He stepped into the shower before her and tested the temperature of the water, adjusting the knobs before pulling her in with him. The steam made everything feel so much more intimate. So much more…everything.
Reaching out, she brushed the tip of him, and his whole body tensed, the muscles in his shoulders bunching up around his neck. Audrey wrapped her fingers around Ronan’s erection, and he grunted as she squeezed him. Feeling how hard he was—how thick—lit a fire inside her.
“What you do to me…” Stepping out of her reach, he lowered himself to his knees in front of her. His facial hair was prickly against her thigh—the opposite of how soft his fingers felt, spreading her legs and finding her damp and ready. A soft sigh came from her lips, and the gentle pressure of her hand against his head told him what she wanted.
“Please.” Her voice trembled as he brushed his lips over her. “I need…”
“Tell me.”
She barely had an ounce of control left—little more than the finest thread—and she wanted to see it shatter into a million pieces. She wanted him to do that to her. To bring her undone. She cried his name. Softly at first. Then louder, not caring one iota if the neighbors heard them. Let them listen. Audrey was high on the feelings gathering inside her, on the delicious pressure building like a storm.
She was close, and he slipped a finger inside her. Oh yes. Yes, yes, yes. The shaking started, and without any restraint at all, she came hard against his mouth.
She barely had a moment to catch her breath as she came down, and he was standing in front of her. “Wait right here.”
The running water masked the sound of him in the bathroom, but he was back in an instant, rolling a condom down his length. Then he grabbed her hands and slid them up the tile until they were pinned above her head. Audrey’s eyes fluttered shut. She held her hands in place, suspended above her, even when he released her to use his hands elsewhere. He found the crook of her knee and lifted her leg up, opening her.
“Ready?” he whispered, lips brushing over her ear.
“Yes.” Her leg came around his waist, and he rubbed against her, shifting into position.
When Ronan pushed inside her, Audrey gasped, her eyes flying open and catching his unwavering blue stare. She felt so seen. So treasured. Her body melted as he buried himself, and in that moment, Audrey felt completely whole.
A woman reborn. A woman with a life that was her own.
“Oh, Ronan,” she sighed.
His lips pressed against hers, and she urged him on by rocking her hips. Matching him. Finding a rhythm between them. They clung to each other—fingers digging into flesh and muscles tightening. She could feel his orgasm gathering in the way his movements became jerkier, more desperate. His eyes never left hers, and his palm came to cup her face. He didn’t shy away from connection, and she loved that about him.
This isn’t love.
But it was something. More than like. More than sex. More than basic instincts.
When Ronan pushed into her for the last time, seating himself deep, the sound he made rocked Audrey to her core. It echoed in her head as she held him close, eyes closed and face pressed against his chest, wishing she could stay with him, here, forever.
Chapter Nineteen
Ronan and Audrey fell into a routine over the course of the next few weeks. He’d visit her most mornings at Kisspresso, and she’d leave messages on his takeout coffee cup. Sometimes it was a word she found interesting or a quote she liked. If she had time, she wrote out a question to test his knowledge.
Twice a week, she stayed late at his place, always creeping out at some obscene hour to make sure she was home when her siblings woke. He worried about her driving so late at night, but Audrey had made it clear she wouldn’t stay. It was a boundary between them, but he respected it and her devotion to her family. Those nights kept him going through long hours of classes, reading academic papers, and toiling over his book. She brought her notes with him, and he shared his lessons with her.
No woman he’d ever dated previously had ever been so interested in the same things as him, but Audrey was a sponge for information.
And it killed Ronan that she wasn’t taking classes at the college anymore, even if that did make it a hell of a lot easier—and less risky—for them to be together. She deserved to do what she wanted with her life, and it was clear that study and learning were the things that excited her most in the world.
He wanted to help her with that.
A knock at the front door snagged his attention, and he gave his pasta sauce a quick stir before setting the heat down low. Audrey wasn’t supposed to be here for another fifteen minutes, since she was finishing her shift at Game of Stones on the hour. And the last time she’d come to visit him, he’d surprised her by giving her a key.
Maybe it seemed crazy. They’d barely been together a month.
Perhaps he’d spooked her. Ronan’s brow furrowed as he went to the door. She’d seemed delighted at the time, but—
As he yanked the front door open, his muscles turned to stone.
“Hi, Ronan.” It wasn’t Audrey at all.
“Merrin.” He couldn’t help the remote tone.
Ronan’s mother stood on the landing outside his apartment, wearing her trademark “artsy” clothing—long, billowy pants and sandals, a linen tunic, beads around her neck, and a resin bangle on her arm. But her hair was slicked back into a bun. It made her look older. More serious.
“Can I come in?” she asked, her hands interlaced behind her.
He glanced around and caught the eye of one of the other residents—another visiting professor from the English Literature department—unlocking her front door. She waved, and Ronan nodded in return. He could hardly stand out here and argue with his mother for everyone to hear. This might be his home for the moment, but it was still connected to his workplace.
“I’ve got someone coming over shortly,” he said, stepping back and holding the door for Merrin. “So you can’t stay long.”
