“You have a booty call?”
“Yep, and I’d rather not show up covered in your blood.”
That both fills me with relief and sobers me up. “Sure. Just one more thing… We’re going to need some supplies here.”
“I figured. I already started a short list, but text me what else you need. I’ll have stuff delivered before noon tomorrow. Can you last until then?”
I don’t know what Havana and I will eat, but if we fall into bed together, will either of us care? “We’ll manage.”
Ethan laughs. “I’m sure you’ll think of some way to pass the time.”
Then he hangs up, and I’m free to tell Havana what’s on my mind. What’s in my heart. What I hope for our future. A glance at the clock on the wall tells me I still have ninety minutes left of her birthday to make it the best I can. I’m not wasting another minute.
Havana
I take inventory in the kitchen, so aware that I’m with Ransom under one roof. Alone. My belly knots nervously.
Will he finally make me his…or send me away again?
“Meow.” Shadow rubs against me, looking like she expects me to solve her feline problems.
“I’d love to help you, but I don’t know how to solve my own problems.”
The fur ball circles my ankles again. I’m not sure why since she isn’t hungry. I found a can of tuna in the massive pantry, but Shadow sniffed it, took a few bites, then walked off. Same with the little dish of water I put beside it.
When she jumps up, head-butting my shin and rubbing against me, I get it. I give her a scratch behind the ears.
Don’t we all want someone to love us?
After checking out the house from top to bottom, Ransom holed up across the place, doors shut. The muffled rumble of his voice tells me he’s on the phone…and he doesn’t want me to hear. After everything that went down tonight, I shouldn’t be okay with that. I should be demanding to know who he’s talking to and why he wouldn’t let me call for medical help or police. But I don’t.
Because you trust Ransom or because you don’t really want to know?
Maybe both.
I distract myself from asking more hard questions by starting a list of things we’ll need if we’re going to stay here for a few days. I munch on a protein bar I found and suck down a bottle of water I pulled from the pantry. Not exactly a celebratory birthday dinner, but it’s food. At this point, I’ll take it.
Well, you can’t say your big day turned out dull…
As I finish, measured footfalls across the tile are my only warning that Ransom approaches. I turn to find him prowling closer. He fuses his stare on me.
I can’t look away.
Ransom is shirtless, so it’s impossible to miss his inked chest and bulging biceps. But that isn’t what makes me weak-kneed. He’s an alpha male in his prime. Rugged. Potent. I shiver. My skin tingles. My heart thuds.
Shadow scampers away, skidding across the tile until she flattens herself under the sofa in the next room. Poor baby. She’s afraid of the big, bad man.
Maybe you should be, too.
But I’m not.
“Havana?” He keeps heading for me, until the only thing separating us is a few feet of empty space and the questions I’m too afraid to ask. “There are a million things I need to say to you—later. But let’s cut to the chase. You know why I came to see you tonight.”
“I don’t.” I know what I’m hoping to hear but…
“It’s your birthday. You’re eighteen now.”
My breath catches. “And you came for me?” Like you promised?
“I warned you I would, babygirl. Are you ready? I know you weren’t counting on danger, so if it’s too much…”
“Is what you’re doing illegal?”
“You really want the answer to that question right now?”
Will it change my decision? “No. You’ll protect me.”
I believe that all the way down to my bones. Maybe that’s naive and I should be terrified, but it’s Ransom, so I’m not. Besides, if he was nothing but a hard-core criminal, would he have waited to touch me until it was legal?
“I will—with my life. But you’re an adult, so I’m letting you decide what happens next between us.”
“What if I say no?” Like I even could.
His face twists with pain. “Then I’ll walk away for good. I’ll still be in your shadows because I can’t stand not getting an eyeful of you every day. But you won’t see me.”
“Have you been watching me?”
“How do you think I knew where you work? I know where you live, too. I especially like that thin tank top and those fucking too-tight panties you wear to bed.”
That shouldn’t excite me, but heat jets through my veins. My nipples peak. Blood rushes between my legs. “I don’t understand.”
“I haven’t been the same since I first set eyes on you. I’m obsessed with you. I’m in love with you. I want to know everything about you.”
His face tells me that’s not all he wants.
“And if I say yes?”
Ransom may not be touching me, but he’s still all over me. His dark eyes, framed by brutally short hair and the stubble that rides his sharp jaw, see through me. His heat envelops me until I shudder. His scent—reeking of leather, blood, and testosterone—fills my head, crowding out my thoughts. His exhalations caress my lips until I can hardly think of anything but pressing them against his again. And when he lifts his hand to me, knuckles drifting down my cheek, sparks ping through my body.
“I’ll get you naked, take you to the first fucking bed I find in this place, and shove every inch of this”—he grabs my hand and guides it to the steely erection behind his zipper—“inside you. Then I’ll ride that finally legal pussy raw until you know who you belong to.”
I press my thighs together, but it’s useless. I want too much. It’s hard to breathe. It’s beyond difficult to think. It’s impossible to say no. “Ransom…”
“That’s not going to relieve your ache, babygirl.” He wraps his arms around me and lifts me onto the nearby island, spreading my legs and stepping between them.
“I know.” And I do. When I tried masturbating him out of my system, the need only grew.
“I can make it better. But you need to answer me before I touch you. Yes or no?”
“What about you? You’re injured and—”
“These scratches?” He thumbs at the bandage on his neck and lifts his arm to stare at the wound I patched up there. “It’s going to take a lot more than these to keep me from you.”
“Does this mean anything besides sex?”
He frowns. “You think I just want to fuck you?”
Even when he says the words, I get hot, but I have to focus. This is my future. “Don’t you?”
“That’s not all I want from you, Havana. I want your heart. I want you to want mine, too. I want us to make a future. The sex will simply be the icing on the cake.”
All the things I crave—that I’ve fantasized about—with him. “Yes.”