Chapter Fourteen
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
RONANGLANCEDATthe address Muriel had texted him on his cell. Was this right?
This small house in the Bronx was where she’d wanted him to meet her. But why?
This wasn’t her place. Was it some kind of S and M sex den? She seemed to really want to tie him up. He wasn’t sure if he should ring the doorbell or not. But a barking dog from within the modest house must have alerted her to his arrival because she opened the door and smiled at him.
“You came.”
Standing two steps down on the stoop made him level with her beautiful face. He closed the distance between them and kissed her, and as he did, he murmured against her lips, “Not yet. But I want to come soon...inside you...”
Her face flushed and her pupils dilated, swallowing the green the way he wanted to swallow her—
“Is your friend here?” a male voice asked from within the house.
And Ronan tensed.
“Muriel, bring him in,” a female voice chimed into the conversation.
And Ronan wondered if Arte and his friends had really lied about the orgies.
“Where am I?” he asked her. And why had she had him meet her here?
“Home,” she said, and her smile widened.
“You bought a house?” he asked. With the money she had to be making as The World’s Most Beautiful Woman, she could have easily afforded something much nicer than this.
She laughed. “No. This is my grandparents’ house,” she said. “Home...”
That explained why she was there. But why had she invited him? “Did you want me to meet you here?” he asked. Maybe he’d misunderstood the text. Maybe she’d just been telling him where she was because he’d asked her if she was home. He took a step down. “I can leave.”
“No,” she said, and she tugged him back up the stairs. “I invited you here. I wanted you to come for Sunday dinner.”
His breath caught, panic pressing on his chest as he stepped over that threshold. And it wasn’t just because he wasn’t fond of little dogs like the one that had rushed down the hall to bounce around his feet. It was because he didn’t like families.
Any families...
He’d hated his own, and he’d never seen another one he’d wanted to be part of, even the ones that had seemed perfect on the outside. Pitching his voice low, he asked, “Why would you invite me here?”
Hurt flashed through her green eyes. “I wanted you to meet them.”
“You should have asked if I’d wanted to meet them,” he said.
“I didn’t care,” she replied, and there was a sharp tone to her voice now. “I wanted you to see why I was so upset about the trial. I wanted you to understand.”
And suddenly he did. He hadn’t been certain if she’d forgiven him, not even though they’d had sex every day since that night in the dressing room. A couple of weeks had passed, which was a long time for him. Longer than he’d seen any other woman exclusively.
This might have been the point in a relationship where the woman introduced the man to her family. But he didn’t know, because he’d never been in a relationship. And it didn’t sound as if he was really in one now.
Muriel obviously hadn’t forgiven him yet. Not that he could blame her.
“So this is an ambush?” he asked, keeping his voice low so her grandparents wouldn’t overhear. “They have to hate me just as much as you did.”
Or did she still?
“I explained to them what Arte did,” she said, “how he lied to you, too.”
He nodded but he wasn’t convinced that was really an excuse for what he’d done to her. So he didn’t expect her grandparents to be forgiving or sweet. But he didn’t turn for the door and run like he wanted.
However they treated him, he deserved it. And maybe when Muriel saw how her family couldn’t forgive him, she would realize that she and Ronan had no possibility of a future together.
* * *
The silence unnerved Muriel. It was the first that had fallen since she and Ronan had left Papa and Nana’s house. All through dinner conversation had flowed easily. Ronan had charmed. Nana had flirted. Papa had teased.
It was the most fun Muriel had had in such a long time. And she’d thought Ronan had enjoyed himself. He’d eaten. He’d drunk. He’d laughed. He’d grinned.
But he had never looked at her.
Was he furious?
She had kind of ambushed him. But if she’d told him that address was her grandparents’, he never would have showed up. So she’d tricked him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have told you.” She glanced at him across the console that separated the driver and passenger seats.
“You should have asked me,” he corrected her. But he didn’t take his gaze from the road. And his hands gripped the steering wheel tightly.
“You would have said no,” she replied.
“Yes, I would have,” he said. And now he glanced across at her, and there was sadness and regret in his dark eyes. “I’m not the kind of man women take home to meet their families.”
Heat flushed her face. “I told you that’s not why I invited you,” she said. “I wanted you to see why I was so upset with you.”
