Fuck. What was I doing? And now that I was doing it how was I going to stop?
“Ask me,” he said.
“Anything I want?”
He nodded. “But it will cost you.”
“I don’t have anything,” I breathed. I was pressing my sharp fingernails against his chest now. All of them, sinking deeper waiting for him to flinch or to stop me, but all he did was bite his lower lip and make dark noises in the back of his throat.
“You have more than you think,” he said, and then suddenly he stepped away, leaving cold blank space behind him. He sat in the chair, his legs spread in a beam of moonlight. The rest of his body in shadow. “Ask me.”
“Who hurt you when you were young?”
“My father,” he said. “And then the priests. Take off your clothes.”
My brain could not catch up. And I stood there, shaking with desire and worry. “Take off your clothes, Poppy. And I’ll let you ask me another question.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ll take them off for you.”
I pulled the sweatshirt over my head. Unbuttoned my jeans and pushed them down. I stepped out of them, wearing a thin cotton camisole and a pair of high-cut panties. Hardly seductive.
You’re not much to look at, are you?
But Ronan seemed to like to look.
His hands ran down his powerful thighs to his knees and then back up. Again, and then again. And I realized what he wanted was to touch his cock and he was stopping himself. Well, I thought. That was interesting. It was too bad I didn’t know what to do with the information. I was no Eden Morelli. I was just me.
“Ask,” he said.
“Why are you doing this? With me?”
“Because you make it so easy.”
He was hurting me, because I allowed him to. Because Iwantedit.
Oh, I thought, suddenly cold in front of him. Embarrassed. Right.
I crossed my arms over my chest and crouched, reaching for my clothes. I knew better than to want what I could not have.
“And because the night we met I’d never seen anyone so beautiful,” he said. In the stillness that followed his words, I wavered. I wavered because I wanted so badly to believe him. Despite all the proof.
“Don’t lie.” My voice cracked.
“Ask me.”
“Are you lying?”
“I’m not. Now stand up straight.” I didn’t, still crouched. Still hiding. I wasn’t this brave. “You made a deal with me. You could ask questions, but they would cost you.”
“It costs too much,” I said. “You... cost too much.”
“Stand up, Princess. You have more questions. You risked your life going to Eden Morelli to find answers.”
“She wouldn’t hurt me.”
“Don’t be a fool, Poppy. She would snap your neck if it served her. Now ask me what you want to know.”