Page 32 of Unreasonably Yours

Cillian

Toni shrugs. “There are no friends in Uno, my love.”

“Color?” Camille demands, pounding her hand on the coffee table.

Toni narrows her eyes at the very few cards in Camille’s hand, as though she is trying to see through them. “Blue.”

Camille slams down one of her two cards. “Uno, bitches!”

“That's it. We have to take my wife down.” Camille throws a pillow at my brother. “I'm sorry, babe. I love you. You're the mother of my child, the most beautiful and radiant woman I’ve ever known, but this is war.”

“Michael Arthur O'Sullivan, if you plot against me, we're getting a divorce.”

“Oooo,” Oliver and I sound at once.

“Middle name level of trouble,” I taunt.

“Cillian Daniel,” Camille pins me with a glare, “You're the one I suspect he'll plot with. Don't. You. Dare.”

Oliver lays an innocuous blue 3 .

“Sorry. Brotherly loyalty and all.” I drop a reverse.

Michael lets out a villainous cackle, and Toni punches my shoulder. “Excuse you, that fucked me, too!” She gestures to Lucy, tittering behind her stack of cards.

“Sorry, doll. Like you said.” I pull her toward me, kissing her temple.

Soon enough, the game ends with Camille, once again, claiming victory over us all.

“Who wins three in a row?” Michael grumbles.

“Don’t be bitter, just be better, baby!” She teases, blowing him a kiss he still performatively catches despite the scowl on his face.

“You coming?” I ask, waiting for him to join me on the deck for his one permitted smoke.

“Yeah.” He grabs his glass and kisses his wife before heading out.

Our glasses clink as we let out twin clouds of smoke.

“I know we just ignore your birthday generally, but how's thirty-eight so far?” He asks, leaning on the railing.

I can't help the smile that rips across my face, so wide it practically hurts. “Can’t complain.”

Emotion sparkles in my older brother's eyes as he clasps a hand on my shoulder.

“Don't look at me like that,” I say, shrugging him off.

It was Michael who found me almost ten years ago, half dead from a heroin overdose. Michael, who, any time they allowed him to be, was by my side. Michael who reminded me I'd promised not to make him bury me before my first deployment, a promise that, according to him, didn't end with my service.

My brother was the reason I was here for this. And gratitude doesn’t begin to cover it.

“Thank you,” I say, my voice thick.

He nods, leaning his shoulder into mine .

A delighted squeal of laughter draws our attention back to the house. Through the slider, we watch as Camille sprays Toni with the sink nozzle, her face lit with delight.

Toni's rich laugh reaches us, and my chest practically splits open. She grabs Lucy as a shield, while Oliver and Ginelle hide under a blanket.

My brother and I soak in the laughter and golden light spilling onto the deck from inside.

“We're lucky assholes aren’t we?” he asks, eyes on Camille.

For the first time in a long time, I feel like that just might be true. “Yeah,” I breathe.

Michael puts out his cigarette, and I follow suit. “Let's intervene before my wife makes this a home insurance issue.”

I tear myself awake from a dream, slamming into consciousness so abruptly it takes time for my mind and body to reconnect, leaving me frozen.

Typically, I loathe this feeling, being trapped in my body while my mind screams. But, as I register Toni still sleeping soundly beside me, for once, I’m grateful. Though my heart is slamming against my rib cage with such force, I’m shocked that alone doesn’t wake her.

The fear of Toni seeing me like this is enough to bring me back into my body. Enough to propel me from the bed on shaky legs and out into the cold night.

Sucking in lungfuls of crisp air, I grip the banister so tight my palms ache, watching my breath form clouds that float out toward the shining lake.

Today had been a nearly perfect day. No reason for my mind to fall into dark places, nothing that would’ve triggered the nightmare. Not that any of that mattered.

Sometimes, the mind didn’t need a reason to fling open doors you’d rather stay closed. And sometimes, good times—or rather the fear of losing them—was trigger enough.

“Cillian?” I jump at Toni’s voice, so lost in my spiraling thoughts that I didn’t even hear her open the sliding door. “What’re you doing out here?”

“Um...” I start to answer, reaching for something reasonable to say. Instead, my fuzzy mind latches onto the fact that she’s out here in nothing but her sleep shirt. “Doll, it’s cold, go back inside.”

Considering I’m only in my boxers, she gives me the look that statement deserves. “I have more on than you do.”

“I’m good.”

She closes the space between us, resting her warm hands against my chest. I begin to shiver. “You’re freezing,” she says, voice laced with concern.

I want to reassure her, tell her I’m fine. This is fine. I’ll be fine. Anything to keep her from seeing the fault lines this exposes. But when I open my mouth, nothing comes out.

Toni slides her hands down my arms, tangling our fingers together. “Come back to bed.”

I don’t let go of her hand until she pulls me onto the mattress with her. And that’s where we stay, her arms around me, our foreheads pressed together, long enough for my skin to forget the cold and for the fog of unwanted memories to lift.

“What're you thinking?” she whispers, one finger tracing the lines between my brows.

For a heartbeat, I consider lying, afraid of what her answer may be. “I'm wondering what you see.” Saying it feels like opening an old wound, inviting her to pour salt into it. All I can do is hope she won’t.

