The Rogue's Fortune

“I stopped by the loft.” She moved out of reach. “Darius said he hadn’t heard from you since Saturday. I couldn’t think of anyplace else you might have gone.” She gazed around the room, not meeting his eyes. “I met Fadira. I’m so glad they’re able to be together.”

“They blamed the canceled wedding on the missing statue,” Roark said. “Which of course means that the Rayas royal family is more determined than ever to get their hands on the Gold Heart statue Waverly’s is going to auction. Ann needs me to give her the statue I found, but I still haven’t located the missing documentation.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Stall Ann and get the documents back. I’ve got a lead on them. The man who stole them has business in the Bahamas in a week. I plan on heading down there to get them back.”

“How do you know he’ll have them?”

“I had a chat with an acquaintance of his in Cairo.”

“What sort of a chat?”

“The sort that gets information.”

“And after you get the documents back, what then?”

“Waverly’s reputation is saved. The Gold Heart statue is brought up for auction. We fight off whatever Dalton Rothschild has in store for us next.”

She seemed to have run out of questions. That was fine. He had a few of his own.

“Would you come with me?”

“Where?”

“For starters to the Bahamas. You no longer have work as an excuse to stay in New York.”

“I can’t just go.”

“Why not? You have nothing keeping you here.”

“It’s my home.”

“I’m not asking you to move across the world, just to spend a couple weeks seeing new places, meeting new people.”

“What happens when a couple weeks becomes a month, then six months? What if I get to a point where I never want to leave you?”

“Then don’t.”

He snatched her back into his arms and tasted her surprise as his mouth settled on hers. She met the searching plunge of his tongue with a joyful moan and slid her fingers into his hair.

In an instant everything that had been dull in his world burst into vivid color. Kissing her was like the return of spring after a long cold winter. She was sunshine and warming earth, lilacs and hyacinth. Nothing in the world compared to having her in his arms.

“Roark.” Her breath came in soft pants. “I have something I need to tell you.”

He’d surrendered her mouth so that he could nibble his way down her neck. She arched her back, pressing her breasts into his chest. Her coat was on the floor at her feet. In a few minutes he intended for her black suit to join it.

His fingers plucked her white blouse free of her pants. “I’m all ears.”

“No, you’re not,” she gasped, grabbing for his hands a second too late. He’d released the clasp on her bra and swallowed one breast in his palm. “You’re all hands.”

“And lips.” His mouth covered hers.

Slow and deep, he kissed her until all resistance vanished. He scooped her up and sat down in his mother’s favorite chair with Elizabeth cradled in his lap.

“You’re going to want to stop once you hear what I have to say,” she warned him, her fingers fanned across his cheek. She brushed his lower lip with her thumb.

“Nothing you could say would ever make me want to stop making love to you,” he told her.