Ronan
I learned control behind the wheel. I lost it when she said my name.
The drive to Otto’s garage under the overpass takes twenty minutes, but it feels longer.
Iris drives fast but not recklessly, weaving through traffic with the kind of precision that comes from years of practice.
She may not race anymore, but she will always be one of the best. I stay close, matching her pace, my eyes fixed on her taillights like they’re the only thing keeping me tethered to reality.
The adrenaline is still singing through my veins, making everything too bright and too intense.
My hands grip the steering wheel hard enough to hurt, and I can feel my pulse in my throat, my temples, and at the base of my spine.
Miami at night is a different city from Miami during the day.
The tourists are mostly gone, back to their hotels or out at the clubs on South Beach.
What’s left is the real city—the one that lives and breathes in the shadows, the one that doesn’t make it into the postcards.
We pass through neighborhoods where the streetlights are broken more often than not, where the buildings are tagged with graffiti in a dozen different languages, where the air smells like salt water and exhaust and something indefinably tropical.
Iris takes a left onto a side street, then another, navigating through a maze of industrial buildings and warehouses.
This part of town is mostly deserted at night, with businesses closed and parking lots empty.
It’s the kind of place where you can do things without being seen, without being judged, without anyone asking questions you don’t want to answer.
Perfect for a couple who doesn’t want to be seen.
Iris pulls into the lot and parks near the side door.
I pull in beside her, kill the engine, and sit for a moment in the sudden silence.
My heart is still racing, my skin still too tight, and the hunger in me has grown teeth.
I can feel it gnawing at my insides, demanding satisfaction, demanding release.
I get out of the car. Iris is already at the door, keys in hand, and she doesn’t look back as she unlocks it and steps inside. She knows I’ll follow, the door closing behind me with a heavy click.
The garage is dark, except for the emergency lights near the exits, which cast everything in a dim red glow.
There are two cars up on lifts, their guts exposed, and the smell of motor oil and metal is thick in the air.
Iris doesn’t turn on the overhead lights.
She never does. Instead, she walks to the back of the garage, to the small office, and I follow her like I’m being pulled by an invisible string.
She stops in the doorway, finally turning to face me.
In the red-tinged darkness, she looks like something out of a dream—or a nightmare.
Her eyes are shadowed, her expression blank, but I can see the tension in her shoulders and the way her hands are clenched at her sides.
She’s feeling it too, this thing between us, this thing that was never supposed to turn into something real.
Something we would be scared to lose.
“Well, you won. Again,” she says, her voice steady, controlled. “Congratulations.”
“Don’t.” The word comes out sharper than I intend, but I’m past the point of caring about tone or tact. “Don’t pretend this is about the race.”
“Isn’t it?” She takes a step closer, and I can see the challenge in her eyes. “You won. You always win. And then we do this, and you leave, and nothing changes. That’s the pattern, isn’t it?”
I close the distance between us until I can feel her breath on my skin. “You want it to change?”
“Haven’t things already changed between us, Ronan?”
“Yes. They have, but what do you want me to do?”
Her fingers trace the line of my jaw, featherlight but burning my skin.
“Stop racing,” she whispers, her lips so close to mine I can almost taste them. “Stop putting your life on that finish line. Stop making me watch you nearly die every time.”
I catch her wrist, press my lips to her pulse point. “You know I can’t do that, Iris. They’ll kill you for the debt your father still owes.”
“It’s been three years, Ronan.”
“Let’s just finish the week out. Then we will make a decision.”
“And what if you don’t make it to the end of the week, huh? Then what?” She chokes back a sob.
I don’t respond. I can’t. I can’t make her a promise I am not sure I will be able to keep.
The words hang between us for a heartbeat, and then she’s moving, closing the distance, her hands fisting in my shirt and pulling me down to her.
Our mouths crash together, and it’s not gentle, not sweet, not any of the things a kiss is supposed to be.
It’s teeth and tongue and desperation, the taste of her mixing with the copper tang of adrenaline still flooding my system.
