Any Way You Want It (26 page)

She considered that for a moment, then realized the brothers had moved on to talking about the band.

“So have you gotten a keyboardist yet?” Vittorio asked.

“No. We are just having whoever can fill in, or just set the keyboard up to play on its own. Last week we had Merrick.”

Vittorio made a face. “God, you’re better off not having a keyboard player at all.”

“You could come back,” Ren said, giving his brother an inviting look.

“No.” Vittorio’s answer was definite, as if this idea had been posed before.

Ren didn’t push the issue. Instead he took a sip of his drink.

“You play keyboards?” Maggie asked, knowing the answer was obvious, but feeling the need to dispel the tension between the two of them.

Vittorio nodded. “I do—but not like Ren. Isn’t that right, Renaldo?”

Ren’s head shot up, and he glared at his brother. He didn’t answer. Instead he ordered another drink.

Maggie stared at his profile. Renaldo? A cold chill curled down her spine. Renaldo.

She studied him, only stopping when Vittorio said, “Ren says you also play piano.”

Maggie glanced back at Ren for a moment, then turned to Vittorio, nodding. “Yes. Not well.”

Ren’s attention, which seemed focused some place faraway, returned to Maggie.

“She’s great. She plays better than most people I’ve ever met. But she tries too hard. She doesn’t allow herself to enjoy the music.”

Maggie blinked, surprised by Ren’s words. She hadn’t realized he thought so much about her playing. He’d said it was terrific, but not much else. She didn’t react, though. She couldn’t. She’d had too many years of Peter’s telling her that she wasn’t good to let go of.

“That’s an easy thing to do,” she heard Vittorio say.

Ren touched her, placing his hand over hers, his fingers and palms encompassing hers.

“She needs to believe she’s good.” His eyes were intent as they held hers. She could believe his sincerity, his absolute belief in her.

She suddenly felt overwhelmed by her feelings for this man. She stared into the amber and green eyes. Eyes of an old soul, and she knew in that instant that if she allowed herself to dream, to imagine, she could fall in love with this man.

She broke their gaze, shaken by the very idea. Shaken by the idea that she could be falling in love with Renaldo Anthony. Renaldo D’Antoni.

“Umm,” she tried to gather herself. “I-I have to go use the restroom.”

She slid down off the barstool, her legs rubbery and weak under her. She held the edge of the bar for a moment to steady herself.

Ren still looked at her with that intensity of his. She could feel Vittorio’s eyes on her too, but she couldn’t look away from Ren long enough to read his expression.

She gathered herself and squeezed out from between them, heading blindly in the direction of the bathrooms, she hoped.

She needed a moment alone to get this stupid idea of love out of her mind. She would let that random thought go. She had to. She couldn’t take any more heartbreak. And Ren had made it pretty clear that’s all he had to offer.

And there was the fact of the name. That was still a stretch—to say the least. But that had her shaken too.

Ren watched Maggie walk away. Her movements seemed calm, but her agitation filled the air like a sudden cloud of thick smoke.

Once she disappeared into the restroom, he turned back to Vittorio, glaring at his brother.

“Why the hell did you use my real name?”

V ittorio hardly looked remorseful as a rare wide smile curved his lips. “You do know that you are in love with her, right?”

The question threw Ren. No, he wasn’t.

“You are,” Vittorio said, as if Ren had spoken his denial aloud. Then he nonchalantly took a drink from his highball glass—as if he hadn’t just made an announcement that was so ludicrous, so insane, that Ren couldn’t have spoken if he wanted to.

“I have to admit,” Vittorio said, after he finished swallowing his drink, “I never thought you’d get the sense to pick someone like Maggie.”

Ren, whose mind was still swirling with the idea that Vittorio believed he was in love, frowned at him.

“What are you talking about?”

Vittorio’s lips twisted. “I’m talking about the fact that you’ve finally gotten a clue. Maggie seems perfect for you.”

What on earth was his brother talking about? Vittorio had never struck him as a particularly romantic—or delusional—person.

