by Sasha Leone
As I talk, Ronan’s big hand squeezes around mine until I can barely tell where his begins and mine ends. Dredging up bad old memories has made me look away from him, but when I stop talking, I feel the giant’s free hand gently pinch the bottom of my chin and lead me upwards, back into his steely blue eyes. I don’t get a long look at them, because, before I know it, both our eyes have closed and Ronan is planting his lips against mine.
I sigh in pleasure and give into him completely. I begin to melt into the street below, before Ronan releases my chin and wraps both of his muscular arms around my back for support. I can tell which one is injured, because his strong embrace is slightly lopsided. I try to lean into his good arm as we exchange the warmth of our affection in the cool night air of this frigid city. His lips are so soft yet so powerful; his grip is so strong yet so caring. He leads the way completely now. I let his kisses decide where I go. I’m taken away to a warm place filled with hope and pleasure and lust and—
Before I can finish that thought, a nearby sound of shattering glass interrupts our little moment of bliss.
Ronan immediately pulls away from me, concern drawn on his face. His big burly arms brush down my backside as he takes a step back. Still, he keeps his good hand on my waist, while his other hand reaches into his jacket pocket.
I can only watch him as he scans the area, looking for the source of the noise. I don’t even bother following his gaze. My trust is in him right now. He pulls me close, and, with my cheek against his heaving chest, I finally look out beyond ourselves.
What I spot sends a shiver down my spine.
Three large, unfriendly-looking figures are approaching in the dark. Shards of glass glimmer under a nearby streetlight. The hairs on the back of my neck start to rise and my gut clenches as I realize Ronan’s pushing me behind him.
“I said, get a room!” shouts one of the approaching men. I hadn’t heard anything other than the blood rushing through my ears while Ronan and I kissed, but the way the man’s shouting makes it seem like he thinks we’ve been ignoring him. If I wasn’t so flustered, I might be angry. How dare he interrupt our moment—who is he to tell us what to do? Bastard.
The angry-looking threesome passes under a streetlight and I get my first glimpse of the strangers. Two big, brawny goons flank a tall, slender man. They all have greased back black hair and black leather jackets on. All three are wearing dark turtlenecks and what look like gold chains. The middle one has a bottle in his hand. Their strides are quick and aggressive. I press my cheek against Ronan’s tensed shoulder blades as his hand falls from my waist and reaches for something tucked under the corner of his belt.
“Eh, eh, eh. Easy there, big fella,” I hear a raspy voice call out.
Ronan hesitates, before pulling his hand back out, abandoning whatever he was reaching for in the first place. I peer out from under his arm and freeze in terror when I see why.
The middle man in the aggressively approaching threesome has pulled out a gun, and it’s pointed right at us. Ronan’s hands slowly raise into the air. I stay hidden behind him.
Suddenly, another glass shatters just feet away from us. This time, I can’t help but let out a frightened yelp. I clutch to Ronan’s hard waist and feel his back muscles clench. He’s shaking—but I can’t tell if it’s from fear or anger.
The slim middle-man cackles at my reaction. I peer out again from behind Ronan and see the slimy asshole pounding his goons on the chest. They’re not smiling; both looked primed for a fight.
“You’re a big one, huh?” the skinny greaseball teases. He pokes his head to the left and then to the right, like a lizard gauging its prey, as he tries to see around Ronan. “Move, why don’t ya? I want to get a better look at that little piece behind you.”
“I think you better keep walking,” Ronan growls, and I realize that the tremors I’m feeling in his muscles aren’t from fear: he’s seething mad.
The thin man chortles and waves his pistol into the air like a drunkard, before pointing it straight back in our direction. “I don’t take orders,” he hisses. “I give orders. And I’m ordering you to move.”
“Or what?” Ronan doesn’t sound afraid; he sounds ready to fight.
I quickly glance behind us. The street is completely empty. I’ve walked this path countless times before, and the closest I’ve got to danger are a few catcalls and some aggressive beggars. What’s changed?
