Chapter Fifteen

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Are you all right?” he asked, stepping into the room. He shut the door behind him, and a liquid thrill and a liquid fear seeped through all my exhaustion, and I was suddenly wide awake.

Suddenly very aware of this thin robe clinging to my damp skin.

“Fine. What are you doing here?” There was no way Caroline would approve of her pet fixer being in this room with me.

He glanced away at the dim window, his hands in the pockets of his dark pants. His silence was deafening, and I realized he wasn’t entirely sure.

“Did you start that fire?”

His eyes met mine, and I saw deep . . . fear. For me. And I was small and tired and he’d crushed me every time we were together, so I had no reason to feel emboldened by that look in his eye, but I did.

“No,” he said. “But the investigator said it wasn’t an accident.”

“What? How do you know that before me?”

“Because I had something he wanted enough that he broke the rules and gave me what I wanted. That’s how it works, Princess.”

“What did you have?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“How can you say that? Of course—”

“His throat, Poppy. I had his throat in my hand, and if he didn’t tell me what I wanted to know I was going to kill him.”

I shut my mouth so fast my teeth clicked.

He stepped closer to me. “What matters is that the fire in the fire pit had been put out. It didn’t spread. They found accelerant all over the outside of the house. It was intentional. The fire was supposed to scare you or kill you.”

I sat down hard on the edge of the bed. Between the comforter and my robe, I nearly slid right off, but Ronan reached out and caught me.

“My sister wouldn’t do that,” I said.

“Well, maybe the fire was supposed to kill your sister.”

“Why? None of this makes sense.”

“I know.” He sat down beside me.

There was a long simple moment of silence between us as we sat shoulder to shoulder on that bed. And I was exhausted and scared and really what I wanted in that moment more than anything was comfort. From him. Which was like hoping a knife would wrap its arms around you, but I was somewhere near rock bottom when it came to my mental and emotional reserves.

“Why did you kiss me?” I asked. “In my office. You said you wouldn’t kiss me and then—”

“I break all my rules around you, Poppy. Every single one.”

“No kissing is a rule?”

He nodded, staring down at his hands.

“What other rules do you break?”

He sighed, rubbed at his face. The silence stretched and stretched, and I was sure he was never going to answer me. And if he couldn’t answer even one of my questions then what was the point of him? Us. I opened my mouth to tell him to go, to let me rest. To leave me alone.

But then he started to talk. “When I was a kid, Da got us a place in social housing. A shit bag flat. Leaky roof. Gangs, fucking everywhere. Every corner,” he said.

And I sat so still. So quiet. Terrified if I moved or said something, he might walk away.

“School was miles away, like. And I was saving up money running errands for some of the old folks around so I could get a skateboard.” He took a deep breath and let it out real slow. “Just so I could get to school. But my Da kept finding the money, and I’d have to start all over. And then this family moves in next door. And there’s a kid my age and I’m like . . . crazy with happiness. I’m like on his step at dawn looking for this kid.”

His smile broke my heart. Broke it right in half.

“And his family wasn’t too happy with him hanging out with the likes of me, but we got on all right. And then it’s the boy’s birthday, and he gets a new skateboard and he gives me his old one. And I reckon I lose my mind I’m so happy and I . . . show it to my Da. Which, I honestly, don’t know what I was thinking. But he grabs the skateboard, and it was just cheap plywood over some shit wheels but he smashes it over my shoulder. Breaks it into two pieces, dislocates my shoulder, and then he grabs me and the two skateboard pieces and we go outside where my friend is playing with his new board in the street, and my Da pushes the kid off the board, picks it up and smashes his skateboard on the ground.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why would he do that?”

“Well. The best I could figure being just a kid and with a dislocated shoulder and all, was that I couldn’t be happy. I couldn’t have the skateboard, and I couldn’t have a friend. The boy never talked to me again.”

“Ronan,” I sighed, aching with sympathy.

“If I gave my Da even the slightest idea that I liked something, he’d ruin it. And I thought for awhile, I could hide it. Hide what I wanted. So he’d never know.” He shook his head. “But I wasn’t very good at hiding anything.”

“How old were you?”

“Seven.”

“You were just a boy.”

“Well, I was boy who learned that the best way to not have the things he wanted broken or stolen or thrown in the trash was to not want anything.”

“And that . . . that was a rule?”

“I’m twenty-seven years old, Poppy. I’ve lived by that rule for almost twenty years. And then you came along with your fucking eyes, that spirit I watched get put away and then start to come back out again, it was like watching—” he shook his head, “—spring. It was like watching those little stupid flowers that put their heads up through the frost.”

