They drove to the Inner Harbor, parking in a deck across the street from the Pratt Street pavilion of shops and eateries that abutted the wide, brick-lined walkways along the water’s edge. Couples sat in the shade of umbrellas and canopies on the decks of restaurants; parents kept an eagle eye on children fascinated by the lapping water in the harbor only steps away below the sea wall. Tourists streamed toward the Maryland Science Center at one end and the Baltimore Aquarium at the other, some stopping to shop and to check out the old submarine permanently on display, while others rented tiny paddleboats and took an hour’s leisure in the harbor waters. Small cruise boats loaded streams of people, while in the small stone amphitheatre, a juggler was putting on a show with a variety of unusual items. The air was filled with bouncy Slavic tunes from the ethnic festival, which, from the sound of it, must have been displaying the culture of the Ukraine, Hungary or some other Eastern European people this week.
He pulled her into the shopping pavilion for Italian ices, which they ate as they window-shopped. She passed displays of trendy clothing and glittering gems without a whimper, but when they came to a toy store, Deirdre all but pressed her nose to the glass.
“Look!” she said in delight. In the window, an enormous contraption had been built with plastic pieces of pipe and other similar attachments that clearly came from a building kit of some kind. As they watched, a clerk dropped a marble into the chute at the top of the setup. The marble wound its way down through myriad obstacles, circling madly down a funnel-shaped cone, plopping onto the end of a springboard, which triggered the descent of a second marble, zigzagging this way and that until finally it reached the bottom.
“Wouldn’t the boys love that!” she exclaimed.
Ronan grinned. “I’d be willing to bet they’d make some interesting modifications to it.”
She nodded ruefully. “Almost makes you want to pity the marbles.”
He linked his fingers with hers. “Come on. Let’s go in and get it.”
But to his surprise she dug in her heels and resisted. “No. Lee and Tommy don’t really need a new toy.”
“Oh, come on,” he said, tugging at her hand. “They’d love this thing. You’ll be sorry if we leave here without it.”
He passed an arm around her back to escort her into the store, but still she resisted, making her body stiff and shaking her head. “No!” she repeated in a soft, but determined, undertone. “I can’t afford to spend money on toys right now, Ronan.”
“No problem,” he said. “I’ll buy it.”
Impatiently she tossed her braid over her shoulder. “You don’t have to buy my children presents,” she said. “They like you already.”
“How about their mother?” He shifted, pushing her to the edge of the throng of summer shoppers, against the glass of the toy store window. “Does she like me, too?”
Her lashes came down, veiling her expressive eyes. “As if you need to be told,” she said.
“Then why not let me buy your children a little gift? It’s no big deal.”
“It is a big deal,” she insisted. “I’ll buy the boys new toys when I can afford it. But I refuse to accept that kind of gift.”
Well, hell. Why was she being so stubborn? It wasn’t like it was going to bankrupt him—although she didn’t know that yet. And he certainly wasn’t about to explain it to her here. “All right,” he said. “You win. Do I have permission to buy them each one of those bug-catching kits?”
Pressed against her as he was, he could feel the moment her body relaxed. “You do,” she said, giving him a smile that made her dimples flash and made him want to drop his head and cover her lush lips with his own. “They’d enjoy those, I’m sure.”
A short while later she dragged him down to where the water taxis docked. “I want to take you over to Fells’ Point. There’s a really great little place to eat.”
He wanted to take her to the nearest hotel room, a tantalizing few steps away in the Stouffer’s Renaissance above another pavilion of shops, and spend the afternoon slaking his never-ending desire for her in the coolness of an air-conditioned room. In a bed. That would be a novel experience.
But he dragged his thoughts away from the delightful contemplation. He was getting damn tired of this permanent hard-on. He needed to give Deirdre a chance to get used to him, to learn to know him well enough to trust him when he explained about his career. And then he could ask her to marry him.
