Chapter 17
I didn’t knock.
I didn’t have to. The front door was already cracked when I pulled up—just enough to say he was expecting me. Just enough to make my pulse stutter as I climbed the wide porch steps.
There was something about a man who didn’t need to announce his control. He just lived in it. Moved in it. Breathed in it like oxygen.
The house loomed behind me, Southern bones dressed in modern lines—warm light spilling through the windows, the scent of cedar and salt thick in the humid air.
I stepped inside and let the door swing shut behind me.
“Zara.”
His voice came from somewhere deeper in the house. Low. Rough. A velvet drag over gravel.
I followed it without answering. My heels clicked against the hardwood, each step a countdown. Through the foyer. Down a short hall. Toward the back of the house where glass doors opened onto the wide balcony I’d only glimpsed before.
He stood there waiting. Ronan Hale. Backlit by the golden wash of the sinking sun. A silhouette in black slacks and a dark, open-collar shirt that made him look like sin carved from shadow. His sleeves were rolled, forearms bare, veins taut beneath skin that looked like it could snap.
But it was his eyes that undid me.
That greedy, hungry, mine look I was beginning to crave more than oxygen.
He said nothing as I stepped out onto the balcony, just watched me like he could already see the dress hitting the floor. Like he could already feel me unraveling for him.
I swallowed hard.
“Nice view.”
His gaze flicked behind me, then returned. “I wasn’t talking about the water.”
My breath caught.
He stepped forward slowly, closing the space between us like a panther stalking prey. When he reached me, he didn’t touch. Not yet. Just hovered close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his skin, the warning in his breath.
“You wore this for me?”
I nodded, lips parting.
His hand lifted—one slow, reverent motion—and traced the thin strap on my shoulder.
“You know I’ve been thinking about you,” he murmured. “All day. Every fucking hour. Wondering if you were going to show.”
“I told you I would. ”
His eyes darkened. “You say that like I’ve earned your trust.”
I tipped my chin up. “Haven’t you?”
He didn’t answer.
Didn’t need to.
Because the next moment, his hands were on my hips, and then I was off the ground, spun and pinned to the thick wood post of the balcony before I could breathe.
His mouth found mine with a growl. Not a kiss—a claiming. Tongue, teeth, heat. One hand gripped the back of my neck while the other held me in place, my spine arched, my legs already parting without a single order.
“Fuck,” he muttered into my mouth. “You taste good.”
“Ronan—”
“I waited too long,” he said, his voice raw against my skin. “Too damn long to have you like this.”
His hands slid down, caught the backs of my thighs, and hoisted me higher. I wrapped around him instinctively, my heels dangling, my breath ragged.
And then—God help me—he bit my collarbone.
Not hard. But enough to mark.
Enough to make me feel owned.
“I don’t share,” he growled. “You know that, don’t you?”
I nodded, dizzy. “Yes.”
“Say it.”
“You don’t share.”
He dragged his mouth down the curve of my throat. “Good girl.”
The words hit me like lightning .
A jolt of heat flashed through me, sharp and instant. It started low—deep in my belly—and spread like fire, licking up my spine and down my thighs until every inch of me felt flushed and hypersensitive. My skin prickled. My pulse fluttered. An ache between my legs pulsed with urgency.
God, I was wet.
And not just aroused in some passing, fleeting way. I throbbed for him. My panties were soaked, clinging to me with a kind of cruel persistence. Each step, each shift, sent friction rippling through me, teasing and tormenting.
He hadn’t even touched me where I needed him most, and I was already unraveling.
The heat in his eyes told me he knew. That he could sense the tension vibrating in my limbs, the way my breath hitched, the way I pressed my thighs together for relief I wasn’t going to get—not yet.
My nipples tightened beneath the thin fabric of my dress, each brush of air like a secret caress. His mouth lingered against my neck, breath hot and steady, and I shivered at the delicious contrast of his control and my need.
I wanted to drop to my knees. I wanted to climb into his lap. I wanted to beg. But I didn’t move. Not because I didn’t crave it—because I did . So much it scared me. But something deeper held me still.
It was him.
His presence. His patience. The unbearable way he made me feel like he had all the time in the world … and I didn’t. That I was already his, and he was simply deciding how to take me.
I felt alive.
Not just sexually—but wholly. Utterly.
Like I was being seen . Known. Owned .
And when he finally carried me—lifted me like I weighed nothing, like I belonged to him—my heart stuttered again.