“Are you calling me stupid?”

“So fucking stupid.”

“Ronan—”

“But not as fucking stupid as me. Because you’re going to get hurt, I know you are. I know it. And the only thing that can save you is you leaving.”

“Did you set the fire?” I asked. “To scare me off?”

“No. I mean, I thought it, but I didn’t do it.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t—” He stopped shook his head and got to his feet, like he was going to leave.

I grabbed his hand, his fingers curled into a hard fist, like armor against me. “You don’t what?”

“Want you to leave.”

I stood up, his hand still in mine. My thumb traced the scar on his wrist. “I’m not leaving,” I said.

“Cos you’re a fucking fool.”

“Probably. But there’s something here I want too.”

He was shaking his head. He yanked his hands free of mine and grabbed my shoulders, lifting me off my feet so I was nearly eye to eye with him. It hurt, his grip on my body. But when everything hurt, you took the pain that had the greatest chance of turning into pleasure.

“You don’t want me. You want the way I make you feel.”

“I want all of it.”

“I haven’t even fucked you,” he said, like I was pathetic. And I knew what he was doing. Maybe I’d always known. But he was trying to hurt me so I’d stay away.

“We could change that,” I whispered. “Right now. You could put your cock—”

“Shut up,” he said.

“Inside of me.”

He was rigid. His eyes someplace over my head, and I felt every ounce of control he was using to keep himself from doing what he wanted. I stepped back, away. Pulling the tie of my robe as I went. It slid open, revealing my body. My skin soft and pink from the shower. “It’s never felt good before. But it would with you, wouldn’t it? With us?”

“You think I won’t hurt you?”

“You will. But you’ll make it feel so good, too. That’s what you do to me.”

His eyes on me burned. Like the hottest part of the flame, and it hurt. Everything about him hurt. But god, I loved this pain.

“You could fuck me,” I said, lying back on the bed. My heels on the edge of the mattress. I parted my legs, slipped my hand down over my pussy. “Right here.” I jumped at the brush of my finger over my clitoris. How, I wondered, could I be so tired? So scared? And still want him so much? The world could be coming down around me, and I would still want him. “I could make you feel good, too. The way it’s supposed to be.”

He came to stand at the foot of the bed between my legs. I held my breath waiting for his touch. And when it came, his hand on my knee, I flinched with the pleasure.

“When did you get so bold?” he asked.

“You made me this way.” I dipped a finger deeper inside myself, and he made a sound from his throat, a groan that made me catch my breath. This was some kind of magic between us. We were combustible, and the other held the match.

“You . . . make me want things I can’t have, Poppy.” His voice sounded final. Cold. Like he was halfway out the door. “I won’t fuck you. But I’ll make you feel good.”

“No.” I pushed myself up to sitting. “I don’t want that. I don’t want—”

He kissed me. So sweet, his lips against mine. I opened my mouth to gasp, to breathe, to have more of him. As much of him as he’d let me, and one hand came up to hold my jaw, the other cupped my breast, squeezing my nipple between his hand and his thumb. I groaned into his mouth.

His mouth was a seduction. Long slow kisses. They never stopped. They rolled one into the other. His tongue against mine. He caught my lower lip with his teeth and pulled until I whimpered. It was too much and not enough all at the same time.

“Ronan,” I whimpered, and he pulled away. The kissing over, but he still held my jaw. His eyes on mine.

“You’re fucking killing me, Poppy.”

“Then we’re dying together. I’ve never . . . I’ve never felt this way.”

He said something, his accent so thick and guttural I couldn’t understand it. He pushed me back on the bed. His hand slipped between my legs, and his mouth captured my nipple. I saw stars behind my eyelids, and my hands memorized the feel of his shoulders under his shirt. They were wide and strong, and I clutched them as if I could claim him. As if wanting him so badly I was crazed with it, would grant me the right to call him mine. The way I wanted to call him mine.

And the way I wanted to be his.

“Fuck me,” I breathed. “Please.”

“No, Poppy. I won’t. You’re not for me. You’ll regret even letting me touch you this much.” He shifted like he was going to pull away. Like he was going to stop.

“Ronan.”

He groaned and pressed the top of his head to my chest and shifted his body so my legs were pressed out wide. “You’ll only get fucking hurt if you keep on like this, Poppy,” he said, but his words barely made any sense. His fingers were inside me, and my body was made out of sugar and light and I was losing my grip on everything except him. Everything except how he made me feel.

