Chapter 4 Introducing Mrs. Black
INTRODUCING MRS. BLACK
RONAN
“Ronan? Or Roman?”
Her voice was surprisingly husky but melodic, like the call of a loon through the fog that sometimes settled over Boston Harbor. Beautiful, yes. But also making it hard to focus when she was wearing nothing but that sheet.
Honestly. What kind of justice was it for a man to wake up with a woman who looked like a nearly naked Greek goddess to have zero memory of what he’d done to get her that way?
There were a few flashes. The show she put on for me at Naxos. The kiss and touch game we played at the bar. Making out like teenagers in the back of the Rover.
Poor Mac. I hadn’t made him wear headphones in years.
After that, I had little more than a few patchy flashbacks of togas and splitting a truly obscene portion of pancakes at my favorite Vegas diner before my memory cut straight to morning.
Was this the first time I’d woken up in this suite with an unnamed naked partner and no memory of how we’d gotten there?
Admittedly, no.
Had any of my previous partners had an ass like hers?
Not even close.
Have any of them turned out to be my wife the next morning?
Not a chance in hell.
But before I’d been able to wake the girl up properly, I’d been pulled away by Liza Kelly, knife-sharp CFO of Blackguard Holding, mother to my best friend, and probably the only woman whose calls I took before noon.
But though Liza had just dropped two A-level bombs, I struggled to recall either once the goddess entered the room and announced we were fucking married.
I’d only caught a glimpse of her face, half buried in pillows while she slept.
Even then, she was beautiful. But right now, tousled with sleep and clearly nursing her own wicked hangover, she was a fucking knockout.
A face my palms itched to frame, olive skin dusted with freckles, and petal-pink lips swollen from a night I’d sell my soul to remember.
And then there were those eyes, fathomless and sea-green, the color of the Aegean Sea at sunrise, begging me to dive right in. Or at the very least help her remember what the hell had happened last night.
Married. Fuck me.
I cleared my throat. “My name is Ronan. It, ah, means ‘seal’ in Irish. Although being named after a man who murdered his brother to found the largest empire of the ancient world would be kind of fitting. Fratricide is only mildly encouraged in my family, but my father might actually love it if we were nursed by a she-wolf and then one of us killed the others for control of our empire.”
I was starting to ramble. Covering my discomfort with bad jokes about my father. Honestly, after what Liza just told me, I wasn’t that far off.
No. I wasn’t going to think about that fucker right now. Not when this girl’s brow was furrowed so adorably and that sheet was begging to be torn off.
“Don’t tell me your name is actually Ariadne,” I tried again. “The universe wouldn’t actually fuck with me like that, would it?”
Just like last night, it was supposed to be a private joke to myself, considering I was basically a two-bit Dionysus.
I’d found the girl at Naxos, after all. And the moment she’d let me kiss her, I’d been just as star-struck as the god in the stories when he found his future wife asleep on that island.
Little had I known that my father’s Girl Friday was going to call me in the morning and inform me that not only was I the new nominee to take over his seat at the table, but that apparently I was expected to play the family man to curry the conservative boards votes.
Hmmm. Maybe finding my wife wasn’t such a bad thing after all…
The girl’s frown deepened, causing a slight mark to appear between her brows. God, she was cute. “You remember that too?”
I grinned. “Sure do, sweetheart. Like it?”
She shrugged, cheeks pinking adorably. “It’s just not every day I’m compared to a Greek god’s wife.” She waved her left hand through the air, cheeks pinking adorably. “Ironic, isn’t it?”
Apparently, the joke was on me. Waking up with a wife in Vegas was one thing—crazy, but probably not all that uncommon here. Waking up with one who got my obscure Greek mythology references was another.
For the first time in a long time, I felt genuinely rattled. And I couldn’t have said why.
“My name—my actual name—is Delaney. Fisher,” she broke through my sudden daze.
“Delaney. Irish too, I think?” I resumed my seat on the couch, unfazed by my near-nakedness.
At least she seemed as startled by my physique as I was by her beauty. Frankly, I enjoyed the way her gaze flickered over the shoulders, abs, and muscles built in the ring. Taking punches for hours every week to banish my demons had to have at least one perk. Enjoy it, cutie.
Our eyes met. She coughed and averted her gaze. “Sort of? I think I have a great-great-grandmother from Cork.”
“Excellent county. Great whiskey. Smoked fish. All sorts of tops to their mornings.” I was talking out of my ass.
