Up Close and Personal

by Maureen Child

  “God, Ronan.” She scooped one hand through the glory of her hair, lifting it up off her neck before letting it fall down in waves around her shoulders again. “There’s nothing more to tell.”

  “Oh, aye, there is,” he said and even he heard his brogue thickening with the temper clawing at the base of his throat. “You tell me my child lived and died inside of you before I even knew of it and you think there’s nothing more to be said?”

  A sheen of tears filled her eyes and Ronan was slightly horrified. He knew if she cried, he would lose this fine edge of temper. He couldn’t stand a woman crying. Made him feel helpless. Or big and clumsy, and none of those were attributes he normally assigned to himself.

  “Don’t do that,” he ordered and watched her flinch at his tone. He felt a right bastard and quickly added, “And don’t do that, either.”

  She sniffed, jerked up her head and fired a hot glare at him that should have singed the ends of his hair. “What should I do then, oh Master of the Universe?”

  Sarcasm aside, he much preferred fire in her eyes than the sorrow that grated at the edges of his heart.

  “Tell me more. All of it.” He tore his gaze from hers, scraped both hands over his face and fought for some of that legendary Connolly control. But by damn, he felt as if his legs had been cut out from under him. When he knew he could speak without issuing another bloody order, he said, “I’ve a need to know, Laura.”

  When his gaze shifted back to hers, he saw her nod and blow out a breath. “All right. All right. A few weeks after you ended things, I found out I was pregnant.”

  Something inside him quaked again, but he steadied himself. Though this was still hard to wrap his head around, because if there was one thing Ronan was sure of, he always took precautions. He didn’t risk making a child with a woman who wouldn’t be permanent in his life.

  And since no woman would be permanent in his life, a child was out of the question. “We used condoms.”

  She snorted and wrapped both arms around her middle. “That’s what I told myself after I took the pregnancy test. Then I read the package. Ninety-seven percent effective.”

  Grimly, he swallowed that information. “And do they bury that bit of news in the fine print?”

  “Nope, right on the front.”

  “Well, that’s a hell of a thing.” He waved that information away as unimportant and urged her on. “You found you were pregnant and you didn’t tell me because—”

  “Because you’d already made it clear you didn’t want me.” A flush of color in her cheeks told him that their breakup still stung and he could have kicked himself. He’d been so damned sure that he was doing the right thing for the right reasons and still he’d managed to foul everything up somehow. Now, he told himself, he was paying the price for it.

  “Fine—then what?”

  “Then you left on your bodyguard job. You told me the night you broke up with me that you’d be going—”

  “And you didn’t bother to think that a change of circumstance might require a phone call?” He couldn’t keep silent on this because—oh, how it raged at him. She hadn’t told him. He hadn’t known he had created a life until it was gone and that was something that would haunt him.

  “I did call.”

  His gaze narrowed on her. “What? When?”

  “A week or so into your job,” she said and turning away from him, walked into the narrow living room. He watched her go, her steps clicking softly against the wooden floor. She headed for the overstuffed couch with a bold print pattern and when she reached it, she dropped like a stone into the corner of the thing. Grabbing up a throw pillow in sunshine yellow, she hugged it to her chest and looked up at him through blue eyes that looked bruised with memory.

  “I called when I went to the hospital.”

  He would have remembered that. “Laura—”

  “I did,” she insisted. “Your cell was turned off, and I couldn’t leave a message—not that message anyway—so I called Cosain and talked to Brian. Your assistant. He told me he’d call you and have you get in touch with me.” She sighed. “You never did. Your meaning came through loud and clear, Ronan. No worries. I didn’t call again. I didn’t bother you with what I was going through.” She took a long, deep breath as if to steady herself, then her gaze fixed on his, she said quietly, “And now I want you to leave.”

  He hardly heard her. He was thinking, realizing the truth of what she said. The memory was there, Ronan thought in regret. Brian’s call, telling him that Laura was trying to reach him.