I grabbed his wrist, keeping him close, and I exploded into a thousand ecstatic pieces. And when I came back together, I was different. Different each time he touched me. He was standing up, moving away. His eyes already shuttered. His thoughts and feelings behind glass.

I grabbed him by the belt, felt the hard press of his cock against the heel of my hand and pressed against it until he groaned. His head thrown back. I was so quick he didn’t have a chance to stop me. To pull against me or push me away. His belt was undone, and I slipped my hand into his pants, catching the hard length of him through his underwear.

But the reality was, I had no idea what to do with him. How to . . . make him feel good the way he did me. He was a man, a dangerous man, with a past I didn’t understand or know. And I was just this foolish flower, sticking my head out of the snow despite knowing I’d be hurt by what I wanted most.

“Show me,” I whispered, coming to the edge of the bed. Stroking him, squeezing him. “Show me what you like.”

Again, he said something I couldn’t understand, but with one hand he shoved his underwear out of the way revealing his cock, and his other hand cupped me behind the neck and pulled me to him.

“Open your goddamn mouth,” he growled, and I did. His cock slipping past my lips. I had done this once before. Damon in the library. And he’d been so nervous and sweet, and he kept asking me if I was all right.

Ronan wasn’t going to ask me that at all. He didn’t care. He had lost control and was using me. And all I could do was brace my hands against his hips as he fucked into my mouth. Long and slow. Faster.

I loved every fucking second.

And then suddenly, he pulled out, his hands still holding my neck. His head bowed so I couldn’t see his face. Panting, aching, I waited for him to continue or to say something. I leaned forward but he held me still.

I felt all of my inexperience. Every night in that bed with the senator, unmoved and just wanting it to be over. Those fumbling sweet moments with Damon who smelled like books and weed. What did I know, what could I possibly know about pleasing this man?

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“For what?”

“For not . . . being what you want?” That made him look at me, not that it mattered. He looked so angry. “For not knowing how to do this.”

“If I could—” He stopped himself, looked at the ceiling. I looked down, wrapping my robe around my naked body. If he could go back, he’d never have talked to me at that party. Or taken me into the room at the gala. If he could do it all over again, it would never be with me.

“Stop,” he said.

“I think—”

He squeezed my neck, and my eyes flew to his. “Open your mouth for me,” he whispered, and he was smiling. Actually smiling. So, stunned, I did what he asked, and he eased forward, slipping his cock back between my lips. He was salty. Wet. Come, I realized. And so hard. Hard against my lips. The back of my throat. And now, now he was looking right at me, and I was looking at him, and I’d never in my life been so connected to someone. So vulnerable and naked.

“Look at you.” He kept breathing like he’d stumbled onto something beautiful and mystifying, and no one had ever talked to me like that. The head of his cock hitting the back of my throat and it was . . . I couldn’t breathe. But I didn’t want him to stop.

He pulled away, and I moaned, licking him as he slipped out of my mouth. He stopped, like he might actually walk away. And there’d been too much of that. I put my arm around his hips, pulling him back to me, sucking him down even as it seemed he hesitated.

“I can’t . . . fuck. Jesus. Poppy,” he groaned, and then I felt him surrender. He cradled my face in his hands and shook, coming in my mouth.

It was oddly quiet. And almost holy. He trembled against me, his head bowed, lips moving as if praying, and I languished in it. Reveled in it. His surrender, and ease. The power and communion of touching him like this. Making him feel like this.

I could not ever love this man. It would be stupid beyond even my capabilities. Signing myself up for a pain not even I could imagine. But this intimacy. His slow withdrawal from my mouth. His taste on my tongue. His fingers twitching in my hair. This pinpoint of pain in my heart.

It was a revelation.

“I’ve never felt this way before,” I said.

“It’s sex,” he said.

“I’d feel this for anyone who touched me the way you do?”

He stepped back, tucking himself away. Jerking his clothes back into place when he finally looked at me, he was the stranger I’d grown used to. Everything hidden. Everything gone.

With the senator, I learned self-preservation so well. I was a master. So good in fact, I was barely living. But with this man, I kept throwing myself against his spikes and his stone-face.

He is only going to hurt me.

Suddenly I was exhausted. Down to my bones.

There was no way to hold up my chin. No way to straighten my shoulders for one more cruel word. One more beautiful touch.

“Come on,” he said, helping me into the bed, pulling out the quilt from under my body and tucking me in. His fingers—perhaps by accident, I couldn’t be sure, I couldn’t be sure of anything with this man—brushed my cheek.

“How am I supposed to survive you?” I asked.

“You’re not,” he said.