And if she had any doubt, what came into his eyes now put it all to rest forever. It was staggering, the purity and totality of emotions that deluged her.
“I far more than love you. You. I’ve always loved you...from the first moment I saw you. But I thought you never really wanted me, and that was why you didn’t come with me, never sought me again. I fought admitting my love for years, so I could move on. But I was done fighting weeks ago. I only want to worship you forever, and be the father Rico deserves, and never let you go.”
Crying out, she snatched a kiss from those lips that had been the cause for her every ecstasy and agony.
“You want to know how I could love you? That’s how. I loved you from the first moment, too. I must have felt your love, and it kept me bound to you, even through the misconceptions and estrangement.” She melted caresses over the planes of his rugged face, sizzling in delight at the open adoration in his eyes. “And if I loved the old you with all my heart, I adore the new you that Rico unearthed, the magnificent man and human being your terrible life had buried deep within you, with all my being.”
He shook his head adamantly. “Rico only melted what remained of my deep freeze, but the one who brought the whole iceberg crashing down into tiny fragments has always been you. The moment I saw you again, it was over for me.” He heaved up, had her beneath him in a blink. “I want you certain of one thing. I would have admitted it sooner rather than later that I wanted nothing but to be yours, to make it all up to you, even if we didn’t have Rico.” His face twisted. “But we do have him, and you saved hi
m... You saved all of us.”
He buried his face in her bosom and she felt another thing she’d never thought possible. His tears.
Crying out, as if they burned her, she dragged his head up, her hands and lips trembling over his face, needing to wipe them and the pain behind them away.
No longer hiding anything from her, his emotional state or anything else inside him, he worshipped her in return. “This perfection makes me even more terrified. I don’t deserve a fraction of it. How could I possibly have all this?”
After another fervent kiss, she looked into his eyes, intoxicated with the freedom of showing him everything in her heart. “You better get used to it. You have all of me forever. And Rico. And you also have Rose and her family. And my family. And your best friend back. Not to mention that army of partners who drafted you into their brotherhood.”
His eyes turned into shimmering pools of silver. This time she knew it was with joy and gratitude.
His next words confirmed her suspicion. “It’s too much.”
Wrapping his massive frame in a fierce embrace, she pressed his head to her fluttering heart. “No, it isn’t. You see only the bad things you did, when you had overpowering reasons...or at least was under as powerful misconceptions. But you also did so many incredible things for so many people. You sacrificed yourself for your family, then for Rafael and Numair and their—your brotherhood, then you gave Rose a second chance and watched over her all her life.”
He pushed himself off her, as if unable to bear her exoneration. “But what I did to you...”
She pulled him back, never intending to let him go again. “I don’t care anymore what you did when you thought I was Burton’s accomplice. Neither should you.” He shook his head, face gripped in self-loathing. She grabbed his face, made him look at her. “What matters is that you gave me everything.”
A spectacular snort answered her claim.
It made her burst out laughing. His scowl deepened, not accepting that she should make light of it. Her lethal Cobra had turned out to be a noble knight after all.
Grinning so widely it hurt, she stabbed stinging fingers into the mane he’d let grow longer, as she loved it, which she’d been dying to do since he’d imposed the no-touching ban.
“You have,” she insisted. “You’ve given me passion and pleasure like I never dreamed possible. And you did something else no one could have—you freed me from Burton, opened up my life to new possibilities.”
“That was totally unintentional!” he protested.
She overrode his protest. “You did try to save me, and if I hadn’t been so busy protecting you, I would have come with you, or I would have at least sought you, and you would have protected me.” As he looked about to reject her qualifications, she tugged on his hair, stopping him. “But the greatest gift you gave me is Rico. And since your return, you’ve given me our own small family, and an extended one. Now you’re giving me your love, this incomparable gift you’ve never given another.”
Listening to her enumerate his countless contributions to her life, his expression softened with that tenderness she was already addicted to.
“I’m giving you everything I have and am. You already have it, will always have it. You can weed through the mess and extract only what you like. You can toss out the rest.” Just like that, he was the uncompromising Richard Graves again.
Laughing, her heart hurting with too much love and exultation, she stormed him with kisses again. “I’m hoarding every single thing about you. I love every gnarled shred of what makes you the man I worship.”
He only got more serious. “I mean it, Isabella. Just tell me everything on your mind the moment you think it, and whatever it is, it’s yours, it’s done or it’s gone.”
As he melted back to the bed, taking her with him, she luxuriated in his sculpted magnificence, her pleasure magnified unto infinity now that she knew this majestic being was hers as she was his and she’d always have the right to revel in him.
“As long as this is a two-way street and you tell me anything you want different.”
“You’re beyond perfect just the way you are.” He looked alarmed. “Never change!”
She chuckled, delirious with his new transparency. “I guess I’ll have to one day. I’ll grow older.”
“I already told you, you will only grow better.”