Any Way You Want It (27 page)

She looked up at him, her hands framing his erection, touching him, but not quite touching where he most wanted her to.

She smiled, a slow sexy spread of her lips. His body tightened even more at the sight.

“You’ve become quite a tease,” he managed, his voice hoarse and low.

Her smile widened as if that idea pleased her. It pleased him too—as long as her teasing was for him alone. A violent wave of possessiveness joined his arousal, heightening it, making him nearly mad for her.

“Is it really teasing,” she asked, her fingers gently caressing, “if I intend to give you whatever you want?”

He made another noise in his chest. Damn.

Then Maggie leaned forward and ran the tip of her tongue up the sensitive underside of his cock.

He could no longer keep his hands down at his sides; they reached for her shoulders, buried themselves in her hair.

She took his rock-hard length into her hands, angling him so she could take him into her hot, excruciatingly delicious mouth.

His fingers knotted in her hair, and his head fell back as he lost track of anything beyond what her mouth was doing to his body.

She licked him, sucked him, her tongue swirling and tasting.

The muscles in his thighs bulged as his release surged closer and closer. In the back of his mind, he told himself that he didn’t want to orgasm this way, without her, but his body didn’t listen. His hips bucked forward and she took him deeper between her lips. Her hand curled around the rest of the length that her mouth couldn’t take; both continued to stroke, consuming him.

He shouted out her name as he spurted into her throat, wave after wave of ecstasy washing over her. She didn’t pull back, she rode the waves with him, guiding him back to earth.

Finally, he opened his eyes to see her still kneeling before him, a small satisfied smile on her glistening lips.

His body immediately reacted again. He reached down, catching her under the arms, pulling her to her feet. Then he swung her up into his arms, intent on laying her on the bed and undressing her slowly. He attempted to take a step, only to realize his pants were still wrapped around his ankles.

Maggie’s beautiful laughter filled the room as he fumbled with his shoes, trying to toe them off so he could kick aside his pants.

Ren laughed too, and realized there was something incredibly sexy and appealing about laughing at a moment like this. Appealing and addictive.

His laugh faded.

Maggie noticed immediately, her own laugh fading too. “What’s wrong?”

He didn’t answer immediately, because he didn’t know what to do—he couldn’t let her go, but he couldn’t keep her.

One of Maggie’s hands came up to gently touch his cheek. “Are you okay?”

No. No, he wasn’t. But he nodded.

She leaned up and pressed a sweet kiss to his lips.

“Are you no longer in imminent danger of tripping?”

Despite the turmoil inside him, he smiled. “Yes. I think I’ve got things under control.”

“Good. Let’s go to the bed. I’ve got other things I want to do with you tonight.”

Again, despite himself, he smiled. “I have created a monster.”

She laughed, but then shook her head. “No. You’ve made me happy.”

Her words should have made him uncomfortable, but instead, he just felt proud, and really, really good.

Maggie awoke, cocooned in the usual darkness of Ren’s bed, although it was no longer a source of confusion. Now, it was a comfort. A nice place to be.

She curled up against his side. As was his way, he didn’t move; he was sleeping like the dead.

She sighed contentedly, with well-earned exhaustion. Even now, the memories of last night were enough to curl her toes. They’d made love, slow and steady and mind-blowing. The entire time, he’d watched her, as if memorizing every nuance of her reactions to him.

She stroked his hair and couldn’t suppress the words bubbling up in her chest, desperate to be spoken.

“I love you,” she whispered, still touching his silky locks. Ren slept on, oblivious to her feelings, which was probably for the best.

She sighed again and stretched. She should be tired, but she felt great, her whole body alive.

Carefully, she crawled out of the curtained bed. She wandered downstairs, hoping that she’d soon feel like crawling back into bed with Ren, But every cell in her body was vibrating with energy. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, but she was finding it hard to stay put.

She considered going back up and waking Ren for a little more lovin’. She rooted around in her purse, finding her cell phone to check the time. Yep, “afternoon delight” certainly fit.

