Chapter 41
KARA
It was warm in New York when we landed, and the second the cabin door opened, the pleasant air permeated every inch of the airplane. A man in black pants and a royal blue uniform shirt boarded the plane, an ID badge clipped to his shirt that announced he was US Immigration.
Shawn produced two US Passports and handed them over.
The official swiped each one through his tablet before examining them and glancing us over. Satisfied, he typed something on the screen. “Is this your final destination?”
“No,” Shawn answered.
We weren’t staying in New York?
The man entered that into his tablet and returned the passports with a nod. When he moved to the cockpit to check in the crew, Shawn tucked them back into his suit jacket. It was ridiculous, but the idea of him keeping our passports together and close to his heart . . .
He loved me. I never thought it’d be possible. Not just for me, but for him.
“We’re not staying here?” I asked. All he did was smile. “Where are we going?”
“I told you, one of the seven breweries in North America.”
I was weary from traveling, ready to be off the plane, and long before I’d made out the New York skyline, I’d assumed this was our destination. “Could you be less specific? How long is the flight?”
“Two and a half hours.”
When I sighed, his expression shifted and his eyes clouded with doubt. “You want to stay here? Because we can.”
“No, no, it’s fine. I’m still tired and being ungrateful.”
The longer I thought about it, the more I like the idea of not staying. It would feel more like a getaway somewhere else. Not just a getaway from my previous life in the States, but a getaway . . . with Shawn.
The appeal grew every second.
The refueling stop and break for the crew didn’t take long, nor did the flight to our next destination. While our luggage was loaded into a sleek sedan, a man handed Shawn a set of keys and a clipboard to sign for them.
The airport itself was too far away for me to figure out where we’d landed, although it obviously was too small to be one of the larger ones like Chicago or Charlotte.
“Okay, I give up,” I said. “Please tell me where we are.”
“I have a place outside of Tomahawk. I thought before we go back, we could visit the Madison plant.”
“Wisconsin?”
He nodded, but he had no idea that what he’d said had just set a ticking clock in my head. Before we go back. I didn’t want to think about that or my feelings about returning to Europe. We’d just arrived.
The hour-long drive was pleasant, and we chatted about easy things.
Books, movies, our siblings becoming parents.
The sun hung low, painting oranges and yellows across the sky when it broke through treetops.
But as the forest closed around the road and houses faded from view, the time change began to catch up with me.
“When Ethan made me pass out, did you hit him?” I asked it quietly.
“I almost did.” His face was dark and serious. “That was difficult to watch.”
“Yeah.” Why had I brought it up? “I was surprised to see you there. I mean, I was so happy to see you. But surprised.”
“I’d been told to stay in the car, but then I saw Ethan carrying you.”
And he had to get to me, because he always got what he wanted, didn’t he?
If the roles had been reversed, would I have done the same? Left the safety of the car while a gun battle raged, to see him again? I studied him, his long fingers curled around the steering wheel, his tousled, chocolate-colored hair.
Yes. Oh, definitely yes.
We shopped for several days’ worth of groceries at a supermarket, and I found this activity oddly intimate.
The only other man I’d done that with was Paul.
And I was glad he’d wanted us to do it together, rather than have someone stock the kitchen for us.
For a man with an excess of money, for the most part, he didn’t live like one.
It was seven o’clock when the car turned off the road. The driveway wound through dense forest and up a small hill, followed by a much steeper one. Once we crested it, the lights of a house shone through the leaves.
“This was what I expected,” I remarked when it came into view, “in Munich.”
A sprawling house was perched on the hillside with large panoramic windows overlooking the wooded ravine below.
He pulled the car around the house and up to the four-car garage, then left it running as he got out and punched a code into the keypad to raise a garage door.
There weren’t any cars in the garage until he parked there.
He offered to help me out, but I declined. I felt stronger every minute that passed since returning home.
It was no less impressive inside. We wound through the chef’s kitchen and into a living room with built-in bookcases and leather couches, facing a flat-screen TV that covered most of the wall.
He told me to have a seat on a couch and went to finish unloading, but I couldn’t stay here and do nothing. I didn’t want to be alone, not even for a second, so I went back to the kitchen and tried to figure out where to put everything.
And when it was done, he set his tired eyes on me.
“Where should I put your suitcase?” he asked, hesitant.
I smiled. Sweet Shawn was worried about what I was comfortable with. “It goes wherever your luggage goes.”
It went into the enormous primary bedroom, and he tucked it against the wall opposite a fireplace, away from the king-sized bed.
Shawn had spent a ton of money not only to take care of me, but also to bring me to this secluded house. There was little else for us to do but spend time with each other, which had probably been his intention.
That made it impossible not to feel pressure to express my gratitude toward him in an intimate way, even when he hadn’t hinted at that. But the word obligation flitted through my head as I watched him unbutton his dress shirt.
It wasn’t like I didn’t want to. I absolutely did—
But I was tired.
And weirdly nervous.
Which made no sense. I’d slept with him several times already. He didn’t seem to notice my nerves, and I hurried to dig out pajamas from the suitcase someone else had packed for me.
My gaze avoided the wide mirror over the double sinks in the bathroom when I changed for bed. The last thing I wanted to see right now was my bruises or my limp, travel-flattened hair. When I padded back to the bedroom, he was already undressed and in bed.
The window beside him was open. The breeze rippled the sheet covering him, and my heart beat faster at this gorgeous man waiting for me. I shut off the light and slid in beside him, breathing rapidly but trying to be quiet so he wouldn’t notice.
“You’re looking at me like I’m a piece of meat,” he joked, “but I’m too tired.”
My nerves disappeared as a smile warmed my face.
And when he leaned in to kiss me goodnight, the flames of my desire flared, burning away my exhaustion and demanding more.
His mouth was gentle, but I wasn’t having it.
I kissed him back with intensity, sliding against him.
Like I’d commanded him without words, his large hands obeyed and roved over my skin, tracing patterns and drawing goose bumps.
“You don’t seem tired,” I murmured against his kiss, parting my lips and filling his mouth with my tongue.
It sent that electric current flooding through my body, and I was thrilled, eager to have it again.
The warm skin of his chest was against my bare arm as he pressed into me, deepening the kiss further.
Abruptly, he jolted, as if realizing something, and groaned. “We have to stop.”
Stop?
His hand covered mine, stilling it, the hand I had cupping him through his boxers where he was already semi-hard.
He seemed to like it, but he wanted to stop? I drew my hand away. “Why?”
“Because we’ve got plenty of time for that.”
He was so clearly lying. “And the real reason?”
“I don’t want to hurt you. I brought you here so you could heal.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, okay. And not to fuck me?”
Shawn rendered speechless? I didn’t think it was possible, and I savored the moment. It seemed like a rare event.
“I would like to do that, yes. When you’re ready. When your body’s ready.”
I hoped he could hear the truth. Juric hadn’t defeated me, and I wasn’t about to let the monster take this from me, either. “I’m not broken.”
His voice was so gentle. “I never said that.”
“I want everything how it was before,” I pleaded. “Help me get this back.”
In the moonlight, I could see the internal struggle raging behind his eyes. “Kara—”
“I want this. You want this,” I said, finding the same arrogant words he’d uttered to me outside that New York restaurant. “Stop resisting what we both want.”
He blinked and his eyes sharpened. A decision was made. “Very well. Tomorrow? You’re fair game.”
I drifted off to sleep, utterly thrilled to see Adversary Shawn again.