Chapter 16 Shiloh #2
“I doubt that coward is going to try anything. But it’s fine. I don’t do mushy romance or hand-holding or PDA. We don’t have to show off in school if that makes you feel better.”
“The shack,” he said, still watching me with heated eyes. “Come to the shack. It’s private.”
“That offer still stands?”
He nodded and slowly, his eyes never leaving mine, pressed the back of my hand to his mouth and inhaled. “Let’s go today. Or…right this fucking minute.”
God, I’m a dead woman.
His lips were brushing my skin, and I struggled to keep from falling into those damn eyes of his that were swallowing me whole. “Can’t,” I said faintly. “Have a date with the library. This afternoon?”
He nodded, and we lingered a moment in each other’s nearness. I thought he was going to kiss me. I was desperate for him to kiss me. But his gaze darted to the entrance, then back to me, as if daring himself to break his own promise.
He released my hand. “I’ll text you.”
“Okay. Great.”
I shouldered my bag as he got back to work, and I left quickly, my heart pounding louder than his hammer.
***
I was in the school library about an hour after last bell, muddling distractedly through algebra, when I got Ronan’s text to meet at an abandoned utility shed overlooking the ocean, a mile or so west of the boardwalk.
He was waiting for me in the parking lot, weeds growing out of cracks in the pavement.
I climbed out of the Buick, shielding my eyes from the sun that was sinking behind the horizon.
“You okay getting those wet?” he asked with a nod at my sandals.
“Now you tell me,” I said with a grin. “There’s no turning back now.”
A smile flickered over his lips, and then he wordlessly led me down a short path to the beach.
Eastward, the shore was rocky and narrow before giving way to more sprawling beaches leading to the boardwalk.
Ronan led us westward, toward what looked like an impassable stretch of shore where the cliffs had begun a slow crumble into the sea.
I shouldered my bag and hiked up my skirt, stepping over rocks and shivering as cold water lapped at my feet.
“You do this a lot?” I asked, stumbling slightly as the boulders were growing bigger, the ocean closer.
Ronan, walking a few paces ahead of me, reached back and offered his hand. “Most nights.”
His fingers closed around mine, large and rough and warm.
I held on because the way was difficult.
Then it grew easier, but he didn’t let go, and neither did I.
He led me around a huge boulder, and on the other side was a fisherman’s shack.
The ocean had retreated, crashing at the shore some twenty yards away.
A bonfire pit with three beach chairs faced the horizon.
“So this is the secret hideout of the infamous Lost Boys.”
“It’s the shack,” he said, but I could tell it was so much more. A sanctuary for him and Miller and Holden. To be invited here meant something.
Ronan led me inside the small wooden structure, and I peered around, distracted by his hand still wrapped around mine, his thumb running back and forth over my skin.
“Is that a generator?” I asked of the little machine whirring in the corner. “Ah, for the mini fridge, no less.”
“Lord Parish has standards.” Ronan smirked, but his affection for his friend was obvious.
“I’m assuming that ridiculous chair is his?” I said about the white wingback against the wall near the window.
Ronan nodded, moving closer to me, towering over me.
He wasn’t smirking now. Whatever hesitation or caution he’d had in the woodshop was gone.
He backed me against the edge of a long wooden table that wasn’t new but weather-beaten and salt worn.
His hand came up and cupped my cheek, holding me in his strong grip as if I were something precious.
My lips parted, like an invitation, and in the next instant, his mouth captured mine in a searing kiss.
God, this…
This was what I’d been starving for. Him.
His mouth hard and hot on mine. His body pressed to me so that I could feel the power coursing through him, vibrating like electricity.
I clung to his shoulders, then slipped my hands in his hair.
His tongue invaded me, then pulled back to let his teeth graze my lips before pushing in again.
Until I was dizzy. Overwhelmed in the best way, lost in everything that was him.
The taste of him, the sounds he made as he kissed me—hungry sounds of want, as if he’d been just as starved for me as I was for him.
We wasted no time making up for the months we’d spent doing nothing more than stealing furtive glances at each other in history class. His hands were everywhere, reacquainting himself with my body and me giving in. Molding myself into his touch to get closer. Always closer.
“You’re not shy, are you?” I whispered against his lips as his hand slid up my shirt, over my bra, squeezing.
He reared back, his eyes searching mine. “Too much? I’ll stop…”
“Don’t you dare.”
I kissed him, hot and wet, while his rough hand cupped my breast, his thumb rubbing over the hard nipple, making it ache for his mouth. I let my own hands roam, slipping under his shirt, fingertips tracing the tight lines of his abs that contracted tighter under my touch.
With a grunt, he lifted me effortlessly and set me on the table. I pulled him in, wrapping my legs around his waist. How easy it was to fall into him, how good he felt and tasted. My hesitations and self-preservation burned up in the heat of his want for me. So potent I could taste it.
