All He Ever Desired (16 page)

“I’ll think about it,” she hedged. “It’s only been a little over a month, so I want a little more progress before I commit to spending that kind of money.”

“What money? I’ll teach him, I said.”

“He still has to take a class, Dad. If he doesn’t take the class, he can’t get his license until he’s eighteen.”

“That’s stupid. He doesn’t need a class if I teach him.”

No, but he might need medication. Lauren decided it was time to change the subject. “Does Mom need anything besides cold medicine?”

He said she didn’t, so Lauren claimed she had a customer waiting and got off the phone.

She’d just found a parking spot near the market when her cell phone rang. It was tempting to ignore it, but she was always afraid if she did that, it would be about Nick. When she saw Ryan’s name on the screen, she was glad she’d checked. “Hi.”

“Miss me?”

“You’ve been gone?”

“Funny. You doing anything this weekend?”

Just everything a working mother did on the weekends, which was just about everything. “Nothing I can’t be tempted away from by a better offer.”

“I borrowed Mitch’s bike for the weekend. I was thinking we could take off in the morning and head over to the coast. Cruise down it for a while, then cut across to Brookline. Spend the night at my place, then head back in the morning in plenty of time to get home for Nick.”

He wanted to take her to see his house? She wondered for a second if he’d been talking to Rose, but then something else he’d said snagged in her mind. “Bike. Do you mean his Harley? You do know it’s the third week of October, right?”

“And I checked the weather forecast. It’s going to be in the sixties, which is perfect riding weather if you have a good sweater or a leather jacket. And maybe gloves, just in case we end up out after the sun’s gone down.”

“That’s crazy.
You’re
crazy.”

“But you’re going to go with me, right?”

She sighed. “Yes. I want to see your house. I hear it’s very beige.”

“Don’t let Rosie bullshit you. It’s sandstone with cameo trim.”

“So it’s...a darker shade of beige with a lighter beige trim?”

“Smart-ass. Do you want to go or not?”

“Yeah, I want to go.”

“How about I pick you up at eight and we’ll have some breakfast before we hit the road?”

“Sounds good.” She wanted to invite him to spend the night and they could have breakfast at her place, but she didn’t think he’d be shy about inviting himself if that’s what he wanted to do.

“Okay, I’ll see you at eight. I’d talk longer, but I have two more meetings before I can leave here and I need to look at some prints before the first one.”

“See you in the morning then.”

He wasn’t going to make it back to Whitford until late, she thought as she shoved her phone back into her purse. She couldn’t blame him for not wanting to come over. He’d probably fall face-first into his bed and crash.

By the time she found the cold medicine her mother liked and chatted up Fran for a moment, she knew she wasn’t going to be able to spend more than a few minutes with her mom and still make it home before Dean showed up.

Her parents lived eight miles out of town, and almost two of those miles were down a winding dirt road. It was impossible to rush when driving to and from their house.

Usually, no matter when Lauren arrived, her mother would be outside, deadheading flowers or reading in the hammock or sipping tea on the porch. Today, though, she found her mom in the living room. She was on the couch, television remote in hand.

“Hi, Mom. I brought you your medicine.”

“Thank you, sweetheart. I told your father I could wait until he got home.”

“Maybe, unlike you, he remembers the last time you were sick and he got the wrong kind and had to hear about what an inattentive husband he is for the next week.”

Her mother waved her hand, dismissing that subject. “How’s Nicky? He doesn’t have this cold, does he? It sounds like you did.”

“He’s good. I had it earlier in the week, but Rose Davis gave me her miracle chicken soup and it worked like magic.”

“She gave me that recipe once. The seasonings were ridiculous, though, so I tweaked it.” She pulled a tissue out of the box and dabbed at her nose. “It wasn’t miraculous at all, in my opinion.”

Lauren wanted to point out she hadn’t actually made Rosie’s soup if she’d changed the recipe, but she didn’t have time to argue. “Speaking of Nick, I’m going out of town tomorrow for an overnight and Nick will be with his dad, so if you see Dean’s number on the caller ID, you have to pick up, okay?”

“Where are you going?”

She could lie. That would probably be easiest and relatively harmless, like telling her dad she had a customer to get off the phone. But Lauren riding out of town on the back of a Harley was something she could see being casually mentioned at the hardware store. “Ryan’s taking me to his house in Brookline. We’re going to take Mitch’s motorcycle.”

“You told me it wasn’t serious so you weren’t dragging him over here for a family dinner. But you’re going away with him overnight?”

