“Let’s just go home and lie in bed,” she husked. “I’ve missed you so much, Mr. Twombley.”
I bent and kissed her softly. “Not as much as I’ve missed you, Ms. Gibson.” And I let her avoidance slide, because in one swoop, she gave me back at least one memory from the cruise to be cherished instead of burned.
“I just want to feel your body next to mine,” she whispered against my lips. “I’ve been so alone, and you know how well alone and I play together.”
I huffed. “As in, not at all?”
“He’s selfish and doesn’t share any of his toys.”
“Wait.” I jerked back an inch, displaying the depth of my new distress. “What about Robert? Did those assholes do anything to your cat? Because I told them, if anything happened to you or him—”
“Hey. He’s fine, baby.” But her tone was as if she were just confirming that she’d picked up groceries on the way home. So normal. So wonderful. So perfect. “But he’s missing you as badly as I was, so why don’t we get going?”
I grinned and quickly pecked her smooth forehead. So maybe everything would be okay after all. Pretty soon, all this shit would be ugliness of the past—a good thing, since all I wanted to think about was the future with this incredible beauty.
“Sounds like a perfect plan,” I told her with lazy ease. “But damn, woman. Where the hell did you park? Zuma?”
She snickered at my reference to the famous surfing strand at Malibu’s north end before popping up on her toes to see over the tops of the other cars parked along the street. “It’s not too much farther. I can see Kendall from here, I think.” She leaned out into the oncoming traffic lane to look. “Ugh. This is a beautiful neighborhood, but I think this parking situation would get really old, really fast,” she finally summarized.
“Well, residents have garages and driveways. They don’t have to worry about finding street parking.”
“But every time you have a guest, you’d be apologizing about the parking situation.” She gave up a new shrug. “I know I would be, though I can’t imagine Elijah Banks apologizes for anything. Whether he’s at fault or not.”
Now I couldn’t help but laugh fully. She wasn’t that far off the mark. Elijah lived without apology. I’d said those exact words on more than one occasion.
Once we made it to the car, we quickly decided to go to my place downtown. The condo was close to everything, including Rio’s prep kitchen in Inglewood, her Seal Beach bungalow, my office at Shark Enterprises, and several of my other homes. For today, it made the most sense.
When I walked in the front door, it felt like it had been months since I’d done so. For once, I didn’t second-guess the sensation. This one made sense. The last time I was here, Rio hadn’t been committed to Clear Horizons. I hadn’t raced to free her, leaving the place burning to the ground in our wake. The charter yacht in Marina del Rey was nothing more than a prick in my mind, waiting as a possibility for a wild vacation away with her sometime. It had become so much more.
Life itself had.
“Do you want to take a shower?” Rio asked, scooting up from behind to wrap her arms around my waist. “I can make you some lunch while you do that.”
“No need,” I said, rubbing my hands over hers. “Everything I want is right here.”
But I suddenly needed to do more than tell her.
I had to show her. In the fullest sense of all those words.
In one hell-bent-for-passion swoop, I turned around and swept her off her feet. As I secured her in my arms, she yelped and giggled. There was more sweet laughter as she locked her arms around my neck, thinking I was going for playful Prince Charming, but when she got a look at the heavy-lidded lust in my gaze, she sucked in a sharp, deep breath.
“You good, Blaze?” I worried she wasn’t going to exhale again. “I don’t want to push you.”
“No. I mean, yes! Yes, baby. I’m good. We’re definitely good. So, so good. I’ve missed you so much…”
I was just a couple of steps into my direct course for the bedroom but stopped in my tracks. When a woman started spritzing tears with her words, that was as good as a stop sign.
“Oh. Hey,” I murmured, even wondering if I should set her down all the way. “Blaze. What’s going on? What’s wrong?”
Her brand-new giggle had my brain flashing neon words. What. The. Hell?
“Nothing’s wrong.” She leaned up and peppered my cheek with fervent kisses. “Not a single thing, my love.”
“Errr…huh?” I muttered.
“I just mean that I’m done fighting this, Grant. I’m done fighting us.” She threaded her slender fingers through my hair, scraping her fingernails along my scalp as she went. Shivers ran up and down my spine—as fireworks and angels chased back and forth through my senses. Yeah, they smashed the neon sign. And no, I didn’t give a fuck.
Barely believing what I’d just heard her say, I whispered, “Rio. Oh. God…”
I pressed my forehead to hers, savoring the seconds in which she held me even tighter. Nothing else came to mind but her name, again and again, like the litany I’d been praying to utter for so long. I couldn’t stop repeating it, as though she would disappear if I stopped calling out to her.
“Rio.” Kiss. “Rio.” Sigh. “Rio.” A kiss, longer and openmouthed, my tongue finding and dancing with hers. “Oh Rio, baby.”
And finally, letting her say something too.
“I was so scared, Grant. So scared you wouldn’t come back to me.”
The frantic race of her words became intense kisses from her gorgeous mouth. She gripped me with violent need, pulling my hair at my nape. It was more than her usual lust, filled with a dark kind of desperation and a needy sort of command. I didn’t mind the extra pricks of pain—to be honest, they were welcome distractions—but I grew concerned by the intuitions from her rising energy. She wasn’t passionate anymore. She seemed…frightened.
“Baby?” I tried to pull back a little. Not very far at all. But she dug in her fingers, forcing my face close.
“No,” she rasped. “No, Grant. Stay with me. Don’t go. Please, don’t—”
“Baby. Hey. I’m not leaving, okay? You couldn’t make me leave if you tried.” I finally made my way to the sofa and lowered to it, not letting up on the cocoon of my arms. She felt so small there. So shivery and frail.
Shit.
That was when the full revelation struck me.
She’d been backsliding. Not to the point that she’d set half the city on fire or anything but enough that her psyche was bruised, her heart unsure. I could feel it as if it was tattooed across her forehead. The ways, small but accumulative, in which she’d abused herself in the days I’d been missing.
Damn it. After all the hard work we’d put in during the cruise.
Well, I was no stranger to hard work. Not doing it myself or delegating it to another. In this case, it was a mix of both. A journey we’d just have to start all over again.
And what better time than now.
With that determination behind my every move, I laid her down beneath me on the sofa. At once, Rio began to soften for me. Expose herself to me. Also at once, I showed her my gratitude for her vulnerability. After bestowing a long, sweet kiss across her mouth, I let my mouth continue on to the delicate skin of her neck. She mewled with delicious abandon as I gently sucked.