Page 27 of A Trap So Flawless (Titans and Tyrants #4)

Valentina

I f I thought Darragh could be stubborn and difficult before, it’s nothing compared to him during his recovery. He doesn’t want to wear the neck brace. Doesn’t want to eat the food. He definitely doesn’t want any medication.

But when I’m with him, he seems at least somewhat soothed. I’m at the hospital around the clock. I don’t know who he’s bribed or threatened, but nobody ever kicks me out when visiting hours are through.

Rowan and Tommy, a dark-haired, blue-eyed soldier, are here often as well, along with a few other men in Darragh’s circle who drift in and out to talk business.

Between Tommy being back in Toronto for more than a week and the Irish mob’s contacts at the hospital, Rowan got wind of what happened to Darragh within the hour and was on the next flight out of Dublin to assist. When Darragh sleeps, he and I exist around each other in this wary but maybe sort of friendly little bubble.

The last time we spoke, in the kitchen of Callum’s Dublin townhouse, I got the impression Rowan wasn’t too keen on me.

But maybe leaving my own father to die in the dirt and doing what I could to save Darragh instead has warmed him up to me a little.

Because he makes at least some effort to engage in small talk now and then.

And I notice that he’s learned my coffee order from the cafeteria, always bringing one back for me when he goes.

In one moment of oddly thrilling honesty, I ask him what he thinks about what my father did, and he answers.

“He knew that news of his death would bring you back to Toronto,” he says. “And I think he knew that Darragh would follow you. He’d get you back under his thumb and revenge on Darragh for the Fabbri mess all at once.”

“And what about Callum’s murder?” I still don’t understand why Papà bothered with that. Callum never had any interest in Toronto. He was too focused on Dublin.

Rowan shrugs his giant shoulders and takes a sip of his usual drink – black Irish breakfast tea.

“What use would it be to convince Callum to alter his will,” he reasons, “if Callum was left alive to potentially change his mind and take it back?”

Well, he’s not alive now. The will is basically written in stone. I gaze at Darragh’s sleeping face and sometimes wish, for his sake, that we had never met.

The doctors want to keep Darragh in the hospital for a week. But after five days, he finally loses his last vestige of patience and leaves against medical advice. I go with him, because I can’t imagine going anywhere else at this point.

I won’t return to that house. Not now.

Not ever.

Rowan drives us to Darragh’s Forest Hill house. We reach it at dusk. When Rowan asks Darragh in low tones if he needs him to stay, Darragh tells him to go. So he does.

In the deepening gloom, Darragh and I are truly alone together for the first time in days.

He’s already ditched the neck brace and the arm sling that the medical team tried to make him take.

He’s dressed in his own clothes, the only sign of what he’s gone through being the thick white bandaging protecting the sutures at the junction of his shoulder and his neck.

He looks so good. Strong. Like himself.

“You should get inside,” I say. The wind is cold. I want to touch him. But I worry…

I worry that I’m not allowed. That I don’t deserve to. Because the only reason he was hurt was because I went back to that house. I fell for the trap. And when I fell, I dragged him down with me.

He didn’t want to bring me back here. He didn’t want me to go.

He could have died because of me. That knowledge hits me hard, a near-miss of terrible grief. Maybe it shows on my face, because Darragh grabs me with his good arm, his hand seizing my chin.

“What’s wrong?”

Tears spring to my eyes.

“I thought I’d lose you.” I sniff hard and blink. “And before you make some snide remark, no, these aren’t tears of happiness at the thought.”

His touch on my chin gentles. When his mouth brushes mine, it moves with a tender hunger, a searching quality, like he’s looking for something. Asking me something.

“We should get you inside,” I say, pulling back, all too aware of the cold and the dark and his injuries. I want to hover over him. Make him soup and tuck him into bed.

“Yeah,” he says gruffly. He releases my face and runs a rough hand through his hair. “I’m desperate for a shower.”

“You can’t get that wet,” I said, pointing to the bandages on his neck. “Have a bath.”

He looks at me like I’ve told him to go dance naked with a chicken.

“I am not taking a fucking bath,” he says. He sounds offended by the very idea.

“What if I take a bath with you?” I don’t mean anything by it.

