He smiled, as if he could see the chemical reaction rippling through my body. And he liked it.
“I’m leaving,” I said. Slightly scared of this. Slightly scared of myself. And him.
“You don’t want to leave,” he said, stepping closer, and the fire in my hands and my chest exploded between my legs. Desire like I’d never felt, like I’d never been allowed to feel fueled by rage and champagne and his Irish accent rippled all the way through me.
“You don’t know a single fucking thing about me,” I snarled.
“I know you don’t want to be pitied. And I know you just got fucked around pretty good up there in front of a thousand people.”
I breathed hard through my nose.
“I think you want to fight,” he said, a breath away from me. If I was another person I’d kiss him. Grab him by the silk lapels of his tux and pull that wicked mouth to mine. But I wasn’t that person, for a million reasons. His eyes assessed me, and the longer I was silent, standing there burning and wretched, the pity came back.
“Or maybe I’m wrong about you,” he said. “You don’t have any fight in you. You are exactly what they made you.” He reached for the door, and I knew he was going to let me go. Whatever test this was, I’d failed. “I’ll make sure you get home.”
I smacked him. I smacked him so hard my hand hurt. It burned and tingled. There was a print of my hand on his skin and that was the first time I’d ever done that, and part of me wanted to be horrified, but deep in my fully rioting soul, I was pleased.
So pleased.
The dark wing of his hair fell down over his eye, and he turned to face me, sweeping it back.
“There you go, Princess,” he said. “That’s what you need.” He smiled at me like he suddenly recognized me as kin. Something long lost. But I felt undone. Incomplete. Something had started, a domino tipping over and setting off a chain reaction. And I needed him to complete it.
Or stop it.
Bursting right out of myself, I grabbed his lapels, pulling us into each other. Our bodies collided and sparked.
And I kissed him.
8
It was that moment between action and reaction. The longest second in the world. Where there are a thousand different outcomes, and the universe was peeling its way through all of them. His lips against mine were open, like he was breathing me in, but he didn’t kiss me.
He was just breathing. In and out. Against me.
I’d been a virgin on my wedding night. Something that seemed important to the senator. He’d touched the blood between my legs when the brief sex of our wedding night was over. He’d touched the blood and rubbed it between his fingers and said, in a satisfied way. “You’re mine.”
I’d been speechless with pain and disappointment, and so I said nothing, which was what he liked best, though I didn’t know it at the time.
Before the senator there’d been a guy I worked with in the library in college. A boy in high school. But nothing prepared me for the senator, and nothing about the senator prepared me for Ronan.
For this feeling right now.
This ache. This need. I wanted him to kiss me.
“Poppy,” he said, his voice a groan of regret. He was about to push me away. To end this.
So, I pulled him closer. Licked at his lips, waiting for him to snap or break. Push me away or kiss me back. Anything. Anything but this pitiful saying of my name.
His hands let go of the door and touched me. Feather-light like he was feeling his way across my back. I expected boldness from him. Wanted confident and sure and rough. I wanted him to be in control, and these careful touches weren’t enough. Weren’t nearly enough.
But I didn’t know how to get more from him. How to incite him to more. How to ask for it.
He lifted his hands from my body, and I could feel him pulling away. “Ronan,” I groaned, clinging to him. Trying to stop the inevitable.
And then suddenly he wasn’t kissing me. He turned me away from him and pushed me up against the door. His body hot and hard against my back. Against my . . . ass. I could feel him there. Hard through his tuxedo pants. Proof he did want me. A shuddery relief went through me.
“What do you want, Princess?”
I pressed my forehead against the door and my ass against his cock and we both made a sound like we were being tortured. He cupped my breast in his wide rough palm.
“Say it,” he groaned in my ear.
“I don’t . . . I don’t know.”
His chuckle against my neck sent shockwaves through my body, and my knees buckled. He leaned harder against me, holding me between the door with is body. “I think you do,” he said, his hands still. His hips still. “I think you know what you want. You’re just too scared to say it.”
I arched as best I could against him. I didn’t know what to do. How to seduce a man. How to make him want me. I was clueless and stupid.
And still I wanted him to touch me.
“Don’t you want me?” I whispered, hating the words. Hating myself for saying them.
“Why would I want you?” His words were a slap.
I went still, pulling myself deep inside my body. Where I couldn’t be hurt.
“You’re a pawn. A mouse,” he whispered, and I pushed away from the door trying to get away from him and his hands, both of them came up to the bodice of my dress. Reaching between my skin and the silk to cup my naked skin in his hands. I gasped. Torn down the middle by his words and his actions. The silk of my dress tore as he shoved it down, baring my breasts to the cool air.
It was violent.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“Giving you what you want.”
“Not . . . not like this.”
I braced my hands against the door and shoved, but he put his mouth at my neck at the tender skin behind my ear and he bit me. I couldn’t control the tortured moan in my throat. His mouth traveled down my shoulder, planting wet, open-mouthed kisses as he went. Sucking and biting, and I collapsed back against the door. I was angry? Why was I angry?
“You’re scared of your shadow,” he murmured, pulling the skirt of my dress up with one hand as his other cupped my breast, pulled my nipple taut until I cried out in pleasure and pain. This was too much. He was too much. I’d jumped into some kind of deep end with a man who disdained me, and I couldn’t find the will to stop him.
Where was my pride?
“Do I want you?” he breathed as he slid his hand down over the soaked satin of my barely-there thong. I shuddered and tried to escape, but he literally held me in the palm of his hand. I couldn’t tell if he was being mean or sarcastic. I couldn’t tell if he was playing a game or being honest. I didn’t have the experience or the confidence to make sense of this.
I just knew that I wanted him. Mean, sarcastic, whatever I could get from him.
He pulled the wet satin out of his way, and then he was touching me where no one had touched me for years. Years. I’d even stopped touching myself. Sex was a chore. And no part of my body wanted it.
But now . . . oh my god now, my body wanted everything. Anything. Whatever dark depraved thing he wanted to do to me, I wanted it times ten. I couldn’t breathe for the desire filling me. His fingers slipping over every inch of me, and I was on my tip toes, my head thrown back. I didn’t care what he said. Or what he thought if he would just make me come.