“I only need a moment.” She stepped into his apartment, and her gaze swept across the room.
It wasn’t quite as barren now, since Audrey had added a few personal touches. She’d brought some flowers over a few days ago, commandeering a mason jar that had previously contained some fancy granola to use as a vase. She’d also brought over a strange rock thing from her aunt’s store and an extra blanket that she’d been gifted by her friend. The pops of color made the place feel more like a home and less like a temporary parking spot.
“You haven’t returned my calls,” Merrin said.
“Doesn’t feel great, does it?” The words shot out before Ronan had a chance to compose himself. It frustrated him, because getting angry at his mother was pointless. He’d tried so many times to connect, and now it felt like when he’d finally given up hope, she decided it was time to try and rebuild their relationship.
What about what he wanted?
What do you want?
That question used to be easy to answer—academic domination. A book that students would study in the future. A career that people would remember.
But now? Those things only felt like part of the equation. The long hours he’d spent over the course of his twenties and half of his thirties, working and working and working…the empty walls and solitary nights and the “next step” always hovering in front of him, had started to feel like a weight holding him back instead of a path leading him forward.
The nights he spent with Audrey, discussing ideas and sharing food and joining their bodies…that felt like something real.
Merrin regarded him with raw hurt simmering in her eyes. “That was unkind.”
“The truth hurts.” He couldn’t find it in himself to pretend. Decades of baggage and resentment were not so easily shrugged off.
“This isn’t how I raised you, Ro.”
“That’s because you didn’t raise me.” Dammit he was angry. He’d had a long day grading his students’ assignments, and his brain wasn’t as agile as it normally was, which meant his emotions bubbled even closer to the surface than normal. “You can’t turn up on my doorstep, complaining that I haven’t returned your calls, when you never showed me the same courtesy.”
“I’ve made mistakes,” she admitted, shaking her head. “I know I wasn’t the best mother. But I’m still a human being, Ronan. I deserve respect.”
She would never understand what she’d done to him. His mother was self-centered. She was the sun in her own universe, the heroine of the only story she knew how to tell.
He raked a hand through his hair. “Why did you come here?”
“I’m not well.”
The words sucked the life out of the room. She wasn’t saying “not well” like she had a cold or the flu or something that popping a few Tylenol might fix. It was more saying sick like…
“I have Alzheimer’s,” Merrin clarified.
Fuck.
“That’s serious.” Ronan didn’t know what to think—his mind spun and spun and didn’t gain traction. It was like he couldn’t catch a single thought, and they all whizzed around his head, bumping into one another. “Really serious.”
“Yes.” Merrin nodded. “I’ve always been forgetful and in my own world, so I was able to explain the symptoms away for a while. But then I started randomly forgetting people’s names and my birth date. I got the diagnosis the day you came home. That’s why I missed your dinner.”
“Oh.”
She bobbed her head. “I, uh…I wasn’t sure how to tell everyone, and so I stayed home.”
Her fingers tucked a stray strand of wiry gray-tinged hair behind her ears, and Ronan was socked in the chest with a memory—being a little boy, her sitting on his bed and reading to him. She used to trace the outside of his ear to help him fall asleep, repeatedly tucking his unruly hair away over and over and over until his eyes fluttered shut.
“What happens now?” he asked.
“I’m taking part in a study, actually. They’ll see me every few months until…” She swallowed. “Well, until I can’t anymore. But I want to do what I can.”
He shook his head, almost like his body was rejecting the information. He simply stared at his mother, unable to form words or do anything more than the automatic functions that kept him standing and breathing.
“The doctors have said it’s not a good idea for me to be living in an isolated place, and with all the appointments I’ll have, being so far away from the city will be tough.”
“You’re moving back to Boston?”
Merrin nodded. “Yeah. I’m moving in with Mom.”
He wasn’t sure if he was more surprised by the announcement or that she’d called Orna “Mom.” But his grandmother and mother living under one roof wouldn’t exactly be a piece of cake—that was a lot of personality for one house. “How does Gram feel about that?”
“To be honest, I think she’s happy to have someone at home with her. Not that she’d ever admit it.” Merrin rolled her eyes. “We’re a stubborn bunch, aren’t we?”
In spite of his mixed feelings and the heavy weight of the conversation, Ronan laughed. “It seems to be a defining family feature.”
“I wanted you to hear all of this from me,” Merrin said. “I told Keira a few weeks back, but I asked her not to say anything, so don’t be angry at her.”
Keira, unlike him, had probably answered her phone instead of avoiding the calls as they came up. Guilt flashed through him. Sure, he felt justified in his anger toward his mother, and he couldn’t give up the memories and hurt so easily. But knowing she’d been trying to reach him with such awful news…
“I’m sorry,” he said. Whether it was for not picking up the phone, or holding a grudge, or for the news itself, he wasn’t sure.
Merrin opened her mouth to respond, but the sound of metal on metal drew his eyes to the front door. The lock flicked, and it swung open. Audrey was carrying a big box in front of her, so big she could barely see over the top.
