Dedicated to Deirdre

by Winston, Anne Marie

  She was beyond protest, beyond thinking of anything except the hands molding, stroking, petting her body. One moved between her legs, cupping her most private parts in his strong hand, and the pressure of his mouth suddenly became wild and hot, untamed and unyielding.

  He groaned, and she realized her hips were moving, circling in response to the stroke and press of his hand. She could feel him, erect and rock solid against her back. The flesh between her legs felt as if it were the collection point of sensation in her body, the seal of his mouth on hers and his hand on her breast shooting straight to her hot, throbbing center. She felt herself softening, knew that beneath the jeans she was wet, and he knew it, too.

  His hand withdrew from between her legs and she cried out, a cry stifled by his mouth as he deftly unbuttoned and unzipped her pants in one smooth motion. Shocking in its suddenness, she felt his palm against her bared belly, sliding beneath her panties and spearing down to rest in its previous spot, unhindered by fabric. His fingers were rough against her tenderness, quickly dewed with moisture. One bold digit traced the long fold that hid her feminine secrets, inexorably pushing up into her, and she felt her body gather in one great strand of tension that burst with one final press of his hidden finger upward inside her soft flesh.

  Deirdre heaved and shuddered in his arms, her hands clenched so tightly on his thighs that he knew he would carry small finger marks for a few days. As the final spasms of her pleasure receded and her body went limp in his arms, he slowly withdrew his hand from the soft, slick passage. He kissed her mouth one final time, holding on to his own control by the merest thread.

  “We have to stop.” His body shook with the effort it took not to simply lie back with her in his arms and roll so that he could cover her. He was so hard he hurt within the cramped confines of the jeans he’d worn, and the gentle pressure of her butt as she wriggled against him made him grit his teeth and groan.

  “Aren’t you going to take a turn?”

  The teasing question broke his control, sent blind staggering need driving through him, focusing everything within him on relieving the building pressure. He hesitated, but even in his maddened state, he remembered that her children were sleeping not fifty yards away in the truck.

  Abruptly he surged to his feet, dragging her with him to the far side of the huge old oak tree. His hand shook as he tore open his pants, but he froze as he realized he didn’t have anything with him. He couldn’t. They couldn’t. Taking a second chance would be akin to spitting in the eye of Fate.

  “We can’t.” It was a growl of desperate disappointment. “I didn’t bring anything with me.”

  He started to turn away from her, but she stopped him simply by sliding one palm into his briefs and grasping his distended flesh. He gasped at the hot ecstasy that her small fingers offered. Her hand slipped lower, and the feel of her fingers on him nearly blew off the top of his head. She lifted him free, and tentatively began to stroke him. Surrendering all control, he placed his hand over hers and guided her into a tighter grip, a faster rhythm. The stroke of her soft palm was more than he could take, not nearly what he needed, but all that he could allow. With an agonized groan, his back arched and he gave himself to the primitive instincts. His hips pumped again and again and again in counterpoint to her motion; he felt his flesh growing larger, tauter, than he’d ever experienced. Finally, after a wild, reckless speeding journey into the fires of sensual immersion, he poured his hot, slippery essence into her waiting hands, his body jerking as he gasped and groaned in time to his release.

  As the spasms slowly abated, he slumped against the tree, shaking, one arm thrown across his eyes. She released him, and he started when her palm touched the tip of his still-engorged flesh as she slipped away. He heard her rustling around, but he stayed where he was, knowing that his legs wouldn’t support him if he stepped away from the tree.

  She was back in a minute, and to his relief, she came to his side, slipping one arm around his waist and leaning into him in silence. His strength was returning and he used the napkin she offered him, then eased his cooling flesh into his briefs. He turned, drawing her into his arms, holding her against his heart and knowing that whatever happened, he would never be the same.

  Great sex? Unquestionably. Each time with her was the best he’d ever had, and the best he knew he was ever going to experience in this lifetime. But she meant more to him than that, and he was just discovering how important it was to hold on to her, to bind her to him so closely that she forgot any other man, to make a place for himself in her warm, loving heart, a permanent place.

