Chapter Thirty-Seven

Hannah…

I don’t care how much power he has over me, because I don’t believe that Roarke would ever intentionally use that power to hurt me. That’s love, and I will never let insecurity or someone else’s viciousness make me forget the power of love. I walk inside the hotel room and gasp. The luxury room, which I’ve barely noticed until now, is filled with vases of my favorite flowers—while lilies—mixed with red roses. They’re everywhere, at least a dozen vases of a dozen flowers in each one. The door shuts behind me, and I turn to find Roarke right there, pulling me to him.

“I can’t believe you did this.” My voice cracks with the force of my emotions.

“Because I was such an asshole to you?” he teases, closing the space between us, his fingers catching my hip and walking me to him.

“No, I—”

“Thought I walked away because of Luke hitting on you?”

“You were pissed.” My fingers curl on his chest. “I know you and you—”

“You do know me, Hannah. Don’t forget that this time.”

“I won’t. I won’t forget. Roarke—”

“Not now, Han.” He cups my head with his hand, his forehead finding mine. “Right now, let’s just enjoy each other. We won’t lose each other again.” He pulls back to look at me. “Say it. We won’t lose each other again.”

His voice is rough, intense, full of demand that I happily answer. “Never again. We won’t lose each other again.”

He leans in to kiss me, and I press my hand to his chest. “I wasn’t flirting with Luke. I would never try to get back at you.”

“I know that, Han.”

“You were pissed. I know you.”

“Then you know I mean it when I say I’m not letting you go again.”

There’s a part of me that screams with past pain. He’s not letting me go now, but he did in the past, yet he doesn’t give me time to reply or to wallow in that pain. He’s already kissing me again, his tongue a long stroke of velvet that I feel everywhere, every nerve ending in my body on fire. “I love you,” he murmurs, and that’s all that matters. Him. Me. Us. Love. The past doesn’t matter.

He sits down on the stool at the end of the bed and drags me to his lap, and oh God, he feels so good. His hand slides over my back and down again, and there is nothing but this man who matters. Nothing. He has always been that missing piece of me. My fingers tangle in the thick strands of his dark hair as I sink into the kiss.

He moans, a low, rough moan, and tugs down the zipper at the back of my dress before he stands and settles me in front of him, turning me, my back to his front. Deft fingers unhook my bra, and his hands slip under the lace at my shoulders, but before he slides it down, he leans in and kisses my neck, scraping the delicate area with his teeth. My sex clenches, and I know how slow and well this man can make love to me, but I can’t take the wait. I just need him, now, right now.

I rotate in his arms, letting my dress and bra fall to the ground, leaving myself in nothing but panties and thigh-highs. My heels are gone. They must have fallen off when he pulled me into his lap. Funny how I didn’t notice.

Roarke’s hot gaze slides over my body, and then I’m in his arms in seconds, his mouth on my mouth, and he tastes tormented, like I torment him. I want to end that in him, in us. I feel that in him, too, the need to drive us to another place, a better one. One of his hands cups my backside while the other cups my breast, teasing my nipple, the assault on my senses leaving room for little else but him. So much so that now, I’m the one who moans, tugging at his T-shirt as I do.

He tugs it, too, over his head, and I’m already caressing all that hard muscle by the time it hits the ground. From there, there’s a whole lot of kissing and touching as we get his boots and pants off. The minute he’s naked, he takes me down to the bed, my back settling on the mattress, but he isn’t far behind. We end up facing each other, legs entwined, the thick ridge of his erection between us. “I didn’t think I’d ever touch you again,” he murmurs, molding me closer.

“Me either,” I whisper, and then his mouth is there, lips brushing my lips, a full-on kiss following, and the heat between us is burning me alive. He presses inside me, and suddenly, I’m so very naked, we’re so very naked, beyond the absence of our clothes, the vulnerability of wanting each other after hurting each other is there, present. But the funny thing is that yes, the past is here, it is, but somehow, it’s more a glove that fits around us and draws us closer, where we huddle together to weather the storm rather than push each other away.

Every kiss and every touch is tender and somehow erotic, a slow, sexy dance of our bodies that begins to burn hotter. He nips my lips, then licks the offended skin. He repeats the action at my shoulder. It’s almost angry, but it’s good. I’m angry, too. I’m angry at everything that went wrong, and that becomes a part of the burn. Our need becomes frenzied, and he’s thrusting and pulling me to him, our faces pressed close, our mouths parted. I don’t want it to end; I don’t want to ever end anything else with this man. But it does end. Release comes to me hard and fast, and I cling to Roarke. He shudders right over the edge with me, a low, guttural groan sliding from deep in his chest.

And then we’re there, on top of a Ritz-Carlton mattress in a room of lilies and roses, holding each other the way we didn’t think we’d ever hold each other again. We don’t speak. We just lay there together.

Roarke is the first to move. He kisses my temple. “Let me grab you a towel.” He pulls out of me, and I lay there with wetness clinging to my thighs, the insecurity that I know was a part of our breakup coming back to me. He’s back in all of his naked, perfect glory in less than a minute, pressing the towel between my legs. I’m not shy about such things with Roarke, and yet I find myself sitting up and scanning for my bag to grab my robe.

The instant I turn away, he catches my arm and brings me around to face him. “Don’t pull away. Don’t shut me out again like you did the other night.”

“I’m not. I’m not shutting you out.”

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he says. “Say it.”

“I can’t have babies, and you need to be a father. You’d be an amazing father.”

“I’m a father to hundreds of animals, Han. You know this. And we can adopt if we decide that’s what we want. It fits us. We rescue those who everyone else leaves behind.”

“This was part of why I felt insecure. This was brewing inside me back then, and then that video just ripped me to shreds. I thought: he needs her. I bet she can have babies.”

He drags me down to the mattress, catches my leg with his, and stares at me. “I didn’t cheat.”

“I believe you. I’m just being honest. I’m saying what I didn’t say back then.”

“And I’m listening. I should have listened closer. I should have known where you were on this, but, Hannah, baby, I’m with you. That’s the only place I am on this. Never once did I consider another woman and kids as an option for me.”

I suck in a breath and let it out. “I don’t know how to get by this.”

“We’ll go talk to someone together.” He strokes my cheek. “We’ll get by it together.”

“I should have given you a chance to explain the video, but I think some part of me thought that I was letting you off the hook. But you won’t move on. You won’t let me let you off the hook.”

“You belong with me, and I belong with you.”

“But you didn’t come for me. Some part of you—”

He cups my face and forces my gaze to his. “Don’t say what you’re about to say. It’s not true. I love you. And I meant what I said. I’m not letting you go again. Ever. You run this time, I will follow.”