I laughed and kissed him again. “I need a few minutes to recharge.”
“I can work with that.”
Gently, he withdrew from me, and I crawled up the bed and collapsed onto my pillow. Ronan sidled up beside me, pressed his naked chest to my back, and brushed my hair out of his way so he could kiss my shoulders, my neck. Jesus, the man was hard again already; his erection pressing between my thighs.
“What’s with you tonight anyway?” I reached up to sink my fingers in his hair. “You’re in an unusually virile mood.” Actually, there was nothing unusual about it. Ronan didn’t have an off-switch. He’d been known to wake with only a kiss and be inside me a minute later if that’s what I wanted. “Are we celebrating something?”
“Nope,” he said. “Oh, except that Hector and I got the bid.”
“You did?” I screeched and we both glanced fearfully at the baby monitor on my nightstand.
Ronan had built an addition on to Bibi’s house—August’s room—where my work shed used to be. It took up most of the backyard, but leaving Bibi alone to get our own place would break her heart, and I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her anyway. We were a tight fit but too happy to notice.
The monitor remained quiet and I turned my arched brow on Ronan.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He pulled me on top of him so that I lay flush with his warm, broad chest, his smile lazy. “I’m telling you now.”
I rolled my eyes, laughing. “Well, damn, that’s amazing news. But what does that mean, exactly?”
“It means we are now the proud owners of that rotting little cottage down on Beachside.”
“God, Ronan, I’m so happy for you,” I said, kissing him and marveling at how fast life moved.
The Bluffs apartments Ronan’s uncle had lived in had been condemned. As much as Ronan hated to unhouse the tenants, there was nothing he could do. The best option was to sell the land to the city, then use the profit to upgrade the apartment complex at Cliffside. He hired a contractor, Hector Morales, and together they put in a new HVAC system, a new roof, and upgraded the fixtures, all without raising the rent one penny. It was imperative to Ronan that he provide decent homes for people without strangling them financially.
Throughout the process, he and Hector hit it off and decided to use Ronan’s restitution money from the state to start their own construction business…with a best-selling author and a Grammy-winning rock star as key investors. The only way Ronan would allow Holden or Miller to give him any money was if they were going to get it back once the business took off. Which it would, because I knew Ronan would work his ass off to make sure he let no one down. Just last week, he and Hector had put in a bid to buy the “rotting little cottage on Beachside” that they planned to flip and make beautiful. Make a home for someone. A family, maybe.
“I was thinking,” Ronan said, settling beneath me and brushing my braids away from my face. “We’re going to need some help with the remodel on the cottage. Neither Hector or I have the first damn clue about backsplashes, or lighting fixtures, or…whatever.”
I grinned. “You want me to choose the design elements? Or…whatever?”
“You’re the artist,” he said as if it were the simplest thing in the world.
It was total, how much he believed in me. And with Ronan being back in our lives and taking his share of the stress off my shoulders, I’d been able to make my shop what I wanted—attending craft fairs, advertising, and reaching out to other artists for collaborations and showcases. For the first time since its second grand opening, Rare Earth turned a profit three months in a row.
“Sounds like a challenge,” I said. “I’m in.”
“Yeah?”
“I’d love to. Anything to help. We’ll be like the house flippers on HGTV. But let’s be more Chip and Joanna, less Tarek and Christina.”
Ronan stared at me blankly. “I don’t know who any of those people are, but…sure.”
I laughed and lowered my mouth to his. He kissed me back with intention, but I still couldn’t feel my legs. I slid like butter off of his hard, warm body, and cuddled against him.
“Not yet, you beast.”
“Water?”
Without waiting for an answer, he drew on his flannel sleep pants and padded out to the kitchen. He returned with a glass of water, handed it to me, then stripped naked again and climbed into bed.
I laughed. “You’re insatiable.”
“You’re naked,” he said. As if that explained everything.
I took a few sips, then curled into the warm solidity of him. His fingers played in my hair while mine trailed over his skin, his tattoos. The owl watched me, and I smiled. Ronan had explained it was for his mother. The owl symbolized wisdom and vigilance and was her favorite animal. He got the tattoo so she could watch over him and make sure he always did right by those who needed him. To trust and keep going.
She’d be so proud of him, a thousand times over.
“Maybe, just maybe, after you and Hector get that house flipped and after the Boardwalk Crafts Fair, we can take some time off,” I said. “I think we’ve both earned a vacation.” I frowned. “But hold up, do I remember what that word means? I think I do…”
“Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know. France, maybe.” I ran my fingertip over his luscious lips. “You can kiss me under the Eiffel Tower.”
“Sounds like mushy romantic shit. The kind you hate.”
“Maybe I’m changing my mind about mushy romantic shit. I blame you. The Prom night you made for us with the butterflies and the lights… I was helpless to resist.”
“We’ll go wherever you want,” he said.
I pressed my cheek to listen to his heartbeat. “Paris might be a bit much for a two-and-a half-year-old and I don’t think I can be that far away from August just yet.”
“Me neither.”
Ugh, this man.
“A long weekend in San Francisco, maybe?”
“That works too.” Ronan nuzzled my neck. “I’d settle for anywhere I can make you come until you scream without worrying about waking up toddlers or grandmothers.”
“Amen to that,” I said, listening to the rain and reveling in the feel of Ronan in my arms. In my bed. Back in my life after three years of excruciating absence.
“Speaking of France,” I said after a minute, “I got a very interesting order from Paris last week on the shop’s website.”
“What kind of order?”
“For a wedding ring. Do we know an Albert Bernard?”
“Don’t think so.”
“He’s a lawyer—and an artist on the side, apparently, because he designed the ring himself and it’s…”
“Ugly as hell?” Ronan supplied. “Tacky? Ridiculous?”
“Just the opposite, it’s stunning. Mixed metals, which I love—silver with gold edging and an asymmetrical configuration of three stones. An aquamarine, a blue topaz, and a diamond in the center.”
I frowned, something nipping at the edge of my awareness again, like it had when the order first came in.