  But he’d rushed her again, drawn her into the sensual whirlpool they’d created, without giving her a chance to decide whether or not she was ready for him. Had he misread her signals? The same uneasiness that had gripped him after the first time he’d made love to her surfaced, and he forced himself to speak, dreading her response.

  “If another apology is in order, let me make it now. I really didn’t intend for this to get out of hand—”

  She giggled.

  He stopped, realized why she was amused, and reluctantly his own sense of humor kicked in. “Very funny.”

  She lifted her arms and put them around his neck, linking them and leaning back to look into his face. In the moonlight he could see her green cat eyes crinkled in laughter, but as he watched she slowly sobered. “Ronan—” she hesitated “—you don’t have any apologies to make.” Her eyelids lowered, and he realized she was embarrassed. “I’ve never behaved this way in my whole life. It’s like you’re a giant, walking aphrodisiac—one whiff and I’m senseless.”

  He grinned as a relief so intense it almost hurt burned through his veins. “A walking aphrodisiac, huh? Not a bad description of what you do to me, either.” He rocked her gently back and forth, lifting her off her feet and swinging her playfully in his arms. “What are we going to do about it?”

  She looked up at him, a question in her eyes. “I...I don’t know.” Something fragile and frightened crossed her face. “This is moving so fast I can’t even believe it’s happened.”

  “Believe it, baby.” He kissed her, gently invading her mouth until she was clinging to him again, bent backward against his arm in total surrender. “We can take it a day at a time if that makes you more comfortable.” He paused, then decided there was no point in dissembling. “But from now on, you’re private property. Trespassers will be shot on sight.”

  He’d intended the words to be lightly uttered, tossed off easily, a jesting way of letting her know he was staking a claim. But he couldn’t pull it off, and his voice was clipped and final.

  She searched his face for a moment, and he held his breath, wondering if she was about to beat him over the head for acting like a caveman. For presuming too much.

  Then she leaned forward, pressing a gentle kiss to the hollow of his throat where his pulse surged. “Okay.”

  They stood in silence for a moment, then he took her arms from around his neck. He closed her jeans and then his, wistfully wishing he had time, privacy and protection, so that he could do what he wanted, so that he could pull her into his arms after he’d loved her to exhaustion, so that he could wake with her in the same embrace the next morning. “Come on, Sleeping Beauty, time to take those kids home.”

  “I’m not sleeping,” she pointed out. He rolled the blanket into an untidy heap and they got in the Bronco, Ronan at the wheel for the drive back down to the house.

  “Maybe not,” he said. “But when I kiss you, you awaken in a very big way.” She didn’t say anything, and he reached over and took her hand. “Now what? I can hear you thinking.”

  “Nothing. I wasn’t thinking, I was blushing.”

  He chuckled. “Not used to a man being so frank?”

  “Not used to a man at all.” There was the beginning of a troubled note in her voice and he was glad they were almost back to the house. He needed to get her back in his arms, where she could forget everything she’d learned from that c
rummy ex-husband of hers, where he could teach her how it was going to be with them.

  At the house, they had a brief, whispered argument when she picked up Tommy after he’d lifted Lee out of the Bronco. He didn’t want her carrying anything, hurting herself in any way. It might be unreasonable, but he didn’t care. She was too fragile, too small and delicate to be carrying a three-year-old around. “He’s too heavy for you.”

  “He is not. I carry him all the time.”

  “Let me have him. You can open doors.”

  She shot him an exasperated look that found its mark, even in the little light the one spotlight on the stable produced. “He only weighs thirty-five pounds. I can carry him.” She turned and walked toward the house.

  He followed, preparing to argue some more, when Lee stirred on his shoulder. The little boy drew back, frowning. Then the small body relaxed, little arms coming up to clutch over his shoulders. “Ronan.” It was nothing more than a sleepy mutter, the sound full of the satisfaction that comes with security. Lee turned his head into the curve of Ronan’s neck, asleep again, his breath gusting warm against Ronan’s skin.

  It pierced his heart with a pain so sharp he stopped in his tracks.

