He released the strand over her breast where it curled to rest around the creamy swell. “I’ve missed you so damn much this year.”
“We barely knew each other then.” She rasped a fingernail lightly down his chest. “And things are happening so fast again now. Can’t we just enjoy this moment?”
“Think how much we’ve learned in just a day of really talking. Let’s talk some more.” He splayed his hand over her rib cage, then upward to toy with a pert nipple. “I’ve missed being with you, seeing you, feeling you move underneath as you whisper how much you need me, need more of what I can give you.”
She laughed, covering his mouth with her hand. “Okay, okay. I get the picture.”
He nipped her finger, then drew it in to soothe away the sting with his tongue. “You can’t tell me you never thought about those days together.”
“Of course I thought about it.” The sheets rustled as she sat up, hugging her knees to her chest. “You have a way of making an impression on a person that isn’t easy to forget. Staying away was my only option for keeping my sanity.”
“I make you crazy? Good.” He swept her hair forward over her shoulder and traced down her neck to her spine, one vertebrae at a time. “Let’s see if I can do it again.”
“You know you do, on so many levels.” Sighing, she rested her cheek on her knees as he made his way down her back.
“Then let’s talk some more.”
“I’m still finding my footing. I’m not exactly the tumultuous type, you know. Let’s deal with the most basic level for starters.”
“You’ve got a one-track mind right now.” And while he sure as hell wasn’t going to complain about that, he also noticed the way she wouldn’t meet his gaze. Not a good sign.
She smiled, still not looking at him, instead inching the sheet ever so slowly off him. “What’s so wrong with a married couple hav**g s*x? Lots of sex. In every room and vehicle at our disposal. We can talk the whole time. In fact, I’ve already got a pretty good idea of some things I’d like to say to you, too.”
He clasped her wrist, stopping her, holding her until finally she met his gaze. “I’m being serious here, Eloisa. We shared something special just now. We’d be fools to just toss that away again. But for it to work, I need you to be honest with me this time.”
Eloisa clutched a pillow to her stomach, the shadows and pain so intense in her eyes he wanted to scrap the whole conversation and just hold her. What in the world could have hurt her so deeply? He started to ask, but she pressed her fingertips to his mouth.
“Jonah, I hear what you’re saying, and while I joke about all that married sex, honestly, in my mind—” she tapped her temple “—we’re divorced. We have been for a long while. It’s going to take time before I can reconcile all these changes. So much is happening so fast…I want to trust it…trust you.”
“Then do it.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re adventurous by nature.” She eased her wrist free then clasped his hand. “Just this—” she raised their linked fingers “—is risky for me.”
“I don’t believe that, not after the woman I met a year ago.” He paused, realizing, holy hell, she really was scared. There was a side to her he hadn’t met in Spain. He honestly didn’t know the woman he’d married. And if he intended to stand a chance with her now, he needed to push harder than he had before.
He had to understand her in order to keep her. He searched for the best place to start. “Are you upset about your brother showing up tonight? Hearing your father is ill had to be upsetting. Are you going to see him? Is that what’s wrong?”
She looked down at the bedspread for so long he wondered if she would answer. Would she decide to cut him off at the knees? He wouldn’t be pushed aside again without seeing this through.
“Eloisa?” He tipped her chin up with a knuckle. “I asked about your father.”
“My father…right…uh, I haven’t decided.” Her grip eased on the hugged pillow. “I don’t even know what to think about Duarte showing up here. It was so unexpected, I’ll have to give this more thought.”
“But you believed him when he said your father is ill.” He sat up beside her, stroking her hair back from her face.
She didn’t flinch away.
“My lawyer does keep me informed to a certain degree. I know what my brothers look like. They were already teenagers when I saw them before. Even if I don’t know where everyone lives.” She laughed dryly. “Actually I don’t want to know. Being responsible for their safety would be too scary.”
He didn’t like the way they left her out here, unprotected. Then it hit him that he couldn’t let her go. He couldn’t leave her out here unprotected. There weren’t many who could protect her at the level she needed.
But he was a Landis.
And even though there had been times he’d bucked the Landis conventions, right now he welcomed every bit of power the Landis influence could bring if it kept Eloisa from being hurt in any way—physically or emotionally—by her Medina ties.
The Landis influence and money could also bring her peace in other ways, pampering that by rights should have been hers from the start. “You need a distraction.”
“You’ve done a mighty fine job of that tonight.” Looping an arm over his shoulders, she leaned against him, kissing him with unmistakable promise.
His pulse jackhammered in his chest, throbbing through his veins thicker, lower, urging him to act now. He steadied his breathing and his resolve.
