Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 98207 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98207 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
I direct him to lay down on the bed. He does, and this time, I kneel beside him and work on his feet. Like every other part of him, they are well cared for and clean. But on the bottom of his soles, I uncover another score of long healed scars. More burns and slices. Deep and unforgiving. The amount of pain he must have endured to conceive such mutilations is unfathomable.
“Do they still hurt?” I croak.
“Sometimes,” is his murmured reply.
His voice is sleepy. Content. The shock of what I’m witnessing no longer fazes him. He’s under the spell of my fingers, completely oblivious to anything else. I forge on, choking my emotion down as the horrors of Ronan’s childhood are laid bare. Scars on his knees. His thighs. His stomach, chest and shoulders. There isn’t a single part of him that’s been untouched by the violence he has known.
I’m trying to hold it in. Tamp it down. Keep control of myself. But the more I see, the harder it becomes. So many times, I’ve questioned this man. Who he is and what reasons he had for his behavior. I couldn’t have known. My mind would never have taken me to such a dark place. But I get it now.
I get it so much that silent tears of shame and anger bleed from my eyes, burning me like acid. A sob drags from my lungs before I can stop it, and Ronan blinks up at me in confusion. I swipe at the mess that is my face and shake my head.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I’m so sorry. I don’t mean to cry. It’s just, I hate them. I hate them for what they did to you. And I slapped you. I should never have slapped you…”
Ronan reaches for my hand and tangles our fingers together. He stares at that connection, and he likes it. Things that I’ve always taken for granted, the small kindness of a human touch, must be so foreign to him.
He’s never had them. Any of them.
I’m going to make it up to him. I’m going to rock his world and make him feel everything. Everything good.
I straddle his hips and lay my body down across his much larger one, gazing up at him.
“Will you take off your glasses?”
He does. His eyes are soft and intense, soaking up every detail that comprises the woman on top of him. He knows me already, but it’s time for me to learn him. So I touch his face, mapping out every arc and bow. The fire that forged him was monstrous and cruel, but I’ve never seen anything more beautiful in my life. When I tell him so, he frowns.
“I’m a man,” is his reply.
I slide my hand down between us and grip his cock.
“I know.”
I tug on his shaft twice to provoke him. My exploration is over, and the time for talking is done. Ronan is already a step ahead of me when he grabs me by the hips and flips me over. He settles between my legs so that he’s in the dominant position, exactly where he belongs. He presses my stomach into the bed and arches my hips as he slides up into me.
I’m full, content, and greedy at the same time. Clinging to his arms and breathing him in. He connects with me in a way that nobody else ever has. My body was dormant, and he brought me to life again. We’re a symphony of madness. Dark thirsts and wild obsession. My love for him burns hotter than the sun. It’s sappy. It’s fucked up. And more than anything, it’s real.
I wrap my legs around him and tug his face down to mine. Ronan wrecks me with a kiss. And then his lips are on my throat, indulging in the taste of my skin. He couldn’t know how close I am already when he reaches down between us and touches my clit.
It sets me off like a bottle rocket, and he’s right behind me. He comes inside of me again. And in one aspect it’s a relief that I don’t have to worry about it anymore. Instead, I’m wondering what he’s going to do when he collapses beside me. Because this is usually the scene where he bolts. Only now, I’m in his house. His bed.
He looks over at me with lazy eyes and pulls me against him, kissing me on the forehead. I relax into him and draw circles on his chest and my own eyes grow heavy too.
“Don’t go anywhere,” I murmur against him as I fall to sleep. “Just stay with me.”
And he does.
Chapter Thirty-One
Sasha
When I wake up again, at first I think that Ronan is gone. But then I look up to find him propped against the headboard, reading.
At some point he must have gotten dressed, only he’s wearing a tee shirt and a pair of sweat pants. His hair is still mussed from where I massaged him, and he’s never looked sexier.