“Ronan,” she sighed right before I captured her lips with mine, plunging my tongue into her soft, wet mouth. I began to move my hips back and forth rhythmically as I devoured her with my teeth, my lips, my tongue. She was so warm and soft I felt I could get lost in her for hours, days. I didn’t know how long we’d been kissing when her phone began to vibrate loudly over on her coffee table.

She loosened her legs and dropped down, breathing heavily and resting her face in the crook of my neck. “God, what are we doing?” she murmured as though to herself. When I took her chin between my fingers and lifted her face to me, she seemed overwhelmed. I was going way too fast, but I couldn’t seem to help it. There was something about Kurt’s presence that made some ridiculous caveman part of me need to stake my claim.

By the time the phone stopped buzzing, Annie seemed to have collected herself.

“Let’s go—grab your coat.”

She nodded, though she appeared to still be dazed as she walked to the closet; but then she suddenly turned back to me. “Oh! I almost forgot.”

“Forgot what?”

“I….” Her eyes lifted to mine then fluttered away to the table behind me. “I got you something.”

“What?”

She walked past me, giving me a little smile, then retrieved a black unmarked bag. “It’s not on the market yet, but it’s supposed to be much better than the latest model; and I noticed you don’t have a watch, so I just thought…here.” She shoved the bag into my hands.

I studied her. “You don’t need to buy me anything.”

“I know. I wanted to do it.”

“Why?”

“Because….” She shrugged, tucking her hair behind her ear self-consciously. “Because, honestly, it felt good. It felt good to think about you and what you might want, what you might need….” Her voice trailed off, and she looked nervous and uncertain.

Her answer was alarming, and I wasn’t sure why it unsettled me. Nevertheless, I tried to give her a reassuring smile as I reached in the bag, pulling out a very sleek, high-tech watch in futuristic-looking packaging.

“It’s a watch,” I said. By the looks of it, it also appeared to be a very expensive watch.

“Yes. But it’s more than that. You can use it to track your calories—both intake and calories burned, and you can enter diet data directly—and distance is recorded via the GPS tracking. And it also lets you send and receive tweets and take pictures which you can upload immediately to social media. It’s 4G, and you’re already connected. So you can do it all anywhere, anytime.” She was smiling at me, a big, hopeful grin. “I thought it might make your online interactions a little easier, plus the fitness tracker….”

Being connected all the time sounded awful; but I saw that she’d put a lot of thought into the gift and was excited about it, so I did the only thing I could.

I said, “Wow, thank you, Annie. This is…really great.” I even sounded like I meant it, probably because I did mean it.

Just the fact that she’d bought me a present blew me away. I was on her mind; she was thinking of ways to make me happy. That was the real gift.

***

I held her hand as we made our way outside to hail a cab. I took her to Tom’s for dinner because she seemed to really like the food there. Thankfully, tonight was Tom’s night off, so I wouldn’t have to sit through Annie fangirling him again.

Instead of sitting opposite her at the booth, I sat right next to her. After what happened at her place, I felt the need to be as close as I could possibly get.

I hadn’t planned on drinking, but strangely, when the waitress came to take our order, I found myself asking for a beer. These feelings I had for Annie, the intensity of them, shit, it was no surprise I needed something to take the edge off. Annie ordered a glass of red wine, and I couldn’t stop staring when her full lips curved around the edge of the glass. I could see in her eyes that she knew exactly what I was thinking.

I asked her lots of questions about her life now, her childhood, the kinds of things she liked to do. She was a tough nut to crack for most of it, only giving me quick, close-ended answers. I wanted to know about the things she’d been through as a kid. Just call me a masochist because I knew hearing about it would piss me off, but I still had this fierce need to know it all, somehow exorcise those demons for her.

She turned the conversation back on me and seemed more than content to listen as I talked about myself. In fact, she ate it up. I saw genuine interest with each new story; it didn’t matter if I was talking about pranks during college or a particularly vicious rugby match, her eyes were bright, watchful, engrossed. She was enthralled, hung on my every word.

She made me feel like I was the king of fascinating blokes. It was a heady feeling, seductive, did wonders for my ego. It confirmed that she genuinely liked me.

