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“Sorry,” I murmur. “I was off in the clouds. What did you say?”
His eyes darken for a fraction of a second, as he reads me – as he reads where my mind drifted off to.
But then it’s my turn to read his expression, and I watch as he visibly decides to put that issue aside for now.
“I said I don’t think you could ever bore me,” he growls, as he butters a slice of Maltese bread.
“Oh really?” I banter. “What if I started talking about my favorite color, really droning on and on about it?”
“What is your favorite color?” he asks, leaning forward with a smirk touching the corners of his lips.
“You’re not really interested.” I giggle. “I was just purposefully trying to be boring.”
“It turns out I’m less interesting than you, then,” he says, with heavy irony in his voice. Nobody could ever call Kane Konstantinov uninteresting. “Because I want to hear every little thing about you, Kelly. I could listen to you talk about your favorite color for hours.”
“Maybe I’ll really test your patience then.”
“So?” He chuckles huskily, making me think of the way his breath picked up last night when I had his manhood in my mouth. “Are you going to tell me or not?”
“It’s red, because—”
“Because that was the color of your karaoke unit when you were a kid,” he interrupts.
My heart gives a flutter, dancing around inside of me, sending motes of joy surging through me.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” he says, staring at me as though nobody and nothing else exists.
“Yes. You are. How did you know?”
“I don’t know.” He shakes his head slowly. “There’s lots I don’t understand about the way I feel about you, Kelly. I’m done questioning it. You’re just… you’re perfect, and I need you, and if I can’t claim you I know I’ll never be able to stand it.”
“What about you?” I whimper, as my lips tingle and my heartbeat thunders at his words.
“My favorite color?”
I nod.
“Military-green,” he says. “That color will always be special to me. I wore that uniform for so many years. And I was proud of it, so damn proud. People think you have to be in Special Forces to really see some shit, but the men and women I served with were the best of the best. We worked alongside Special Forces, SEALs, you name it… But we were always Army when you got right down to it.”
My heart expands as I study his face, reading the passion there, the way his voice booms and fills the room.
“You should be proud,” I murmur. “Lena used to talk about how you got some of your medals. I remember she said how you carried two of your friends across an open road, under enemy fire, to get them to safety.”
His jaw tenses and for a moment look flashes across his intense eyes. “Yeah, that was one motherfucker of a run. But I had to do it. I couldn’t leave them out there, screaming for help. But luck was on my side that day.”
I reach over and grab onto his hand, unable to fight the emotion whirring around me, making it impossible for me to think about anything outside the preciousness of this moment, this breath, us.
“It wasn’t luck,” I whisper, squeezing tighter and hoping he can feel all the pride and affection surging through me. “It was you, Kane. You don’t have it in you to let anybody get hurt. You might be gruff and… and a freaking animal. But you’re kind too.”
Part of me screams to whip those words back, to tame the love surging through me.
That’s what this is, and I can’t deny it anymore.
Love, love, love.
Touching every part of me, flaring to life and moving around me so that I can’t fight it, can’t even try to fight it.
But I won’t allow myself to say it, to cross that line and possibly destroy what we have…
Even if destroying it might be the most responsible thing I could do.
For Lena.
Chapter Twenty
Kane
“Have you ever thought about having children?” I ask, unable to stop the question from bubbling up. “I mean… I know we’ve agreed that’s what we both want. But before that?”
We’re sitting on the roof, away from the edge so the people on the street below can’t see us. But we can still look over the glittering ocean to the Sicilian coast, taking in the majesty of it.
I’ve got my hand on her leg, squeezing softly so I can feel the lust burning up and down her body. My princess is wearing one of those tempting summer dresses that do carnal things to me, twisting me up inside and making me want to howl.
I can hardly stop myself from smoothing all the way to her sex and palming roughly, possessively until she has no choice but to cream and whimper.
