Page 87 of Ghosts Don't Cry

“Yeah. Read it so many times the paper is falling apart.”

“Why?” She leans more into my touch.

Because it was the first time someone saw beyond the image I showed to the world.

I don’t say that. Instead, I kiss a path along the curve of her throat.

She makes sounds that echo around the room, soft and needy. Her fingers tangle in my hair again as I move lower. I spell letters over her breasts, her stomach, her thighs with my fingertips, while my tongue and lips taste other parts of her.

“Ronan.” My name is a gasp. “What are you writing?”

I smile against her skin. “Byron.”

Kissing along her inner thigh, I move inward until I reach my destination. I sweep my tongue over her, pressing my lips against her.

“She walks in beauty, like the night.” My tongue touches her clit as I push two fingers inside her. “Of cloudless climes and starry night.” I curl my fingers, finding that spot that makes her back arch. “And all that’s best of dark and bright, meet in her aspect and her eyes.”

Her soft laugh turns into a moan.

“You and your poetry.”

“You inspire it.” She makes me want to write endless verses about the way the moonlight turns her skin to pearl, how her eyes hold entire universes, and how her touch makes me believe in impossible things.

We lose ourselves in each other again, while her hands roam over my body, holding me close as though she’s afraid I might disappear if she doesn’t hold on tight enough.

I know the feeling.

“I want to give you more than this.”

She kisses my chest, just above my heart. “I don’t need more than this.” Her fingers stroke over my jaw. “I just need you.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

RONAN

The sun has been swallowedby a thick stretch of rain clouds by the time I pull into the parking lot near Wilson’s. The air is damp, heavy with the kind of stillness that comes before a storm.

Build something instead of breaking it.

The thought stayed with me as I drove away from Feldman’s, and my mind latched onto it. I can start with something small. An easy repair. A simple fix. Something I can put my hands on and make right quickly. Something that won’t take me days, unlike the wiring. I should have started that way, instead of going straight for the complex things.

I have a list of supplies on the passenger seat. I don’t need everything on it, not yet. But it’s a small step forward, instead of the giant leaps I’ve been trying to take since moving into the house.

The automatic doors slide open with a quiet hiss when I step close. The store smells like sawdust and paint thinner, the scent clinging to my nose as I move through the aisles. A couple near the paint section glances my way, then quickly looks away. Thewoman whispers something to her companion, her eyes moving over the tattoos covering my arms.

I ignore them, grabbing what I came for. Screws, a roll of sandpaper, a can of paint. An older man in a Wilson’s vest watches me from the end of the aisle, pretending to reorganize stock, but keeping me in his peripheral vision.

Probably checking I’m not stealing anything. Instead of the usual feeling of anger, it’s amusement that fills me.

I pay at the counter. The cashier, a kid who can’t be more than eighteen, rings me up without making eye contact. Once I’ve paid, I bag everything up and walk outside.

Dan is leaning against the side of the delivery van, coffee in one hand, phone in the other. His eyes flick up the second I step out, and a smirk covers his face.

“Well,” he drawls, pushing off the side of the van. “If it isn’t the talk of the town.”

I grip the bag in my hand tighter. At first I think he’s about to start the same old shit, but the way he’s looking at me, the smugness carved into every line of his face, suggests this isn’t about our school years. I keep walking, intent on passing him by without engaging, but his voice follows me, needling its way under my skin.

“Heard you had quite the night, last night. Though I guess old habits die hard, right? Still taking things that don’t belong to you.”