Does Ronan really just invite so much trouble? Isn’t this what I’m looking for?
I don’t feel so satisfied as I shiver like a leaf in a hurricane behind the only thing standing between me and a gun-wielding maniac.
“Or what!?” the thin greaseball laughs, sharing his amusement with the bowling balls on either side of him. “Or else you taste lead.”
I flinch back behind Ronan as the men take another round of steps forward and the gun is trained even more steadily in our direction.
Ronan doesn’t budge. “Is that what you hired those two buffoons for? To watch you shoot folks? I’m sure that’s not it, they’re too ugly to be anything but muscle. So, why don’t you get your money’s worth instead? Send them at me; rough me up a little before you take a shot of your own.”
I take a peek at the men before us. The two goons on either side of the slime ball are almost as big as Ronan. They don’t look all too friendly either, though thin-lipped grins have crossed their pointed faces at the suggestion.
“Come on, boss. You never let us have any fun,” one of them mumbles.
The thin greaseball seems to consider it. He’s swaying on his feet like a man on the edge of oblivion. I don’t trust him at all; he looks like he’s already had a few drinks tonight. The skin on his face is taut and shiny. A faint black mustache tickles his sharp, pointy nose and his thin lips stretch out white from a smirk. He’s even more pale than Ronan is—they all are.
“Toss your gun to my friend here,” he casually orders, gesturing towards the goon to his left.
Ronan hesitates.
“Okay, have it your way,” the greaseball shrugs, clicking the safety off of his gun.
“I’ll do it,” Ronan bellows. “It’s under my belt,” he nods towards the hidden weapon.
The greaseball nods towards his right-most goon, who stumbles forward and sloppily searches Ronan for his Glock.
The lug has an overpowering stench of vodka and douchebag-level cologne about him that nearly makes me gag. I hide behind Ronan with all my might. Before I can blink though, I’ve been forcefully shoved backwards. I stumble in shock and watch as Ronan quickly twists his gun from the goon’s hand and wraps his good arm around the stranger’s beefy neck. He holds onto his new hostage like he’s a big fleshy shield.
In a flash, the tides have turned.
Ronan has the barrel of his Glock dug into the side of the hefty goon. “Run,” Ronan growls, without looking back at me.
I don’t move. I can’t move. I’m frozen in place.
When he doesn’t hear my fleeing footsteps, Ronan pulls his gun up from the goon’s appendix and sticks it right at his temple instead. “RUN!” he orders, as if threatening to show me the inside of his hostage’s brain if I don’t.
I tremble in the open space behind the action. Without Ronan’s big warm body nearby for protection, I suddenly feel like I’ve been ripped right out of a womb. “Ronan...” I whisper, desperately trying to will myself to follow his command. It’s no use, though. My legs are wet noodles. I’m stuck in a quicksand of fear. I asked for this, I remind myself. This is what you wanted, right?
I search myself for an answer, and when I’m met by a wave of adrenaline coursing through my body in response, I have it: yes.
I feel alive.
Slowly, I gain control back over my body. I stop shivering and scan the area for a hiding spot. I’ll run from the immediate danger, but I’m not leaving Ronan.
“That was dumb,” I hear the weaselly voice of the greaseball sigh.
I spot a steel dumpster just a d
ozen or so feet away, right at the corner of the backstreet I was angling to take Ronan down mere minutes ago. Before I can make a run for it, though, I’m startled by a round of thunderous gunshots.
I instinctively duck. My knees scrape against the cold pavement as I desperately scramble for cover. Bullets whizz by me and ricochet off the ground. Gunfire is exchanged.
Miraculously, I make it to the dumpster before I can be hit.
The thunder is deafening. I cover my ears and crawl into a ball, making myself as small as possible. Intermittent shouts cut through the noise. Lights from nearby apartments turn on. I close my eyes and wait for the nightmare to end.
You asked for this, you idiot. Are you still happy with your decision?
