Chapter 11
I stood in the middle of the suite, the ocean winking at me through the wall of glass, and suddenly I didn’t know what to do with my hands.
They’d touched him. They’d wanted more.
But now they hovered—nervous, eager, unsure—while Ronan peeled his jacket from his shoulders and laid it with quiet precision over the back of a velvet chair.
My chest rose and fell faster than it should’ve.
I didn’t know what I expected. For him to slam me against the window? Drag me to the bed? Pin me to the floor and make good on every filthy promise?
Instead, he moved with purpose—but not urgency. He crossed to a console table near the minibar and retrieved something small and white. A remote.
With one tap, the lights softened further. The city behind the glass dimmed under automated curtains. And then I heard it.
Water.
Not the ocean.
A bath.
I turned slowly, pulse skipping, and caught sight of the doorway he’d just opened.
Inside was a bathroom that looked like something out of a high-end spa.
Marble everywhere. A soaking tub sunken into the floor, already half full and steaming, lit from beneath like it had been waiting for me all night.
Ronan didn’t speak.
He just held out his hand.
And I went.
He led me inside like I was something fragile. Precious. Dangerous. Like I might bolt. Or break.
Then he stopped beside the tub and looked at me with that gaze again—the one that stripped me without touching a single button.
“You’ve had a long night,” he said.
I nodded. “You could say that.”
“You ran like you meant it.”
I held his eyes. “I did.”
His jaw ticked. Just once. “Then let me take care of you.”
My breath caught.
He didn’t reach for the dress. Didn’t undress me himself. Just turned and reached for a neatly folded towel on the bench.
Privacy. Respect. And somehow, still full control.
I swallowed hard.
My hands trembled slightly as I reached behind my neck and loosened the tie. The silk slipped down my back, pooling at my ankles. I stepped out of it and folded it neatly over a nearby chair. No bra. No panties. No shame.
Not with the way he was looking at me.
Like I was art .
His eyes lingered on the curve of my hips, the dip of my waist, the soft roundness of my breasts. But he didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
Just offered his hand again.
I took it.
The water was hot. Not scalding—perfect. It enveloped me slowly as I sank, sighing as the heat kissed my skin and coaxed the tension from my thighs, my shoulders, the base of my spine.
I reclined fully, hair swept up, breasts just visible above the surface, nipples tightening in the change of temperature. I watched him through the rising steam.
“I thought you were going to ravage me,” I said softly.
He chuckled. “So did I.”
I tilted my head. “Why didn’t you?”
He crouched beside the tub, one knee pressing into the rug, the other arm resting on the edge. His sleeves were still rolled. His shirt unbuttoned just enough to make me ache.
“Because you’re not just some fantasy,” he said.
I blinked.
“I’ve had women who wanted the chase. Who wanted the night, the thrill, the ruin. And that’s fine. I don’t judge. But you …” He trailed off, studying me like I might disappear. “You’re something else.”
“What am I?”
He smiled. A real one. “Still figuring that out.”
Silence stretched between us, but it wasn’t awkward. It was thick with something else. Something alive.
He dipped a hand into the water and trailed it over my shin, slow and deliberate. “You ran from me tonight,” he murmured. “But not because you were scared. ”
“No,” I whispered. “Because I wanted to be caught.”
His hand slid higher. Not too high. Just enough to tease. To soothe. To remind me he was still in control.
I arched my back slightly, head resting on the bath pillow, throat exposed. “You said you’d wreck me.”
“I will.”
My breath hitched.
“But not tonight.”
I opened my eyes, frustrated. “Why?”
I probably sounded like a pouty kid. My voice had that tight, breathy edge I usually reserved for customer service reps who got my coffee order wrong.
But this wasn’t about oat milk. This was about him.
About me. About everything he’d stirred up and left unresolved.
I wanted to pout. To stomp my foot. To demand what I’d come here for.
I wanted him.
And he knew it.
“Because the hunt’s over,” he said. “And now we’re in the wild.”
He stood, gaze lingering, then crossed the room to retrieve a bottle of oil from the vanity. Something expensive and herbal. He poured a few drops into the bath, and instantly, the air filled with a soft scent—eucalyptus and jasmine, clean and sensual, like the ghost of a memory I hadn’t lived yet.
My lids fluttered.
“You’ve done this before,” I said.
“Prepared a bath for someone?” he asked.
I nodded.
“No.”
I looked at him.
“I’ve done other things. Arranged logistics. Paid for silence. Pulled strings—and triggers. But this?” He gestured to the tub, the scent, the softness of this moment. “This is new.”
My throat tightened.
“Why me?”
He didn’t answer right away. Just crouched again, his hand finding mine under the water.
I tilted my head, watching him. “Is this what you do? For money? I mean ... I paid for this experience, technically. Does that make you—?” I stopped, suddenly unsure how far I wanted to push.
His eyes met mine, unreadable.
“A prostitute?” he finished for me, calm as ever.
Heat rushed to my cheeks, but I didn’t back down. “It’s a fair question.”
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t smirk or scoff. Just held my gaze like it deserved to be held.
“No,” he said simply. “You didn’t pay for me. You paid for access. I chose you. That’s the difference.”