  God, he adored these little kids. They were feisty and ornery, and into something every second you looked away, but he wouldn’t trade them for all the other kids in the world. The realization was a forceful blow, and a staggering idea lanced through his head. If he married Deirdre, he could have them all. These two could be his boys, and the woman stepping through the door ahead of him, the woman he wanted so badly that he ached with it, could be his woman. His to share a bed with every night, his to chuckle with at the boys’ antics, his to celebrate with when another book went New York Times best seller.

  But she thinks you’re a... a less-successful writer. He winced inwardly. He’d told her that initially, purely out of habit, self-preservation, whatever. But he still hadn’t told her the truth, and he knew instinctively that Deirdre would have a hard time accepting his reasons for the lie.

  And they were good ones, he assured himself. Privacy was a big issue in his life, and not just because he enjoyed it. The security firm he’d engaged after the stalking incident had taught him some hard-and-fast rules that celebrities who wanted to live safely followed. When he’d first rented the apartment, he hadn’t known whether or not he could trust Deirdre to preserve his privacy.

  And then there was the personal side of it. He’d fallen for a woman whose heart had loved his pocketbook more than him, once, and she’d walked away with damn near half his assets. He might not have loved Sonja the way he should have, but it had cut at his pride to find out how she’d used him. He didn’t intend to give another female that chance. The women he met in his public persona were kept at a distance; if he ever found a woman he wanted, he didn’t want to wonder whether she wanted him or his millions.

  A woman he wanted. Well, he’d found her.

  He’d tell her tomorrow, he promised himself. He’d do it tonight, except that he knew she was tired; he’d caught her yawning behind her hand on the trip back down to the house. She would understand why he’d lied.

  Why he’d misled her, he corrected himself. It wasn’t as if he’d deliberately set out to hide who he was from her. How was he to know she was going to sneak into his life and clear out the empty spaces, filling them with herself and her sons?

  Five

  “How could it be Sunday already? I swear, since this visitation arrangement started, Sundays roll around faster than once a week,” Deirdre grumbled as she packed a little bag for her sons to take on their weekly visit with their father. “Whoever is in charge of the days of the week added a few extra Sundays into the old seven-day schedule, I just know it.”

  Ronan grinned as he lounged in the doorway watching her. The boys had led him to her a moment ago and promptly vanished again. But they hadn’t gone far; he could hear giggling, so he tamped down the urge to walk over and pull her into his arms for the kind of greeting he really wanted to give her.

  But it was just as well. She was tense and distracted, and he could see the anxiety in her eyes. When he’d asked her if she and the boys would like to go to the Inner Harbor with him on Sunday, she’d explained the situation with her ex-husband. He’d volunteered to go with her to drop the boys off and told her they could drive down just for a few hours until time for the kids to return.

  “Are you guys ready to go?”

  “Yes, Mom.” Both boys appeared and scampered out to the Bronco, whooping with glee when they learned they were going to get to ride in Ronan’s truck.

  They buckled the boys together in one seat belt between them, and he drove into Baltimore, following her directions to her friend Frannie’s house. On the way, she told him that Frannie had a business designing custom bridal gowns. As they turned onto her street, Deirdre pointed out the sign that read, “Brooks’ Bridals.” The place was a pretty, brick two-story, and she directed him around the corner to another entrance, which turned out to be the family’s front door.

  They were a few minutes early, he noted, but her ex-husband was already there, sitting in his car, smoking a cigarette as he waited. He knew who it was because Tommy said, “There’s Daddy,” in a surprisingly subdued tone. As they drove up, “Daddy” tossed a smoldering cigarette butt into the street. Charming example for your kids. Jerk.

  He noticed Deirdre’s mouth tighten, but she didn’t even look at him as they pulled into the driveway.

  The door of the brick house opened. A big man emerged, striding down the driveway. “That’s Jack,” Deirdre said. Jack had a puzzled look on his face at the unfamiliar truck, but as he got near enough to see Deirdre, the expression changed to a wide grin. Ronan didn’t miss the cool glance aimed his way.