Yes, my family was Irish, but all I knew about it was the fact that my grandfather was from Derry, had been a part of the IRA, and had settled in Boston along with a bunch of other Irish gangsters. “So, Delaney Fisher from…”
“Seattle,” she completed. “And everyone calls me Laney.”
“Got it. Laney. Do you follow your name too? Enjoy the fruits of the sea, as it were?”
“I—what?”
Fruits of the sea? Was I a tuna salesman? Like an idiot, I kept trying. “Your last name. Fisher. I’m asking if you’re pescatorially inclined.”
“What? I, uh, eat fish sometimes, I guess. And I run my family’s clothing shop. We don’t, um, fish. Is that what you’re asking?”
I had no fucking clue what I was asking. Or what I was doing. I just wanted her to keep talking.
I wanted her to stay.
“So, the name’s generational?” I continued. “Aspirational? Either way, I like it. Fisher. Fisher. Good strong name. Very salt-of-the-earth.”
It was a stupid conversation. And yet, I kept going. Babbling like a teenage girl in front of the highschool quarterback.
What in the actual fuck was happening? I was Ronan Black. Chaos agent. Family jester. Angel of death.
I could smooth-talk anyone—or put them in the ground. I did not. Fucking. Babble.
Our staring contest resumed. Her staring at me. Me staring at her. Me wondering how much of last night she remembered. If she’d be willing to clue me in.
“Look,” she interrupted. “I know this is weird.”
“Oh, it’s beyond weird, gorgeous.” I stretched my arms over my head and affected the greatest yawn in my life, if only to stop trying to recall the exact size and shape of her tits. “But I’ve woken up in weirder situations.”
“You’ve woken up in a weirder situation than waking up married?”
I shrugged. “I once found myself on a traveling Cirque du Soleil bus sleeping in a nest of five-foot-tall acrobats. That was weird. They hadn’t even removed their body paint. We were halfway to Kansas before I managed to untangle myself.”
She blinked, clearly thinking I was certifiable. Possibly she was correct. Likely, in fact.
“My point,” I rattled on, “is that you’re correct.
This is weird, but maybe not the weirdest. Then again, we’re barely dressed, discussing Irish heritage instead of addressing the giant bridal elephant in the room.
So, I’m coping with humor and genealogy and some of my greatest hits.
You’re coping with… what? Panic? Existential dread? Maybe a smidgen of curiosity?”
One side of that pillowy mouth quirked. At least she thought I was sort of funny. “I think the elephant is a groom, actually.”
Huh. Smart and funny, too.
“You might be right.” I grinned.
She bit her lip and turned toward the windows as she pulled her sheet closer around her body. Bad move, since it wasn’t exactly the sturdiest material and only showed off the pert curves and slight outline of nipples I would have sold my soul to see again.
Fuck, she really was gorgeous. Petite, but solid. Easy to toss around, but with enough muscle that she probably gave as good as she got. A vague memory of being climbed like a tree in the middle of a nightclub was proof.
Fuck. I needed to take a moment before I embarrassed myself. These boxer briefs left little to the imagination.
“Look.” Laney’s shoulders straightened as she turned back to me, full of resolve. “I—”
“Hold that thought, sweetheart. I need a piss and a shower.”
Before she could continue, I rose from the couch, grabbed my phone, and headed for the bedroom.
It wasn’t the most graceful exit in the world, but I knew what she was about to say.
She wanted to go. Wanted to figure out whether we were actually married, plan her escape, and make the walk of shame back to whatever crappy hotel she and her hen party were staying in over the weekend.
I couldn’t have explained why, but I just wasn’t ready to let that happen.
Fully conscious of the way Laney’s eyes followed me into the bedroom, staying on me as I stripped off my underwear and continued to the bathroom in nothing but my skin, I wasn’t self-conscious. Half this city had probably seen me naked.
Besides, we were apparently legally bound, right? No point in false modesty now. Especially if my Ariadne liked what she saw.
“You’re welcome to join me.” As I reached the bathroom door, I looked over my shoulder and found her, as expected, staring right at my ass. I smirked and turned, but just before I faced her completely, she gasped and whirled, her back toward me.
I looked down. It was just as well. Someone else was waking up to say hello, and he could be a bit intimidating.
“Down, boy,” I told my half-hardened cock. “Laney, you sit tight, sweetheart. I’ll be back in a flash.”
I closed the bathroom door, turned on the shower, and finally let myself breathe as steam began to fog the room.
The first flash came back to me as my back met the cool glass wall. Laney in my arms, her legs twined around my waist as I pressed her against this very wall and bent my mouth to suck on her—