He hadn’t thought marriage would work for him—until he’d met Deirdre. It certainly hadn’t worked the first time. Sonja hadn’t understood his need for solitary hours to create. Deirdre was the kind of woman who would understand the weird ritual of closing himself away every day to sweat out a few pages of print. Sonja had thrown fits when he didn’t want to go out and “be seen” in all the hot spots; she’d nearly driven him insane trying to get him to agree to move to L.A. Translation: Hollywood.
Deirdre was different. She was family oriented; she was calm. She was industrious and busy with her own little business. And she was more exciting to him every minute he spent with her.
Marriage would allow him access to those sweet, soft curves every night. He could fall asleep with those warm ivory breasts pressed against him and wake her up in various appealing ways—Enough’s enough, you idiot! he reminded himself as the water taxi pulled in to the pier.
They sat in the sun at the prow of the little boat, laughing when salty spray from the small wavelets they rode came up to dampen their skin and clothing. Deirdre took him to the restaurant, a chic little French place where they had their turn being one of the couples under the umbrellas.
Couple. He liked the sound of that word, when it applied to Deirdre and him. He’d never felt like part of a couple before, not even during the three short years of his marriage. He wondered if Deirdre had ever felt that way. “Tell me about your marriage,” he said over the crusty bread and wine they were sharing.
She obviously was startled. “Why?” she asked bluntly.
He thought about it a minute. “You must have thought the guy was nice enough at one time. You wouldn’t have married him if you’d known what he was really like. When did he change?”
“I don’t think he ever changed,” she said slowly. “He worked for Bethlehem Steel, and I got my first job out of college there. He was handsome and attentive, and pretty overwhelming to a lowly assistant in the sales division. I have a degree in business administration. Bet you didn’t know that!” She smiled, and he was dazzled by the momentary flash of genuine amusement. God, she was beautiful when she was happy.
The grin faded as she toyed with her fork, and after a moment, she spoke again. “He swept me off my feet. I was flattered by the interest of a company executive—even then, Nelson was one of the golden boys. I think I was in love with the idea of love. My parents have been married, very happily, for more than thirty years, and it never occurred to me that there was any other kind of marriage.”
She never should have had to learn it, either. “So how long was it before you realized he wasn’t the guy you thought he was?”
Again she smiled, but this time there was no humor in it, only self-condemnation. “About two weeks. The day before we came back from our honeymoon, I caught him with a woman he’d met in the hotel bar.”
He was shocked, and unreasonably furious, considering all this was old news and he hadn’t even known her then. Bastard. “So why didn’t—”
“He convinced me that it was never going to happen again,” she said. “And I believed him. And a few weeks later I found out I was pregnant.” Suddenly she looked weary. “After that, I pretended everything was fine for a while. And pretend is the only word for it. Nobody could find him when I went into labor. My mother was with me when Lee was born.” She stopped and took a sip of wine, looking pensively out over the harbor. “I should have called it quits then, I know. I even knew it in my heart. But the thought of my little boy growing up without a father...”
She swa
llowed. “I’m a real ass,” she said glumly.
“No, you’re not.” He reached for her hands and held them in his on the table. “You’re a great mother, and you wanted to do what was best for your child.”
“Well, I finally acknowledged that I had a lousy marriage and an even lousier husband,” she said. “But not soon enough. By the time Lee was six months old, Nelson wasn’t even trying to hide the affairs. But if he even thought I had looked at another man, it sent him into a blue fit I think he thought of me as property,” she added. “I got pregnant with Tommy the night he thought I had come on to his boss at a company picnic. He held me down,” she said baldly. She looked away again, and he saw that her eyes were filled with tears.
Gently he stroked his thumbs over the backs of her palms. His stomach roiled. Given what she’d been through in that marriage, it was amazing that she’d ever let him touch her, he thought, much less participate in the moments of wild, hot lovemaking that seemed to take over common sense every time they were alone. “You deserve better,” he said quietly, rage a bitter taste in his throat.