Just as quickly as it started, the firefight ends. Silence overtakes the night once again, but only momentarily. It doesn’t take long before I hear more shouts in the distance, and then, police sirens.
Slowly, I uncurl myself from the ball I’d become during the chaos. I unclasp my ears and listen for Ronan’s voice, but I don’t hear it. What I do hear are quickly approaching footsteps. They echo through the streets like impending doom—and they’re coming straight for me!
13
Nia
“Nia?”
My name’s a whisper on the wind.
I can barely hear it at first, but when it’s repeated, just before the heavy, approaching footsteps pull up to my ramshackle hiding place, I realize what I’m hearing.
Ronan.
He’s alive!
Before I can jump up and hug him, his big, rough hand has reached down and grabbed my wrist. I scramble to my feet and try to keep up as he whisks me down the backstreet and away from the scene of the crime. The police sirens in the distance are getting louder.
My heart thumps through my chest like a nuclear reactor as we turn a corner and rush down a dark alleyway. I’m so thankful to have Ronan touch me again, but I can barely keep up with him. “Ronan,” I beg, needing him to slow down. “Stop.”
Even with all the blood that must be rushing through his ears right now, he hears me. We skid around one last corner and he pulls me into a big, heaving embrace. His heart thuds like a jackhammer behind his muscular chest and his hard biceps squeeze me tight. He smells like sweat and gun powder and electricity. I try my best to wrap my tiny arms around his significant waist and hug him back. My fingers barely meet on the other side of his ripped back.
“Are you alright!?” I ask, desperate to hear good news.
“Are you?” he replies, without answering.
I nod. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m—” Before I can say another word I’m whipped around and pinned against the alley wall. My eyes close instinctively as Ronan smothers me with a fiery, passionate kiss.
It takes me a second to realize what’s happening, but when I feel his hardness push against me with a desperate longing, I’m immediately flushed with understanding.
I want him.
I return his passionate kisses with my own, prying his lips open with my tongue and jostling him in an ecstatic battle of pure lust.
He pushes me against the brick alley wall and I sink into the puffy lining of my jacket, all the while clawing at his coat, trying to get my hands on his hard, heaving body.
It doesn’t take me long to strip him of his cover. His leather slips onto the alley floor and I’m given direct access to his steaming muscles. He pants like a wild beast as his passionate kisses wander from my lips down to my neck. I squirm with pleasure as he engulfs me beneath his will. His thick tongue lashes against my tender skin and his teeth graze my tingling flesh.
I sigh with pleasure as he rips open my jacket and takes a big handful of my tits in his palm. I feel so small under his grip, yet so powerful. Something huge is emerging from below his waist and it’s desperate for me.
Ronan’s tongue lashes along my collarbone and I pull at his belt like a madwoman. My hips are a whirlpool, swaying in uncontrollable circles around his thrusting pelvis. My whole body is on fire, yet I’m as wet as a raging waterfall.
When I feel his belt come loose, I push myself forward and nibble on Ronan’s ear. The scruff of his short beard lightly brushes against my tender cheeks and I’m thrown into a frenzy.
“Fuck me,” I hiss, without thinking of the consequences.
“With pleasure,” he growls.
My neck snaps back and I barely withhold a rousing howl. Ronan’s pants have dropped down to his ankles and I can feel his manhood throbbing beneath the last thin layer of clothing between us and a gritty heaven. Ronan bites at my neck and I run my hands through the back of his hair. We both push so hard against one another that we threaten either to break through the brick wall behind me or implode into a singular person. I can feel our heartbeats sink up as our chests heave in tune.
Ronan’s thick fingers find their way to the top edge of my jeans. Feeling the touch of his skin so close to my privates is enough to drive me wild. I wrap my legs around his chiseled waist and let his thrusting body hold me up against the wall. Without a wasted movement, Ronan tears my pants down my thighs, then he takes both of my calves in one hand and pushes upwards, until I’m staring straight at my knees.
