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“Who hurt you when you were young?”
“My father,” he said. “And then the priests. Take off your clothes.”
My brain could not catch up. And I stood there, shaking with desire and worry. “Take off your clothes, Poppy. And I’ll let you ask me another question.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ll take them off for you.”
I pulled the sweatshirt over my head. Unbuttoned my jeans and pushed them down. I stepped out of them, wearing a thin cotton camisole and a pair of high-cut panties. Hardly seductive.
You’re not much to look at, are you?
But Ronan seemed to like to look.
His hands ran down his powerful thighs to his knees and then back up. Again, and then again. And I realized what he wanted was to touch his cock and he was stopping himself. Well, I thought. That was interesting. It was too bad I didn’t know what to do with the information. I was no Eden Morelli. I was just me.
“Ask,” he said.
“Why are you doing this? With me?”
“Because you make it so easy.”
He was hurting me, because I allowed him to. Because I wanted it.
Oh, I thought, suddenly cold in front of him. Embarrassed. Right.
I crossed my arms over my chest and crouched, reaching for my clothes. I knew better than to want what I could not have.
“And because the night we met I’d never seen anyone so beautiful,” he said. In the stillness that followed his words, I wavered. I wavered because I wanted so badly to believe him. Despite all the proof.
“Don’t lie.” My voice cracked.
“Ask me.”
“Are you lying?”
“I’m not. Now stand up straight.” I didn’t, still crouched. Still hiding. I wasn’t this brave. “You made a deal with me. You could ask questions, but they would cost you.”
“It costs too much,” I said. “You . . . cost too much.”
“Stand up, Princess. You have more questions. You risked your life going to Eden Morelli to find answers.”
“She wouldn’t hurt me.”
“Don’t be a fool, Poppy. She would snap your neck if it served her. Now ask me what you want to know.”
I closed my eyes and found through some kind of magic, my back bone. Rising from the floor, I stood up straight again.
“What do you do for Caroline?”
“I fix problems,” he said.
“What kinds of problems?”
“The kinds lawyers and accountants can’t fix. That’s two questions.”
“What do you want?”
“Oh, Princess,” he groaned, the tone of his voice changed, revealing in the low gravel, what this game cost him. “What don’t I want from you?”
The force holding me to the wall was suddenly gone, and I stepped forward, desperate to touch him. Desperate to have him touch me.
“No,” he said, and I froze. “Back against the wall.”
“Don’t you want me to . . . touch you?”
“No, Princess, I don’t want you to touch me.”
“Ron—”
“I want you to touch yourself.”
I thought what? But the words didn’t get past my lips.
“Princess,” he said softly, like I was something sweet to him, and it pushed me into action. Back against the wall where he wanted me. I feared, no, total honesty – I knew. I knew that if he talked to me with that sweet voice, I’d do whatever he wanted. “Spread your legs.”
I did, shy and spellbound.
He leaned forward into the moonlight. “Wider.”
I stepped out wider. My underwear pulling to the side. “Do what you do when you’re alone,” he said.
“I don’t.” I licked my dry lips with a dryer tongue. Every bit of moisture in my body was between my legs. “I don’t do anything when I’m alone. Not for a very long time.”
His eyebrow lifted. “Why?”
“Because that part of me was beaten into submission,” I told him starkly.
“Well, let’s bring it back.” He sat back into the shadows, and a cloud travelled over the moon outside the window and the room was suddenly dark. “You have beautiful breasts,” he said. “Touch them for me.”
The compliment and the darkness worked in his favor, and my hands came up to cup my breasts. My fingers finding my nipples hard beneath the thin camisole. My breasts ached to be touched.
With his voice telling me what to do, the electrical currents beneath my warm and soft skin hummed to life, and I sucked in a breath.
“You liked when I pulled your nipples. When I made them sting and burn.”
I did. Yes. I remembered that. And I did it to myself. Between my legs I was hot. And suddenly achingly empty.
“Ronan,” I whispered.
“Put a hand between your legs, Poppy.”
I gasped when I did it. My own fingers felt so good.
“Are you wet?”
“Yes.”
“How wet?”
“Very . . . wet.”
I should be embarrassed. How was I not embarrassed?
The cloud slipped past the moon and the room was suddenly illuminated. Brighter for those few moments of darkness.
“Show me,” he said. I slipped my fingers out to show him. No idea if he could see it or not, but it hardly seemed to matter. Nothing really seemed to matter except his voice and the ache in my body. I closed my eyes and put my fingers back between my legs.
