Page 41 of Running on Empty

“And does that get better or worse when I have one of these in hand?” I asked, brandishing the knife.

“Ohh, beautiful…” His groan seemed to catch in his throat. “Everything you do is fucking hot, but that…?” He sucked in a breath as I very lightly ran to the tip of it down his hip. His body flexed up, meeting the caress of the blade. “I like it. I like it a fucking lot.”

“Why?”

I drew little circles along his skin, a red trail there and gone again as I moved on.

“Because it's dangerous,” he ground out. “Not so much with that blade, because it's blunt as a butter knife, but…” I drew the tip closer to his cock, forcing a groan from him. “It could be, if you let me grab a whetstone. Because it gets my fucking blood pumping.” I could see that, his cock seeming to twitch in time with his heartbeat. “And because it hurts.”

“What?”

I went to jerk the knife away but he grabbed my hand, holding it where it was and then pressing the blade harder against him. He’d shaved off all of his pubic hair, leaving his whole groin bare and vulnerable so I saw exactly how much of an indent it created.

“Everything fucking hurt before I met you and then when I did?” Seconds, minutes, hours passed with that stare. “It didn’t stop hurting. I couldn’t make you mine because we were too young and then I couldn’t because I was a danger to you. So I came to love the pain of wanting you.” His throat worked, his eyes seeming to plead for me to understand. “Just like I loved you.”

His thumb moved slightly, just enough to brush it against mine, the moment insanely intimate, especially considering what we were doing.

“And if it doesn’t hurt?”

I felt like I saw the knife, him, his hard-on, in a brand new light, wondering what the fuck I’d just signed up for and he caught all of it. The knife was tossed to one side and he hauled me up and on top of him, straddling his hips, as he brought my head down to press against his.

“It always hurts,” he told me. “If you want to play with the knife or not, it will still hurt. I fucking ache for you, Stevie. Every hour, every minute of every day and I feel a pain deep enough to satisfy the most voracious pain slut. The knife is just an externalisation of that. It makes it portable, manipulatable, bearable. So you don’t have to hurt me to get me off or make me feel good.” His lips nudged into the space between us, but he didn’t move forward. “Just looking at you hurts more than anything you could do to me.”

“But what if it didn’t?” I smoothed my hands over his chest, feeling the tremor in my body. My memories of the other night threatened to take this from me last time, but not now, not here. Just me, just him, that’s what I wanted, needed. I’d dreamed of touching him so many fucking times and to do so now, knowing no one else ever had? My nails became claws, dragging over his flesh, the wolf unable to stop herself from marking him in some way. “What if it was just like this?”

I forced my claws back and then traced strange curling shapes across his chest with just one fingertip, like I was dipping my toe into Ronan. But he was an undertow, ready to tug me under and didn’t I want him to do just that? His mouth edged closer, his pants coming hard and fast now, his whole body flexing underneath me.

“I have no limits, Stevie, that’s what makes Ash think I’m a danger to you. I’ll go as far as you want.” His voice softened then, his eyes searching as mine. “I don’t give a fuck how you touch me, just as long as you do. Please.”

I should’ve been rocking in the corner, trying to process the trauma of what had happened to me, but no memories surfaced right now, nothing got in the way of us but this. My hesitancy as I reached out and touched his face. The way he leaned into that, those green eyes falling closed as he let out a long sigh. Ronan seemed to melt into my hand and that’s when I realised.

People always told me that rape was about power, not sex, and it was only really now that I understood that. The Spencers had worked real hard to disempower me as much as possible, turn me into what they wanted, throwing who I was to one side. But Ronan? He gave me all the power. To quench what felt like a terrible thirst to know him, feel him. I traced the steep slope of his cheekbones, his head moving in time with my caress, seeking to deepen it, then my thumb brushed over his bottom lip, both of them parting as his eyes flicked open. Silver now, his wolf was close to the surface and I knew mine was as well, the two of them staring at the other, waiting patiently for our more dominant human sides to realise what we knew.

That we belonged together.

His fangs caught on my thumb, not biting deep, but part of me wanted that. Wanted him to take over, mark me, claim me as his. But his restraint was perfect, his tongue flicking over my thumb when his teeth released me, then he sucked it in. Any concerns I might have had or worries that I wasn’t enough faded as he sucked the taste of me away, then pulled my thumb free, pressing a kiss to my palm.

“Just don’t fuck me unless you’re ready,” he growled. “My wolf is too close to the surface. He’s demanding that I knot you, that you don’t leave this room without my bite on your neck…”

And was I ready for that? That was the unspoken question. I made myself smile, not totally sure if I could answer it, his hands slapping down on my hips as I rocked back and forth, feeling that hard cock grind right where I needed it.

“OK,” I said, my voice all breathy. “We can do plenty of other things.”

So I let my mouth trail down his neck, licking a stripe of his skin, then sucking it into my mouth, his growl growing louder when I scored it with my teeth. He didn’t seem to realise that part of me wanted it too, so fucking much, but the other half? She wasn’t sure if this was going to be all snatched away, so I focused on what I could feel, could taste.

I buried my nose into the hollow of his neck and dragged in great lungfuls of his spicy masculine scent, letting my fingers trail lower, rubbing across the tight little medallions of his nipples. Even licking one, his hand slapping down on my head in response, his grip tightening as my teeth closed over the hard bead and pulled back, forcing his skin to stretch with it. His gasp, when I let it go, was everything. Harsh, intense, desperate, just how I liked him.

“Other things like this?” He picked me up in a great rush, but as he laid me down on the bed he did so gently, just hanging over me for a second. “How’s this feel?” And then I felt his lips on mine, brushing over them, then claiming my mouth as his.

It all started out so well.

It was Ronan fucking Kelly. Ronan was kissing me and it was ten times better than anything I’d dreamed. His hand bunched in my hair, his mouth hard and demanding. But as I tried to lose myself in the kiss, something else came with it. A twist in my stomach, a feeling of disquiet, a rush of sensation remembered, not experienced until I was forced to jerk away.

“Omega…”

Not Stevie, not me, that’s what pulled me out of whatever this was, forcing me back while he watched.

“Shit, Stevie… I didn’t mean—”

---