Page 101 of Irish Vice

He strikes like lightning then, rocking back on his heels. His hands grip my ankles, bringing them to rest on his shoulders. I barely have time to curl my fingers around the posts of the bed, and then he’s easing into me, guiding his cock where his thumb just played.

He takes his time, giving me a chance to relax around him. He was generous with the lube and clever with his hand, but he’s so much larger than anything I ever imagined going there. I catch my breath, fighting the pressure, bearing down against the pain.

“Easy,piscín,” he murmurs, turning his head to kiss my ankle. “Breathe, sweet girl. You can do this. Breathe…”

I still feel the stripes from the cane, and maybe that’s a good thing, because they distract me from the pressure of what he’s doing now. I breathe like he tells me to, shallow at first, butdeeper when I realize that a long, slow exhale lets him fill me more.

“You’re so tight,piscín. So beautiful. So strong.” His fingers close around one ankle, feeding me determination.

One breath. Another. One breath more. And then I feel the heat of his body pressed against mine.

“Mo chailín maith,” he breathes.My good girl. Iamhis good girl. I’ve taken every inch of him. I’m stretched more than I ever imagined I could be. I’m more full than I ever dreamed.

“Eyes on me,piscín,” he says, and I didn’t know I’d closed them. But I find his burning ocean gaze, and neither of us blinks as he starts to move.

I’ve never felt anything like this before. He’s strung a harp to play every nerve in my body. He’s gliding between my legs, but I feel him in my chest, in my throat, in my skull.

My arms arc over my head, secured by the cuffs. My belly grows taut, so close, so close, almost there. My toes point. My thighs turn to steel.

I want him to move faster and I want him to slow down and I want this endless spiral of sensation to last through the cold death of the universe.

But it can’t. Nothing stays forever. His own jaw is tight. The cords in his neck stretch like lines on a sailboat. He drops one hand from my ankle, slips a knuckle against my clit, tapping once, twice, three times.

I shatter.

Every nerve he’s kindled bursts into holy flame. The lines from the cane ignite, incinerating every last shred of my reserve. I call on God. I call on Braiden, screaming his name until my throat is raw, and then I whisper it, over and over and over again.

And as the waves of sensation roll inside me, echoing at the backs of my eyes and down my spine again, Braiden loses his own control. He spills inside of me, pulse after pulse, somehowdriving deeper when every cell in our bodies is already perfectly matched.

I lose every one of my thoughts. I forget every word I’ve ever known. I’m pure pleasure… I’m pure… I’m…

Legs. I have legs.

Arms. I have arms.

Lungs. I have lungs, and they’re pumping and breathing, bringing me back to life after I don’t know how long.

I hear Braiden, whispering to me in Irish, calling memo chailín maith, hispiscín, other sweet half-swallowed words I’ve never heard before.

I smell sex on the sheets and sweat on my skin and the cedar-and-spice that is Braiden.

I taste ambrosia melting across my tongue, a food of the gods, and it takes me a lifetime to remember that this joy is called chocolate.

I feel Braiden’s fingers on my face, coaxing me to sip from a smooth, cool glass. And then I feel a warm cloth between my legs, gentle, gentle, cleaning me. There’s the soft glow of arnica melting into my stripes, smoothing away the cane’s remembered fire before I’m gathered into the velvet-steel circle of Braiden’s arms.

I open my eyes. Moonlight seeps in around the curtains at the window.

Braiden’s back is against the headboard. He’s cradling me inside the V of his legs, arms around me, my head nestled against his chest.

“Braiden,” I whisper, surprised that I can’t manage anything more.

“Shh,” he says, pulling me a little closer. And then, so low I barely hear him, “Stay here?” he asks. “Don’t go sleep in the pool house?”

The pool house. I can remember how important it was not to spend the night in Braiden’s bed. How I needed to maintain my own territory.

But that was a lifetime ago. I can’t imagine wanting to sleep anywhere but here.

“I’m staying,” I whisper. “Is liomsa tú,” Those are the words inside my wedding band, the ones he used to claim me. I’m staking the same claim. I’m demanding the same rights. Braiden is mine, and I’ll never leave him again.