Chapter 14
He was thrilled at the way she opened up to him in every possible way.
He had hardly made it back to her cottage before he started undressing her.
What had started at the doorway had been finished inside the bedroom.
Their clothing was still strewn all over the tiny foyer.
He had finished undressing her when they reached the bedroom.
His fingers twined with hers, his touch gentle.
"I enjoyed myself," she mused.
"You sound surprised." His free hand was wrapped around her waist.
"I am." Lifting her head, she studied the face that had grown very dear to her.
His nose was slightly crooked, due to an accident with a hockey stick when he was sixteen.
His brows were thick, his skin tanned, his body tough.
But it was his eyes that drew her, had drawn her since she first saw him invading her privacy several weeks ago.
"I never had anything like that," she murmured absently as if talking to herself.
"I was never allowed to mingle with 'the common people.
'" A smile touched her lips. "My father was the worst snob.
He pretended he was a man for the people in public, but in private he wanted to be like the very wealthy.
He always said that we need to be seen mingling with the right people.
'That's how you advance in life girl.'" She had to tamp down the tremors that had started as memories assailed her.
"He never called me by my name. Not then.
When I started at the firm, he would refer to me as the associate.
Everyone at the firm knew I was the lowest employee there, it did not matter that I was the senior partner's daughter. "
His fingers tensed and he had to ease away in order not to hurt her.
"I've heard enough." His voice was forced, his body rigid. "I promise you will never have to go through anything like that again."
She studied his face carefully, noticing the darkened eyes and the tightness of his lips. This was a man who wanted to kill dragons for her.
"I'm a lousy bet, Kenneth," she told him seriously.
"Is that your professional opinion?" He was not in the mood for jokes or casual conversation. He was impatient to have her, have her all the way. He wanted a ring on her finger and a baby nestling inside her womb. His baby.
"No. I'm just stating a fact." She moved against him restlessly.
"I did not have the nice clean and loving upbringing you had.
I'm thirty-two, a grown ass woman who cringes at her own shadow.
I'm a brilliant lawyer, but emotionally I'm a midget.
I'm tiny, my self-esteem is shot to hell.
I want to believe that I can be the woman you want, but I don't know.
I never had a real relationship before." She shook her head.
"And I don't know how to go about being a wife, a mother.
I keep thinking that I will turn out like them. " She pushed away and he let her.
Drawing herself up, she wrapped her arms around her knees. "I keep asking myself all these questions. Not pretty ones. What if I'm like them?"
"Are you like them?" He sat up and pushed the pillows to cushion his back. He wanted to reach for her and cuddle. To tell her that it was going to be good. That they would make it.
"I don't know."
"Wrong answer. You do know."
Her hands clung together, the grip hurting her flesh. She did not face him, couldn't, not now. He would read what's on her face, the longing to be normal, to grab this chance of happiness and say to hell with it. But she was her parents' daughter. She shared their genes. Their very messed up genes.
And he was a good man, a wonderful man. She certainly did not deserve to be with someone like him.
Tears burned the back of her eyes, and she wanted to be alone.
"No." He read her completely. And reading her, he made a grab when she would have fled. His hand clamped around her arm and kept her there.
"At some point in your goddamned life, you need to stop running.
" He shook her hard. "When are you going to get it through your head that I'm not going anywhere?
" He had to tamp down the anger that threatened to boil over.
"You're an intelligent woman and you know deep down that you're nothing like them.
I've been with you for several weeks and I know that you're warm and caring.
" He turned her to face him, his expression softening.
"You're passionate and capable of loving.
" One hand came up to frame her face. "If you want to do counseling to get you through, I'm with you.
But one thing I'm not willing to do is lose you. I won't."
She considered pressing the point, telling him other stories, forcing him to see why it could never work between them.
But good Lord, she loved him. She never thought it was remotely possible she ever could.
He made her feel warm and tingly inside.
And protected. With a strangled cry, she hurled herself against him, with enough force to slam him back against the headboard.
She burrowed against him, her arms wrapped around him. Closing his eyes, he cuddled her. His face buried in her short spiky hair. He breathed her in. She smelled of light and the exotic perfume she seemed to favor. He was desperate to have her. To make her completely his.
The tears that had been threatening throttled back. He was right. She was not her parents. She might have come from them, but she was not like them. And she was damned if she was going to allow them to rule her life from the grave.
Lifting her head, she met his eyes. Hope soared through him as she continued to stare.
"Tell me," he demanded huskily.
"I--I--" Her voice hitched, and the words were strangled inside her throat.
Easing her a few inches away, he framed her face with his hands.
He wanted to hear the words. Hell, he had told himself that he was prepared to wait, but he wanted to hear her tell him.
"You can do it baby. I need the words. I already know that you're crazy about me.
" His smile was crooked, belying the blood pounding inside his head.
"I love you."
The declaration, said in her sultry voice, now raw with emotions turned him inside out. For a few seconds, he remained immobilized, except for the trembling of his fingers.
"Tell me again." His voice was unrecognizable, his green eyes darkened to almost black.
He was dreaming. There had been so many nights he had replayed this scene in his head.
The one where she would discover that she was in love with him and would say it, would declare it.
Now that it was said, he wanted validation, to make certain he had heard right.
"Tell me again," he repeated forcefully.
"I love you." Tears shimmered in her magnificent eyes. She found it easier to say it the second time. He made everything so easy, so wonderful.
Without a word, he took her lips. Instead of fire and heat, he gave her passion and tenderness, so much of it that the tears spilled down her cheeks.
He drank from her, would have devoured her.
He wanted to swallow her whole. Love for her consumed him.
He would never be able to get enough of her.
The taste, the sweet, honeyed taste of her made him drunk.
He could not believe it was possible to be intoxicated by touch and taste.
But that's what he was. He was drunk on her. And she loved him.
Emotions stormed through him and caused him to shudder. Laying her back, he covered her body with his.
He couldn't find the words. There were none, at least none that was adequate enough, appropriate, or even right for this moment.
But he could show her. His mouth seduced hers, his hands were not steady, and they were not still.
With a restless energy they moved all over her body.
The feel of her, the slender almost delicate curves made him want to weep.
His body swelled and ached. He could do this all night, and it still wouldn't be enough.
He could spend a hundred years with her, and it still wouldn't satisfy him.
It frightened him, this intensity scared him as much as it humbled him.
When he slipped inside her, he did so slowly, her silky warmth wrapping around him like velvet gloves. And when they came, it was like a crashing wave spiraling out of control and sending them flying.
*****
Sleep eluded him. His woman was wrapped around him, one shapely thigh thrown over his, her head pillowed on his chest. A smile creased his lips as he recalled how she had fallen into an exhausted slumber right after their third go of it.
She loved him! He wished he had used his phone to record her, then she would not be able to deny that she had said the words. He would get her to write it down, signed, sealed, and witnessed.
He felt foolish, but hell, he was entitled. He was in love, head over heels in love with her. It had been painstakingly slow for her to acknowledge her feelings, but she had. He knew it had taken quite a bit for her to say it to him.
A frown touched his brow as he wondered if he was going to have to fight her to get her to agree to marry him.
There was no point in waiting. He had been waiting all his life and was impatient to start the rest of their lives together.