Whoever invented high heels should be dragged outside and shot. No, really. I doubt they’re still alive, but if they are, on behalf of women’s feet everywhere fuck you. Do they make my legs look long? Sure. But is that worth the agony? The blisters? The pinching?
Eh, maybe.
I groan as I push open the front door, not even a full step inside when I reach down to pull the torture devices off my feet. Asher waits patiently behind me, and when both shoes have been tossed to the side, and my feet are settled flat on the cool hardwood floor, I finally shuffle inside.
The door clicks closed behind me, and Asher flicks the locks into place. My apartment is quiet but considering it’s two a.m., there are a shit ton of lights on. I’m squinting because between the alcohol I drank after the show and my eyes adjusting to the darkness outside, the harsh brightness is too much. I’m not even drunk, but the show was a disaster. After the day I had, with Ronin’s rejection and the crowd at Debauchery’s concert being less than half of what we were projecting to turn up, I’m ready to curl up in the fetal position and ugly cry myself to sleep.
‘Can someone please turn off some of these damn lights?’ I grumble to the room, hoping either Asher takes the hint or one of the other two are still awake and deal with it. My feet, along with the rest of my body, are basically on life support at this point. I’m considering crawling to my bedroom when the lights flip off, and Ro steps out from the newly created shadows, followed by Indy.
They wear matching grim expressions, and my mouth turns down in a frown. ‘Fuck, no. Nope. I’m not dealing with anything else tonight.’
‘Red-‘ Indy tries.
‘I said no. I’ve reached my mental capacity for dealing with bullshit. I’m overdrawn. Maxed out. Over the fucking limit. I’m going to crawl to my bedroom and sleep until I forget everything.’ I start to lower to my hands and knees, fully aware that I look crazy right now and having no fucks left to give.
‘You insisted we tell you everything that’s going on,’ Ronin reminds me. I glare at him, picturing daggers shooting from my eyes and stabbing him in the brain. His issues are a big part of the reason why I’m in such a shitty mood. Does having a stalker suck? Of course, and I’m not, like, thrilled about someone coming after me, but I trust the guys. They’ll do what they have to do to keep him at bay.
What’s really got me twisted up is Ronin’s hot and cold nonsense. Whenever I’m in the same room as he is, or our eyes meet, and I fall into the depths of his gaze, I know there could be something there between us. I know it. But, no. He wants to act like he doesn’t feel it, too, or like he’s protecting me by denying us both.
It’s fucking infuriating. It’s not his job, and I’m a big girl. I know what I want, and I’ve never had a problem going after it. In my career, I’ve never once taken no for an answer. If a band doesn’t want to work with me, but I want them, I go balls to the wall, and I don’t quit until they’re mine. It’s the same way I’m approaching this whole baby thing.
I want a baby, so I’m going to make it happen even if I have to find a sperm donor and do it in a lab. I don’t give a shit because I’m a goddamn winner. When I set my mind to something, it always works out.
Except for Ronin. He’s the one exception, and all it does is piss me off and make me question everything. If all I’ve ever done is get what I want through hard work and sheer force of will, what does it say about me that he’s the one thing I can’t have no matter how hard I try?
Rage starts to build up inside me, first as a low heat in my chest and then burning brighter and brighter the more I think about everything. Sitting here in my entryway on my knees looking up at the most frustrating man on the planet, I may just burn up in an inferno from the inside out.
‘Yes, and you will. Tomorrow,’ I snap, my arms and legs starting to shake with the force of my wrath. I need to get the hell away from the three of them before I detonate.
Ronin frowns and tilts his head to the side, studying me. I make sure to put the full force of my attitude behind my narrowed eyes, and Indy whispers something into his ear.
Then Ronin does possibly the stupidest thing he could ever do. ‘What the hell is your problem?’
I suck in a breath as Asher slides around me and bails off into another room. Indy groans. ‘Dude, abort.’
Ronin waves him off, and Indy shakes his head as he moves out of the room, leaving just the two of us. My pulse pounds in my ears as my temper ramps up like a volcano on the verge of erupting.
‘My problem?’ I repeat as everything trembles. My sole focus is Ronin as he steps closer and looks down at me over the arms folded across his massive chest. He looks good in grey joggers and a black t-shirt. I can even see the outline of his massive dick, and all it does is piss me off more when my body reacts.
