But suddenly it all became too much. The need, the want, the heady emotion scraping against the raw spot he had revealed that still existed in her heart. And not telling him felt like the height of cowardice. What if all she had to do was ask? What if he didn’t reject her, what if he loved her too?
She turned, to find him watching her. She gathered every last ounce of her courage and made herself tell him the truth.
‘I’ve fallen in love with you, Leo.’ The words released on a tortured huff of breath.
The flicker of shock in his eyes appeared before he could mask it and stabbed right into her heart.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘LOVE IS JUST a word. It doesn’t mean anything.’
Leo hadn’t wanted to say it, but what else could he do? The last few days—hell, the last entire week—had been torture. And the torture had only got worse. He’d known this might be coming, and he had dreaded it, ever since they had made love the first morning in the cabin and he’d seen the words she wanted to say in her eyes.
It had become so hard to stick to his own rules. But it was even harder to do so now he knew she was nothing like the woman he had assumed even a week ago.
She had continued to captivate and inspire him. But what the hell did he do with that, when he had nothing to offer her?
She blinked and swallowed. ‘Is that all you have to say?’ she whispered, the shock in her voice only making his desperation worse.
He cupped her cheek, drew his thumb across the line of her lips, unable to stop himself from touching her, even though he knew now it wouldn’t stop the yearning, it would only make it worse.
‘We can’t have any more than this week. I thought you understood.’
She pulled away from his touch. Her eyes darkening, the longing still there, but beneath it was the sadness.
‘Why can’t we?’ she asked, so simply his insides turned over. ‘I know you don’t love me back, not yet,’ she added, and the understanding in her voice pierced his heart. ‘All I’m asking is that you let me in, Leo. Is that really so hard?’
She waited a beat, and the words were on the tip of his tongue. But the rush of emotion, of need, of yearning was so deep and visceral it terrified him.
He could not expose himself to that need, or it would leave him defenceless. The way he had been after his mother’s death.
Something he had strived his whole life never to be again.
‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ he said, absorbing the desperate yearning he could not give in to.
‘I see,’ she said, a heartbreakingly poignant smile on her face. ‘Thank you for being honest with me.’
She stepped back, the shutters coming down over her expression.
No. Damn it.
He grasped her arms, pulled her back into his embrace.
‘Why do you need any of that, when all that matters is this?’ he said. But he could hear the desperation in his own voice as he framed her face and pressed a kiss to her lips.
She opened for him instinctively. Their tongues tangled in a dance of desperation and desire. He felt her shudder of need. He tugged off her sweater and bra to reveal the full breasts, swollen with need. He’d devoured her body
so many times already, why was it never enough?
He placed her on the sofa, stripped off the rest of her clothes and tore off his own, then knelt in front of her, to find the heart of her pleasure with his lips. She cried out, sobbed as he worked the slick, swollen nub, feeding on her pleasure, knowing exactly how to touch and tempt her to make her shatter.
This, he could give her this, why wasn’t it enough? It had to be enough.
She rose up, bucking and shuddering beneath the sensual torment, her scent surrounding him, her surrender complete as the orgasm gripped her.
He rose over her, plunged the iron-hard erection deep into her welcoming heat, her sheath still pulsing with the brutal orgasm.
The firelight flickered over her body, the Christmas lights turning the chestnut curls to a mass of colours—her emerald eyes absorbing every ounce of his fear until all that was left was the need.