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Chapter thirty-four

I Don’t Negotiate with Morons

Kira

H e came back to the bedroom, and I hated the look of defeat in his eyes.

Resignation, defeat, longing… What had happened to my dear Eoghan?

The man who would not take no for an answer, and would bargain with the devil himself for a taste of my mouth?

Who’d give gamble all his possessions for a chance to call me Wife?

“Why won’t you even look at me?” I whimpered when the warmth of his gaze strayed away.

In a blink, his eyes lifted, those dark circles speared into me. I flinched, as if the pain I saw there burned me.

“I look at you all the time,” he said, the familiar words grating on me. “I see you all the time, Kira. Even when you’re not here. I saw you every single day you were gone from this house. I could see your face and hear your voice. I talked to your fucking ghost. Don’t you see?”

He grabbed me by the shoulders, shaking me with a violence that would leave bruises on my arms.

“I am mad. I am insane. I am a Green, and I always have been. I always will be.”

His voice was a cry of anger and despair, and I tried to touch him. I tried to put my hands on his chest, but he just pushed me away.

“I am a madman who bleeds his prisoners, and will bring nothing to your home but more violence and danger.” He ran his hands through his blond hair until they spiked up, tousled and tossed, and still roguishly handsome. “You were right to leave.”

He paced back and forth, his hands tugging at his hair, his eyes wild with fury. He ground his teeth and growled somewhere deep in his chest, like an animal in a cage.

“Eoghan…” I whispered, reaching out a hand, and he smacked it away.

“Have you no understanding of my depth of obsession?” His laugh was chilling. He took my wrist in his hand, and slammed my palm against the wall. “Do you see why the walls have changed?”

I looked at the warm taupe-colored wall, my hand, and his pale one like a shackle on my wrist.

“See?” he insisted, as if what I saw would justify him abandoning me after he dragged me back here, into this strange house.

How could he think about leaving me after we had fought together? After we’d pledged to be more than partners? After all the times he’d insisted that he loved me, adored me, that he’d never move on…

“What do you see?” he asked, his eyes wild, his lips pulled in a pained grimace as if my answer would scald him like boiling oil.

“The wall is brown. So?” I played dumb.

He laughed again, but it was sadder this time. It was quieter, and fading into despair.

“I changed the walls to match your skin.” He reached out with his free hand, his thumb tracing over my cheek, his fingers lightly grazing the line of my jaw.

I knew that he wouldn’t stay harsh with me for long. It wasn’t in his nature.

“The board and batten was painted as dark as ash, glossy, with the pattern of waves to match the exact curl of your hair on our wedding day.” His fingers moved to play with a lock of my hair, twisting it around his index finger.

“I remember every detail of you. It never faded. It never will. When you walk out of that door, you will take our son to a better life, far away from what damage I might do to him. What damage my father did to me.”

He wanted me to think he was insane. Maybe he was. Maybe a saner woman would think so. Maybe a normal woman would take these gestures of devotion and run for the hills.

“You deserve a man who loves you, Kira—”

“I have a husband who loves me.”

“— a man who can love you correctly.” His eyes sparkled with unshed tears. He looked like the painting I had seen all those years ago, when I declared him a master. The self-portrait of himself in the dark, with an expression of profound remorse. “Obsession is a selfish thing, Kira. I am selfish.”

Instead, I tilted my head, burying my face into his palm, letting him caress me like I was a needy cat. I turned my face into his hand, kissing his scarred palm, where one scar was missing.

He loosened his grip on my wrist, and I pulled my hand back, grabbing him by the collar.

“Then be selfish,” I whispered, coming to my toes until our lips softly grazed together. “Be selfish now, husband, and hold me.”

He didn’t. He pulled out of my reach, stepping away like he was angry and afraid of me at the same time. The stubborn fool!

I stepped toward him, and he stepped away again, shaking his head.

“Kira, I’m begging you…” His voice was so shaky, it broke my heart. “If you stay, Cillian will become like me. He will be forced to marry a girl he doesn’t know, for an alliance that will poison him. Poison us. This grand life of riches is as bleak and empty as any curse.”

