Chapter 24
“No? Hmm, what else could I do? I could deny you an orgasm, but I don’t want to do that yet. When you’re ready for sex, I want to hear you cry out in pleasure. I want to hear you scream, to see the arousal on your face, to feel you come around my fingers or my cock or on my tongue.”
Dear Lord.
She wanted that as well. She could see it in her mind. Even if she had never experienced anything like that before. She had no doubt that if anyone could make her scream in pleasure it would be this man.
With how turned on she was just by having him close, she wasn’t even sure she would survive having actual sex with him. It might be more than her poor body could take.
“How do you feel about the traffic light system?” he asked.
“I think it could work. But are you sure you’re not going to get tired of me? I mean, I won’t blame you if you do. Sometimes I’m tired of me.”
“I’m not going to get tired of you, Lily. Will you get tired of me and my bossy ways?”
“Hmm,” she teased. “Let me think about that for a moment. It’s actually a really good point.”
“You won’t,” he told her, wrapping his hand around the back of her neck again, this time applying some pressure.
Oh, dear Lord. She liked that way more than she should.
“You’re not going to get tired of me, are you, Mo bhreáthracht?”
“No,” she said, “I’m not going to get tired of you.”
“Good girl. Now, tell me how your body feels when I kiss you, Lily.”
There was no denying the command in his voice, demanding her obedience.
And, darn it, she felt all hot and bothered again.
“I feel hot, happy, and aroused,” she managed to get out.
No one would ever call her eloquent, but he seemed pleased with her reply.
“Good, because that’s exactly how I feel when you touch me.”
“You do?” she asked breathlessly.
“Oh, yeah, I do.” He leaned in. “Let me show you.”
And then his lips were on hers as he held her head still. His lips opened, and his tongue ran across the seam of her lips. A shudder ran through her, and she parted her lips to let him in.
He teased her with long, slow strokes of his tongue, worked her up and up until she was more and more aroused.
Until she could barely think, barely breathe.
He nipped at her bottom lip, and to her shock, that made her clit throb.
Did she actually like that? A little sting of pain mixed in with the pleasure?
It was crazy, and yet she couldn’t deny that she was turned on. When he drew back, she swayed slightly. She was stuck in that dreamy place where arousal held her captive.
It took her a while to come down from that high, and he was grinning at her when she came back into reality.
“Oh, yeah, you like me kissing you.”
Like she could deny it.
“And do you like it?” she asked, almost shyly.
“No, baby, I don’t like it. I fucking love it.” And he took her mouth again.
She could barely breathe, but she didn’t care. All she wanted was more. She felt greedy for him. Desperate.
The hunger was like nothing that she’d ever felt before.
“Christ, I’m going to have to stop before I take things too far,” he muttered after pulling back again.
“No, don’t stop,” she begged, leaning forward.
“Oh, baby, I really don’t want to stop but I have to or I’m going to lay you down on this countertop, strip you naked, and take you.”
“You say that like there’s something wrong with that,” she said.
He grinned. “I like that you want me so much.”
“I like it too, but I’d like it even more if you’d actually do something about it.”
“Oh, you’re all turned on, aren’t you? Are you all wet for me?”
Yikes. That had taken a turn she wasn’t expecting, and she could feel herself blushing.
“I, um, well, I, um . . .”
“It’s all right, baby. We’re taking things slow, remember?”
“But taking things slow might just kill me,” she wailed.
He laughed. “I’ve lasted months with wanting you, and I haven’t died yet. You’ll be okay.”
She really didn’t think she would be.
“Now, how about we tidy up this mess and make some dinner? We don’t really have time for a roast or even to thaw anything. Our choices are grilled cheese or frozen pizza.”
“Grilled cheese,” she said.
“Good choice. And you’re going to eat every bite, young lady. I don’t want to see anything more than crumbs on your plate.” He lifted her off the kitchen island. “You go get washed up and I’ll clean this mess up.”
Guilt filled her as she glanced around. The kitchen was a disaster and he’d just gotten home. She was certain that the last thing he felt like doing was cleaning up her mess.
