Need for Lilah searing through him, Carlos opened the security panel in the wall beside the door. Every room in the house was equipped with one, a way to lock the doors and seal the windows from any outside intrusion. While his father had installed such extreme safety measures for their protection against everything from hurricanes to an attack, Carlos had an entirely different purpose in mind.
Tapping in codes with as much speed as he’d played the piano, he secured the door with a click and hiss. The windows then darkened until the ballroom became a luxurious—impenetrable—cocoon.
Lilah, seated on the edge of the piano bench, gasped in surprise. “I had no idea. And no one can see inside?”
“This is my home, my dominion,” he declared, sauntering toward her. “No one will disturb us. No one can see us. I would never put you at risk. I will keep you safe, always.”
The evening spent talking with his father and his brothers was such a mixed bag of familiar and torturous. There was a hole in their family that had never been filled.
A void because he’d failed to keep his mother safe.
And while he knew in his head that he’d been one thirteen-year-old against a small band of rebels, that didn’t stop him from feeling, knowing, he should have been able to do more. He’d lived with the knowledge for years, but tonight the memories flayed him raw. More than ever he needed the forgetfulness he knew he could find in Lilah’s arms.
Rising, she faced him without hesitation. Her hands fell on his shoulders and he gathered the soft cotton of her nightgown set in his fists. When he saw her pupils widen with desire, he swept the fabric up and over her head. He sent the gown sailing across the room in a white flag of truce, not surrender.
She stood before him, unflinching, proudly naked. His hands trembled ever so slightly as he reached to touch her. Trembled, for God’s sake. He was known for his ever-steady control under even the most stressful and lengthy surgeries. But nothing had tapped his composure as deeply as Lilah, her beautiful body and creamy skin on display for him.
Only him.
Possessiveness spread further through him, growing roots until he knew he could never escape the feeling. And right now it became vitally important to make sure she was every bit as consumed by desire as he was.
Cupping her shoulders, he eased her back to the bench, guiding her further still until she reclined with her legs draped over the end. Her eyes flared with understanding a second before he lowered her head. Nudging her knees apart with his shoulders, he stroked up the insides of her thighs, following with slow, deliberate kisses. Her sighs encouraged him.
Aroused him.
Softly, deliberately, he nuzzled her through the thin satin barrier of her panties. The scent of her filled him every time he inhaled, which he wanted to do over and over again because nothing, absolutely nothing rivaled her.
He skimmed aside her panties and…yes…tasted her essence, teased her sweet folds. Her back bowed upward as she mumbled sweetly incoherent requests for more. He hooked his arms under her knees and brought her closer, urging her pleasure higher. She gripped his shoulders, her nails cutting half-moons into his flesh. Each husky gasp came faster until she grasped his hair.
“Now,” she demanded, “I need you inside me.”
No need to tell him twice. “Lucky for us both that’s exactly where I want to be.”
Kissing her slickened, swollen sex gently once, he eased her feet to the ground again. He stole a lingering look at her, reveling in her dazed eyes, flushed cheeks and tousled hair streaming an auburn flame over the edge of the bench. She’d never looked more beautiful.
She arched upward and he caught her around the waist, shifting her onto the keyboard in a jangled chord. She yanked at his pants with frantic hands, tearing at his zipper until she freed his throbbing length. Bracing his hand behind her on the piano, he thrust inside. Her moist heat clamped around him in sync with her legs locked around his waist. Her heels dug into his bu**ocks as he thrust again and again.
Their speeding hearts, breaths and sighs mixed with the Steinway’s own tune. He let her transport him from this room, from the island and the memories slamming into him from all directions. With each incredible grip of her silken body, stroke of her hands, he realized he’d approached things all wrong with Lilah. He’d thought by shutting her out he could avoid the past. Instead, with Lilah like this, the hell of it faded to the back of his mind. If he could stay with her, inside her, he could shut the rest out.
She clenched around him as her release built, increased until she flung her head back. Her cry of pleasure echoed into the domed ceiling. Hearing her, watching her—feeling her—unravel in his arms snapped the last thread of restraint in him. He pulsed inside her, deeply, fully, and somehow nowhere near enough because already he wanted her again.
Holding her as aftershocks snapped through him, he gathered her close and sank to the piano bench with her in his lap. He smoothed her hair and whispered along her brow how much she moved him, other words he couldn’t form or remember, except that some poet inside him had come to life with her.
The feel of her against him, perspiration slicking her skin and sealing her to him, felt so damn right. He skimmed his hands down her back and soaked in the leisurely pleasure of her pressed to him, her br**sts, her hips… Her stomach curved ever so slightly and he realized…Her pregnancy was beginning to show. Medically, he knew all the stages and changes she would undergo. But for the first time, he allowed himself to think of experiencing that miracle in an up close and personal way.
As a father.
Something shifted inside him and he slid a hand between them, splaying across her stomach, her child. He felt the weight of her gaze on him and looked up. She stared back with an open vulnerability that sucker punched him. In that moment, she was his old friend, his lover now, the soon-to-be mother of his child, and he had to have her.
The warmth in her eyes all but unraveled him. But he couldn’t lose focus, not when he needed her in his life for so many reasons.
He would do anything, say anything, pretend to be the man she seemed to want if that’s what it took to persuade her to stay.
Eleven
Lounging in the overlarge tub in her suite, Lilah leaned back against Carlos’s chest. His long legs stretched on either side of hers with rose petals floating in the water, scenting the air. She’d never seen a place with so many fresh flowers around every corner, even vases alongside the LCD screen and sound system currently piping Beethoven into their tiled retreat.