She Likes It Irish (16 page)

Ice cream carton in one hand, the blanket in the other, he stood and joined her on the floor a foot in front of the map. He pulled her onto his lap and wrapped the blanket around them. She lay her head back on his chest. He leaned forward and pointed out a spot on the map. “Right here.”

“That’s your mom’s home town?”

“Yes.” He dropped a kiss on her shoulder. There was something about having this woman in his arms that made him feel like all was right in his world.

“Was your dad from there, too?”

He was so happy with Kristin in his arms, for the first time in a long time he didn’t feel the sadness when she mentioned his dad. “No. He was from up the road…here.” He finger drew a line straight north about an inch.

“Where did you grow up?”

He pointed back to his mom’s town. “I lived here until I started college, then I moved to Dublin.” He tapped his fingertip against the name of Ireland’s largest city.

“Is that where you met the girl you left behind?”

He pulled his eyes from the map and focused them on her. “Kristin, whatever was, is past. I don’t want the ghost of another woman between us, not in this room, not in each other’s arms, not in our relationship.”

“Sean, your past made you the man you are today. I want to know what happened that put in motion your being here with me, making all my dreams come true.”

The pinch in his heart that he had been so sure was gone appeared as he fought with his memories and decided whether to share them. After a long pause he put the fork in the carton and set it aside. “Her name was Lindsey.”

Chapter Eleven

Just the sound of the beautiful name spoken so tenderly from his mouth jabbed Kristin’s heart, and she felt jealousy sweep into her cells and organs and flesh like high tide.

“What did she look like?”

“Long blonde hair, blue eyes, and a petite, slender body. Like a porcelain doll my sister had when she was young.”

Perfect. Shit. I hate the bitch.

“How did you meet?”

“At university. We dated for a couple of months, and then moved in together.”

“Looks like moving fast is a pattern for you, O’Neill.”

Hearing the soft bite in her tone, he searched her face, brushing her cheek with his thumb. “Sure you want to hear this?”

She cranked down the jealousy. “No. Yes. Sorry. You were deliriously happy and in love, and…?”

“We
were
…for awhile.” A look of sadness crossed his face, and he stared into the map again, his eyes taking on a glassy stare that said he was there.
With
her
.

Kristin twisted until she straddled him, her legs around his waist, and she ran her hand up his chest and settled on his heart, trying to bring him back to her. “Tell me.”

He blinked and shifted his attention back to her, settling his hands loosely at her back and closing the blanket. “We got along in every aspect but one. That one thing eventually tore us apart.”

Kristin lifted her eyebrows in curiosity.

“Sex,” he said simply.

They dropped in confusion. “Didn’t she like it?”

“She did.”

“What then? I know
you
weren’t the problem.”

“Actually…I was.”

“What?” She shook her head. “You’re an amazing lover, Sean…considerate, tender, amazingly gifted, and skillful. No, I can’t imagine you being the problem.”

“Thank you, darlin’. It pleases me you think so highly of my abilities. Our problem was less about skill and more about…size. I was too big for Lindsey. Sex with me hurt her.”

She heard the pain and guilt in his voice, struggled to think of something to say to lessen it. “There are other ways to pleasure each other. I assume you…”

“Oh, yeah. I became an expert on those other ways. But it wasn’t the same as me being inside her body.”

Sean inside another woman. She hated the image his words conjured. She hated the jealousy the image conjured. “You said it tore the two of you apart?”

He nodded. “I came home early from work one day and she was in our bed with some guy. Fortunately, she sent him away before I could do something I would have regretted. After we’d stopped yelling and were able to talk, she told me she loved me but couldn’t live the rest of her life with a man who couldn’t make love to her.”

“Bitch.” Kristin didn’t even try to hide her anger.

His mouth curved into a weak smile. “I didn’t blame her. I even agreed with her. A man feels more like a man when he can bury himself deep into the body of the woman who loves him, giving her the pleasure she craves. When he can’t pleasure his woman, he feels…inadequate.”

