She chewed before she answered. “You want to stand on your own two legs?”
Gervais smiled inwardly. Her idiom use was so close. “Something like that. If I can stand on my own two feet, make this team into something...” His mind searched for the correct words.
“Then no one can take that away from you. It is yours alone.”
Gervais nodded, stroking her arm. “Exactly. I imagine that’s why you want your Master’s in Nursing so badly. So that is holistically yours.”
“Mmm,” she said, tracing light lines on his chest. “Very wise of you. You have been listening to me, I see.”
Her touch stirred him. Heat rushed through his veins as he set aside the remote.
“We are more alike than you think.” He curled an arm around her shoulders and drew her closer, his fingers skimming through her silky hair to the impossibly soft skin of her upper arm.
“Because we are both stubborn and independent?” She slid her finger into the knot of his tie and loosened the material.
“It’s more than that.” He wrenched the tie off, consigning the expensive Italian silk to the floor.
“We are both struggling to meet the expectations of too much helpful family?” She arched a pale brow at him, all the while fingering open buttons on his shirt.
The hell with waiting.
He slid an arm under her knees and lifted her up and onto his lap, straddling him. Her long sundress spilled over her thighs, covering her while exposing just the smallest hint of satin panties where she sat on his thighs.
“And we both need to lose ourselves in each other right now.” His fingers sifted through her hair, seeking the ribbon that secured the halter top of her sundress.
“You are correct,” she assured him, edging down his thighs so that their hips met.
Her breasts flattened to his chest.
A hungry groan tore from his throat.
He kissed her hard, his control fractured after so many days of thinking through every move with her, of strategizing this relationship like the most important deal of his life. Because while it was all that and more, Erika was also the hottest, most incredible woman he’d ever met, and he wanted her so badly he ached.
She met each hungry swipe of his tongue with soft sighs and teasing moans that threatened to send him right over the edge. Already, her fingers worked the fastening of his belt, her thighs squeezing his hips.
“This day has been too much,” she admitted, her whispered confession one of the few times she’d confided her feelings. “I need you. This.”
And he wanted to give it to her. Now and forever.
But he knew better than to rattle her with talk of forever. Understood she was still coming to terms with a future together. So he forced himself to be everything she needed right now.
Flicking free the tie at her neck, he edged away from the kiss just enough to admire the fall of the gauzy top away from her beautiful breasts. Her skin was so pale she almost glowed in the darkened theater, his tanned hands a dark shadow against her as he cupped the full weight of one breast.
Molding her to his palm, he teased his thumb across the pebbled tip, liking the way her hips thrust harder against his as he did. She was more sensitive than ever, the least little touch making her breath come faster. Making her release quicker.
Just thinking about that forced him to move faster, one hand skimming down her calf to slip beneath the hem of her long dress. He stroked her bare knee. Smoothed up her slender thigh. Skimmed the satin of panties already damp for him.
She cried out his name as he worked her through the thin fabric, coaxing an orgasm from her with just a few strokes. Her back arched as the tension pulsed through her in waves, her knees hugging him until the spasms slowed.
He didn’t waste time searching out a condom, since they no longer needed one. He let her go just long enough to shove aside the placket of his pants and free his erection.
She took over then, her fingers curling the hard length and stroking up to the tip until his heart damn near beat its way out of his chest. He kissed her deeply, distracting her from her erotic mission, leaving him free to enter her.
And oh, damn.
The slick heat of her squeezed him, the scent of her skin and taste of her lips like a drug for his senses. He gripped her hips, guiding her where he wanted. Where he needed. And looking up at her in the half-light reflected from the dim screen, he could see that she was as lost as him. Her plump lips were moist and open, her eyes closed as she rode him, finding her pleasure with as much focus and intensity as him.
He must have said her name, because her eyes opened then. Her blue gaze locked on his.
And that did it.
More than any touch. Any kiss. Any sexy maneuver in the dark. Just having Erika right there with him drove him over the edge. The pleasure flared over his skin and up his spine, rocking him. He held on tight to her, surprised to realize she had found her own peak again right along with him, their bodies in perfect sync.
After the waves of pleasure began to fade and the sweat on their bodies cooled, he stroked her spine through that long veil of her hair, savoring the feel of her in his arms, her warm weight so welcome in his lap. He wanted her every night. Wanted to be the one to take care of her and ease her. Pleasure her.
But even as his feelings surged, he could tell she was pulling back. Throwing up a seemingly impenetrable wall of ice as she edged back and tugged her dress into place. Her family’s arrival had shaken her. Awakened an instinct to define herself in opposition to their expectations.
A part of him understood that. And was damn proud of her, too. But that same urge that motivated her to stand her ground, meet her parents and family dead-on, might also be the reason he felt frozen out.
The more he thought about it, the more real seemed the idea of losing not just his children, but her, too.
And as if she sensed his thoughts, she got to her feet. “Gervais, my family’s here, so I would appreciate it if we didn’t sleep together with them nearby.”
“Seriously?” He propped himself up on his elbows.
“I know it may seem silly with the babies on the way, but...them being here? I need space.”
He studied her face, her platinum-blond hair tumbling around her shoulders. “Damn it, Erika, all I’ve done is honor your need for space, taking cues off you.”
“A few short days. Less than a month. And you call that space? Time?” Her throat moved. “Clearly we have very different ideas about taking our time. Maybe we don’t understand each other nearly as well as you think.”
Frustration fired inside him as he felt victory slip away word by word. He tugged on his pants, all the while searching for the right words and coming up short.
Not that it mattered, since before he could speak, she’d left the room. The click of that door made it clear.
She was running scared and he wasn’t welcome to join her now.
If ever.
Twelve
The excitement of the fans at the home Hurricanes game was dwarfed in comparison to the buzz going on in the owners’ box.
Erika sat against the leather chair, taking it all in, her heart in her throat after the way she’d left things with Gervais last night. But the way he made her feel scared her down to her toes. He made her want too much at a time when she had to be more careful than ever about protecting her heart and her future.
Gramps Leon called out to the Mitras clan. “Did Erika tell you how the Reynauds came into their fortune?”
“No, Leon, she hasn’t shared much of anything with us. We’d love to know. American origin stories are so fascinating,” Hilda said darkly, shooting her a daggered look across the spread of shrimp gumbo and decadent brownies. Erika rolled her eyes, moving closer to the glass to get a look at the field. Somehow, this game she had disliked so much was starting to make sense to her.
“Grampa Leon, we all know that story,” Fiona said with a light laugh, her hands wringing together. She was nervous but Erika couldn’t tell why.
“Yes, but the beautiful princesses and queen haven’t. And they want to. Who am I to deny them that?” he said with a wink at Hilda, whose face was already turning into a toothy grin.
“It was a high-stakes poker game. My surly old Cajun ancestor was sweating as he stared at his hand of cards. The stakes were incredibly high, you see,” Gramps Leon began, leaning on his knees.
“What were the stakes, Leon?” Queen Arnora asked, on her best behavior, since Erika had been emphatic with her mother that histrionics would not be tolerated. The babies were Erika and Gervais’s, not potential little royal pawns.
Arnora had vowed she simply wanted to bond with their expanding family and was thrilled over impending grandparenthood.
“If my riverboat grandpa won, he would get a ship out of the deal. But if he lost, he would have to sign a non-compete. And stay working for the tyrant captain who kept him away from home for months on end. Needless to say, the cards laid out right for him and he won the first ship in the fleet. The Reynaud family empire was born. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers, eyes alight with a new audience to entertain. “The rest is history. The family has been successful ever since. Especially my grandboys.”