Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 98207 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98207 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
When he pulls away, his brown eyes move over my face, sad and torn and so beautiful it hurts to look at them. All of my anger melts away when he looks at me like this. It’s foolish, but true.
“How do you do that?” I ask.
“Do what?”
“How do you look at me like that and just make me forget everything, Ronan? You betrayed me. You’re mad because of what I did to protect you, but you didn’t protect me at all. You told Lachlan our secret. And I want to be angry at you. I’m so fucking angry at you.”
His face softens and his hands pull me closer, like I might try to flee at any moment. Even though he’s the one that’s usually doing the running. But he sees my frustration. My pain. He threw me to the wolves, and he has to know I’m fed up. This constant back and forth with him is making me fucking insane. And yet he disarms me with a single touch. Talks me off the ledge with the faintest of whispers. This man is pure agony. My descent to hell. In fact, I’m certain he must be Lucifer himself, because the poison he feeds me is too sweet to resist.
“I haven’t a clue what Crow told ye,” he says. “But it wasn’t like that, Sasha.”
“Then how was it like?” I demand.
“I don’t want ye to worry about these things,” he says softly. “It’s all in hand.”
This.
This is why I’m so deranged. This evasiveness. It took him two years after what happened to even talk to me, and now I’m lucky to drag one sentence out of him. He’s so guarded, even from me. And it makes me question everything about him, but when I look at him, I do believe him. He believes he’s protecting me by withholding information. By handling it. That’s how things work in the mob. The men deal with business, and the women look the other way.
On some level, it’s nice to be able to disconnect like that. To trust and have faith that the syndicate will protect you. That’s how it works with the other girlfriends and wives. Unfortunately, it never worked that way for me. So it’s hard for me to look at Ronan right now and just tell him that none of it matters. Because it does. It involves me. And I know there had to be a reason for him to tell Lachlan after all this time. A damn good reason because it was a very risky move.
“Just tell me one thing,” I croak. “Tell me that you’re safe and they aren’t going to punish you for it.”
“Ye’re safe, Sasha,” he replies. “I’ve made sure of that.”
“I wasn’t asking about myself,” I answer. “And it’s funny how you can say that, because I didn’t exactly feel so safe when Lachlan was questioning me about it. Testing me when he knew the answer the whole time. What would have happened if I’d told him the truth?”
Dark clouds roll through his eyes, and something shifts in his expression. It looks like betrayal. And I feel a little guilty for even mentioning it though I shouldn’t.
“He did that?” Ronan asks.
“It doesn’t matter,” I sigh. “I don’t want to cause problems between you two. That wasn’t my intention. I just needed to know that you were safe.”
He’s quiet for a long pause, and it’s obvious he’s still thinking about it. But whatever’s actually going on in that head of his is still a complete mystery to me.
“Ye’re done dancing,” he says finally, in a tone like I have no say in the matter.
“I’m fully aware of that,” I snap. “Tonight was my last night.”
He grips my hair into a makeshift pony tail and tugs on it. His mouth hovers over mine, the heat of his every exhale skating over my lips.
“Nobody else gets to see you like that,” he declares. “Ye're claimed.”
His words douse me in gasoline. His eyes light the match. And when he grinds himself against me, all that's left to do is burn for him.
He crushes his lips against mine and kisses me so hard it borders on painful. His hands are tearing at the strings of my bikini, yanking them apart until I’m completely naked in his arms. His raging hard cock is still sandwiched between our bodies, at least until it isn’t. He picks me up and the next thing I know, I've got ten inches of Ronan shoved inside of me. I cry out against him, and he feeds off of it, sucking his own choice of poison from the hollow in my throat. The taste of my skin is what gets him off. Being inside of me. Owning me. He drinks from me and gives me another lethal injection of his brand of narcotic.