Red Card (8 page)

“
W
HAT THE BLOODY FUCKING HELL
?!”

The roar shook Killian’s apartment, slamming into my spine as I washed my face in his white marble bathroom. I couldn’t believe I’d fallen asleep on his couch, in his space. Next to him. I’d nearly fainted when I’d blinked awake this morning. That wiry, gorgeous body next to me, his black hair smashed into the side of his face which sported a thick shadow of black stubble. I would have liked to run my tongue along that stubble. And then I yelled at myself for thinking that.

I never could hold my alcohol. I was a complete lightweight. Taylor had always been mad about that, that I couldn’t hang at parties. He wanted a girlfriend who would get adorably drunk so he could take advantage of her upstairs at his frat house. Not one who couldn’t so much as play a game of beer pong without passing out.

“LEAH?!”

He sounded mad. No, not mad. He sounded like he was scorching earth out there. And even though I was his publicist, here to help him in a crisis or just through a suit change, I was weary.

Yesterday had actually been really nice. He’d transformed from the closed off, egotistical bastard that he normally was to this pleasant, friendly man who had shown me around his city in a playful, exciting manner. I’d had a great time, and although I wouldn’t admit it to Killian, I’d started to warm to him. I could see why women liked him. Charming, handsome, intelligent. Not that I liked him. I was in no state to consider men, as I remember slurring as much to him last night. God, I’d made an idiot of myself.

I wiped my hand and smoothed my rumpled hair, feeling the oil on my fingertips as I pulled them away. I probably looked like hell warmed over after sleeping fully clothed, with a full face of makeup on, on a couch all night.

Killian was bracing himself against the counter with his back to me when I walked into the kitchen, his form rigid and fury rolling off of him in waves. His rage was so palpable I could almost taste it in the air.

I didn’t think before I touched his shoulder, suddenly frightened that something terrible had happened. “Killian, what’s—“

“So you’re one of these girls, huh?” He rounded on me, practically smacking me in the face with the newspaper he’d swiped off of the counter.

“Wha…” I trailed off, staring at the newsprint that would immediately ruin my life.

The first thing that ran through my mind was, “Kit, what is a kit?”

“God, to top it all off, you’re so stereotypically American! A kit is a jersey to you.” His eyes were a foreboding midnight black now, nothing like the gorgeous glacier blue they usually were.

My throat went dry as a lump so big formed in the back, swelling to the size where I almost couldn’t breathe. My fingers and toes went numb, the sensation of a rotten egg being cracked over my skull, shivers and sickness washing over my flesh.

They’d identified me. Found out who I was. I saw Taylor’s picture in the corner of the paper, the one of him in his jersey rushing into the end zone. The one I had always loved.

“You’re just an athlete slut. Some slag who hangs out around stadiums waiting to lure in the next man who has good hand-eye coordination. You must just be eating this up, huh? My little tour for you yesterday? And to think, I just wanted a good fuck from the hot new American toy that had fallen in my lap. Who knew, the whole bloody time you were just waiting to sink your claws in. Nice one. Really, bloody brilliant.”

Voicing my opinions or feelings. It was something I’d buried deep within me years ago. Leah Watson had two different people in her mind. With Taylor I’d been the meek, pliable girlfriend, constantly at his beck and call for whatever he needed. I’d turned myself into someone I hated, someone who laughed at his asinine jokes, someone who shut herself off from her girlfriends and took his happiness and his accomplishments as my own. As if I couldn’t achieve a level of greatness all by myself. And while I’d regained a bit of that spunk, it wasn’t all the way fully back.

The second person, who was currently trying to come to the forefront, was a wild, confident woman. A woman who wanted to take her future by the horns and stay on that goddamn bull even it bucked her off a few times. She was the woman who was sick and tired of giving jerks the polite attitude she’d honed over the years. This woman used sarcasm, wit and intelligence at her mercy. This Leah did what she wanted, when she wanted it.

And since these two were still warring in my mind, the usual suspect took over. Timid Leah let Killian explode in front of her, screaming and shouting obscene assumptions about her character. She cowered, shaming herself for putting him in this path. Countless times, Taylor had berated me for saying the wrong thing in the media. Kissing him when people were watching. Wearing the wrong outfit. Talking to the wrong person.

