Page 14

Cillian

I sat in the dark of our penthouse. Mine, and my wife’s.

I’d opened the bottle of Redbreast Whiskey— something that had been aging since before I was born. I don’t know why I opened it now. I had always thought to keep it for a special occasion. Instead of celebrating, I drowned in it, staring out the window as the snow blanketed the city below.

I don’t know how many hours had passed before the door opened. The quiet footsteps of Mrs. Giovanna Green came over the soft rug.

She waited, probably trying to figure out what to say.

I saved her the trouble and spoke first.

“Is he your lover then?” I asked, not deigning to look at my bride.

The honeymoon was over. It had never even started.

“How can you ask that?” she whispered. “You know I was a virgin when I came to you.”

“I didn’t ask if you’d fucked him.” I brought the whiskey to my lips, and downed the half-empty glass, before pouring myself another. “I asked if he was your lover.”

You could have cut the tension with a knife as the silence grew between us.

“I don’t understand.”

“Let me rephrase then,” I said with a sad, pathetic chuckle. “Are you in love with Marco Rossini?”

Was that why she had begged so beautifully for his life? Was that why she had fallen to her knees for a man who was complicit in cutting her flesh?

“No, Cillian.” Her answer was concise. No prevaricating or attempts to sidestep. “I am not in love with Marco, or anyone else. I have never been in love. Nor do I think I ever will be.”

The latter was meant to be a slap in my face. Cute.

“But…” The gentleness of her tone was harsher than a blow to the head, and I looked up to watch her as she stepped towards me. She was graceful, her movements languid and sweet. If I was to be bound to someone I didn’t know, then at least I was given a beauty. “I wanted to thank you.”

“For?” I asked, taking another drink as she came closer.

Her fingers crawled to her legs, bunching up the fabric of her dress until it rose to mid-thigh. Those pale, supple legs caught my attention—as pale as the snow outside. She straddled me, and I was paralyzed by all the warring emotions that flooded my drunken mind.

Lust. Was that an emotion? Probably. Desire, denial, anger, frustration… it flavored everything with bitterness and spice.

“For letting him go.” She brought her hands to my shirt, and began to unbutton it, laying her cool palm on my bare skin.

But all I saw was another deception. Another ploy.

What did my wife really want from me?

“For listening to me.” She bent down, her lips grazing my Adam’s apple before kissing my jaw.

“You’re my wife,” I whispered, swallowing the tension that crawled up my throat.

“Not all husbands listen to their wives.” She planted a kiss on the spot behind my ear, and I almost groaned. “Nor do most wives have a husband who they want to touch.”

“What are you doing, Gia?” I wanted to get to the bottom of it. To figure out what she wanted.

“I want to accept the truce you offered. To be allies.”

Fat chance. I chuckled, taking another drink.

As I placed the glass back down on the end table, she picked it up from my hand, and downed the contents herself. She wiped a drop that slipped from her doll-like lips.

She put the glass down, never breaking eye contact with me.

“This part of our marriage works.” Her hands slipped down, as she brazenly undid my belt, pulling out my cock, and fisting it in her cold hand. “Marriages have been based on much less.”

She reached between her thighs, and tucked her lace thong to the side, as she placed my head at her entrance, and lowered herself down.

She squealed with the effort, her eyes closing as she tried to push herself down to the hilt. But she was too tight.

“You need to slow down, Gia,” I groaned, placing a hand on the back of her neck, darting out my tongue to taste the drop of whiskey on her chin. “You need to give yourself time to… prepare… for me.”

I wasn’t sure how to explain it to her. I had never thought I’d have to talk someone through the intricacies of sex.

I thickened inside her, remembering that I was the first. That I’d be the only one that would taste this bit of heaven.

She kept on trying to push herself down, and I placed my hands on her hips to stop her as she winced in pain.

“Slow down, love.”

“I want to be good at this for you,” she whispered.

I grasped her face in my hands, as the warmth of her seeped into every cell of my being.

I chuckled, “This is the one thing you and I don’t need to work at. It’s just there.”

I took her hand, and kissed her palm, and shuddered at the thought of my knife slicing into the thickened skin and marking her as forever mine.

The handfasting that marked my parent’s marriage, as they took a blood oath on their wedding day.

A vow that declared their undying love until the end of their days.

Handfasting had been done away with, though couples in love still took part in the archaic ritual.

And why shouldn’t we do it to cement our alliance? Why shouldn’t we cut our palms, and bind them together, letting our blood mingle to make us one flesh?

But my wife wasn’t an Irish Green. She was a Durante.

Such a custom would frighten my tender-hearted bride.

I kissed her because I could. I tasted her skin because it was my right. She got hotter, and wetter, with every tender tease of my fingers.

I thrust up, and she moaned in pleasure.

“There,” I said, curling my fingers through her hair. “See how good it is, if you give yourself time to adjust?”

With her eyes firmly shut, she began to thrust her hips, rolling them against me, the bend in my cock grazing the soft, tender spot inside that beautiful heat.

She nodded, as she began to move her body in sync with mine, her hands braced against my chest as she took her pleasure from me, riding herself into a frenzy.

“That’s right,” I encouraged, stuck on the beauty of her skirt hiked up to her waist, her thighs wide open. “Such a beautiful wife.”

The sleeve of her dress fell down one shoulder, and I tugged it down her arm until her beautiful breast was revealed to me, bouncing against her movements, mesmerizing me with its perfection.

She screamed, and it tipped me over the edge. I spilled inside her, roaring with my release.

She collapsed on top of me, her head burying into my neck.

I stroked her hair and ran my hands over her shoulders.

“Such a pretty sight,” I gasped bitterly, “My wife, fucking me, because I spared another man”.

Gia and Kieran's full Trilogy will come in 2026