12. Maeve
Maeve
Tonight, I'm losing my virginity.
I decided sometime between breakfast and watching Lorcan walk around the pub in his jeans and tight t-shirt, all sexy, muscled man.
I mean, why not? I'm nineteen. I'm married. I have exactly three nights left on this deal, and if, come day four, I walk out of this mansion, I want him to be my first.
So when the kids are down—Oisin asleep before his head hits the pillow, Cara wearing a secret smile because she has a room of her own, and Jamie whose new PlayStation gaming system arrived today. (I know Lorcan’s responsible for that, even though he refuses to admit it.)
I shower, and I stand in front of the bathroom mirror in a fluffy white towel, and I give myself a pep talk.
You can do this. It may be your only chance for a very long time.
My reflection looks unconvinced.
When I come out, Lorcan's stretched on top of the covers, ankles crossed, reading something on his phone. He glances up—and then his eyes do a slow pass, from my wet hair down to my bare legs, and the phone lowers to his chest, completely forgotten.
"Hello, beautiful,” he says.
"Hi." I cross to the bed, sit down, and face him. And because I don't know how to do this, and apparently I’m painfully awkward, I lead with my agenda. "I want to have sex tonight."
He blinks. Then he sets the phone on the nightstand with exaggerated care. "Say that again. Slower. I want to remember it exactly."
I roll my eyes. “Don’t make this more awkward than it is.”
"You proposed sex like you were calling a board meeting. I don’t think ‘more awkward’ is possible." But he's turned toward me now, and there's something underneath the grin—something focused and heated that makes my stomach flip. "Why tonight?"
"Because I decided."
"Because you decided." He nods slowly. "Not because you want me so badly you can't stand it."
"Don't flatter yourself."
"Wouldn't dream of it." He reaches out and catches a strand of my wet hair, and winds it around one finger. His voice drops. "Maeve. Look at me."
I do. Mistake. His eyes are dark green in the lamplight and they're not laughing anymore.
"I want you," he says. "I've wanted you since you walked into that church looking like you'd fight God himself.
So believe me, nothing on this earth sounds better than what you just offered.
" His thumb brushes my jaw. "But not with you scheduling me like a cleaning shift.
When it happens, it's going to be because you're aching for me. Not because I’m the only man around.”
Heat crawls up my neck. "That's not—I'm not—"
"You're sitting three feet away with your arms crossed looking like you're about to donate an organ."
I look down. My arms are, in fact, crossed. Damn him.
"So here's my counteroffer." He shifts closer. The mattress dips, and gravity slides me toward him whether I like it or not. “I warm you up tonight. And when you’re ready, really ready, we can go further. Deal?"
"You and your deals."
"I'm a businessman." His mouth finds the spot beneath my ear, and my whole body lights up like a neon sign. "Deal, Maeve?"
"Deal," I breathe.
And then he kisses me. It's not like last night's kiss.
Last night was careful, a question. This one is hot and heavy and needy.
His hand slides into my damp hair and tilts my head, and he takes my mouth like he's starving for me.
I make a sound I've never made in my life—a cooing moan—and he swallows it with a low growl that vibrates straight through me.
"There she is," he murmurs against my lips. "There's the little vixen.”
He lays me back against the pillows slowly, and settles himself over me, one thigh between mine, and he just—looks. He traces my face with his eyes like he's memorizing it.
"You're so beautiful it's actually a problem," he says. "I tried to count inventory today. Do you know how many kegs we have? Neither do I." He kisses my throat. My collarbone. His words rumble against my skin. “My thoughts are entirely on you."
His hand finds the hem of my sleep shirt and pauses there, fingertips warm on my hip.
Asking. I nod, and he draws it up and over my head, and then I'm bare from the waist up under a man's scrutiny for the first time in my life, and I have to fight everything in me not to cover myself in embarrassment.
He exhales like he's been hit.
"Christ, Maeve."
“My breasts are small," I blurt, because apparently my mouth panics when I do.
“You’re perfect." His voice has gone rough, wrecked, nothing like his easy pub-charm voice. "Everything about you is perfect, and I'm going to show you how much I think so until you know too—until you have no doubt.”
Then his mouth is on me, and my mind bleeps out.
I had no idea. That's the thought that keeps surfacing.
I didn't know it could feel like this, his lips and tongue and the graze of his teeth pulling sounds out of me I have to bite down on because there are children down the hall.
My fingers find his hair and grip. He groans against my skin like I've done something to him.
"Lorcan—"
"I've got you." His hand skims down my stomach, slow, giving me a hundred chances to stop him. I don't stop him. His fingers slip beneath the waistband of my panties, and when he touches me—actually touches me, where no one ever has—my hips jolt off the bed and he catches my gasp with his mouth.
"Easy," he whispers. "Easy, baby. Let me."
Let me. And God help me, I do. I let him. His fingers move patiently. Devastatingly. He learns me, and something starts building low in my body that I don't have a name for—a tightness rises and it’s completely, terrifyingly outside my control.
"That's it." His voice is like velvet in my ear. "Don't think. Just feel. You're allowed to feel good, Maeve. You're allowed to take something."
"I can't—I don't—" My thighs are trembling. My whole body is trembling. "Lorcan—"
"Come on, love. Let go. I'll catch you. That's my job now."
The orgasm breaks over me like a wave—crashing, pulsing, tearing his name out of me in a broken whisper while he holds me through it, murmuring things into my hair: good girl and so beautiful and I've got you, I've got you, I've got you, until my trembling eases and I'm lying boneless against his chest. His heart hammers under my ear as hard as mine.
The room is silent. There’s only the sound of our breathing.
"So," he says finally, and I can hear the grin. "Same time tomorrow? I'll bring an agenda this time.”
I hit him weakly with the back of my hand. He catches it and kisses my knuckles, then my wedding ring, and tucks me into his side—a place I’m beginning to love.
"We didn’t…” I start. “I mean, “You didn't…"
"Nope." He presses his lips to my forehead. "Not until you're ready. Not until you can't wait another second." His arm tightens around me. "Mrs. O'Rourke, I want you to know that I find you worth waiting for."
I lie in the dark listening to his heartbeat slow.
Again, I feel I’m on a merry-go-round that’s spinning so fast I can’t catch my breath.