“I can’t,” he says. He’s looking at me with wide-eyed earnestness, and I can tell he’s telling the truth. At least, what he believes to be the truth. “Are you sure you felt my feelings? I know you’re feeling conflicted. Fuck, I shouldn’t have done that. If you felt something and then regretted it—”
“No,” I say firmly. I reach my hand behind his neck, and he shudders at my touch. “It wasn’t regret. I don’t regret it.” I plant a small kiss on his lips, and he freezes, fighting the urge to reach for me again. “It wasn’t my own feeling at all. I’m certain, Ronan.”
He knits his eyebrows, trying to find another explanation for what I’m saying. “What did you feel?” he says in a small voice. He’s nervous. Exposed. Afraid of what he showed me.
“I felt…”
I don’t know if I can say it. If I say it, I’m going to need it. I’m going to need him inside me more than I already do.
And what I need to do is walk away.
Fuck, I don’t want to walk away.
I wonder if I could feel it again. I desperately want to. I lower his hand to my ass and hitch my leg up around him once more. He groans and kisses me, lifting me up by the hips until I’ve wrapped my legs around him.
I kiss his cheek and whisper in his ear. “You want to push me against the column behind me. You want to take my nipple into your mouth and suck it the way I wanted you to. You want to feel me arch my back and press myself against you. You want to put your hand between us and shove my dress aside so you can feel how wet I am on your fingers.”
His eyes close, picturing it, and then jerks his head back in surprise. “You can feel that?”
I nod. It’s more specific than I had imagined it being. I can see now why he thinks he knows someone based on their feelings alone. “I can’t feel anything now that you’ve pulled away. Maybe it’s only in the heat of the moment? Has it happened before…?” With someone else? I want to ask, but I don’t want to think of him with anyone else right now.
“No,” he says firmly. “Never.” He stares at me in wonder. Is it his power, or is it mine? Is there something special about us?Something beyond even whatever this is, the intensity of this connection?
He brushes his fingertips on my cheek, looking at me as if he doesn’t believe I’m real. “I always wanted to. I always wanted to share it with someone, to let them feel me like I feel them.”
“I want you to do it,” I say to him, leaning forward and pressing my lips against his jaw. I whisper in his ear, “What you want.”
“Fuck, Sylvie.” He moans a kiss against my lips and carries me to the column. He puts his hand behind my head to take the impact as he shoves me against it, kissing me wildly on my lips, my jaw, my neck.
He presses himself against me, bucking against my core, which burns with heat. Then he lowers his mouth to my breast, freeing it from my dress. He sucks it, hard, his lips insistent as his tongue licks circles around my swollen nipple. I gasp, feeling it deep within me, feeling it send a pulse of need through me, the need to be filled.
“Can you feel that?” he asks as he moves his hand between us, his fingers feeling for an opening in the damp fabric.
“You want to…” My breath catches in my throat. I’m overwhelmed by his desire. “You want to be inside me—”
“Yes,” he hisses. “Fuck, I—”
The door opens behind us, and we spring apart. Ronan puts me down and turns to face out to the city while I turn to the column to smooth my dress, hoping whoever is there can’t see the flush on my skin as I lift the shadows to reveal us.
“Oh, fuck,” says Quinn. “Did I just—”
“What do you want, Quinn?” says Ronan, his voice husky and edged with frustration.
“Sorry, I thought I saw you come out here. It’s the Brakkari ambassador. He’s looking for you, says it’s important.”
Ronan gives me a quick look, and though I can’t feel it, I can read it: apology, penitence, longing. “Lead the way,” he says to Quinn, and he follows her from the balcony, taming the muss from his hair with another regretful backward glance to me as he goes.
I’m left there, cold and reeling, alone in the night.
What the fuck just happened?
I try to collect myself so I can return to the party before I’m missed. I rub the damp spot of my dress against a dry part of the fabric near my hip until it isn’t as obvious. I run my fingers through my hair, smoothing it back into shape.
His fingers in my hair. He had knotted them there, pulled me by it—
Fuck, the desire for him is still close. The shock of Quinn’s arrival splashed cold water on it for a moment, but it’s lurking beneath my skin, hot and ready for him.
I’ve got to get out of here before I run after him and beg him to carry me to his bed, Brakkari ambassador be damned.
