Page 83 of The Villain

In all my life, I never thought I would hear someone say words like that to me. Even in my darkest moments, when I escaped into my deepest fantasies, I never could’ve imagined a better man for me than Cian O’Shea.

“You see now, don’t you?” he said softly.

My eyes were wet. I didn’t even bother wiping them. He’d seen it all already. “You won’t stop, will you?”

He shook his head slowly. “No.”

Cian had seen me at my worst, and he still wanted to keep me. My walls were nothing but Styrofoam, and Cian had put his fist through every one of them.

“I’m scared,” I admitted.

“I know.”

“I used to thrive on chaos. But now I’m tired. I’m so, so tired. But the things I did… I don’t deserve peace.”

His expression firmed, and his hands tightened on my face. “Idecide what you deserve.”

My vision blurred with tears. “So what do I deserve?”

He spoke a single syllable. “Me.”

Devlin

A knock sounded at the door. Cian turned to stare at it for a moment before pushing himself up and pressing a quick kiss to my forehead. Like he hadn’t just altered my world for the dozenth time this week. I stared at the ceiling, my mind spinning, while Cian opened the door and murmured a few words to the hotel staff. He wheeled in an entire cart full of silver-domed dishes and parked it beside the bed. I didn’t even know what he’d ordered, but the room filled with delicious smells as my stomach growled.

“Sit up,” he said.

He handed me a glass of ice water, and I chugged the entire thing before crunching on an ice cube. Cian sat down on the edge of the bed, between me and the cart full of food. He started removing the lids, and I was immediately overwhelmed by all the choices. Steak with potatoes and steamed broccoli. Grilled chicken and salad. An overflowing plate of French fries. Some type of pasta. And a massive slice of vanilla cake heaped with frosting and a side of whipped cream.

I wasn’t even sure what I was hungry for or where to start.

Cian interrupted my thoughts when he grabbed two pillows and dropped them on the floor between his spread feet. He gave me a look I couldn’t decipher before pointing at them. “Kneel here.”

Two words. One command. And I just… did it. I slid to the floor bonelessly and knelt on the pillows with my ass on my heels. Because Cian had asked me to. And because I just didn’t want to think.

He didn’t say another word as he began to cut the steak. The knife clattered to the plate, and he picked up a piece of the medium-rare meat and brought it to my lips. I opened my mouth and took the steak from his fingers, moaning as the flavors of the salty, tender meat melted across my tongue. Cian’s eyes fell to half-mast, and his face softened into an expression of quiet contentment

He fed me another piece of steak. Then another. Sometimes, he held the meat between his fingers, and other times he placed it flat on his palm so I had to lick across his skin like a horse eating a sugar cube. And when he wasn’t feeding me, he took bites for himself. He fed me potatoes and made me eat some broccoli even though I hated it, because “fiber is important.” Then he held another glass of water to my lips and made me drink.

As I licked water from my lips, Cian picked a cucumber slice off the salad. I opened my mouth, expecting him to feed it to me, but he placed it on his knee without a word. I stared at it for a second before rising onto my knees and eating it off his skin, my hands clasped behind my back.

His breathing changed, and I watched the bulge in his briefs thicken. He smelled like hotel soap now, and I already missed the taste of saltwater on his skin. He placed another cucumber slice higher up his thigh, so I ate that one too. Then I leaned forward to lick up a seed left near the edge of his briefs.

My head felt floaty. I was naked, yet somehow so warm. Full. My muscles throbbed with a satisfying ache. I sucked the skin on his inner thigh as he forked some pasta into his own mouth. When I pulled back to look at the red mark I’d left behind, Cian cupped my cheek.

“You look perfect like this.” I felt perfect, and my eyelashes fluttered at this praise. “On your knees for me, taking only what I give you. This is what you’ve always needed.” His hand slid downuntil his thumb hooked under my jaw to tilt my head higher. “But I’m the only one who sees you like this. You will never get on your knees for anyone but me. And if you do, if you ever eat from another man’s hands or kneel at his feet, I’ll kill them before I break your fingers and kneecaps.”

I was fucked up, because the threat of violence was so romantic. Ineededhim to be that violently possessive of me. My answer was to lean forward and suck on the head of his cock through his briefs.

“I don’t want to change you.” His hand ghosted over my hair. “To the rest of the world, you can be the devil.” With a grip on my hair, he tugged my head back so he could look me in the eye. “I still want your smart mouth. I want to watch nature documentaries with you. I want to see you wrestle Jace over poker. And I want you like this—my perfect, cock-hungry slut.”

My eyes burned. He wanted me at my worst—when I was a savage brat, when I acted out, when I bit off someone’s ear. And he wanted me when I was at my most submissive—kneeling at his feet, eating from his hand, taking his cock. I’d thought no one would ever want both sides of me. I couldn’t purge the devil out of me, and I couldn’t resist getting on my knees.

All of me was breaking around Cian’s words. But I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know what to say when my brain was so consumed with the smell of him and all the blood in my body had rushed to my cock.

With his one hand still buried in my hair, he used the other to tug his briefs down below his balls. His swollen cock sprung free in front of my face. He reached for the cake, dipped two fingers in the thick white frosting, and spread it over his cock. My breath whistled between my teeth and a whine climbed up my throat.

His lips peeled back from his teeth as he said, “Clean your plate.”