“It’s complicated.”

“What? He doesn’t want to have dinner with us?”

“He’s not the one who said no. I did. You’ve known him and his brothers and sister for their whole lives. You knew his parents.”

“And his grandfather. He passed away shortly after we bought the store.”

“See? This whole meet-the-parents thing is ridiculous and he’s too busy for it right now.”

“What’s going to happen when he’s done working on the lodge?”

Lauren dropped into a chair, resigned to finishing the conversation. “I don’t know, but I’ll find out soon. They’re almost done.”

“Have you talked about it?”

“No, not yet.”

“If it’s serious, you need to talk about it.”

“I know that, Mom.” She took a deep breath, reminding herself grown women didn’t snap at their sick mothers. “I don’t know how serious
he
is. Maybe he’s just having a fling while back in the old hometown.”

“Is that what you think?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. But I think the fact he lives in Massachusetts and we live in Maine is complicated. And then there’s Nick and...other stuff. It’s just a lot to think about.”

“What other stuff?”

“Nothing.” She didn’t want to talk about it and made a big deal out of checking the time. “I’m barely going to make it back in time to meet Dean. I have to run.”

“Talk to him.”

Lauren walked over to kiss her mom’s forehead. “I will.”

Just as soon as she figured out what to say.

Chapter Sixteen

It was still damp and chilly when Ryan drove into Lauren’s driveway the next morning, but he hoped it would burn off and warm up a little by the time they’d eaten breakfast.

Lauren met him at her front door with a smile and a kiss. “You look tired.”

He was, but seeing her perked him up. Perked him up a
lot
, actually, but he was afraid if he talked her into a morning quickie, it wouldn’t be so quick. They had a good five and a half hours or more on the road in front of them.

She’d packed some overnight things into an oversize purse, which he stowed in one of the bike’s side bags, where he’d already stashed the leather jacket he’d borrowed from Josh. It would be too big for Lauren, but he’d rather have it and not need it. For now, the wool sweater she was wearing over a turtleneck would probably be enough. After she’d tucked her phone into her purse, he put that in the side bag, too, and she was ready.

Once he had the big bike balanced, he jerked his head to let her know he was ready. Steadying herself with her hands on his shoulders, she swung her leg over and settled on the padded seat behind him. When she trailed her hands over his back to his waist and her thighs hugged his hips, Ryan made a mental note to go motorcycle shopping.

It didn’t take long to get to the diner, but when he helped her off, he saw her cheeks were pink from the cold. “Maybe we should just take the truck.”

“No!” Lauren smiled and rubbed her hands on her jeans to warm them up. “This is invigorating. I love it.”

He wasn’t so sure “invigorating” would be the right word when they were doing fifty, but he had the leather coat and gloves for her if it didn’t warm up as much as the forecast claimed it would.

Paige waved when they walked in and gestured toward an empty table near the back. The place was doing one hell of a Saturday-morning business, but she looked as though she had it under control. He wasn’t sure how she did it. The ability to carry more than one cup of coffee at a time without sloshing it everywhere was impressive enough, never mind remembering who ordered what.

Ryan slid into the booth across from Lauren, aware that nobody in the diner had given them a second look. Once you stopped attracting curious glances and triggering whispered conversations, he supposed you were a real couple.

Paige barely slowed down as she dropped off their coffees and took their order, but when she brought their food, she managed to stand still for a minute.

“They accepted our offer on the house,” she told them, happiness practically pouring off her in waves.

“The one with the barn and the land and the giant shower?” Lauren asked.

“That’s the one. Mitch wants to have some remodeling done before we move in, but I don’t know if I can wait.”

It was on the tip of Ryan’s tongue to make the offer. He was a builder and Mitch was his brother, after all, so it was only right he offer to handle the remodeling. And it would give him an excuse to stay in Whitford longer. With Lauren.

But he’d probably lose his business. At the very least, he’d definitely lose Wendi and he couldn’t afford that, so he kept his mouth shut.

“I definitely want to try to move in before Thanksgiving though.”

Ryan laughed. “I don’t think things move that fast.”

“You never know. The house is empty, so it’s just a matter of paperwork. I wonder if Rosie would mind if I hosted Thanksgiving this year. If she doesn’t, you guys will come, right?”

“Sure,” he said before Lauren had a chance to reply.

It was only after Paige ran off to deliver an order and Lauren gave him a funny look before digging into her scrambled eggs that he started second-guessing his answer. Had Paige been asking each of them—as one of her best friends and her brother-in-law—over for turkey in her new house, or had the invitation been to them as a couple?