A hand slid into my braids, gripping and angling me to the side for better access to my mouth.
The other was still under my shirt, kneading my small breast under my bra now, flesh to flesh.
His lips moved hotly down my neck, then back up, toward my ear.
Tongue flicking and teeth biting until my skin was tingling everywhere.
“God, Ronan,” I breathed and slipped a hand over the front of his jeans. The hard length of him was straining against the denim, huge in my palm.
“Just me,” he growled into my ear, his tongue slipping between the earrings, his teeth tugging at one small hoop. “No one fucks you but me.”
A moan escaped me, his words shocking and thrilling me at the same time.
“That’s presumptuous,” I managed and hissed a breath as his mouth clamped down on my neck. “We’re not even fucking.”
“Our agreement or whatever this is…no one else touches you.” He pulled away to meet my eye. “No one.”
The possessive heat in his gaze stole my breath. I’d never had anyone look at me the way Ronan did. There wasn’t one thing casual in his hard stare or the softness behind it. A softness no one saw, not unless they were close to him like this.
“No one else.” I tilted my head, striving not to melt under that heated gaze. “The same goes for you.”
He frowned as if the idea of being with someone besides me made no sense, and I worried my casual plan was in serious fucking trouble.
“No one else,” he said, and then, as if to seal the pact, his hand slid between my legs, palming me completely. Staking his claim.
My body arched into his touch instantly, giving in to him. I whimpered as his fingers rubbed against my underwear, now damp, and found my clit. His other hand joined the first under my skirt, his thumbs meeting and rubbing circles while he took me in a rough, raw kiss.
“I want to put my mouth on you,” he stated. Matter-of-fact. Direct.
“Here? Now?”
He backed away. “We don’t have to…”
I pulled him back in. “I want to.”
God, I wanted to. I wanted everything with him. I wanted too much. A lone rational thought—a refugee from my old practical self—stopped me.
“Will the guys be here soon?”
“In a few minutes,” Ronan said, hotly against my lips. “I only need two.”
The possibility of getting caught added to the intensity building in that small shed.
I held my breath as he bent between my legs, my skirt bunched up around my waist. He pulled aside my underwear, and I tensed.
I’d never been naked like this in broad daylight.
Before the self-consciousness could dig in, he licked his lips and inhaled.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, almost to himself.
“Jesus, Ronan—” I began, then gasped as his mouth descended.
Every nerve ending flared to life, an ache of pleasure that deepened with every lick of his tongue, every graze of his teeth.
When he latched on, sucking, I let out a cry.
One hand gripped his hair, the other, the edge of the table, holding on for dear life as Ronan went at me.
He was wrong. It took one minute, not two.
In seconds, my entire body tensed, my breath catching in my chest and starbursts going off behind my closed eyes as the orgasm rocketed through me, flaring hottest where his tongue met my flesh.
Ronan didn’t relent but coaxed me through it until the end, lapping at me in dirty, raw strokes that threatened to bring me to the brink all over again.
“No more,” I breathed, pushing him away and sitting up. “Oh my God.”
Ronan emerged from under my skirt, his face flushed, chin wet. “Good?”
“I can’t feel my legs, so…yes.”
He smiled a little, and I wondered how beautiful he’d be wearing a full, genuine smile.
His happiness isn’t my responsibility, I reminded myself. We were friends with benefits. Casual. I pulled away and jumped off the table, but Ronan was there. He caught me and kissed me again. Sweetly, though I could taste myself on him.
He’s sweet and dirty at the same time. Soft and rough.
The humming between my legs hadn’t diminished in the slightest; I could still feel Ronan’s mouth there, and I wanted more. But his kiss that lingered on my lips was even stronger. The way he’d looked at me, held my face in his hands…
I wanted more of that too.
I cleared my throat and reached inside my bag. “In all the intrigue of vigilante justice, secret hideouts, and mind-blowing oral sex, I nearly forgot. I have something for you.”
Something I spent two solid weeks making because…casual.
I took Ronan’s hand and dropped the pendant in his palm. “Happy birthday.”
Ronan glanced at me, then at the necklace in his hand.
It had turned out pretty well, I thought.
A sleek silver North Star with four short and four long points radiating from the center, each one sharp.
I’d carved little sigils of lines and ovals in a repeating pattern around the star and then ringed the entire pendant with a ropelike design to give it a sailing, compass-like look.
“For when you feel adrift,” I said softly.
Ronan frowned, then looked up at me, confused. Touched. I took the two ends of the silver chain and reached around his neck to clasp them. The pendant lay against his chest, heart level.
“I’ve never had something like this.” He was holding the pendant but looking at me.
My heart thumped too hard and broke a little at the same time.
“Now you do.”