Untamed (Hearts 3)

“Ronan,” I cried, suddenly scared.

“I got you, lass. I’ve got you. You’re safe.” And it was the truest thing I knew. The best thing in my life. This man would keep me safe.

I exploded in orgasm, my whole soul pulled into it. I felt him behind me, stiffen and then swear, holding still as I clamped down on his cock and couldn’t stop. The orgasm kept going, my body buzzing and without boundaries.

I was boneless and limp underneath him and he grabbed my hips, holding me the way he wanted and used me for his own pleasure. Used me until he came, shouting my name and gripping my hips hard enough I’d have bruises tomorrow. But the pain didn’t begin to register now. I was only pleasure. I was endless light.

As slowly as he entered me, he withdrew, hissing and whispering my name. I wanted to tell him I was all right. That nothing in my life had ever felt so good, but my body didn’t work. Slowly, he turned me in his arms, my body wet and sticky against his. His hair was slick against his face and I longed to push it back, out of his pretty blue eyes, but if I had hands, they were broken. I love you. I love you so much it hurts.

“You okay?” he asked, kissing my cheek. My lips. My other cheek. He brushed my hair off my face with the flat of his hand.

“I’ve never…” There were twenty things I could say. I’ve never come that hard. I’ve never had sex that good. Been fucked so well. “Felt this way.”

“Me neither,” he said, surprising me.

I put my hands over his, pressing him against my stomach.

I rolled to face him. A slice of shadowy light seeped out from the blinds on the window and highlighted his face. The eye and the slice on his cheek. I touched the bruising as gently as I could. “I don’t want…” I stopped, unsure of how to say this.

“What?”

I picked up his hand, the one with the scar on his wrist from the downspout when he had to jump through a window. “I don’t want our child to jump out a window because something bad was coming through their door.”

“No,” he whispered. “Me, neither.”

He was silent for a long time, his eyelids drifted shut and he forced them back open through a force of will.

“When’s the last time you slept?” I asked him.

“I sleep,” he lied. He was so tired he sounded drunk.

“You didn’t sleep at the cottage. You didn’t sleep last night.”

I stroked his face, and with every touch of my fingertips, his eyes half shut. A spike of sweetness went right through me. “We’re safe here,” I said. “No one can hurt you here.”

“You think I don’t sleep because I’m worried about myself?” No. I didn’t think that. “I don’t sleep, Poppy, because of you. I’m worried about you. And Bryant…the deadline.”

“I’m safe,” I whispered. “We have two days. You’ve made me safe. Sleep.” I smiled into his face. “I’ll keep you safe.”

He was so tired he didn’t even react. He was so tired he was asleep before his eyes even shut. His breathing soft and even, his body relaxed and heavy against mine. I curled my arms around him and held him the way he never let me hold him when he was awake. With my arms around his shoulders, his head against mine. His knees curled up against my legs. Ronan was so strong. The strongest man I knew. He was determined and stubborn. He was brave. But he was also human and I loved him more the more of his humanity he showed me. And this, right now, I loved him so much it brought me to tears.

But then I had to go pee.

Carefully, so I didn’t wake him, I rolled away from him. Though it was obvious he was out, like out out. Ronan was nearly superhuman, but there was a limit to how much a human body could endure. And he’d hit the wall. I put on a robe and made some coffee with Ronan’s fancy coffee maker before texting my sister to see how she was doing.

Fine, she texted back right away.

How are things with Jacob?

The little dots on her end appeared and then disappeared. I waited for her text to arrive but then the dots showed up again. Disappeared. Reappeared.

I called her.

“What’s going on?” I asked when she picked up. “I don’t…” she whispered, and I could hear some scuffling on her end, the creak of her old wood floors. “Zilla?”

“I don’t really know,” she finally said in a slightly louder voice.

“Are you safe? Is he—”

“He kissed me last night. Or…I kissed him. It’s blurry.”

My eyes opened wide and I was stunned into silence. Zilla, for all her unpredictability, was pretty predictable when it came to men. She had one very limited use for them, and otherwise she stayed away. “He’s sleeping now. Like really sleeping. The guy is pretty fucking tired.”