Chapter 27: Tangled Threads

Emery’s POV

The next moment, all I saw was his hands reaching out and cupping my face, then his face slowly got closer to mine and he tucked my hair behind my ears at the same time. 

I saw him get closer and closer, and my heart was pounding so hard that I feared it would leap out of my chest. I held my breath subconsciously and closed my eyes, all my thoughts were focused on the kiss.

And I just knew that this was the moment that would set everything right. I waited for seconds and the moment finally came. I felt his soft lips pressed mine. The kiss was soft and undemanding. The more I felt his lips on mine, the more my legs got weaker, and the world ceased to exist.

We had kissed more than a million times, but were always rough, planned, messy, demanding, and hard. It was always Killian's tactic to shut me up, and I never realized that his lips were that soft, and I had forgotten all about the gunfire incident.

And I kissed him back. I didn't want to misunderstand him anymore. He did everything to keep me safe, I whisper to my head. 

He lifted me up from the ground and my legs wrapped around his waist. I felt him walking into the building but I didn't care, my hands had found their way to his button. We were all over each other.

I landed on a soft surface and his lips had moved from my lips to my ear and he nipped it lightly then to my neck kissing, biting and licking.

His tongue slowly went down my cleavage, but got obstructed by clothes, and he tore them open. How mouth found its way to my right breast and his hand played with the right.

I left out a small cry.

“Kill… ah” I moaned as his mouth left my breast, and down between my legs, and he lightly bit my inner thigh.

“Breath.” 

His deep breath sent a shock wave through me.

He kept on biting and licking my inner thigh without any intention to further, hands still creasing my br**st. 

“Please…kill… ple…” 

But he ignored my begging. He slowly licked my wet s*x while slightly twisting his tongue.

“Ahhh” my breathing was heavy.

Then he slid one finger into my hole, going in and out, and he added another finger and licked my wet juice. While his finger was still inside of me, he went up and kissed me, and I tasted myself, then his pace increased. 

“Ah… kil… ah… lian please.” 

“Please, what?” 

“Please.” 

“You didn't answer the question, Eme.”

“Please, I need you.” 

“And I'm here,” he said as his pace slowed.

“No” I cried “inside me, Killian please.”

Killian removed his finger and slammed inside me.

“Ahhh” I cried out.

When it was over, we lay in silence, and all I could hear was our uneven breathing. We were completely naked with love bites all over and I crawled into Killian's body.

“What's next?” I asked.

“I don’t even know what we are anymore,” I murmured, staring at the old ceiling.

“I don’t either,” he said. “But I know I don’t want to lose it.”

My chest tightened because I didn't want to lose it. But I couldn't tell if this was love or if it was just two broken individuals holding on to their last piece.

The morning came in whispers and the ray of light shone through the broken window to my eyes while casting a soft glow over the room. 

It was a quiet morning, but the sound of Killian's breathing directly in my ears didn't make it fully quiet. 

I was pinned to one position by his hands, which restricted my movement. I watched him as his chest rose and fell beside me. And his skin was tangled with the sheet, and his handsome face looked calm and peaceful.

At first, I wanted to slip out of the building, but the hands that kept me in place made me have a second thought about staying still.

So I lay still with my eye counting the broken and missing ceiling and separating them from the good ceiling. 

While still laying down, I analyzed the weight of our actions within my head. I was torn between two truths I had to accept; I felt more protected, but also felt more vulnerable.

And I didn't want any of the truth to find me but it was true and I was becoming it.

And I knew because somewhere within the bullet, the smoke, wet earth, suffocating tunnels, the confession and heat, I had given up something, something I wasn't meant to even if the world was ending. 

I hadn't just gotten up my body, but I had given up my will and that line I had drawn, I had carefully guarded, the line between love and obsession was gone. Like it was blown into the air, erased, never to be seen again, like it never existed. Maybe it never did and I had created an illusion that it did.

I finally decided to follow my first instinct so I slipped out of the bed carefully not to wake him.

I had thought he was deep asleep but he wasn't because before I reached the door, I heard his voice.

“You always run in the morning?”

And my feet got rooted to the floor.

His voice was still thick with sleep, but sharp enough to make me turn

I turned slowly.

He pushed himself up and rested his weight on one of his elbows. The sheet had barely covered him up to his hip, and he was watching me, wondering if I was running away again or just wanted to step out for the morning breeze.

“What? I… wasn’t… running,” I stammered and let out an awkward laugh with my hands slightly rubbing the back of my neck.

He studied me again. “You were leaving.” he deadpanned 

I didn’t deny it this time because maybe… I was.

“I needed air,” I said, my voice low

“You can’t get air if you keep holding your breath around me.”

His words were raw, too close to the truth. I thought I hid well.

