He gave me a long, sweet kiss once we’d recovered, and stroked a gentle hand up and down the damp skin of my back.
“I need you, Riley. Don’t ever fucking leave me again,” he rasped fiercely as he buried his face in my hair.
“I won’t,” I murmured. “I promise.”
Because I needed him just as much as he needed me.
I was stuck to Seth like a powerful magnet.
No way was I ever letting go. At all. Ever.
CHAPTER 31
SETH
“I am not going to Mexico,” Noah said in a voice he’d always reserved for putting us in our place as kids.
Adamant.
Unbending.
It meant—absolutely not happening.
I’m not doing it.
Etc. Etc. Etc.
Only this time, I knew my big brother wasn’t going to get his way.
We were well into the holidays, and Brooke and Liam were home. Even though it wasn’t Christmas yet, we’d wanted to give Noah one of his Christmas gifts from all of us.
A two-week resort vacation in Cancún, Mexico.
We’d all gathered together at Aiden’s place. We figured there was strength in numbers, but I knew exactly what was going to break Noah. The same thing that got me every damn time.
I looked around Aiden’s living room, waiting for the guilt trip to start.
The room was packed with family, but I didn’t mind being on the floor with Riley between my legs and leaning back against me.
Brooke turned a sad face to Noah. “You don’t like our gift? We tried so hard to get you something you could use.”
Aiden and I snickered quietly as Jade’s eyes welled up with tears. “I’m sorry, Noah. We just wanted you to get away and relax.”
I could see Noah squirm in his recliner as he said, “Don’t be sorry. It isn’t that I don’t like it, exactly.”
My eldest brother was such a liar. He hated it, all right. Noah would detest anything that got him out of his office for two weeks.
Problem was, he couldn’t break Jade’s and Brooke’s hearts.
He was just as big a sucker about making them unhappy as Aiden and I were, but he’d probably never admit it. Not that he had to. It was pretty damn clear at the moment.
“But you said you wouldn’t go,” Brooke said in a tremulous voice.
“I feel so bad,” Jade chimed in.
I glanced at Eli, and he was smirking. My brother-in-law knew damn well that his wife was crying crocodile tears. He was obviously amused by the performance.
Liam didn’t look concerned about Brooke, either, so he was apparently in on the farce.
“I’m way too busy to get away,” Noah said gruffly. “I can’t take two weeks off.”
“Yes, you can,” Aiden argued. “You’re a damn billionaire, Noah. It doesn’t matter if one of your projects gets behind. You don’t contract with anyone. It’s not like some company is waiting for your next big thing. Okay, maybe they are waiting for your next project because you’ve pushed out some brilliant stuff, but you aren’t on a deadline.”
“I have self-imposed deadlines that I set myself,” he disagreed.
“Then maybe you should stop doing that,” I told him. “You need a vacation. It will clear your mind.”
“I don’t want to clear my mind,” he grumbled. “I’ll lose ideas.”
“But couldn’t you just go this time?” Skye pleaded, getting into the drama.
Maybe Noah was particularly sensitive to his little sisters, but he cared about Skye, too. Judging by the uncomfortable look on Noah’s face, his sister-in-law was going to get to him, too.
Obviously, he couldn’t stand to see any woman in his family upset or sad.
It was his one weakness, and the family was playing it for all it was worth. It might be a shitty thing to do, but we were all desperate to get Noah away from his work.
Nobody could work as much as he did and stay sane.
We’d all been worried about him for a long time.
Now, no dirty tricks were off-limits if it would get Noah to relax and take a break.
Maybe if we truly believed that working like he did made him happy, we’d leave him alone. But he wasn’t happy. Lines of stress were starting to show on his face, and he had lost some weight because he forgot to eat. I knew he worked out when he remembered. But this crazy work shit was starting to affect his health.
“Please, Noah,” Brooke whimpered pathetically. “We really wanted to do this for you.”
Jade sniffed. “We wanted you to have a vacation so badly.”
“Come take a walk with me,” I whispered into Riley’s ear. “I think Brooke and Jade have all this under control.”
There was so much family crammed into the living room that nobody even acknowledged our exit.
Riley smiled as we left, and I hauled her toward the beach. “Was all of that just a setup?” she said suspiciously. “Jade was totally not herself.”
I grinned down at her as we walked. “A complete sham. The girls planned it themselves, and they’re doing a pretty damn good job. I’d say Noah will relent within a couple of minutes. Crying females are his only weakness. We’re desperate to get him to take a break. He needs it. He’s lost some weight, and he’s showing signs of stress.”
She nodded. “I get that. I just wish he didn’t have to be tricked.”
“He won’t go otherwise.”
“It was a pretty good show,” she mused. “Where are we going?”
It was a really nice day. Warm without a cloud in the sky. So I just walked the two of us down the beach.
“Somewhere that we can be alone,” I said vaguely.
“We’re alone at home all the time,” she pointed out.
We were at my home nearly all the time now. So it felt pretty damn good to hear her talk like it was ours.
“I guess I just wanted to get outside,” I answered noncommittally.
I threaded our fingers together as we walked, unwilling to admit that I was actually nervous.
What in the hell was I going to do if she said no?
Problem was, I couldn’t wait anymore. I had to make Riley mine before I completely lost my shit.
I’d gone a couple of weeks beyond the day that she’d told me about her pregnancy scare. I’d wanted to cement our relationship, make her see that we could work out any problem together.
Now, I was pretty sure she realized that. I’d seen no hesitation from her regarding our relationship, or any desire to run away.
She was as solid as a rock.
She finally trusts me completely.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, her voice concerned.
“Okay?” I asked as we finally reached the old dock on the property that was going to become a wildlife sanctuary. “Baby, it’s damn near perfect.”
We strolled down the wooden structure, and she plopped down on her ass when we reached the very end. “I love it here,” she said. “Can we just sit here for a while?”
I sat right in front of her. “That was the plan,” I admitted.
I’d wanted to find a destination that she loved. I was pretty certain that this place, the location that would always be a sanctuary for the endangered least terns, was exactly where we belonged.