“You’re a great storyteller.” Her words were a little slurred, and I smiled warmly. “This was nice,” she went on as she gazed up at me from beneath her thick lashes. She was on her third glass of wine, her cheeks growing rosy, and I’d just finished my second beer. The waitress came and set the bill on the table.

“It’s not over yet,” I replied, rubbing my thumb over her bottom lip. I felt her breath sweep over my skin in a rush.

“No?”

I shook my head, my lips curving in a smile. “I’m taking you dancing.”

Her eyes got big and round, and she seemed surprised. “You dance?”

I nodded. “Relatively well.”

It wasn’t long before we were being papped making our way inside a flashy nightclub in a stylish area of Manhattan. Truth be told, Tom had suggested the place. I knew no more about flashy Manhattan nightclubs than I did about open heart surgery. With my hand firmly on Annie’s lower back, I ushered her to the bar, where a tall, slim woman wearing a belly top took our drinks order.

“Oh, my God! You’re Ronan Fitzpatrick, aren’t you?” a female voice squealed from behind me. Annie got a hunted look on her face and focused intently on the glass she was holding. It was moments like these that I realized just how unused she was to being around people. Obviously, she wasn’t sheltered, but she’d kept herself away from social situations for so long that she was no longer equipped to handle them. I turned to find three women wearing tight little dresses and sky-high heels smiling at me like I’d just told them they’d won the Lotto.

“It is him!” another said. “Could you please sign something for us? We’ve been following your romance this week in all the magazines, and we are just obsessed with the both of you.” They all gave Annie encouraging smiles, but she just stood quietly next to me as though frozen. I signed some napkins for them and let them take some pictures, and they gushed a little more before finally leaving us alone. The barwoman tapped me on the shoulder then and handed me a card.

“We’ve got a private VIP section upstairs if you’d prefer,” she suggested.

I took the card, thanked her, and then slid my hand into Annie’s.

“Did you notice how those women didn’t talk about Brona?” said Annie. “This is good. It means people are focusing more on our relationship than her story.”

“True, but it doesn’t surprise me,” I said tenderly. “One look at those big brown eyes of yours and the public probably fell head over heels.”

Ignoring my compliment, she asked, “Are we going upstairs now?”

“Yeah, soon, but first I want to dance with you,” I replied, leading her to the busy dance floor. The DJ started playing “Nightcall,” and the heavy electronic beat sank into my bones. I brought my arms around Annie’s waist and pulled her close, moving our bodies to the hypnotic song. I stared down at her the entire time, admiring how her lashes cast a dark shadow over her cheekbones. She refused to look at me, instead keeping her gaze fixed firmly in the vicinity of my neck. Frustrated, I brought my hands up to her face and cupped her cheeks, tilting her head so that she’d finally give me her eyes. Her skin felt warm and soft beneath my sport-roughened palms.

Our hips began to move in unison—a slow, sensual rhythm—and now that our gazes were locked, it felt like neither one of us could look away. I stared deep into her eyes, and even though we were surrounded by dozens of strangers, it felt more intimate somehow than if I were inside her. I felt like I was trying to see right into her soul. Right then I knew that this woman had the power to destroy me. It was a frightening prospect. She was way, way deep under my skin. I could hardly fathom what adding sex to the equation would bring, especially if she was open to doing things my way.

“I feel like I could lose myself and find myself in you, Annie,” I murmured close to her ear.

She swallowed. “Don’t say things like that.”

“I can’t help it. Believe me, I’ve tried. You make me feel everything.”

Her body seemed to sink further into mine at that moment, and before I knew it, I was leading her upstairs to the private section the barwoman had recommended. A man in a suit led us to a little half-crescent alcove with plush, expensive-looking seating. Annie made a move to sit down, but I pulled her arm and twirled her so she fell onto my lap. I knew that fourth glass of wine was taking its toll when, instead of protesting, she let out a little giggle. God, she was so fucking sexy. Frenzied, I fisted her long, silky hair in my hand, yanked gently, and then brought my mouth over hers. I heard a small muffled moan as she strained to get closer, her breasts pushing into my chest deliciously.