Shopping for a Billionaire 4 (17 page)

“And then I stabbed you,” I say with a choked, horrified snort, squeezing his warm hands.

“And I thought that was it. But you had a second one.” He doesn’t need to say what we’re both thinking. The room goes cold with a huge gust from a brewing storm on the bay. If only...

“Fate,” I blurt out.

“Fate,” he says without question. “Fate is a cruel mistress.”

I look at him with a questioning face.

“Of all the women I could have met with their hand down a toilet at one of my stores, it had to be the one with the same allergy that....”

“Yeah. It’s pretty freaking weird.”

“I shouldn’t be with you.”

I freeze.

“But I can’t do this.”

Do what?

“I can’t stay away. Dad tried to convince me that I’m signing up for nothing but heartbreak with you. That the genetics are stacked against us—”

Genetics?

“That our children have a higher chance of—”

CHILDREN? Did he just say
children
?

“And I’ll spend the rest of my life in fear of—”

In a mad rush I tackle him, the kiss desperate and urgent, my body launching into his with such force that we fall onto the bed, a mass of pillows rolling off and bouncing, pelting our legs as his mouth meets mine, rougher with each second, claiming me. 

“I can’t be without you,” he says in a hurried gasp. “I’ve tried. You’re forthright and honest and the most upfront woman I’ve ever met. You have an inner core that makes you turn toward the good. You make me want to be good, too.” He kisses the end of my nose and pulls back, half in shadows and half in moonlight. The room is timeless, his face pensive. Thoughtful.

“And you have a very weird family.”

“And a malicious cat,” I add, peppering his jaw with kisses.

“You don’t give a damn what people think, at the same time you care about what people feel. And you took on my dad.” I can feel his grin through our kiss. “That’s when I fell in love with you.”

“The same day you
dumped
me you fell in love with me?”

“Love isn’t rational.”

I fell in love with you.

“When you said you took a chance on me, that was...”

“My being an idiot. Not the taking a chance part.” He pulls my shirt out from the waistline of my skirt and rests his palms against my back. The feeling charges me, making my skin hum. “The jumbled mess of thinking that I should just walk away. That the pain of being with you outweighed the joy.”

Joy.

“And you’re here because...”

“Because I couldn’t stay away.”

“You had to pretend to be Alfredo the Plumber in order to tell me this?” 

“Did it work?”

“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask me again. At breakfast.” The smoldering look he gives me as he pulls me to him in a kiss makes my toes tingle. Dishes on the tray rattle and he sits up, moves the tray, and stands in the moonlight, the lines of his clothed body like a work of art.

I stand pressing in for a kiss, and begin to unbutton his shirt. “Forthright, huh?” One knowing touch as I reach down makes him suck air in through his teeth.

“I like a woman who knows what she wants.”

“Then you must
really
like me, because I know exactly what—and who—I want.”

My own breath is foreign to me, the spellbinding touch of his fingers on my cheek like a caress from a different world. He’s different now, deeper and richer in his intents, and I want to believe him. Need to believe him. My body responds before my heart, so quick to react that I pause, listening to the beat of blood pounding through me, all rushing to the surface of my skin to get closer to him.

I hold nothing back now and invite him to cast aside whatever keeps him from surrendering to the new reality we’ve woven just by being together, right here. Right now. I don’t need to hear him tell me he loves me—it’s too soon for that—but I need him to show me. 

Show me.

His hands take in my skin like a man in charge, grasping what he wants, possessing it. As I reach for his pants and unsnap them, his fingers make quick work of undoing my bra, then his heat is on me, warm palms cupping my breasts, the pleasure of being together and intimate nakedly on display in the look he gives me, open and revealing.

Trust. He trusts me, now, and joy pours through my body like liquid fire, my lips quivering from emotion, my whole being at rest and yet in eager motion. He slips my shirt, then bra, off my shoulders and onto the floor as he steps out of his clothes. We’re both naked and raw before one another in the blink of an eye, and we both feel it. The shockwave of peace and hope, of arousal and yearning.

Of coming home.

“This is what you want,” he murmurs against my shoulder as he seeds it with tiny kisses, repeating my own words back.

“Yes.”

