Page 47 of Brutal Knight

What Connor did at the wedding was unthinkable. My father won’t forgive the O’Reillys for keeping me from him. And he won’t give up.

He’ll find me, and he’ll hurt me.

All the old fears rise back to the surface, and I’m left with nothing but the desperate need for drugs to mute the aching pain and fear. It’s what Dmitri would do to me.

I’ve felt far too much today. I just need to feel nothing again.

CHAPTER18

Connor

There’s an Assembly meeting I can’t miss only a few days after my wedding. I can’t take Willow, and I’m not sure I should—so I leave her at home and go to the meeting.

When I arrive, I wait outside in my car with Finn. The others are on their way, and we’ll enter as a family or not at all.

“It’s been a minute,” Finn says, grinning.

“Has it?”

He snorts, then shrugs. “I mean, a few days. It’s just strange.”

I know what he means. We all used to spend so much time around one another. But then Rose came to town, and Aiden got married, and now I’ve been preoccupied with Willow.

It’s thrown all of us off.

Not to mention Dmitri and his maneuverings. Ever since Dmitri’s attempted takeover, the entire Assembly has been in a rush to shore up their defenses so nothing like it ever happens again. It’s been interesting, to say the least. Trust is in short supply these days.

“How’s married life?” Finn asks casually.

“It’s fine.”

It’s partly true—which means it’s partly a lie.

In reality, I’ve barely spoken to Willow since that moment after we got home from the reception. The moment she kissed me, then dropped to her knees.

I can’t stop thinking about the way she took me in her mouth, the way her pupils were blown out and dark. Every time I close my eyes, all I can see is her face. Her flushed cheeks, the haze in her eyes.

I think about it on repeat. I can still feel her lips on my cock, still feel the tight heat of her mouth and throat. I remember what it sounded like as she took me in her mouth, and when I hit the back of her throat. I can still feel her skin beneath my fingers as I traced her cheeks, feeling them hollow as she sucked me off.

Every time I think of her, my cock twitches with need. I want her back on her knees, want to hold her in place and let go of the control I was clinging to last time.

I want even more than that, though. I want to hold her in my arms and drive into her, to feel how wet she is. I want to know she feels just the way I do. I want to hear her moan not because I’m kissing her, but because I’m filling her up completely.

That night, I could see how turned on Willow was. She was enjoying herself.

But then she shut down.

I don’t know what any of it means—not really. I know she’s been hurt, but I don’t know what it means that she initiated it and then pulled back. I certainly don’t know what the fuck to do about any of it.

There’s something between us, a chemistry that pulls me in. But Willow shuts down every time her walls crack even a little.

It doesn’t matter. It can’t. Willow may never come to care for me, or even like me. But she’s safe. As long as that’s true, it’s all I need.

It’s all that I need to worry about.

Lachlan’s car pulls up and the others arrive. I stop thinking about Willow, grateful for the distraction. The more I think about her, the less clear things become. At least with the Assembly, the problems aren’t so tied up in emotions.

The meeting is what it usually is—business, trade, dealings. It’s routine enough that I don’t need to speak at all, instead reserving my time for watching the members and gauging where loyalties lie.

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