Genetics?
“That our children have a higher chance of—”
CHILDREN? Did he just say children?
“And I’ll spend the rest of my life in fear of—”
In a mad rush I tackle him, the kiss desperate and urgent, my body launching into his with such force that we fall onto the bed, a mass of pillows rolling off and bouncing, pelting our legs as his mouth meets mine, rougher with each second, claiming me.
“I can’t be without you,” he says in a hurried gasp. “I’ve tried. You’re forthright and honest and the most upfront woman I’ve ever met. You have an inner core that makes you turn toward the good. You make me want to be good, too.” He kisses the end of my nose and pulls back, half in shadows and half in moonlight. The room is timeless, his face pensive. Thoughtful.
“And you have a very weird family.”
“And a malicious cat,” I add, peppering his jaw with kisses.
“You don’t give a damn what people think, at the same time you care about what people feel. And you took on my dad.” I can feel his grin through our kiss. “That’s when I fell in love with you.”
“The same day you dumped me you fell in love with me?”
“Love isn’t rational.”
I fell in love with you.
“When you said you took a chance on me, that was...”
“My being an idiot. Not the taking a chance part.” He pulls my shirt out from the waistline of my skirt and rests his palms against my back. The feeling charges me, making my skin hum. “The jumbled mess of thinking that I should just walk away. That the pain of being with you outweighed the joy.”
Joy.
“And you’re here because...”
“Because I couldn’t stay away.”
“You had to pretend to be Alfredo the Plumber in order to tell me this?”
“Did it work?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask me again. At breakfast.” The smoldering look he gives me as he pulls me to him in a kiss makes my toes tingle. Dishes on the tray rattle and he sits up, moves the tray, and stands in the moonlight, the lines of his clothed body like a work of art.
I stand pressing in for a kiss, and begin to unbutton his shirt. “Forthright, huh?” One knowing touch as I reach down makes him suck air in through his teeth.
“I like a woman who knows what she wants.”
“Then you must really like me, because I know exactly what—and who—I want.”
My own breath is foreign to me, the spellbinding touch of his fingers on my cheek like a caress from a different world. He’s different now, deeper and richer in his intents, and I want to believe him. Need to believe him. My body responds before my heart, so quick to react that I pause, listening to the beat of blood pounding through me, all rushing to the surface of my skin to get closer to him.
I hold nothing back now and invite him to cast aside whatever keeps him from surrendering to the new reality we’ve woven just by being together, right here. Right now. I don’t need to hear him tell me he loves me—it’s too soon for that—but I need him to show me.
Show me.
His hands take in my skin like a man in charge, grasping what he wants, possessing it. As I reach for his pants and unsnap them, his fingers make quick work of undoing my bra, then his heat is on me, warm palms cupping my br**sts, the pleasure of being together and intimate nakedly on display in the look he gives me, open and revealing.
Trust. He trusts me, now, and joy pours through my body like liquid fire, my lips quivering from emotion, my whole being at rest and yet in eager motion. He slips my shirt, then bra, off my shoulders and onto the floor as he steps out of his clothes. We’re both na**d and raw before one another in the blink of an eye, and we both feel it. The shockwave of peace and hope, of arousal and yearning.
Of coming home.
“This is what you want,” he murmurs against my shoulder as he seeds it with tiny kisses, repeating my own words back.
“Yes.”
“Me, too. More than anything. This is...everything. You are everything.”
“Then let’s be everything together.”
“High standards.”
“I know you’re an overachiever.”
His deep, throaty chuckle morphs into something more sensual as he gently guides me to the bed, the full length of him covering me. All my jokes disintegrate, replaced by a moment-by-moment awareness that makes me feel ancient, alive and immortal, regenerated kiss by kiss, stroke by stroke, lick by—
“Oh, there,” I whisper, the sound half groan, half sigh, as he makes me speechless once more. We’re just kissing, but it’s so much more, his mouth sensual and alive, our hands roaming and remembering, searching and loving. Each lush kiss makes me go to a level inside myself that I didn’t know I possess, and Declan’s right there with me, a fiery, passionate presence.
“You know,” he says as my hands ride up from the grooves of his hipbones, over his sharp belly, abs like inverted shells under perfect, musky skin, “this isn’t part of your evaluation.”
I laugh as he kisses the base of my throat, my fingertips memorizing him, reaching down to feel his tight ass. “How do you know? Maybe this is in my app.”
“Do you find the lovemaking aesthetically pleasing?” he says, his hands making damn certain that I do.
“I need more time and observation to make that kind of determination,” I say in a faux-prim voice.
The teasing fades as he kisses me again, then dips his head down to tongue one tight rosebud nipple. Again? This is new. Then again, we’ve never had all the time in the world, our own hotel room, and a bed the size of my backyard.
“As you wish,” he adds, showing me exactly how to perform exemplary customer service, the rough rasp of the soft hair on his thighs and calves tickling my hips. We’re a slow, languid twinning of warmth now, and Declan stops to look at me.
Really look at me.
No modestly, no walls to hide emotion behind. We watch each other for longer than is decent, the air telescoping to a pinpoint, his eyes a cavern of delight. He’s inviting me to join him with this look, and I intertwine my fingers in his, shift my thigh just so to stroke him, the resulting gasp the only answer either of us needs to give.
The moonlight spilling into the room gives me all the visual access I could wish to revel in, my eyes feasting on the sharp lines of his body, how muscle dominates in all the empty spaces between bones. Fluid and graceful, Declan moves like a man who knows himself, and I adopt the same, even as it is not in my nature.