Keep Me (Sinful Manor #1)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Four

“What are you reading?” Killian asks from the doorway of the parlor. I glance up from the book in my lap with a sheepish smirk.

I’m not ashamed of my curiosity. I found this book in the library months ago. But it wasn’t until the night Killian tied me to his bed and claimed me as his, that I realized this might be something I’m slightly intrigued about.

Slowly I lift the book to let him read the title.

The Act of Submission

His eyebrows lift in astonishment. “Forgot I had that,” he says. “Are you reading it because you’re curious, or are you reading it because you want to try it?”

I let out a sigh. “I don’t know. Is this what you like?” I ask.

His gaze bores into mine, the tension growing charged with every passing second.

“Sometimes,” he mutters. Slowly, he walks deeper into the room, closing the distance between us, and I have to force myself to swallow. Killian carries himself with a presence that sometimes steals my breath, and I think I’ve spent so long pushing him away that I haven’t given myself a chance to appreciate that.

“I love the trust that it requires,” he adds, looking into my eyes. “I love feeling so connected to someone that they give me full control over their body.”

When he reaches the chair I’m sitting in, he places his hands on either side, caging me in. I feel his presence like the heat emanating from a fire.

“Is that something you want with me?” I add.

His eyes close briefly as he replies, “Oh, absolutely, mo ghràidh.”

“Well then,” I smirk. “Maybe someday.”

That word, someday , stings, but I quickly brush it off. Killian and I don’t have a future full of somedays, and it’s not something I like to focus on too much.

He grins back at me. “Yeah, someday.”

When I turn my attention back down to my book, he stands up and goes to the bar for a drink. I’m finding it harder to focus on the words on the page since we started talking about it. After only a few months, I’ve noticed how much Killian has changed. He seems less drawn to recklessness and outbursts, and for a man who was introduced to me as such a partier and playboy, I’m just not seeing that anymore.

It piques my curiosity, remembering something Anna mentioned back when I first came around.

“Did something happen that made your aunt so angry?” I ask.

He chuckles. “What didn’t I do to make her angry?”

“No, I mean…with the house.”

“Och,” he replies, turning toward me with a drink in his hand. Leaning against the bar, he takes a deep breath and stares off as if he’s reminiscing about a tough memory. Then he nods toward the book in my hands. “Has a lot to do with that, actually.”

“This?” I ask, lifting it from my lap.

“Aye. You know that party we had a couple months back?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“Well, I used to have a lot more of them. Sometimes with that crowd. Sometimes with others. And after a while, I got a bit of a reputation. Nearly every weekend, people would come. They’d invite their friends, and I knew it was getting out of hand.

“My house was filled with strangers, but I loved it. They weren’t…regular parties, you understand?”

“I think I do,” I mumble, gazing up into his eyes.

“They were out of control, but I felt free. And soon my house wasn’t such a prison anymore. It was like…an escape. A place where normal people would come to let go. To express themselves. To try new things.”

“What happened?” I ask, although I have some idea.

“Word got out to my family. They found out that our family home had turned into a sex club on the weekends, and they weren’t happy about it.”

I bite my lip as a feeling of regret washes over me. I understand now why his aunt was so angry, but at the same time, I feel so much empathy for what that must have been like for him. To feel something important to him ripped away.

“So you had to stop the parties,” I add remorsefully.

He nods his head, looking melancholy.

“I’m sorry.”

He gives me a shrug. “It’s not your fault.”

He’s right. That part is not my fault, but him eventually losing this place that brings him comfort, is my fault.

“You know…someday you could open a real place like that, and it wouldn’t have to be your home. I think it sounds wonderful.”

I’m trying to give him hope or solace or something, but his expression isn’t giving me the assurance I want.

Then, finally, he leans down and presses his lips to my forehead as he mutters, “No, I couldn’t.”

I glance up at him with confusion.

With a smirk, he adds, “But maybe… we could.”

“Killian…” I start to protest his relentless argument that any of this is real, but the words die on my lips.

Setting his drink on the bar, he comes toward me again, and I feel myself burning from the inside out with that heated look in his eyes. Then he cages me in again, leaning so close, I forget how to breathe.

“I thought we settled this already,” he mutters lowly. “I am your husband, Sylvie. You are my wife.”

When he says my name like that—not cow , or darling , or mo ghràidh—it feels too real.

“I’m not—” I argue, but he quickly cuts me off with a scorching kiss. His tongue invades my mouth, and I forget what I was about to say. I can’t believe I’m letting him disorient me like this. I have to get him out of my head before he costs me everything.

With a hand against his chest, I forcefully shove him away. We’re both left gasping, and he’s wearing a smug grin on his face as he wipes the moisture from his lips with his thumb.

“You can believe whatever you want, Killian Barclay, but just because I let you touch me doesn’t make me yours. I’m nobody’s wife.”

As I suspected, this only makes him laugh. “You can believe whatever you want, Mrs. Barclay,” he replies, accentuating the title to drive home his point. Then he picks up the book in my lap as he adds smugly, “But you are my wife, and it’s only a matter of time before you truly submit.”

I sit up, straightening my spine as I bring my face to his. With a look of steely determination, I snatch the book back and toss it to the floor.

“Never,” I mutter, staring into his eyes.

With a grin, he kisses me again. And when he drops to his knees and begins to tear my clothes off, I let him.

He can have my body for now, but I refuse to let my husband have my heart.