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His stare is equally sharp and cutting. “I’ve decided what I want to do with the remnants of my time.”
“And what’s that?” I snap.
“It’s you.”
I blink at the vehemence in his voice. He’s not asking me. This is simply an announcement of what’s to come.
He draws me to my feet. “You’ll hate me while I fall in love with you.” He grips my hips and edges me against the table. “ You’ll despise me while I cherish you.” His thumb rubs a circle over the band of my jeans. “Seeing that cold look in your eyes will destroy me, but if someone has to get hurt in this, I’d rather it be me.”
My mouth parts on a gasp. I have no way to understand what’s happening in my head and in my body right now. No way to make sense of the urgency building in the air with each word that leaves Ronan Cullen’s mouth.
He leans down to nuzzle the side of my neck. I breathe shakily, panting from the contact. I can’t help the way my hand flutters up to rest against his face, keeping him there. His scent, his skin, his eyes. Even his stupid, stupid beanie… everything about him draws me in.
“You’ll be the first and the last woman I’ll ever take to bed.” He slides his thumb down my chin to the pulse of my throat,feeling my heartbeat skip. “I’m going to study your body, what you like, what you don’t, what you need, how you need it.”
Heat flashes at his words, pooling to my core, taunting me with wicked promise.
“I’ll carve your name on my heart like a tattoo. I’ll collect your smiles like trophies. I’ll please you and break you and build you back and there will be no comparisons, no regrets, no do-overs. Ones and zeroes. You and me.”
The way he speaks, so confident, so full of arrogance, wakes the warrior in me. “I’ll never let a man break me.”
“But you’ll let me please you?” He arches a brow, his mouth hovering over mine.
I gasp.
“I’ll do both,” he warns and again he’s not asking for permission. “Until you taste me when you lick your lips and feel me when you close your eyes. And when I’m done, all I ask is that you keep pushing me away.” His voice rumbles against my skin, transforming the violent lust into something deeper.
Beneath the chaotic throbbing of my pulse and the roaring of my body is an even, breathless promise ofmore.
“Keep fighting me.” His words stoke the chaos higher and higher and yet, the persistent feeling ofmorepursues. “Keep finding more and more reasons not to trust me.”
Cullen pulls back while my heart beats fast and sweat glazes on my skin, born from the depths of a fire that he started but that he won’t quench.
“Hate me until I die, Nardi,” Cullen whispers, “that’s all I need you to do.”
Eleven
CULLEN
I smirk as Nardi slams the door in my face. She’s surprisingly strong for a woman with only one usable arm.
“Nardi,” I knock on the door. “Nardi, my phone.”
The door wrenches open and Nardi chucks the cell phone at my head like a professional ax thrower. I barely manage to snatch it out of the air before it hits the wall.
“Thanks,” I say, lifting the phone in salute.
The door slams shut again.
I’m left with silence and a blazing hot need for Nardi that will, sadly, have to be postponed until she’s no longer in the ‘throwing things at my head’ mood.
Turning away, I force one foot in front of the other.
I’ve always felt a sense of loss when I leave Nardi’s apartment, but that feeling is more amplified after our conversation.
Was it a conversation?
She didn’t say much.