He’d answered for them as a couple, he realized. Like the diners around them who’d stopped taking note of them being together, he’d taken for granted they were in the kind of relationship that assumed they’d spend Thanksgiving together. But, aside from the fact that he had no idea if
she
felt that way, Lauren had a son and a family of her own. He probably shouldn’t go around making those kinds of assumptions.

“Will we actually be able to see the ocean from the road?” Lauren asked, and the moment to apologize or even get her take on the situation seemed to have passed.

“Here and there, for a bit. I was thinking once we get down to the coast, we’d go down as far as Hampton Beach before cutting across to Brookline. We can stop there for a little while if you want.”

“I’d like that. I love the ocean in the fall, when the waves are choppy and gray, especially if the sky’s a little stormy.”

“We don’t want
too
stormy,” he pointed out, and she laughed.

By the time they’d lingered over third mugs of coffee and chatted with Paige a little more, the sun had put a serious dent in the early-morning autumn chill. Rolling out of Whitford, they headed east and rode for a couple of hours until they hit Route 1. After making a pit stop, they headed south down the coast.

He definitely needed to buy a motorcycle, he thought again. Lauren was having a great time, her body relaxed against his as she pointed things out to him and yelled to him over the wind. Mostly her hands rested casually at his waist and, when they were cruising along, he’d rest his left hand on her knee. There was intimacy to riding that made him feel closer to her than sitting side by side in a pickup.

By the time they rolled into Hampton Beach, he figured her legs and butt must be getting tired of straddling the bike’s seat. His certainly were, though he’d be loath to admit it. He found a place to park the motorcycle and gave her a hand off.

“I think I got numb from the waist down about an hour ago,” she said with a shaky laugh when her legs wobbled a little.

Once she was steady, he took her hand and led her to the public restrooms and then in search of food. After scarfing down some hot dogs and coffee, they walked out onto the beach. It wasn’t stormy, but the ocean was gray and a little whipped up.

“It’s so nice to be out of Whitford for a while,” she said, turning her face to the ocean breeze.

“When’s the last time you went out of town? For fun, I mean.”

“Not counting my monthly trek into the city to stock up on groceries, which definitely isn’t fun since I take my mother, I can’t even remember. Hailey and I did a salon trip the day before the wedding. She talked me into shopping, too, for the dress and at the lingerie store.”

“Remind me to thank Hailey.”

She gave him a naughty smile. “I’m wearing that bra-and-panty set right now.”

He groaned, instantly hard. “I have to spend another hour-plus on that bike.”

“And so do I. That thing really vibrates like crazy at certain RPMs.”

Yup, he was definitely going motorcycle shopping very, very soon.

They walked the beach for a while, hand in hand, watching the waves and the other people enjoying the warm fall day.

“I want to get home before the temperature starts dropping,” he finally said, reluctantly leading her back to where they’d parked.

Once he’d backed the big beast out and she’d climbed on behind him, Lauren leaned forward and ran her hands over his thighs. “Today’s been an amazing treat for me. You might just get lucky tonight.”

He was already lucky. Taking her to his bed would just be the cherry on top of the lucky-bastard sundae.

* * *

Rose was right, Lauren thought, standing in Ryan’s living room. His house was very beige. Not that it wasn’t gorgeous. She’d been stunned when he pulled into the driveway of a massive, beautiful house surrounded by impeccable landscaping. Sure, it was beige—or sandstone, as he reminded her—but that didn’t make it less attractive.

The inside was attractive, too, but looking around, it reminded her of one of the model homes that builders used to sell to customers. They were done up to look like real houses, right down to decorations on the walls, but nobody really lived there. Even cutting him slack because he’d been away a month, the house didn’t feel like Ryan’s home to her somehow. Despite a few signs of man-debris lying around, it felt more like a hotel.

He gave her the grand tour and everything fell in line with what a show house would look like. His kitchen was gorgeous, though she suspected it was largely wasted on him. The half bath was nice, too. Upstairs, he showed her a massive game room over the garage and then three guest rooms and a very nice full bathroom.

Then he took her hand and led her back downstairs. Off the living room and down a short hallway she’d barely noticed, they came to his bedroom. It was huge, with a massive bed centered on the outside wall. She peeked into the master bath and her eyes widened. Beige tones or not, he’d spared no expense in the master suite.

