The shower Niall insisted they take together was another revelation for Savannah. She’d never imagined her body could be so attuned to another human being’s that she could be brought to the brink again so easily...especially after two orgasms that far eclipsed anything she’d ever experienced. But when Niall’s mouth took hers, when his soapy hands slid over her arms, her breasts, her waist, her hips, she shivered with longing that was only assuaged when the fingers of his right hand slipped between her legs and set up a thrumming rhythm that devastated her. And all she could do as the warm water cascaded over their bodies was cling to him and shudder her release.
Her legs were so rubbery afterward that Niall had to dry them both off. Then he swept her into his arms over her faint protest that she could walk, and carried her back to bed.
They lay there in silence for what seemed like forever, as Savannah tried to marshal her thoughts but couldn’t. Niall’s heart beat beneath her ear—a steady thump, thump, thump that mirrored her own pulse now that she’d come down from her multi-orgasmic high.
Finally she broke the silence. “We didn’t need the lubricant after all.” Then she could have kicked herself that she’d picked those words out of the jumble in her brain to say to him.
Niall’s chest reverberated with soft laughter. “Uh, no, we didn’t,” he agreed.
She tugged the covers over her face to hide her embarrassment. “I didn’t mean to blurt that out,” she mumbled.
“You didn’t say anything I wasn’t already thinking,” he consoled her. He drew the covers away from her face and placed a finger beneath her chin to lift it, to force her eyes to meet his. “And I was never more grateful for anything in my life.”
She searched his dark eyes, but they held nothing but the truth. Then she admitted, “Me too,” a smile creeping across her face. One that was met with an answering smile of satisfaction and something else that surprised her—admiration. Because she’d let her inhibitions go? she wondered. Because she’d responded to him wholeheartedly? Because she’d taken him as high as he’d taken her?
“Whatever you’re thinking behind those serious gray eyes is probably right.”
She blinked, then shook her head. “How can you possibly know what I’m thinking?”
His smile deepened. “When a woman thinks a man can walk on water...”
“I never said that!”
“You didn’t have to. It was in your eyes.”
She blushed, but she didn’t look away. “So okay, yes. It was pretty fantastic. You’re pretty fantastic.”
He shook his head. “You’re the fantastic one, Savannah. All I did was unlock the door. After that it was all you.”
* * *
Niall woke with an armful of soft, warm woman who smelled amazing draped bonelessly across his chest. And an unforgettable evening burned into his memory. He’d told Savannah nothing less than the truth last night—it had all been her. He’d been blown away at how responsive she was to his slightest touch. She hadn’t shied away from anything, either, had let him take her on a magic carpet ride from start to finish.
Afterward she’d gazed at him as if he were her hero, and his early-morning semierection hardened in a rush at that memory. Was there any better aphrodisiac than having a woman look at you as if you could work miracles?
But as soon as that thought came to him, another one crowded in. One he didn’t want to deal with, but was going to have to: Whatever you do, don’t let her fall in love with you.
No, he wasn’t arrogant enough to think all he had to do was give a woman a few orgasms and she’d fall hopelessly in love with him. That wasn’t it at all. But they’d connected in other ways, too, not just in bed. And that had disaster written all over it, because sure as shooting he’d break her heart when she found out who and what he was. No way could she ever forgive him for that.
And if he fell in love with her, something in his heart of hearts he admitted he was already in the process of doing? Something he’d never imagined was even remotely possible, because he hadn’t thought he was still susceptible to the softer emotions, not since Francine knocked them out of him nineteen years ago. But with Savannah...
Suck it up, Jones, he told himself harshly, excising those thoughts with the precision of a surgeon with a scalpel. A woman like Savannah isn’t for the likes of you.
* * *
Savannah woke alone. At first she couldn’t believe it—she dragged the T-shirt she wore as a nightgown out of the drawer and over her head, then checked the bathroom, but no. No tall, incredibly fit man with shaggy brown hair, dark chocolate eyes and hands that should be licensed as a lethal weapon where women were concerned. She looked on the nightstand and on the desk, but there was no note, either.
A cold, sinking feeling settled over her as second thoughts made an unwelcome visit. Was this what was known as a one-night stand? Was this how a woman felt when she’d shared what she’d thought was an incredibly intimate evening with a man, only to find he didn’t feel the same?
She sank onto the edge of the bed, her arms crossed over her middle to try and stop the shakes that surfaced from nowhere. Sex, she reminded herself savagely. That’s all you asked for, remember? Incredible sex. Mind-blowing sex. But just sex.
A sound at the door brought her head up sharply, and she suddenly remembered the other night and the masked intruders Niall had chased away. She grabbed the first thing she could reach that could be used as a weapon—the lamp on the desk—and hefted it over her head to bring it down sharply on whomever walked through the door.
Only to drop it with a carpeted thud when Niall appeared in the open doorway, her electronic keycard in his hand.
He took in everything in a single, comprehensive glance, and said levelly, “I should have woken you to let you know I was just going next door to change clothes.”
