Chapter 24
DANIELA
I wake up entangled in Hawk’s strong body.
He’s asleep, his breathing regular and shallow. For a moment I just look at him. Move the cool bamboo sheets off him, stare at his gorgeous body.
The muscles, the skin, the hair.
Everything about him is perfection.
His hands are large, with long thick fingers. Even his feet are nice-looking, with square toenails. His calves are muscular, and his thighs…
Then his perfect butt. No wonder he fills out his jeans so well.
I could stare at him forever.
I whisper my fingertips over his shoulder, his upper arm. Just the feel of him sends tingles through me.
I could look at him forever and never get tired of the sight. He’s magnificent. What every man should be, and this is with his eyes closed. His eyes, which are his most perfect feature. Such a sparkling blue.
I slide next to him, spoon him from behind. His warmth seeps into me, makes my nipples hard.
He moans, scooting back a little and then turning to face me.
“Morning,” he drawls.
“Hi.”
“Have you been up long?”
“Just woke up.” I smile. “I was looking at you.”
“Looking at me?”
“Yes. People talk so much about how women are beautiful, but no one ever says men are beautiful. But you are, Hawk.” I cup his cheek. “You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
He closes his eyes a moment.
“Don’t tell me I’ve embarrassed Hawk Bellamy,” I say.
“Nah.” He chuckles. “My looks have been getting me laid for years.”
I punch his upper arm. “I didn’t need to hear that.”
He gets on his side, sears his gaze into me. “If I have it my way, baby, I’ll only sleep with one woman from now until my dying day.”
A shiver courses through me. Is he saying what I think he is?
God knows I’ve been feeling it.
I feel the love—so much love—for him. I was especially feeling it last night, during our lovemaking.
But… I don’t know how to be in a relationship. I’ve never been in one. Most girls my age have had transitory high school relationships, more than one.
But what have I had?
At fifteen, when I was just beginning to discover the opposite sex, discover the beauty of my own body, I was forced into doing my father’s bidding.
He kept eyes on me. If I had tried to sneak out to meet a boy, I would’ve been punished.
“Hawk…”
“I know,” he says. He cups my cheek. “It’s too soon. I know.”
“It’s just… There’s so much I can’t give you.”
He shakes his head. “You can give me everything I need.”
“No, I can’t.” I bite my lip. “Look at you. It would be a travesty not to pass those genes down. And I can’t give you children.”
“We don’t know that, Daniela.”
“Even if everything else worked out, tubal ligation reversal, or if not, in vitro… There’s still the Huntington’s gene.”
“That’s why we’re going to get you tested,” he says.
“Why?”
“Because none of this adds up, Daniela.” He sits up, rubs his eyes. “Your father was a gangster. Not an honest man. Not a good man, given what he did to you.”
He’s right, of course. My father loved to punish me emotionally. What is the best emotional punishment? Tell a person she’s going to develop a disease that will lead her to a slow and torturous death in her thirties or forties.
“All right. Let’s get the test done.”
“We absolutely will.” He smiles. “But first…” He rolls on top of me, his hardness pushing against my pussy.
I close my eyes and sigh.
He enters me slowly, and slowly is the theme for this morning. Where the sun is shining through the window, birds outside singing. A beautiful Texas day on the horizon.
And Hawk’s cock inside me, pleasuring me.
Thank God…
Sex is something beautiful. It doesn’t have to be a weapon. It doesn’t have to be torture. It doesn’t have to be a punishment.
It can be something perfect between two people who are in love.
So we haven’t said the words yet. I’m not sure I’m ready to say them, and while I think Hawk may be, I’d like to wait.
At least until the genetic testing.
If it turns out I do have the gene for Huntington’s, then I will profess my love to Hawk anyway. And if he’ll have me, I’ll give myself to him for whatever years I have left.
That is all I want in the world. More than I want to be a chef, more even than I want to be Belinda’s caretaker.
I want to be with this man.
I moan as he slides in and out of me, nudging my clit with each stroke.
This isn’t hard or frantic. It’s soft and gentle, perfect for a lazy morning.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I repeat the mantra inside my head with each of his beautiful thrusts.
And when those now familiar tingles begin in my pussy and pulse through every one of my nerve endings, I wrap my legs around his hips, sighing softly as I soar.
“That’s it, baby,” he grits out. “You come for me. Only for me.”
And as he thrusts one more time, releasing, I know that for whatever life I have left, I will stay with him. For as long as he’ll have me.