Page 43 of Irish Vice

I need that mouth. I need his tongue. I need his breath, pushing its way past mine.

I kiss him, drink him, eat him, drown. I can never get enough.

But my body is still human. It needs air. When I finally push back to steal a breath, my vision is clouded, as if I’m falling through miles of coal-black clouds.

Braiden holds me steady as I sway. His eyes are narrowed, and I can’t tell if his smile is amused or cruel. “That’s not the way this works,piscín.”

“It is now,” I say. And because I’m a foolish woman, ormaybe just naive, I dangle the key to my collar in front of his lips.

I mean to snatch it back. I’m going to fold it in my fingers, hold it tight until I’ve got what I really want.

But Braiden’s bigger than I am and stronger and he’s not about to let me change the rules. Faster than my eyes can follow, he catches my right wrist. He twists, putting his weight behind the rotation, and I’m suddenly on my knees before him, my face pressed into his crotch.

I feel the pulse of his erection against my cheek, matching the throb between my legs.

His fingers find the pressure points in my wrist. I can’t keep my fingers closed. I drop the key into his palm.

“Let’s try this again,” he says, slipping the key into his breast pocket. And then he looks over my head. “Madden,” he says. “Fiona. We’ll pick this up tomorrow.”

No.

He can’t do that. He can’t send them away.

But I don’t want them watching whatever happens next.

I’m confused.

I don’t want to be used like a toy, put on display, stripped and savaged in full view of the world.

But I want Fiona to know thatIhave Braiden. She doesn’t, and she never will. I want Madden to know his brother is the man who drives me wild.

Fiona is already at the door. Her lips curl into a secret smile, as if she read all my thoughts in a hidden diary, and now she’s memorized them for all time.

Madden doesn’t bother with secrets. He just pushes out of his chair with a sneer on his face. He sniffs like a cocaine addict, or a man breathing in something rotten. “Use a johnny with that one,” he says from the doorway. “You can’t know where she’s been.”

The shout that rips from my throat has no words. It’s wovenof pure fury, of weeks of baseless shame. But it’s fed by the fact that I can smell myself when I stand. I breathe in the scent between my bare thighs, the honey I’ve left on Braiden’s trousers.

I’m mortified.

I throw myself at Madden, wanting to scratch the sly grin from his face. But when he steps out of the way, I just keep going, too embarrassed to turn back.

I hear Braiden behind me and the smack of a fist against the meat of a body. There’s grunting and the hiss of air between teeth and the scuffle of feet fighting for a purchase.

But I don’t look. I don’t watch.

I push past Fiona in the hall. I tear down the stairs and sprint across the patio. I throw myself into the refuge of the pool house, locking the door behind me.

I’m not brave.

I’m not sexy.

I’m not the type of woman any man would claim.

I’m cheap and I’m painted and I’ve broken one of my stiletto heels. I crash against the footboard of my bed, trying to pry off the emerald, trying to break my collar. When I can’t get a purchase, I scratch at my neck, clawing helplessly at my skin.

And when that hurts too much, I drop my head to my knees. I pound the heels of my hands into the floor. I scream until my throat feels like shredded tissue.

Madden’s ruined everything.