Chapter 13
O f course, he wasn’t taking me home yet.
The moment the SUV veered off Collins toward Ocean Drive, something shifted in the air—like heat wrapped in desire, soaked in salt, with a rhythm made of bass and body language.
South Beach. It pulsed outside the window, loud and bright and unapologetically flesh-forward.
I’d grown up seeing this place in music videos and magazine spreads. But now I was here. With him.
Ronan didn’t say much. Just tapped twice on the glass partition, and the driver adjusted course, heading toward a quieter stretch of sand behind a private beach club. The tinted windows kept us in our own little world. Or maybe our own little pressure cooker.
Because when Ronan reached into the bag beside him and handed me a scrap of green fabric no bigger than a silk ribbon, my throat tightened.
“What is this?” I asked, holding it like it might combust in my hands.
He looked amused. “It’s a bikini. ”
“This is a threat.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I thought you liked green.”
“I do,” I said slowly, fingers working over the strings. “But there’s barely enough fabric here to cover?—”
“That’s the point.”
I gave him a look. “I can’t wear this to the beach.”
He didn’t respond right away. Just watched me like he was already imagining it. His gaze dragged over my body, lingering at my collarbone, my thighs, the flush rising in my chest.
“You’ll wear it,” he said. “You’ll put it on in the car. Right now.”
I gawked. “The driver’s right there.”
Ronan leaned in. “He won’t look.”
“And if he does?”
His jaw ticked. “Then he’ll lose an eye.”
My pulse jumped. Not just at the words, but the way he said them—quiet, sure, lethal. No smile. Just promise.
God help me, it turned me on.
A slow, liquid heat pooled low in my belly, spreading outward in waves that made my thighs clench.
I felt the slick ache of arousal pulse between my legs, sharp and undeniable.
The timbre of his voice alone had soaked me.
No touch. No kiss. Just that calm command—and the look in his eyes that told me he’d be watching, imagining, needing.
I was already wet.
Already undone.
From nothing more than a suggestion.
The air inside the SUV felt hotter, thicker, charged with something dangerous and delicious. My nipples tightened, grazing soft fabric with every breath. My skin prickled with awareness, every nerve ending begging to be seen, touched, claimed .
I hesitated. Not because I didn’t want to do it. But because part of me—some deeply socialized sliver—was still convinced I wasn’t that girl. The one who changed in the back of black cars. Who wore bikinis meant for Sports Illustrated covers. Who made men jealous.
“I’m not a model,” I murmured, my voice smaller than I meant. “My thighs touch. My stomach isn’t—” I stopped.
His hand moved, fast and certain, gripping my jaw just firm enough to silence me.
“You’re mine,” he said. “And there isn’t a man alive who wouldn’t trade everything he has just to be where I’m sitting. So don’t insult what’s mine.”
My breath caught. The back of my throat burned. Not just from arousal—but from something else. Something that again sounded a little too much like being seen.
I nodded. Barely.
He released my jaw and leaned back.
The moment stretched.
Then I reached down, peeled off my clothes, and changed—slowly—into the tiny green bikini while the driver pretended to study the road. But I saw it in the rearview mirror. The glance. Quick. Male. Curious.
Ronan saw it, too.
The air in the SUV went molten.
He didn’t say a word. Didn’t growl or scold or break eye contact with me. But his hand moved to my bare thigh and gripped.
Possessive. Steady. Territorial.
“You like it?” I asked softly, shifting to let the top settle over my breasts. It was a halter-style, cut low and tight, the kind of thing that said come closer and don’t touch at the same time .
His eyes dropped to my chest. “Turn around.”
I did. Slowly. Every inch of skin newly exposed felt alive, on fire, aware of him.
The bottoms were tiny. Tied at the hips. Just enough coverage to keep things legal, not enough to protect anyone’s sanity.
When I turned back, his pupils were blown wide.
“You’ll keep your cover-up on until we’re at the chairs,” he said. “Then you’ll take it off. Slowly.”
I swallowed. “Yes, sir.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Good girl.”
The SUV rolled to a stop.
He stepped out first, towering and confident, then reached for my hand. The driver opened the rear door but didn’t look at me again. Maybe he was smart. Maybe he wanted to keep both eyes.
I stepped out, the ocean scent hitting me full force—salt and sunscreen and sweat. It was decadent. Animal. Alive.
And for the first time in my adult life, I wasn’t overthinking how I looked in a bikini.
I could feel Ronan’s gaze burning through me like a brand.