“Me, too. More than anything. This is...everything. You are everything.”

“Then let’s be everything together.”

“High standards.”

“I know you’re an overachiever.”

His deep, throaty chuckle morphs into something more sensual as he gently guides me to the bed, the full length of him covering me. All my jokes disintegrate, replaced by a moment-by-moment awareness that makes me feel ancient, alive and immortal, regenerated kiss by kiss, stroke by stroke, lick by—

“Oh, there,” I whisper, the sound half groan, half sigh, as he makes me speechless once more. We’re just kissing, but it’s so much more, his mouth sensual and alive, our hands roaming and remembering, searching and loving. Each lush kiss makes me go to a level inside myself that I didn’t know I possess, and Declan’s right there with me, a fiery, passionate presence.

“You know,” he says as my hands ride up from the grooves of his hipbones, over his sharp belly, abs like inverted shells under perfect, musky skin, “this isn’t part of your evaluation.”

I laugh as he kisses the base of my throat, my fingertips memorizing him, reaching down to feel his tight ass. “How do you know? Maybe this is in my app.”

“Do you find the lovemaking aesthetically pleasing?” he says, his hands making damn certain that I do.

“I need more time and observation to make that kind of determination,” I say in a faux-prim voice.

The teasing fades as he kisses me again, then dips his head down to tongue one tight rosebud nipple. Again? This is new. Then again, we’ve never had all the time in the world, our own hotel room, and a bed the size of my backyard. 

“As you wish,” he adds, showing me exactly how to perform exemplary customer service, the rough rasp of the soft hair on his thighs and calves tickling my hips. We’re a slow, languid twinning of warmth now, and Declan stops to look at me.

Really look at me.

No modestly, no walls to hide emotion behind. We watch each other for longer than is decent, the air telescoping to a pinpoint, his eyes a cavern of delight. He’s inviting me to join him with this look, and I intertwine my fingers in his, shift my thigh just so to stroke him, the resulting gasp the only answer either of us needs to give.

The moonlight spilling into the room gives me all the visual access I could wish to revel in, my eyes feasting on the sharp lines of his body, how muscle dominates in all the empty spaces between bones. Fluid and graceful, Declan moves like a man who knows himself, and I adopt the same, even as it is not in my nature.

Who says it’s not?

His kisses travel lower, attending to my breasts, then down the valley and into the fertile lands where his mouth makes me arch up in surprise and pleasure. He takes his time, hands under me, generous with his effort, erotic with his skill. My hands find his shoulder blades, admiring the fine, artistic lines of his muscled back, then stroke up the nape of his neck to bury in his hair. He is at my essence, tasting all I have to offer, and he is giving in bold, breathtaking ways. 

My release is so close, a glow that fills me from top to bottom, and I reach down, curl up, and pull his mouth to mine, wanting more intimacy, wanting him face-to-face. His lips are tangy and savory, his smile all mine, and I nudge him to lie down on the bed, pulling myself up onto my knees. 

In full glory, oh—I can’t quite catch my breath, the handsome, powerful pull of his skin and blood next to me magnetic. I want him to belong to me. I want to be claimed. 

I want.

I want.

Declan tugs gently on my knee and guides me to straddle him. He turns to take care of practicalities, a condom on him quickly, and I am on him, not leaning forward with rounded shoulders and self-conscious posture, but riding high, sitting straight up, breasts gleaming in the shadow of the city lights and the moon’s eye.

“You are...” He finishes the sentence with a sighing sound more gratifying than any word. Eyes the color of Irish hills gaze at me with an intensity that brands me. I am his. He is mine.

I don’t need to hear the word love. Not yet. Because I know that someday I will. The certainty inside me is so solid, so secure that as he fills me, our connection complete, I will the words to span between us without being spoken. Appreciative, smoking eyes take me in as he pushes up, touching my core, we are one. One flesh, one heart. I feel it beating, strong and pattering under my hand, pulse pounding as we rock to ecstasy. 

This is how we find each other.

We tremor together on a frequency of our own creation, and then, with dawning awareness, find the divine within.