  Hmm. Were the hackles raised on Deirdre’s behalf or was there just something about his face the guy didn’t like? Fine. Ronan didn’t particularly like him, either, when he swung Deirdre out of the truck for a big, far-too-close hug that lasted far too long, in his critical eyes, before turning to lift down the boys.

  Ronan got out and walked around to stand at Deirdre’s side. She had tears in her eyes as she held each son close for an instant before saying goodbye. To his surprise Lee turned to him with his arms held high in a clear demand that his little brother echoed instantly.

  Ronan bent and scooped a child into each arm. “Be good,” he ordered. “Have fun. But don’t have too much fun without me.” The boys were giggling, and they threw their arms around his neck, hugging hard before he set them down. As Jack took each of them by the hand, Ronan realized that his throat was tight.

  His stomach hardened into a cold lump of lead as he watched this ritual that she went through every week, and he didn’t find her comments about extra Sundays very funny anymore. She sniffled, and he put an arm around her shoulders as the car drove away, pulling her into his arms. “They’ll be back in just a few hours,” he soothed, stroking his hand up and down her back.

  “I know.” Her voice was forlorn as she laid her head against his chest. Then she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, stepping out of his arms. She smiled at the guy walking back toward them. “Jack,” she called, “I want you to meet Ronan. Frannie already met him a few weeks ago.”

  “I heard.” Jack came forward and stuck out an enormous, meaty paw. “Jack Ferris.”

  Ronan took it, knowing he’d better make his first statement with his grip. His hand met Jack’s, and they firmly clasped hands, each increasing the pressure. “Ronan Sullivan.”

  Jack nodded, unsmiling. He was tall and broad shouldered, but Ronan doubted there was an ounce of fat on him. His hair was so short Ronan wondered if he’d been military. The handshake lasted for another moment. Then, with a final shake that declared a standoff, they mutually relaxed the pressure and withdrew their hands.

  “Come on in,” Jack said, “Frannie’s inside with the midgets.”

  “All right, but only for a minute.�
� Deirdre started forward, darting a smile at Ronan. “We’re going down to the Inner Harbor for a few hours.”

  The inside of the house was decorated with comfortable, homey-looking furniture. A liberal dusting of children’s toys coated every surface, and Deirdre’s friend Frannie was just coming down the stairs. Although she was several inches taller than Deirdre, she wasn’t exceptionally tall. But she gave the impression of height, probably because of her slender build and long, slim legs.

  Frannie had the baby he’d seen before—Brooks—in one arm, and with the other, she held the hand of a tiny blond child who was carefully stepping down, setting both feet on each step before approaching the next. The little girl squealed loudly when she saw Deirdre.

  “Hi,” Frannie called. “Please ignore the mess. I was going to do the Cleanup Shuffle before you got here, but Brooks foiled my plans with one of his own.” She smiled ruefully at her husband. “If he’d waited ten more minutes, Jack could have had the pleasure of changing him.”

  As they reached the bottom, Jack stepped around Deirdre and took Brooks from his wife’s arms. “Good boy,” he said to the infant. “Your timing was perfect.”

  “Hello, Ronan,” Frannie said, and he saw that her eyes were as cool and wary as her husband’s. “I didn’t expect to see you again.”

  Ah, that was it. The last time they’d met, things had been...tense, between Deirdre and him. Obviously there had been some girl talk going on. And he’d bet his belt that Frannie had told her husband.

  He smiled at her. “Ditto. But here I am.”

  “Um, Ronan and I are going down to the harbor for a while,” Deirdre said. “We probably won’t be back much before seven, so don’t worry about feeding us dinner.” Seven was the hour the boys were returned.

  “Are you sure?” Frannie asked. “You know it’s no trouble, and it would give us a chance to visit with Ronan.”

  Was it his imagination, or was there a meaningful tone in her invitation? He couldn’t think of many things less appealing than “visiting” with Deirdre’s disapproving friend and the hulking guy eyeing him from the easy chair, and when Deirdre said, “I’m sure. Another time, I promise,” he was relieved. Besides, he didn’t want to share a moment of the few hours he would have alone with her.