Everything from my head to my toes tightens in response to his proximity. His eyes are trained on me with such intensity I can feel shivers chase down my spine. The lust kicking up inside me is warring with my anger, and an explosion is coming.
‘That’s what I said.’ His voice is low and gruff, and it rolls over me seductively. I don’t even think he means it that way, he’s just that fucking sexy. I can’t seem to help myself. He’s like the world’s most addictive drug. One hit, and I’m a fucking goner, and now even the hint of him is enough to make me turn into an idiot who’ll do anything for her next fix.
Even if I know it’s terrible for me.
Even if I know it might destroy me.
Even if I know it could take everything.
I force myself to stand up, wincing at the pain in my throbbing feet as I pull up to my full height so our toes are facing each other and nearly touching. I don’t let them, though. As much as I want to jab my finger into his chest until I draw blood with my nail, or rub myself all over his body like a goddamn cat in heat, I won’t do it.
I won’t make a fool of myself again. Childhood taught me a whole lot of lessons on love, and one of them was you can’t make someone love you no matter how hard you try. If they don’t want to, they never will. Ronin’s the dictionary definition of emotionally unavailable, and I’m the moron who thinks she can change him.
It’s not gonna happen, and no amount of wishful thinking, manifesting, meditating, or blowing out candles on birthday cakes is going to make this happen for me. There’s no genie in a bottle or love potion that’ll change his mind, and I’m fucking tired of his possessive bullshit when he’s not willing to give me what I want.
‘You,’ I breathe out, knowing he can hear me. There’s no reason to yell. Sometimes, whispering is more powerful, and he sucks in a breath like he didn’t already know. How could he not know?
‘Me? Oh, baby, you have no idea what having a problem with me looks like.’ He leans down and speaks the words near my ear, so close that the heat of his breath brushes across my ear.
I scoff. ‘Don’t I? Last I checked, I’ve thrown myself at you—more than once—and humiliated myself all for you to reject me. Yet, you won’t leave me the fuck alone to move on. You ruin my dates, confuse the shit out of me, and then push me away. I’m fucking tired, Ronin. I want to get off this ride.’ Suddenly my body feels too heavy to keep upright, and my shoulders slump.
Tears prick my eyes, and what the actual fuck is that? I’m not going to stand here and cry so he’ll feel sorry for me. No, I need to hold that shit off until I’m buried under a pile of blankets in my bed.
His composure breaks, and he rakes his hand through his hair, making the strands stand on end. ‘I can’t just let you go,’ he finally confesses, and that rage that had started to dim flares back up.
‘Yes, you fucking can! You have to! I’m not doing this with you anymore,’ I snap, turning and stomping off. Yes, it hurts my feet, but I’m too mad to care. The soft bitch that lives somewhere inside me pokes her red-rimmed eyes up, ready to embrace the need to have a good cry.
And why the fuck does it feel like I’m breaking up with a boyfriend that was never even mine?
Ugh.
I make it halfway to the hall before he catches up to me, grabbing my elbow and spinning me around. My fingers clench into fists, and I slam them into his chest over and over again as my temper detonates. ‘Leave me alone!’ I yell, all thoughts of dramatic effect lost in the heat of the moment.
He lets me hit him until my chest is heaving as I pant and gasp for air. The tears I’ve been holding back stream down my face, and it’s not until my fists slow that he wraps his arms around me like a tight band, and I sink into his chest. I hate myself a little bit for doing it, and it doesn’t take me long to collect myself and for the anger to start to swell again.
With both palms flat on his chest between us, I shove away from him, and he lets me. There’s no doubt if he wanted to keep holding me like that, he could, but I need some goddamn space.
‘I told you, I can’t,’ he whispers. I scoff and roll my eyes, but he grabs the back of my hair and tips my head back so I’m forced to meet his shadowy gaze. ‘Just like you, I’m tired. So fucking tired of pushing you away and watching you hurt and suffer because of me.’
‘Then why the fuck do you keep hurting me? Why?’ I’m yelling again, and he stares at me like he doesn’t know what the hell to say.
‘Whatever,’ I mutter in my very best impression of Cher from Clueless.
Ugh, as if.
