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I knew he would only allow that for so long before changing the kiss. Taking all its brightness and making it dark. Making it his. He put his arms around my waist and lifted me off my feet, carrying me into the bedroom where he wouldn’t have sex with me. Where he wouldn’t love me.
And I had never felt so loved.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ronan
This was the last time, and the nature of last times meant they seemed more important. Gilded, maybe. Special. When they weren’t. I’d had a lifetime of last times, and I knew the last time I’d seen my da alive wasn’t any more special than any other time I’d watched him, shoulders hunched against the cold drizzle on his way to the pub to drink away all the things he needed to drink away.
So this, I had to remind myself as I kissed Poppy—her body so soft and giving under mine—only seemed special because my brain was playing a trick on me.
Last times, first times—it was all context.
I swept her hair back with my hands and felt the damp from the corners of her eyes to her hairline. I pressed my lips there and she tried to pull away, but I tasted the salt of her tears.
“Poppy,” I breathed, shifting away from her, but she held on, pulling me back.
“Don’t,” she said, shaking her head even as more tears fell. “Don’t stop.”
“I don’t mess around with crying women, Poppy.”
“I’m not crying.”
“Poppy.”
She attached herself to my body like a monkey, arms and legs wrapping around me. God, she was small against me.
“Please,” she whispered against my ear, sucking the lobe into her mouth and then biting with the force she somehow instinctively knew was the perfect amount. I swallowed my gasp and pleasure rippled through my body.
“Please. I want you inside me. I need you inside me, Ronan.”
“No, Poppy.”
She reached between us, her hand curling around my cock. This was the fucking problem with last times. They were loaded propositions. The pull of useless emotion was impossible to resist. Even I felt it and I was hardened against such things. But her hand on my cock was delicious. The feel of her against my body was undeniable, and even I understood I would be thinking about this moment for a long time. Missing her when I shouldn’t.
“Does it bother you?” she asked, stroking me. Squeezing the tip, rubbing the head with her thumb. “That I’m going to be asking a man to fuck me and he’ll do it? He’ll do it and it won’t be you?”
Fuck. This fucking girl. Always wanting more. Always wanting what she shouldn’t have. I would think, having lived through the pain she’d lived through, the lessons would be learned. But here she was: a woman bartered away and raped by her husband, manipulated by me, and wanted dead or alive by people who could make the worst happen.
How did she still manage to want more? To have hope?
“Please, Ronan. We would feel so good—”
I knocked away her hand and rolled on top of her, spreading her legs out wide. So wide it had to hurt. But I pressed the hard length of my cock against her clit and rocked against her. In the burst of pleasure between us, I could see what she wanted. How she was hoping tomorrow wouldn’t come.
“Open your eyes, Poppy.”
She did as I asked because she would do anything I asked. I stared down at her with the icy cold distance I surrounded myself with. Even now. Pressed up hard against her, her body’s welcome slick against my cock. Even here I could bring it up because I had to. Because this was survival.
“This game you’re playing—”
“It’s not a game.”
“Well, it’s not real. There’s no world where we are an us.”
Silent, she looked up at me, and I could see her biting her tongue. “You’re making everything harder,” I said. “For yourself. Tomorrow, you’ll regret this because everything goes back the way it was.”
“Where you pretend you don’t care and—”
“I don’t fucking care.” I said it right to her face.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, fierce through her tears. She curled her leg around me and used her weight to roll us over. “You know what I’m going to do?”
“Leave me and never look back?”
“No.”
It’s not like I couldn’t push her off me. End this in some blunt manner. Leaving would be smart because the lesson she needed to learn was a cold one. But this was the fucking last time, and I couldn’t not feel it. Couldn’t not feel her.
“I’m going to ruin you, Ronan,” she said, spreading her thighs over my hips. Slipping me, just a little, inside of her body. My hands caught her waist, holding her still. One inch of my cock dipped in lava. I wasn’t fucking her; I wasn’t not fucking her.
