30. Cali #2
The longer he looks at me like that, the more I start to feel the same way.
It's the strangest thing, this combination of I'm holy to him and he's treasuring me, all tied up with I'm a starving wild animal and I need him to treat me like that.
I'm flushed and needy from head to toe, and especially in the middle parts.
But then the old thing creeps in, like it always does.
I'm standing in a wall of glass, all lit up, with the whole city as a backdrop. There's nowhere to hide. No dim bar light, no forgiving blue water, no dress to smooth over the parts I don't like.
My hand twitches. I want to cover my stomach. Or at the very least to turn to the side, like how I used to angle myself in family photos so the camera only got the good half.
I don't do it. But I want to.
"Come here," he snarls.
"Ronan," I say, "can we turn the lights off? I just feel—"
"No."
That one word stops me cold.
He steps back in close and rests his hands on my hips as his eyes bore into mine, burning hot.
"We're not turning off the lights. Not tonight. Not ever, if I have my way." His voice is a baritone snarl, scraping me clean from the inside out. "You want to hide from me. I can see it. And I'm telling you no."
"Ronan—"
"Listen to me." His thumb strokes over the skin under his hand.
"This body carried two children. It survived a man who spent ten years teaching you to hate it.
And it is standing in front of me right now, perfect in the light, the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I mean that. Every inch of you."
I whimper helplessly.
"You think I want you smaller? Obscured? Hidden?" He shakes his head slowly. "Hell fucking no. I want all of you. Lit up. Where I can see and worship you the way you deserve."
His hand slides up my ribs and back down, sure and slow, like he's memorizing me.
"So you're going to stand here in the light," he growls, "and you're going to let me look at you, and I'm going to keep looking until that ugly little voice in your head shuts up for good.
And then I'm going to take you to bed and show you all the other things I've been dreaming of doing to you. Do you understand me?"
The strange thing is, I do.
The voice goes quiet. Not gone. But quiet.
I nod.
"Say it."
"I understand," I whisper.
"Good girl." He kisses me again. "Now, let me treat you properly."
With that, he drops to his knees.
He kisses my stomach, his beard tickling and making me squirm. Then lower. He hooks his fingers in the waistband of my underwear and looks up at me, half-gray, half-blue eyes catching the city light, asking.
"Yes," I croak. "God, yes."
He draws them down slow, his mouth following, kissing the crease of my hip, the top of my thigh, everywhere but the place where I want him most. He must be able to see my wetness, to smell me.
And sure enough, he presses his nose to me and inhales deeply, greedily, then lets out a mournful exhale like it'll never be enough.
My knees are already unsteady, so it doesn't improve my balance when he lifts one of my legs and hooks it over his shoulder. The only thing holding me up is the glass at my back and his hands on my hips.
"Hold on to something," he warns.
"There's nothing to hold—"
Then he's devouring me. He said he wanted to go slow, but this isn't slow at all. It's hungry and eager, lapping, sucking, nibbling, flicking his tongue across my swollen clit and then parting my folds with it to drink me up from within.
My hand slaps back against the glass and finds no grip, so I grab his hair instead. He groans against me, the vibrations rumbling and adding to the mix that's already threatening to ruin me.
He pulls off and licks his lips as he gazes up at me. "You taste like everything I've been desperate for," he says. "Every night in this empty apartment, this is what I was thinking about."
"Ronan—please—"
"Please what."
"Don't stop. Don't you dare stop."
"I'm not going to stop," he says. "Not until you can't remember your own name. Then I'll take you to bed and do it again."
He puts his mouth back on me and seizes the last bit of control. He holds my hips still when I try to move and he works me right up to the edge, then shoves me over it.
I come apart against the glass with a whole city underneath me, my fingers locked in his hair, saying his name over and over like it's the only word I know.
He eases my leg off his shoulder and stands, catching me before my knees can fold. He holds me up against his chest while I shake.
"Wrecked so soon, kotyonok?" he murmurs into my hair.
I can only tremble. "I think I just died and came back to life, like, three times over."
He laughs. "Good thing you have six lives left, kitten. I intend to make the most of them."
Without warning, he picks me up. I hook my arms around his neck, and he carries me out of the glass room, down a hall, and into a bedroom with another wall of windows and a bed the size of my kitchen.
He lays me down on it. Then he stands over me and unbuttons his shirt, slow.
