“What do you fear?” Joel asked in his deep, dark voice.
Her hand lifted and pressed to his cheek. Stubble covered his hard jaw. Sexy. “The thing I fear most is losing you.” She was going to be completely honest with him. She kept secrets from nearly everyone else, even her closest friends, because that was second nature to her. With Joel, for Joel, she had to be different. “With you, I can be happy. I can love. I can see more than just the dark parts of the world.”
His head turned. His lips brushed against her palm. His eyes never left hers.
Chloe could feel the fierce pounding of her heart. “I held back on telling you the truth about the man in Dallas—the man you discovered with that shovel—because I feared losing you.” She didn’t say the man you killed with that shovel because Joel had too much guilt already. He’d defended himself, and if Joel hadn’t, she knew he would be dead. “I hadn’t told you everything from the beginning, and when you learned what I had been holding back, I was afraid you’d leave.”
“And I did—because I was a fucking idiot. But I wasn’t gone long, Chloe. I can’t be gone from you. Maybe it sounds like bullshit, but I swear, I feel like you are part of me. When I’m not with you, I’m not whole. I love you. I need you. You don’t have to be afraid of losing me because that shit will not happen.” A vow.
She believed him.
“But at the same time…”
His words had her stiffening.
“I don’t know that you should be with me. I don’t want to let you go. But maybe there is something about me…something that is too dark. Paul picked me for a reason, Chloe. He thought he could—”
“No.” She jumped off the pool’s edge and into the water with him. The water splashed around them. Her hands curled around his shoulders. “He didn’t pick you because you are weak. That wasn’t the reason.”
His hands wrapped around her waist.
“I’ve been digging.”
“Of course, you have,” he murmured.
“Paul was stationed in Dallas a few months before your attack. You worked on one of the FBI agents in his group. You saved the man’s life, Joel. You were a hero.”
He shook his head—
“You are a hero. That’s why he targeted you. He wanted to take something good and break it, but you were his greatest failure.”
Joel gazed at her.
“He couldn’t break you. If he had, you would have carved out Morgan’s heart with that scalpel when you had the chance.”
“Don’t think I wasn’t tempted.”
“Good doesn’t mean perfect. No one is perfect. But you are as far from weak or evil as it is possible to be.” That was why she was so drawn to him. Her own father had been weak. He’d been so in love with her mother that he’d overlooked all of the terrible things she’d done.
Joel wasn’t like that. He didn’t bring out the worst in her. He helped her to be her best.
Her legs rose and wrapped around his hips. “Any other questions?”
“Yeah, I can think of one or two.” Gruff.
She smiled. “Like what?”
“Like…will you marry me?”
Her breath caught. Chloe stared at him, completely lost.
Joel laughed. “Damn. I think I just did it. Made a move that you didn’t anticipate.”
He—he…yes. He had.
“I love you, Chloe Hastings. Now and always. You are the only partner I want in my life.” He brushed his lips tenderly over hers. “Will you marry me?”
Chloe really didn’t have to consider the question. She didn’t need to weigh it for pro or con merits. Because there was only one possible answer. “Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
This time, his kiss wasn’t so tender. It was hot and wild and happiness was exploding inside of Chloe. She kissed him with a desperate, euphoric intensity even as her body pressed greedily to his. Joel was hers. Her lover. Her partner.
Hers.
Just as she was his.
Her robe was floating around her in the water, so she fought the silk and pushed it away.
Joel eased back and exhaled in appreciation. “You were naked beneath the robe.”
“It saves time being that way.”
He was wearing swim trunks. Rather cute that he’d bothered, but they were in the way. She could feel the thick, heavy length of his cock pushing against her. She didn’t just want him against her. She wanted him in her.
Filling her completely. Driving them both into oblivion.
Her hands slid between them, and she pushed the trunks out of the way. Her hand curled around his heavy length and guided him toward her—
“Chloe, you have to be ready—”
Oh, she was. Ready for the next chapter with him. Ready for a life with him.
Joel’s cock brushed at the entrance to her body. He caught her hand and moved it back, then his long, strong fingers were stroking over her clit. Driving her need ever higher until she was arching and twisting against him. “Joel!”
“Now, baby. Now you are ready.”
His cock sank inside of her. His mouth was on her neck. Licking. Sucking. His fingers strummed her nipples, and her whole body went bow tight.
He plunged in and out of her, and Chloe was lost. Just as lost as she knew he was. Her nails raked over his arms, and her inner muscles clamped fiercely around him right before the pleasure slammed through every part of her body.
She might have screamed his name. She wasn’t really too worried about keeping quiet.
He thrust into her again and again. Her legs were around his hips, holding so tightly. And her mouth moved to his neck now. She licked. Kissed, and when she felt his cock swell even more within her, Chloe nipped him.
His whole body jerked as he came. Joel held her in an unbreakable grip.
“I love you,” he whispered.
With no hesitation, with the past not chaining her, Chloe said, “I love you, too.”
***
A sharp knock sounded at his door.
Reese groaned as he pulled the pillow closer to his ears. “I know! I heard her. It is so embarrassing, but what would you have me do?”
Another knock. Harder. Fine. He shoved the pillow aside and stomped for the door. He wrenched it open. “Look, Marie, you go and tell them to take that shit inside—”
Marie stepped forward. Her arms snaked up behind his neck, and she pulled his head down toward her. While he was gaping, she put her mouth against his.
Stunned, Reese could not move. Not a single muscle.
Marie jerked back. “I-I—” She shook her head. “You’re not doing anything.”
He should speak.
“Mistake. I don’t know what I was thinking.” She spun on her heel. “This was such a stupid—”
He pounced on her before she could get away. Reese scooped her into his arms and whirled her back to face him. “You need to cut a guy some slack.”
“What?”
“When the woman he wants most in the whole world comes to his room and kisses him…it can stun a man.”
She licked her lower lip. “So you were…not rejecting me?”
Rejecting her? “Do I look insane?”
Her head tilted as she seemed to ponder—