“I finally figured that out.” She removed her hands from his and picked up a napkin, dabbing at her eyes. “Sorry. It’s humiliating to have been so gullible, and even more humiliating to remember how long I tolerated it.”
He shook his head. He’d heard about it before, had written about it as well. He could understand the motivation behind wanting to hold on. “It sounds terrible,” he said. “I admire you for getting out when you did. Raising those two little hellions alone can’t be easy, but you make it look like it is.”
She smiled, and he realized she’d heard the affection in his voice. “It has its moments,” she said in wry understatement, “but I’m used to it. I raised them alone even when I was married.”
“How long have you been divorced?”
“It was two years in March. But I think of it as three years, since that’s when I left him.”
He thought back. “You must have separated shortly after we met at that Christmas party.”
She blushed. From her long white neck to her hairline where the black curls began, her face turned a bright scarlet. She moaned and hid her face in her hands.
“What?” He was amused, and curious about what he’d said that possibly could have produced that kind of reaction.
She lowered her hands. “I left Nelson in early March, when Tommy was a month old. And it was thanks to you.”
“To me?”
She nodded. “You were so kind that night, making sure I wasn’t left sitting alone, that I had a way home.... All I could think was that if I were single—and smaller than a water buffalo—I would have been free to dance with this incredibly attractive man, to flirt, maybe to accept a date.” Her face was still red. “Oh, I knew you were there with someone else, but—”
“She was my cousin,” he said. “And it’s a good thing I didn’t know what you were thinking, because I spent the whole evening thinking that you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen and wishing I was the one with the right to take you home.” Beneath the tiny table, he had his long legs stretched out on either side of hers. Now he closed them, gently pressing against the outsides of her knees with his own, then shifting to insert one thigh between her legs, telling her without words what he was thinking now.
He looked across the table at her face, and it was all he could do not to drag her out of her seat onto his lap and kiss her senseless. Her eyes had gone soft and wide, slightly unfocused as she stared at his mouth. Her pretty lips were parted just the slightest bit, and he could see her breasts rise and fall as her breathing increased.
“Stop looking at me like that,” he said, knowing his voice was deep, as aroused as the rest of him. “Or I’ll forget the good intentions I had, and we’ll head back across the harbor and I’ll have you under me in a bed faster than you can say please.”
The corners of her lips tilted up. Beneath the table, her legs rubbed up and down against his thigh the slightest bit, but enough to raise his blood pressure another notch. “Please,” she said in a soft, teasing voice.
A rush of purely sexual anticipation brought him to his feet. He reached for his wallet and withdrew a bill large enough to cover a generous tip. Tossing it onto the table, he circled her wrist with one hand, pulling her to her feet. Without saying a word, he escorted her from the restaurant. The moment they were out on the sidewalk, he turned and dragged her into his arms, holding her against him while he took her mouth in a deep, searching kiss until they were both gasping for breath. He could feel her breasts rising and falling; she was breathing almost as heavily as he.
“Come on.” He took her hand and pulled her back up the street to the taxi dock. They didn’t speak. He simply stood behind her with his hands linked across her stomach as he had the night of the fireworks, a position that pressed him intimately against her. On the trip across the bay, he held her on his lap. The trip seemed to last forever. The minute his feet hit solid ground, he headed for the hotel he’d noted earlier.
The room was a standard hotel room. He didn’t open the drapes, just tore the bedspread back to the foot of the king-size bed before he came back to her. She was standing in the middle of the room, waiting for him, and she stood quietly while he removed every item of clothing she wore and tossed it across a nearby chair. He got rid of his nearly as fast.
When he turned back to her, she moved to come into his arms but he stopped her. “I want to look at you,” he said. “I want to see your body, so that the next time we’re groping each other in a field or a closet or the floor of the stable, I’ll know what I’m touching, even if I haven’t had time to get all your clothes off.”
