Chapter 24 #2
I’d kept myself busy, as well as being pissed at him, which allowed me to mostly ignore how he affected me. I left the room when he was in it, avoided being alone with him, kept myself under control.
Anything to distract me from the fact that I hadn’t touched him in days.
More importantly, he hadn’t touched me in days.
“I’m assuming Beckett called for an update?”
“What do you think?”
“Since he’s been texting me for the last three days, I’d say yes.”
“Did you answer him?”
He frowned. “Of course I answered him. He’s my boss.”
My eyebrow rose.
“I may have told him to fuck off—without the fuck part.” His jaw flexed. “It’ll be ready when it’s ready.”
“What seems to be the problem?” Before he could open his mouth, I held up a finger. “There has to be one, since you’ve become invaluable to our staff instead of locking yourself in your workshop.”
“Because if I stared at these walls anymore, I’d actually toss the tank of cider base down the hill?”
“Okay, so we don’t want that.”
“Ya think?”’
“Don’t get pissy with me, Vi—Ronan.” I swallowed down the nickname. If we were going to keep it professional, that wasn’t going to help us.
His eyes flared as he straightened. “See that shelf right there?”
A small part of me was afraid to look away from him.
He seemed restless and watchful in a way that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Like something was shifting behind the mask he’d been wearing.
Finally, I glanced over at the rows and rows of hard cider bottles.
Local brewing companies, national brands, even some international—all looked as if they’d either been fully consumed or discarded. “Looks intense.”
“It’s really hard to be original when nearly everything has been done before.”
“You don’t have to be original, you just have to be you. Not some knockoff. The creative genius we hired, remember? The one you boasted you were the first day I met you?”
He came around the work bench toward me. “Yeah, well my genius seems to have left the building.”
“Or you’ve been too wound up in—” What the hell was wrong with me?
“Wound up?” He crowded into me. “You mean thinking about your silky, golden skin every goddamn night? Yeah, I’d say that was a problem.”
I tipped my head back to meet his eyes. “Yeah? Couldn’t prove it by me. All smiles and, ‘can I help you with that? Let me get that.’”
He lowered his head until our noses brushed. “You could have come to me, too. Let me know you gave a shit.”
I fisted my hands at my sides so I didn’t grab him. God, how I wanted to grab him and drag him in. I was here for a purpose, but the ginger scent of him made my head spin.
He moved a little closer, until his lips barely whispered across mine. “So stubborn. Think you have to do this all alone. Be Wonder Woman. Won’t let me in even though I know you crave me as much as I crave you.”
I swayed closer to him, my nipples tingled and tightened as they brushed the hard planes of his chest. I stared at his mouth as I sunk my teeth into my lower lip to stop myself.
“Even with me right here, you won’t give in.”
My gaze snapped up to his. “It’s not some game. This place is important, my job is important.”
“It’s not a fucking game, Kira. How I feel about you.
” He cupped the back of my head, his fingers spearing into my tangled hair.
“How much I want you—dream about you.” He hauled me in close until I could feel how hard he was.
“I wake up so hard I can barely think.” He pressed his forehead to mine, his breath hot across my lips.
“Remembering how you taste. The sounds you made for me. How you rode my face.”
“Ronan.” His name was a plea. I wanted to let him take over the deciding. To just make me forget about the worries and fears. When he took over, I could just be.
“Leaving your scent on my skin, in my beard, in my head.”
My skin flushed along my neck and chest. He never held back telling me how he wanted me. It was as overwhelming as it was thrilling for anyone to want me like that—but this man. God, he consumed the doubts for a moment.
I lifted my hand to his face, cupping his scruffy cheek. I closed my eyes and breathed in his heat and the apples on his breath. Sharp and tart enough to lure me in to taste.
I flicked my tongue along his lower lip, then slipped inside with a groan. The memories of us together crashed into the current moment. Hazy pleasure bubbled up like the carbonation of his hard cider and made me want more.
He held back, didn’t let me in closer for more.
“Ronan,” I said with a plea. “Viking.” I changed it up, hoping to help convince him without words. They were stuffed inside me behind a wall.
“We aren’t a game. Not to me.” He twisted his fingers in the beltloops of my shorts at the small of my back. “Real. So real, I can’t breathe around it sometimes. Like an undertow, dragging me back under.”