That morning, neither of us interacted with each other; we just dressed in silence and went back to the main estate like nothing had changed, but something had. But we weren't ready to accept that something had changed.

When we got to the estate, it was still on a full lockdown with armed guards patrolling the hallway and the staff talking in hushed tones, pointing fingers at me. I couldn't blame them, I had gone to the estate in search of protection but brought my dramas with me and caused chaos.

Killian had said the estate was a fortress and I was its queen but I felt more like its cage queen

At some point, the speed at which the media house got its information was dangerous. Just like the gunfire incident. The media had gone berserk, and the gunfire from the attack was all over the place. There was footage that was fabricated by the media all over the and the headlines that accompanied the footage were ruthless;

“Wolfe's Fiancée Targeted — PR Stunt or Attempted Murder?”

“How Real Is the Engagement Between Emery Sinclair and Killian Wolfe?”

“Blood, Power, and Lies: The High Price of Loving a Wolfe.”

And they were all right, but not fully. It was a fake engagement, but the bullets were real and not a PR stunt, and the feelings were real. A feeling I had been trying so hard to suppress and didn't know what to do about, and maybe all of it was the high price I had to pay for love, Killian Wolfe. 

Killian's world had begun to choke me up, but it wasn't choking because it wasn't safe, but rather it had become choking because He was starting to feel more like safety, like home, just like my safe haven.

The more I pulled from him, the more I felt drawn to him.

But that… that wasn’t freedom. 

It wasn't what I had wished for, I wasn't what I wanted at least that was what I told myself

Later that afternoon, I folded myself into a chair with my eyes glued to the muted news on the screen.

Helen found me there. She was the only one who took the initiative to talk to me. 

“He’s in the west wing,” she said gently. “He has been on several different calls non-stop since morning .”

I gave a light smile and nodded

“Just… be careful,” she added, voice softer now. “Sometimes the man who builds the walls doesn’t realize he’s trapped inside them too.”

I stood up and went to find him using Helen's description. We couldn't stay away from each other, not when the outside world had twisted our story and painted us in the most unrecognizable way.

When I found him, he was sitting at the long conference table, with his phone to his ear and his jaw clenched. His shirt sleeves were rolled up and the room smelled like coffee and tension. 

“Step outside,” he said into the phone. “And don’t come back until you have traced the last six shell companies. I want Crest cornered. I want his allies cut off. I want this cleaned and fast.”

He ended the call without giving a last greeting then he looked at me with a look that asked the question ‘what’ but I crossed my arms trying to stand my ground

“What are we doing, Killian?”

But his gaze didn’t falter.

“We’re surviving,” he answered firmly

“No,” I said, firmer. “We’re pretending. You know it. I know it. This engagement was meant to be a tactic; it was a distraction, but it had become something else.”

He rose from his seat slowly and walked toward me with that look I hated and needed all at once.

“You want out?” he asked. “Say it.”

My breath catch

“I want space.”

An evil smirk grew on his face

“Space,” he repeated. “You think space is going to fix this?”

“No,” I whispered. “But control won’t either.”

He took a step closer and I took another backward, my back hit the wall and he caged me with both hands 

“You kissed me back.” 

“I know,” I said our faces inches away with his face down to me and mine up to him

“You didn’t pull away.”

“I know that too.”

“So what do you want, Emery?” His voice was a low growl now, intimate and dangerous. “To walk away? Or to keep pretending this isn’t what it is?”

I hated that I didn’t have an answer.

Because the truth was that I wanted him but I wanted myself, too and I wasn’t sure there was room to accommodate both 

Later that evening, he called a meeting with his security team that I wasn’t invited to but I still attended it.

I watched from behind the glass of the hallway, hidden just out of sight, my heart tight in my chest. He stood at the center of the room like a storm, giving orders, slicing through lies, and demanding results.

And I knew, he wasn’t just fighting to protect me. He was fighting because I had become the only thing left he couldn’t control.

When he finally found me later that night I was in the courtyard, I stood barefoot in the rain.

The wind picked up around us

 My dress was soaked and clung to my skin but I didn’t move.

“You’ll get sick,” he said quietly.

“I already am,” I replied. “Sick of the lies. Sick of pretending. Sick of not knowing who I am in this version of my life.”

He stepped into the rain with me, but didn’t speak; he just looked at me with eyes that saw too much.

“I can’t breathe in your world,” I said.

“Then I’ll break it open,” he murmured. “I’ll tear it down, Emery. If that’s what it takes to keep you.”

My breath caught because that wasn’t love. It was an obsession.

It was the truth neither of us could outrun anymore.

He reached for me, soaked and shaking, and kissed me again, this time slower, deeper, less fire and more gravity, and when I kissed him back…

I didn’t know if it was because I loved him.

Or if it was because I didn’t know how to stop.