Guilt is a hungry wolf that will devour you
. How many times had she heard her mother say those words—usually to justify her lack of interest in parenting, but still, it was a sound belief. She smelled the guilt on Sean’s skin and it made her stomach tighten and her heart tilt.

Words seemed weak, even trivial in a situation like this. He felt like he’d failed with the love of his life. Nothing she could say would change that, fix that, dissolve his pain. But she could show him how much
she
wanted him.
She
could make him know how much he pleased her. But would it be enough? She snuggled her body up against his and hugged him close.

“It’s not your fault, Sean.”

He tightened his arms around her and kissed her. “I know.” He sighed and she felt him shrug. “It was no one’s fault that we didn’t fit together.”

“It was just anatomy,” Kristin added and he nodded, repeating the last word. She moved her hand down to his dick and caressed it. “Is that why you were so careful with me our first time? You were worried you’d hurt me?”

He nodded. “It’s why I held off adjusting the schedule. I wanted to be with you as long as I could before you told me it wasn’t going to work.”

“It was a tight fit, but you made sure I was ready.”

“Well, now, darlin’, it wasn’t that hard to get you ready…you’d been panting for me since the first night you saw me in my Blarney Stone boxers.”

She squeezed his dick and was pleased by the muffled “oof” that came from his mouth. “I know you’re not saying I’m easy.”

“No. Not at all,” he said in a falsetto voice before she released him.

“Better be nice to me. I could get another boyfriend, you know. Like that.” She snapped her fingers.

He smiled at her in the moonlight. “Boyfriend?”

The cold hand of panic gripped her. She hadn’t meant to suggest anything of the sort. The word boyfriend suggested a relationship that she wasn’t sure she wanted. Yes, she had wanted sex with Sean. Yes, she definitely felt something special for him, especially after tonight. But a boyfriend? A relationship? Was she ready to put her heart on the line again? She might have confessed to her moon goddess that she loved him, but that didn’t mean she was ready to act on it.

“Do you want to be?”

“Yeah, I do.”

His answer loosened the hand’s cold grip, allowing warmth to flow in, allowing her to send a teasing smile his way. She kissed him and laid her head on his chest, contentment flowing through her as his heartbeat reverberated inside her chest.

“Tell me about him, Kristin.”

She knew who he meant, but she asked anyway. “Who?”

“The boyfriend who hurt you so badly that you swore off guys and are afraid to love.”

“I’m not afraid. I’m just…cautious.”

He stared at her as if he didn’t believe her.

“Why do you want to know?” she asked just to loosen the grip of his stare that was enticing her to tell him everything.

“For the same reason you wanted to know about Lindsey.”

The image of Nick’s face jumped before her eyes, but it took her a moment to summon the courage to pull the memories of her time with him to the surface. Surprised by the relative lack of pain the action brought, she easily summarized their relationship in her head before beginning her story.

“Nick asked me out our junior year, but I’d heard he was such a player I said no. I guess it was the chase that kept him interested, because every week he’d say, ‘Go out with me this weekend, Kristin.’ Every week I’d smile and say, ‘No, thank you, Nick.’”

Remembering their early days brought a small smile to her face. His attention and flirting had been fun and flattering.

“One night before the end of the semester, we were studying together for our chemistry final with a study group. They all gave up and left to go to a party, but he and I stayed to finish the whole practice test. He walked me home, and we talked all night on the grass in front of my dorm. He impressed me that night, made me think I’d misjudged him. When we got back to school the following semester, and he still seemed interested, I agreed to go out with him.”

“Then he tried to get you into bed, you kneed him in the nutbag, and never saw him again?”

She grinned at the jealousy she heard in his words. “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, yes. You’re right. That’s exactly what happened. The end.” She reached for the ice cream, but he stilled her, keeping her on his lap.

“Sorry.”

“Shall I continue?”

“Yes.”

“We had a good time, and no, he didn’t try to get me into bed. In fact, we’d been dating for over two months before he’d do more than kiss me. We were inseparable.”

“Did he satisfy you?” Sean asked.

“In bed, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he was no Sean O’Neill, but he did his best to put a smile on my face.”

Sean didn’t even smile at her compliment. “So far, it sounds like a great relationship.”