“Because of how all that media attention affected them.”
She nodded. “They had reporters camped out on their stoop, asking them horribly intrusive questions about me, about my life and upbringing.”
“Why are they the ones who raised you?” he asked. “You’ve never said how they came to be your legal guardians.”
She’d fallen into their laps just as so much had fallen into hers. She sighed. “My mother was very young when she got pregnant with me. Just a teenager who’d fallen for an older boy. He left for the Marines, and she had me. But he didn’t come back.”
“I’m sorry,” he said and reached across the console for her hand.
But she pulled it back. She didn’t need comforting. “He didn’t die,” she said. “He just didn’t come back to the Bronx. And when my mother realized he wasn’t coming back, she wanted to leave, too. She wanted to go to college, so my grandparents said they would take care of me.”
“But she never came back, either?” he asked.
“No. She moved to the West Coast. She sends cards and letters and calls sometimes. But Papa and Nana, they’re my parents. The people I love the most and who love me most.”
“Why did you want me to see that?” he asked. “So I would apologize again?” He had—to her grandparents—repeatedly. “I already told you I was wrong. What more do you want from me?”
His heart. She wanted his heart. But she knew it wasn’t something he was going to freely offer her. It wasn’t going to just land in her lap like everything else in her life had. She would have to work to earn it.
“I wanted you to see that I’m not a horrible person,” she told him. “I don’t go around slapping people and filing complaints and...”
“Having sex in elevators?” he asked when she trailed off. And she heard the humor in his voice now.
“No,” she said. “Except for you, I’ve never done any of that stuff.”
“I know that,” he said. “Well, not the elevator stuff but the rest of it.”
It hadn’t hurt that her grandparents had gone on and on about what a sweet, down-to-earth person she was. But a man like Ronan wouldn’t want sweet and down-to-earth. He’d want the passionate woman from the elevator.
Maybe having him meet Papa and Nana had been a huge mistake. Maybe he would never look at her the way he had before...with such lust.
She reached over the console and slid her hand over his thigh. The muscles rippled and tensed beneath her touch, and something long and hard swelled against the fly of his jeans.
“Muriel...” His voice held a warning, one she ignored as she slid her hand higher up his thigh and then over his fly. “Do you want me to crash this car?”
She didn’t want to crash but she did want him to lose control. Hell, she just wanted him. It didn’t matter how much sex they had; she was always hungry for more and the pleasure only he was able to give her.
“You’re a good driver,” she said.
He chuckled. “You’ve never ridden with me before.”
No. Despite the amount of time they’d spent together the past couple of weeks, they hadn’t done much but sex. They hadn’t gone out to dinner. They always ordered in. They hadn’t seen a show or a concert. Their only entertainment had been each other.
Since she’d been hiding out from all the reporters hounding her, she had been fine with keeping things private between them. But the press wasn’t bothering her nearly as much as they had.
Now they could go out in public. But instead of heading toward the city, Ronan pulled his vehicle off into a small wooded area. The two-track road he’d found might once have led somewhere, but nobody had traveled it in a while. Weeds had nearly overgrown it. He didn’t drive very far, though, just far enough that the car wouldn’t be seen from the street. Then he put the car into Park and shut off the ignition.
Muriel knew why he’d stopped—what he wanted. She wanted it, too. So she pushed her other concerns aside and focused only on the overwhelming attraction between them.
He pushed back his seat and lifted her across the console, and now there was nothing between them. But he settled her onto his lap so that she was staring out the windshield, too. The woods were getting dark, and the glass just reflected back their images—like that mirror in the dressing room.
And like with that mirror in the dressing room, they watched each other, watched every flicker of pleasure and sigh of desire through parted lips. She wore a dress today, one so short that it had already ridden up around her waist. Ronan pushed her panties aside to slide his fingers inside her. Then he moved his other hand farther up beneath her dress and pushed up her strapless bra to free her breasts. While he played with the nipple of one breast, he slid his fingers in and out of her. Soon Muriel was panting for air, and the windows fogged up. She couldn’t see herself anymore. She couldn’t see Ronan.
She could only feel him as he lowered his fly, sheathed himself and slid it inside her. He lifted her so that she could slide down on top of him. He filled her completely, perfectly.