I was so fucking sick of myself. Sick to my stomach. How the hell had I let myself become that person, and why the hell wouldn’t she go away?

The strong woman decided to show herself in that exact moment.

Before I knew what had come over me, I cocked my hand back and let it rip. My hand connected so hard with Killian’s jaw that I felt the slap reverberate down my arm and burn into my spine. His head snapped around in a horrifying snap, and a small part inside of me cheered with the raw evilness of my action. The harsh crack echoed through the apartment as the skin on my hand began to sting and prickle.

I finally found my voice. “You have no idea who the fuck I am.”

A motion, a blur of noise and light, and he was on me. I would look back on this moment and know that it was inevitable. We were headed here from the start.

His mouth hit me first, a flurry of lips and tongues and teeth attacking my mouth with such a fevered intensity that I actually gave in for a few seconds before I began wriggling against him, biting at his lips to get him to release me.

But his arms were locked solidly around my waist and neck, his extra weight and feet giving him the upper hand over me.

“But isn’t this what you want, Leah?” He ghosted his nose along my jawline.

And then bit my earlobe just hard enough that I actually growled as wetness coated everything south of my waist line.

I’d never made a sound like that before. And from that singular bite, which wasn’t particularly loving or gentle, I was more turned on than I’d ever been in my life. I saw red, blinded by lust and need.

I dove in and kissed him back. But kiss was too tame a word. We were devouring each other, gnashing our mouths together in a violent, unskilled way. I couldn’t tell if we were turned on, hated each other, couldn’t wait to be inside and over each other, or what. And I didn’t care.

For once in my sheltered, polite life, I was shattering the mold that I’d been fitted to. I was throwing caution and recklessness to the wind. Even wildness. I was way past that. This wasn’t about Killian. This wasn’t about the media or the people back home. This was about me and taking my pleasure into my own hands. So this is what people called “angry-sex.”

I fisted my hands into his shirt, pulling at the material and scratching down his abs through the flimsy t-shirt. He made a low snarl in his throat, gripping my jaw and turning it to the side. Ripping his lips from mine, he began to feast on my neck like a vampire to its victim. As if he was trying to draw blood.

And I heard it. My blood. I could actually hear it racing through my veins, causing my heart to beat so hard that I thought it might pop out of my chest. It flowed down to my nipples, lengthening them and causing them to bead in painful desire. And then it pooled at the very tip of my clit, making my slit feel so heavy and hot that I didn’t think I’d be able to wait another second for him to get inside of me.

“Yeah, prove them right. Show them what a kit chaser you are. You want to see me naked again, don’t you?”

Fire licked up my spine as I thought about earlier that week when I’d seen him in the locker room shower.

“I can’t wait to get under that shy facade. What a fucking lie it is.”

I whipped the shirt over his head, pausing long enough to breathe. “Shut up, Killian.”

He grabbed me again, hoisting me off the floor so that my toes were barely brushing and smashing me into his bare chest, which I began to explore with my fingers.

His abs were like granite, the most expensive slab of marble carved into hard-earned individual bricks of muscle. Killian’s skin was like buttery leather, my fingertips slipping over the tanned, smooth flesh. From where my legs wrapped around his waist before he threw me into his mattress, I could see a dark smattering of hair trailing down to the long, thick piece of him I was dying to get a better grip on.

“Take off your clothes.” It wasn’t a request.

Killian prowled over me at the foot of the bed, standing like a warlord over my antsy, twitching body.

Insecurities began to seep in, unclogging my foggy brain. It was so bright out, he could see every single piece of my body. I’d only ever slept with one man, who was so much more a boy by Killian standards. I wasn’t experienced, I didn’t know if I could do this. It was such a huge decision.

Then I heard the snap of Killian’s belt being pulled from his jeans, the hiss of his zipper as he manipulated it.

I began to shed my clothes as if they were laced with poison, throwing them to the floor so fast that the cool sheets under my back sent shivers over my hot skin as it made contact.

