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“No.”
I leaned forward, putting my elbows on the table and resting my chin on my fists. “Sounds like it to me.”
“If you walk away, I’ll spend the next few decades fighting to forget you.”
I snorted. “Oh, please.”
* * *
DARIO
She didn’t get it. She didn’t realize her hold on him, the way that she had disrupted everything. Maybe … maybe that was his fault.
He forced his jaw to unclench, for his words to come out calm. “I’m not a man used to fighting for attention, Bell. I haven’t been in a position to do a proper job of showing you how I feel about you. Part of that’s due to my respect for Gwen. Part of it is because I’ve worried, if I showed you all of my cards, that you’ll be careless with me.”
But he already had shown her his cards, even if she hadn’t recognized it. Protecting her from Hawk. Ripping apart that filth from her hometown. Giving her a new home, chasing her around like a love-struck teenager. Had any other woman walked away from him, he would have laughed. When she’d walked away, over and over, he’d followed. Waited for. Chased. His cards had been on the table from the moment he’d walked into The House and saw her. She just hadn’t known where to look, and what they meant.
He pulled her hand toward him, cupping the small palm between his. “I love you. And I’m risking everything for you. Telling Gwen is a side effect that has no impact on the destruction you are capable of doing to me.”
Her eyes softened, and maybe there was a chance, maybe she did love him, maybe he wasn’t a crazy old man chasing a flighty college girl. She glanced down, and he steeled himself for whatever was coming next. “I’m worried you’re playing me.”
Insanity, coming from her perfect little mouth. How did she not know?
“It’s just that, we haven’t even…”
He tried to follow the sentence, tried not to get distracted by the way her teeth gently pulled across her pale pink bottom lip.
“We haven’t even had sex.” She leaned forward, whispering the words, and he laughed. So young, this one. So brave, so beautiful, but so young. Did she think that mattered?
“I told you why we haven’t done that.”
She cast her eyes to the side, glancing at the other tables to see if anyone was listening. Everything they’d talked about, and this… this is what she was worried about. This from the woman who was naked underneath that dress, her bare pussy in easy reach of his fingers and at risk of exposure from a strong breeze. He felt his cock stiffen and mentally forced the image from his mind.
“Yeah.” Her lips pursed together in a beautiful pinch.
“Because I cared about you as more than a fuck. Because I was trying to keep…” He had tried to keep an emotional distance between them. Tried and failed. He had tried not to get in too deep. Tried and failed. Why was he still trying? What was he still fighting?
He leaned forward. “Is that what you want? It’s important to you?”
She shifted in her seat, a blush spreading over those gorgeous cheeks. “I just want all of you. Not some censored version of you.”
Censored. That was an adjective that had never been used to describe him. Then again, with other women, he’d had them naked and wrapped around his cock within hours. With other women, he hadn’t been interested in anything but that.
He stood so suddenly that the table jerked a little. “Let’s go.”
“What?”
He pulled out his wallet and peeled two large bills off its clip, tossing them down on the table.
“Now. Come on.”
He held out his hand for hers, and she grinned, grabbing her purse and standing. Her soft palm slipped into his, and they moved through the planters and toward the entrance.
“Want to walk back along the beach?” he asked.
She glanced toward the hotel, then out on the sand. Reaching down, she pulled off her left heel, then her right. From her new, diminished height, she jogged forward onto the beach, turning and giving him a playful look. She looked free and in love. It was a look he wanted to see every day, for the rest of his life. He caught up with her, grabbing her hand and pulling her against him.
She was a freaking minx. A sexy, adorable, beautiful minx. And she wanted him, all of him.
It was a blessing that scared the hell out of him.
* * *
BELL
He flipped the lock, pulling me into the room and onto the bed. He opened the sliding door, and the sound of the ocean came in, the scent of seawater, the cool warmth of the breeze. I lay back, my weight propped on my elbows, and pulled my feet up, my dress falling to my hips, everything exposed to him.