The tension inside her spiraled up, then broke, and she shuddered as she came. He tensed and writhed beneath her, losing control until he came, too, and shouted her name. Limp with release, Muriel sagged against the steering wheel and the horn blew.
Ronan cursed and pulled her back. “Damn, someone might see us.”
Moments ago her control had snapped. Now her temper did. “And why would that be so terrible?” she asked. “Are you afraid of being seen with me?”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
Muriel straightened her clothes and scrambled back into the passenger seat. “I’m talking about how you never take me anywhere, how we’re never out in public.” And as the words reverberated inside the steamed up car, Muriel winced, recognizing that she sounded like a nagging wife.
“You haven’t been really happy with the publicity I already got for you,” he said. “So I hardly thought you’d want to be seen with me.”
And she winced again because he had a valid point. The press had just begun to die down. If she was seen in public with her ex’s divorce lawyer, she would stir up the scandal all over again.
Then he continued, “It’s not as if we’re dating, anyway.”
And she felt as if he’d punched her. “What are we doing?” she asked. But the question was more for her than him.
He knew what he was doing—what he was always doing—just screwing around...
She didn’t screw around; she fell in love. And once again she’d picked the wrong man to fall in love with. At least Ronan hadn’t conned her. He’d been honest from the start that he wasn’t the forever kind of guy.
For a man who knew what he was doing, he didn’t give her an answer—just opened and closed his mouth as if he couldn’t find the words.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“You’re sorry?”
She nodded. “I shouldn’t have asked you to drive me home—now you have no place to escape.”
His brow furrowed with confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“How you always take off and run the minute we’re done having sex,” she explained. “You can’t do that now. Unless you toss me out of the car and have me walk to the city.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” he said. But he started up the car and backed quickly onto the street. He began to drive so fast that it was clear he couldn’t wait to escape.
“I shouldn’t have brought you to meet my grandparents,” she said. “I guess I was hoping you’d see that they have something special, that not every marriage is like your parents’.”
“Most of them are,” he insisted. “How can you forget I’m a divorce lawyer?”
“I didn’t forget,” she assured him. “But you have to realize you’re only seeing the bad marriages. Not the good ones.”
He snorted derisively. “I could read you statistics, too. But I wouldn’t have thought I’d have to. Your marriage was a scam. How could you ever consider getting married again?” He shivered as if he abhorred the thought.
“I didn’t think I would, either,” she admitted. “Arte made me doubt my judgment, not just in men but in friends, too. But then Bette became such a good, loyal friend to me.” She blinked as tears stung her eyes. She’d learned that the quantity of friends didn’t matter; it was the quality.
“I’ve been lucky in that regard, too,” Ronan said. “I have damn good friends.”
“So, if we can choose good friends, why can’t we choose good mates?” she asked.
He glanced over at her then looked back at the road. “I don’t want a mate,” he said. “I never intend to get married. If you thought taking me to meet your grandparents would make me propose.”
She snorted now. “God, no. I don’t want to marry you. We haven’t even been out on an actual date.” And that was what she’d wanted from him. Not a proposal—just a date. An actual relationship and the hope that it could go somewhere, someday, when they were both ready.
But it was clear that Ronan would never be ready. At least, not with her.
They were silent the rest of the drive into the city. And when he drew near her apartment building, he double parked by a cab. He obviously had no intention of showing her to her door. She jumped out before he could even put the vehicle into Park.
“Don’t worry,” she told him. “I have no intention of trying to tie you up or down.”
“Muriel...”
“In fact, consider yourself cut loose right now, for good,” she said as she slammed the passenger door shut.
He opened his door and called out to her over the roof of the car. “Muriel!”
She sucked in a breath to brace herself before turning back toward him and the car.
His brow furrowed. “I don’t understand. I thought you were enjoying...” He glanced around the busy street as if worried someone might overhear them.
But everyone appeared too busy with their own lives to bother eavesdropping on theirs. And for once there were no reporters around.
She was old news again. And, unfortunately, so was whatever the hell they’d been doing. “I’m not enjoying it anymore.”
It hurt—every time he ran away from her, it hurt. So this time she was the one who turned and ran...
But she knew it wouldn’t matter how far and fast she went. The pain was going to catch up with her. She had fallen in love with another man who would never be able to love her back.