She picked up the lamp and returned it to the desk, glad to see it wasn’t broken. She plugged it back in and straightened the lampshade before saying just as levelly, “That probably would have been a good idea.”
Niall came up behind her but didn’t touch her, for which she was grateful. But she couldn’t bring herself to look at him, either. Instead, she kept fiddling with the lampshade, trying to remove the dent.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a deep rumble. “Sorry I scared you. And even sorrier I let you wake up alone.” Remorse colored his words. “Look at me, Savannah.” But she couldn’t until he cupped her cheek with one hand and convinced her to turn around. “I can be an SOB at times, but I’m not that much of an SOB. I was only planning to be gone a couple of minutes, and you were sleeping so soundly I didn’t have the heart to waken you. But I’d never walk away without a word on the morning after the night before. Is that what you thought? That I’d just left?”
“It occurred to me.”
His hands tightened around her arms, and pain slashed across his face. “I guess I deserved that.”
Part of her wanted to reassure him, to say he didn’t deserve it. But another part of her wanted to lash out and hurt him as she’d been hurt when she’d woken up alone, and cauterize her own wounds at the same time. “You don’t owe me anything,” she said through stiff lips. “I threw myself at you—I admit that. I wanted to know what it was like, and I wasn’t disappointed. Thank you very much. But we don’t have to pretend it was anything more than a—”
He shook her suddenly, cutting her off. “Don’t say it.” His jaw set so tightly her own jaw ached. “Don’t attribute motives to me that are untrue,” he said through clenched teeth. “Whatever you think happened here last night, you’re wrong. You think it was just sex? Think again. You’re not like that, and believe it or not, neither am I. I don’t sleep with just any woman who will let me—that’s an insult to both of us.”
His head slanted down without any warning at all, and he took her mouth with an intensity that shook her to the core. But his lips softened almost immediately, and instead of demanding a response, he was coaxing one.
When he finally raised his head, they were both breathless. “That’s what happened here last night,” he insisted. “Something neither of us can deny. You wanted me, Savannah, and—God help me—I wanted you. You. Not a convenient body. You. I wanted the woman who fought down her fear of crowds to climb the Great Wall. I wanted the woman who stood on the ramparts of the Forbidden City, her face aglow with excitement. I wanted the woman who wouldn’t throw away good food just because it was cold.” He kissed her again, but oh-so-gently this time. “Tell me you wanted me, Savannah. Tell me.”
She couldn’t lie. “I wanted you, Niall. I wanted the man who helped me conquer my fears. The man who wouldn’t take advantage of me that first night. The man who took a bullet for someone else.”
His eyes closed and his arms enfolded her as a sigh shuddered out of him. “Okay then,” he said, stroking her tousled hair. “I am so sorry you woke up alone. And I swear I’ll never leave your bed again without letting you know where I went. But you have to promise me something, too.”
“What?” Her question was muffled against his chest.
“You have to promise to trust that I’ll never just walk away without a word. Without a backward glance. When the time comes, when you return to your world and I return to mine, I’ll leave a piece of myself behind with you, the same way you will with me.”
* * *
Everyone piled into the tour bus after breakfast, excitement mounting. Like Savannah, the Xi’an terracotta warriors were a must-see item for most of the people on the tour, and there was a lot of happy chatter among them. Many of the couples had made friends by now, so there were cries of “sit here!” and “I snagged an extra bottle of water from the front. Do you need one?”
Niall herded Savannah toward the back of the bus, as he’d done yesterday and the day before. The front seats had gone quickly, but that was okay with him. Sitting far in the back allowed him to keep a wary eye on the rest of the occupants. Not that he expected trouble on the bus in front of dozens of witnesses, but he held by the maxim to always sit facing the door. He couldn’t be taken unaware that way.
“Got your camera?” he asked Savannah.
She patted her vest pocket and nodded. “Batteries charged, extra battery pack and extra SD card, too, just in case. I plan on taking hundreds of pictures today.”
Niall smiled. Savannah’s enthusiasm was contagious, and even though he’d been here ten years ago on another assignment, he couldn’t help feeling a vicarious sense of excitement.
Mary Beth Thompson and her husband, Herb, were the last to board, and for a moment he feared the overly gregarious couple would join Savannah and him at the back if there were no seats near the front. He heaved a small sigh of relief when another couple halfway back called out, “Mary Beth! Herb! We saved seats for you!”
His eyes met Savannah’s, and she whispered, “Oh, thank God!”
“I guess there is such a thing as being too friendly,” he murmured.
She chuckled. “I don’t think Mary Beth has ever heard that silence is golden.”
“I pity her poor husband.”
She gasped and choked on laughter. “Oh, so do I! I was just thinking the same thing.”
They didn’t talk much after that. Once the bus pulled away from the hotel, the tour guide got on the microphone and began his spiel on everything they would see that day.
“Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China, who also built a portion of the Great Wall, commissioned the thousands of terracotta soldiers, archers, horses and chariots more than two thousand years ago,” he intoned. “And each face is unique. Archaeologists theorize the faces are those of actual persons serving in the emperor’s court.”