She didn’t even chuckle at his sarcasm. “I thought so. We began making plans for grad school and had decided on University of Washington. We weren’t only planning grad school, though—we were planning our life. We were going to finish school, get jobs, get married, have kids, and grow old together. Short version: U-Dub accepted me but not him.”

“And you turned down the offer.”

She nodded. “I gave up my spot so he and I could be together here, which was our safety net. During our spring break trip to Maui, he told me the University of Chicago had offered him a spot, and that he’d accepted. I didn’t even know he’d applied. Their deadline had long since passed, so there was no way I’d be admitted in time to go with him.”

Sean released a string of Irish words that sounded really derogatory and nasty. It made her smile.

“He tried to explain his decision, saying he was doing it for our future. But I felt betrayed. I was too hurt to listen. I broke up with him and spent the remaining two months of school in a fog. I took the next semester off instead of starting grad school, deep in depression, trying to figure out how I’d been so stupid. I’d built my life around him and, when he was gone, I was gone, too.”

“Kristin, you weren’t stupid. He was an asshole.”

His defense warmed her insides. “Either way, it changed me. I focused only on school, refusing to get involved with anyone. Until you, that is.”

“Uh…until Randy, you mean.”

“Oh, God, don’t remind me.”

“No, no…it’s good. I see that now. I don’t like the little
shitehawk
, but he brought us together.”

“Maybe it was our destiny,” she said, laying on a thick dramatic tone and chuckling. She refused to look at their joining as anything more than a happy coincidence. Then she heard her mother’s voice in her head, saying there are no coincidences.

“Destiny or fate or God…whatever you want to call it, we were meant to be together.”

Though her heart was pounding from joy, she laughed softly and put her hands on his face. “Sorry, babe, but to me, destiny is in the same category as leprechauns.”

He wouldn’t let it go.

“No, just think about it—you stayed away from all guys for, what…two years?” At her nod, he continued. “Then suddenly, inexplicably, you go after Randy, who’s totally wrong for you. You end up in his room, right next door to mine, he’s out of condoms, and you come to my room. Not to mention that I traveled nearly five thousand miles to get to you. You and I connected the first time we saw each other. The floor moved under my feet the first time I saw your face. And now, we’re here, together, like this. That’s no coincidence, darlin’.”

“Are you sure it’s not just hormones at work? Corresponding pheromones that make us a suitable match in the sack? I could smell the presence of your strong, desirable genes, and you could smell my readiness to take your seed?”

He cupped her face, stared into her eyes. “However it was we came together, I’m glad of it.”

“I don’t buy into theories about destiny and divine intervention, but I will admit that…I felt the earth move, too. The first time we met, the second, the third, every time I’m with you. I felt an immediate connection with you that I’ve never felt with anyone. I feel like I…”

She had to stop talking before she said the words that would be her downfall. She shook her head, as if to shake away the unsuitable thoughts. They’d known each other for such a short time. They couldn’t be in love. In lust, of course, in like, definitely, but love? No! Yet, she was. Suddenly shy, she dipped her head into his chest, hiding her flaming face.

Sean lifted her face to his, found her eyes. “I know what you’re feeling, even if you’re not ready to say it, because it’s what I’m feeling,” he put her hand on his heart, “in here.”

“What’s in there that’s telling you this?”

“I’m happy when I’m with you. Peaceful. At home.” He shook his head and laughed. “God, I sound like a chick…no offense.”

Almost in tears at the depth of his feelings, she blinked her eyes and swallowed hard. “And that’s all the proof you need?”

“Well, there’s more, but I’m embarrassing myself.” His hands tucked into her hair and his mouth slid over hers. “Yes. I have all the proof I need.”

Her heart pounded as if something was in there fighting to get out. Was it love? She couldn’t give it to him yet, because she still wasn’t sure she had the courage. But she could give him something else. She grabbed the closest gold package, ripped it open, and rolled the condom on his erection. She lifted up, directed him into her warm wetness, and slid down until he was deep inside her. They didn’t move, felt no urgency to get to the end, but only wanted the connection, the feel of the other.