Rather than give me a fast answer, she moves to sit on her knees beside me. I reposition, propping my back against the pillows to better see her .

Toni studies me, her sharp gaze peeling back my defenses with each passing second.

“You,” she says matter-of-factly. “I see you, Cillian.”

Not all of me. I’ve held back, kept the things I feared were too much packed away. But, for the first time, I let myself wonder if maybe she could. If I showed her, would she reject me as others had?

I don’t have the chance to linger on that question. The feeling of her fingers tugging the tie from my hair, quickly followed by her lips on mine, grounds me in this moment.

She trails that pretty mouth down my jaw to my neck. I shiver as she nibbles at my pulse, tracing her tongue along my collarbones. When her lips press against the scar above my heart, I suck in a breath.

“Sorry. I?—”

I press a finger to her lips, cutting off her apology, shaking my head. “No. It's...”

Most people I’d been with avoided the scars, especially once they knew their origin. Even Kevin, whom I spent years with, rarely acknowledged them, his hands always skirting around their edges. A strange desperation takes hold of me, a need for Toni to not only be someone at my edges.

Words failing me yet again, I take her hand, pressing her palm to the map of scars along the left side of my torso. I guide her touch down over my boxers and to the wreck of my thigh. Inviting her, intentionally, to the places where I’d been torn open.

Toni doesn’t recoil when I release her hand. Her fingers travel over the uneven skin as though she could read the story from the marks it left. My own dialect of Braille that only she’d been willing to learn.

She scoots down, her lips now following the path her fingers had. Methodically, she kisses every ridge, every bump, from my side, down to my hip, slipping my boxers off as she makes her way to my thigh.

My lungs and eyes burn with the effort of holding on to some kind of composure. Part of me wants to weep. Part of me wants to run.

Once more, she studies me, moving to rest between my thighs. In the low light, her brown eyes are dark pools.

“I see you,” she repeats. “And Cillian, you're beautiful.”

I open my mouth—to say what, I don’t know—but she presses her fingers to my lips, silencing me. Saving me. “Shh.”

She drags her hand from my face down my chest to my Adonis belt. The caresses and light touches trigger a lightning storm under my skin. My cock jumps, my hips rise.

“You don't always have to be the one in charge, you know.” It’s not a question. Her hand wraps around my shaft, rubbing the bead of moisture across the head. I let out a strangled sound of pleasure.

Satisfaction sparks in her face, and my god, she’s the most spectacular thing I've ever seen.

When she lowers her mouth to me, I swear I nearly come. She takes me slowly, working me with her lips, tongue, and hands. Sitting up, she has one hand on my cock while she presses the fingers of the other against the tender spot just behind my balls, pulsing and rubbing.

I moan, my body shaking with the need to come, but I refuse.

“Stop,” I manage. She does without hesitation.

I pull her to me, needing to feel her body against mine, tearing her shirt off. Our teeth clash in my haste to kiss her, to taste her, my fingers roughly moving her panties to the side. I growl against her mouth with satisfaction when I find her already soaking.

“I need to be inside you. Please.” I’d beg if she wanted. Get on my knees right now and beg her for the privilege of letting me feel her.

She nods, shifting her legs to straddle me.

“Do you care about these?” I ask, fingers wrapped around her lace underwear.

“No,” she says, shaking her head.

The delicate fabric gives way to my fingers as I rip them off. I grab her hips, pulling her to me and kissing her neck, her breasts, her nipples, letting my hands wander up the curve of her soft belly and digging my fingers into her. I can't get enough; I can't touch enough of her.

What a beautiful problem.

Her warmth envelops me, blotting out everything else. There's only this. This incredible woman.

“Cillian,” she groans, her head falling back as she takes all of me, her hips rolling, seeking her pleasure.

“That's it, baby doll.” I lift my hips to push myself deeper. “Take what you need.” Take all of me , I think.

She does. God, she does. In every way, whether she knows it or not.

I'm awestruck watching her ride my cock, her hair falling free around her shoulders, the dawn light slowly slipping around her, outlining her in a golden aura.

She looks ethereal. Holy. Something good and right and mine.

No. Not mine. Not really. Not yet.

But I want her to be, I allow myself to accept that. I want every morning to be this. I want every day to taste like her kiss. I lo?—

Fuck.

Love.

I feel her tighten around me.

Fuck.

The sun breaches the hills, flooding the room with light just as clarity floods all my senses with joy and fear in equal measure.

This woman. I love this woman. All of her. Her mess, her chaos, and her stubborn strength.

I love her.

She comes apart, her body shaking with release, glowing and rapturous.

“Antionette,” I breathe her name like a prayer, a rite, something sacred.

I pull her face to mine, needing her mouth to keep me from saying something stupid. Gripping that perfect ass, I move her at my pace.

“Look at me,” I demand. She does. “Fuck.” My voice is gravel.

“Come for me, Cillian.”

I cry her name as I come, my body practically convulsing with the force of it.

Both of us lay there, slick with sweat and shaking, neither willing to move, but one thought clangs in my skull.

What the fuck am I going to do now?