Chapter 27
HAVE A LITTLE FAITH, BOY
LANEY
Something was definitely wrong.
All afternoon, I’d been torn up by his silence.
Even more, maybe, after Simone had left, and the image of Ronan as a wounded animal had been imprinted on my mind.
It hadn’t taken long for me to start wondering just when, like any dangerous animal, his cuts would turn lethal.
Whether I could handle the claws he used, inadvertently or not, until he learned to sheath them properly.
Or whether I wanted to wait for that at all.
I had just managed to set aside my worries for the evening in favor of a long, luxurious bubble bath (taking a cue from Simone’s advice about self-care) when Ronan had appeared.
And just like he always managed, he had cut down every one of the walls I had resurrected with deft jokes, boyish charm, and a body that was impossible to ignore.
Honestly. Who looked like that after working in an office all day long? And had what could only be described as a perfect cock?
I mean, I wasn’t normally the type to drool over a man’s appendage, but there was something about Ronan’s. Or maybe it was just something about Ronan himself. Either way, it was simply unfair. And overwhelming.
All of which I’d been ready to tell him when I walked downstairs, fully covered and feeling about as sexual as a bathmat.
Until he’d kissed me like that.
His mouth was urgent while his hands traveled up and down my body, grabbing, kneading, desperate for purchase.
There was no sign of the patient man from last night, nor was this the boyish if skilled lover whose eagerness had erased any pretension that might have marred our night in Seattle.
This Ronan Black was searching for something.
Whatever it was, my body wanted to give it. Even if my mind had had questions.
“Ronan,” I murmured when we finally broke for air. “Ronan, what’s wrong? What happened?”
His only response was to try to kiss me again. I wanted to give in (and very nearly did), but at least I managed to put two hands on his chest and shove him back.
Our mouths broke with a pop, and he stared at me with a loose curl hanging over his brow, panting like a beast. His eyes, dilated to pinpoints, refocused. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Do what?” Fear lanced through me, discordant and painful. My chest ached, and absently, I pressed a hand to the left of my sternum.
Catching the movement, Ronan swore softly to himself. “I never should have done this.”
“Done what?” I sank onto the arm of one of his armchairs, feeling like I’d been smacked. “What did you do?”
“Brought you here. Convinced myself this would work.”
He opened and closed his fists meditatively a few times, like he was squeezing two invisible stress balls.
The movements caused the tendons in his arms to flex and made his biceps twitch.
Standing in the dark, with nothing but a latent street lamp throwing shadows across his bare torso, he looked less like an urbane CEO and more like an ancient warrior ready to pillage.
Then his words sank in. “I—what? You’re ending this?”
He looked pained. “I am such a fool.”
“What? Why?” I reached for his hand, but he stepped out of reach. “Ronan, please. Just talk to me.”
His bitter laughed echoed off the hard edges of his books, the fireplace bricks, and the carved wood lintels.
“I thought I could handle it, you know? Thought I was bred for it. Go to work, live under the microscope, compete with my siblings like dogs at the fucking track. I had a routine, see? Take the old man’s shit, but when I left, I had ways to cope.
I had the gym or the bottle or… or whatever. But now you’re here.”
He started to pace, which only added to the impression he was giving of a wounded animal. Just like Simone said. The house suddenly seemed far too small, a cage for that big body, which so obviously needed to expel excess energy.
“I thought this was a good idea,” he went on. “Honestly, I thought I was a fucking genius. I needed someone like you for—just like you, and you all but dropped in my lap.” He turned. “But then I got to know you. And it’s like—fuck!”
He had turned to the fireplace now and had braced his hands on the mantel, pressing hard enough to make the old wood creak under his palm as every muscle in his back tensed in high relief. I honestly thought he might break it.
“Ronan?” I spoke quietly as I approached from the side, hands out.
His head fell like a fallen warrior’s. “What, Laney?”
Tentatively, I set my hand on his shoulder, stroking softly, urging him to relax. He did, but only slightly.
“It’s like what?” I asked. “You got to know me, and it’s like what?”
My own stomach was tied into knots. I didn’t want to ask the question because there was a possibility his answer might really hurt.
All afternoon, I’d managed to keep the worst possibility at bay: that he had realized I was wrong for him after all.