“Hey Ro!” she singsonged as she walked in, bumping the door with her hip to close it.
Ronan went over to Audrey to help her with the box, and as they lowered it to the ground, Audrey looked up and caught Merrin’s eye. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize you had someone over.”
“It’s okay.” Hmm. He had not expected to make this kind of introduction. Ever. “Audrey, this is my mother, Merrin. Merrin, this is…my girlfriend, Audrey.”
Both his mother’s and Audrey’s eyes shot up. Girlfriend? Ugh. They hadn’t even talked about putting a label on it. First he jumped in with the house key, and now he was using the G-word before knowing if it was the right time.
What are you doing, man? It’s like you’ve never dated a woman before.
“So nice to meet you.” Audrey stuck her hand out and flashed her trademark beaming smile.
“Likewise.” His mother returned the gesture, and then everyone stood around awkwardly for a moment. “Well, I should get going. I don’t want to interrupt your plans.”
“We’re only having dinner,” Audrey said. “You’re welcome to join us.”
“That’s very sweet, but I have to get on the road. I’ve got a long drive back home.” Merrin looked at Ronan like she wanted to say something more, but the moment of truth they shared earlier had evaporated like a puff of smoke. “I’ll call you soon, Ronan.”
He nodded and watched his mother leave, hands hanging uselessly by his sides. Audrey’s gaze flicked to him as the door shut, her sunny expression morphing into one of concern. “Everything okay? Should I not have asked her to stay? Sorry, I… It’s an automatic thing.”
Automatic, because Audrey was wired to care about others. And he was wired to keep people out. If Audrey knew he’d ghosted his own mother these past few weeks, she’d probably be disgusted. Here she was, caring for her brother and sisters and even the father who treated her like shit.
She wouldn’t walk away from a family member, no matter how bad things got.
He raked a hand through his hair and went to the stove, grabbing the wooden spoon and stirring the sauce, jabbing at the bits that had started to stick to the bottom because he’d left it unattended too long.
“Ro?” She came up beside him, hands knotted and olive-green eyes wide. “Is everything okay?”
“My mother has Alzheimer’s.” His voice sounded stiff. Unemotional. He could already feel the layers sliding over him, locking into place. Protecting him.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” She slid her arms around his waist from behind and pressed her face against his back.
Ronan stood there for a moment, stirring the sauce as though he was a robot programmed only to do that action. He wasn’t sure how to feel, what to say. Audrey didn’t try to get him to talk. Instead, she stood there, holding him while the minutes ticked on, letting her care seep into him one breath and one heartbeat at a time.
Eventually, she broke away. “Why don’t you let me cook the pasta and put everything together? You can pour us a drink, and I’ll call you when it’s done.”
What had he done to deserve such an angel?
Nothing. You don’t deserve someone like her.
He nodded, numbly moving away from the stove while Audrey took over. His feet carried him past the dining table to where the box Audrey had been carrying was laid. Curious and desperate for a distraction, he peered inside. It was a box of books. He spied novels by Ruth Rendell, Patricia Highsmith, Sue Grafton and Agatha Christie, to name a few.
“My aunt was clearing out her garage, and she found some boxes of old books,” Audrey said, watching him as she waited for the pasta water to boil. “She’s a big mystery reader, so you might find something for your grandmother.”
&
nbsp; She remembered. That trip to the bookstore, he’d been looking for Agatha Christie first editions, and even though he’d never mentioned it again, she’d catalogued that item away in her brain.
“Are you real?” He looked up at her and shook his head. “Or is someone listening to me talk to myself right now?”
She cocked her head, a confused smile on her lips. “Huh?”
He abandoned the books and went to her, drawing her right to him. She had a dot of sauce on the edge of her lip from where she’d tasted it a second ago. “You’re too perfect.”
“There’s no such thing as perfect,” she whispered.
“Oh, but there is. And I keep wondering what’s going to trip this up—what thing is going to jump out and make me realize that there was a giant problem all along that I couldn’t see.”
Something flickered in her eyes, something like worry and confusion and…fear? “You think there’s a problem we can’t see?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “All I know is that I’m not sure how, when I wasn’t looking for anything at all, I found someone who fits me so perfectly. I had no idea I wanted you until you showed up, and then I realized you were exactly the thing I’d been missing.”
Audrey’s lip trembled. “Don’t put me on a pedestal, Ronan. I don’t belong there.”
“Yes, you do.” He touched his lips to hers, and she melted into his kiss. Something clattered to the floor—possibly the wooden spoon she’d been holding—but it wasn’t enough to break them away.
He swept his tongue into her mouth, lips punishing and demanding. His hands glided around her waist and down her back, cupping her round ass. Fire pumped through his veins, need and want roaring like a lion in his head. Yes. It drowned everything out—quieted his self-criticisms and doubts, shooing away the fear that he was broken and unlovable and unfixable.
He filled himself with her taste and her scent and her curves. There was no better antidote to his pain than this.
“Ronan,” she moaned, winding her arms around his neck and meeting him with passion and force. “Shit, Ronan!”
Kissing Lessons (Kissing Creek) Page 21
