Chapter Thirty-Six
THIRTY-SIX
MAVEN
I walk back to the house with my hands shoved deep into my coat pockets and the collar turned up against the cold, wondering if Ezra started drinking before he arrived at the restaurant. His behavior the entire night was completely out of character.
The aunties and Q are nowhere in sight when I arrive home. I check on Bea in her room and find her sound asleep, a book still open in her hand. I put the book on the nightstand and give her a kiss on her forehead before heading to my own room to slump in the chair next to the dresser and think.
My head is full of mashed potatoes. I hardly know which way is up or down.
I check my phone for missed calls, but there aren’t any. My inbox is equally silent, so I text Ezra to see if he’s okay. I don’t receive a response.
Exhausted, I undress and crawl into bed. I gaze at the ceiling, my mind working, until my cell chimes with a text from Ronan.
If he ever disrespects you like that again, I’ll cut out his tongue.
My heart racing, I stare at the text in disbelief. How did he hear what Ezra said to me in the alley? Is he having me followed? Was he there?
Remembering the look of terror on Ezra’s face before he ran away makes me suspect he was. Probably looming over me, brandishing a machete. But the alley was empty when I turned around.
This calls for further investigation.
Who? What are you talking about?
The phone rings. “Hello?”
Ronan growls, “I’m in no mood for games. You fucking know who. That squeaky little shit is lucky I didn’t put a bullet in his head for the way he spoke to you.”
His voice is all gravel, incredibly sexy despite the obvious anger. I can’t tell if it’s the protectiveness he’s displaying or that rough tone that’s turning me on, but apparently red flags are my love language because I’m flushed from head to toe.
“You followed me?”
He snaps, “I protect what’s mine.”
“That makes no sense, considering you told me to leave town.”
“Do you really think that’s what I fucking want?”
“Then why’d you say it?”
Low and rumbling, an animal’s warning growl echoes over the line. I’ve never heard him this angry. He’s a pacing lion, a wild beast about to tear into prey. It should scare me, but obviously my brain has left the chat because it thrills me instead.
“Don’t test my patience, woman,” he says through gritted teeth. “Not tonight.”
“What’s so different about tonight?”
“You know exactly what’s different.”
“The only thing I can think of is that I went on a date. Could that be it?”
Here comes that dangerous rumble again, sending shivers along my nerve endings.
“Careful, Maven. If you keep it up, that smartass tone will backfire on you.”
“Meaning what? You’ll come over here and give me a spanking?”
In the following pause, I hear him breathing raggedly. I imagine him gripping the phone so hard, it cracks in half.
His voice deadly soft, he says, “Oh, I’ll give you something much more than that,” then disconnects.
Sighing, I set my phone onto the nightstand and lie down again, leaving the lamp burning.
I count backward from one hundred to try to distract myself so I can fall asleep, but I can’t get my mind to stop spinning with questions.
I’m restless and feverish, pushing off the covers to let the air cool my heated skin.
Finally, I give up and rise from bed. Throwing on a robe, I tie the sash around my waist and head downstairs to the kitchen for a slug of something strong to help me sleep.
Whiskey should do the job. I’m reaching for a glass in the cabinet over the sink when I catch a glimpse of movement in the yard outside.
It’s only a shadow, but it moves like liquid smoke, slipping into the greenhouse through the space beneath the threshold of the door, then appearing again as an amorphous smudge rising up inside the glass.
My eyes are playing tricks on me, because the shadow appears to be lit from within by glowing red embers that float and flit, extinguishing when they hit the ground.
I stand frozen for a moment, squinting into the night beyond the windows, my heart racing, until finally, I decide I’ve had enough mysteries for one lifetime.
Fed up, I slam the glass down onto the counter and head outside.
Hoping to find a crazed intruder who waves a knife in my face so I can commit a much-needed homicide, I march across the yard and barge into the greenhouse, throwing the door open wide.
Stopping a few feet inside the doorway, I call out into the darkness, “If there’s somebody in here who isn’t my family, you’re about to get your ass handed to you.”
A chuckle emerges from the shadows. “So much rage in such a small package. It’s a miracle you don’t spontaneously combust.”
The voice is deep and amused. On the other side of the dark greenhouse, Ronan materializes from behind one of the long wooden tables crowded with plants. Even in the shadows, his smile is clearly visible.
And oh, what the sight of him does to me. I’d give my left arm to be indifferent to him, but every time I see his face, my heart leaps.