Spinning away from his hold, I start to walk away, but he doesn’t let me get far again before he scoops me up, and his lips are on mine. My back’s pressed against the wall, and his hard body traps me there. His tongue forces its way past my lips, and his fingers scrape up my thigh and under the hem of my dress.
My head starts to spin from lack of oxygen, but I don’t want to stop this kiss. This is the kind of kiss that destroys kingdoms as a new ruler lays claim. That’s how it feels—like he’s claiming my body for his own, and once he does, I’ll be wrecked. If I let him take me here and now, there will be no recovering, no moving on without him.
Yet, I can’t seem to care.
My tongue slides against his, and a growl rumbles through his chest. Ronin’s hands grip the back of my thighs and lift my legs to wrap around his waist as the ridge of his rock-hard dick presses against my already soaking center. He rocks against me in exactly the right place, and when I whimper, he swallows it down, stealing it and keeping it for himself.
‘You want me to fuck you in this hall? You want me to pull those lacy little panties you wear to drive me insane to the side and bury my cock so far inside you that it hurts, don’t you?’ His voice drips with desire, a low, gravelly pitch that makes my clit throb.
His dirty talk is so fucking hot, and I’ve never been one for mixing a little pain in with my pleasure, but when he says things like what just rolled off his tongue, it makes me want to go all hurt me, Daddy, on him.
And you know what? Fuck it. I do want that. I want everything he has to give me, and if it were up to me, there would never be a point that took things too far with him. There wouldn’t be any emotional or physical distance between us.
If I had it my way, Ronin would give me every single thing he has to give, and I’d do the same for him.
But angry sex is a decent runner-up, and for tonight I’ll take it.
I’m not all that into thinking about the consequences of this right now. Not when my body feels like I’m in the middle of a caffeine overdose with a heart that’s beating so fast it might be on the verge of cardiac arrest and my pulse thrumming in my ears.
Ronin’s cock rubs against my clit with every rock of his hips, and despite us both being fully clothed, I can feel myself climbing toward an earth-shattering orgasm. As I’m about to fly off the cliff into oblivion, he steps back, pulling his hand out from under my skirt where he’d been teasing me and creating some distance between us.
I see fucking red, sure that he’s once again about to deny me. ‘Are you fucking serious right now?’
His eyes are shadowed, haunted by something, but then he bends down and hauls me over his shoulder in one swoop. I kick and scratch, bite and yell, but he clamps his arm across my thighs and slaps my ass leaving behind a stinging pulse that I feel straight in my clit.
When we get in the bedroom, he slams the door before tossing me on the bed. He’s not gentle, and when he crawls over me, he boxes me in with his forearms and hovers over me so our noses are almost touching. ‘I don’t want those fuckers to see you like that,’ he growls, and I squirm beneath him, desperate for some friction.
My legs fall open, trying to get him to give in, strip me down and sink inside of me. Instead, he slides down my body, raking his lust-blown eyes over every inch of me. ‘Fuck, I can’t believe I denied myself for so long,’ he murmurs, and I don’t think I was meant to hear those words, but they send a shiver through me all the same.
When his fingers wrap around the sides of my panties, and he slips them down my thighs and off, I become suddenly aware of my dress hiked up around my hips. I’m fully exposed to him, and I fucking love the way he’s looking at me like he plans to devour me.
Right now, though… I need him inside me.
I’ve waited way too fucking long for this. While I plan on making him spend hours with his head between my thighs in the future—because no matter how much he may try to push me away after this, there will be no getting rid of me—I need to feel connected to him. Right now, I don’t know if I can get close enough, but I sure as hell want to try.
When his head drops between my legs and his hot tongue traces a path up the delicate skin of my inner thigh, I moan. ‘Fuck, Ro.’
Despite myself, my back arches, and my head falls back. My fingers dig into his hair, twisting around the strands until I’m holding him against me while he draws gentle circles around my clit, driving me fucking insane.
I don’t want gentle right now. I want fucking soul-shaking and reality-destroying. Tightening my grip on his hair, I pull him up, watching in rapt fascination as his tongue comes out and swipes leisurely along his lower lip where it glistens with my arousal.
‘The taste of your pleasure on my tongue is better than I imagined.’
‘I need you to fuck me,’ I say, ready to beg if he asks it of me.