  He hadn’t called her back. Had told himself it was too soon after their end for them to speak again.

  That she was still hungering for him. That she was trying to win him back and though it had been a nice stroke on the ego, he’d been worried that talking to her would only tempt him to pick up where they’d left off. Ah, God.

  “You remember,” she said. “Brian did call you.”

  “Aye, he did.” He pushed one hand through his hair, tugging as he went and the sharp sting of pain cleared the fog in his mind.

  “And you did nothing.”

  “I didn’t know, did I?” And as that thought settled into his brain, he assured himself that if he had known the truth, of course he would have called her. Hell, he’d have come back from the road to be with her. He’d have done…something.

  But she didn’t give him the chance. She took that from him. From them.

  “You didn’t want to know, Ronan.” She tossed the pillow to one side, and stood up. Kicking her shoes off she stalked barefoot across the floor, headed to the front door. Her head up, hair flying like a honey-colored flag in her wake, she said, “Now that you know it all, you can go. And don’t come back this time, Ronan. We really are done now.”

  He stopped her as she passed him. It was instinct more than anything else that had him reaching for her, grabbing hold of her arm and turning her to look at him.

  “You can say that to me? That easily? We’re done, our child is gone and goodbye?”

  She pulled free of him, and the temper he much preferred to her pain flashed in her eyes. “You don’t get to say that to me. You’re the one who said goodbye and walked away, Ronan. And our child was hardly more than a wish when I lost it.”

  At those last words, her bottom lip trembled a bit until she made the effort to firm it, for which he was grateful.

  He reached out and set both hands on her shoulders, forcing her to be still. To stand there and meet his eyes. Hear him. “I’d have been here, Laura, had I known.”

  “I think I believe you,” she said. “But it’s probably better that you weren’t. Really. You were right to go when you did. It’s pointless to pretend that we had more than a few months of sex and fun.”

  “We almost had more,” he argued, his voice gentle, unsure still of what he was feeling.

  “And what would that have meant? That you would be with someone you didn’t want because of a child you hadn’t planned on?”

  She shook her head sadly and gave him the worst excuse for a smile Ronan had ever seen. “No, better this way. As hard as it was, as hard as it is to say, it’s better this way.”

  “It’s not,” he said, pulling her closer as his gaze moved over her face, from the haunted pools of her eyes to the slope of her mouth and the tip of her tongue as she smoothed it across her bottom lip. “This is better.”

  His mouth claimed hers and hunger exploded between them.

  Five

  Laura’s insides lit up like a sudden lightning flash. Every cell in her body was electrified, buzzing with sensation, with heat. She leaned into him, even knowing that she shouldn’t. That this wasn’t the answer to anything. But a staggering weight was off her shoulders now that she had finally shared the secret that had been haunting her for weeks. It felt so good to be held by him again.

  It had been too long.

  And she’d missed him.

  His hands moved up and down her back, cupped her behind, then
slid up again as if he was reacquainting himself with the feel of her. As if he had to remap every curve to his satisfaction.

  That so worked for her.

  How could she be furious with him one second and the next only want him on her, in her? It made no sense, and it didn’t seem to matter. There was something about Ronan Connolly that had punched every one of her buttons from the first time she saw him.

  He tightened his arms around her until he was a vise, holding her in place, though she didn’t mind because there was nowhere else she’d rather be. His tongue tangled with hers, his breath became hers. She opened for him, taking as well as giving and needing so much more.

  Her knees felt like they were dissolving, but she didn’t need them because he was there, holding her up. Laura’s mind blurred. Happened every time he kissed her. Only he had ever caused this wild scramble of brain cells. Only he could make her crazy with a kiss. The man had a serious mouth on him and knew how to use it.

  In the one small corner of her mind that was still rational, still cogent, a voice whispered that this was a mistake. That she shouldn’t go back down this road. But Laura wasn’t interested in logic.

