He catches my hips from behind. “Easy, baby,” he murmurs, nibbling my neck and sending a delicious rush of goosebumps down my spine. “I got you. Always.”
Always.
That word.
He’s used it often lately.
“I hope so,” I whisper, and maybe it’s the Tequila Sunrise, but right now, I have this fear pinching my chest—fear of loving him this much and losing him. But then, I’m an army brat who lost my mother to war. Rick is still a surgeon, but he’s also a more than willing soldier.
He shuts the truck door and guides me forward, smiling one of his sexy mischievous smiles. He catches my fingers and backs up. “What are you up to?”
“Wait and see.”
He stops with the kitchen door at his back and holds up a blindfold. “Turn around.”
My eyes widen. “What are you up to?” I repeat.
He turns me and steps into me. “You’re just going to have to trust me. I promise I’ll only lick in those special spots.”
Laughter erupts from my throat and I let him place the blindfold over my eyes. “You’re dirty.”
“Just the way you like me.” He turns me to face him and I can feel him watching me.
“You’re staring at me.”
He strokes a finger over my cheek. “I am. Because you’re just so damn beautiful.” His voice is rough, almost guttural.
Emotion washes over me—my emotion, his emotion. “Rick,” I whisper.
His lips press to my lips, a simple kiss, lips to lips and nothing more, that is somehow so much more. It’s fire, it’s passion, it’s love. A kiss that savors. A kiss that lingers when his mouth parts mine, and he claims my hand. “Come,” he murmurs, and before I know his intent, he’s lifted me and set me inside the house.
I laugh as he sets me on my feet, and then he captures my hand again, much like he captured my heart at that coffee bar when we met. I just didn’t know it then, but I do now. This started with hello, actually I’m pretty sure it was something more forceful than hello considering he’d blocked my car in with his truck.
Rick leads me forward, his arm around me to protect me from bumping into furniture or walls which I most certainly would without his aid. My body is pretty much all about how good he feels, but my mind tries to place where we are. My nostrils flare with a hint of a woodsy masculine scent that is all Rick and our bedroom. I love that about our bedroom. Rick halts our path to a stop, and he steps behind me, his breath a hot tickle on my neck. “Ready?”
I smile. “Yes. Very ready.”
He pulls off the blindfold I blink at the bed that is dusted with rose petals. A dozen roses sit on each nightstand and in the center sits a tray that holds two giant pieces of our favorite chocolate and a bottle of champagne. My heart swells with the effort he’s put into romancing me and I rotate as Rick goes down on a knee.
My heart starts to thunder in my chest. “What are you doing?” It’s a stupid question considering everything, especially the velvet box in his hand.
“I can’t imagine a happy day on this earth without you, Candy, baby. Will you marry me?”
He flips open the box to a gorgeous diamond and sapphire ring and tears streak my cheeks and the word, “Yes,” is all I can manage before he’s on his feet, kissing me.
I blink awake with a smile on my lips and the sound of thunder outside the hotel window, the room darker now. The air conditioner blowing even colder, too. Rick’s arm is heavy and protective around my body like he’ afraid of losing me. I don’t want to think about that fear. I just want to sleep a few more minutes. I just want to be back in that perfect night when Rick proposed. But that’s not where my mind goes. My mind decides to take me to hell instead.
CHAPTER NINE
Candace
The haze of sleep becomes a deep dark tunnel that travels right to the graveyard where Rick’s mother is buried. I grab Rick’s hand, trying to pull away from the nightmare but it’s too late I’m there, living the night all over again.
The night is upon us, the graveyard dimly lit, shadowed by storm clouds hovering in the deep abyss of the night. Rick’s kneeling beside his mother’s grave, and I angle the flashlight toward his hands where he wields a blade to dig for the secrets he believes he left here at his mother’s grave, under her protection. I have a fleeting moment of appreciation for his skill, for the ease at which he handles that blade as if it’s an extension of his body, a part of him. I know he can kill with those hands, I do, but perhaps that’s part of his appeal, part of his mesmerizing gigantic presence—the real power of this man is how easily he can give and take lives. Rick’s cellphone rings and an odd prickling at my neck has me glancing over my shoulder, the wind blowing my brown hair across my face.