We don’t even make it to the door before his hands are on me. I drop the shadows around us even lower.
“Gods, I missed you,” he says into the back of my neck before turning me to kiss him.
I moan as his lips make contact with mine. Everything feels heightened, and it’s not just the power that connects us. It’s theabsence, the weeks lying in bed, dreaming of him. All of the agonizing distance between us finally closing.
“I need you,” he says, his hands ruining the hair that took us hours to do. And I don’t even care. “Iachefor you.”
“Ronan,” I murmur as his hand grazes my breast.
“Fuck,” he says, turning his head to the side in pleasure. “Say it again. Say my name.”
“Ronan, they’re lowering the lights.”
“Fuck!”
I laugh and smooth my dress and my hair. “Come on,” I tell him, taking his hand and leading him to the seat.
We wait until they’ve made the announcement that includes acknowledging the king before continuing.
“You’re lucky that they made the railing this high,” he says when he sits back down after waving to the crowd. “Or I would’ve given everyone more of a show than they bargained for.”
His silken Selaran pants, like my dress, leave nothing to the imagination. The bulge of his cock is incredibly obvious as he takes his seat.
“I’m lucky that the men around here seem to want everyone to take a look. These pants are driving me crazy. They’re obscene.”
I watch his cock rise with my words, and it’s immensely satisfying to see.
He drops his voice low and leans to speak directly into my ear even though no one is near to hear us. “Says the woman whose entire breasts are on display. I can see the exact shape of them. I can even see your little brown nipples. Look, they can hear me.”
They tighten under the thin fabric at his attention.
“Fuck you,” I whisper.
He chuckles, looking free and happy for the first time in ages.
Then, just as suddenly as it arrived, the smile fades from his face. His hand tenses on the armrest. He doesn’t want to ask me this, but he can’t help himself. “Are you staying?”
“For tonight? Or—”
“I don’t know,” he says, taking my hand. “I don’t need you to decide right now.”
It’s a lie. I can feel it. I can feel how much he wants me to stay with him, how terrified he is that I’ll just walk away from him again after tonight.
And I am terrified too. Terrified of being with him and what it will mean, but far more terrified of losing him.
I can’t lose him.
I lean over the handle of his chair to whisper in his ear. “I’ll stay as long as you’ll have me.”
I don’t lean back yet. There’s something else I need to say to him. I swallow, pushing my heart back down out of my throat. I can do this. I need to do this. After what I’ve put him through, he deserves to hear this.
The truth is, he’s too good for me. I don’t know if I’ll ever deserve him.
But I want him. Only him.
I belong to him.
“I’m yours, Ronan,” I say to him, forcing myself to say the words despite my fear. I don’t want to leave it as a feeling for him to interpret. I want him to know it, to be certain of it. To know that there’s no one else for me but him.