I back her against the wall, my hands finding her waist, her hips, pulling her against me hard enough to bruise.
She whimpers against me, and her fingers are in my hair, tugging, demanding.
I can feel her heart pounding against my chest, feel the tremor in her muscles that matches my own.
This is what we are, what we’ve always been.
Two people who are too damaged, too hungry, too desperate to pretend that anything about this is healthy or normal or good.
I break the kiss, my breath coming in ragged gasps, and press my forehead against hers.
“Tell me to stop,” I say, and I mean it. If she tells me to stop, I will. I’ll walk out of here, get in my car, and drive until the sun comes up and the hunger fades to something manageable. “Tell me you don’t want this.”
“Fuck you,” she whispers, and there’s something broken in her voice that makes my chest ache. “You know I can’t.”
That’s all the permission I need.
I lift her, and her legs wrap around my waist automatically, her body fitting against mine like we were designed for this.
I carry her into the office, kicking the door shut behind us, and set her down on the edge of the desk.
The surface is cluttered with papers and tools, and I sweep them aside with one arm, not caring where they fall.
Her hands are already working at my belt, her fingers fumbling with the buckle, and I help her, my own hands shaking with the need to touch her, to feel her skin against mine.
Clothes come off in a frenzy—her dress, my shirt, her heels kicked off and clattering to the floor.
I run my hands up her sides, feeling the lean muscle, the softness of her skin, the way she shivers under my touch.
She’s beautiful in a way that has nothing to do with conventional standards and everything to do with strength and survival.
Every scar, every callus, every imperfection tells a story, and I want to know them all.
“Ronan,” she breathes, and my name on her lips is like gasoline on a fire.
I kiss her again, slower this time, deeper, tasting her thoroughly.
My hands find the lace of her panties, and she lifts her hips to help me slide them down.
When they reach her feet, she flicks them off to the floor.
She’s bare before me, vulnerable in a way she never is anywhere else, and that vulnerability makes something twist in my chest.
I should say something. Should tell her that this means something, that she means something, that this isn’t just about burning off the high or satisfying a physical need.
But the words stick in my throat, tangled up with all the other things I can’t say, and instead I show her with my hands, my mouth, my body.
I kiss down her throat, feeling her pulse flutter under my lips.
Her hands are in my hair again, guiding me, and I follow her silent directions, learning the map of her body by touch and taste.
When I reach her breasts, I take my time, my tongue circling one nipple while my hand cups the other, feeling the weight of her, the way she arches into my touch.
She makes small sounds—gasps and sighs and my name, which sounds like a goddamn prayer—and each one sends a fresh wave of heat through me.
“Please,” she says, and the word is barely audible, but I hear it.
I sink to my knees, my hands gripping her thighs, spreading them wider until I can see everything—her swollen, glistening pussy already dripping for me.
The scent of her arousal hits me like a drug, and I groan against her inner thigh, biting the soft flesh there.
She whimpers again, her hips already seeking my mouth.
Gently rubbing my jaw stubble against her sensitive flesh, her head tips backward.
I groan in satisfaction at her response.
“Please,” she begs again, and I smile against her skin before diving in, my tongue parting her slick folds with a firm, flat stroke from her entrance to her clit.
She tastes like salt and sweetness and Iris—a flavor I’d recognize blindfolded.
I suck her clit between my lips, flicking my tongue against the sensitive bundle of nerves until she’s writhing, her wetness coating my chin.
“Fuck, Ronan—” Her voice breaks as I thrust two fingers deep inside her cunt, curling them to stroke that ridged spot that makes her walls clench around me.
I pump my fingers in a steady rhythm, my mouth never leaving her clit, alternating between gentle suction and firm circles until I feel her thighs begin to shake.
When she comes, it’s with a scream so loud that could wake the dead, her pussy pulsing and squeezing around my fingers as I drink down every drop of her release.
