When I don’t go on, Declan says, “I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”
I exhale a hard breath and muster my courage. “That’s what this feels like to me. Standing stunned and overwhelmed at the edge of the Grand Canyon, staring at all the impossible beauty with my eyes nearly blinded and my mouth hanging open in awe.”
Silence.
Long, stony silence, unbroken only by the sound of my own crashing heartbeat in my ears.
Just as I’m about to try to cover that horrible mistake with a laugh and an Only kidding! Declan rolls us back over, throws a heavy leg over both of mine, and kisses me so passionately, my mind goes blank for a moment.
He pulls away, breathing raggedly. “Why aren’t you kissing me back?”
“I’m trying to figure out what’s happening.”
“What’s happening is that you’re breaking my bloody heart. Now fucking kiss me.”
I do, mainly because I’m still in obedient mode and there’s no telling how much longer it will be before the sand in that hourglass will run out.
When we come up for air, Declan stares down at me with an expression like he’s in excruciating pain. It’s not exactly comforting.
“Maybe you could say something nice right now so I could stop feeling like such a gigantic idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot, lass. I’m the idiot.”
“That’s close to nice. Try again.”
He drops his head to my shoulder and hides his face in the crook of my neck.
“Oh my god. You can’t even come up with anything to say to me after I vomited my heart all over the place? Let me up. I’m leaving.”
Squirming with humiliation, I try to rise, but I’m flattened beneath his enormous weight.
He grasps my jaw and holds my head steady, then says gruffly into my ear, “What you just said is the best thing anyone has ever said to me. In my life. The bloody best thing. And I know I’ll be thinking about it for the rest of my days, long after you’ve forgotten me. You’re young and beautiful, and you’ve got dozens of men in your future who’ll fall madly in love with you—”
“Hundreds. At least.”
“—and I’ll be nothing but a distant memory for you. But I’ll still be trying to scrub your face and your taste and your sweet voice from my mind fifty years from now, because I already know nothing else will ever be able to compare to you. Nothing and no one will ever come close.”
My heart swells. I inhale slowly, feeling his words sink down through my flesh and settle into the marrow of my bones. When I speak, my voice comes out shaky. “I’m not sure you have fifty years left, geezer.”
“Not if I spend much more time in your company, hellcat.”
He takes my face in his hands and kisses me deeply, letting me feel everything he’s feeling. Then he rolls over again so he’s lying on his back, and I’m cradled in his strong arms with my cheek pressed to his chest, listening to his pounding heart.
We lie like that for a long time, until the emotion expanding inside my body becomes too unbearable.
“One last nugget of honesty.”
He groans. “I don’t know if I can take it.”
“You’re stronger than you think. So here it is. I’ll never forget you. And I’ll never call any other man sir. Even if someone asks me to—which they won’t, I’m much too terrifying—that word will always be reserved for you and only you. You’re welcome.”
His exhalation is a big, sudden burst of air. “Holy fuck. I don’t know whether to laugh, kiss you, or jump out the nearest window.”
“You can decide later. For now, why don’t you just make me something to eat? I could really murder a salad.”
“No sane person craves salad.”
“Who said I was sane? Clearly, I’m not. I’m lying here with the elderly gangster who kidnapped me and whose idea of romance is calling me a camel.”
“How many times did you use the thesaurus to look up alternatives for the word ‘old’?”
“None. I just sat there looking at you when I woke up on your jet after you first kidnapped me and made a list in my head.”
“Very funny. Forty-two isn’t old.”
“Not if you’re a tortoise. Or a giant sequoia. Or one of those glass sponges in the East China Sea that can live to be like ten thousand. But in human years, you’re already more than half dead.”
He laughs. “We just made love, and you’re telling me I’m more than half dead? And you accuse me of not being romantic.”
Made love.
Not fucked or had sex or any of the other less charming options. Made love.
I won’t name this emotion. I doubt there’s a word for it, anyway.
Declan removes my handcuffs long enough to dress me in one of his white button-down shirts, then recuffs me and drags on a pair of black jeans. Barefoot and bare chested, he leads me into the kitchen. He sets me on a stool at the huge marble island and kisses my forehead.
Then he sets about rummaging through his huge refrigerator for something to feed me.
I watch him, marveling at the masterpiece of architecture that is his back. “How often do you work out?”
“Every day. Ham?” He holds up a plastic bag of deli meat.
“Is it salad flavored?”
“No.”
“Exactly.”
He peers at me over his shoulder. “Are you a vegan?”
“What did that background check you ran on me tell you?”
“Many different things, none of which concerned your diet. Are you?”
“No. I just really love veggies. I used to eat a lot of junk, but I cleaned up my diet. I feel much better now. Didn’t you buy a bunch of green stuff for me when I first got here?”
Declan turns back to the fridge, replaces the ham in the drawer he removed it from, and opens another drawer. Staring down into it, he sighs. “Aye. I was hoping it somehow disappeared while you were in the hospital.”
“I could make you something, if you want. I promise you’ll think it’s good.”
When he looks at me over his shoulder again, his expression is doubtful.
“Okay, maybe not good. Edible, at least. I’ll sprinkle it with lots of M&Ms and Lay’s potato chips. That should make you happy.”
“I don’t eat that stuff. I keep it for Kieran. He has a sweet tooth. And a salty tooth. A fried tooth, too. Basically anything a doctor wouldn’t want you to eat, he loves it.”
“No wonder he looked at the tray he brought me like he was about to throw up.”
Declan chuckles. “Didn’t stop him from trying to convince me I should unleash you in the kitchen to cook up a batch of rabbit food for him and the boys.”
“Such is my power. Speaking of the boys, where is everyone?”
He turns from the fridge with a bunch of vegetables in baggies. He lets the door swing shut and sets everything down on the counter across from me. Removing a cutting board and a knife from a drawer, he says, “Downstairs.”
“What’s downstairs?”
He pauses with the knife in midair over a cucumber. “The entrance to the building.”
Right. Kieran’s a bodyguard. He’s on bodyguard duty. “Does he ever go home?”