We were both naked, breathing heavy and eating up each other’s skins with our pupils.

“How wet are you going to be when I stick my tongue deep inside that quivering pussy?”

His dirty words made my body feel like it was being based, shocked into to a whole other state of being. My internal temperature was off the charts, so close to thermonuclear that I thought I would implode if he didn’t fucking touch me soon.

“Are you going to fucking touch me, or just stand there palming your dick all day?”

Who the fuck was I? My chest swelled with hedonistic pride at his dark smirk, his hand never stopping the slow stroke he had going on the impressive rod between his legs.

He was big. Thick and long with just the right dimensions on him, his penis was a gorgeous piece of anatomy. His head was leaking fluid, the tip of him swollen a ruddy maroon. Dark, coarse hair covered him, something Taylor used to shave off. I found it made Killian even more of a man, and I knew that the scent from his waist down would be raw musk and strength.

“Spread those pretty legs for me.” He groaned like it pained him when I opened my thighs, the scent of my arousal filling the air around us. “This is how you were in the alley in Leicester Square, wasn’t it? So hot, swollen and pink for me? You’d barely known me an hour, but you knew I was a star. That got you off, right?”

Feelings akin to anger and eroticism mixed in my blood stream, making my clit pulse and twitch under his scrutiny. “Fuck me or I’m gone.”

Finally he dropped a knee on the bed, moving like a tsunami that was just about to crest, beautiful but menacing right before it hit.

“Ahhh!” I hissed and screamed as he shoved two fingers inside of me, hot slickness sliding down his fingers.

“Tighter than I thought you’d be. Tell me, Leah, just how many players have you let into this pretty pussy? Do my fingers feel better than his? That pathetic little boy you dated?”

He flexed his digits, hitting so many places inside of me. Places I never knew existed. I mewled as I turned my head to the side, gripping the bed sheets and refusing to look at him. He pulled those thick, dexterous fingers out slowly, his knuckles hitting my walls and spreading me wide for him, stretching me in a painful way that was anything but bad.

“Playing the shy lamb again, are we? We all know you’re a bloody slag, look at my fingers while they fuck you.”

I snapped my head up, looking him squarely in the eyes. The depths of them were practically licking with blue flames, the hottest part of the fire. His dark, stubbled jaw ticked and I could practically hear him grinding his teeth together. I moved my eyes down, his frame towering over me as he kneeled on the bed, his muscles so taught it was as if he was a grenade waiting for the pin to be pulled.

That large, engorged cock stood straight as a flag pole between his thick, corded thighs. I could make out the veins on his shaft, twitching as the blood pulsed through it.

And then finally my eyes traveled down to where our two bodies were connected, his large hand enveloping the space between my legs. I felt his palm, callused and rough, against my clit. I wiggled at the sight of it, wanting so bad to feel the friction there.

“Needy tart.” Killian chuckled, pressing his hand against me in a toe-curling, oh-so-good way. A jolt of warm tingles shot up my spine to the base of my neck, leaving my body in a perpetual state of stimulation.

He kept up the pace, hooking his fingers inside of my tight heat, brushing the spot inside of me that made my hips buck off the bed as he laughed wickedly.

I was so close, sweat trickling between my breasts and coating my hair as my breaths came out in labored huffs. The orgasm was right there on the tip of my clit, circling low in my core and swamping my flesh in goosebumps.

“Harder.” I choked out. “Harder. Faster.”

I didn’t even recognize the voice coming out of my throat, begging and hoarse as I squirmed further down the bed, trying to impale myself on Killian’s hand.

And then they were gone, Killian climbing off the bed and planting his legs on the floor in a total power stance. Nothing about him was soft. Not his body, not his expression, and especially not the impressive staff between his legs.

My climax sat just beneath the surface of my skin, prickling and crying out to be released.

“If you want my cock inside of you, you know what to say. Where are your manners?”

I had never had someone speak to me in such a rude, dirty manner while doing this. Taylor had barely spoken at all. I found Killian’s filthy, controlling mouth a huge turn on. Each time he spoke his words skittered across my fevered skin, detonating small atom bombs of lust over the trigger points on my body.