Pleasure shuddered through him. “I told you I was a child once.”
“And an adorable one at that.” He wasn’t sure what the wistfulness in her voice was about.
“Mama thought so.”
Romi threw him a smile over her shoulder before going back to the pictures. “This man, he’s the one isn’t he? The one that went away?”
He knew the photo she was talking about. It was of Natalya, Maxwell and the man he had called Batya for three years. They were on a harbor tour about a year after Batya had come into their lives.
Maxwell could remember Batya pointing out the landmarks and telling his eight-year-old self things the guide didn’t mention. It had been a magical day.
“I’m surprised you have it out.” Romi’s voice was soft, her sympathy not grating like it would be from someone else.
“It is part of my history.” A part he had never allowed himself to forget. Not the good times, not the way he’d felt when Batya simply wasn’t there any longer, nor the years that followed.
“And putting it away wouldn’t change that.”
“No. Besides, it was a good day.”
“Have you ever spoken to him since he left?”
“He died. No one told us. Why would they? Mama saw the obituary and told me. He was barely fifty.”
“Oh, Max.” That look on her face. It should have been like sandpaper on a raw wound, but he felt something warm unfurl inside him instead.
She crossed to him and walked right into his embrace, no sexual overtones to her actions, just a pure compassion that could only come from a pure heart like hers.
Romi’s hands locked behind his neck, her head tilted back. “Do you know how old I was when Maddie and I decided to be sisters?”
He shook his head, strangely reluctant to speak, shocked at the fact he wasn’t kissing her despite their positions. No other woman could derail his libidinous nature to something softer.
She said he was dangerous to her, but really, the opposite was just as true. He might never have the honesty to admit it, but he wasn’t a fool to hide from reality, either.
“Five,” she said, answering her own question.
“That is a long time ago.” His voice came out oddly scratchy.
“Yes.” Guileless blue eyes met his. “Almost twenty years.”
He nodded.
“When I care about someone, I stay in his or her life. I don’t give up because it’s uncomfortable, or inconvenient.” Those same blue eyes compelled him to believe in something other than the past.
He found himself wanting to and that only made him more wary. “She did not have another family she had to give you up to keep.”
“No, but if you think living with my dad the past few years has been a picnic, you’re wrong. Or even being best friends with Madcap Madison. That girl scares the crap out of me sometimes, but I will never just walk out of her life.”
Maxwell opened his mouth to tell her that their relationship wasn’t the same, but closed it again without speaking.
One year ago, Romi had turned down his offer of a liaison with a time limit, but not once in the past twelve months had she tried to avoid him. If she saw him at an event, she spoke to him. She answered the phone when he called, though she’d made it clear it wasn’t easy on her when he did call.
The queen of avoidance didn’t avoid people.
It was an important realization to make.
“You are very special,” he told her.
Her smile was luminescent. “I’m just me, but I’ve got to tell you, Max, I’m learning more about you in an afternoon than I have in all the time I’ve known you.”
“You’re going to marry me. You should know me.”
“Arrogant much?” she mocked.
“We’ve already discussed this.”
She sighed, but didn’t look annoyed. Just accepting. “Make love to me, Max. I want to know what I’ll learn about you then.”
He didn’t think there was much more for her to learn, but he wasn’t about to turn her down.
He’d only said no in the car because in no dimension of time was one night going to be enough between the two of them.
* * *
Romi gasped out a laugh as Maxwell lifted her into his arms to carry her through to the bedroom.
“What are you doing?” she demanded breathlessly.
“My patience is at an end and we are going to do this right.”
“I’m not your bride.” Not yet.
“I am making you mine tonight. If that is not marriage, what is?”
She almost snarked that she thought it was a business contract where he was concerned, but the expression in his dark gray eyes stopped her.
There was no humor there, no uncertainty, just burning possession and desire. She’d known he was like this. Had found it almost impossible to resist and just as difficult to forget.
“We’re making you mine, too, right?”
“Oh, yes, milaya, this is a two-sided promise we are making with our bodies.”
“You’ve had sex with lots of women.”
“More than a couple,” he admitted without shame.
“You didn’t claim them.”
“For the hours we spent together their bodies were mine to pleasure, but the connection lasted only as long as the sex.” He carried her into the bedroom and the moment felt as profound as he claimed.
She reflexively tightened her arms around his neck. “You’re staking a different kind of claim on me.”
“I did so a year ago.”
“Did you really?”
“Oh, yes.”
She believed him. Had no space to deny it. If she were honest with herself, she’d acknowledge she’d felt the claim and had lived with the hope that time would dull it into extinction.
Only now could she admit that hadn’t happened with anything like speed or success. And he was intent on renewing that claim, taking it to the natural conclusion.
A claim she was pretty sure she would never be able to dismiss again. Even with her best techniques at ignoring realities she did not want to face.
“You said you dated.” If the claim went both ways, that shouldn’t have happened.
Should it?
“I didn’t say those dates ended in sex.”
Shock coursed through Romi. “You haven’t been celibate a year.”
“I haven’t?”
“Don’t tease me. Just tell me.” She needed it spelled out in that voice of his she knew never lied to her.
“Yes, Ramona. A year ago, you claimed my body and it wants only you now. Does that make you happy?” He sure didn’t seem thrilled by the knowledge.
But Romi? She was a lot happier about it than his blackmail marriage proposal. “You know I didn’t want anyone else, either.”
“So, now we give in to the irresistible force.”
“I thought that was you,” she teased.
“So did I, before you engendered a burning desire in me that would not be quenched.”
The kiss that followed sent fire licking through her and touched to the depths of her soul as his mouth claimed hers with a marauder’s enthusiasm. When it ended, she was lying on the center of his huge bed, her clothes rumpled by his insistence on connecting with skin.
Gray irises almost swallowed completely by black, he perused her form with blatant possession and undeniable passion. Shoes gone, trousers open at the waist, Max’s shirt was unbuttoned to reveal the dark whorls of hair on his muscular chest.
Moving to sit up, he reached out and she found both her hands caught in his. She looked down at their laced fingers and then back up to his handsome face.
His expression was borderline stunned, something about the moment beyond what he had clearly expected. That was okay. Romi wasn’t feeling all that steady herself.
“This is my pledge to you,” he said and her heart stopped.
A pledge was a vow, a promise from a man who didn’t break his word. She wasn’t ready for promises, but couldn’t find the words to deny him the moment.
“For as long as we are together, there will be no other,” he said, all promise, no hesitation. “Any children we have will call me papa and be secure in my presence in their lives until the day I die.”
Tears burned at the back of her eyes. “You’re not being fair.”
Pledges like this could not be dismissed the next day like cobwebs on the wind. Not even when a lesser man made them, much less a man of Maxwell Black’s character.
“For as long as you belong to me, I will belong to you,” he continued as if she had not spoken. “Your well-being will be my priority, your pleasure my desire, your happiness my goal.”
“Even while you’re blackmailing me with my dad’s health?” she asked helplessly.
Gray eyes burned with certainty. “Even then.”
“Stop making me promises.” Please stop, her heart cried. “Just…just make love to me.”
“You can deny it, but the truth will not change. This…” He pulled one hand away to point between the two of them. “This is bigger than sex, this is bigger than a single night’s mind-blowing passion.”