It was when she turned back toward the door to face him that she smiled. On the wall behind him was a chaotic arrangement of photographs. They were in a variety of wood and metal frames of all shapes and sizes and colors, with no rhyme or reason to how they were hung. With a quick scan, she spotted Rose and Liz and what looked like a Christmas-card photo of Mike and Lisa’s boys. They were all there, she was sure.

“There you are,” she said softly.

He looked over his shoulder, frowning. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve been looking for some part of this house that’s really
you
. I found it.”

She watched his face soften as he looked over the photos. “I have business meetings here sometimes and I like to keep my personal life and business separate and I don’t want to keep them in a drawer, so there they hang.”

“I like it.” She walked to the bed and leaned over it, pressing on the mattress with her hands. “I also like this bed. Mattress is a little on the hard side, though.”

“It’s not the only thing.” She jumped a little when he stepped up behind her, so close she could feel his erection through their clothes.

“Are you serious? I’ve just started getting the feeling back in the lower half of my body.”

He slid his hand between her legs, rubbing the seam of her jeans. “Can you feel that?”

“Mmm-hmm.” She pushed against his hand, enjoying the delicious friction.

“Undo your jeans.”

She heard his zipper, followed by the rustle of a condom wrapper, and did as she was told.

Ryan grasped the waist of her jeans and tugged them, along with her panties, down over her thighs. Then he pressed one hand against her back, bending her over the bed, while the other guided his hard length into her.

She gasped at the deep penetration, putting one hand on the bed to steady herself. He tangled his fingers in her hair, tugging her head up so her back arched. The rush of heat weakened her knees, but his other hand went to her hip, holding her still so he could drive into her.

“All day long on that damn bike, with your body wrapped around me, I’ve thought about fucking you.” His fingers tugged at her hair while his strokes came faster and harder, driving her thighs against the edge of the mattress. “Then seeing your ass, like that, with you bent over my bed... You are...so...damn...sweet.”

He thrust hard with every word and Lauren bunched the covers in her fists, pulling them to her mouth.

“Scream. Nobody will hear you but me.”

The orgasm hit hard and strong and fast and she might have screamed. He released her hair and used both hands to rock her hips as he came, driving into her with hard, uneven strokes. Then, when the tremors had passed, he sank to the soft carpeting and, breathless and more than a little weak in the knees, she went down with him.

“Holy shit,” he said after a few minutes. “That was...I don’t even have a word for it.”

“Holy shit sums it up pretty well.” She stared up at the ceiling. “Nice carpeting, by the way.”

“Thanks. Hardwood’s all the rage in bedrooms now. Allergies and asthma and all that. But I like a nice carpet under my feet first thing in the morning.”

“That bed sure did look comfy.”

He chuckled, groping around for her hand. She laced her fingers through his and he squeezed. “I swear I had every intention of getting you
into
my bed.”

“Half-under it’s kind of close.”

An hour later, they were curled up on the couch, eating pizza delivered to the door. Lauren had to admit she liked that. Whitford didn’t have any place that delivered unless Fran was going by your place anyway and happened to be in a good mood. But she didn’t cook it for you.

The rosy afterglow of sex and the satisfaction of delicious, extra-cheese takeout were dimmed a little by the big old elephant in the room. Maybe not in the room, exactly, but it was taking up space in her head, anyway. She’d had a lot of time to think on the back of the bike, and her mind wasn’t going to rest until she knew what Ryan was thinking.

“So back at the diner,” she said, setting her crust on her paper plate, “you told Paige if she was all moved in and Rosie didn’t mind, that we’d go to her new house for Thanksgiving.”

He paused in midbite, then slowly chewed and swallowed. “Yeah, about that. I probably shouldn’t have answered for you.”

“I guess the question is, do you see us as...I don’t know, the kind of couple who goes to Thanksgiving dinner at the family’s together?”

He gave her a grin, which she knew preceded some funny comment meant to deflect the conversation away from becoming too serious. Or to keep her from asking questions he didn’t know the answers to. “Well, yeah. I’m your
you know, whatever
, right?”

“Yeah, you are.”

“But I know you have Nick and your parents to consider, so I should have put her off and talked to you first.”

She nodded, picking some of the crispy melted cheese off the crust to pop into her mouth. “So it’s whether or not I already had plans and not our relationship having a question mark?”

“You think our relationship has a question mark?”

“Don’t you?” Looking at her pizza crust was easier than looking at him, so she kept picking at it.

“I don’t think it has an exclamation point yet, but more than a question mark. Maybe one of those dot-dot-dot things?”