Chapter 3

Killian didn’t look at me when he answered and just kept his eyes focused on the road ahead of us as he said, “Somewhere we can talk without being interrupted or overheard by anyone who might recognize us.”

His words sent a chill down my spine because they made it sound like he was planning something secretive and possibly dangerous, but I didn’t dare ask him what he meant. I was afraid of what his answer might be.

We drove for what felt like forever through streets that became increasingly less familiar to me until we were completely outside the city limits and heading into an area that was mostly industrial warehouses and abandoned buildings.

The few streetlights that existed out here were dim and radiated an orange glow over everything, and I started to feel genuinely scared about where he was taking me and what he might do once we got there.

Finally, he pulled the car into an empty parking lot next to what looked like an old factory that had been shut down years ago, and he turned off the engine and the sudden silence was deafening.

I looked around nervously at the dark windows and graffiti-covered walls and wondered if anyone else even knew that this place existed or if we were completely alone out here in the middle of nowhere.

“Get out,” Killian said in a low voice that left no room for argument, and I swallowed hard before unbuckling my seatbelt and opening the door.

The air outside was cold and damp and smelled like rust and decay. I wrapped my arms around myself as I followed Killian toward a side entrance to the building where he produced a key from his jacket pocket and unlocked the metal door.

He pushed it open and gestured for me to go inside first, and even though every instinct I had was screaming at me to run away and get as far from this place as possible, I found myself stepping through the doorway and into the darkness beyond.

Killian followed me inside and closed the door behind us with a loud clang that resounded through the empty space, and then he flipped a switch on the wall and a few overhead lights flickered to life revealing what looked like some kind of storage room with concrete floors and exposed pipes running along the ceiling.

There was a table in the center of the room with two chairs positioned on either side of it, and the whole setup made me think of an interrogation room from a crime movie which did absolutely nothing to calm my racing heart.

“Sit down,” Killian commanded as he walked over to the table and pulled out one of the chairs for me, and I reluctantly moved forward and lowered myself into the seat while keeping my eyes fixed on him the whole time.

He didn’t sit down right away and instead paced back and forth in front of me for several long moments like he was trying to figure out what to say or how to say it, and the tension in the room was so thick that I felt like I could barely breathe.

Finally, he stopped pacing and turned to face me with an expression that was equal parts angry and conflicted and something else that I couldn’t quite identify but that made my stomach twist into knots.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me?” he asked in a voice that was rough and strained like he was barely holding himself together, and before I could answer he continued, “Ever since the night you walked in on me I haven’t been able to think about anything except you and it’s driving me completely insane because you’re supposed to be off limits and I should be able to control myself but I can’t.”

I opened my mouth to respond but no words came out. I didn’t know what to say to that confession, and Killian took advantage of my silence to keep talking as he said, “I left because I thought that if I put some distance between us I could forget about what happened and go back to pretending that you don’t exist, but it didn’t work. Now everywhere I went and everything I did I kept seeing your face and hearing your voice and imagining what it would be like to touch you.”

He moved closer to me until he was standing right in front of my chair and looking down at me with eyes that were dark and filled with something that looked almost like desperation, and he reached out and cupped my face in his hands as he said, “Last night when I saw you at that club wearing that dress and letting that man put his hands on you I wanted to kill him and then I wanted to drag you somewhere private and make you understand that you belong to me and no one else.”

“Killian,” I whispered and my voice was shaking as I tried to process everything he was telling me, “We can’t do this, it’s wrong and if anyone found out it would destroy our family and hurt your mother and my father.”

“I know,” he said through gritted teeth and his grip on my face tightened slightly as he added, “I know it’s wrong and I know all the reasons why we shouldn’t do this, but I don’t care anymore. Wanting you has become more important to me than anything else, including my own sanity.”

He leaned down until his forehead was pressed against mine and I could feel his breath hot against my lips as he whispered, “Tell me you don’t want this and I’ll take you back to school right now and I’ll never bother you again, but if you can’t tell me that then you need to accept that this thing between us is going to happen whether we want it to or not.”

My mind was screaming at me to lie and tell him that I didn’t want him and that he should leave me alone, but my body had other ideas and I found myself leaning into his touch and closing the small distance between us until my lips were brushing against his.

That tiny movement was all the permission he needed because suddenly he was kissing me with a fierce intensity that made my head spin and my whole body feel like it was on fire, and his hands moved from my face to my waist as he pulled me up out of the chair and against his body.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back with equal desperation because now that we had crossed this line there was no going back and I knew that my life was never going to be the same after tonight.

His hands roamed over my body touching and claiming every inch of me like he had been waiting for this moment for years, and when he finally pulled back to catch his breath his eyes were blazing with hunger and possession.

“You’re mine now,” he said in a voice that was almost a growl, “And I don’t share what’s mine with anyone.”

Before I could respond to that declaration the door to the storage room suddenly burst open with a loud crash and someone else entered the space, and both Killian and I jumped apart in shock as we turned to see who had interrupted us at the worst possible moment.