King of the Cage: A Dark Irish Mafia Romance (Devil’s Own)
King of the Cage: Chapter 20

Giada was quiet in the car on the way to my place. Silently fuming. Planning my demise. She’d already attempted to jump out of the moving car, so she was clearly a flight risk. Right now, she glared at me like she was trying to figure out where she could hide my body when she killed me for this.

I had no doubt my lovely bride was planning out her escape route. I couldn’t let that happen, but I already knew she wouldn’t take my word for it. She’d need to be shown. She wouldn’t go easily…

She’d rage against the robbery of her freedom. My selkie… caught on shore by a selfish man. I was that man, after all. I’d stolen her skin, and I wasn’t giving it back.

Declan had been right… I had to thank my da. He’d given me the excuse I’d needed to take this woman and keep her. I’d marry her, or no one.

The woman of my dreams, by my side, bound with strings she couldn’t ignore.

We went upstairs, Giada still dangerously silent. My men stayed at the bottom of the stairs. I unlocked the door, while Giada eyed my position relative to the top of the stairs, no doubt calculating how hard she’d have to shove me before I fell down.

I tutted lightly. “You’ll have to be more inventive than that.”

I unlocked the door and pushed it open. I suddenly wondered if I should live somewhere else. The studio apartment wasn’t really fit for someone like Giada. She was a woman who deserved the best.

“Shall I carry you over the threshold?” I prompted when she failed to move.

With a dark glance at me, she walked in. I followed, locking the door soundly behind me and threading the key through the long chain around my neck.

Giada folded her arms and gave me scathing look. “You think I couldn’t pick this lock if I wanted?”

I leaned against the door and watched her, shrugging. “You won’t get the chance. I plan on tiring you out so well, you can’t walk tomorrow.”

“Wow, I guess delusion runs in the family. All of you O’Connors are batshit crazy.” She glanced around the place. “This is where you live?”

“This is where we live, for the time being.” I pushed off the door and went to the kitchen, grabbing a clean dish towel. I held it under warm water, watching her take in my living space.

She rolled her eyes. “I hate it.”

“Noted.”

She wandered over to the small table I had in the corner and picked up a box of cigarettes. She wrinkled her nose.

“You smoke?” she asked in a scathing tone.

“Not anymore, I guess. What’s that saying? Happy wife, happy life, right?”

“In that case… you’re destined for sadness, O’Connor, then death.” She shot me a lethal look.

Fuck, she was magnificent. She reached out a finger and slowly nudged a picture frame on the table until it fell off and crashed onto the floor.

“Oops,” Giada said, utterly unrepentant.

“What’s mine is yours, wee one, remember? Now, you want something to drink or eat before…?”

“Before what?”

I tilted my head to the side and let my gaze wander down her body. “Before.”

She snorted disdainfully. “Keep on living in never-never land, Lost Boy. My brother will sort you out tomorrow, I’m sure.”

“Ah, yes, Elio. We’ll need to get his congratulations.”

“More like you need to get his bullet to the brain. He’ll kill you for this,” she said with such confidence, I knew it was true.

I simply nodded. “I suppose I’ll have to rely on the only card I have to play to prevent that.” I walked forward, approaching my skittish new wife.

Giada held her ground and raised her chin at me, regal as a queen. “Which is?”

“You. I’ll have to rely on the fact that you don’t want me dead. I think I’ve grown on you somewhat, fuck knows how.” I reached out and cupped her face.

She stared up at me with those dark eyes. “Is that really what you think?” Her tone was dryly amused.

I nodded, sliding my thumb over the apple of her cheek. Christ, she was lovely.

She laughed. It was low and dirty, and I wanted to hear it again and again. “Then in that case, I suppose I really am going to earn my praying mantis nickname… I’ll be a widow this time tomorrow.”

I shook my head slowly and took a step closer to Giada. She mirrored me, stepping backward.

“No, I don’t think you will. Like I said… I think you’ve got a soft spot for me.” I continued to walk, and Giada continued to back up until her knees hit the edge of the bed.

