King of the Cage: A Dark Irish Mafia Romance (Devil’s Own)
King of the Cage: Chapter 23

I took Giada to The Selkie’s Rest. She seemed to like the bustle and had taken to Aoife.

The encounter with Mam had left me feeling a whole lot of things. I needed a pint and some space to sort through them.

My selkie slipped away to sit with Aoife, and I kept my eye on her from a distance.

Now, I knew Giada truly was my selkie. Even my mam had recognized her, which meant I really was the man who’d stolen her skin. Despite the cruelty of the act, I couldn’t bring myself to regret it. Letting her go was an impossibility. She was, quite simply, mine.

It ended up being a rowdy night at The Selkie’s Rest, which was saying something. The O’Connors knew how to have a good time. There was music and drinking and even dancing.

The crowd cleared out of the pub after midnight, once the music had ebbed and dancers had tired themselves out. A few stragglers lingered, dancing slowly under the dimmed lights. Giada watched them, and I watched her. She was alone, finally. She watched the couples swaying on the floor with a kind of dreamlike wistfulness. I had never seen such a vulnerable expression on her face. Even after all we’d been through. It appeared that my tough little wife was better at staring down danger than giving an affectionate look.

“Wicked Game,” an old Chris Isaak song, hit the jukebox, the melancholy tune wrapping around both of us.

“Care to dance?” I asked Giada.

She rolled her eyes but glanced at the dance floor.

“There’s barely anyone else dancing,” she pointed out.

I grinned victoriously. That hadn’t been a no. I was wearing my wife down, learning to read her tells. Learning everything about her, inside and out. She was the most fascinating subject. An obsession, pure and simple. More… an addiction.

“Good. I need space when I bust a move,” I told her firmly and took her hand.

She barely put up a fight as she rose to her feet.

I tugged her to the middle of the dance floor and pulled her closer, resting my hands possessively on her hips. I wanted to feel her against me, cradled in my arms, looking up at me with that haughty expression that could easily turn wicked or playful with only a blink. My mercurial little selkie, trapped on the shore.

“This is place is just like you,” she remarked, glancing around the pub. The interior was a mishmash of fishing nets and wooden fish sculptures, old framed photos and headlines of O’Connor achievements, and Christmas crap that still hadn’t been put away.

“What? The most popular thing in town?” I wondered.

“Pure chaos,” she corrected and narrowed her eyes at my easy grin. “But cozy somehow.”

I blinked at her, taken off guard by her words. They made me feel something I wasn’t sure what to do with.

“I’m going to take that as a compliment,” I said after a beat.

“You would,” she sighed.

“When you get them as rarely as I do, you learn to savor every single one.”

She raised an eyebrow at me. Oops. That admission wasn’t quite in keeping with my overly confident, joker’s façade.

“And here I thought that a guy who looked like you, with a mouth like yours, would be swimming in compliments and offers,” she mused.

I grinned. “Now, that was definitely complimentary. Are you trying to get in my pants, wee one? Because if you are… it’s working.”

She rolled her eyes again, and I used her distraction as a chance to pull her closer, pressing myself against her lithe body.

“You know what you look like… and you know how charming you are. It’s your schtick, right? I bet you get anything you want from anyone you want when you turn the charm on.”

“Really? Could I have gotten you to marry me if I’d just asked?” I asked.

She scoffed, her dark eyes staring into mine. The rest of the pub fell away.

“Getting small things is easy… small, inconsequential favors that mean nothing. Sure, that’s simple. The big things? The things I really want? Those have never come easy to a man like me.”

“A man like you?” she repeated. Her little pink tongue nipped out and wet her lips.

I was mesmerized.

“And what kind of man are you?”

I shrugged. “Isn’t that what people spend their lives trying to work out?”

Giada tossed her head. “Maybe men do. I know who I am, and I always have.”

“Hmmm, is that right? And who is that?” I caught the eye of one of my men, dancing with his wife behind us. I cut my eyes to the door, and he got the message.

Slowly, the other couples filed out of the pub. I wanted to be alone with my wife.

“Brilliant, of course, beautiful, or so they say. Loud, overly opinionated…” She trailed off. “Insufferably superior at times.”

Her eyes rose to mine, daring me to comment on that admission.

“As you should be,” I told her gruffly. “You are superior. Own it. It’s really fucking hot. I could listen to you tell me shit I don’t know all day.”

She jerked, her mouth falling open for a moment in surprise. “I wasn’t fishing for compliments, O’Connor,” Giada said.

She was closing up. She’d shown me a glimpse inside, and now, she was covering her tracks. Making sure she couldn’t be seen.

“I know,” I murmured and walked her purposefully backward toward the bar. The door had shut behind the last patron, and we were alone.

Just like I wanted.

“But I can’t help myself.”