Stick to the plan. More time with her. Show her how well she could fit in his world, how easily she could leave her old one behind. “I’ll up the ante. You took the afternoon off. Any chance you can call in sick for a couple of days?”
Interest lit in her eyes, followed by wariness. “I have to help Audrey.”
“When’s her next shindig?”
“Joey’s family is throwing a party—” a tentative hope replaced the wariness on her face “—but it isn’t until the weekend.”
“So that’s not a problem for you as long as you come back. Can she handle her own plans for two days?”
“I could take care of things by phone.” Her words tumbled over each other faster. “The bridesmaids’ fittings are already done.”
“That just leaves your job at the library. Can you get time off?”
“There are people who owe me favors.” Her slow seductive smile turned him inside out. “It depends on what you have to offer.”
“Trust me,” he urged her, determined to make that happen on every level. “You won’t be disappointed.”
Ten
“Open your eyes.”
Late afternoon nipping her arms with prickly heat, Eloisa pulled Jonah’s hands from her face and gasped in awe. She stood on top of a building overlooking a massive canyon sprawled out in a craggy display of orange, brown and bronze rock. Wind tore at her clothes with an ends-of-the-earth force. She inched to the edge, grasped the scrolled iron railing and found she stood on top of a mammoth hacienda-style retreat, built on the edge of a cliff corner.
When they’d left Pensacola earlier this afternoon, Jonah had kept the windows closed on the airplane and the limo windows had been shaded. By their fourth hour traveling she was nearing the edge of her trust factor, but wow, had her patience ever paid off.
The property was deserted. Scaffolding remained visible on one side of the expansive resort building, though no workers filled the platform levels of it today, their work apparently complete for the week. The historic hacienda appeared to have had a recent makeover, the scent of fresh paint mingling with the light fragrance of a potted crepe myrtle nearby.
She leaned farther over the rail. Terra-cotta pots were strategically placed around the patio with a variety of cacti—prickly pear, blooming hedgehog, spiking organ pipe, saguaro, even a towering Joshua tree. Below, in a stomach-lurching drop, away from the sculpted rooftop garden, cacti dotted the landscape in sparse and erratic abandon, no less beautiful. “This is magnificent. Where exactly are we?”
An eagle banked into a dive—down, down, down—so far it seemed impossible to continue, then it swooped upward again into the purple-blue sky. Warm sun counteracted the dry breeze pinning her cotton halter dress to her skin.
“Does it matter where we are?” He dismissed the luxurious digs around them and pointed outward. “Can’t it be beautiful just because it is, rather than because it has a fancy pedigree attached?”
She snorted on a laugh. “Spoken like a savvy investor who can see the possibilities in previously unappreciated properties.”
He clapped a palm over his chest. “I’m wounded you would think I’m so calculating.”
“You’re practical, and I admire that.” In fact, the more she learned about him the more she realized how she’d stereotyped him from the start. “You’re not at all the reckless playboy I mistook you for last year.”
“Don’t go romanticizing me. I simply found a job that suits my wandering feet and desire to create luxurious digs.”
She started to laugh, then stopped to look beyond his casual dismissal of her compliment. “I think it’s more than that for you.”
“Maybe. I’m a guy. I don’t analyze like you women. I just know that I like transforming things others have overlooked.” He smiled distractedly before his eyes cleared again. “We’re in West Texas, by the way. I figured that was about as far as I could go without you freaking out over the secrecy or worrying about getting back for your sister’s party.”
“You guessed right.” She accepted his conversational shift for now since he actually had shared more than she expected. “I’m glad I took the leap of faith and joined you.”
Thank goodness Audrey hadn’t been upset by the prospect of her leaving for a few days. In fact, Eloisa had been surprised at how readily her sister had encouraged her to go away. Only a week ago, Audrey had been hyperventilating over punch flavors, insisting she needed Eloisa and the caterer’s input on everything. Brides were notoriously edgy. She could understand and be patient.
Yet suddenly Audrey seemed calm. Go figure.
Regardless, that seemed a universe away now. She’d packed so carefully for this trip, choosing her most silky underwear, remembering to pack cologne, and her favorite apple lip gloss he’d so intensely—deliciously—noted in the library. Just this morning she’d even spied him sniffing the tube at her dressing table.
Yes, she’d taken care in choosing what to bring along, cautiously pinning high hopes on this outing. She wanted reassurance they had a chance at a future before she could open herself up to him totally. This compressed time together, away from distractions offered that opportunity.
She trailed her fingers along the curved railing. “So this place is your work? I’m very impressed.”