“Ronan?”
“I know,” he breathed, his hands sliding up my back, holding me tight to him as if he’d never let me go. I hoped he wouldn’t.
“Take me home,” I whispered. “Your home.”
He didn’t protest like I thought he might. He only nodded and kissed me a final time. Wordlessly, we cleaned up and packed the lights away but for one to lead us back.
The night was thick and warm; summer was fast approaching. Ronan took the wheel and drove us to his apartment complex. In the parking lot, he killed the engine but didn’t get out.
“I don’t live with my uncle,” he said in a low voice. “I only said that so I wouldn’t seem weird. A high school guy who lived alone. But I do. I live alone.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“When you were hurt, you never mentioned an uncle who might be worried about you. But I think I suspected even before that. You never talk about him.”
He faced forward, his lips drawn.
I reached over and sank my fingers in his hair at the back of his head. “It’s okay. I don’t like it, but I don’t think it’s weird.”
“You don’t like it?”
“I don’t like that you’re alone.”
He looked to me, his gaze drinking me in. “I’m not tonight.”
***
Ronan led me to the upstairs corner unit with OFFICE marked on the door.
“It’s not much,” he warned, letting me in and flipping on the light.
He was right—the place was small and simple but clean. What struck me most was its emptiness. No pictures on the wall, no photos of anyone on the coffee table. No sign that anyone lived here. As if I couldlook in the closet and find Ronan’s suitcase still fully packed.
The loneliness of it broke my heart but hardened it too with fierce pride. More evidence that Ronan was pushing through the horror of his past the best way he knew how—suffering in silence to keep it from touching those he cared about.
“Show me the rest.”
He led me to the bedroom with a tiny attached bathroom. The room was sparsely furnished—a bed with a plain dark comforter, a nightstand, a dresser. No art on the walls, no photos.
I turned at the foot of the bed. He was at the door, waiting for the verdict.
“Come here.”
He crossed to me in two long strides. His mouth found mine while my hands gripped him at the waist and pulled him close. He unzipped my dress in the back, and I pushed the jacket off his shoulders. His shirt went next as my dress pooled at my feet. Down to my bra and panties, I wrapped my arms around Ronan and was enveloped in the heat of him. If there was a heaven, this was it. His warm skin, his hard muscle, and his heart beating against my ear.
I pressed a kiss there, then over his tattoo. The owl on his shoulder watched me with orange eyes. But I was no longer a stranger.
Ronan unclasped my bra, pulling it off my shoulders while we kissed with shallow, wet, licking kisses. His eyes drank me in, his hands on my breasts—they fit perfectly in his palms. He bent, and his hair tickled my chin as he put his mouth to one hard nipple.
I moaned as he bit and sucked, sending shivers dancing up my chest and down my back, between my legs. My panties were already damp.
When my breasts were aching and heavy from Ronan’s relentless mouth, I pushed him away and fumbled at the button and zipper on his jeans. His erection strained against the denim, and I reached inside to grip him. To stroke him while his mouth blazed a trail of wet kisses up my neck to my ear.
“Ronan…” I breathed. “I need…”
I needed him naked. I needed tobenaked beneath him. Or on top of him, nothing left between us. No more rules or labels. Just him and me.