She crossed over to the windows. Watery sunlight filled the courtyard. Wispy clouds drifted across the sky. It didn’t look like rain again, but it didn’t look as if the sun would totally prevail, either.

She glanced back up to the stairs, again debating going back to bed. She decided against it. Ren was an incredibly deep sleeper, possibly a sign that he didn’t get enough rest, and he did have to work tonight.

Besides, she had something she wanted to check out. She knew it was crazy, utterly crazy, but since Vittorio had called him Renaldo, that far-fetched thought about Renaldo D’Antoni had refused to go away. She had to prove to herself that it was nothing more than a coincidence.

She hurried back upstairs, moving on tiptoes, even though she knew there was really no purpose.

Ren would never wake. That realization lingered, adding to this outlandish idea she had.

She dismissed it, but didn’t dismiss her plan. At the very least, a little research would get rid of this crazy idea. And it was crazy. As if Ren could be—she couldn’t even say it in her mind. Ren wasn’t some sort of immortal being.

She shook her head at her own craziness. But she did hurriedly get dressed.

F inding the library was relatively easy. Stepping inside had been a little more difficult. She couldn’t believe she was doing this. Yet, she knew she had to, for her own piece of mind.

She stared at the large front doors of the library. Research wouldn’t hurt; it was what she did for a living, after all. Just not usually on the men she was sleeping with. Of course, she’d never suspected that she was sleeping with a person who should have been dead over two centuries ago.

“This is nuts,” she muttered to herself, even as she moved up the steps toward the door.

She walked inside, strolling up and down the stacks, probably appearing to any of the other browsers like someone casually looking for a good read. But she knew what she wanted.

Renaldo D’Antoni. A lesser-known composer. She perused the shelves, half-expecting a book about classical music to leap off the shelf in front of her. After all, coincidences had happened since she set foot in this city. A book toppling off the shelf in front of her wouldn’t be that strange, would it?

But no books offered themselves up to her. So she stopped her wandering and headed to the bank of computers at the front of the library near the checkout desk.

Carefully, she typed in Renaldo D’Antoni, only pausing once at her own insanity. But once she was finished, she hit Enter with decisive force. She wouldn’t discover anything, and she would be able to laugh about the ridiculousness of the notion.

And if she did discover something? Well, of course, she wouldn’t.

She printed out the list of books with references to Renaldo D’Antoni, then headed back to the stacks to find the books.

Once she had four books piled in her arms, she headed to the back of the library to a table. She set down the books, then settled herself onto one of the tweed-covered chairs.

Taking a deep breath, as if she was getting ready to dive into a deep pool of water, she opened the first book and searched for the section about the composer, who was long gone. And certainly not back in the French Quarter sleeping in a decadently comfy, red velvet bed.

She paused. She really should be back there with him, not on some wild goose chase.

But she forced herself to focus on the words in front of her. She softly read the words aloud.

“Renaldo D’Antoni was born in 1785. Believed to be the illegitimate son of John Frederick Stansfield, the fifth Duke of Ashfordshire, and Italian opera singer Orabella D’Antoni. D’Antoni disappeared in 1815, right at the cusp of achieving real success.”

Maggie considered that. So there was no actual date of death? The hairs on her arms rose. She attributed the reaction to the humming air-conditioning overhead.

She read on, but the book told little more about him other than discussing his better-known pieces, including the opera playing at the Opera House the night it burned down.

She pushed that book aside and reached for the next.

This book also noted who his father was suspected to be, and made mention of his disappearance. Maggie was somewhat familiar with a few of his pieces, but she’d never known he had disappeared. Interesting.

She flipped through another book, this one showing copies of his compositions, actually done in his own hand.

Maggie stared at the nuances of the handwriting. The flares at the end of the notes, the varying pressures of the quill.

This was one of the methods she used to identify composers. That and the style of the music itself. Composers often had favorite note combinations, favorite keys, even favored instruments to highlight in their compositions.

