Finally, Mina Kaki had been the one to “manage things.” She’d moved Ashna into school in Woodside. HRH and she had given Bram no choice, insisting Ashna needed her cousins and the feminine influence of her aunt and grandmother. Now Ashna wondered if he hadn’t been relieved to be rid of her.
If her aunt and uncle hadn’t moved her into their home, what would Ashna have done?
And yet instead of going to the Anchorage, tonight Ashna was headed to a hotel where a promise waited for her. A promise that she could be strong.
After walking God knows how many miles to the hotel where she had dropped him off hours . . . years . . . ago, she stopped outside the huge plate-glass doors. She had no idea what his room number was. She didn’t have his phone number.
She was about to turn around, because collapsing outside a Ritz-Carlton was a little too over-the-top for her, even with the current drama in her life.
“Ms. Raje!”
When was the last time she’d been this relieved to see someone?
A question best left unanswered.
“George! Hi.”
The older man gave her a kind smile. He was still in his uniform. “Are you here to see Mr. Silva?”
She nodded, hoping he couldn’t tell she’d been crying.
He was wearing sunglasses, and it hid what was in his eyes, which felt like such a kindness. The idea of the world seeing her, anyone seeing her right now, felt violating.
Except one person, apparently, because she was willing to break into his hotel room.
“Can you tell me his room number, please?”
He didn’t laugh at her or seem suspicious. His face remained entirely without judgment.
“Twenty-one hundred,” he said quietly. If he was afraid he’d get in trouble, he didn’t show it.
Ashna would fight tooth and nail to make sure he wouldn’t get in trouble.
“Thanks, George. Can you please . . . um . . . not let him know I’m here? It’s . . .”
“It’s a surprise. Mr. Silva is a very lucky man.” He held up a key card. “If you follow me, I’ll get you all set with the elevator.” He went into the hotel lobby and she followed him, trying to make up for her bedraggled state with poise. Thank you, Mina Kaki, for teaching me that.
They made their way to a bank of elevators under a row of what had to be the brightest chandeliers Ashna had ever seen. Her grandmother would be horrified at their brightness. The chandeliers at the Anchorage and at Sagar Mahal were always adjusted just so.
When the elevator opened, George followed her in, swiped the card, and then stepped out.
“George.” Ashna stopped him and gave him a quick hug, then pulled awkwardly back into the elevator. “Thank you.”
His smile was encouraging. “It’s going to be all right, Ms. Raje.”
It sure didn’t feel like that, but she hoped he was right.
It was one of those elevators that deposited Ashna directly into a lobby with a single wide ornate door. The urge to turn around warred violently with the need to see him.
She got out of the elevator and walked to the door.
And knocked.
And waited and waited and waited.
Then turned around and went back to the elevator.
A door opened behind her.
“Ash.”
God, his voice.
Turn around.
She felt him move closer. His heady smell enveloped her. Dear Lord, he’d been in the shower.
His breathing was right behind her. The heat of his body. Tears streamed down her face. Her eyes were probably swollen. Her hair was still wet inside her bun; she had meant to dry it at home.
All that walking had left her skin slick with sweat. She probably smelled like a skunk.
“Ash? Sweetheart?”
It was the stupidest thing, but the way he turned both words into questions sliced all the way through her. A sob made her shoulders jerk, and she pressed a hand to her mouth.
His hands were on her arms, so gentle it only made the tears worse. He turned her. Despite everything swirling inside her, the sight of him punched her in the center of her chest. A seventy-mile-per-hour kick she blocked with her whole body.
He leaned forward, his eyes meeting hers. The mossy green centers pushing out the gold all the way to the edges, the mismatch in size magnified. They drank her in before he spoke. “I thought opening the door in a towel might be a bit too obvious.” His hair was down, and it fell in damp waves around his face down to his shoulders.
“So you pulled on middle-school-boy shorts?” Through her tears a smile escaped. He was wearing bright yellow basketball shorts that hit his knees and covered his scar.
Other than the shorts, his entire body was as bare as the day he was born. Every inch of him was tanned and ripped and gorgeous. Exactly the way all those YouTube videos of him working out promised. But all Ashna saw was a leaner, softer version. An eighteen-year-old body that had held her exactly right. So right that nothing had ever matched up.
She closed her eyes.
Hands cupped her face. His released breath at the touch sounded as ragged as her own.
She opened her eyes and took in the full blast of his relentlessly focused gaze.
“Do you mean it?” Her voice was a whisper.
He swallowed, his thickly stubbled jaw tightening. “Mean what?”
“Everything you say to me with your eyes?”
He groaned, the depth of his soul bared by the sound.
Then he was bending to her and she was stretching up to him.
The first touch was feather light, the barest skimming of lips against lips. Then a zing so powerful strength drained from her legs. She reached for him, clutching his arms, his shoulders like a lifeline. His hands angled her face, fitting her mouth exactly so. Invading and cajoling and opening. All at once. Everything at once.
Hunger rose inside Ashna like a tidal wave. She gnawed at his lips, pushing-pulling, met his tongue. Sweet relief, wet and thick in her mouth, filling her up all the way to the back of her lungs. No air, no breath, just the taste of him everywhere. Everywhere.
And his hair. God. His hair in her hands. Flowers she’d clutched at the temple had felt less like worship. She threaded her fingers through the strands, fisted them so hard they dug into her palms, tugged around the sensitive skin between her fingers.
All of her, she wanted all of her touching all of him that way. Tight and wrapped. No spaces. Her legs wrapped around his hips as he lifted her and carried her in.
“Rico.” She pulled away, hands still in his hair as he kicked the door behind them. “Your knee.” She slid off him, hands sliding to his cheeks, his beard at once rough and smooth and more erotic against her palms than she could ever have imagined. She stroked him even as she pulled away.
He tightened his hold on her, a full-body hug that said: Don’t leave me. “My knee is fine, Ash. I swear. Forget about my knee. Please.” Breathless. He was breathless and he touched her lips with his again. Then again. “Baby, how, tell me, how did we let this go?”
Her heart spasmed at that. She soaked up his taste. Sunshine would taste like this. A fresh summer stream with a hint of melting sugar. Crisp and sweet.
She wanted to bottle it up, blend it into a tea, drink from him until the day she died.
Her lower lip slipped from between his lips, clinging to the soft suction, his mouth resisting letting her go. He dropped a kiss on it, swollen and sensitive beyond words. All of her too aroused and tender to bear.