The Queen Reborn: Claiming What's Mine novel · Chapter 9 of 32
Chapter 9: The Shower
His apartment was the top floor of an old brick mill, with bare beams and one long window full of rain.
Ronan switched on a single lamp and handed her a towel from a shelf.
"Bathroom's through there," he said. "Dry clothes in the second drawer."
Cora stood dripping on the wood floor.
The green dress was gone, and she wore a borrowed black one, and it clung to every line of her.
She looked at his shirt.
It was soaked through, white and transparent, stuck to every ridge of his chest, and the ink beneath it ran in dark lines over his ribs and shoulders.
He stood perfectly still, and did not look at her body.
He looked at her face, and kept his hands at his sides.
"Ninety days," she said. "Nobody touches anybody."
"That's what you said."
"I'm saying something else now."
His breath changed.
"Say it plainly," Ronan said.
"Take off your shirt."
He had it off before she finished the sentence.
It landed wet on the floor, and she saw the whole of him in the lamplight, the black tattoos over both arms and across his chest, the hard flat stomach, a scar low on his side.
She put her palm flat on his chest.
His skin was hot, and his heart was pounding under her hand.
"You're touching me," he said, and his voice cracked in the middle.
"Tell me to stop."
"No."
She laughed once, shakily, and he caught her face in both hands and kissed her.
It was not gentle.
His mouth was hungry and wet, and he tasted of rain and steak and want, and she grabbed his belt with both fists and hauled him against her.
He walked her backward without breaking the kiss, through the bedroom, into the bathroom, until her spine met cold tile.
He found the zipper of the black dress and dragged it down.
It fell off her shoulders and puddled at her feet.
Underneath, she wore only a white lace bra and white underwear, both soaked and nearly sheer.
Ronan made a low sound in his chest.
"Fuck," he said. "Look at you."
He reached behind him and turned on the shower.
Steam rose at once.
He pulled her under the spray, jeans and all, and pinned her wrist against the wet wall with one big tattooed hand.
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