“I knew this week was going to be epic.” Tyler grinned, then looked at me and feigned seriousness. “No offense, ma’am.”
“Everyone out,” Ronan ordered. “I’m going to speak with Sanaa. Do your patrols. Stay alert. Reconvene in one hour.”
Vance lifted an eyebrow at me.
I ignored him, and one by one, they filed out of the suite.
She was doing it again.
The door shut after Vance, and I fought to keep my tone in check. “Let me explain the concept of not putting yourself in danger.”
“Please.” She held a hand up. “Hear my reasoning.”
“No.” I’d already heard enough. She was placing my past before her safety, and I wasn’t having it.
“Ronan.” Stating my name with exasperation, she sighed. “I know you want to protect me, but if we don’t catch him, I’ll be living like this, we’ll be living like this for who knows how long.”
If living like this kept her alive, I didn’t give a fuck how long we did it.
Her eyes narrowed. Then her gorgeous accent came out. “No, you don’t get to be thinking that. I saw that thought pass through your head. Do you want to be fighting with Vance like this and getting under each other’s skin for eternity? Do you think I want to be at the center of that, hearing your bickering?”
Her mesmerizing voice, seeing the glimpse of the woman I knew she would become all those years ago, knowing she had nothing on underneath her dress, my cock hardened. “Are you sore?”
“I…” She blinked. “What?”
“Have you had sex since you lost your virginity?” She’d been so damn tight, and while she’d submitted to me beautifully, I’d tasted her inexperience.
She crossed her long, graceful arms, and her honeyed skin glowed against her off-white dress. With her thick, black hair in soft waves around her face, and her cheeks flushed, she’d never looked more beautiful. But she didn’t answer me.
I took a step toward her. “I asked you a question.”
“Oh, I heard you.” She stood her ground, but the confidence in her stance a moment ago gave way to unease. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“You don’t want to talk about fucking?” Choosing my exact wording because I knew exactly what it would do to her face, I pushed.
Her cheeks blushed stunningly. “The Ronan I knew didn’t speak this way.”
Not to a seventeen-year-old I didn’t. “Forget who you think I was. I’m here now, and this is who I am. I want to know if that sweet cunt of yours is sore, and I want to know exactly how many times you’ve had sex.”
Her face still beautifully flushed, she looked me directly in the eye. “Why?”
Because I wanted to fuck her again. Because I didn’t want to scare her off. Because I wanted to convince her I should be in her life. “So I know what I’m dealing with.”
“How many women have you been with besides me?” she challenged as if I wouldn’t answer.
“Thirteen.” My gaze not wavering, I didn’t sugarcoat. “Three before you, ten after.” Fully aware those ten women after her were a self-induced obsession that kept me from moving on, I didn’t tell her the significance of the number.
Hurt slashed across her face, and she turned away from me to stare out at the storm.
“I’m not going to lie to you, Sanaa.”
“I asked the question. I’m not blaming you for the answer.”
Yes, she was. “This isn’t a fairy tale, not for us.” Nothing about my life was. Hers, maybe. But she didn’t look happy. She hadn’t at any moment since I’d walked back into her life, with the exception of a moment ago when she’d looked at me while everyone was standing around us. The look in her eyes then, that’s what I was banking this whole conversation on.
“We could’ve been,” she quietly said to a view of the ocean neither of us would’ve been able to afford ten years ago.
“Could we have?” Fingering a strand of her soft hair, I wrapped it around my hand and stepped behind her. The top of her head fitting perfectly under my chin, she leaned back.
“Yes.” She shivered. “Maybe.”
I inhaled the exotic perfume she wore now. “You know what I think?” I missed how she used to smell, like innocence, hope and mine.
“No,” she whispered, naturally bending into my body.
Grasping her waist, still holding her hair, I pressed my hips into hers. My eyes closed, and I breathed in the fantasy of her being mine. “I think I don’t give a fuck