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She scanned the paper, the words jumbling together until she took in the tiny thumbnail photo near the bottom of the page. “An acoustic Gibson J-45 guitar? It’s beautiful. But I don’t play…oh.” The paper fluttered out of her suddenly boneless fingers, and she was too weak to chase after it. “I can’t have a guitar.”
“You can, and you will, as soon as that one’s delivered. I ordered it rush. I apologize for not buying a clue and getting you one sooner.” He reached up to undo her hair, and she was so vexed that she just sat there and let him dismantle her updo. “In my defense, I was distracted by incredible sex. I barely remembered it was December, never mind that I was supposed to buy stuff.”
A smile tugged at her lips. “You don’t have to keep telling me it was incredible. I was there.”
“Yeah, but it took a while to convince you I wasn’t just trying to get back in your pants.” He nibbled along her shoulder through her shirt and her nipples stiffened against the cups of her bra.
“You weren’t?”
“Well, duh, but that doesn’t mean I was lying about it being amazing.”
She laughed and bent to pick up the piece of paper. She clutched it to her chest, not daring to read the words again. If she read them, they would become real, and she might just start to dream. “I could’ve bought a guitar for myself.”
“You could’ve, but you wouldn’t have. Why, I don’t understand. Lila logic,” he said, borrowing her phrase. “Now you’re stuck. Politeness decrees you accept the gift and that you play it.”
“For you?”
His open expression shuttered, those dense dark lashes shutting her out again for an instant that felt like an eternity. “I don’t expect that. I don’t expect anything.”
What if I do? What if I want so much that I can’t stand it—or myself?
She didn’t say any of that. She just waited until his head came up and those magnificent low-lidded golden eyes settled on her once again. “Actually, no, fuck that, I do expect something.” He reached into the sack and drew out a large square jeweler’s box. He snatched the paper she held and pushed the box into her hands. “I expect you to trust me tonight. With you. And these.”
Frowning, she popped open the top. And simply stared.
Pearls looped together, several strands of them. Black pearls, the opposite of the white ones she often wore to work and to functions. Her heart tumbled before soaring again to lodge in her throat, beating there like a caged bird’s wings.
“I was told these are rare as hell. From some island or something. Card’s under there.” Nick flicked his finger at the sapphire blue bed the pearls rested on. “It’s a really long strand of them. You can wear them lots of ways.”
“Yes.” She moistened her dry lips. “Why, yes, they’re lovely. Thank you so much.” She drew them out, and the strand kept unwinding. And unwinding. “Nick,” she gasped. “This must’ve cost a fortune.”
“No, a fortune is what you’re worth to me.”
A month ago, she would’ve written it off as typical rock star lingo. The kind of thing a man used to getting women with little effort would spout off pre-sex without any real thought behind it. But now she knew better. She might not be sure she could trust him, but she knew with sterling clarity that he didn’t smooth talk her to get her between the sheets. He said what he thought, always. Whether it was crude, obnoxious, seductive or so sweet that the back of her eyes burned as she stared at the pearls she clutched in a death grip.
“Stand up.”
“More commands.” She set aside the jeweler’s box and obliged, mainly because she was curious. He’d shown her so much, in and out of bed, and she liked to think she’d shown him a few things too. At least she knew one thing she’d introduced him to.
Snow.
“Move closer to the fire.”
“I’m not a doll.” So why was she doing what he asked?
She glanced back at him, sprawled like a king in the chair with his socked feet peeking out from too-long red pants and his belt half undone and that stupid Santa hat tipped sideways on his head. She should’ve laughed, not felt the smolder in his eyes way down deep in her core.
“I want to see you naked, in the firelight. Can you do that for me?”
Her throat went dry, and she cast a quick glance toward the staircase. The music was still playing in the background on low, but from upstairs came only silence. It was late, and she had a strong suspicion they weren’t the only couple get naked under that roof right then.
Orshewould be getting naked. Maybe he just intended to watch.
Why did that excite her so much?
“No one will interrupt us. They’re all wrapped up in each other.” He leaned forward and slipped the email into the sack, then set it aside. “Let’s get lost too.”
Such an easy request. So hard to let go of everything that made it so difficult.
