Chapter 15
A TIARA OF STARS
LANEY
Not Laney was back.
Well, that wasn’t totally true.
I wasn’t doused in alcohol or trying to forget I had a heart condition. And instead of running from the realities of my life, I’d brought my stranger right to the heart of them and shown him everything.
So maybe the part of me I’d thought of as Not Laney actually belonged here too, because the second Ronan Black said “I see you,” I couldn’t help but believe him.
So maybe it wasn’t that I was not myself. Maybe it was that when those bedroom eyes looked at me that way, I was more myself than I’d been in years.
Not sad Seattle Laney, who folded sweaters and balanced books and mourned her mother after a year and a half because what else was she supposed to do with her life?
Not even Vegas Not Laney, who’d been a one-night burst of recklessness fueled by too much tequila and a sassy green dress.
Just… Laney. Or maybe Ariadne, since that’s what he called me. The person I’d forgotten I could be.
That’s certainly who tackled Ronan against the bookshelf and climbed him like a cedar. One moment he was looking at me, the next my legs were around his waist, my arms around his neck. He caught me easily, taking full handfuls of my thighs to hold me in place while we devoured each other whole.
“Christ,” he breathed between kiss after soul-searing kiss. “Don’t give a guy much warning, do you?”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
He didn’t respond, and I didn’t want him to. He was too busy kissing me like he was drowning, and I was the air he needed. I was too busy eating him alive like he was a banquet and I’d been starving for years.
Maybe I had been.
He carried me to the old plaid couch I’d found on Market Street and had never bothered to replace.
He didn’t notice. I liked that he didn’t notice or even seem to care that everything in my apartment was secondhand or inherited.
The pieces of art adorning the walls were mostly framed sketches from Mom’s art journal.
I had a few small statues and mosaics I’d collected during research trips to Rome and Greece, while everything else was remnants of my former life as a poor student—the old sofa, the beat-up desk near the windows, the fifties-era dinette next to the kitchen.
Ronan Black was rich. Really rich. If his suits and plush hotel suites were any indication, his life was full of luxury that was a far cry from my little thrifted palace.
But from the second he’d walked into my home, he’d seemed as comfortable here as the Vegas penthouse.
As comfortable with me as I was with him.
I needed to get closer. I threw a leg over his hips so that I straddled his trim waist, allowing the floaty green bridesmaid dress to ride up around my hips.
Wrinkles were the least of my concerns now.
My fingers threaded into his hair, pulling, scrunching, allowing the curls to soften under my rough touch.
“I love your hair,” I told him while he sucked hard under my jaw.
“Do you now?” He sucked again at a different spot. I had a feeling there would be marks. “It’s so fucking curly. Pain in my ass.”
I grabbed said curls and yanked, procuring a moan from deep in his chest. “That’s what I like about them. You should let them be instead of trying to tame them all the time.”
One of his broad hands wrapped around the back of my neck, guiding my mouth back to his. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Then I couldn’t talk again for a long time. He groaned, his hands roaming all over like he was trying to memorize every curve I had. Toying with the fabric of my dress, finding broadening expanses of skin. Like he couldn’t decide where to go. Like he wanted all of me and couldn’t wait any longer.
“God,” his voice was hoarse when I came up for air. “Fuck, you beautiful creature. What are you doing to me, Laney?”
“That’s not my name.”
I didn’t know why I said it. It just didn’t feel right as I ground into him, feeling the way he wanted me as badly as I wanted him. “You know what to call me when I’m yours. You just told me.”
“Ari, then.” I shook in his arms. He licked my neck. “My Ariadne.” His hands found the zipper at the back of my dress, but when it didn’t move, he paused, mouth hovering over my racing pulse. “Are you attached to this dress?”
I gasped, trying to yank him closer. “I—what? No.”
“Good.”
There was a loud rip, and the zipper gave as he rent the dress straight down its flimsy seam, the tiny straps breaking right with it.
Suddenly, I was bare from the waist up as green satin pooled around my waist. Just days ago, I might have hidden from that wicked gaze. Now I sat straight in the dim light as Ronan perused my body, eyes dilating with lust.
I had never felt more beautiful.
“Fuck,” he breathed. “You really are a goddess, you know that?”
I didn’t. But at that moment, with the way he was looking at me, I certainly felt it.
I reached out and pulled one of his curls that had flopped forward onto his forehead. “If I am, I’m your goddess.”