I really do just mean I’ll have a bath with him and help him wash his back and stuff.

Plus, I also need to get cleaned up after those stressful days in the hospital.

But when something dark comes to writhing life in his gaze, I know he’s taken my comment entirely differently.

“Not like that,” I tell him firmly. “You need to rest.”

He unlocks, then opens the door. As I pass through it, he says, “No, pet. All I need is you.”

The bathroom attached to the primary bedroom has a bathtub separate from the shower.

It’s a big, fancy one with claw feet and an undulating profile that makes me think of a jellybean.

I run water into it, testing the temperature, then glance up.

In the mirror, I see Darragh’s reflection in profile.

He’s watching me. Just watching. Like the mundane act of me filling up a tub with water is the most fascinating thing he’s ever witnessed.

My cheeks heat with a self-conscious sort of pleasure.

“Aren’t you going to get undressed?” I ask him.

He takes a breath like he’s just been woken from sleep. His gaze heavy-lidded, he says, “You first.”

Well, fine. If I’m going to bathe, I’ll need to be naked whether I strip first or him.

I do it fast, in case he tries to stop me, but he just keeps watching me with that focused fascination.

I abandon my clothes in a heap and climb into the tub.

I face him on my knees, leaning on the side and beckoning to him with one arm. “Come on.”

He doesn’t take much prodding. He undresses with a quick competence that I can’t help but find immensely attractive. The only thing that gives him any trouble is his T-shirt, but he manages to pull it off, grunting slightly, without disturbing any of his bandages.

When he gets in with me, the tub that seemed so large before suddenly… doesn’t. He leans back against his end, draping his arms along the rim, watching me as I dampen a cloth and turn to him.

“Do you want me to start with your back, or…” My question fades away as I’m struck dumb by the unadulterated power of his naked form.

His tattoos are a dark contrast with the white of the tub, his arms long and so lazily draped, belying the power in them.

I’m between his legs now, because he’s so tall that, even sitting up as he is, he takes up almost the entire bathtub.

He grabs my wrist and pulls my hand beneath the water.

“I want you to start here.”

Desire flames, licking along my spine, as he leads my fingers to his cock. The flesh is already stiff, and at my touch it jerks in the water.

I try to fight it. I’m supposed to be taking care of him.

But maybe this is a way to take care of him. To take care of us both. To lead us back to each other through the dark and the blood and the trauma that has been the background of every one of our interactions.

I let go of the cloth and take him fully into my hand.

He lets out a satisfied growl and palms my heavy breasts.

His breath punches from his body when my nipples harden needily against his palms. He kneads roughly before sliding his hands to my waist, then to my hips, his fingers a possessive splay over my ass.

He drags me closer, making a tiny tsunami of water slosh over his chest.

“Need your pussy,” he groans against my damp ear. “I’ve fucking needed it for days.”

And I can’t hold out. I can’t pull back. He drags me onto him, and I let him, needing him as badly as he needs me. I brace myself on his shoulders, careful not to press on the bandaged parts, then let myself lower.

But he’s too big to just sink onto him without any effort. I gasp, and rock myself, and then Darragh gives one impatient thrust, and he’s there, right there, all the way inside. A sacred, stretching burn.

As he fucks into me, his breath harsh at my throat, his cock ardent inside, I feel a tumult of emotion rise up in tandem with my pleasure.

“I’m sorry,” I find myself gasping between moans. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I made you go there. I’m so sorry you got hurt.”

“Sick of you saying sorry,” he grunts, thrusting suddenly harder, as if to punish me for the apology. He grips the sides of my face and devours my gaze with his own. “I’d follow you off a goddamn cliff, Valentina. And I’d do it with a fucking smile on my face.”

I think I’m close to crying.

I’m definitely close to coming.

“Just, next time,” he groans, grinding so fucking deep, “maybe fucking listen to me when I warn you not to walk so close to the edge.”

I come then, breaking apart in his lap, crying out with relief and pain, pleasure and grief.

I collapse onto his chest, my nails digging into his skin, as he grabs my hips and slams into my clenching pussy, over and over again.

He says something then, something I don’t understand.

Something in Irish. Something tender and tortured, the words fraying like torn ribbon when he comes.