I don’t stop until she’s sobbing my name, her hands pushing weakly at my shoulders, her body still twitching with aftershocks as I finally pull away, my face slick with her.
I stand, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, and she’s looking at me with eyes that are sparkling and dazed.
She reaches for me, her hands working at my jeans, shoving them down along with my boxers.
My cock is hard and aching, and when her hand wraps around it, I have to close my eyes and breathe through the sensation.
As she pumps my cock, her other hand grips my waist, urging me closer, guiding me to her entrance, and I pause, just for a moment, looking into her eyes.
“Iris—”
“Don’t,” she says, echoing my earlier words. “Don’t think. Just feel.”
I push into her slowly, feeling her body stretch to accommodate me, and the sensation is so intense it borders on painful.
She’s tight and hot and perfect, and when I’m fully seated inside her, we both go still, just breathing.
This is the moment I live for, this perfect union, this sense of completion that I never feel anywhere else.
Then she rolls her hips, and the spell breaks.
I start to move, my cock sliding almost completely out before I thrust back into her wet pussy, establishing a rhythm that’s torturously slow and deep.
Her legs lock around my waist, heels digging into my ass, silently begging me to fuck her deeper.
I brace one hand on the desk beside her hip, the other gripping the soft flesh of her thigh, and I surrender to pure sensation—the slick drag of her pussy gripping me, our ragged breathing filling the room, the way her walls clench around my length with each thrust.
“Harder,” she gasps, her voice raw with need, and I oblige, driving into her with punishing force.
The desk creaks under us, papers fluttering to the floor, but neither of us cares.
This is what we need, this raw, primal connection, this moment when nothing else exists except the two of us and the pleasure building between us.
My balls tighten, that telltale pressure building at the base of my cock, but I refuse to let this end. Not yet. I slow down, changing the angle, and she makes a frustrated sound that turns into a moan when I hit that spot inside her that makes her see stars.
“There,” she moans, her voice breaking and back arching into me. “Right there, fuck me right there.”
I maintain the perfect angle, hammering that spot relentlessly, feeling her pussy flutter and grip me tighter with each thrust. I reach between our sweat-slicked bodies, my thumb circling her swollen clit, and she shatters instantly.
She comes with a strangled cry against my shoulder, teeth breaking skin as she marks me.
The sharp pain mixed with pleasure pushes me over the edge—my cock pulsing as I empty myself inside her, pleasure obliterating everything as I pump her full of my release.
We stay like that for a long moment, both of us breathing hard, our bodies still joined. I can feel her heart pounding against my chest, I can feel the tremor in her muscles that matches my own. Slowly, carefully, I pull out, and she winces slightly at the loss.
She’s still sitting on the edge of the desk, her legs dangling, her hair a tangled mess, and her lips swollen from kissing.
She looks thoroughly debauched, and there’s a part of me that takes savage satisfaction in that.
But there’s also something else, something softer and more dangerous, and I have to look away before she sees it in my eyes.
We dress in silence, the intimacy of moments ago already fading into something more familiar, more manageable. This is the part I hate, the aftermath, when reality comes crashing back, and we have to pretend that what just happened was just physical, nothing more.
But it is more. It’s always been more, and we both know it, even if neither of us is brave enough to say it out loud.
When we’re both dressed, Iris leans against the desk, her arms crossed over her chest.
“You should go,” she says, with no emotion in her voice, no indication of what she’s feeling. “It’s late.”
The words hit harder than they should. I never want to leave her, and if I had my choice, I never would.
But neither of us moves. We stand there in the dim red light of the garage, two broken people who have found something in each other that might be comfort or might be destruction, and we don’t know which.
This is the ritual neither of us dares name as love—this coming together in the aftermath of violence, this desperate grasping for connection in the darkness, this acknowledgment that we are both too damaged to deserve anything better.
Finally, I turn and walk to the door. My hand is on the handle when she speaks.
“Ronan.”
I look back.
“See you at the finish line tomorrow?”
“I’ll always make it to the end for you, little racer.”