She was blushing again, but she continued to stand there, arms at her sides, letting him look his fill. He raised one hand to her throat, circling the slender column, then took the elastic band from the end of her braid and combed his fingers through it, creating a wild mass of curls that he spread over her shoulders before letting his hand slide down to cover one breast. He’d been right, he saw. Pink nipples, light against the lovely fullness of her flesh. He bent and took one into his mouth, suckling her strongly, and she made a small sound of pleasure. Going down on one knee, he reached around to palm her buttocks and pull her forward, laying his head against her soft belly. He took a moment to appreciate the gentle scent of woman as he turned his head and pressed kisses across the tender skin.
He slipped one hand between her thighs, urging her to widen her stance, nuzzling the fine soft nest of black curls at the junction of her legs. Her docility was as arousing as the wild way she had given herself to him in the past, and he curled his tongue, pressing between the curls, seeking the softer flesh hidden beneath. She whimpered and opened her legs a bit more, pushing her hips at him, and he felt his own stiffened flesh leap in response.
Rising, he urged her the few steps to the bed, laying her across the white sheets before coming down beside her propped on his elbow, one hand on her belly. “This time,” he said, “I’m prepared.” Rolling away, he snagged his pants and found his wallet, withdrawing a small, flat package that he tore open unceremoniously. He was throbbing, hard and hot for her, and he didn’t want to wait another minute. He sat back on his knees, but as he began the process of slipping on the soft latex, she came up beside him. Her hands brushed his out of the way, and he sat back on his heels and let her gently stroke the barrier into place. He let his head drop back, unable to watch her work on him, succumbing to the delicious sensation of her small hands, until she was finally finished and she placed her hands at his hips.
“Please,” she said, as before.
And as before, that one little word had the power to totally destroy his senses. He pulled her down again and came to her, his pulsing shaft pressed against her, and she wriggled her hips in an invitation that he didn’t hesitate to accept. He used his hand to open a place for himself, knowing she could take him when he felt the soft, dewy flesh slick beneath his f
ingertips. Slowly, he pulled back, guiding himself to the entrance of the feminine passage, then just as slowly pushed forward, sliding into her on one long glide that ended only when they were pressed together body to body, his hardness solidly ensconced within her.
She put her hands to his shoulders, looking up at him, trusting him totally, and he dropped his head and kissed her, keeping it soft and gentle. He’d never felt this before, this tenderness that mixed with the lust he felt for her pretty body, turning it into something deeper, something he never wanted to lose. He put his hands to each side of her face, looking deeply into her eyes, and began to thrust slowly in and out of her.
“Do you know what you do to me?” he asked her.
“The same thing that you do to me,” she said, smiling a little. Then, to his dismay, tears welled in her eyes.
He stopped moving. “Baby, what’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry.” She tried to smile but it turned into an adorable quiver of her chin. “This is just so... so...”
“So what?” He could hear the alarm in his own voice.
“So...wonderful.”
“I know,” he said in relief. He stroked away the tracks of the tears that slid back into her thick hair. “It’s never been like this for me, either.” They stayed locked together in silent contemplation for a moment. But his body wouldn’t let him stay still for long, and he began moving his hips forward and back again, need mounting as she raised her legs and ran the soles of her feet down the backs of his calves.
He slipped his hands beneath her thighs and pulled her legs up around his waist, and she locked her ankles behind his back as he increased the rhythm of his motion. She was rocking beneath him, small cries of pleasure slipping from her throat with each new lift of his hips, and the sound inflamed his control. She was an itch he had to scratch to his satisfaction, a compulsion he couldn’t resist. Faster and faster he moved, harder and deeper, and the tension within him shot higher and higher, to an unbearable pitch. He felt himself losing control, his body ripping into a frenzied blur of motion that felt too good, too intense to bear. As his body stiffened and he hung, suspended in a timeless moment of screaming need, he felt her begin her own finish, milking him in repetitive muscular spasms as she thrashed and heaved beneath him, her hips lifting to shove at him time after time. He exploded within her, then, powerful pressures driving him forward and forward again, until he was spent and gasping, every ounce of energy drained.
Dedicated to Deirdre Page 9