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“Yeah.” She borrowed some of Luke’s post-fifteen-roller-coasters energy, mellowing to a sheepish grin when Franz stopped her fist pump with his enveloping grip. “Yeah,” she repeated past her growing blush. “Good plan.”
She lowered her fist. His hand descended with it.
She unfurled her fingers. John meshed his with them.
Just like that, reconnecting all their circuits. Retying all their knots. Reigniting every flame of their cosmic combustion…the inescapable, indelible force that was uniquely, beautifully them…
For one perfect second, she surrendered to it once more. Gave herself to him once again. Showed him so by dipping her forehead to the middle of his chest then leaning closer to him. Leaning against him. Letting him accept her whole weight, and all the racing emotions of her spirit. Giving him all her confusion and fear, her weariness and apprehension, her trepidation…but her trust.
He knew it too. She heard the confirmation in the deep, thundering breaths consuming his lungs.
He accepted it. She felt it in the mighty pull of his arms, wrapping her like giant ti leaves around a tiny flower.
And yes, he treasured it. Just like he always had. Just like her own soul confirmed now, emboldened once more by his strength, humbled once more by his devotion.
And yeah…sizzling once more at just two of his guttural, growly words.
“Thank you,” he murmured into her hair. “Mahalo, my sweet popoki.”
She sighed into his chest. He skimmed fingertips up and down her spine.
Just one moment more…
“I’m the one who should be mahalo’ing.” She lifted her head as he bent his, tugging him down closer, breathing all of him in. Holy hell, how could one man turn his own sweat into such an erotic scent? His salty, earthy essence, mixed with the morning wind and her own. “John,” she whispered. “Sir. I jumped to awful conclusions about you. Judged you…”
“And didn’t trust me?” He raised one black knife of a brow.
“I always trusted you.” She let her own brows take on a touch of coy. “I just didn’t like you very much as I did.”
She expected the jibe to sink in and his soft laughter to roll out, but her tease didn’t even get him to a smirk. As she glared, trying to decipher his scowl, he pulled away and marched into the oak grove.
“John?”
“‘Sir’ is fine for now, Madame.” His voice had chilled along with the air, as she followed him beneath the trees. Though the area was dappled in sun, it would be a long time before the warmth came along with the light.
“Madame?” Tracy kicked up leaves and dirt as she came to a mutinous stop. “So that’s the way it’s going to be? Because I was honest with you?”
He whipped back around. Ducked in time to keep from clocking himself on a low-lying branch. A shaft of dawn broke through, glinting in the piercing gold flecks of his angry stare. “Your honesty was very much appreciated, ma’am. After all, I’m not here for your adulation, right?”
Like an even sharper slice of sun, understanding stabbed in. Her arms plummeted. Her throat went dry.
He cared.
He cared.
Enough to be this butt-hurt that she’d even made fun of “hating” him. Enough that he tried masking the shit under fury that worked as well as dollar store sunscreen. Enough that he actually thought she wouldn’t see the burn, though he was already toasted on all sides with it.
So damn adorable with it.
So irresistibly sexy.
“John. Sir.” Even his visible rise from her slip made her want to do it again, though she didn’t want to be his deliberate brat right now. She wanted to be his worshipping kitten. His loyal subject. For just a little while longer, she wanted to be his, period. “I do…adulate you.”
The words spilled without thought—and felt so right, she let the same inspiration guide her actions.
Plummeting her down.
Down.
