Keep Me (Sinful Manor, #1)

by Sara Cate

For my mom—if you read this, let’s never, ever talk about it.

“Wait,” I say, realizing something that makes my skin crawl. “You said the staff will all have to believe we’re really married. Does that mean I have to sleep in his room—” “Och, no,” Anna answers, cutting me off. “Oh, yes,” Killian says at the same time. He’s wearing a cunning smile, and it’s handsome and alluring, like the devil’s. He could lure women to their deaths with a smile like that.

What’s worse is that I stop trying. Because I love the feel of his body against mine. I love the way he quiets my anxious mind. And I hate how much I love it.

“I could fuck you right here, and you’d let me. Wouldn’t you, darling?” His warm breath against my lips makes it hard to think. “You can’t just fuck me into submission every time we fight.” I mumble in response. “Can’t I?”

He swallows. “You look nice, wife.” “Not too bad yourself, brute.”

“Aww,” he says as he steps toward me, smiling. “You sound a little protective of me, mo ghràidh.”

Gazing up into his eyes, I feel something I never felt with him before. It’s a feeling without words, or if it has words, I don’t have the capacity to conjure them at this moment. It feels like mine and home. Safety. Comfort.

Killian puts his mouth next to my ear, and when he whispers, it feels like words written in breaths. So low even Peter can’t hear in the front seat. “I need to be inside you, Sylvie. I need to make you my wife.” Goose bumps cascade across my skin as a wave of heat pummels me from the inside. Squirming in my seat, I turn toward him and find his mouth with my lips. The kiss is all the answer he needs. Yes. Yes. Yes.

“I’m here, mo ghràidh.” His deep voice vibrates through my torso as he mutters those words against my rib cage.

Keeping our lips together, he fucks me harder as he whispers, “I’m going to fill you up. My wife. I’m making you mine.”

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.”

When she came six months ago, I hated it. Now, I love it. Sylvie is willful and stubborn. For every smile she gives me, she scowls ten times as much. I’ve never met someone so hardheaded and desperate to show her disdain. I wish I could return that disdain, but somewhere in the last six months, she’s grown on me. And it was long before she started climbing into my bed every night around Christmas. It was her fire. Her passion. The way I recognized that level of heat was because I could feel it too. It was as if she spoke a language I understood. I never intended to fall in love with my wife.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love fighting with my wife. I enjoy how easily I can push her buttons, and doing so has quickly turned into my favorite thing to do.

While my finger is still buried deep inside her, I happen to glance up at the typewriter and catch only one small line. He’s the last person on earth I want to love, but I can’t help it. I do. A smile tugs on my lips as I turn my attention back to her.

For her, I could be better. I could leave this house more. I could be a real man. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her. If that’s what she needs.

My heart swells in my chest. There is only her, only us. And I know she could have said those things because of the heat of the moment, but in my heart, I pray they’re true. My woman. My wife. My darling.

It’s such a strange feeling to fall in love with someone you don’t intend to. It’s like being coerced or tricked. Everything that reminded me of what it was like to despise her is gone. Wiped from my memory forever.

“This is the kind of man you’ve married? Someone who resorts to violence and outbursts?” “Why should we leave our daughter with you?” the man argues as he takes his place at his wife’s side. “Because I love her, you fucking twats. And I would never talk to her the way the pair of you do. And for your information,” I add, pulling open the front door to find a deluge coming down outside. I put my finger in Sylvie’s mother’s face this time as I lean in. “Your child is supposed to be the center of your universe, you ungrateful, selfish bitch.”

Tears fall against her cheeks, blending with the drops of rain that continue to pour down on us. “You’re not really—” I quickly cut her off. “Don’t you say that to me again, Sylvie Barclay. I don’t care about some stupid fucking contract. I love you. With my whole fucking chest, I love you. So don’t give me any of that shite about not being your real husband, because I’m right here. And I’ll never fucking leave you, not like they did.”

“You are a masterpiece, Sylvie,” I whisper against her hair. “I’m a mess.” “We’re all a mess, but the trick is to find someone who thinks your mess is a masterpiece. Your parents might be blind fucking eejits, but I’m not. I know a masterpiece when I see it.”

Caging in her face with my arms around her on the bed, I press my lips to hers as I whisper, “I love you, you stubborn little woman.”

The world outside this room is cosmic and too massive to comprehend. But the world that exists between him and me is more so. The love we share is infinite.

Killian wasn’t just my husband for a brief, strange period. He was the first person I ever truly cared about. The first person who loved me for me. The first person it hurt to say goodbye to.

“You’re still waiting for me, aren’t you?” I swallow, frozen as I stare straight ahead. I could lie. I could tell him that I’ve moved on and maybe that would be better for him in the end, but I can’t bring myself to do it. “I will always wait for you.” “I—”

It’s like he’s moving in the right direction, but that direction is away from me.

But the closer he comes into focus, the more hope I allow myself to feel. Then he sees me coming. In one quick movement, he stands, and I gasp as goose bumps cover my skin. My heart might as well fall out of my chest and down to the cement. My hand covers my mouth as I walk toward him.

He’s here. He’s in my arms.

“What do you need?” I ask cautiously. “Whatever it is…” He hesitates for a moment, standing there looking almost nervous as his gaze rakes over my body. My eyes stayed glued on his, wishing I could tell him with just my eyes that he can have everything. He doesn’t even need to ask. I am all his, and everything I own is his. In my heart, he is still my husband.

“I just need you, mo ghràidh,” he murmurs against my mouth.

“I love you,” he whispers with each one, and I swear I could die of happiness right here. All this time, I was afraid Killian would move on without me, or that I was the one dragging him down. Instead, I managed to guide him out of the hell he had been living in. And I didn’t even know it. “I love you,” I whisper in return.