“As if we didn’t already know that,” Savannah murmured in Niall’s ear. “Even if I hadn’t researched it on my own, it’s all in the tour company’s brochure. Who doesn’t read the brochure ahead of time so they know what they’re going to see?”
“Most people. Now shhh,” he cautioned. “Just pretend you’re suitably impressed.”
“We will spend four hours at the museum, after which we will have lunch at a terracotta factory nearby, where you can purchase fine replicas of the statuary you will see this morning.”
“I’ll bet he gets a kickback on the sales,” Savannah whispered.
That did it. Niall choked on laughter he quickly turned into a pretended coughing fit, and Savannah solicitously handed him an unopened bottle of water. After he’d taken a couple of swallows and wiped his streaming eyes, he told her severely, “I’ll bet every dime I have you were a holy terror as a child. Did your parents ever spank you?”
Her eyes danced with humor. “I was a model child.”
“Yeah, I’ll just bet.”
“Okay, maybe once or twice,” she admitted. “You?”
He assumed a pious expression. “I was a model child.”
“Uh-huh.” Her skepticism was obvious.
“Well, there was this one time...but it was all Shane’s fault.”
“Shane?”
Quick as a flash, he mentally reviewed what he’d been about to say and revised it slightly. “My older brother.”
“The one who was medically discharged from the Marine Corps?”
“One and the same.”
“So tell me what happened. What did you and Shane do?”
He winced in exaggerated fashion. “We stole a car.”
“What?”
“Well, we didn’t actually steal it. We just sort of borrowed it without permission.”
“You stole a car.” She blinked at him and repeated, “You stole a car.”
“It belonged to our dad. Did I mention that?”
“You stole your dad’s car?”
“Yes, but it was Shane’s idea.”
She hesitated. “But you went along with it.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.”
He winced again. “Yeah. Oh. I was sixteen. Shane was a year older. Our dad had this red Corvette he rarely took out of the garage. Drove Shane and me crazy. But we paid for our crime, believe you me. Our dad tanned our hides when he found out. Taught us a lesson, that’s for sure. Shane and I have trod the straight and narrow ever since.”
“You really stole your dad’s car? You’re not making this up?”
“We really did. But we’ve been model citizens ever since. So what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
“Nothing like stealing a car.” She still seemed stuck on that concept.
“Come on, fair’s fair. I’ve revealed my criminal past. What about you?”
She thought for a moment. “Well, the statute of limitations has long since expired. And the store owner said he wouldn’t press charges, so...”
“Shoplifting? You?”
“I know. I know. I was seven. Old enough to know it was wrong.”
“What did you steal?”
She bit her lip.
“Come on, Savannah, confession is good for the soul. What did you steal?”
She winced much as he’d done. “A miniature Bible.”
He would have burst out laughing if he hadn’t already created a scene earlier, so he strangled his laughter and covered his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking. When he finally had himself mostly under control, he wheezed, “You stole a Bible?”
“The irony, I know. I’d never seen a book so tiny it fit in the palm of my hand, and I was fascinated. I just had to have it. Somehow, before I knew it, it ended up in my pocket.”
“So what happened?”
“My mom found it.” She shivered suddenly. “I can still remember the humiliation when she made me take it back to the store and turn myself in. Almost twenty-nine years ago, but that lesson is burned in my memory. I’ll never forget it.” All at once her eyes filled with tears, and she blinked hard to keep them from falling. “I didn’t realize it at the time,” she whispered, “but my mom stood behind me as I walked up to that counter and confessed my crime, sharing my guilt...the mother of a thief. Some mothers might have let it go. Some might have punished me by grounding me or something like that, but not mine. She made the punishment fit the crime. Made sure I’d never forget it.”
She gulped. “She was such a good mom. My dad, too. Wonderful parents. I look back at my childhood, and I realize all the ways they helped shape the woman I am. I miss them so much.”
His arms closed around her without conscious thought, and he pressed her face against his chest as she sobbed once, then lay quiescent. “It’s okay, Savannah. It’s okay to grieve.”
“I told myself I wasn’t going to cry anymore,” she breathed, clinging tightly. “It’s just...”
“I understand.” And the damnable thing was, he did understand, because his parents had raised him the same way Savannah’s parents had raised her, and he loved them just as deeply. And when his dad had died relatively young? He’d grieved for the longest time. Still did, on occasion, though he tried not to dwell on it. But he still loved his father and all the wonderful growing-up memories he would take to his grave.
Savannah’s loss was still so fresh. And she’d lost both parents, not just one. Added to that, she had no siblings to share her grief the way he did. It just about killed him that she had no one to hold her and love her and tell her it was going to be okay, that there was light at the end of the tunnel.
That was the moment he realized he was dangerously close to falling in love with Savannah, if he wasn’t already.
And wasn’t that a kick in the teeth for a man like him? A man with zero chance of being the kind of man she needed long term. You can tell yourself that until you’re blue in the face, he thought savagely, but that doesn’t change the truth.
Because the truth was, he wanted to be that man. Fiercely.