Now, except for my thin panties, I’m completely exposed to him. I gasp up into the night sky and my breath swirls above us. Ronan pins his shoulder against my upturned legs, keeping them in place, as he runs his hand down my bare thigh, and then in between them. It takes all of my willpower not to scream out in glee. Only a whimper escapes my tight lips, as Ronan pulls aside my panties and slips two burly fingers into me.
The uncontrollable shivers that run through my body make everything I’ve ever been through worthwhile. The fear, the dread, the hopelessness—it all evaporates in the heat of Ronan’s touch. I only shake and tremble with overwhelming ecstasy now. His big fingers slip in and out of me, until he bends them upwards ever so slightly and I can’t hold back my screams of joy anymore.
He stifles my cries with a kiss. His fingers pull out of me and he spreads my legs apart. I wrap them back around his body and stick my fingers into the top of his briefs, pulling down until I can feel the significance of his exposed girth rising up between my legs.
He’s huge. Everywhere. I don’t even need to look. I lead him into me with no regard for anything in this world other than the pleasure he can bring.
Fuck me, you beastly stud. I don’t want any mercy.
Ronan reads my mind.
With his mouth still wrapped around my lips, he thrusts deep inside of me until there isn’t any room left. His hard pelvis smacks against my soft stomach and I whimper down his throat. He absorbs my cries of pleasure and pain, slowly pulling out, and then ramming back into me in an explosion of carnal ecstasy. Our sweaty skin sticks and steams, engulfing us in a fireball of lust and desire that blinds us from our grimy surroundings. We’re in our own world now, and I don’t ever want to be anywhere else. This is the thrill I’ve been looking for. This is life.
Still pinned against the alley wall, I frantically push against Ronan’s hard chest, trying to meld into him. He has one hand squeezed around my upper thigh and another slowly wrapping around my neck. I swirl my tongue in his mouth and sway my hips around his waist until he starts to thrust so hard that all I can do is take it.
The lustful rhythm of our smacking skin fills my ears. My fingers push against Ronan’s heart and our pulses sync up. We become one as the fireball we’ve created rages to a climax. A special thrust from my Irish bad boy sends me over the edge. I feel all the darkness in him and all the light as he makes his final push into me with all of his strength. I feel so powerful to be able to take his full force. He rumbles and I tremble, and together we erupt.
“Ronan...” I cry, shaking like a leaf around a great oak tree.
“Nia...” he rumbles back, taking one last bite of my earlobe.
We give each other all that we’ve got until we’re both completely empty and completely filled by the other. It�
�s a feeling I’ve never experienced before from a lover. It’s so powerful that I’m overwhelmed. The second he pulls back from our lustful embrace, I fall to the alley floor, exhausted.
Before I can hit the ground, though, Ronan catches me. I look up at the steaming beast in awe and he looks down at me with a glint in his eyes.
“You think I’m letting you go so easily?” he smirks.
I don’t go home that night.
Instead, when the police sirens invade our little slice of bliss, Ronan throws me over his shoulder and whisks me back in the direction of Chelly’s.
I laugh and struggle to wrangle my pants back on as my King Kong and I evade the authorities; it’s the most exciting night of my life, and it’s not even close.
Ronan doesn’t even ask me if I still want to go home—he already knows my answer. He just tosses me in the passenger seat of his black range rover and peels out of Chinatown in the early morning twilight with a big, cocky grin on his face. I’ve never felt more alive in my life. Sure, my body is sore and my nerves are a mess, but I’m wired and filled with an electricity that I’ve never felt before—it’s better than I could have ever imagined.
We don’t talk much as Ronan rushes me to some unknown location—we don’t need to say a word to know what we both feel. The connection between us is a live wire and we’re both pulling at either end, reveling in the electric shocks that we can shoot through each other’s souls.
I don’t recognize where we’re going, but I don’t care. I trust Ronan. Sure, bad things may happen when he’s around, but since there’s no one badder than him, nothing bad can ever happen to us.
