because I only saw a future if he was in it. And the only time I ever saw my mother that focused on something, it was alcohol and it destroyed her. I knew Ronan would never, ever destroy me. But this fear, I didn’t have a reason or rationale or even words for it. All I knew was that sometimes, it felt like I loved him too much.
“Make me understand what? That you’re afraid?”
Holding his arms, looking into his eyes, I knew I couldn’t hold this in any longer and let it drift between us until it became insurmountable.
“Terrified,” I whispered in admission.
“Of what specifically?”
The words were out before I could censor them. “Who am I without my love for you?”
Then it hit me as surely as my thoughts became words. Everything I had done, everything I became, everything I was—it was because I had met a boy. A dark-haired, deeply guarded, mysterious boy with even more mysterious eyes who gave me a nickname that became my identity.
I was in his image.
For a single, breathless heartbeat, the humid ocean air hung between us.
Then that boy, who’d grown into an unbelievably unwavering compassionate man, he gave me words back that touched my very soul.
“Fourteen years ago, you were given to me for reasons I cannot begin to fathom nor reconcile. I don’t deserve you, but I’m far too selfish to let you go. Not now, not ever again. You are my reason. You’re the air in my lungs. You are my gift.” His stare holding mine, his voice quieted to a deep reverence. “If you’re lost without your love for me, then I’m nothing without mine for you.”
Tears slipped down my cheeks. “Ronan.”
His thumb brushed over my lips. “Don’t fight what you don’t have to. I’m not going to hurt you, Songbird. Not because it would be hurting myself, but because you are my reason.”
Inhaling past my fears, past my doubts, I cupped his cheek and gave him that last piece of my heart. “Okay.”
Like he always did when I cried, he didn’t wipe my tears. He spread them across my cheeks and swept the salt across my lips. “You’re beautiful.”
I laughed once in embarrassment. “Because I’m crying?”
“Because you’re crying for me,” he corrected.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“I own you,” he quietly returned.
Yes, he did. “Thoroughly and completely.” I smiled.
His expression remained serious. “We have to head back.”
I reached to tie my bikini back up. “Why?”
His hand over mine, he stopped me. “I didn’t tell you to get dressed.”
Tendrils of desire raced across my heated skin and flew toward the sudden heavy emptiness between my legs. “Oh.”
His eyes on mine, his fingers trailed up my spine, and he grasped the tied string around my neck. “I’m going to fuck you, and I’m going to swim with you one more time and make love to you in the ocean. Then I’m taking you back to Miami Beach.”
My mouth watered, and my hands went to the large bulge in his swim trunks. “Why?”
“Why am I going to fuck you?”
He was so hard, always so hard for me. I wanted him in my mouth as desperately as I wanted him inside my body. “No, I know why you’re going to make love to me.” I stroked him through his shorts.
“Because?” he demanded, lifting my chin and bringing my eyes back to his.
“Because you own me.” Aching for his mouth on mine, I wet my lips. “Because you take care of me. Because you make me feel good.” I squeezed him hard. “Because you love me,” I whispered.
“More than anything.” His mouth crashed over mine, and he thrust his tongue in how I knew he could thrust his body into mine, and I whimpered for more.
My arms went around his neck, and I kissed him back with all the passion in my heart he evoked in me, but it wasn’t enough.
I needed to be connected to him in the most intimate of ways, and I needed it now.
“Please,” I begged. “I need you inside me.
His hands already at my hips, the ties on the sides of my bikini bottom released and the nothing scrap of fabric fell to the deck.
I pulled his hard length free of his shorts, and he grasped my waist.
Lifting me up, he rasped out a single demand. “Legs around me.”
I did as he said, and in the next instant, the head of his huge, hard erection was pushing at my soaked entrance. I wanted him to slam into me. I wanted