Page 71 of Ghosts Don't Cry

“You still think I’m yours,” he rasps against my throat, making me shiver again.

“Yes.” Because he is. He always has been. Even when I built a life that didn’t include him, he was still there. A ghost I carried in every breath.

His hand moves higher, stroking over the lacy edge of my panties, and my legs tremble. My stomach muscles wind tight, and then his fingertips lightly tap the place I need him most. A broken sound escapes me before I can swallow it down.

“Tell me to stop.” His lips move against my throat, the words nothing but gravel. “Say the words, Lily.”

He’s giving me an out. One word and this will end. One word and we can pretend this didn’t happen. We can go back to being strangers who used to love each other.

I squeeze my eyes shut. I’m wound so tight, I’m sure I’m going to snap at any second. His fingers stroke along the inside of my thigh, featherlight, tormenting me.

And it’s not enough.

I push back against him. “No.”

His lips move. I can’t tell if it’s a smile or a snarl. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

A cry rips from my throat when his fingers press against my clit through the lace, my head falling forward while my legs threaten to give out. He strokes me lightly, a teasing slide of friction that makes my hips jerk.

“You always did like pushing me.”

I can’t think. I can’t do anything but feel his body against mine, his fingers working magic through the fabric barrier I wish wasn’t there. When my hips move again, his fingers slip beneath the lace. And in that moment, I realize I was wrong about everything.

I thought I knew what it meant to be touched by him. I thought memory captured what we had.

But memory isnothingcompared to this.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

RONAN

She’s exactlywhere I want her. Exactly where she shouldn’t be.

I have her pressed against the bricks, my fingers working her clit. The heat of her burns through the lace, slick and hot against my fingertips. Every pulse of her body sends feedback through my hand, up my arm, and then down to my dick.

I told her to walk away. She didn’t.

And now she’s mine to ruin.

She’s trembling, her breath coming in small gasps as my fingers tease her. I can feel how wet she is, soaked through the fabric and coating my fingers when I push past it. The knowledge that she’s this ready, thiswanting, makes my blood run hot. My pulse hammers in my temple, my jaw aches from clenching it, and fuck if that doesn’t make me want to break her apart even more.

Because I remember every goddam fucking thing I’ve spent years trying to forget.

I remember her whispering my name like a prayer in the dark. The way she’d trace my knuckles with her fingertips, softpasses over split skin and bruised bones, and how she never flinched from my rough edges and sharp tongue.

She was my first everything. Friend. Kiss. Lover. And me? Well, I was hers from that very first note—heart, mind and soul.

We were complete opposites. We never should have worked. I was rough edges and desperation. She was soft hands and quiet confidence. She gave herself to me on the floor of the factory, her body shaking, her fingers exploring me with a reverence I didn’t understand, her breath catching every time I touched her like I was givinghersomething sacred instead of taking it.

The floor had been freezing that night. I remember how the cold seeped into my knees, my elbows, how it made everything sharper—her warmth, her softness, the way she gasped my name when I finally pushed inside her. I remember the taste of her skin and the scent of her perfume. I remember being terrified of getting it wrong. Of taking too much. Or not being enough for her. Every touch felt like I was stealing something I didn’t deserve.

But she let me. Shewantedme. Every time I tried to push her away, she walked right through the walls I built like they weren’t even there.

And now she’s here, gasping my name like it’s the only thing holding her together … and it makes me so fucking angry my vision whites out at the edges. Because some things haven’t changed. And some things prison couldn’t burn out of me.

I press my chest against her back, my free hand smoothing up her ribs, feeling every ragged inhale she fights for. Her heartbeat thrums against my palm, rabbit-fast and frantic.

“You feel that?” I whisper against her ear, dragging my teeth over the lobe. “How wet you are? How fucking desperate? You still want everything from me.”