Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
LILY
The temperature in the booth drops by ten degrees the moment Ronan leaves … or maybe that’s just my reaction to watching how Kate’s words got under his skin. Amy’s nails tap against her glass, a rapid staccato sound that grates against my nerves.
“Did I hit a nerve?” Kate’s voice drips with false concern, but her eyes gleam with the thrill of having caused a reaction.
I don’t answer because I’m already moving, sliding out of the booth to cross the room without looking back. Cassidy calls my name. I ignore her, and step outside before I can second-guess myself.
It’s cold outside, but I don’t care about that. All I can think about is the way his expression changed at Kate’s words, and the way he looked at me before he left. I don’t think he meant to, but the look told me he was drowning.
I turn in a slow circle, looking for him, and well-timed car headlights show me where he is. He hasn’t gone far, just enough to disappear into the shadows at the side of the building. He’s leaning against the wall, his head bowed and arms folded, trying to fold in on himself.
For a split second, his image is overlaid by that of the boy who used to hide in the library during lunch. The one who thought no one saw him.
But I did. I always did.
When he turns, that boy is gone. In his place stands someone carved from stone and shadows, but his tells are still there. The slight tremor in his left hand, the way he keeps his spine too straight, his shoulders thrown back, as though he’s forcing himself not to curve them inward.
Seven years, and I can still read him like a book I’ve memorized.
“Here to make sure I haven’t gone off the deep end?
” His voice is sharp and mocking. “Congratulations, now you can run back in and tell them what a mess I am.” There’s an edge to his voice that I remember too well.
It used to creep in when he felt cornered, when I got too close to truths he didn’t want to talk about.
“You don’t get to do this.” The words snap out of me before I can think better of them.
He pushes away from the wall and takes a step toward me. “Do what?”
“Pretend you don’t care. Use them to hurt me.”
He laughs, the sound loud and discordant. “Not everything is about you, Lily.” But his fingers twitch at his sides, curling into fists and releasing. Some habits don’t change, even when everything else seems to.
“Then why did you keep looking at me? Why did you make sure I saw every touch, every time they put their hands on you?” My voice rises. “You wanted me to see. You wanted me to feel it.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“Am I?”
“Maybe I like an audience.” The words are cool, but there’s something else there. A look in his eyes that takes me back to the factory, to nights when he’d push me away only to pull me closer again, terrified of wanting me but unable to stop.
“You’re a liar.” I close the distance between us, anger propelling me forward. “Tell me you weren’t watching me while they touched you. Tell me you didn’t tense up every single time.”
His breath hisses between his teeth. “What if I did?”
“Why?” My stomach twists, but I don’t back down. “Why do that to yourself? Why do it to me?”
A muscle ticks in his jaw, his entire body coiled tight. “You think you know me so well.”
“I do know you.” I’m close enough now to see his pupils dilate. His throat works as he swallows. “And you hate it, because I can see right through the act you’re putting on.”
“You don’t know shit.” His voice has lost its edge, turned rough in a different way. “This is who I am. I let them put their hands all over me because it doesn’t fucking matter.”
“Prove it.” I lift my chin. “Prove you don’t care. Prove I’m wrong.”
His expression shifts, his eyes dropping to my mouth, and the air between us changes.
“You need to walk away.” The words sound like a warning.
“No.”
He moves fast. One second, we’re standing two feet apart, the next my back is against rough brick, and his body is caging me in. The impact steals my breath away.
“You think you still know me, Lily?” His voice is a low rasp, his face inches from mine.
I don’t even hesitate. “Yes. And I think it scares you.”
The only warning I get is a slight shift in his stance before his hand lifts and slams against the wall beside my head. The sound cracks through the night air.
“You want the truth? Fine.” His breath is hot against my face. “I did want you to see. I wanted you to fucking burn the way I have every second since I got back to this town.”
My heart pounds so hard it hurts. The admission hangs between us. This close I can see the war happening behind his eyes.
“Then now what?”
“Now you walk away, and forget I fucking exist.”
But I don’t do that. Instead, I reach up and stroke my fingers along his jaw, following the same path Kate’s had earlier. The muscle beneath my touch tenses, and his eyes close.
“You never let anyone touch you the way you let me.”
His eyes snap open, and what I see there makes my stomach flip. Heat. A hunger so desperate and wanting, it’s impossible to hide.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” I whisper.
