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“Nothing between us.” Her eyes blazed amber fire. “Not this time. Not everagain.”
The words were kerosene on the fire of his passion and he moved inside her, pulling out and driving into her again, watching her face as he occupied every inch of herbody.
He wanted to go slow, to savor the moment when they were finally one, but he could feel her climbing toward climax, could feel it in the tightening of her pussy as it clamped down on his shaft, the urgency in her hips as she rose to meethim.
“I’m going to come, Ronan,” shegasped.
He didn’t want her to hold back. He didn’t want her to ever hold anything backagain.
“Come for me,beautiful.”
She cried out into the room, her body shuddering under his, and his own release tookhold.
He pushed through her swollen channel, thrusting again and again, pouring himself into her until they were both panting and spent, until he knew for sure there was nothing more betweenthem.
28
Ronan wasasleep when Julia slipped out of bed. They’d heard Nick, Braden, and Nora come in at some point in the night, but neither of them had wanted to break the spell of their time alone. They’d lain in bed, laughing softly so no one would hear and hoping everyone would think they were asleep. Then they’d made love again, this time slowly and quietly, like they were both trying to memorize every moment in case it was theirlast.
She put on Ronan’s shirt and slipped onto the terrace off the bedroom. The moon was just a crescent, but the sky was so clear it lit up the seabelow.
She looked past the boats docked in the marina, her eyes on the horizon. She knew Elise was out there, could feel her sister’s presence. Could Elise see the moon from a window onboard the Elysium? Did she know she was off the coast of Greece? Did she know what was about to happen toher?
It didn’t matter. At this time tomorrow night, it would all be over. Either they would have Elise or they wouldn’t. Either they would make it out alive, or theywouldn’t.
She walked herself through the night ahead: the boat that would take them into position, the night dive to the Elysium, their breach of the yacht, the moment when she and Ronan would split off from Braden and Nick, their search of the cabins forElise.
She knew she was the weak link in the team, the one with no experience, but she was determined not to be a liability. Like everyone else, she would be armed, and she wouldn’t hesitate to use her weapon if it meant saving her sister, if it meant saving any ofthem.
She’d avoided calling her grandfather with an update since Florence. She wanted the next call she made to him to be the one where she told him Elise was safe and sound. False hope was too hard to bear, and he’d borne more than his share of it since their trip toDubai.
She imagined her and Elise back at her gramps’ house, sitting on the deck while he grilled steaks, both of them wrapped in one of his old blankets and drinking homemade lemonade while he told them about his latest strongly worded letter to the editor of the localnewspaper.
The moment felt both impossible and close enough totouch.
“Hey.” Ronan’s hands came down on her shoulders. He kissed her neck and a shiver ran up her spine. “Youokay?”
She turned in his arms and nodded, then touched her lips to his. “I’m sorry if I wokeyou.”
“Don’t be. I don’t want to sleep withoutyou.”
A few weeks ago the words would have terrified her. They would have felt like a jinx on an already precarious situation. Now she knew her relationship with Ronan had never been precarious: it had only been her faith in herself that had been shaky, and that had been nothing but an old story she’d told so many times that she’d believed it without question when it had been flawed allalong.
“I don’t want to sleep without you either.” He pulled her closer and she looked up at him, thinking about where they would be the following night. “Is it going to beokay?”
It was something she wouldn’t have dared ask a few weeks earlier. She’d been holding her doubts close, not wanting them to seep into the consciousness of Ronan or Nick or Declan, wanting them to believe she was a hundred percent certain they were going to find Elise, get her out alive, make it out alivethemselves.
“Nothing between us?” heasked.
“Nothing.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I will promise you onething.”
“Okay.” A promise from Ronan was one she could take to the bank. Whatever it was, she would cling to it with bothhands.
“Whatever happens tomorrow night, I won’t rest until whoever did this pays, one way oranother.”
She tightened her arms around him and rested her cheek against his barechest.
