that. Since your happiness is starting to matter to me.” She hesitates. Flashes a rueful smile. “A lot.”
Neither of us speak for a beat or two, the silence expanding into something that feels a lot like mutual understanding.
Until my big, fat mouth pipes up again.
“If there’s any reason I should put the brakes on this relationship, tell me now, Carly. Before I get in too deep. Stop looking at me like I’m crazy. I’m dead serious.”
Sultry smile from the sex goddess. Which doesn’t exactly reassure me.
But I’m not mad at her when she comes in for another little kiss and infuses it with a generous helping of tongue this time. Matter of fact, I’m fucking lightheaded and giddy. And my dick? Never better.
“You don’t think I’m letting you go now that I have my hooks in you nice and deep, do you?” she purrs, her wide eyes the picture of angelic innocence.
“Fuck,” I say, leaping on her like a rabid hyena, yanking the linens down to reveal those pointy nipples and rolling her beneath me again.
She squeals with laughter and delight, all the encouragement I need.
Another round of no-holds-barred fucking—aloof and proper Princess Charlotte is a fan of doggy style, I discover—is more than my poor heart and body can take. I pass out when it’s over, sprawled spread-eagled on my belly and too exhausted to even cover us up.
Then I succumb to a raging case of PTSD when the morning chill wakes me, and I discover she’s gone once again when I reach for her.
“Carly,” I call, sitting bolt upright and groggily trying to come up to speed on weak sunlight filtering through the strange room. “Carly.”
There’s no part of me that exercises common sense and recognizes that a) she’s probably in the bathroom; and b) I can probably track her down again because I’m on her family estate. Only a greased pipeline directly to the scared-shitless ten-year-old kid who went to bed one night with a mother and woke the next morning to discover that she’d walked out of what was left of my childhood without the courtesy of a note.
“No need to wake the dead,” Carly says, looking bemused as she appears in the doorway with a gray ball of fur in one hand and a steaming cup of tea in the other. “I’m right here.”
I feel a tsunami of relief. Now that I’m fully awake, I realize I might have overreacted. But tell that to my pounding heart.
“What the hell are you doing?” I rest against the pillows and rub my eyes, mostly to disguise how shaken I am. “Wandering around in the middle the night.”
“I wasn’t wandering, grumble bunny. The cat wanted to come in, so I let her in. Then my thoughts started going and I couldn’t sleep, so I made tea. I assume that’s still legal?”
“After that stunt you pulled last time? Your privileges have been revoked. You need to go to the bathroom? You leave me a sticky note on your pillow.”
For a second, I think she’s going to rip me a new one for barking out orders, but then she surprises me. Like she always does.
“Damon,” she says softly. “Try to pay attention. I would have thought that my last conversation with my former boyfriend and/or my screaming orgasms last night would give you a clue, but you’re evidently not as bright as I’d hoped. So I’ll spell it out for you. I’m crazy about your amazing cock. Almost as crazy as I am about you. All that means that I’m not going anywhere. Okay?”
I grunt something indistinct, which is the best I can manage from this emotional roller coaster she’s got me on. Awkward, but what do you expect? One second, I think she’s pulled another disappearing act. The next, she’s making me wonder whether it might be possible for me to convince her to fall in love with me.
Which is insane, because love and I don’t have a long history together. Take my word for it.
She starts to smile. Stifles it.
“Friends?”
“No,” I snap. “I like your cat, though. What’s her name?”
“Her name is Weasel,” she says proudly, then presses a kiss to the cat’s furry head before dropping her onto the bed. The cat, who has vivid green eyes, immediately creeps forward to check me out. “Because she likes to slink around in the shadows and sneak up on everybody.”
“How’re you doing, kitty?” I say, scratching her ears and generating an enthusiastic round of purring. “Are you a good