“Because you clearly have a death wish, and I don’t trust you not to throw yourself out of a moving vehicle into oncoming traffic.”
“Screw you, Kieran.”
“You want to act like a brat?” He shifts the car into drive. “Then I’ll treat you like one.”
“What if you crash the car, and I’m cuffed to the damn door?”
He smiles smugly before pulling away from the curb.
“I’m not going to crash. I’m way too good a driver for that.” He puts his foot to the floor.
The car lurches forward, and I brace a hand on the dashboard as I scowl at him.
“You’re such an ass, you know that?”
He doesn’t reply, and I refuse to talk to someone who handcuffs me to a car. So, I sit in my anger for the entire drive back to the penthouse, staring out of the window because if I catch sight of that smug smile, I swear I’m going to lose it.
When we pull into the private underground parking garage, I dig my heels in again as Kieran walks around the car and opens my door.
“I’m not going inside,” I state when he uncuffs me.
“Yes, you are.”
“Nope.”
“I swear to God, Riley.”
“You’ll have to physically drag me inside.”
I regret suggesting it the moment the words leave my mouth as Kieran does exactly that.
No matter how hard I fight him, I’ve got nothing on his strength, so I spend the entire elevator ride up to the penthouse thrashing and cursing as he holds me over his shoulder.
When the elevator doors finally slide open, he storms inside and drops me onto the couch so hard I almost bounce right off it.
“I can’t believe you just?—”
“Do you really think I care that you were a virgin? Because it wasneverabout that!” He paces the living room like he’s about to combust. “It’s about the fact that you took away my chance to give you something better, Riley. Because you deserve better than a quick fuck on the edge of a pool. You deserve… Fuck, you deserve rose petals and candles and all that romantic crap.”
At a complete loss for words, heart pounding in my chest, I watch Kieran pace back at forth.
His expression morphs from angry to devastated as he runs his fingers through his hair, messing up the slight curls as he looks anywhere but at me.
When it comes, his voice is raw. “I care about you. More than I should. And yeah, maybe I’m a cold bastard most of the time, but not with you. Not with…this.”
My walls start to crumble.
My throat is too thick with tears to speak, so I bring my knees to my chest and try not to fall apart as he continues.
“And when I found out that you were a virgin in the middle of a fucking fight, as if it didn’t matter…” He shakes his head and looks away, the muscle in his jaw ticking. “It matters becauseyoumatter, Riley. You deserve the world, and I want to be the one to give it to you.”
The air leaves my lungs in a rush and all the anger I’ve been clinging to crumbles like ash in my hands.
“I didn’t mean to lie. I just… I didn’t want to make it a big thing.”
“You didn’t lie. You just didn’t give me the chance to show you how much I care.”
The silence stretches between us, but neither one of us makes to close the distance between us, despite the fact that every part of me aches to touch him.
