If the last few days have taught me anything, it’s that I really need to go back to therapy.
“Just let me go,” I whisper, my heart beating so hard it’s like surround sound in my ears.
“Never,” he murmurs against the shell of my ear.
“Ryker,” I plead, but my fight is weak, because for years I’ve been alone. I haven’t let anyone get close, and the only person I would have considered a friend up until a few days ago was Camilla. My heart longs for someone to care, for someone to sneak their way into my heart and make me feel again. Even if my mind screams that it’s a bad idea.
“There you go again with my name on your pretty pink lips, Siren,” he groans, pressing his hardness further against my ass.
“We’re in public.”
“Barely. It’s the middle of the night in a town with about six people. The chances of being caught are next to zero.” He trails kisses down my throat. “Next.”
I open my mouth to argue again, to list the hundred other reasons this is a terrible idea, but I can’t get the words out. They’re there. So close I can taste them, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t want him to stop.
“That’s what I thought,” he rumbles. “One of these days we’ll find some dense woods, and I’ll give you a five-minute head start. If you escape me, I’ll take you home and fuck you in a bed. But if I catch you? I’ll fuck you in the dirt so hard you’ll be feeling me between your thighs for weeks.”
The moan that escapes me is so unfamiliar I almost don’t realize it came from me.
Before I have a chance to reply, he pulls away just enough to turn me before pinning me back against the side of the car, his eyes flaming with desire.
“There she is,” he murmurs, pressing a gentle kiss to the corner of my mouth. “There’s my dirty girl.”
I bite down on the inside of my cheek to stop another moan from escaping. It’s not that I’m ashamed of wanting the things he’s offering. It’s that leading him on is only going to get us both hurt. Because I can’t stay in New York, and although I know little of his life before he came here, I doubt he would follow me across the world to escape the Lombardis.
“Say no, and everything stops,” he says softly, but I don’t get a chance to ask what I’m saying no to before my sweatpants and panties are shoved down and I’m lifted from the ground with no choice but to wrap my legs around his hips.
My pants snag around my ankle, but that doesn’t seem to be enough to deter him because a second later the sound of fabric tearing fills the quiet night, and then the blunt head of his cock is pressed to my entrance.
Oh god, am I really going to let Ryker fuck me here in the open like this?
It’s on the tip of my tongue to say the word, to end this before it can go too far. But then I meet green eyes so familiar they make my heart ache, and my need for revenge takes the reins.
Ronan may not have been the one to hurt me physically, but he broke me in every other way possible, and this is my chance to hurt him right back.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
RONAN
NOW
It’s a good thing Damon sleeps like the dead because he doesn’t even stir when I slip out of the room and into the quiet night.
I don’t know what woke me, but for some reason my mind is screaming at me to check on Chloe, even if it’s just through the slightly open drapes of her room like I did when I went to the vending machine a few hours ago.
Seeing her beside Ryker hurt more than it should have. It’s been a decade. I shouldn’t still have such strong feelings toward her.
But time doesn’t always heal the wounds. They remain open and bloody, and the only thing that can close them is the thing that hurt you in the first place.
Keeping my footsteps light, I pause outside their room, peaking inside only to find the room completely empty.
My stomach rolls, panic flaring in my chest for a moment before I notice a phone on the bedside table.
They haven’t left.
Then where are they?
I glance around the parking lot but don’t immediately see anyone. Surely they didn’t go for a fucking walk at this time of night in the freezing cold.
