Courting Carolina (37 page)

“Wait; Kitalanta,” she said, trying to turn back to the outside door.

Alec kept dragging her. “He doesn’t like the tunnels.” He chuckled again. “He’ll probably beat us to the campsite.”

“But we’re not going to the campsite,” she said, rushing past him to open the pump room door and pulling him inside before turning and wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing into him. “We’re going to the grotto.”

Chapter Twenty-two

Alec stopped just inside the entrance to the grotto and dropped Jane’s backpack in the sand when the beam of his headlamp illuminated the interior—or rather, the
furnished
interior—of the cave. “When did you do all of this?”

“Mom and I ditched Nicholas by telling him we were spending the day primping for the ball and then snuck down here this morning,” she said, bending to pull something out of her pack. “Mom thought we should spruce the place up a bit. Do you like it?”

“Ye lugged all this stuff down the tunnel?” he said in disbelief, shining his light on what looked like a large feather mattress, at least a dozen fancy pillows of varying size, several puffy blankets, a Persian rug, wineglasses, and several bottles of wine, a wicker trunk—doubling as a table, he assumed, judging by the two pillows on each side of it—enough candles to light an entire house, and…was that a copper
bathtub
? “It would have taken two packhorses to carry all this down here, and that tub sure as hell didn’t
come through the tunnel. Where did all this stuff come from?”

“From Daddy’s ship.”

Alec whipped his head around, shining his headlamp out at the sheltered cove. “His submarine? The one Trace Huntsman nearly sank when Mac stole Henry from him? But I heard it was half the size of an aircraft carrier,” he said when she nodded. “Ye mean it can fit through the underground river running up from the Gulf of Maine, and that it’s out in the fiord right now?”

“No,” Jane said, giving him a lopsided smile. She pointed at the north wall of the grotto. “It’s in a really large cave about a hundred yards through the granite. And you know that steel door a little ways up the tunnel from the shoreline that you asked about when we came down just now, because you hadn’t seen it on the blueprints? Well, it’s locked because it leads to the dock Mac built for Daddy’s ship. Mom got some of the crew to lug this stuff in for us, then she helped me make the place all cozy and…romantic.” She shrugged. “The bathtub was her idea.”

“Pretty damn sure of yourself, weren’t you?” he drawled as she walked away and started lighting the candles sitting on tiny ledges jutting from the walls of the cave.

Once she had several lit, Jane shut off the lamp dangling from her jacket zipper, then pulled off Alec’s headlamp on her way by him, tossing it down near the backpack as she headed to the other side of the cave. “I was pretty damn sure I’d be spending the next few days down here with
someone
,” she said way too cheerily, shooting him a sassy smile over her shoulder and batting her lashes. She started lighting the candles on the other side of the grotto. “Although I had assumed he’d be my husband, not my boyfriend.” She turned and walked up to him, that smile downright saint-tempting as the reflection of two dozen candles danced in her emerald green eyes. “But I guess that’s the way it’s done in the twenty-first century.”

“Jane,” he said on a sigh, “if ye need a ring— Wait, are you
saying your
mother
helped ye stage this…;? That she…;?” Alec dropped his chin to his chest. “I can never, ever face that woman again. What mother
helps
her daughter seduce a man?”

“A mother who loves her daughter,” Jane said, wrapping her arms around his neck. “And who realizes that sometimes saints and idiots need a little help making up their minds.” She gave him another sassy smile. “But according to a very happy hooker I know of, sometimes all they need is the proper encouragement.”

“And what…” He cleared his throat when she pressed into him. “What did ye have in mind?”

Jane lifted onto her toes, bringing her mouth next to his ear. “I stole a can of whipped cream from the restaurant,” she whispered. “And I downloaded a couple of new sex books, and one of them mentioned that men have a particularly sensitive spot right under their—”

Well, that should teach him to ask, Alec thought with a shudder as he covered her mouth with his—even as he wondered if he shouldn’t start reading more. Jane’s reaction was immediate and no less enthusiastic than he remembered. Damn, it had been a long three weeks.

“Alec?” she whispered, breaking the kiss and leaning away just enough to look him in the eyes. “Can we finally both get naked at the same time?”

He started to speak, but stayed silent when the candlelight glittered off the single emerald in the center of her tiara, only to have Jane step away when she noticed where he’d been looking.

She just as silently pulled her fleece off over her head, took off her bra, pulled off her boots and socks, then took off her pants and panties, her gaze never leaving his. She reached up and took off her emerald necklace and tossed it in the general vicinity of her pack, then reached up again and pulled the tiara out of her hair and sent it sailing past his shoulder toward the beach.

And then she stood there, completely naked, facing him. “I love you, Alec.”

And that, he figured, was about as naked as truth got.

Keeping his eyes locked on hers, Alec shed his jacket, his tie, cummerbund, and borrowed shirt, then lifted one foot then the other to pull off his shoes and socks. He unfastened his pants and pushed them down along with his shorts and stepped out of them, and stood in front of her completely naked. “I guess I love you, too.”

“You
guess
?”

“Okay, I
know
I love you.” He shrugged. “But I’m going to need a little time to get used to the idea, because I’ve spent quite a few years convincing myself that I
shouldn’t
fall in love.”

She crossed her arms under her breasts—which effectively pushed them up and toward him rather provocatively. “When would you
guess
you first realized you loved me?” she asked in an equally provocative whisper that sent the last firing brain cell he had down to his groin. “Alec?”

“What was the question?”

“When did you fall in love with me?”

He decided to focus on the curl of hair standing up from where she’d pulled off the tiara. Yeah, that was better. “I can’t rightly say. But,” he rushed on when he caught her scowl from the corner of his eyes, “I know when I finally
admitted
it to myself.”

