Her face still beautifully flushed, she looked me directly in the eye. “Why?”
Because I wanted to fuck her again. Because I didn’t want to scare her off. Because I wanted to convince her I should be in her life. “So I know what I’m dealing with.”
“How many women have you been with besides me?” she challenged as if I wouldn’t answer.
“Thirteen.” My gaze not wavering, I didn’t sugarcoat. “Three before you, ten after.” Fully aware those ten women after her were a self-induced obsession that kept me from moving on, I didn’t tell her the significance of the number.
Hurt slashed across her face, and she turned away from me to stare out at the storm.
“I’m not going to lie to you, Sanaa.”
“I asked the question. I’m not blaming you for the answer.”
Yes, she was. “This isn’t a fairy tale, not for us.” Nothing about my life was. Hers, maybe. But she didn’t look happy. She hadn’t at any moment since I’d walked back into her life, with the exception of a moment ago when she’d looked at me while everyone was standing around us. The look in her eyes then, that’s what I was banking this whole conversation on.
“We could’ve been,” she quietly said to a view of the ocean neither of us would’ve been able to afford ten years ago.
“Could we have?” Fingering a strand of her soft hair, I wrapped it around my hand and stepped behind her. The top of her head fitting perfectly under my chin, she leaned back.
“Yes.” She shivered. “Maybe.”
I inhaled the exotic perfume she wore now. “You know what I think?” I missed how she used to smell, like innocence, hope and mine.
“No,” she whispered, naturally bending into my body.
Grasping her waist, still holding her hair, I pressed my hips into hers. My eyes closed, and I breathed in the fantasy of her being mine. “I think I don’t give a fuck about the past.” Opening my eyes, I scanned the empty beach. “I think I’ve got fifty minutes to sink inside your tight cunt and make you say my name.”
Her next breath came fast and sharp, and her knees trembled.
Turning her around, I braced my hands on either side of her head on the glass slider and leaned down until my mouth was almost touching hers. “Do you know what else I think?”
Her dark, sexy eyes intent on mine, she barely shook her head.
“I think you’re lucky the weather’s deteriorating, and there are no paparazzi on the beach.” As possessive as I was feeling, I almost wished there were.
“Why?” she asked, breathless.
I grabbed the hem of her dress. “Because they would’ve gotten a career-changing shot.”
“Ronan.” Her small hands landed on my biceps, and her eyes searched my face, but she didn’t say any more.
“Speak,” I ordered.
“What are you doing?” Her throat moved with a nervous swallow, and her voice quieted. “What are we doing?”
The silk of her dress already bunched in my hand, I dragged the material higher up her thigh. “I’m going to fuck you, then move you to a more secure location. Then I’m going to find Abernathy and end this.”
“And after?” she barely whispered.
“I’m going to take you for a ride.” On the Carver.
“When?”
I fought a smile. Not where or what kind of ride, just when. “After your concert.” Hitching her dress to her waist, I dragged the back of my hand across her smooth stomach and fished for information. “Are you stepping back from performing?” I traced an invisible line from one hip to the other, loving the soft swell of her stomach.
Her eyes fluttered shut. “I’m quitting.”
I dropped my hand lower. “Why?” I slid my fingers through her already wet folds and teased her clit. “You love singing.”
She moaned softly.
The sweet sound a straight hit to my cock, I pulsed painfully. “That’s not an answer.” I teased her clit again.
“I… oh God.” Her nails dug into my arms.
I sank a finger inside her, but then I stilled my hand. “You what?”
She ground her hips.
Cupping her with my finger inside her, I squeezed hard. “That’s not an answer.”
“I like to sing,” she rushed to explain. “But I’m tired of performing.”
“Good girl,” I murmured, rewarding her answer with my thumb on her clit while I slid a second finger inside her. “What do you want to do instead?” She’d always been restless as a teen. As much as I selfishly wanted her to myself, I couldn’t imagine her being content with being retired at twenty-seven.
Her body arched, and her head fell back against the glass slider as I stroked her. “Ronan.”
Jesus, she was beautiful.
Grasping her nipple through her dress, I skimmed my mouth across her neck to her throat. “Tell me what you want, Songbird.”
“You.” Her hips moving, her chest heaving, she groaned. “I want you.”
“And?” I demanded, wanting more from her than I’d ever dreamed at twenty.
Her hands fisted in my hair, and my Songbird yanked to get my attention.
I lifted my head to meet her gaze.
“I want everything, Ronan. Everything.”
He surged like a rushing storm, and all at once, he was everywhere.
His lips on mine, his hands on my body, he lifted me up, and my back hit the glass.
I gripped two handfuls of his hair as my legs went around his waist, and I kissed him as desperately as he kissed me. All at once, a memory of our first kiss came back. He’d cupped my face like he was doing now, but the brush of his sweet kiss followed by the gentle stroke of his tongue to get me to open my mouth was nothing like this.
He wasn’t merely kissing me now, he was devouring me.
Making my stomach flutter and my body tremble for more, he stroked his tongue through my mouth as his hips surged, and I felt every inch of his hard length against my bare sex.
Moaning, kissing him back but needing to tell him what was in my heart, I pulled away just enough to speak. Except instead of the beautiful lyrics of the love songs I sang, inexperienced words came out. “No one makes me feel like you do.”
His mouth moved to my neck as his hips thrust again. “They better not.”
“I need more,” I pleaded as heat hit my cheeks. “Like before.”
The growl crawled up his throat, and his mouth slammed back over mine. His hand left my face, and he gripped the material of my dress where the spaghetti strap met the front. Then he yanked.
The dress ripped, and cold air touched my breast.
I gasped, and he thrust.
My back banged against the glass from the force of his hips, and he ripped his lips away from mine.
“No,” I protested, but a second later, his mouth was on my breast.
His teeth captured my aching nipple, and the heated sensation shot straight to my core. “Ronan.”
He ripped the other side of my dress. “You like it rough, Songbird?” His mouth found my other nipple.
Gripping his impossibly soft hair as his hard, wet mouth did things to my nipples I’d only ever heard about, I dug my heels into his back and spoke from the heart. “I love every way you touch me.”