Page 80 of Ronan

“Yeah,” he says, voice quiet. “I can handle that.”

“Even if it embarrasses you and you have to mime it.”

“That seems way worse than just saying it.” The mental image of him miming a blowjob with that adorable blush on his cheeks makes me grin.

“Swear to me.” He nods, and I can’t help but tease him. “Now, if you come in one day and ask to suck on my toes while I’m suspended from the ceiling, I’ll have questions… alotof questions, but hell, I’ll try anything once.”

“Jesus,” he mutters, burying his face deeper in my neck.

“Golden showers are not my thing, but I said I’d do anything for you and I’m a man of my word.”

“Ronan!” he wails, and I can’t help it as I burst out laughing. Once I’ve calmed down, he nervously picks at the skin on my forearm, and I know there’s something on his mind. “You were serious?” he finally asks.

“About the toes?”

“Not about the toes.” He smacks my arm but then sobers and swallows so loudly it’s audible in the quiet room. “About if I wanted to… top?”

“That’s an easy one, Cam—a hundred times, yes. The minute you tell me you want to be inside me, I’ll be begging at your feet for it. You just say the word.” He nods, his hair silky against my chin as he wraps an arm around my torso, tugging me closer until there’s barely a molecule between us. “And if you don’t want to, that’s okay, too.”

I love you, so fucking much, I think, but the words stay locked inside my lips as I run my hands across his body. This man could ask me to do anything imaginable, and I’d gladly obey.

Surely he knows that.

“Ro?” he whispers so low, it’s almost as though he’s hiding from the words. “This is scary.”

He doesn’t have to elaborate.

Doesn’t need to tell me what he means.

Because after more than a hundred years in this life, facing the ugliest that the world offers, falling in love with Cameron is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done.

“I know it is,” I whisper back, pushing my nose into his hair and soaking in his scent.

“Do you?” He cuddles closer, and my arms band around him in a tight hug.

“Yeah, mo’sziv, I do.”

It’s quiet for so long, and his breathing is so steady, that I’m convinced he’s fallen asleep as I stare at the ceiling. “Ro?” he whispers again. “Are you asleep?”

“No.” I press a kiss against the top of his hair. “Can you not find rest either?”

“My brain won’t shut off.” That’s a sentiment I understand all too well, having barely gotten any sleep since Reyes’s bombshell of information. “Tell me a story.”

“What would you like to hear about?”

“The other side,” he says, his voice raspy and low, and my heart pinches in my chest as the flood of memories rushes into my mind. Bittersweet images and sensations take me back an entire lifetime. “What was it like where you grew up?”

“Beautiful,” I whisper, swallowing past the emotions and collecting myself before I speak again. “You would love it there. It’s as if you’re looking at the world through a filter. Every color is vivid. The skies are not blue like they are here, but a pale orange hue, almost smoky as the sun shines through the atmosphere. At sunset, the most amazing shade of blood orange covers everything as the moons rise.”

“Moons?” His finger swirls over my chest as a smile tears across my face.

“Caught that, did you? There are three… Majesec, Kuu, and Tungl. Majesac and Tungl are called The Twins because they are both giants, nearly identical shades of red against the stars. As soon as the sun disappears, they rise first, climbing side by side to the same height in the sky.”

My hand waves through the darkness, a small smile on my face as I picture the warm glow reflecting off the grass. “Kuu is different. She is called the Rebel Moon, and does not climb as high. Compared to the others, she is much smaller, but her size doesn’t take away from her beauty. She has the most beautiful pink glow, like a rose petal lying on a field of black velvet. Her light is what guides us in the night, and she outshines everything else in the sky for the few hours she hangs there.”

“What about your village?” he asks through a yawn. “How many people lived there?”

“We were an odd grouping,” I say with a nostalgic chuckle. “On the other side, most villages were formed by members of the same species, but not ours. Almost everyone was different, and I had opportunities to learn their cultures and their ways.”

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