He doesn’t, though. He sits back and tugs his shirt off, tossing it aside before stepping out of those goddamn joggers that make me crazy. When he’s fully naked, he stands back, wrapping his fist around his cock and pumping a couple of times while he stares down at me.
‘Strip.’
The command skitters across my skin and makes my nipples tighten. I don’t hesitate to shimmy out of my dress. I couldn’t wear a bra with it, so once I’m free of the fabric, I lay before him completely bare.
‘Jesus fuck,’ he mutters, staring down at me with a gaze so hot it scorches me. He watches me so long, I’m about to start without him, and my hand drifts south, ready to give my poor clit the attention she’s been desperate for this whole time.
His eyes darken as he swats my hand away. ‘Mine,’ he grunts, and I laugh.
‘How do you figure that, big guy? It’s attached to my body.’
He glares at me. ‘Right now, your pleasure belongs to me, so keep your fucking hands on my body and off yours.’
Possessive, growly Ronin is hot as fuck, so I decide to see where this goes. I’m not really one for obeying without a fight, but right now, I’ll sit back and let him show me what he can do with that beautiful cock of his.
Oh, and it is beautiful. A solid eight inches long and thick enough I’d have a hard time blowing him if I got down on my knees right now. A specimen worthy of collection, if you know what I mean.
I watch, completely transfixed, as Ronin bends down and picks up his joggers, grabbing a condom out of the pocket. I’m not even going to get into why the fuck he would’ve had that in there if he didn’t think this would eventually happen. When he rolls it on, my legs spread further open, tempting him right where I want him to go.
When he doesn’t make a move, I get impatient and pluck at my nipple, pulling gently and arching my back at the burst of toe-curling electricity that spirals straight to my core. To prove his point, Ronin covers me with his body and grips my hands in one of his, holding them over my head so I’m spread out beneath him.
I look between us as, with his other hand, he fists his cock and rubs it up and down my slit, spreading the insane amount of wetness all over both of us. I buck against him, almost throwing him off, and he growls and pins me down harder with more of his weight before the head of his cock slips inside me.
It’s only the tip, and yet we both still. My eyes roll back as he pushes forward, filling me up so completely that by the time he’s buried to the hilt inside me, my pussy is already clenching around him, and I’m three-quarters of the way to coming. ‘You fit around me so tightly, like you were made for me,’ he murmurs, and a long moan spills from my throat as if he’d pulled it from the very core of my being.
His hips pull back until he’s almost free of my body before he slams back inside, taking up a rhythm that’s punishing. All I can do is cling to him while we move, my cries of his name, incoherent carnal sounds echoing off the walls. I have no doubt the other guys can hear us, but I don’t care.
‘God, the fucking sounds you make,’ he groans, dropping his mouth to my neck and sinking his teeth into my flesh. It stings, but he soothes the pain with his tongue.
He pushes into me again and again with a possessive growl that makes my pussy clench around him so hard that I cry out. My spine bows as an intense, animalistic orgasm sweeps through me, stealing the breath from my lungs and the sight from my eyes. All I am is sensation, lost to everything else but the feel of Ronin inside me.
My thighs tremble uncontrollably as I come down, and my pussy convulses in aftershocks. It doesn’t take long to drag Ronin’s orgasm from him in a violent frenzy as he slams his hips against mine and then holds himself still as deeply as he can get inside of me.
Neither of us moves as we come down from the high, but I can feel him watching me. It’s dark, so I have no idea what he’s thinking right now. The intensity of the moment makes me want to shy away, to pull back and overthink everything that just happened between us.
But with Ronin, I don’t want to do that. I never want to pull back from him, and that’s the fucking scariest part of all of this because if I let him, he could own all of me, and what if I’m not good enough for him to love?
Now that he’s seen every part of me, I may just collapse if he walks away. I don’t know what he sees in my expression, but when he finally rolls off of me, he doesn’t leave. He pulls the condom off and tosses it on the floor before he gathers me in his arms and yanks me close, so my back is against his chest.
‘Stop thinking so much,’ he mumbles, and I can feel his chin moving with his words where it’s resting on the top of my head.
Wouldn’t that be some shit? If it were that easy to just stop overthinking everything? It must be for him because his breathing has grown heavy and even, but it takes me a long fucking time to shut off my brain and finally drift off.
But when I do, I don’t think I’ve ever been more content in my whole life.
