Fate? Did he really believe that?
He took her hand and led her to the room he’d been assigned, using his phone to access it then pulling her inside.
“I would have chosen to ground you here if I’d thought you’d be in the air. Were you really coming back to me?” He trapped her against the door. “Are you okay?” He ran his hands over her beneath her open coat, sparking need within her to be close, close, close. “Is the baby okay?”
“We’re both fine. And yes. I just…” She cupped his face and brought his mouth back to hers. “Can we—?”
“Yes.”He pushed her jacket off her shoulders and they stripped on their way to the bed.
Was it the most tender, prolonged lovemaking in history? Not at all. It bordered on frantic and stung a little because she wasn’t quite ready, but she needed this connectionnow.
She gasped and he froze.
“Hurt?” He cupped her jaw and started to withdraw.
“No. Stay.” She wrapped arms and legs around him. The sands in the hourglass stopped falling. Time itself halted as she kneaded her fingers into his hair and skimmed her thighs over his flanks and scraped her teeth against his whiskered chin.
“I shouldn’t have left you like that,” he groaned, burying his mouth in her throat.
“Shh. I don’t want to talk about him. I just want to feel you.”
“But I should have said it back, Siobhan. I love you. I love you so much…” His eyes misted. “Saying it aloud felt too dangerous. You wouldn’t have left and I was scared for you. You are very, very precious to me,mi amor.” He traced her eyebrow and followed an invisible line to the corner of her mouth. “You’re everything I want. You’ve become someone Ineed.You. I don’t know how to make you believe that.”
“I do believe you,” she said, letting the glow of it seep into the old fractures in her heart and heal them. Letting herself feel his love as the acceptance and celebration of her that it was. “I love you, too.”
She set about making sure he felt it, just as he imbued every kiss and caress with tenderness and worship. They sighed and whispered endearments and groaned with sweet torture. The feelings intensified as they ascended toward a heavenly peak, until they were both caught there, clinging and sweaty and joyous. Drunk on each other. On love.
“I want to stay here forever,” she gasped.
“We will,” he said. Then held her tight as they fell.
They did what they had wanted to do in San Francisco. They stayed in bed, dozing between making love and ordering food.
Their luggage turned up eventually, not that they used more than a toothbrush.
“Should we go into the city?” he asked at one point.
“Cinnia would give me the code for their penthouse. It overlooks the Eiffel Tower.”
It was already dark and they were comfortable in bed so they turned on a movie and fell asleep before it was finished.
She woke to find Joaquin wearing a frown as he read his phone.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Killian wanted me to know my father is catching a flight to Saint Lucia. They don’t extradite to Spain.”
“Will you have him stopped?”
“No.” He had told her about his conversation with his father. “As evidence goes, his confession was incriminating, but it still would mean years in court. That’s why I didn’t try something like it sooner. That, and I didn’t want to sink to his level.”
She shifted so she could see the scar on his ribs and bent to set a kiss there. “Do you want to tell me about that?”
“Do you really love me?” He tucked his hand at the side of her neck, expression grave.
She was shocked and a little hurt that he would question it. “With my whole heart.”
“Then no. I don’t want to tell you. It will hurt you. I don’t want to do that.”