He moved toward the railing—toward the fucking railing —and I felt the breeze hit the backs of my thighs as he set me down on the wide banister.
The wood was smooth, still warm from the sun, and I instinctively looked toward the marsh beyond, the water flickering gold, the air thick with humidity and exposure.
“Someone could see,” I breathed, heart racing.
“I hope they do,” he said, voice full of dark promise. “Let them watch. Let them know exactly who you belong to.”
Then he was on me again—pushing the skirt of my dress higher, higher, until silk pooled at my hips. His fingers found the thin scrap of lace I’d worn beneath. He yanked it aside without ceremony, a rough groan tearing from his chest when he felt how wet I already was.
“Christ, Zara.”
I reached for him, clutched at his shirt, his belt, anything to ground myself.
But there was no ground left.
Only air. Hunger. Him, as he dropped to his knees in front of me.
I wanted to ask.
How many women had he brought here?
How many had seen this view, felt that possessive fire in his eyes, heard that same gravel in his voice?
Why me?
Why now?
But the questions tangled with the heat crawling up my thighs, twisted in my chest like ivy, and never made it to my tongue.
Because he saw it .
He saw the flicker in my eyes—the moment of doubt, of distance. The part of me that tried to retreat into my mind instead of surrendering to my body.
He didn’t allow it.
He gripped my thighs tighter, spreading me wider with a quiet authority that made every nerve light up.
Then his mouth was on me—lips soft, stubble scraping in the most maddening way as he buried himself between my legs.
His tongue moved with devastating precision, like he’d mapped me in his dreams, like he knew exactly where to press, exactly how to use his mouth to make me come undone.
My breath caught, my head falling back.
But the thoughts fought to stay. They always did.
He could be lying.
This could mean nothing to him.
You're just another body?—
He growled into me like he could hear it. Like he could taste every errant thought I didn’t want to feel.
His mouth didn’t stop. His grip didn’t falter.
But his voice—low and rough and vibrating against my core—dragged me back.
“Stop thinking.”
“I’m not?—”
“Yes, you are.” His tongue flicked against me, then slowed to a maddening tease. “You’re not here.”
“I am.”
“Then show me.”
His mouth came back harder, deeper. He sucked, licked, devoured—until every thought, every fear, every question dissolved into pure sensation.
My hips rocked against him, shameless and wild. My hands fisted in his hair, anchoring me to him, grounding me in the only reality I wanted right now—this .
“You feel that?” he asked, voice thick, fingers digging into my thighs like he didn’t want me to float away. “That’s what real feels like.”
I whimpered.
“And this—” His tongue curled, slid inside me. “—this is mine.”
“Ronan,” I gasped, dizzy, ruined, aching.
My head dropped forward, chest heaving as the world blurred behind a haze of pleasure. I could feel everything—his breath, the sunset on my skin, the slick slide of his tongue and the promise in his hands.
Every muscle in my body tensed, curled, reached.
I was seconds from falling apart.
And I didn’t want to do it alone.
“I want you,” I whispered, the words slipping out before I could edit them. “Inside me. I want—please.”
He stood in one fluid movement, undoing his belt with a look that could end wars.
My God. This man.
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t want to think,” I said, reaching for him. “I want to feel.”
Something flickered behind his eyes. Dark. Dangerous. Tender.
“Good,” he murmured. “Because I’m going to make sure you feel me for days.”
He pulled me off the railing in one sharp movement, hands gripping my waist like he couldn’t stand the distance another second.
My feet hit the deck, but only briefly—he turned me with ease, bent me forward, and pressed my palms flat to the smooth wooden rail.
The sun was nearly gone now, casting the marsh in molten shadow, cicadas screaming into the night like they knew what was about to happen .
He pushed the skirt of my dress higher, baring me to the breeze, to the world. To him.
“Look at that view,” he murmured behind me. “That’s mine, too.”
I shivered.
He dropped to a crouch again, mouth hot against the curve of my ass, his stubble a scratch of heaven and hell. He kissed the inside of my thigh—bit it, actually—and I moaned, the sound half-wild, half-shamed.
Because anyone could be watching.
Because I wanted them to.
Let them.
I felt the thick slide of his fingers next, testing, teasing, thrusting into me with a rhythm that made my toes curl against the wood.
“Still so fucking wet,” he rasped, voice strained. “I haven’t even started.”