“Absolutely nothing, that’s the problem. Your lips should be illegal.” She huffed a sigh. “Look, I’m going to be blunt because being wishy-washy just isn’t my style. I don’t peddle bullshit to anyone, least of all myself.”
“Okay.” I reached for my coffee. “This allowed?”
She made a frustrated sound that was cute as fuck. “I’m being serious.”
“So am I.”
“You’re too damn cheery—your version of cheery—when I’m trying to spill my guts to you.”
My smile fell and the levity between us collapsed. “Don’t, Shiloh.”
“You don’t know what I’m going to say.”
“I know but…” I muttered into my coffee, “This was a mistake.”
“Yes, exactly!” she said. “It’s one hundred percent a mistake and yet it keeps happening. And for weeks, nothing happened, and that was even worse. Not…seeing you. Or talking to you.”
I nodded. “I know.”
She inhaled, then let it out. “I miss you.”
The words hit me hard, then sank in, because they were the last thing I’d expected a girl like Shiloh to say to someone like me.
“I mean…I miss hanging out with you,” she added quickly. “Even though you’re stubborn and surly and frustrating as hell. For some crazy reason, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. And maybe it’s simple hormones because you look like…how you look. I’m honest enough to admit that there could be some plain old-fashioned sexual attraction going on here.”
I sat back in the seat, my blood heating. I took a sip of coffee, not tasting it.
“I feel like I’m playing ping-pong with myself,” Shiloh continued. “I go back and forth, wanting to keep my distance, focus on my work, because I don’t do drama or messy relationships or feelings. But then something happens and suddenly I’m asking you over to dinner or out for doughnuts. Do you see where I’m coming from?”
I nodded.
She glanced down at her food, toyed with her napkin. “So…am I alone in this? Am I crazy?”
“No,” I said quietly. “You’re not crazy.”
Her head whipped up, and that feeling came back—of something deep passing between us. “Well,” she said, swallowing hard. “What do we do?”
“I don’t know, Shiloh.”
She leaned in, her deep brown eyes intent on me. “I’m going to need more than that, Ronan.”
“I don’t have more than that. Nothing to offer.” She started to protest, and I talked over her. “I’m not like everyone else, Shiloh.”
I’m not normal.
“I know,” she said softly. “That’s why I’m here, sitting across from you, instead of at my beautiful workspace—that you built—working on my future.”
“No, you don’t get it,” I said. “Shit happened in Wisconsin and it fucked me up pretty bad. It’s just better for you…to not have to deal with it. The repercussions.”
“What repercussions?”
Nightmares, fights, the anger that’s the same as his…
When I didn’t answer, Shiloh looked unsure of herself, uncharacteristically vulnerable. She tore little pieces off her napkin, not meeting my eyes.
“I kind of put myself out there just now,” she said. “I never do that.”
“I know.”
“You asked me to hang out with you at the Shack.”
“I shouldn’t have. Sometimes I forget who I am.” She raised her eyes to mine. I shook my head slowly. “You don’t want to know. Believe me.”
“But I do, and that’s entirely my problem,” she said. “I pride myself on being level-headed and instead I’m…”
Perfect. You’re fucking perfect…
But I couldn’t say that to her. She didn’t need to hear it from me but someone better. Someone who could give her everything she deserved. And my silence sealed the deal.
“Fine.” She took a last bite of her doughnut and a swig of coffee. “Let’s go.”
Frustration and longing—that hunger—roared. I wanted to grab her, haul her to me and kiss her. Drown in her. Pretend for a second I was in another life. One where I wasn’t fucked up. Where my mom was still alive because my dad hadn’t fucking murdered her, staining my every waking thought with blood. Where I didn’t see it happen every time I closed my eyes. Where I didn’t feel the heat of his rage burning in me and the fear whispering I was just like him. Where I didn’t walk all over town in the middle of the night to make sure the people I cared about were safe. A pitiful penance that would never be enough. Never bring her back.
Shiloh would think I was a psycho if I told her all that.
Better to let her go. Keep her safe.
I followed Shiloh out of the shop, but the rain was coming down hard now. She ducked under the shallow awning.
“Shit…”
I slipped off my jacket and held it over her, keeping her dry while the rain pelted me.
Shiloh’s expression softened and then her eyes darkened, her gaze moving over my face, watching the trails of water.
“Here we are,” she said. “Again.”
I nodded absently, not hearing her because her lower lip was dusted with powdered sugar. “You have something…”
“Yes?” She inclined her head, defiant to her own protections she kept up at all times. Except with me…
I leaned in, entering the shelter of the jacket. Shiloh made fists in my T-shirt, drawing me against her, her eyes locked on mine, daring me. Our mouths inches apart, our noses bumping, I angled my head left then right, savoring the moment before I took what I shouldn’t have.
“Ronan,” she breathed and then whimpered as my tongue swiped the sugar from her lip.
Oh fuck…
One small taste and I was already fucking gone. A short inhale, a heartbeat, was all that stood between right and wrong. And suddenly, I didn’t give a shit. There was only her.
My hand snaked up into her hair and grabbed a fistful of braids as I crashed my mouth to hers.
Chapter Twelve
I froze as the first sensations found me, and then I melted.
Ronan’s kiss infiltrated my mouth with a taste that was so purely masculine and perfect, it stole my breath and lit up my insides with a fire I’d never felt before. The want I’d been suppressing since the moment we met awakened. Impossible to deny anymore. Like trying to hold back a tidal wave.
I gave in.
I moaned softly into his kiss, letting him take my mouth. Letting him shield me with his strong body against the cold and the rain. I surrendered to his hands, his lips, his biting teeth. Kissing Ronan was everything I thought it would be and nothing I expected. Rough and raw but with a strange softness beneath. Reverence. He plundered my mouth with hard, needy possession but I felt worshipped at the same time.
His. I’m his…
But I was no one’s. I belonged to myself and yet suddenly there I was on that street, daring myself to throw my grand plan into the fire and burn with Ronan Wentz.
My hands surged into his damp hair, along his back, taking their fill as he pressed closer. Damn, the power in him… I felt every hum and vibration in his body, tense with want but holding back. His hand in my hair tightened, and the lick of pain was enough to elicit another moan. I gripped him around the waist, wanting him on me and over me.