“Why would you want that?” I asked against his mouth. “To be out of control?” It was terrifying, how huge it felt when he touched me.
“Because when you’re in my arms, it’s the opposite. It’s like being in the barrel of a perfect wave. Balance and the thrill of adrenaline and the peace of the water. That’s what you are.”
I swallowed and pressed my forehead to his chin. The softness of his beard and the warmth of him seeped into me. I lifted my other hand to his chest, concentrating on the heartbeat there.
I slid my hand down and under the hem of his shirt to get to his skin, to feel it more fully. The fur of his chest and the light sheen of sweat from the heat of the workshop, the heavy cross that laid between his pecs.
“You overwhelm me.” I lifted my head again to look into his dark eyes. The wild was there, like always, but it wasn’t just that brazen man who swept in and made me sit up and take notice. There was truth and acceptance for me. And something bigger there that scared the hell out of me.
I went onto my toes and lined our mouths up, closing over his with my own. I pushed at his shirt until he leaned back and whipped it over his head, then came back for more.
Whatever had held him back had been unleashed. He reached around me and pushed things out of the way on the work table then lifted me up to set me on the bench.
The softness was gone, and my Viking had returned. I didn’t want to think about the emotions that had flooded his dark eyes. The intense lust was easier to embrace even if it also scared the crap out of me. Everything was huge with Ronan.
I reached for the button of his work pants. At least this huge part, I was more than willing to get a piece of. “Hurry,” I said and reached in to find his length.
He gripped the bench on either side of me, his head bowed. “Sunshine, finesse is not in this workshop right now.”
“I don’t want you to hold back. I don’t need pretty. I just need you.”
His chin snapped up and his eyes blazed.
I curled my fingers around the base of his cock. So hard and hot and perfect. Made for me. “I need this in me. You fill me up so good.” I couldn’t believe I said that, but it was true.
“Tighter.” He pressed his forehead to mine, growling as I obeyed.
I opened my legs wider so he could get closer. My thumb swirled over the crown of his head where it was damp with precum. I lifted my thumb to my mouth and licked it clean. “I missed your taste. When you came in my mouth for me.”
“Fuck.” He slanted his mouth over mine, his tongue swirling over mine as if to steal the taste back.
I chased it. The salt mixing with his cider—our cider. It would be ours when we were done. I was sure of that now.
I drew him out of the confines of canvas and the heavy zipper.
He ripped his mouth free from mine and threw his head back with a groan. “Sunshine.”
“Help me.” I let him go enough to grab onto his shoulders and he seemed to understand.
He jerked at my shorts, dragging them over my ass with my underwear before setting me back down on the wood. I’d probably end up with a splinter in a less than ideal spot but right then I really didn’t care.
My legs got tangled in the worn cotton until finally my ankle was free and he pushed my knees open. “Kira, you make me insane.” His gaze focused between my thighs.
I hadn’t really thought this one through. It wasn’t like we were in my bedroom. “Protection?”
I probably could wing it based on where I was in my cycle, but that was so damn reckless. So not me. I hadn’t been intimate with anyone in so long, there hadn’t been any need for me to be on birth control.
“Where’s my fucking bag?” He tried to back up, but my hand was already back in his pants. “Jesus. Give me a second.”
I dragged the tip of him against my inner thigh. “Hurry.”
He reached over on the bench, crowding into me. “Where’s my fucking wallet?”
He was so close to me. I lifted my hips instinctively to take him, to get him closer to where I was so hot and…God, was the word needy? Who the hell was I? I’d worry about that later.
After I came.
“Hurry the hell up, Viking.”
“I wasn’t prepared.” He pushed papers and notebooks aside. A glass beaker rolled across the table and hit the floor with a clink then rolled away.
The music was still playing. A bluesy guitar piece with an epic voice swelling over it. It invaded my brain and rolled through me as I slicked the head of his cock through my wetness.
“Shit, Kira. Give me a second.”
I scraped my nails up the line of hair that bisected his abs to his chest. I needed to taste whatever I could get my mouth on.
His jawline, which was far more beardy than the last time I’d kissed him, buzzed against my lips.
I moved down to swirl my tongue along his Adam’s apple.
The rasp of the shorter hairs abraded the tip of my tongue, ratcheting up my desire.
