Page 116 of Cruel Lies

"Ronan," I say, "can we turn the lights off? I just feel?—"

"No."

That one word stops me cold.

He steps back in close and rests his hands on my hips as his eyes bore into mine, burning hot.

"We're not turning off the lights. Not tonight. Not ever, if I have my way." His voice is a baritone snarl, scraping me clean from the inside out. "You want to hide from me. I can see it. And I'm telling you no."

"Ronan—"

"Listen to me." His thumb strokes over the skin under his hand. "This body carried two children. It survived a man who spent ten years teaching you to hate it. And it is standing in front of me right now, perfect in the light, the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I mean that. Every inch of you."

I whimper helplessly.

"You think I want you smaller? Obscured? Hidden?" He shakes his head slowly. "Hell fucking no. I want all of you. Lit up. Where I can see and worship you the way you deserve."

His hand slides up my ribs and back down, sure and slow, like he's memorizing me.

"So you're going to stand here in the light," he growls, "and you're going to let me look at you, and I'm going to keep looking until that ugly little voice in your head shuts up for good. And then I'm going to take you to bed and show you all the other things I've been dreaming of doing to you. Do you understand me?"

The strange thing is, I do.

The voice goes quiet. Not gone. But quiet.

I nod.

"Say it."

"I understand," I whisper.

"Good girl." He kisses me again. "Now, let me treat you properly."

With that, he drops to his knees.

He kisses my stomach, his beard tickling and making me squirm. Then lower. He hooks his fingers in the waistband of my underwear and looks up at me, half-gray, half-blue eyes catching the city light, asking.

"Yes," I croak. "God, yes."

He draws them down slow, his mouth following, kissing the crease of my hip, the top of my thigh, everywhere but the place where I want him most. He must be able to see my wetness, to smell me. And sure enough, he presses his nose to me and inhales deeply, greedily, then lets out a mournful exhale like it'll never be enough.

My knees are already unsteady, so it doesn't improve my balance when he lifts one of my legs and hooks it over his shoulder. The only thing holding me up is the glass at my back and his hands on my hips.

"Hold on to something," he warns.

"There's nothing to hold?—"

Then he's devouring me. He said he wanted to go slow, but this isn't slow at all. It's hungry and eager, lapping, sucking, nibbling,flicking his tongue across my swollen clit and then parting my folds with it to drink me up from within.

My hand slaps back against the glass and finds no grip, so I grab his hair instead. He groans against me, the vibrations rumbling and adding to the mix that's already threatening to ruin me.

He pulls off and licks his lips as he gazes up at me. "You taste like everything I've been desperate for," he says. "Every night in this empty apartment,thisis what I was thinking about."

"Ronan—please?—"

"Please what."

"Don't stop. Don't you dare stop."