“You’re mistaken. I’d laugh about it if it wasn’t so sad.” She wet her lips, getting suddenly nervous.

It was telling how a woman with a reputation like Giada’s could get so jumpy around me. I had intentions toward her, and she felt it with every word we exchanged. Every look, every smile, every single roll of her eyes was foreplay, and I was beyond ready for the main event.

I reached between us and pinched her skirt with my fingers.

“What the hell are you doing?” she asked dryly.

“Helping clean up the mess I made… I didn’t get to before.” I brought the warm towel up and wiped a long line up her thigh.

She tensed and then let out a breathy laugh. “I know we’ve been joking about it, but mental illness isn’t a joke. I hope you get the help you need.”

“The only help I need is right here.” I eased the towel across the front of her panties. “This cunt is my therapy of choice.”

I cleaned her belly, and she watched me.

“He will kill you, Bran. As you’re someone who saved my skin tonight, I feel like I should warn you of that.”

I tossed the towel aside and let her skirt slip back down her legs.

“Consider me warned. Will you cry at my grave? You’ll make a beautiful widow,” I murmured, leaning over her so she had no choice but to sit on the bed.

She plopped down, and I continued after her, bracing both hands on the mattress on either side of her head.

She shook it. “I’ll wear pink and take a confetti cannon,” she warned.

I chuckled. “That’ll liven up the wake. Fucking boring things at the best of times.”

“Can you be serious for a second?” she asked, exasperated.

I advanced across her, forcing her to lie back on the bed.

“I’ve been serious today. I did something really fucking serious today. I married you. I married you seriously.”

“Why did you do it?” she asked, shaking her head again slightly. “Just to get into The Enclave?”

I lowered my lips to her cheek, trailing kisses to her ear. Because I’ve wanted to since the moment I saw you. She wasn’t ready to hear those words.

She shivered beneath me. “What are you doing?”

“Bedding my wife,” I said thickly. I was so goddamn hard it was difficult to think right now. I had Giada in my bed, my ring was on her finger, and she wasn’t trying to stab me at present. Today was a good day.

“Your wife?” she scoffed. “That sounds so ridiculous.”

I licked up her neck and lightly nibbled her ear until she gasped. “Call our marriage ridiculous one more time, and I’m going to roll you over and turn your pretty peach of an ass as red as an apple. Then…” I murmured against her ear, “I’m going to eat it. Every. Single. Bite.”

Her chest rose and fell quickly, her pupils blown.

“Why?” she asked hesitantly. “If not for The Enclave, then why me?” She wasn’t going to let that particular nugget go. She was relentless.

“Because,” I breathed, running my lips down her neck to her collarbones. Works of art. “It had to be you,” I admitted. Not because of The Enclave, or my father, but because you, my little selkie… are my fate. She wasn’t ready to hear that, either, and I wasn’t ready to say it out loud. It felt like jumping from a great height without a parachute.

“Just think, Giada… we can end the bloodshed between our families and make them both stronger… and at the same time, infiltrate The Enclave, together.”

She snorted softly. “Did your daddy tell you to marry me, Lost Boy? Doesn’t he care about your life?”

“Less than you’d imagine,” I murmured.

Something dark moved in her eyes at that admission.

I slid down the strap of her satin dress and tugged down the bodice until her black lace-covered breast was exposed. Her nipple strained against the material. I ran my thumb over it before sucking it through the bra. I needed it out of the way, now.

“I’ll buy you a new one, wee one,” I told her thickly, taking a knife from my back pocket and slicing the thick material between her breasts clean in half. I set the knife down and spread the material apart, feasting my eyes on the sight of this woman lying beneath me, her beautiful tits ripe and ready for my touch. No, not just some woman. My wife.

Giada gasped. “What are you? A barbarian?”

“I’m a man who’s been waiting too long — for you. My patience is all used up.” I lowered my mouth to her breast and took her nipple in my mouth.

She jerked beneath me. She was so spectacularly responsive. I flicked my tongue across the hard bud and caressed her other tit in my palm as I lavished attention on the first one.