The stubborn thing never learns.
I demand, “What are you doing here?”
“Maybe I came to give you that spanking you asked for.”
His words and the throaty tone they were spoken in make my nipples tighten in excitement, but I’m definitely not telling him that.
“Try it, and lose a hand. Why are you lurking around in the shadows? No, don’t answer that. I already know you’re a menace.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
Behind me, the door swings shut on groaning hinges and slams closed. Frowning, I look over my shoulder. When I turn back, Ronan stands right in front of me, gazing down at me with hooded eyes.
I’d ask how he got over here so fast, but I’m too distracted by his overwhelming presence.
He’s wearing a beautiful black wool overcoat with the collar flipped up, looking every inch the lord of the manor out for a casual nighttime stroll through werewolf-infested moors. I catch a whiff of his skin, a masculine mix of woodsmoke and musk, and stifle an involuntary shiver.
Shaky, I say, “There’s a lot of room in here, Ronan. You don’t have to invade my personal space so aggressively.”
“So that was your fake fiancé,” he replies, making no move to step back. “I suppose that absent-minded professor thing he’s got going might be enough for a lesser woman, but he’s too fragile for a Blackthorn.”
“He’s not fragile.”
Ronan scoffs. “Please. He’s a porcelain teacup. That scream was pathetic. He probably shit himself.”
I have to press a smile from my mouth because he could be right. I’ve never seen anyone so terrified. “I fail to see how he concerns you.”
“You know exactly how he concerns me.”
“You’re forgetting Wonder Woman again. You have a girlfriend, remember? Or maybe the size of her magical boobs wiped your memory banks.”
His eyes flare with heat. “Is it jealousy I detect in that scathing tone?”
“Of course not. I don’t care what you do or who you sleep with. Just like you don’t care what I do, which is why you told me to get out of town, right?”
When he doesn’t take the bait, I add, “Or is there some other reason you’d like to share for why you suddenly want me to leave?”
He stares at me in smoldering silence, a muscle working in his jaw, a million unspoken thoughts and conflicting desires churning behind his eyes.
Finally, after a long, tense moment, he mutters, “Fuck it.”
He grabs me and crushes his mouth to mine.
His arms pinning me against his body, he drinks deeply from my mouth, moaning into it when I match his passion. I kiss him back with a mixture of relief and elation that leaves me dizzy. He’s so big and masculine, hard everywhere I’m soft, but we fit together as if we were made for each other.
On some level deeper than rational thought, I believe we were.
Despite all the wrongs we’ve committed against each other, despite the animosity that’s always existed between our families, despite every obstacle conspiring to keep us apart, we fit in a way I’ve never fit with anyone else. We’re like two clasped hands with fingers interlocking.
I know I’ll never be able to extricate myself from him. No matter how far I might run or how eloquently I might lie, my heart belongs to this man.
I love him.
And even if he’ll never feel the same way, that Bea was conceived with the only man I’ve ever truly belonged to is its own sort of satisfaction.
God help us, but we’re both Ronan’s.
When I wind my arms up around his broad shoulders and arch against him like a cat, rubbing my breasts against his chest and mewling in pleasure, he digs a hand into my hair and breaks the kiss.
Breathing raggedly, he stares down at me with dark eyes filled with secrets.
He rasps, “I’d burn it all down for you, Maven.”
Trembling, I whisper, “Burn what down?”
“Everything. My whole life. This whole town. The entire fucking world if you asked me to. If you said you were mine and meant it, I’d light a match under anything that would keep us apart, then plant our fucking flag in the ashes.”
I stare at his face in disbelief, knowing in my soul he means every word but still trying to comprehend it. Sinking my fingers into the thick mess of his hair, I demand, “Are you in love with Wonder Woman?”
A sound of displeasure rumbles through his chest. “You know I’m not. You know what that was about.”
“I want you to say it out loud.”
He swallows. The hand he fisted in my hair shakes. His voice low and hoarse, he says, “It’s you. It’s always been you. Anyone else could only ever be a placeholder. How do you not fucking know that?”
My heart singing at his words, I say, “Probably because you’ve been so busy being awful to me.”
“Forgive me.”
“Say please.”
“Please.”
I study his handsome face, so dear to me and also so goddamn annoying, and exhale a breath I’ve been holding for years.
“I forgive you. I forgive it all. Now, please tell me you forgive me, too, because I’ve been a bitch on wheels to you.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. I deserved it. I deserved everything.”