That he didn’t like me as much as he thought.
That being married was as ridiculous as it sounded after all.
But now we were here, and I found that if that was the truth, I needed to hear it.
“It’s like… you’re made for me.” His words were almost too quiet to hear as he spoke toward the brick.
“Old God or Zeus or whoever the fuck is up there said, oh, this boy likes pretty girls? Let’s show him the most luscious one he’s ever seen.
Then let’s make her kind and genuine and smart as a fuckin’ whip.
And after that, let’s also make her the one person who’s probably read every book in his library and gets every stupid Greek reference he makes just to appeal to his weird hyper obsessions and prevent him from ever getting bored.
” He rubbed his face, like he still couldn’t believe it.
“Of course I married you. What else was I going to do when the universe plays a cosmic joke on the most nihilistic fucker on the planet by presenting him the one person he wouldn’t want to lose? ”
By the time he was finished, I was trying not to cry. Not because I was sad, but because the emotions were too much. Whatever I thought he was going to say, it wasn’t that, but with every word, my own mirror instincts coalesced into the thoughts I hadn’t dared admit to before now.
Things like you’re made for me too.
You’re the first man who understands my passions and my pains and doesn’t judge me for either.
I followed you across the country because even after less than twenty-four hours together, saying goodbye to you physically hurt.
“Ronan, I’m not perfect,” I started, but he was already shaking his head.
“I know you’re not. I know that. But I… Christ, Laney, I want you so bad I’m fuckin’ shaking with it, but I also know I’m nowhere near good enough for you. I woke up this morning with you in my arms, and now I can’t fake my life anymore. Not with you.”
With every word, the slight accent he generally masked so well got progressively thicker, shaking in the back of his throat. He turned, and his eyes met mine, void of dark humor, calculation, or avoidance.
All I saw was pain.
Pain, and maybe another emotion that in my short life I’d realized was so closely intertwined.
Something that looked a lot like… love.
I opened my mouth, prepared to offer my sympathy. To tell him we didn’t need to rush anything. That I could go back to Seattle if that’s what he needed, and give him space, and let him slide back into the life he had already made for himself.
Instead, only one word came out. “Good.”
Those dark eyes popped open. “Good?”
I nodded. “Yes, good. I don’t want you to be anything other than exactly who and what you are.
If you want to be funny or sharp or sarcastic or anything else, do it, but not because you’re hiding something else.
And if you want to be sad or happy or just feel nothing at all for a moment, I want you to do that too.
I want you to feel safe being every side of yourself with me, Ronan.
Because that’s…”—I bit my lip, feeling the last thing I had to say sticking in my throat—“that’s what you do for me. ”
His mouth dropped, like he honestly couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Laney, you don’t understand—”
I slid my hand down his arm, then took his hand to pull myself forward, so that we were face to face, though our height difference forced me to look up into that wide, shocked gaze.
“I do understand. Better than you think. Ronan, I’ve been sleepwalking through my own life for more than a year.
I didn’t just come to Boston for you—I came for me too.
Because I needed a change, and also because you forced me to, I don’t know, wake up.
This is hard. I know that. But maybe we are the change each other needs.
But it won’t have a chance at all if we aren’t real with each other about what we need. Right?”
“What we need,” he murmured as he moved his hands up and down my arms, stroking my skin almost meditatively. “And what do you need right now?”
Oh, no. He wasn’t getting out of this that easily.
I reached up and took his chin, forcing him to look at me. “Right now, I need you to communicate. You’re obviously struggling. I need you to tell me what you need. And then we’ll go from there.”
“What I need.” He repeated the statement softly, like he was testing it on his tongue. “What I need.”
He pulled his chin out of my grasp, then ran his hands back down my arms one more time to catch my fingers. Then, gently, he pulled them both behind my back, crossed my wrists, and held them there with one hand while he used his other to tug the towel off my head.
“Right now,” he said as he tucked a tendril of wet hair behind my ear, “I need to be in control. Can you let me do that?”
Anticipation roared in my ears. “I—yes?”
Something sparked in his expression. “Well, all right then.” Keeping my hands where they were, he leaned to the side to run his lips over the shell of my ear. “Have you made an appointment with the doctor yet?”