“I’ll handle it.”
“By working for Bryant? You’d do that?”
“I don’t see a lot of difference between Caroline and Bryant, Poppy,” I said. Though that wasn’t the truth. But she didn’t need to hear any of that. What she needed to hear was that she was safe and that this wasn’t her fault.
“There’s nothing here, Ronan” Poppy said.
“It’s all right.”
“Because you say so?”
“Because I’ll make it so.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Poppy
I was shaking. A fine tremble that changed the air in the apartment. Ronan was watching me like I was a hand grenade with the pin pulled. Which was only right. It was how I felt.
It was anger in my throat, making me sick to my stomach. But it was something else too. Something I’d never felt before. A need to do something.
To hurt something.
I wanted to crush something. I wanted the power to make it all safe for Ronan. The way he would do it for me.
“Poppy,” Ronan said, grabbing my wrist. I wanted to snarl and bite him. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to take off his clothes and fuck him until he begged me to stop.
I was rage and violence and…it was scary.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I said and pulled my hand free. I practically ran to the bathroom, turning on the shower and grabbing a towel thinking I might scream into it. I wanted…
Ronan was suddenly there. Slamming the door shut behind him. He shoved me against the vanity, his body crowded mine.
Yes, my body screamed. This. Him. Now.
“What are you doing?” I demanded with far more anger than he deserved. But I was full of it and he was here.
“Giving you what you need?”
“What do you think I need?” I scoffed.
“A place to put your rage. Someone to hit. A body to fuck.”
I pushed him but he didn’t move. Resolute. Rock solid. I shoved him. Nothing. He was strong and big and against my belly he was hard as a fucking rock.
“Do what you like, lass.”
I smacked him. Hard as I could across the face. So hard my hand hurt.
His eyes flared, his tongue came out to lick his lips and I was suddenly desperate for his cock. To be filled. Fucked.
I grabbed at his belt, opening it, pulling open his pants. He didn’t help, he just widened his stance.
I got my hands around the thick length of him and we both moaned.
“I won’t let the Morellis have you,” I said. My fingernails scraped the tender skin of his scrotum and he barely made a face. I could feel the blood pounding in his cock. I could feel how much he liked this.
How much he wanted me.
“You’re mine.”
He spun me against the vanity, so we were both facing the mirror. God, we were so beautiful. My hair was wild, his eyes burning. I’d never in my life felt so alive. I arched my ass against him and he started to lift the skirt of my dress. Yes. Now. Like this. Fuck me like this.
“Brace yourself, lass,” he said, his voice a rough growl. His hands over mine on the vanity. And then he was inside me and it was so good. The most right feeling I’d ever had. I screamed with the pleasure of it. With the sweet sting of pain.
His hand came around my throat, lifting my head so I met his eyes again in the mirror. Our bodies shook with each thrust, our hair falling in our faces. I barely recognized myself like this ravaged and ravishing.
“You’re a queen, a chuisle. A fucking queen.”
“Ronan,” I gasped, my body alight. And I had never felt so connected to a person. It wasn’t just the sex, it was everything we survived. It was how we were standing here despite the forces that would tear us apart.
Forces that would kill us.
We were alive because of each other and I believed he felt that. Knew it in the marrow of his bones where I knew it.
This is love, I wanted to say. But he was fucking me so hard and so good there was only a high keening sound coming out of my throat. My body shaking, every muscle trembling. I reached under my skirt, my hand brushing the hard length of him as he slid in and out of my body. He hissed and I did it again. I pushed the flat of my hand against him, my heel against my clit and I was lifted up onto my toes.
My orgasm turned the world to glitter, my bones to liquid. My heart more his every time it beat.
“Ronan,” I breathed, meeting his eyes in the mirror. “Please,” I whispered. I was blissed out and ruined.
I’d removed every barrier I had against him. Every defense. I loved him and he knew it. We were as close as I could imagine two people ever being.