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Perfect. You’re fucking perfect…
But I couldn’t say that to her. She didn’t need to hear it from me but someone better. Someone who could give her everything she deserved. And my silence sealed the deal.
“Fine.” She took a last bite of her doughnut and a swig of coffee. “Let’s go.”
Frustration and longing—that hunger—roared. I wanted to grab her, haul her to me and kiss her. Drown in her. Pretend for a second I was in another life. One where I wasn’t fucked up. Where my mom was still alive because my dad hadn’t fucking murdered her, staining my every waking thought with blood. Where I didn’t see it happen every time I closed my eyes. Where I didn’t feel the heat of his rage burning in me and the fear whispering I was just like him. Where I didn’t walk all over town in the middle of the night to make sure the people I cared about were safe. A pitiful penance that would never be enough. Never bring her back.
Shiloh would think I was a psycho if I told her all that.
Better to let her go. Keep her safe.
I followed Shiloh out of the shop, but the rain was coming down hard now. She ducked under the shallow awning.
“Shit…”
I slipped off my jacket and held it over her, keeping her dry while the rain pelted me.
Shiloh’s expression softened and then her eyes darkened, her gaze moving over my face, watching the trails of water.
“Here we are,” she said. “Again.”
I nodded absently, not hearing her because her lower lip was dusted with powdered sugar. “You have something…”
“Yes?” She inclined her head, defiant to her own protections she kept up at all times. Except with me…
I leaned in, entering the shelter of the jacket. Shiloh made fists in my T-shirt, drawing me against her, her eyes locked on mine, daring me. Our mouths inches apart, our noses bumping, I angled my head left then right, savoring the moment before I took what I shouldn’t have.
“Ronan,” she breathed and then whimpered as my tongue swiped the sugar from her lip.
Oh fuck…
One small taste and I was already fucking gone. A short inhale, a heartbeat, was all that stood between right and wrong. And suddenly, I didn’t give a shit. There was only her.
My hand snaked up into her hair and grabbed a fistful of braids as I crashed my mouth to hers.
Chapter Twelve
I froze as the first sensations found me, and then I melted.
Ronan’s kiss infiltrated my mouth with a taste that was so purely masculine and perfect, it stole my breath and lit up my insides with a fire I’d never felt before. The want I’d been suppressing since the moment we met awakened. Impossible to deny anymore. Like trying to hold back a tidal wave.
I gave in.
I moaned softly into his kiss, letting him take my mouth. Letting him shield me with his strong body against the cold and the rain. I surrendered to his hands, his lips, his biting teeth. Kissing Ronan was everything I thought it would be and nothing I expected. Rough and raw but with a strange softness beneath. Reverence. He plundered my mouth with hard, needy possession but I felt worshipped at the same time.
His. I’m his…
But I was no one’s. I belonged to myself and yet suddenly there I was on that street, daring myself to throw my grand plan into the fire and burn with Ronan Wentz.
My hands surged into his damp hair, along his back, taking their fill as he pressed closer. Damn, the power in him… I felt every hum and vibration in his body, tense with want but holding back. His hand in my hair tightened, and the lick of pain was enough to elicit another moan. I gripped him around the waist, wanting him on me and over me.
Inside me. I want him inside me…
“Oh, God,” I breathed and wrenched myself away from Ronan, coming back to myself and where we were. “Not here.”
“Where?” Ronan said gruffly. “You want to go somewhere and…?”
Do anything. Everything. Last summer with Jalen had felt like ticking off a box on my To Do list. A job that needed doing. I was going to start a business right after graduation and wanted to jump into adulthood with both feet, nothing left in my way.