Ren shifted away from his brother. “I think you are reading way too much into this, bro.”

“You’ve done it with her.”

Ren gave him a disbelieving look. “Well, yeah. But I’ve done it with a hell of a lot of women.” He leaned forward to peer into his brother’s eyes. “Vittorio, are you feeling all right?”

“I’m not talking about sex, you idiot.” Vittorio shook his head, giving Ren a look that stated he was truly doubting his intelligence.

But then Ren was starting to doubt it, too. He had no idea what his brother was talking about.

Vittorio sighed, setting aside his glass. “You shared energy with her. You gave yours to her.”

Ren nodded. “Yes. But that doesn’t mean I’m in love with her. Hell, I was just thinking I wanted to make her come like she never had before.”

Vittorio nodded, seeming to agree that was a good plan. “But you’ve never wanted to do that before, have you?”

Ren had already considered that fact. But now, with his brother making it into some monumental moment, he considered his past. Surely, somewhere in two centuries he’d shared his energy with another woman. Although off the top of his head he couldn’t recall who.

“Ren, I can feel your energy in her. It’s as much a part of her life force as her own energy now.

You’ve branded her. You’ve marked her as yours.”

Ren’s brows drew together so tightly he could practically feel them meeting in the middle of his forehead.

“Sharing energy doesn’t brand the person.”

“It does if you love that person.”

Suddenly irritation that Ren didn’t even understand coursed through his body. “Why the hell are you telling me this?”

“Because I can’t believe you are so stupid that you don’t actually know it yourself.” Vittorio was totally unshaken, his quiet confidence irritating Ren even more.

“You have no idea what you are talking about.”

Vittorio’s attention, however, wasn’t on Ren. He looked past his right shoulder, smiling politely.

“I’m sorry,” Maggie said from behind Ren. “Should I give you guys a minute?”

Ren turned on his barstool to see her standing a few feet away. From her expression, he didn’t get the feeling she’d actually heard what they were discussing, just the agitation in their voices.

Okay, his voice.

He stared at her for a moment. Tousled hair, intelligent eyes surveying the situation, her lush body and tentative smile clinging to bow-shaped lips.

He pulled in a deep breath, stealing a little of the energy in the room with the inhalation. And then he felt it. Her energy mingled with his. His vibe on her, in her.

Fear tightened his chest. He had marked her. He had made her his.

He did love her.

Maggie walked silently beside Ren, still confused by what she’d returned to in the bar. Ren hadn’t given her much chance to decipher the strange tension hanging in the air between the two brothers. He’d said their good-byes to Vittorio and Sheri, and herded her out the door.

She’d attempted small talk, feeling the need to fill the air between them. But she only received one-syllable answers.

Even in the courtyard, he didn’t acknowledge her any more than to move back for her to enter.

And again, as on the previous night, she had the strange feeling that whatever he and Vittorio had been discussing involved her.

Tonight, he actually seemed even more remote.

She stepped into his house, then turned to look at him, grateful for the light. Now, maybe she could read his expression.

But she couldn’t. Not in the least.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, even his voice distant, cool.

“Okay.” She frowned. What had happened in the brief time she’d been in the restroom?

She watched as he headed up the stairs. When he was no longer in view, she wandered around his living room, trying to decide what she should do.

She glanced back to the stairs, listening. She heard him walking around above her, his footsteps making the floorboards creak.

She immediately got the image of him up there pacing, as he did when he was agitated.

For a moment, uncertainty held her still. Worry kept her feet from moving. Was he upset with her?

Did he want to tell her something, but didn’t know how? Did he regret asking her to stay here with him?

Then she grimaced at her insecure thoughts. If any of those concerns were true, well, he needed to tell her. She deserved to know what was going on—what had changed so abruptly.

She headed for the stairs, not allowing her self-doubt to slow her pace. Something was bothering him, and he was going to tell her.

When she reached the top step, she saw she’d been exactly right. Ren was indeed pacing.

Maggie was surprised the varnish wasn’t worn away along what appeared to be his favorite path.