I buried my face into his neck and nibbled on the pulse point. Thrilled at how it fluttered under my tongue, echoing how crazy I felt as well. “Inside me. Or in my mouth.”
He laughed harshly. “You’re trying to kill me.” He straightened back up with a foil packet in hand. “In that perfect pussy first.”
I peeled open his pants further, letting go of his cock only so I could push at the canvas work pants and was rewarded with a handful of his flexing ass.
His hands worked the condom down his length and his wild eyes met mine. “I didn’t have time to get you—”
I grabbed his hand and brought it to me to see how wet I was. “I’ve been ready. There’s no worry there.”
He slicked his knuckle along my pussy and groaned. “Soaked for me, baby.”
“Yes.” I gripped my nails into his ass. “Now stop making me wait. It’s been eleven days.”
He grinned. “Counting them since I’ve been in here?” He dragged a knuckle along my pussy, nudging deeper before adding a second finger and pulsing his knuckles on either side of my clit.
I threw back my head and resisted the urge to shout out my frustration.
“Just you and me. This time it’s not in the sunshine. But I want you to scream my name, Kira. Don’t hold back.” His other hand gripped my hip, urging me closer to the edge of his work bench.
I circled his wrist to tug his hand away from me, but he resisted. Staring into my eyes as he kept on rubbing. He kept me on the fringes of an orgasm with a little too much glee.
“Tease,” I panted out.
He lowered his mouth until his beard tickled my lips, eyes still locked on mine. “Come for me, baby. Before I rattle your teeth like I promised.”
That day felt like a million years ago. When he promised me he’d take me in here and fuck me thoroughly. “I want that, but I want to come around you.” I pushed away his hand and reached for his cock. “Around this.” I hooked my knees around his waist and urged him closer.
He pushed up my shirt. “Skin. I need all your skin.”
I quickly flipped it over my head, and my hair tumbled free from my clip which pinged along the table and onto the floor. He lowered his face to my chest, dragging in a deep breath of me before he nosed the fragile necklaces I wore out of the way to get to skin.
He flicked open my bra at the back and gave a happy groan as the straps gave way. He found my nipple, sucking hard enough that my fingers speared into his hair. I wasn’t sure if it was to hold him there, or drag him away.
The underside of his shaft bumped along my slit, and then he flexed his hips to get to my entrance. He lifted his head to watch my face as he slid into me ever so gently.
I hissed out a breath as I relaxed to take every inch. God, I’d missed this. How perfect he fit inside of me. Not too big, not too small—just perfect for me. As if there was some piece of divine timing out there to make us find one another.
My eyelids fluttered shut as his name sighed from my lips.
And then he unleashed. His hips ground against my thighs as he angled each thrust for maximum pleasure. I lifted my arms to his shoulder and curled around him, drawing him even closer.
Accepting each jarring thrust inside of me as if I were drowning and only this could keep me tethered to this moment. I still cupped the back of his head, his wild curls twining around my fingers as I held on.
He gripped my hips as sweat gathered between us and the friction grew unbearable. I tipped my hips up, raising my knees to get him where I needed him.
“Fuck,” he said into my shoulder. “I need you closer.”
I laughed. I wasn’t sure how I did without sawing off my own damn tongue from each thrust. “Only way is climbing inside of me, pal. Dear God, right there.”
He powered into me as the entire bench shuddered around us. Papers fell to the floor, glasses toppled and rolled away. But I couldn’t do anything but hang on and take it.
Swamped in the perfect cone of silence where it was nothing but us, I shouted his name and clamped down on him.
The entire room went sparkly and dark with little fissures of light dancing around the dim ceiling of the barn.
I tried to drag in a breath, but it was clogged with an endless stream of words I couldn’t hold onto.
Distantly, I realized it was his name. Over and over again.
He finally slowed, his shoulders shook as he gave a few more jerky pulses inside of me then leaned hard on me. We both dragged in huge gulps of air, heartbeats racing to recover from the rush.
His head dropped to my shoulder, his lips burning a trail across to my neck. “I think you killed me.” His voice was little more than a grumble at my ear.
I laughed, my body now loose with endorphins and the sparkliest of orgasms. Talk about pent-up. Then I realized the sparkles were actual fireflies that had found their way into the barn with the doors open.
A little bit of magic had followed us into the workshop.