He loved her like this, her face turned up to his, her br**sts swaying with the jolting impact of their union. She was so beautiful. So real. Her muscles clenched around him, squeezing and gripping until he thought he’d go out of his mind. He heard his mind screaming at her, chanting over and over. Say yes, say you want me the same way. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t get a word out when she was milking his body of every drop of pleasure from his toes to the top of his head.
Dahlia’s body moved in perfect rhythm with his. He surrounded her, battered at her, loved her. She craved him in the same way he craved her. Not just his body, as beautiful as it was, but the two sides of his nature, wild and rough and gentle and tender. He was rough now, his hands hard, fingers biting into her as the energy swelled with the ferocity of their lovemaking. She matched him, her nails biting deep, her cries for more, always more. She drove him with the same wild hunger as he drove her.
She felt her cl**ax building and building, pushing past pleasure until it was close to pain. Then she was gripping him hard, taking him with her over the edge so they tumbled together. She screamed her answer, the breath exploding out of her as her body rocked with her orgasm. Sparks showered down over the pool, a spectacular display of fireworks. The embers fell hissing into the water. They lay together in silence listening to the crackle of the dancing flames and just smiled at one another.
When he could breathe again, when his heart stopped pounding, Nicolas leaned down to press a kiss into her navel. “You said yes.” He whispered the words against her belly, not looking at her. Just waiting.
Her fingers clutched his hair. “Surely you aren’t going to hold me to it when you were clearly using unethical means of persuasion.” There was teasing laughter in her voice. Contentment. Purring.
Nicolas kissed his way up to her breast. “Of course I am. I’m that kind of man.”
“Well then, I guess you’re stuck with me.”
Nicolas kept his head down. He didn’t dare look at her when his heart was overwhelmed with joy. Emotions with Dahlia were always amplified. Always intense. “I guess I am.” His voice was husky, but it worked. “I love you, Dahlia. You won’t be sorry.”
Her laughter vibrated around him. “I’m not worried about me.”
He kissed her because he had to. They shared the last of the lemonade and lay side by side, relaxing in the sun. He kept his hand on her. “I thought we could visit Lily next week. She’s been so anxious, and I hate to keep putting her off.” He made it casual, but he felt her stiffen beneath his palm.
“I don’t know.” That was all she said, but he heard the fear in her voice.
“Ryland said if we don’t go there soon, Lily and Ryland will be coming here. It means so much to her, Dahlia, and she can start you on all the exercises she has us doing daily to strengthen our barriers.”
“You can teach me the exercises,” she pointed out.
“True, but she can come up with ones specifically designed to keep energy at bay.” He had no idea if Lily could really do that, but he thought there was a good chance that she could.
“All right. I’ll go. But if I burn down her house and disgrace you in front of your friend Ryland and all the GhostWalkers, you still have to marry me.”
She had her face turned away from him, but he knew, in spite of her teasing tone, she was voicing a real fear.
He moved over the top of her again, pinning her small, fragile body beneath him. Framing her face with his hands, he took possession of her mouth. He could never get enough of kissing her. His tongue forced her lips apart and swept inside, staking his claim, pouring his love into her mouth, down her throat, into her body. “That’s a promise,” he agreed sincerely.
“I can’t do this, Nicolas,” Dahlia said.
She was so pale Nicolas was certain she was going to faint. He brought the car to a halt just outside the gates to the huge estate and leaned out the window to key in the proper code.
Dahlia had one hand on the door handle, ready to jump. She looked at him, her eyes huge. “Really, Nicolas, I can’t. Let’s go before someone sees we’re here.”
Nicolas waved to the security camera, knowing Arly, Lily’s security man, would have already spotted them, identified them, and taken down the license number on the car. The gates swung open slowly, and Dahlia held her breath until he thought she was going to pass out.
“I’ve never seen you like this, Dahlia.” He put his hand over hers to calm her. “Lily has waited and waited to meet you. She was going to come to us, and she would have, but you said you wanted to come back here, to see what you could remember.” He kept his voice very soothing.
“I know. I just never thought I’d feel this way.” She caught at his fingers and squeezed hard. “I can barely breathe.”
Dahlia looked around her at the lush grounds with rolling lawns and flowers of every color rioting for space. She had believed she would remember the house, the grounds, yet she didn’t remember any of it. She could only sit, trembling, waiting to see Lily. Waiting to believe Lily was real and not a figment of her childhood imagination, born out of desperation and need for one person to love her in her life. If Lily rejected her, turned away from her, Dahlia wasn’t certain she would survive it.
As the car moved up the long drive, she could see a woman standing on the steps of the huge, sprawling mansion. The house belonged in Europe with its enormous design and many wings. Dahlia watched as the woman shaded her eyes and clutched at the man standing close to her. He put his arm around her.
“That’s Lily, isn’t it?” Lily. She was beautiful and very real. Dahlia hardly recognized her own voice. She held Nicolas’s hand tighter.
“Yes, with her husband, Ryland.” Nicolas wanted to gather Dahlia in his arms and hold her to him. She was trembling with excitement, gripping his hand and he could see her pulse pounding frantically in her neck. She was very pale, her eyes enormous, almost too big for her face. “Tekihila, my love, she’ll love you. How could she not?” Dahlia still didn’t believe herself lovable. He could see the hesitation in her gaze every time she looked at him. Her confidence in their relationship had grown over the two weeks he’d kept her to himself at his home, but coming to Lily’s house had shaken her.
He stopped the car, barely getting it in park before Lily rushed down the stairs toward them.
“She’s limping,” Dahlia said.