Page 24 of Running on Empty

“Love me.”

As I ground out the words, I pushed myself away from him, taking advantage of his surprise to twist off the bed and stomp over to his wardrobe. I reached in and pulled out a shirt. But a wolf doesn’t give their back to another predator, not unless they think them harmless, so when his hands landed on my shoulders, I should’ve expected it. I shouldn’t have been surprised when he spun me around, but I was.

“You think I don’t?” He grabbed my hand and forced it over his heart, and I felt the slight roughness of healing cuts. My fingers traced them like they were Braille and I could glean meaning from them. I glanced down then, realising that they were letters and I recognised them. All those neat little scars on his body were accompanied by something more: my name, carved into his flesh above his breastbone. “There has only ever been you.”

“But Cheryl—”

“No one has ever touched me but you.” He pushed my hand lower. “No one has ever kissed my mouth or whispered sweet things in my ears. No one else has combed my hair or tied it into fucking Viking braids.” I snorted at that. I’d gone through a phase of experimenting with his hair because it was so long and thick. “No one has ever touched a single part of me but you. I’m yours. It’s all I’ve ever been and all I ever will be and if you can’t bring yourself to accept me, well…”

That knife-blade smile was back, twice as bright, twice as sharp.

“Then I’ll content myself with bringing you the heads of your enemies. I’d thrive in prison–Ash always said so–but I’ve stayed out of it, for you.”

I couldn’t process what he was saying, what I was seeing. It was as though everything I’d thought true before now was a lie. What I’d thought I’d known had been replaced by… what? Carnivorous alphas: some who wanted to tear me apart and some who wanted to tear my enemies to pieces for me.

“I cut your name into the skin over my heart last night to stop myself from coming over and barging in, forcing you to take me, to accept me. I did it the night you went through your first heat and Mum sent us away. I did it again when you went on your first date with Sammy. I’ve done it over and over.” He pressed my hands to his skin, so that I could feel the scars there, deep and built up over time. “Because that’s all that could make me keep waiting. Waiting for you, Stevie.”

“Don’t.” That’s all I could croak out. His brows creased and his expression became desperate as he stared into my eyes. I tried again. “Don’t wait, Ronan.”

His eyes blazed and his arms went around me, pulling me in tight. Then he tore the shirt away from me, and tossed it onto the floor before he lifted me up, stalking across the room and throwing me onto the bed.

The way Ronan stared down at me made me feel as if I was a sublime work of art and he couldn’t bear to look at anything else. He crawled onto the bed with all of the grace of his wolf and, then, he struck.

Chapter15

My heart was beating so fucking loud in my ears it felt like it was drowning everything else out. Even so, despite that I could hear his ragged breaths. Or were they mine? It made sense to me, now, that his eyes were pure green. He didn’t look like the Ronan I’d grown up with, because he wasn’t. I never would’ve touched the boy next door, but this man? My hand shook as I reached out—

—My hands sliding across another man’s chest, my fingers limp—

No. I panted.Not here. Not now.

—and touched Ronan’s chest, my focus entirely trained on him, me. So I caught the small shiver he made when my hand landed on him, my nerve endings overloaded by the feel of his hot, hot skin—

—My fingers forced to wrap around someone’s—

—the hard planes of Ronan’s body.

“Stevie…” he groaned, as I traced the lines of his muscles, as I learned the shape of him. “Stevie, love…”

My eyes flicked up, staring into those of this green-eyed stranger. I didn’t want the other Ronan to return, not when this one said my name with such reverence and awe. I kept my eyes locked with his as I moved my hand over to where he’d marked himself with my name, his eyes turning more luminously green as I rubbed my finger over the scabs. Then he slapped his hand down, holding mine hard against his chest, so the crusted blood of the lettering cracked.

My wolf whined. She paced back and forth, not trusting me to do this right, fighting me to take over. She was fixated on that mark carved into his skin, my name. She didn’t understand the letters but she understood this.

He’d done exactly what we wanted, needed. My heart was always aching from all this fucking longing. And now I found that my heart had a twin in his. Under my fingers tiny spots of blood welled up and the symbolism made perfect sense. His heart bled, just like mine did. But then he brought my hands to his lips.

—Mouths trailing across my body, biting, tugging—

Stay here, I told myself.Stay with Ronan.

“You’re mine now, beautiful. I can’t let things go back to the way they were.”

“Don’t,” I gasped that out again, desperate for what he said to be true. But then, just at that moment when the culmination of so much yearning was about to be realised, it was as though my vision split. I blinked to try to clear my eyes, but it was like there were two very different men leaning over me. The me that was here on this bed in the Kelly house pleaded for green-eyed Ronan to stay here, to stay with me, for him not to lock this–whatever the fuck this was–away again and out of my reach. But the other me?

She pleaded for the man to stop.

Because the other man I saw above me was Jack Spencer.

Not here, not now. I chanted that in my head, over and over, trying to ward the memories of those other alphas away. But, as Ronan’s brows creased, as a look of pure pain flickered across his face, as his head dropped down, his mouth coming closer and closer, my mouth filled with bile.

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