  Later maybe, she’d come to regret this. But for now, all she wanted was Ronan. He knew now what she’d been feeling, and she could sense that he felt at least some of her pain over what had been lost. Taking comfort from each other, losing themselves in the magic they made together felt…right.

  She’d craved him for weeks and now that he was here, she couldn’t turn her back on her own needs. Her own desires.

  “Now,” he whispered when he tore his mouth from hers only to trail his lips and tongue along the column of her throat. “I need you.”

  “Oh, me, too. Want you, now.” She threaded her fingers through his thick hair and held his head to her neck, loving the feel of him pressed against her. His hot breath puffing against her skin. She wanted more. All of it. Wanted the sensations only he could cause, and wanted them to go on and on.

  “Let’s go, then.” He bent, swept one arm under her legs and lifted her off her feet in one easy move.

  Laura wasn’t dainty. Nor petite. No man before him had ever picked her up and, ridiculous or not, it was a gesture romantic enough to send her heartbeat into a wild gallop.

  He knew where her bedroom was. God knew he’d been there often enough—before.

  In the hallway, sunlight speared through the skylight overhead, laying out a golden path that would lead directly to her bed. As he stalked down the sun-dazzled oak floor, his steps echoed out around them and sounded to Laura’s fuzzed out brain, like the hands of a clock, sweeping toward inevitability. He carried her through the open door to her room and stopped dead.

  “Useless,” he murmured on a laugh.

  Laura followed his gaze and couldn’t stop her own laugh. Her fierce guard dog was in the middle of her bed, flat on his back, all four legs jutting into the air so that he looked like road kill.

  “Easy to see why you want such a magnificent animal,” Ronan said softly, a smile curving his incredible mouth.

  “He has his good points,” she argued in defense of Beast.

  “None of which I’m interested in at the moment,” he told her, then spoke louder. “Beast, you lazy sod, off the bed!”

  The dog opened his eyes and turned his head to look at them. A tail wag his only other response.

  “He’s tired, poor baby,” Laura said, as her fingers slid through Ronan’s hair.

  “Maybe so, but he’s in me way,” Ronan argued. “Go on now. Go sleep on the couch, you great lump of fur.”

  With an all too human-sounding sigh, the dog rolled over, jumped off the bed and left the room, pausing only to give them both an offended glare.

  Ronan stepped into the room, slammed the door behind them, then carried Laura to the bed and dropped her on the mattress. “Never thought to fight a dog for space in your bed.”

  “No fight necessary,” she told him and lifted both arms in welcome.

  Ronan was there, in her arms a heartbeat later, his big, warm body covering hers, his mouth on hers again, stoking the slow-burning embers inside into a conflagration big enough to char them both.

  Then he rolled over, until she was lying on top of him, and once he had her there, he scooped his big hands beneath the hem of her sweater and tugged it up and over her head. She wore a T-shirt beneath and, in a moment, that was gone, too. Only her bra remained and Ronan’s magic fingers undid the front clasp and then pushed it off her arms to be tossed to the floor with the rest.

  “Ah, lovely,” he whispered and Laura felt lovely as his hands cupped her breasts. His thumbs rubbed across her sensitive nipples until she moaned gently at the quiver inside her.

  “So good,” she said softly, reaching up to cover his hands with her own.

  “I didn’t want to miss you, damn it,” Ronan told her, and Laura knew she should be angry at hearing it. Then she realized what he was saying and she held the words inside her in a quiet, dark spot so she could pull them out later and feel them again.

  It was a kind of power, she thought as she stroked her hands up and down his forearms, felt the crisp, dark hairs against her palms. To know that he wanted her in spite of himself.

  “I wanted you to miss me, Ronan. Wanted you to be miserable because you walked away.” She reached down for the hem of his green sweater and tugged it up, with him shifting to help her yank it off of him. His shirt was gone an instant later, and she slid her palms across his hard, muscled chest, loving the heat of his body pouring into hers.

