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BRAD
* * *
I lower to my heels, holding her to my chest, fighting for air. I could never accept not having her in my life. I could never accept not being able to love her. Something has happened to my heart, and I need to acknowledge it. The way she looks at me. The way I feel when I make love to her.
“Shall we talk about it?” I ask, unable to leave the unspoken hanging heavy in the air with the potent scent of sex. I feel her nod against my shoulder, so I pull back, but keep myself deep inside her, her bare walls feeling too good against my bare cock to give up. I hold her face, taking in every perfect piece of her. I’ve never seen anything more clearly.
Hearing the words she spoke—watching her walk away from me—was the shove I didn’t need. I already knew what I needed. I already knew what Pearl needed. And Nolan. I have so many wrongs to right.
I brush her hair out of her face as she looks at me. Nibbles at her lip ring nervously. Her naked skin is beautifully flushed. “Do I need to warn you not to fall in love with me?” I ask.
She nods, so mildly.
“I can’t,” I admit. I want her to love me. Her love feels good on me. I realize she’s not biting at her ring because she’s nervous. She’s trying to hold back her tears. “Why are you sad?”
“Because I’m scared.”
My heart squeezes a little. “Don’t be scared, my love.” I surrender her warmth, pulling out and moving to the edge of the bed, tugging her over. She climbs onto my lap, pinning her front to my mine, and I cuddle her. “Can you warn me not to love you?” I ask.
She shakes her head, and I force her back to look at me. She’s let go of her tears, her big eyes like green glass balls. “Then I will love you.”
She inhales, searching my eyes. Speechless? Me too. But I’m a man of a certain age and I’m not fucking stupid. And no longer in denial. “I love you.” I say it again, the words sounding sublime. I think I loved her even when I hated her. “I love you.” I kiss her wet cheek. “I love you.” Her other. “I love you.” Her forehead. “I love you.” Her nose. “I lo—” She seals our lips and swallows the words, sniveling in between the soft swirl of our tongues. I fall back to the bed with her, lost, floating. Respite.
This is what Danny and James have had all this time, and now I can appreciate it. Because I have it.
Purpose.
“It hurts, Pearl,” I whisper around her lips. “And I don’t know how to control it.”
She sits up on me, her palms flat on my stomach. “I don’t think we’re supposed to know how to control it.”
I smile, placing my hands on her thighs and gripping, thinking. “You haven’t said it,” I whisper. Am I being needy?
Her head cocks, a small smile tickling one corner of her mouth. I am. I’m being needy. “The day you need me to tell you I love you is the day I stop showing you well enough.” She falls to me, taking my face in her hands. “I will never stop showing you.” And kisses me deeply. And my God, I feel it. Her love. And then she holds me with a formidable strength. I feel her love in this hug too. And we don’t let go. Not for a long, long while.
I squeeze her a little harder, hearing my cell ringing in the distance, but I have no will or inclination to answer it. I’m not prepared to surrender this feeling. Then it stops. And another phone begins to ring. The landline by the bed.
“For fuck’s sake.” It’s time to stop ignoring everyone. I exhale and lift, keeping Pearl attached to my front as I reach for the phone and take it to my ear.
“Mr. Black,” Jeeves says, sounding anxious. “I have a man in the lobby claiming to know you.”
“Who?” I ask, automatically hostile. It can’t be Danny. He’d come straight up with Jeeves’s blessing, a keycard, and a Glock. I frown when Pearl burrows deeper into my chest, her body tense. What the hell has she done? I didn’t think about how she got here. Until now.
“He goes by the name Fury. No surname, sir. He said you wouldn’t need one.”
“I don’t,” I say flatly, prizing Pearl from her hiding place and giving her a very scornful look. “You’d better send him up.” I place the phone in the cradle. “Guess who that was.”
“My fairy godmother?” she asks, looking cute when she half-smiles.
“What did you do?” I grip her ass and squeeze threateningly.
“Stole his car keys so he couldn’t come after me when I ran.” She presses her lips together and shrinks on my lap.
“With a trunk full of weapons in the middle of Miami?”
“That part didn’t occur to me at the time.”
“I’m mad,” I say, slapping her ass and lifting her off my lap. “Fury sounds even madder.”