And she hadn’t even asked him how he’d gotten on at his house. About the break-in. Sheesh. She’d just started in with her problems and issues.
“How is your house? Was there really a break-in? And how come you have a house in Boston and this cabin?”
“That’s simple. I bought this place for you.”
“When you decided you were going to kidnap me?” she asked.
“Something like that.” He tapped her nose.
“What if things hadn’t worked out? What if I hadn’t even liked you?”
“I figured you’d fall for my charms. Very few people can resist me.”
She shook her head. “You’re terrible. You know that, right?”
“And by terrible, do you mean terribly good-looking, terribly wonderful, terribly smart and intelligent?” he asked.
“No, I just mean terrible. You didn’t really buy this cabin for when you, uh, took me, right?”
He simply smiled at her.
Actually, she was probably better off not knowing the truth about that.
“You still haven’t told me about your house and the break-in. Were things really bad?”
“Well, they weren’t good. Although according to my family, now at least I’ll be able to furnish my house with decent-looking furniture. Apparently, what was there before looked terrible.”
“Oh no. Did everything get trashed?” she asked. “Who would do that? Was anything taken?”
“Not that I could tell,” he said. “Which makes it even more interesting. They broke into my front door. They were dressed all in black. Forced the door open. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my alarm on because my sister had been coming in to water my plants and feed my worms.”
“Feed your worms?” she asked. “You have pet worms?”
“I have a worm farm. My sister, Bea, loves animals, and she thought I needed company so she gave me a worm farm for my birthday. Luckily, it doesn’t require much work because I’m not too big on worms myself.”
“Oh, right,” she said, feeling slightly baffled by that.
“I know. It’s as strange as it sounds. Anyway, Bea’s really upset because whoever broke in tipped over the worm farm, and they’ve all gone. Well, we couldn’t find them anyway.”
“Oh, that’s terrible,” she said. “Those poor worms.”
“Yeah, weirdly, even though I didn’t think I was attached to them, I do feel bad that they’re gone.”
“It sounds like she’d get on great with Clem. She’s always loved animals.”
“My other sister, Fiadh, loves plants. She’s given me a number of house plants over the years that I’m expected to take care of. Bea was also watering the plants for me. The worms don’t need much. They get fed every five to seven days.”
“So, you didn’t have your alarm on because of Bea?” she asked. “Why didn’t you just give her the code?”
“I would if Bea could remember a code to save herself. I can’t tell you how many times she set off my alarm from getting the code wrong.
I thought it was better just to leave it off.
Nothing ever happens in my neighborhood.
Turns out that was a stupid decision. Ronan is not happy that Bea was anywhere near my house when it was being trashed. ”
“But you didn’t know that would happen,” she said. “And the burglar wasn’t still there, right?”
“No, but he still could have been, and Bea could have gotten hurt, especially as she took a look at my broken door and decided to walk into the house rather than walking away."
Lily winced. “Wow, that seems like a really silly decision.”
“Just so you know, if you did something like that your ass would be hot for hours.”
And there he went, making threats that sent her body into a tailspin. She tried hard to keep her face from showing any reaction, though.
“I’m also fairly certain you wouldn’t do anything like that, would you?”
Lily thought it prudent to nod. She was pretty certain she wouldn’t walk into a house that had just been burgled.
“Unfortunately, Ronan is incredibly protective of my sisters, but at the same time, he also spoils them to death. So they think that nothing bad is ever going to happen because he will take care of everything, which he will, but they still have to take a certain amount of responsibility for keeping themselves safe. He also won’t hear of them being scolded. ”
Wow.
She wondered what it would be like to have an older brother like that.
“Did you call the police? What did they say?”
He shook his head. “No cops. There is nothing that they could do that Ronan’s guys can’t.”
Who were Ronan’s guys? And what were they going to do?
“I can see the questions swirling in your head.” He grinned. “I will tell you, just not now. Because we have a mess to clean up and you need to have a shower.”
She looked down at herself. Eek!
“Um, leave everything for me. I’ll clean it up after my shower.”
He just shot her a look that she was pretty certain meant that wasn’t going to happen.
Well, she’d just have to be quick with that shower.