his way up the column of my throat, and I tilt my head into it with a hapless whimper.
“The bedroom—is up the—fuck,Loch.” I only know half of what I’m saying. The other half of me is ripping at the buttons on his shirt, trying to drag his coat off his shoulders.
“I will na make it to the bedroom.” Loch’s voice is jagged and fumbling already, and hearing the scrape in it shoves me right up there next to him. “I nearly took you in that ballroom, Kris. I’ve missed you so much, and I need to make you come.”
