Page 36

“I knew you’d be there, and I took advantage of that.”

“Of course I’d be there.” She cupped her hand over his heart. He covered her hand, tangling their fingers.

“If I was working, focused on the girls, keeping us on the surface, I had some distance, some space to breathe.” His cheekbones burned under her steady regard. “I told you it was asinine.”

“Or completely logical, if unsustainable.” She pressed a finger to the spot where his dimple was.

“I hurt you.” That dragged at him, knotting him up, the idea he’d hurt her trying to protect himself. Geez, grief and trauma turned him into a colossal dumbass.

“And yourself.” With a soft, whimsical smile, she lifted her hand, index and middle finger entwined. “It’s that symbiotic relationship we have.”

He caught her hand, pressing his lips to the inside of her wrist, tasting her heartbeat. “I know you tried to call my ass out.”

She honest-to-God laughed, the husky sound tickling his ears, warming deep in his chest, the gold chain still pooled in her clavicle catching the light. “Oh, I love that. You are the most reasonable person I know, Lamar, until you’re not, and there is no dealing with you until you’ve had time to process your emotions. If I’d pushed harder, you’d have simply dug in and said you were fine.”

Twining a finger in her necklace, he smoothed it out, so the circle lay over her heart. “I don’t like how well you know me sometimes.”

“Too late for regrets now, tesoro.” She waggled her left hand before him, diamond and gold sparking in the soft light. “Three children and a wedding ring? You are well and truly tied down.”

“Tied down?” He stretched her arm above her head, wrestling for her other wrist so he could lock both into his grip. Levered up on his arm, he stared down into green eyes filled with love and laughter and forgiveness, everything he really didn’t deserve from her. With one leanly muscular thigh between both of his, he soaked in the subtle shift of her body, the easy desire flaring between them. He pressed his thigh upward, against tender, secret places that belonged only to him. “Wrong thing to say to me, precious.”

Her chin tilted, the tiny challenge that always fired him up. “What would you call it then?”

“Committed.” He moved his leg, a slow glide guaranteed to set her off, because after all, he knew her better than she knew herself. “Maybe so in love that sometimes all I can breathe is you.”

“But not suffocated.” A subtle inquiry hovered in the breathless phrase, and he shook his head, still stoking her fire with his thigh, spice and his own smell and the scent of her arousal infiltrating his nostrils, making him heavy and hard, tangling him up with her.

“No.” She was wet on his skin, hot under him, and everything he’d ever wanted, would ever want, everything to him. “Never.”

If anything, being without her would suffocate him. Hell, she had him tied down, locked down so securely he couldn’t separate himself if he wanted to.

And he was damn sure he wouldn’t have it any other way.

He nudged her thighs apart, touched her, watching her breathing change, her eyes darken. “I love you.”

Her smile, real and soft and only his, made his chest hurt. “You do.”

Leaning in, he kissed her, tracing the delicate bones in her wrists with his thumb. Against his other hand, she was restless, seeking, and he swallowed her panting little breath, his dick twitching against her thigh, hard and ready for her.

He wasn’t rushing this, though.

“I’ll do better,” he murmured near her ear, fingers finding the rhythm she’d taught him long ago, in a small bedroom at the beach, a rhythm he’d never forgotten, like he’d never been able to forget her.

“You do well.” She flexed her hands against his light hold, and he released her so she could wrap her arms about his shoulders, playing with the hair at his neck. He caught a glimpse of her smile. “Stupendous, one might say.”

“Not talking about sex.” He shifted, drawing her thighs about his, joining his body to hers with an easy thrust.

“Neither was I.” Lifting into each movement of his hips, she framed his neck and drew his gaze to hers. “Are you finished hiding, Lamar?”

“Yeah.” He jammed an elbow on the bed for leverage, finding the slow, steady pace she loved. “Doesn’t work with you anyway.”

“It does not.” Her lips found the side of his neck, sending familiar shivers along his nerve endings. “And I need you with me.”

He nodded, eyes closed, because he wanted this to be good for her and the visuals threatened to put him over the edge before he took care of her. Of course, that only intensified the feel, the scent, the sounds — wet heat sliding along his hard on, her belly warm and taut against his, spice and sex and arousal, her soft gasp and the quiet slap of their bodies together.

“I’ll be here.” The promise wrung from him on a rough breath, he buried a hand in her hair. She moved, opening her thighs so he delved impossibly deep, all of him so far in her, he didn’t know where they separated. The sensation shoved a groan from his throat. “Baby, please . . . hell, Cait, tell me you’re close.”

“Molto.”