“And when would that be?”

“When I read the note ye left me in the privy,” he said with a grin, only to hold up his hand to stop her when she started toward him. He went back to focusing on that curl. “Do you know the exact moment you fell in love with me?”

“That’s easy,” she whispered, the sudden gruffness in her voice making Alec drop his gaze to hers. “When you cut my hair.”

He spread his arms and Jane barreled into him, and Alec lifted her off her feet and strode to the inviting bed she’d set up. He knelt with her still in his arms and pressed her onto her back, kissing her the entire way down, and settled himself between her thighs. Only then did he break their kiss to smile down at her.

“Would ye happen to know where you tucked that condom?” he asked, deciding he better use one on the chance Titus had gone ahead and magically
remedied
his little problem about getting her pregnant.

“I tossed it in the fireplace of my cottage.”

He reared up. “Why?”

“Because I’d been carrying that particular condom around for all the wrong reasons. So,” she purred as she reached under the pillow, her hand reemerging holding another packet—that he couldn’t help but notice was already torn open, “I got us a whole box of new ones.” Her sultry smile turned lopsided. “Which I can see was very smart of me, as I imagine making a baby might be a little too much for a man to wrap his mind around if he’s still getting used to being in love.”

He dropped his forehead to hers with a chuckle. “Are ye sure you weren’t born in this century, lass?”

“Alec, are you stalling?”

“Aye,” he said, not lifting his head.

He felt her go still beneath him. “Why?”

“Because you’re a thirty-year-old virgin,” he said softly, finally looking at her. “And it’s not always…pleasant the first time.”

“Then don’t you think we should get the first time over with as soon as possible so we can get to the pleasant second time? And the third and fourth?” she whispered.

And that, Alec decided, was why he wasn’t afraid to love Jane. “Aye,” he said, just before he kissed her again—which, he quickly discovered, she took as permission to pounce.

It was more wrestling than lovemaking, with Jane often coming out the victor. Although Alec figured it was only because every last one of his brain cells had fallen under her spell. And he couldn’t really complain, considering that losing to Jane was like winning the foreplay lottery.

But feeling she’d worked herself into a heady steam of passion, Alec finally slipped on the condom while she was busy looking for the particularly sensitive spot her new book
said he was supposed to have, and wrestled her back beneath him and settled between her thighs again. Then he had to pin her hands down beside her head, and finally got her to quit squirming when he slowly pressed into her slick warmth.

He also stilled and smiled down at her. “Will ye be my girlfriend, Jane?”

“Aye,” she drawled in a surprisingly good mimic of his burr, the candlelight reflecting the passion in her eyes. “Forever, Alec.”

He pressed slowly but steadily forward, watching that passion ease slightly for the merest moment just before it flared with renewed fire and she lifted her hips into him with a moan. He withdrew and pressed into her again, sliding a little deeper and pulling a longer moan from her—which he answered with a groan of pleasure. Feeling her legs growing restless against his, and sensing her muscles beginning to tighten as she sought the pleasure she knew was hers for the taking, Alec increased the rhythm of his thrusts, only to lose himself in the storm with her.

He’d swear fireworks boomed overhead when she crested, even lighting up the sky behind them as Jane took him right along with her to that magical place they’d spent ten days craving to visit together. Hell, Alec thought as he lowered himself to his elbows to keep from crushing her so she could breathe—which they both were working very hard at, he couldn’t help but notice—he could
still
hear and see fireworks.

“S-sweet Athena,” she said in rasping pants, “if that was supposed…to be unpleasant…I can’t wait…for the second time.”

Alec carefully rolled away, and was about to tuck her up against his side when she sat up and yanked him up beside her just as another burst of fireworks broke over the fiord, causing him to sigh in relief that he hadn’t been imagining the storm gods were rejoicing that he’d just
devalued
a princess.

Because personally, he felt she’d just added a whole lot of value to him.

“Oh Alec, could this night be any more perfect?” she said, slipping her arm through his and leaning into him with a sigh.

“Well, a bottle of my ancestors’ liquid gold and a big juicy steak might help it a bit,” he said, stifling a grin when she straightened away—to better gape at him, he figured. “Seeing how I spent the day dealing with your last two suitors, I only had a couple of donuts on the ride back from Pine Creek and missed lunch and supper.” He looked over, and nope, she wasn’t gaping but glaring. “What?” he said, pulling her back down just as another burst of fireworks broke over the fiord. He rolled on top of her, threaded his fingers through hers, and held her hands beside her head. “You want times two and three and four to be anywhere near pleasant, you’re going to have to feed me.”

Damn. Alec knew that smile she suddenly gave him, and he knew this really wasn’t going to end well. But he’d trade having that goddamn bus off his chest for a thousand years of loving Jane any day of the week.

Jane turned from watching Kitalanta and his pod-mates, the rising sun glistening off their wet orca backs as they darted in and out of the cove playing keep-away with a large piece of driftwood, and saw Alec slowly fold the letter she’d given him ten minutes ago. Not knowing what to make of his silence, Jane guessed she probably should have thrown it in the fireplace the day she’d taken it back from the privy. Sweet Athena, forget that she’d declared her undying love for him; she had asked him to
marry
her.

“It would mean changing at least your last name again,” he said quietly, sliding the letter back into the envelope, “and possibly never having children if an operation to reverse the vasectomy I had nine years ago proved unsuccessful.”

Jane sucked in her breath. “You had a vasectomy? Why?”

She saw him also pull in a deep breath and let it out
slowly as he turned to her, his eyes unreadable. “Because I didn’t feel I had any business being a father.”

“But why?”