Joaquin couldn’t quite say when it had happened, but sometime after showing her the letter that day, he began to take the idea of joining her in Los Angeles seriously.
If he followed her there, he wouldn’t have to miss her. They would be apart for a few weeks, at most, and then they could resume where they’d left off.
His conscience pricked him at this line of thought. What did he intend with Mae? Once she was working in a hospital as she’d always dreamed, she would have little time for their games.
But could he offer her more than that? True, he did enjoy spending time with her, and she did goad him into being a better man. If it weren’t for her, he’d never even be thinking of leaving. His own family thought him incapable of leaving.
But not Mae.
He put his arms behind his head, trying to get comfortable in the bed he’d wasted the past year in, and stared up into the darkness. He had two more days to think on it and decide. For now, he could simply remember all the moments they had spent together, a much more pleasurable task than thinking on the future.
He was remembering this afternoon, the two of them laughing in the hedge, when his door swung open. He sat up quickly, trying to see who might be there, his heart scrabbling sickeningly against his ribs. His fist flexed reflexively, seeking the weight of a pistol it hadn’t grasped in months.
The blur of white in his doorway coalesced into Mae, wearing only a nightgown. The wild skittering of his heart slowed and deepened.
She was here, in his room, wearing only a nightgown. His mind searched for why that might be while his groin insisted there could be only one reason.
She said not a word, simply crossed the room toward him, slipping in beside him when he lifted the covers. She nestled against him as if this was always their nighttime routine.
A strong emotion flooded him, pinned him to the bed with the weight of it. He wanted this to be their routine, to have her with him every night, with no furtiveness between them. If he did follow her, it would have to be as a true and honest lover, not as a sneak thief in the halls.
Her hand came to lie upon his chest, right over his heart, which was working to pump the blood and this strange realization through him. He wanted to tell her everything: his desire to follow her, his fear of doing so, the pain that never left him—he wanted to show her the full tapestry of himself, even the frayed bits.
But then her mouth was on his, and he never had the chance. Her tongue tangled with his, greedy in a way he’d never felt from her. It was as if she was determined to take everything he could give, all in one kiss.
Panic speared him at the thought this might be their last. He would not allow it. He wouldn’t allow her doubts and his fear to win this battle. They were going to Los Angeles, together. To hell with what anyone else thought.
He kissed her back just as fiercely, putting into it all he could not put into words. Her fingers slid down his chest, and a shiver went through him at the feel of those tender hands stroking his bare skin—for the first time not as a nurse did a patient, but as a woman did a man.
She pulled away from him to sit up, and he bit back a protest as she did. She was a free woman, and he could not hold her to him, no matter how much he wished it.
Her hands reached for the hem of her gown, drawing it up and over her body, tossing it aside as if it were of no import. She covered her chest with her crossed arms, her sex hidden by her drawn-up legs, but her eyes were completely unveiled. With her soft, pale curves, she looked quite like a dollop of whipped cream—sweet and light, ready to dissolve on his tongue.
He was reaching out to lay her back upon the bed so he could explore her at leisure when she reached forward herself, attaching those efficient fingers to the drawstring of his drawers, unfastening and shucking them from him with a deftness that brought a smile to his lips. There was something to be said for a woman so familiar with undressing men.
Once finished with their task, her hands came back to his chest, running down—
He stilled.
Her fingers found the hard knot of his scar, tracing over the ugly puckeredness of it. He held his breath, waiting to see how she would react. He himself could barely look at it when he was undressed—didn’t the damn thing remind him of its presence enough through the never-ending pain it caused?
Her fingers stilled, neither drawing away nor pressing closer.
“I am sorry for this,” she whispered and leaned forward to place her lips to it. With that sweetest of kisses, the spot he thought would cause him pain until the end of his days lit with warm delight. It was as if she reawakened that spot to pleasure, breathing life back into it.
She lifted her head a fraction, and he felt her attention move to his member, his erection growing with only the touch of her gaze. She reached a steady hand toward it and wrapped her fingers firmly around. He closed his eyes as a groan issued from his throat. Her hand began to move back and forth, the delicious vise of it tracing his length from root to tip and back again, each slide bringing a new rush of blood until he thought he might explode right into her clever hand.
Something about the groans coming from him or the quickened cadence of his breathing must have tipped her to his impending climax, because she pulled her hand away, set it to his shoulder, and shoved him back to the bed. Before he could even wonder what she was about, she straddled him, her beautiful breasts oh so close, her soft thighs gripping his, and her sex set against his. He clasped her hips, levering her for better access, even as she reached between them and guided his member into the heart of her.
That first thrust nearly undid him. She was slick and hot and tight, and the pleasure of possessing her, of being in her to his root, was nearly overwhelming. But then she began to move with him, and the pleasure obliterated all thought, left nothing but sensation in its wake. He had only enough presence of mind left to reach between them and stroke her hidden folds and the nub within, to drive her on to her own pleasure even as she rode him to his.
Quicker than he could have known the climax was upon him, a low groan tore from his throat as his world shattered and reformed in all of an instant.
She folded on top of him, her skin lust dampened and her breaths coming in gasps. He wrapped his arms around her to pull her close, nestling her head under his chin, her ear right next to his heart. Could she even now hear the wild thrum of it, singing to her of the release they had found together?
He closed his eyes, the better to enjoy the afterglow and her softness against him. He would rest only for a moment, then tell her that when they were together in Los Angeles, it would be as a betrothed couple.
Mae unwound herself from Joaquin’s sleeping form. He had fallen asleep moments after, but she had waited to be certain he wouldn’t awake again. And to enjoy a few more moments of being in his arms.
She had come here intending… well, intending any number of things. She’d had some wild idea of convincing him that they might suit, that once they were away from here and among regular society, they might court like any other couple. That a guttersnipe and a prince might actually be happy and content with one another.
She looked down at him for a moment. Had God ever fashioned a more infuriating, arrogant, fascinating man? When he had first been brought here, she’d thought of him only as a patient, a wound to be healed, flesh to wash and bandage and feed. As his wound had healed but the rest of him hadn’t, she’d begun to think of him as an irritation, taking up a bed that could have gone to someone truly in need.
But something had happened on that camping trip, something that had unlocked some force within him.
She sighed and ran her finger lightly across his scar. When he had admitted it pained him still, she had felt such shame and guilt—that he would forever be marked in such a way, that the pain would likely be with him always, and finally that she’d had such unkind thoughts about him sitting in his room doing nothing. She was a nurse and she ought to have known better.
Yet something within her wanted to push and pull at him until he became the man she knew he was capable of being.
Now that he was finally leaving this place, he had no more need of her prodding.
She leaned down to brush a kiss against his cheek, the first kiss she’d ever given him that wasn’t furtive, hurried, or lust filled. It was only a simple kiss, and it was the last she would ever give him.
She stole away into the dark of the corridor after, Joaquin never once waking.