Tears glistened in her eyes and the air soured with her sorrow. Ronan’s heart ached in his chest. A deep, stabbing sensation that stole his breath.
“What do you want from me?”
“I want you to fight for us, damn it!”
“How many times do I have to say it? There is no us, Ronan!”
She shoved at him again and he captured her wrists, pinning them against the door, high above her head. With his free hand he snatched her around her waist and hoisted her up, pressing Naya’s body against the closed door. Her breasts rubbed against his chest and Ronan couldn’t help but thrust into the cradle of her open thighs. Naya let out a desperate moan that was more pain than pleasure, but she didn’t fight him. “I can’t keep going like this.” Her voice was a ragged whisper in the darkened room. “I’m unraveling. I can’t think straight. It gets worse every minute that I’m with you, and I’m afraid that if I don’t leave you now we’ll both pay for it.”
“I’m not afraid, Naya.” He leaned in close until his mouth rested at her ear. Ronan inhaled her tropical scent, the rain forest in full bloom. “As long as we’re together, nothing else matters.”
“I’m terrified.” Her voice quavered with the murmured words, sending a spasm of anxiety through him. “You apologized to me for succumbing to a force that you have no hope of controlling. When it’s me who should be apologizing for being unable to control it for you. If I fail…” She rested her forehead on his and her breath hitched. “If I can’t save you from this thing, I won’t survive it. How can I possibly feel that way, Ronan? When we’re so clearly not meant for each other, why do I feel like dying when I picture an existence without you?”
“Gods, Naya.” Why was she fighting so hard what he’d known from the moment he laid eyes on her? “We are made for each other.” He kissed her cheek. Her temple. The corner of her luscious mouth. “Allow yourself to feel the truth of it for once.”
“I can’t.” She trembled in his embrace. “I don’t want to love you, Ronan.”
Every ounce of her fear and doubt weighed down their tether. Naya had lived in a tiny bubble for so long. Everything that she was had become enmeshed with her pod. If she could just learn to let go. “Loving someone doesn’t mean that you give up any part of who you are.” The backs of his fingers brushed her ribs on their journey to the hem of her shirt. They found bare flesh and Naya’s lids became hooded, her dark eyes shining with unspoken emotion. “It’s about sharing who you are with the only other soul on the face of the earth who understands you and accepts you without condition. Love is a gift, Naya. One that makes you better because of it. It’s not a curse that weakens you or tears you down.”
A tear trickled down her cheek and Ronan released his grip on her wrists to swipe it away. His other palm cupped her bare torso and he reveled in her comforting heat. “I felt myself slip away that first night.” She swallowed against the emotion that cracked in her voice and looked away. “I’m losing myself to you, Ronan.”
“No one has lost anything, Naya. We’ve simply found one another.”
With her fingers still wound in his hair, Naya pulled him close. Her mouth met his, soft, warm, inviting. His grip on her tightened as Ronan pinned her against the door with his body. There was nothing rushed or frenzied about this moment. It was different. She was different. The tether that connected them no longer tugged at his soul as though resisting, but rather, it enveloped him.
“Paul might have thought he could give you to his son, but Joaquin will never have you,” Ronan murmured as he rained kisses down her throat. The sound of her heart racing in her chest sparked his bloodlust and he nuzzled the throbbing vein at her throat. “And though Siobhan has my troth, I will never give myself to her again.”
Naya’s head fell back on her shoulders and he scraped his fangs along her skin, resisting the urge to pierce her flesh. A shiver traveled the length of her body and her response caused a delicious ache to settle in his sac. Gods, he needed release. Needed to bury his cock in Naya’s wet warmth and solidify their bond once and for all.
“I am for no other female but you. This is my vow to you, Naya,” Ronan said. “Give me yours. Tell me that you are for me and me alone.”
“Yes,” Naya gasped as she pressed him tight to her throat. “No other male but you will ever have me, Ronan. I’m yours.”
His fangs punctured her skin and Naya’s low moan coupled with her warm breath in his ear tipped Ronan over the ledge of his control. He’d burn himself to a bloody fucking crisp right here and now, because he refused to withhold himself from his mate for another gods-damned second.