He paused when he saw her. He ran a hand through his hair, the gesture another sign of his agitation.

“What’s going on, Ren?” She managed to sound calm, despite the tightness in her chest.

What if he told her they were done? That he didn’t want her? That strange, almost pained look on his face—she was sure it was something bad, something he truly dreaded telling her.

She knew she only had three days with him, but she wasn’t ready to end it any sooner than she had to. She wasn’t ready to let go of this kind of passion. This kind of…she didn’t let her thoughts go there.

“Ren, what happened back at the bar?”

He didn’t answer her. He only looked at her with an expression that broke her heart—as if he wanted to tell something her so very much, but just couldn’t.

For a moment, she could swear she saw love in his eyes, but she quickly squelched that idea.

After all, he’d made it very, very clear love was the last thing he had to offer.

Still she couldn’t stop herself from walking over to him. That expression called to her. He wanted to say something and couldn’t.

She understood that. She had things she wanted to say to him too. That he’d made her feel more beautiful than anyone ever had. That he’d given her back so much that she’d lost. That she loved him.

But those things could never be said. She knew that. She knew that would force him to end what time they had left.

So instead, she rose on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his lips. Her hands framed his face, stroking the raspy skin of his jawline.

She loved him with her fingers and her mouth. She poured every ounce of her love for him into that single kiss, willing him to feel her emotions, even if he couldn’t hear them.

He remained still for a moment, then growled deep in his throat. His arms came up to capture her, and then he was devouring her.

Their touches always built to this sort of wildness, this sort of passion, and she reveled in it. She did love him, God help her. She didn’t want to feel this way. She wanted to keep herself removed from anything other than their passion, but she couldn’t.

She pressed kisses to his cheek, trailing along his jawline. Down his neck to the curls on his chest. Her fingers moved to his shirt, plucking open the buttons, exposing more and more of his muscled chest. She pushed the shirt off his shoulders, running her palms over the hard muscles as she did. Then she slowly ran them back down his chest, reveling in the strength of him.

Ren made a noise low in his throat, then reached for the hemline of Maggie’s shirt. Her hands left him to catch his fingers.

“No,” she said, smiling naughtily. “I want to touch you.”

His brows pulled together. “I want to please you.”

There was so much concern in his voice, so much masculine need to be sure she was taken care of, that her heart leapt in her chest. This was one of the reasons she couldn’t keep her heart separate from their passion. He made her feel treasured, adored—and she had wanted that her whole life.

“And I want to please you.” Her fingers released him and nudged his hands out of the way. To her surprise, he let his hands drop loosely to his sides.

She slipped the fingers of one of her hands into the waistband of his jeans, while the other worked the button open. The rasp of metal against metal mingled with his exhaled breath as she tugged down the zipper.

She pushed his jeans down over his narrow hips, taking his boxers with them.

She stepped back to admire him. Long muscular legs dusted with dark hair, a rock-hard stomach and chest. Her eyes wandered back down him, to his erection, thick and heavy, prodding his belly in tiny hops of anticipation.

She smiled slowly. Good Lord, he was gorgeous. And he was hers…for now. But maybe for forever, if she could just convince him.

For a moment, her smile slipped and her confidence wavered, but she pushed her doubts aside.

Something was keeping Ren from falling in love, but she didn’t think it was her, and she would work to help him get over whatever it was that was keeping his heart distant and aloof.

She stepped forward and touched the steely muscles of his stomach, letting her fingers slide slowly lower. She wasn’t giving up any of this without a fight.

Ren watched in dazed silence as Maggie’s little hands roamed over his body. Desire gripped him so tightly, he felt like he had to hold every single muscle within him in check, or he’d throw her down on the floor and drive himself into her over and over, until they were one. No separation, no beginning, no ending.

Maggie trailed her hands down over his hips, and kneeled in front of him.

He swallowed, watching her, never experiencing anything as arousing, as intense as this woman, on her knees before him. He should be the one kneeling before her. Bowed before the altar of Maggie.