Her spine came up against the counter, and she tilted her head back to keep me in her sights. I pressed my front to her. I was so hard, I could barely think. I rocked my hard-on over her soft belly.

I cupped her face, her pulse fluttering under my fingers.

She smirked. “Your charm won’t get you anywhere with me,” she murmured. “I’m not one of your simpering fans.”

Her pulse beat hard in her slender throat. I dropped my other hand to her neck, circling the slender column, enjoying the feeling of her blood pumping right beneath my palm.

“That’s right, you’re not. You’re my wife,” I stated quietly.

She swallowed and wet her lips again. Her pupils were huge, as if she were excited. She wasn’t nearly as calm as she wanted me to believe.

“For tonight, at least… until I die tomorrow,” I reminded her, taking the edge off the tension between us. It was white-hot, simmering beneath my skin. How could one person’s touch set my blood on fire? What strange magic did this complicated, fascinating woman possess?

She nodded slowly. “Until you die tomorrow,” she repeated in a whisper.

“So, fuck me like it’s my last night to live,” I murmured.

She stilled at the request, her eyes wide with shock and searching.

Her breath stuttered, and her eyes devoured my soul, taking it for safekeeping.

“You, selkie, are my dying wish.”

Then I kissed her, before she could protest or push me away. Before she could catch her breath, I kissed her again. She arched her back, pressing into me.

I gripped her by the back of the neck and held her captive while I did my best to consume her, like she consumed me. My every fucking thought.

I moved to her neck, and her head fell back. A perfect surrender from someone who didn’t think she was capable of it.

I lifted her onto the counter. It was the ideal height for my purposes. My overly large sweatpants were easy to tug off her small frame.

I stared at her cunt, bare and stunning, then raised an eyebrow at her.

“Your boxers were too big,” she muttered and shrugged.

“Well, thank fuck for that… I can’t wait one more second to taste this cunt again,” I murmured and pushed her knees wide so I could see every inch of her. I leaned in and ran my nose up her inner thigh, and then licked a line up her pussy. It was already wet for me. Despite her arguments and refusal to admit what there was between us, her body knew.

I tongue-fucked her roughly, guzzling on her clit like it was the fountain of eternal life. I flicked my tongue over her clit relentlessly until she screamed out my name and pulled my hair.

I stood, wiping my face on my arm, and undid my jeans. My cock was about to punch through the bar if I didn’t get it inside this woman. My wife. Just the thought sent more blood surging downward.

I dropped my jeans and boxers and rubbed my engorged cockhead against her pussy. She was gloriously wet. Still twitching from coming.

I guided myself lower and surged inside, letting out a harsh exhale when I bottomed out inside her. I was balls-deep, her tight little body gripping along my length.

She was propped up on her elbows on the bar top, her cheeks flushed, watching where we were joined. It wasn’t easy to fluster this woman. I savored the sight.

I eased out and then thrust back in, and her hips rose off the bar. I guided her down so she was lying flat and drew her legs up my chest, anchoring them firmly behind my neck.

“Fuck me, wee one,” I grunted.

She tensed her legs and slid herself along my cock. Up and down, destroying me with every movement.

“Fuck, you fit me, selkie. No one could ever fit me like you.” I grabbed her knees and pistoned my hips into her, dragging her halfway off the surface so her arse hung in the air. I fucked her steadily until she convulsed around me. It didn’t take long. Thank fuck, because I wasn’t going to last, not with the incredible way she felt.

I lowered her body to the bar and leaned over her, kissing her firmly as my hips continued to gyrate against her. I gripped her chin and held her face toward me when she whimpered.

“That’s right, come for me again, wee one. You’re going to spend all night doing just that, so don’t fight it… Let me see,” I murmured to her.

Her pupils were blown and dark, her breathing a rough, desperate pant. She tightened around me, about to come, and let out a strangled scream. I circled her neck with my palm, enjoying the feeling of her breath floating through the slender passage. So trusting. She really trusted me. This rare, precious woman… trusted me.

She clenched all over, coming, and her pussy tightened like a vise. I attempted to thrust, but I was locked in tight, and so, I followed her. I came hard, filling her right up with my cum. Just the thought of it being inside her prolonged my orgasm. A little piece of me, living inside the woman I loved.

Loved? It was the first time I’d even considered a word like that in relation to anyone outside my sister and Mam. But even as I thought it, it felt right and true.

Slowly, I released her, and she struggled to sit up.

“There better not be anyone else still here,” she said shakily.

I shook my head. “There’s not. They wouldn’t dare.”

She raised an eyebrow at me. “Got a system down, have you? For when you want to fuck a girl on the bar?”

I shook my head. “First of all, no, I’ve never fucked a girl in here. Second of all, you’re not some girl… you’re my wife. Now, let’s go upstairs and do it all over again. It’s my dying wish, remember?”