Chapter Nineteen

“You have such nice hands.” In the morning light, his big hands look like an artist carved them, the thick veins and muscled thumb pad like an artifact you would find in a display case in a Greek museum. I’m pressed against him under the covers, a handful of pillows under our shoulders and heads, and we’re luxuriating in the sheer quantity of skin that can touch each other when we’re naked, in a bed, and alone.

The way life should be.

He inhales slowly and stretches like a big lion, the thick triceps in his arms bulging and thinning out, making a deep groove in his arm as the muscles pull away from each other. Does the man have any fat on him? I have plenty for us both, I suppose. As if reading my mind he reaches for my ass and gives it a love pat.

My phone buzzes.

“Ignore it,” he groans, breathing with a slight sound of deep satisfaction. “I don’t want to deal with people just yet.”

“What about me?” I pretend to pout.

“You’re not people.”

“What am I, then?”

“You’re prey.” With a playful roar he pins me beneath him, demonstrating that all of his body isn’t nearly as sleepy as he’s pretending to be. Some parts woke up a bit earlier and are standing at attention, ready to, er....plunge into the day. 

Bzzzzz.

And then my hotel phone rings.

We look at each other in alarm. “I have to answer that,” I say with a pleading tone.

“Of course.” He lets me go and I grab the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Shannon?” It’s Amanda.

“Who is it?” Declan asks just loud enough for her next words to be:

“YOU HAVE A MAN IN YOUR ROOM WITH YOU?” She screams so loudly I fling the receiver across the bed and hold my palm over my ear, moaning in pain. Declan winces and sits up, scrambling for the phone, which slides off the bed like a paralyzed snake with no ability to save itself from plummeting.

“Amanda? It’s Declan. Shannon will be back in a second. She’s just sewing her eardrum back together.”

The ringing in my ear isn’t fading, and Declan gives me an awkward look. I’m completely naked and his eyes drift down.

Now he looks like a wolf.

“Fine, and you?” he says, making strange small talk with the woman who mysteriously set last night’s events into motion. I have a million words for her, most of them involving some combination of “thank” and “you,” but right now I’m staring, agog, at my naked—boyfriend?—talking about the weather with Amanda.

I snatch the phone back and wave him off to the bathroom. As he stands, his ass muscles make me whimper.

“Ear hurts that bad?’ she asks softly.

I wipe a line of drool from my mouth as I get a very nice view of Declan making coffee in the Keurig. “Um, yes. It’s torture. Why are you calling me in my room? You can’t do that. It could break my cover. Plus, what the hell did you do? Andrew told me you barged into his office and demanded to know about Declan and his mother’s death, and then I came here to do this mystery shop and it’s a plague of McCormicks! Terry and Andrew and Declan and James all pretended to work here.”

Silence.

“Amanda?”

“Um.” Her tone of voice is hesitant. If she were calling because someone got hurt, she’d say so. This is business, and a cold dread fills me.

“What’s going on? Tell me why you set all this up.”

“That’s not why I’m calling.” 

“Then why?”

“Greg’s been trying to call you. Me, too. Shannon, go get your smartphone and log in to your Twitter account.”

“Say what? I don’t need to read any more crap from Jessica Coffin right now.” I give Declan a once-over as he makes the second mug of coffee. “Especially right now.”

“Yeah, well, it’s about your mom. And Jessica. And the credit union client.”

“What do those three completely unrelated things have to do with each other?”

“Marie made them not-so unrelated last night.”

“Speak in English, please.” 

“Well, she, uh...”

“Spit it out!”

“Your mom started taunting Jessica Coffin on Twitter and insisting that you were pretending to be a lesbian for the credit union shop, and Jessica looped the client in, and now they’re insisting Greg fire you.”

I asked for the full story and got it. In one sentence.

“Say that again,” I peep. Declan’s frowning now and he hands me the hot cup of coffee, a concerned look on his face.

She takes a deep breath and repeats it, word for word.

“I’m
fired
?”

Declan’s eyebrows shoot up and he mouths the word. I shrug. None of this makes sense.

“Not yet, but when Greg calls...”

“Was this because I didn’t do the mystery shop I’m on right now correctly?” The words come out of my mouth and I know they’re wrong, but what she’s saying doesn’t make sense.