Even through the gauzy white cover-up I’d pulled on in the car, his stare was a weight on my shoulders, a promise at my back. And the moment we reached the chairs—a set of sleek loungers half-shaded by a cabana and flanked by bottles of chilled water and sunblock—he stepped aside and waited.
For me to undress.
I hesitated just long enough to feel the heat creep up my neck. Then, slowly, I lifted the hem and peeled the cover-up over my head, letting it slip down my arms and flutter to the chair behind me .
The air hit my skin like a caress.
So did the stares.
Two men walking by on the sand—both shirtless, both too obvious—let their gazes drag across my body like it was an invitation. One of them turned his head so far, he nearly tripped over a beach bag.
Ronan’s jaw flexed.
He didn’t say a word. Just stepped closer, not touching me, but close enough that the implication was clear.
Back the fuck off .
The men kept walking.
I tilted my head, lips twitching. “Jealous?”
He leaned in, brushing my hair back from my shoulder with a single finger. “I don’t get jealous,” he said, voice low. “I get territorial.”
My breath hitched.
We didn’t sit right away. He led me down to the water’s edge, the waves curling around our ankles, warm and soft like silk. The sand shifted under my feet as I walked beside him, conscious of every sway of my hips, every glance he gave me.
Once we were waist-deep, I turned toward him. “This was your plan all along, wasn’t it?”
“What was?”
“Me. Barely clothed. Soaking wet. At your mercy.”
He smiled slowly. “I like to be prepared.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You and your … what? Military background?”
“That’s right. Comes in handy.”
The water lapped higher. I stepped closer, my legs brushing his, the salt air curling between us like a dare.
“Tell me something,” I said. “Do you really want to see me in Charleston, or is this just part of the game? ”
“I want to see you,” he said, instantly. “Charleston. Your world. I want to know what it looks like when you’re not pretending.”
“I’m not pretending now.”
“No,” he said. “But you’re not exactly being watched by your liberal friends and your readers who’d cancel you if they knew the kind of man you let between your thighs.”
I froze.
And then I laughed, low and breathless, because he wasn’t wrong.
Still, it made something inside me ache.
“Maybe I don’t let men between my thighs,” I said, stepping forward until we were chest to chest.
His brow lifted. “Is that right?”
“Maybe,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around his neck and lifting my legs to curl around his waist. “Maybe I want them to earn it.”
He caught me easily, hands gripping the backs of my thighs, eyes dark and dangerous.
“Like this?”
My breath hitched. His cock was hard—impossibly hard—pressed between us beneath the surface, barely separated by our swimsuits. And I felt bold. Drunk on sun and salt and the way his body made mine burn.
I reached behind me and tugged at the knot of my bikini top.
It fell away, floating between us in the water.
His eyes flared.
“Zara—”
Before he could finish, I let the bottoms go, too. They drifted out behind me like a green flag in surrender.
“I’m tired of waiting,” I whispered. “Do something.”
His gaze held mine for a long beat. Then another .
And then he moved.
Finally .
He carried me out of the water, through the shallows, to a tucked-away strip of beach shaded by palms and mostly hidden by the rise of dunes. The sounds of South Beach dulled behind us. It felt like we’d slipped out of reality and into some forbidden dream.
He carried me like I weighed nothing, like I was precious and his to worship. My legs wrapped around his waist, arms clinging to his neck as the warm ocean breeze tangled in my hair. His chest pressed against mine—hard, hot, unyielding—and every step he took ignited something deeper.
When we reached the spot he’d chosen, he knelt with me still in his arms, then lowered me slowly, reverently, onto a towel he’d grabbed on the way past our cabana. My back met the soft cotton and the sun poured over my bare skin like molten gold.
The heat of him hovered just above me, his body a wall of restraint and promise. A shadow fell across my chest as he stared down, drinking me in. I couldn’t breathe. Didn’t want to.
The breeze caught my nipples, already pebbled from want, and I watched his eyes darken as they flicked to the rise of my chest. His gaze alone felt like a touch.
And then he moved.
His mouth came down—not where I expected, not where I was begging for—but lower. Slower.
He trailed kisses down my stomach, each one softer than the last, until the tension in my core was a live wire stretched tight.
When he reached the curve of my inner thigh, he paused—just long enough for my breath to hitch. Then he licked me .
Once. Deep. Possessive.
I gasped, my hips lifting off the towel, instinct chasing pleasure.
His tongue worked with ruthless precision—slow at first, then firmer, more focused, as if he’d memorized me. As if this was a language only he spoke.
I couldn’t stop the sounds spilling from my throat. Soft, breathless, breaking.