so much. It was a secret Richard kept from his family, and he confided in me because he knew I would understand. That was why he was different with me, why he gave me a chance when Damien never would. It was why he spoke to me so easily, connected with me when we seemed to have nothing in common.
It all made sense.
When my family was gone, I was finally alone with her.
She set the glasses in the sink and turned to me, her eyes a little sleepy from the wine she’d drunk throughout the entire day. “Well, I think that was a nice Christmas.”
I didn’t listen to a word she said. I came closer to her, cornering her against the kitchen counter until my hands gripped the edge on either side, giving her no way out, even though she would never run from me.
She stilled, her back straightening with tension, the words dying in her mouth because she knew now wasn’t the time to speak.
I breathed hard as I stared at her, looking at those green eyes like they were buried treasure. She was already the love of my life, the woman who stole my heart on the night she basically quoted Beyoncé and threw me off my game. I couldn’t remember the moment I fell in love, but now I understood why. I’d always been in love with her, felt that way before we crossed paths, because those feelings had been programmed at birth. “We’re meant to be together.” I bored into her gaze with mine, needing her to understand what I was saying, needing her to believe in destiny the way I believed in it—with my own heart.
I loved the daughter of a Skull King—and it all made sense.
She was everything I wanted in a woman. She was hard like steel, feisty like a madwoman, argumentative like a pain in the ass. She didn’t put up with shit because she was royalty, a daughter of a king.
She was meant for me.
Fucking made for me.
But I could never tell her why, never betray her father’s confidence, and I would carry his secret even when he was in the grave.
She stared at the intense expression on my face, her body still rigid because she could feel the pulsing emotions inside me, the chaos inside my mind. But then her eyes softened at my words, the way I meant them with every piece of my heart. “I know…”
I wanted to believe her, but there was no way she could believe it the way I believed. “I mean it. The universe made you for me. Made me for you.” My hands moved to her face, cupping her cheeks, looking at her with such an intense form of arousal that I’d never thought I was physically capable of feeling. All our other nights together seemed tame compared to this.
Both of her hands gripped my wrists, staring at me as her chest rose and fell with deep breaths. “Why are you saying this…?”
I could never tell her, never share that fact with her even though I desperately wanted to. “I just know…and I want you to know.” My hands tilted her chin up, and I devoured her mouth, kissing her harder than I ever had, like it was the first time I got to have her, the first time she would be mine. “I fucking love you…with all my goddamn soul.”
Twenty
Catalina
I had no idea what had gotten into Heath.
He couldn’t get enough of me.
He was on top of me, his heavy body pressing me into the mattress, the sweat rubbing against my skin as he moved. He gave it to me slow and deep, his endurance better than it’d ever been. He wanted to be with me all the time these days, didn’t bother making dinner sometimes and just ordering a pizza because he’d rather do this, which wasn’t like him at all.
Christmas had been days ago, and whenever he wasn’t at work, he was doing this.
Making love to me.
He grabbed me hard, kissed me hard, fucked me hard, did everything hard. Sometimes, his body shook when he had me, like the fire in his soul consumed him completely. He sucked my bottom lip into his mouth now, the sweat from his forehead mixing with our kiss. Maybe my family’s approval made him realize he would never lose me and that turned him on in a way it never had before. My ring was always on my finger, and I never took it