“And I’m begging you ,” I said, as a mad thought went through my mind. It was strange to be the one to pursue when he had always been the one to crowd into my space, and demand more of me than I thought I could give.

Maybe that was my fault. In fact, I was certain that it was my fault.

I had been withdrawn when he had sprinted in head first. Now our roles were reversed, and the only way we could remain intact was if I became what he needed me to be. I had to give him something that he wouldn’t question.

“Don’t turn away from me, love,” I whispered, as a plan formed in my mind. “I beg you, don’t—”

“I have to go,” he said, his eyes on the ground as he walked around me, dodging me as I reached out to grab him.

“Eoghan, don’t you dare walk away from me!”

I sounded like I was the insane one, and not him.

He didn’t listen. He just calmly walked out the door, gently shutting it behind him.

He was cool, calm, and determined.

Well, fuck that shit.

I ran into the closet, found an emerald green dress that had enough sway on the skirt for a thigh holster. I picked practical, flat black shoes that were probably some kind of designer thing worth more than my old New York City apartment, and ran down the stairs after him.

He was at the cars, giving orders to O’Malley, who still wore a cast over his right arm, which he’d hurt in the blast, and Shiny, when I caught up, running to his side.

I smiled, trying to catch my breath from my little sprint, before I walked beside him, as if nothing was wrong. As if I didn’t have a care in the world.

“Kira,” he reprimanded, his voice low and agitated.

“Eoghan,” I said sweetly, smiling for the sake of our audience.

But I needed their attention for once.

The gazes of his men whom I had once hidden from were now my weapon.

“Go back in the house, love,” he said, leaning down to whisper the words into my ear.

I felt a shiver go through me as his breath teased my skin, blowing gently against my hair.

“No,” I said, matching his tone.

“Go back in the house, or I–”

“Or you’ll what?” I bumped my shoulder against his chest, and he looked at me, puzzled.

He looked at Kieran and Shiny, who were looking absolutely anywhere but at us, and I didn’t blame them. This was going to get weird.

“Throw me over your shoulder and spank me?” I crooned, straightening his tie which most definitely did not need to be straightened. “I don’t negotiate with terrorists, or men being morons.”

His nostrils flared, his jaw ticked, and I could practically see the blood rushing down to what was probably a now aching cock.

I loved the assurance that I had this effect on him.

Even if I was tired, haggard, sullen, and weathered down from sleep deprivation and motherhood, he never stopped seeing me as the woman he sketched in his paintings.

I felt the silk of his tie against my hand.

It was the color of an emerald, of course.

The Greens were nothing if not somewhat predictable.

I slowly slid it off his neck, pretending that I would re-tie it for him.

He didn’t stop me. He was powerless against me, and I knew it. I took advantage of it. I used it.

But there was an intimacy in adjusting his clothes. It must only be a fraction of the intimacy he felt when he dressed me in the expensive garments he’d purchased on my behalf. Every item, meticulously chosen to please me. Just like the gargantuan ring on my finger.

Sure, the ring was an heirloom from his mother. Large and green, like the deep colors of a lush forest. The color of vibrant life.

In a flick, I slipped the blade at his hip from its scabbard, and without looking, sliced my palm from the bottom of my pinky finger to the thick, meaty portion by my thumb.

“You are blood of my blood, bone of my bone.” I came to my toes, ghosting my lips against his. “From this day forward, I will never have another.”

His eyes shuddered closed, as if he was scenting something delicious, his lips parting as his tongue darted out to swipe against my bottom lip.

Then he blinked, as if coming from a trance, or a deep sleep.

“What have you done?” he said in a long gasp.

“I’m making a point,” I said just as quietly, hoping to God that my gamble would work. “Will you humiliate your wife in front of all your soldiers?”

I lifted my hand, the tie still dangling from my fingertips as a rivulet of blood spilled down my palm, dripping down until, with hungry eyes, he watched a crimson drop fall to the ground.