His head dips, breath hot against my cheek. “You’re not wrong.”
His mouth slams against mine, and anything I was planning to say splinters. The kiss isn’t just rough, it’s devastating, and hard enough to bruise. His teeth catch my lower lip in a sharp bite that sends a jolt of heat straight through me.
I gasp, and he takes advantage of it, his tongue sweeping inside. The taste of him crashes over me—whiskey, salt, and that unique flavor of him that burns through my bloodstream. My heart pounds against my ribs in a wild, frantic rhythm that matches the way he’s kissing me.
My hands lift, fingers spreading out across his chest, searching for something to hold onto as he tilts my head back, deepening the kiss until there’s nothing left but sensation.
The scrape of stubble against my skin. The growl vibrating from his throat, low and wrecked.
The way his fingers tighten in my hair, tugging just hard enough to make my scalp sting and my stomach twist in anticipation.
I don’t know where I end and he begins.
And I don’t care.
His hands drop to my waist, and he shoves me harder against the wall. The cold of the stone a cruel contrast to the molten heat of his body pressing into mine.
“You wanted to play with fire?” His voice is thick and low, a warning and a promise wrapped in velvet.
My pulse hammers in my throat. I should be scared at the aggression he’s displaying, and the way he has me pinned. But fear is the last thing I feel.
“I’m not afraid of you.”
He laughs, a short raspy sound that vibrates through his chest into mine, and his grip tightens, thumbs stroking over my hips, slow and teasing. Then he moves again.
Before I can blink, I’m spinning, my world tilting. My palms slam against the wall automatically as it rushes to meet my face. A heartbeat later, he’s there, his hard body flush against mine again. His dick presses against my ass as he leans closer, his lips touching my ear.
“You wanted my attention, Lily. Now you have it.”
A shudder tears through me at the way his breath brushes over my skin, my fingers curling into fists when his teeth nip the base of my throat.
Pain flashes through me, spiraling into heat so fierce my legs almost give out.
My body responds without permission, nipples tightening against the front of my dress, butterflies taking off in my stomach, and the ache between my legs intensifies with remembered need.
This is dangerous. This is reckless. This is everything that I was afraid would happen.
And I. Don’t. Care.
“Let’s see if you can handle me now.”
His hands move. One splays across my waist, the heat of his palm burning through the thin fabric. The other slides up my ribs, calloused fingertips grazing the underside of my breast and making my breath hitch. My back arches into him before I can stop it.
“I could always handle you.” The words come out breathless and defiant.
His laugh is dark, wicked. “Then prove it.” He mirrors my words from earlier.
His hand drops from my waist and strokes up my thigh, drawing my dress up inch by slow, torturous inch. The night air against my bare skin is ice compared to the furnace of his body behind me.
I should stop this. I should turn around and face him. But I don’t.
“You still think I’m yours,” he rasps against my throat, making me shiver again.
“Yes.” Because he is. He always has been. Even when I built a life that didn’t include him, he was still there. A ghost I carried in every breath.
His hand moves higher, stroking over the lacy edge of my panties, and my legs tremble. My stomach muscles wind tight, and then his fingertips lightly tap the place I need him most. A broken sound escapes me before I can swallow it down.
“Tell me to stop.” His lips move against my throat, the words nothing but gravel. “Say the words, Lily.”
He’s giving me an out. One word and this will end. One word and we can pretend this didn’t happen. We can go back to being strangers who used to love each other.
I squeeze my eyes shut. I’m wound so tight, I’m sure I’m going to snap at any second. His fingers stroke along the inside of my thigh, featherlight, tormenting me.
And it’s not enough.
I push back against him. “No.”
His lips move. I can’t tell if it’s a smile or a snarl. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”
A cry rips from my throat when his fingers press against my clit through the lace, my head falling forward while my legs threaten to give out. He strokes me lightly, a teasing slide of friction that makes my hips jerk.
“You always did like pushing me.”
I can’t think. I can’t do anything but feel his body against mine, his fingers working magic through the fabric barrier I wish wasn’t there. When my hips move again, his fingers slip beneath the lace. And in that moment, I realize I was wrong about everything.
I thought I knew what it meant to be touched by him. I thought memory captured what we had.
But memory is nothing compared to this.