24. Ronan #2
"There was a lot of glass in our house, growing up.
Because he liked to throw it. Not always.
That was the trick of it. If it was always, you could brace for it.
But it came and went, and you never knew which one you'd get.
So you learned to read him. You learned to read the room the second you walked into it, before anyone spoke.
What his shoulders were doing. Where his hands were.
Whether the good version or the bad version was home that night.
" I take a drink. "I got very good at reading rooms."
Cali is still and breathless beside me.
"My mother learned to make herself small," I say.
"Smaller and smaller, year on year, until there was almost nothing of her left to see.
She thought if she took up less space, there'd be less of her for him to be angry at.
" I feel like I'm floating out of my body and backwards in time, becoming a little boy again.
"It didn't work. It never does. There's always enough of you for a man like that to find a new piece of you he can saw off. "
"Ronan…"
"I swore I'd never be him," I snarl. "Every choice I've made since I was old enough to make choices, I made to defy him and everything he stood for.
Most days, I think I've managed it." I look at her.
"And then I'll hear my own voice come out of my mouth, and it'll be his, and I'll know I haven't managed it at all. "
She doesn't say I'm sorry, or reach out to fix my face for me. She just sits with me in the moment, and shares the pain.
"That's why you took the mirrors," she whispers. "The glass."
"Your husband taught you to make yourself small," I confirm. "I know what that feels like, because I watched my mother shrink into oblivion. I couldn't stand to watch you do it. So I took away the means. No glass. Not to be thrown and not to reflect how much more of you is left to lose."
Her eyes are shining again. She's not going to cry. I know that now. But her mouth quivers at the corners as she struggles to hold it all together.
"You could have just said all that," she says. "Instead of committing a felony in my bathroom."
"Where's the fun in that?"
She laughs. As she does, I watch her decide something.
I let her reach that choice. I don't move. I've learned that with her: You don't reach. You let her come.
Sure enough, she comes.
She puts a hand on the side of my face, cold from the bottle, and she looks at me for a long second. Then:
"Will you kiss me, please?"
I look at her mouth, pink and plump, so perfect, so ripe and beautiful.
"You'll never have to ask me twice," I say.
Then I bend down to seal my lips to hers.
Her mouth is warm and tastes like whiskey. She makes a small sound against my lips, and I feel it all the way down to the root of me.
The bottle rolls off the step and clinks somewhere below us. Neither of us reaches for it, though it must be worth thousands.
I work a hand into her hair. It's soft and coming loose from whatever she pinned it up with hours ago. She tips her head and I kiss her deeper, and she climbs half into my lap, the green silk sliding over the warm stone.
She's light in my lap, a mirage of warm silk and soft skin. I keep one hand in her hair and put the other on her waist, and I hold her there like she might slip away if I don't.
She won't. She's not going anywhere.
But I hold her anyway, simply because I can.
I kiss her slow. There's no rush. I've got nowhere else I need to be, and neither does she. I pull her lip between my teeth and let it go, and the whimper makes me stiffen beneath her.
"Ronan…" she breathes.
"I'm right here."
I trace my hand up from her waist, slow enough that she could stop me if she chose to. She arches into it instead, pushing herself into my palm, and I feel her breath catch when I find the curve of her breast through the green silk.
"Is this alright?" I ask against her mouth.
"Yes." She says it fast. Too fast. Then, softer, like she means it more the second time: "Yes."
I keep going, though I take my time. I want her to feel every second of it, every place my hands travel, because a man spent ten years teaching her she was too much, and I intend to spend a good while teaching her the opposite.
She's exactly enough.
She's more than any man deserves.
She's kissing me harder now, hands fisted in my lapels. I can feel her coming apart at the edges, all that control she holds so tight finally loosening. It's a gift, her letting me see it. I don't take it lightly.
I slide my hand down, over the silk, along the warm length of her thigh where the dress has ridden up. She shivers. I gather the fabric in my fist and push it higher, and she lets her knees fall open across my lap like it's the easiest thing in the world to yield to me.
"Tell me to stop and I will," I say. "Right now. Any time."
"Don't you dare stop." She presses her forehead to mine, eyes shut. "God. I think it'd kill me if you did."
So I don't.
I find her center, and she gasps into my mouth as I paint a finger through her arousal.
Her whole body goes soft and pliant against me.
She grips my shoulders and hides her face in my neck, whimpering again.
I find the nub of her clit and work slow, torturous circles.
I listen and adjust, adjust and listen, learning how her body moves and experiences pleasure so I can double and triple it for her.
She's trembling and keeps whispering my name like that's her last tether to reality. Ronan, Ronan, Ronan. I hold her tighter, my mouth at her temple, murmuring soft reassurances into her hair.
"Good girl," I murmur against her ear. "Just like that."
She whimpers and rocks her hips into my hand, chasing it. I give her more. I slide one finger inside her, then a second, and she clenches around me, hot, slick, and perfect. My thumb keeps working her clit, slow circles, then faster when I feel her start to climb.
"R-Ronan!" Her voice breaks. "Oh, God, I think I'm— Don't stop, don't stop—"
"I won't," I promise her. "I'm not going anywhere."
I curl my fingers and find the spot inside her that makes her go rigid in my lap. Her nails dig into my shoulders through the tux. She's panting now, her whole body strung tight, right at the edge.
"Let go," I say. "You're safe with me, kotyonok. I'll never leave you alone."
That kills her. La petite mort—the little death. The orgasm that wipes her brain clean and sends her out of her body for one beautiful moment.
She comes apart with a cry she muffles into my neck, her thighs clamping around my hand, her whole body shuddering through it. I work her through every wave, slow and steady, until she's a puddle of whimpering green silk against my chest.
I hold her there on the warm stone, my hand still cupping her sex to anchor her to me.
After a while, I hear her say something. I don't catch her, so I ask her to repeat herself.
"I said, My kids are at my mom's tonight." She raises her head to look at me, her face flushed so perfectly. "Will you come upstairs?"
I consider it. All the things that have brought us to this step, this moment. One more staircase separates us from the final piece. Can we climb it? What will happen if we do?
"I will if you ask me," I say.
She frowns. "Ask you what?"
I smile and stroke her lip, swollen from kissing. "The only question that's ever mattered."
Her breath catches when she realizes what I mean. "Ronan—"
"Ask me," I snarl.
She hesitates, then nods. "What do you see when you look at me?" she whispers.
"I see the most beautiful thing I have ever put my hands on," I tell her.
Then I scoop her in my arms and we go inside.