Page 111 of Keep Me Safe
It had never been like this before. I’d never let emotion in during the act, and now I was grateful I hadn’t. What was happening between us was something I’d share only with her.
The word was probably meant to be a command, but it rang out as a desperate plea from her. “More.”
I shifted and bent a knee, then reached up to grab the edge of the mattress for leverage.
She wasn’t lying still beneath me, simply taking it. She was moaning, writhing, bucking... alive under me. Her hips moved to meet my thrusts, and she was in control of everything even though I was the one drenched in sweat from exertion, sliding over her, sliding inside her. Wanting this again, and again, forever.
“Look at me,” she said.
I was going to drown in the icy pools there. When I tried to kiss her, she tightened her hold on my head, stopping me.
Her voice was surprisingly steady, as if certain beyond a shadow of a doubt. “Ich liebe dich.”
Everything disappeared in a flash of white, and I tumbled into a place beyond pleasure. I heard her utter my name and then repeat that she loved me in English. Maybe she worried she’d said it wrong, or that I hadn’t heard her. But she’d said it again for herself, because she was tumbling into the same place I was, following me.
It felt like it was never going to stop, not that I wanted it to. And when it did, we returned slowly, one moment at a time.
How wrong we’d both proven each other. Her believing she wasn’t capable of loving me, and me believing I couldn’t physically express my love for her.
We lay unmoving, even after our breathing returned to normal. My muscles shook from the effort to keep my weight off her, but I could feel nothing except where we were still joined. She wasn’t crying this time. Her eyes were clear and full of love.
I reluctantly withdrew and collapsed beside her, exhausted. When she didn’t curl up under my arm, I glanced at her.
“I’m not cuddling with you. It’s a thousand degrees in here,” she said.
“Yes.” It probably hadn’t helped that she’d been trapped under an enormous man. “I’ll go turn on the ceiling fan.”
But I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to leave her. She set her hand on my bare, sweat-covered chest, right over my heart, like she wanted to be close but was overheated. I covered her hand with mine.
“This house should come with a warning.”
“What?” she murmured, her eyes closed.
“Are you aware this is where Jason fell in love with your sister?” I let my thumb brush over the back of her hand. “And now that you’ve told me you love me?—”
She propped herself up on an elbow and cast her gaze down on me, a sultry smile on her face. “Was that your plan? To bring me here and make me fall in love with you?” She leaned down and her lips hovered just over mine. “Sorry to disappoint, Shawn, but I was in love with you long before we came here.”
44
KARA
I sat on the bed,fighting my anxiety. Shawn leaned against a dresser, his handsome eyes fixed on the half empty glass of wine he swirled absentmindedly. “Everyone loves a surprise visit by the CEO.”
I gave him a plain look. “If by ‘everyone,’ you mean no one.”
He’d taken me on a tour of the Madison plant this afternoon, and the employees had scrambled around, frazzled. I could see the satisfaction in his eyes during it. He liked flexing his power in front of me.
Our week together had gone much, much too fast and, making matters worse, he seemed completely unaware of the dread that filled me now. It probably would have helped to tell him. To give him some clue that I didn’t want to leave the States.
But if I did that, he’d push. He’d persuade. He’d wear me down until I relented and gave him what he wanted.
He’d been dropping hints for me to come work for Osterhägen all week, but I was determined to stand on my own and keep my professional and personal life separate. I would not repeat the mistakes I’d made with Paul.
After dinner, we’d checked into a hotel near the airport that housed his plane, waiting to return to Munich in the morning. He’d had a bottle of red wine and two glasses sent up, but I didn’t touch it. The impending conversation was going to be difficult,and the worry was I’d drink too much and then say something I’d regret.
“I want to ask you something,” he said with a serious look, sending my heartrate skyrocketing. “Move in with me when we get back.”
I sighed. “I can’t.”