“I’ll get to you, wait your turn,” I whispered to the other side.

Giada laughed.

“You are crazy,” she said with perfect certainty.

I gently bit down on her nipple, and she squirmed and panted.

“Yes, truly, madly, and deeply,” I rumbled and moved to the next tit, sucking and tugging at the nipple. I bucked my hips against the bed, needing some kind of pressure to take the edge off my cock. I’d never wanted someone the way I wanted her. I’d never want anyone else again.

“Fuck, I can’t — after earlier, I need to be inside you,” I admitted and reached down to rip my fly open.

Her thighs parted for me, eager, despite her barbed words. The feeling when we touched was addictive, and I was already hooked. It was more thrilling than riding my motorcycle down a pitch-black road at top speed. More thrilling than jumping out of an airplane at thirteen thousand feet or facing down certain death.

Her panties tore away with a sharp tug, and then the heat of her pussy met my fingers. She was so wet. Still so messy from earlier, when she’d come from my cock rubbing against her clit, in front of a roomful of depraved psychos. I rubbed the head of my dick up and down her slit, coating myself in her juices.

I pressed inside her as the cool touch of metal licked my throat.

Ah, of course, my knife. In my lust, I’d forgotten about it.

But she hadn’t.

I stilled and looked down at Giada’s hand. She held the knife right over my jugular.

“Clever girl.” I admired every-fucking-thing about the lass. I slowly plunged deeper, even as the knife mirrored my movement and the blade pressed into my neck.

“My brother really will kill you for this,” she breathed, her hazy gaze landing on me.

“If I get tonight, then it’ll be worth it.” I parted her tight muscles with effort. She was snug and slick and fucking perfect.

I lowered my mouth to her face, kissing the deep frown line between her eyes. The movement dug the knife even harder into my neck. I didn’t try to touch it, and she didn’t move it even an inch. She opened her mouth to me and let me inside. I stroked my tongue along hers while fucking her shallowly, stretching her tight cunt to fit me.

“I might kill you before he does,” she panted and pushed me up with the knife, forcing me onto my back. She followed, straddling me, while keeping the knife at my neck. “Don’t fucking move, O’Connor,” she warned and sank back down on my cock.

I jerked, the feeling more than I could take. She was tight as hell, her trim stomach flexing as she rotated her hips, fucking herself with my cock.

“I wouldn’t dare, selkie. Take what you want.”

She shook her head, roses blossoming in her cheeks.

“I don’t want you,” she murmured.

She rose and fell, riding me hard. If I moved, she dug the knife a little harder into my neck. Thankfully, her aim had slipped from my jugular, because I could feel blood running down from the point.

“Say that again and make me believe you,” I growled at her. “You can’t lie to me. I know you feel it, too.”

She slammed herself down on me, and I moved a hand to her clit. Tilting her body back, she offered herself to my fingers, rocking on my cock. I rubbed her clit, and she got breathless. Her eyes went unfocused and her head fell back.

I pinched her clit.

“One rule here. Look at me when you come. I want to see every second,” I murmured, obsessed with the way the darkness and light played in her eyes.

She was close, so fucking close. I rubbed her clit harder, and then she was coming. She grew impossibly tight; her whole body pulsed. Her eyes were dark wells of pleasure, and I wanted to kiss her senseless, then fuck up into her until I followed, but that damn knife was still there, slicing into my skin with a thousand tiny cuts.

She shuddered on top of me and stopped moving. I released her clit, fighting every urge I had to grab her and hold her pinned against me, and fuck up into her until I exploded.

But I didn’t get the chance.

She straightened up, and before I could guess what she was about to do, the little minx stood. She straightened and pointed the knife in my direction.

“I’m going to the bathroom. Don’t come after me, or I really will kill you.”

“Come on, selkie, put me out of my misery,” I protested.

She glanced down at my cock, wet and angry and desperate to be back inside her, and grinned.

A victorious smile crept across her lips, and she turned on her heel.

“You’ll survive,” she called as she crossed the studio apartment in a few steps and went into the bathroom.

And locked the door.