“Sounds like a loophole.”
He leaned in slightly, voice dropping. “If I were for sale, Zara, you couldn’t afford me.”
The air thickened.
I hated that it thrilled me—his certainty, his edge, the way he turned something transactional into something intimate. Like I wasn’t just a name in a system. Like I’d been chosen.
“Then why me?” I asked, quieter this time. Not challenging—just needing to know. Needing it to be more than a coincidence or a contract. Needing me to be more than a warm body with a decent profile.
Maybe it was the heat of the bath or the way his thumb brushed the inside of my wrist, but I felt the words leaving me without a second thought.
I was exhausted—bone-deep, soul-tired, the kind of tired that peeled away my filter.
And maybe that was why I asked. Maybe that was why I could look him in the eye without flinching.
I was too spent to pretend. Too raw to hide.
And strangely, that made me feel closer to him.
Like the version of me floating in this tub, flushed and vulnerable and still buzzing from the hunt, was the most honest one I’d ever let anyone see.
“Because your letter didn’t sound like desperation,” he said. “It sounded like truth. Like someone who knew what she wanted. And that’s rare. That’s valuable.”
I felt tears sting the back of my eyes.
“You don’t even know me,” I whispered.
He kissed the back of my hand. “Not yet.”
“But you want to?”
“I already do.”
We sat in that moment, quiet except for the soft slosh of water, the distant hum of the city behind the glass, and the roar of my heart in my ears.
Eventually, the water cooled.
He stood and offered a towel.
I took it, stepped out, and let him wrap it around me. Not once did his hands stray. Not once did he try to sneak a grope or pull me close.
He just dried me gently, reverently.
When I looked up at him, I knew—this wasn’t just a delay.
It was an investment.
He wasn’t done with me.
He was just getting started.
And that was a problem.
Because I was sexually frustrated. Aching. The kind of ache that hummed in my bones and made my skin too tight. Every inch of me was still pulsing with want, and the fact that he hadn’t taken me—hadn’t even tried—was making it worse. Infinitely worse.
But as I followed him through the soft light of the suite, still wrapped in the towel he’d pressed to my skin with such care, something else stirred. A thought I wasn’t ready for.
This might not be just one night.
Not for him. And maybe—God help me—not for me, either.
I started thinking about tomorrow. About the flight back to Charleston.
About how I’d walk into my townhouse changed in ways no one could see.
How my mother would take one look at my flushed cheeks and ask if I was getting enough sleep.
How my editor would raise a brow over coffee and ask if there was someone new.
How my friends would roll their eyes at my distraction, at the way I couldn’t stop checking my phone for a message that might never come.
And what would I say?
He’s nobody.
A fling.
A man who kissed me in the dark and gave me a bath instead of an orgasm.
No.
If I was going to let this continue—and I already knew I was—I’d have to hide him. Keep him separate. A locked-room secret. Because no one else would understand.
He guided me back into the bedroom without a word.
The towel clung to my damp skin, soft and thick and warm from his hands. The suite felt different now—quieter, dimmer, more intimate. The kind of quiet that wasn’t absence, but presence. Like the air itself was holding its breath, waiting for something to unfold.
But Ronan didn’t rush.
He turned down the bed like we were in some luxury hotel commercial—folding the covers back with precision, fluffing the pillows like he hadn’t just spent the last few hours hunting me through a fucking zoo.
“I can do that,” I murmured.
He glanced over his shoulder. “I know.”
But he kept doing it anyway.
I hovered near the edge of the bed, heart still drumming, towel tucked tight beneath my arms. My skin was flushed, still tingling from the bath—and from him. From the way he’d looked at me. Touched me. Not touched me.
Because that was the most confusing part.
He could’ve had me.
He had me.
And yet here he was, pulling back the covers and fluffing goddamn pillows instead of pinning me down and wrecking me like he’d promised.
He finished his quiet ritual, then turned to face me fully. “You can sleep here.”
A pause. “I mean, you will sleep here.”
My brows lifted. “And you?”
“I’ll be beside you.”
I searched his face. “Just sleep?”
His mouth curved. “For now.”
A war waged in my chest—relief and disappointment, tangled like a lover’s limbs. I didn’t want him to stop. I didn’t want him to go slow. But I also did. Because this moment, stretched so delicately between us, felt rarer than anything I’d ever been given.
It felt like restraint. And reverence .
And that terrified me more than any predator in the dark.
I dropped the towel and slipped beneath the sheets without comment.
His eyes flicked down, just once—quick but deliberate.
Then he moved to the other side of the bed, shed his shirt, and stepped out of his pants with the same quiet composure he used to plan a hunt. No showmanship. No arrogance. Just calm confidence in every inch of his lean, hard body.
When he climbed in beside me, the mattress dipped under his weight.
I lay still.
So did he.
For a beat.
Two.
Then I felt his hand reach for mine beneath the covers, fingers finding fingers like they’d done this a thousand times before.
I let out a breath.
Not because I wanted less.
But because I trusted him to give me more.
Eventually.
He brought our joined hands to his chest, anchoring me there—close enough to feel the steady thump of his heart against my knuckles.
“Sleep, Zara,” he whispered.
And for the first time in what felt like years …
I did.