N. Walters - MacNamaras Lady

She loved him. She had to trust him if their relationship was going to have a chance to work. She did trust him. She knew the man he was today. That was all that mattered.

T.S. swallowed the lump in his throat. Here was what he’d always wanted. Acceptance. Unconditional and unreserved. He could tell from the look in Missy’s eyes that she meant what she said. She was willing to put this aside and take him as he was.

Strangely enough, that made it easier to tell her. Made him want to tell her. He wanted a clean slate between them. No more secrets. He was no longer a frightened, insecure teenage boy. He was a man who loved a woman. That meant being courageous enough to open up all the wounds from his past.

“My father left when we were kids. I don’t remember him much. He was a big, brawny Scot who’d come over to America to work and hooked up with my mom, a third generation Greek. Cam took after him and I favored Mama’s side of the family. Anyway, when she got pregnant, they got married. Tried to make it work. Her family didn’t like him and it drove a wedge between them. He left just after my fourth birthday. Cam was eight.”

“Your poor mother.” She lifted his hand from her heart and kissed the center of his palm. He closed his hand around hers.

“Yeah. She did her best, but she worked two jobs, sometimes three.” He raked his fingers through his hair, realized what he was doing and made himself stop. He didn’t like thinking about the past, about the poverty and hardships. But they’d shaped his childhood and made him into the man he was today.

“We lived in the projects and grew up fast and hard. I did my best to stay out of trouble, but Cam…” He shook his head. “Cam drew trouble like a magnet.”

“What happened?”

“There was a girl I liked. I’d been trying to get up the nerve to ask her out on a date for months.”

“You?” Missy’s shock warmed his heart and made him grin.

“Yeah, I was a late bloomer. Even at eighteen I was scrawny and a few inches shorter than I am now.”

Missy smiled. “Bet you still looked hot.”

Her gentle teasing made it easier to go on. “My brother said it was all set. She’d go out with me on a double date with her friend and Cam. I was so excited. Cam even let me drive his old beat-up Dodge Charger. I felt like a man. What I was, was an idiot.”

“No, not that. Never that. You were young and trusting.”

He snorted. “I’d never been trusting, not in the neighborhood I grew up in. Kids got shaken down for their lunch money all the time and some even had their shoes stolen right off their feet if they weren’t tough enough to keep them.”

He shook his head. No, he’d never been innocent and trusting. At least not with anyone but his brother. He’d idolized Cam and his brother’s betrayal had hurt worse than going to prison had.

“I never saw this coming. Cam and his girl wanted to stop at a liquor store on the way to the party we were going to. I sat in the car and tried to chat up the girl. She kept looking at the door of the liquor store. Should have clued me in but I was too nervous, wondering how far I was going to get with her.”

“Of course you were.”

Her dry tone made him chuckle. “Hey, I was an eighteen-year-old guy who’d lusted after this girl for forever.”

“Go on,” Missy encouraged.

“My brother comes hurrying out with his girl. They dive into the backseat and tell me to drive. I drove. The cops pulled us over a few blocks away. They’d held up the liquor store and shot the clerk. Cam fired on the cops and shot one of them. Thankfully, no one died. We were all charged. I was driving the getaway car.”

“But you weren’t involved. You didn’t know.”

T.S. snorted. “Like anyone other than my mother believed that. Because a cop was involved they wanted to make examples out of all of us.” He rolled his shoulders and rubbed his hands over his face, wishing he could erase his past. “I went to prison. When I got out, I started working construction and eventually started my own company. End of story.”

Missy flung herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck. “I’m so sorry, Theo.” He closed his eyes and savored her heat, the press of her body against him. There was nothing sexual about the touch. It was meant to comfort him. And, strangely enough, it did.

He shifted so he could pull her onto his lap and hold her properly. They sat there for a while, simply being with one another. The music played low in the background. This was what he wanted for the rest of his life.

“Tell me about your past, Missy.” He wanted to know everything about her. “I know my comment hurt you when I meant it to do the opposite.” He brushed a lock of hair away from her face and stroked a finger down her smooth cheek.