For that, I received a growl. “Damn straight you are.”
He kissed me again before I could answer while his hands moved to cup my breasts and explore my nipples with his thumbs. Touching lightly at first, then kneading, tugging, pulling to find what I liked.
I liked it all.
“Ronan,” I gasped, my hips moving again of their own accord.
He was big—somehow I knew that even if I couldn’t exactly remember it. My body certainly did, just like it was fully aware that there were a scant few layers of fabric between his cock and the very damp space between my legs.
“Oh, Christ,” he choked as he bent to take one nipple into his mouth. “So—oh, careful, baby, you’re gonna—oh, fuck.”
His whole body froze, hard enough that I could feel the ridges of his abdomen tense under his shirt.
“What happened? Are you okay?”
His eyes were squeezed shut. His jaw was clenched. His hands had gone still on my breasts. “I—fuck. Yeah. It’s just that I—”
Eyes still closed, he nodded downward. I followed the gesture to between my legs and—Oh.
Oh.
It took me a second to realize the unbelievable fact that Ronan Black, he of the wicked repartee and implacable facade, had lost control of himself just from making out (and a bit more) on my couch.
For a second, neither of us moved. I barely breathed at all.
Then Ronan opened his eyes at last, and I braced myself for the inevitable lashing out. For him to push me away, to make an excuse, to run.
Instead, he grinned. “Well. That’s fucking embarrassing.”
I giggled. I couldn’t help it. “So you just—”
“Came in my pants like a fifteen-year-old on second base? Sure fucking did, gorgeous.” That smirk morphed into a cheeky grin that made me want to kiss him all over again. “What can I say? You undo me.”
Now we were full-on laughing together.
I shifted in his lap, and he winced openly. “Should I get you a towel or—”
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” His hands moved back to my waist, sudden vises. “We’re not done.”
I twisted back to him. “But you just—”
“We covered that, baby. Time to move on.” He stood in a sudden, graceful movement, taking me with him as he urged my legs to wrap around his waist. “Now, I'm going to need a bed. Not a sofa the size of a park bench.”
“Oh. Um. Down the hall. First door on the left.”
His lips found mine again, kissing all doubt from my mind.
When he stopped, we were in my bedroom. My tiny, cluttered bedroom with a pile of laundry in the corner, a framed picture of Santorini on the far wall, and the vanity scattered with the skincare products I always bought with the best intentions but forgot to use more than once.
He carried me into the mess, and just like the rest of my apartment, didn’t seem to care. Somehow seemed to belong there right with everything else.
He laid me down on my antique waterfall bed with the crocheted afghan my grandmother had made and the embroidered pillows I’d bought at an estate sale—and stood over me, breathing hard as he ripped off his suit jacket, then his tie and shirt with harsh, intense movements.
“Just so we’re clear, I’m about to worship every inch of you. And I’m going to take my time doing it. Any arguments?”
A slight accent had emerged in his speech, moving away from the urbane, slightly disdainful if non-regional tone he typically assumed, sliding into a more forceful tone where the letter r was flattened into a rougher sound.
I nodded, not trusting my voice as I wriggled out of the rest of the dress, allowing the satin to crumple to the floor so I was left in nothing but my underwear.
“Good girl.” He yanked his undershirt over his head with one harsh pull, then moved to his belt. This was no gentle striptease. This was Ronan Black getting down to business.
I’d seen him naked before, but only from behind. Plus, I’d been too shocked by the circumstances of waking up married to the man to really look.
I was definitely looking now, though.
He was wrong about one thing. He was the deity in this room, not me.
He was lean but muscular, chest dusted with hair, abs that looked like they’d been carved from marble.
He had scars I hadn’t noticed before—one just under his left clavicle, and another to the right of his navel.
Evidence that he wasn’t perfect after all.
Maybe even that he was as reckless as everyone said.
Then he was skin to skin, covering my body with his while his mouth found my cheek, my jaw, my mouth, exploring everywhere, tasting everything.
“Not that I don’t enjoy the lace, but you’re still rather inconveniently wearing underwear,” he murmured against my neck.
“Then take them off.”
He did, this time by sliding his entire solid self down my body until he was on his knees, taking the lace with him. There he remained. And just looked.
After a few long seconds, I peered down. “Everything okay?”
“You’re just…” He licked his lips. “You’re just so damn beautiful, wife.”
Before I could reply, he bent and placed his mouth where his gaze had been.