His shoulders are broad. His chest is hard and lined with muscle, cut and scarred in places I don't ask about. His stomach is flat, ridged, with a trail of dark hair leading down past his belt.
He drops the shirt on the floor. Then his hands go to his belt, unbuckling it, watching me watch him.
He lowers his pants. Then everything else.
I prop myself up on my elbows and just look at him. I'm allowed to. He told me I have to let him look at me, so it's only fair that I get the same privilege.
His thighs are thick, like the rest of him. His hands hang loose at his sides, big and rough, tempting, dangerous.
And the rest of him… Well.
"Oh my," I say as a little ripple of fear surges through me.
He pauses. "Is something wrong?"
I eye his massive manhood and gulp. "I just… I don't know if that will fit, Ronan."
He grins, then comes closer and crawls over me. "By the time I'm done getting you ready, it will fit. I promise you that, Ms. Meadows."
He kisses me, and I can taste myself on him, which is a thrill I never knew I craved. His hand goes to the clasp of my bra and it's gone, and he pulls back just to look. That's the whole thing right there. Nobody has looked at me like that in ten years. Maybe nobody ever has.
"Beautiful," he says. "Every part of you." He puts his mouth to my breast and I arch up into him. "Every single part."
He takes his time here. There's no rush anywhere in this man tonight. His hands move over me slow and sure, and he talks the whole time, a never-ending murmur of praise, half in English and half in Russian. The parts I don't understand are as delicious and erotic as the parts I do.
He works his way back down my body. He kisses my stomach again, then lower, then settles between my legs like he plans to stay for a while.
He puts his mouth on my throbbing pussy. I'm still sensitive from before, so it's almost too much. I twist to try to get away, but he holds me down.
"Stay still," he orders. "I'm not even close to done with you."
I try to protest, but I don't really mean it, and anyway, he's manhandling me in a way that's just too good to resist. It's unbelievable to be peeled apart and pinned in place by a man this big, this beautiful, this knowledgeable, this safe.
It's like my pussy was made to be licked by him, or maybe he was made to lick me.
Every touch is the exact right one. When he pushes a single, thick finger into me, that's exactly right, too.
I'm living on a constant edge of coming, where the difference between orgasm and not-orgasm no longer seems that relevant. It's electricity all over me, fire all in me, liquid, gushing, and always wanting more.
"You're so wet," he whispers as he crooks the finger up toward my belly button and strokes my G-spot. "So needy for me. But not quite ready. Not yet."
He adds a second finger. It stretches me to my limit, but it feels good. He curls them again and finds something that makes my hips jerk off the bed.
"You like that spot, don't you?"
I whine and nod frantically.
He works his fingers in and out while his tongue keeps going. I'm getting louder. I can't help it, but I have no plans on stopping.
"Ronan," I pant. "You're killing me."
"I know." He adds a third finger. It's a lot, but my body opens for it even more. "You feel that? You're opening up for me, kotyonok. Good girl. We're going to need every inch of it."
I reach for him, wanting to touch him back. But he catches my wrist and pins it to the bed. "Not yet," he tuts. "This is about you first."
"Ronan!" I cry out. "I need you."
"And you'll have me," he promises. "But only when the time is right."
He curls those three fingers one more time, right against that spot he's decided he owns now, and drops his mouth back to my clit to suck it between his lips.
It's a landslide. It takes me apart in seconds. I'm simply gone, arching off the mattress, one hand fisted in the sheets and the other still pinned under his, saying his name in a voice I no longer recognize as my own.
He works me all the way through it, gentling as I come down, pressing soft kisses to the inside of my thigh while I shudder and gasp and try to remember how lungs are supposed to function.
"You look so pretty when you crumble for me," he murmurs, sliding his fingers free.
He rises up over me, slow, all that heat and muscle and dark ink of scars I don't ask about, and licks those dripping fingers clean, one by one. I can only watch through half-lidded eyes at this dream of a man tasting me where I just drenched him.
When he's satisfied, he settles his hips between my open legs, then leans forward and braces one forearm beside my head.
I feel him there, hot and heavy against me, and my whole body tenses in anticipation. He reaches over to the nightstand and opens the drawer, then pulls out a foil packet and tears it with his teeth. I watch him roll the condom on.
"Just in case," he says. "I take care of you. All the way."