  He hissed in a breath and stared into her eyes. “You got your wish then,” he ground out, “for I did miss you.” He lifted his hands to cup her face. “I did want you and hated every moment I was away from you. Is that enough?”

  “Not nearly,” she confessed and lowered her head to kiss him.

  He clutched her tight, rolled again on the bed until he was levered over her. Then he stripped the rest of her clothes from her, tossing them to the floor, leaving her lying naked in a slant of sunlight across the mattress.

  She watched him, breath hitching in her chest, as he stood and tore his own clothes off. Her gaze swept him up and down and everything inside her jittered as if lightning had struck her again. Then he was back with her, his body sliding over hers, the hard, thick need of him pressing into her, letting her know just how much he wanted her.

  A damp, aching heat settled at her center and throbbed in time with her fluttering heartbeat as they rolled across the bed, wrapped tightly in each other’s arms. Hands explored, mouths worshipped, sighs and groans slid into the sun-warmed air and hung there, sizzling from the combined heat of lovers too long apart.

  Laura’s pulse raced. Each breath came short and sharp. He touched her and she burned, he stopped touching her and she ached.

  He slid one hand to the apex of her thighs and cupped her, holding tight as she instinctively rocked her hips into his touch. As she groaned and writhed in a kind of panicked need she’d never known before.

  “Ronan—”

  “I love touching you,” he whispered, dipping his head into the curve of her neck and shoulder. “The hot feel of you moving against me. The sigh of your breath. The scent of you.” He raised his head, looked down into her eyes and muttered thickly, “I missed it all. Missed you.”

  He pushed first one finger, and then two, deep inside her and Laura’s mind splintered a little. She grabbed at his shoulders and clung to him. Her hips moved in the rhythm he set with his deep caresses. His thumb rubbed over one incredibly sensitive spot until she actually heard herself whimper his name in desperation.

  “I’ll have you now, Laura. As you’ll have me.”

  “Yes,” she said, swallowing hard, fighting for breath, “now, Ronan. Please, now.”

  He kissed her again, long and hard and deep, tangling his tongue with hers in a frantic dance that only served to drive the ache inside her higher and higher.

  When he pulled bac
k from her, she wanted to cry out and bit her lip to keep that secret to herself.

  “Condoms,” he blurted. “For all the good they do, are they still here, in the drawer?”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  He moved away and she heard the drawer open and shut.

  “Hurry, Ronan!”

  “Aye. I am.”

  She watched him tear a condom free and sheathe himself and it was all she could do to keep from reaching for him, doing it herself, just so she could touch him. Indulge herself in the wonder of wrapping her fingers around him.

  But the moment passed and he was back, kneeling between her parted thighs, staring down at her as if she were the last steak at a beggar’s banquet. When she met his fevered gaze, she saw raw passion glittering in his eyes. Sunlight streamed across him, catching red tones in his hair and gilding his flesh with a light that made him seem almost unreal. A fantasy.

  And for now anyway…he was hers.

  “Come here to me,” he said and sat back on his haunches as he took her hands and pulled her up against him.

  She straddled him, he took hold of her hips and lowered her inch by tantalizing inch onto the hard length of him.

  Laura’s head fell back. A deep-throated groan ripped from her as he invaded her slowly, exquisitely, drawing out the pleasure/torture for both of them. She wanted him fast and hard but this…lingering…was too good to ignore.

  When at last she had claimed all of him and he was seated deep inside her, she lifted her head to meet his gaze. She bent her head and took his mouth, teeth tugging at his bottom lip. Sparks flared in his eyes and she felt an answering shower of fire inside her.

  Slow wasn’t enough. Tender wasn’t what they needed. In unspoken agreement, he tossed her back onto the bed and followed her down, his body still linked with hers.

  She lifted her legs and hooked her ankles at the small of his back. He moved inside her, his hips pistoning suddenly as if he’d held himself on a tight leash as long as he could and now he would claim what he needed. What they needed.