But without the pieces back in her office, she couldn’t do an in-depth analysis. She could compare the pieces in the book to each other, and she could see recurrences in style. Renaldo D’Antoni had a real flair, signatures in his music he maybe didn’t know about himself.

One of them being a partiality to the minor keys—the key of the piece Maggie had heard Ren playing.

Then she recalled the beginnings of a song written on the pad back in Ren’s apartment. Written in a minor key.

She shook her head at her own thoughts. That was hardly incriminating evidence. Pushing that book aside, she moved on to another. This one again mentioned his disappearance and his illegitimacy. His presumed father sponsored much of his music. Renaldo, when not entertaining the aristocracy, stayed at one of the Duke’s estates in Essex.

Maggie’s fingers froze. Where had the compositions she’d been sent been found? In the attic on an estate in…Essex sounded right, although she couldn’t quite remember.

Another chill stole over her. Darn air-conditioning.

She suppressed a shudder and read on, mumbling the words aloud.

“His mother eventually married the fourth son of an earl, and gave birth to another son. Although D’Antoni’s half brother was a musician of some renown himself, Vit”—Maggie stumbled over the name, ice pouring into her veins—“Vittorio Ridgewood never achieved the fame of his older brother.”

She shivered. Okay, that was a coincidence that was pretty hard to explain. Very, very hard to explain. In fact, everything up to this point could be explained away. Strange, but not proof of anything. But Vittorio Ridgewood—that she couldn’t ignore.

She stared at the words on the page, just to prove to herself that she didn’t make up what she’d just read. The words stared back at her in bold black. But what was she looking at? Was she really and honestly thinking Ren was Renaldo D’Antoni, and somehow still alive? And not only alive but…

She looked at his birth year, then the year he disappeared. He would have been thirty years old.

The age Ren said he was.

Okay, this was nuts. Absolutely nuts. She shoved the book away from herself, then stared blankly, trying to decide what to do with this information.

Ren Anthony was Renaldo D’Antoni. And he was…immortal. A ghost? A vampire? A monster of some sort?

She immediately dismissed the monster theory. He wasn’t that. She’d certainly never felt fear in his presence. Good Lord, she’d been more comfortable with him than any man in her past. And he was dead? Or undead? Or…

She made a noise in the back of her throat.

These all had to be weird coincidences, right? After all, there really wasn’t any other feasible explanation. Vampires didn’t exist.

She continued to sit there, stunned. Then she reached for the final book. Surely something in this one would prove that all she’d read thus far was just strange happenstance.

She checked the index at the end of the book, then turned to the page where the segment on Renaldo D’Antoni began. She didn’t have the section even fully open when she froze. In front of her was the only known picture of the composer Renaldo D’Antoni, a rough charcoal sketch. It was completely undeniable proof. She was looking at Ren. Her Ren.

Maggie had just spent several evenings making love with Renaldo D’Antoni.

Ren awoke and knew immediately that Maggie wasn’t in the house. He wasn’t sure if he should be worried or relieved. He definitely couldn’t say he was happy.

She’d told him she loved him. He’d heard her whispered words even through the blackness of his slumber. And somehow he knew they weren’t a dream. She had said them.

Not that he’d needed to hear the words to know it. He’d seen it on her face last night as they’d made love. The emotions was there as clear as day—or as clear as he remembered day. And had he continued making love to her? Had he ended their lovemaking with a kiss in which he again filled her with his energy?

He’d done both. Even knowing she loved him and was in imminent danger, he hadn’t stopped.

What the hell was he thinking? And what the hell was he going to do?

Maggie had no idea how long she wandered around the French Quarter, trying to digest what she’d just discovered. How did one deal with finding out that the man you were insanely attracted to, and in love with, should have been dead many decades ago?

She didn’t know. She had no idea whatsoever.

But she knew one thing. If Ren had meant her any harm, he’d had more than his share of opportunities to do so. From the first night on, no one had known where she was. Erika and Jo had never been to his place. Maggie had never told them where it was.