“Later.” She leaned in and kissed him. It was a soft, gentle exploration as her tongue stroked his. He sucked in a breath as his balls tightened and his cock hardened. His hands closed around her. Her breasts pressed against his chest, the soft mounds compressing against his thick, heavy muscles.

Her hands stroked through his hair and gripped his skull, holding him still for her kiss. He wasn’t going anywhere. He was in heaven.

Missy continued to use her mouth, lips and tongue to drive him crazy. Yet, there was no hurry. This was different from earlier today. This was the first step in the rest of their relationship. They were taking it to a new level and they both knew it.

He fisted his hand in her hair and angled her head so he could get deeper. She moaned and he swallowed the small sound. He kissed her with everything he had, letting her know how much he wanted and needed her.

When he pulled back a long time later, they were both breathless. His heart was pounding a relentless beat that matched the throbbing in his cock.

She slid off his lap and he couldn’t hold back a groan when her hip grazed his erection. She smiled—that womanly, seductive one he loved so much. It was filled with understanding and promise.

She held out her hand. “Come with me.”

Missy was no longer cold. She was hot. Burning with repressed sexual need. But it went so much deeper than that. T.S. had told her about his past. He’d trusted her enough to open up to her even after she’d told him it wasn’t necessary. She owed him the same truth.

But later. Much later. Now she wanted, no needed, to reconnect with him physically. To let him know how much she cared.

She loved him.

There was no doubt in her mind whatsoever. Her well-laid plans were out the window. T.S. might not be the sophisticated businessman she’d pictured herself with but he was now the only man she could ever imagine being with.

He was stubborn, opinionated, loyal, caring, intelligent and hardworking. He had a checkered past. But so did she. He touched her soul, making her feel things she hadn’t thought possible.

Whenever she’d envisioned a future with a man it had been more of a concept. The man of her dreams would fit easily into her life.

Missy almost snorted aloud. There was nothing easy about T.S. MacNamara. And, surprisingly enough, she liked it that way.

With his hand locked around hers, she led him down the short hall to her bedroom. There was no need to turn on the lights. There was more than enough illumination from the hallway and the streetlight filtering in through the window.

He tugged on her hand. She stopped and turned toward him. His hands slid beneath her fleecy top, shoving it upward. Missy raised her hands over her head, helping him as he pulled it from her.

He made a sound of pleasure in the back of his throat as his hands covered the lacy cups of her bra. It was white and contrasted with her dark skin.

“Chocolate and cream,” he murmured. “That’s what you remind me of.” He ran his fingers up the straps, slipping them beneath. “I do love your appreciation of fancy lingerie.”

He tugged the straps down her arms, exposing her breasts. She shivered, aroused by this touch and the way he gazed at her with such fire in his eyes.

“I missed you.” She’d said the words before she’d even realized she was going to. But they were true. She had missed him every day they’d been apart. She’d missed talking to him, sharing a meal and her day with him, sharing a bed with him.

“Me too.” He leaned down and laved the skin around her nipple with his tongue. The wet heat was exquisite, but he never quite touched her where she wanted him. Missy grabbed his head and tugged his mouth to her nipple.

He chuckled and then lapped at the hard peak. “That what you want, babe?”

Cocky bastard. He knew what she wanted. He took the nub into his mouth and sucked. Ribbons of desire coursed through her limbs before gathering at her core. Oh yeah, that’s what she wanted.

He went down on his knees, his hands coasting along her rib cage and settling on her hips. “You don’t need these.” He pushed his hands inside the elastic waistband of her sweats and shoved them down her legs. She kicked them away.

She was clad in white lace panties that matched the bra that was still tangled beneath her breasts. Impatient, she undid the hooks of her bra and let it fall to the floor. T.S. wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his face against her, simply holding her.

Missy’s throat went tight at the suppressed emotion behind the hug. She ran her fingers through his hair and turned her face upward. “Not that you don’t look sexy in your suit, because you do. But you have way too many clothes on.”

A brief smile broke the austere planes of his face and his eyes practically twinkled as he stood. “Let’s see what we can do about that.” He shed his suit jacket, tossing it over the chair in the corner of her bedroom. He kicked off his shoes and bent to remove his socks. “Why don’t you get comfy?”