“Don’t worry,” Seth said firmly, dropping a kiss on her brow and then her cheek. He stood suddenly. She watched him in bemusement as he went and pushed the button to electronically lower the blinds.
“Why shouldn’t I worry?” she asked when he turned and headed back to the bed.
“Because those things are all thousands of miles away from us,” he said as he lay down on the bed next to her. “It won’t do any good for us to worry about them now. Let’s take a little nap.” His arms came around her. She gaped at him, but instinctively rolled over at his urging. He scooted behind her, his front to her back, spooning her.
“You want to take a nap?” she asked incredulously.
“Sure. Why not? We’re on vacation.”
Her chest felt very full, her throat achy. It seemed like such an unsurpassable breach had opened between them. He couldn’t trust what she was. She would never sacrifice her career goals, not that Seth was asking her to.
But nothing felt more tangible and more real in that moment than his embrace. How could she think he was so far away from her, when he was right here?
He began to stroke her hair, as if he sensed her unease and attempted to soothe it. His heat began to resonate into her. She wasn’t sure how it happened, but the knot in her chest slowly began to unwind. Her eyelids grew heavy as he caressed her shoulder and upper arm. Her flesh melted against his solid length.
“But nothing has been solved,” she said, resisting letting go. She wasn’t used to leaving things hovering in midair. She was a problem solver.
“Nothing is going to be solved in a day,” he rumbled from behind her. “You can’t force it. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens. Right now, relax,” he said before he kissed her ear and she shivered in pleasure.
It wasn’t as if she entirely agreed with him. But his deep, rough voice always reassured her . . . compelled her, the truth be told. She curled up closer to him, and succumbed to sleep.
Fifteen
When she opened her eyes later, the room was filled with slanting slivers of gold-red light and deep shadow. Evening was falling. Seth didn’t move from behind her, but somehow she sensed he was awake. Maybe it was the tension in his body.
“If I don’t watch it, I’m going to get used to falling asleep in the middle of the day,” she said in a hushed voice, just in case she was wrong about him being awake.
“It’s good for you. You need the rest,” he said, sliding his hand down the side of her body, cupping her curves lightly. She went still in awareness as he rubbed her hip in a small circular motion.
“It’s good for you too. You work just as hard as I do. Harder, no doubt, being the owner of your own company.”
He flexed his hips slightly, and her eyes sprang wide. No wonder she’d sensed tension in him. He must have awakened from his nap aroused. He buried his nose between her shoulder and neck and grazed his lips across her skin.
“Yeah. Hard,” he muttered near her ear, and she heard the thread of amusement in his gravelly voice. She burst into soft laughter, and he pressed his smile to her neck. “That’s nice,” he said, kissing her throat. “Can we go back to being not so serious?”
“Can you do that so easily?” she wondered.
“Maybe I want to stop thinking about what might not work between us and focus on what does.”
“Sex, you mean?”
His lips lingered on her pulse. “Yeah.” He lifted his head, but she felt his warm breath brush her neck. “But not just that.”
“What else?” she asked, glad his lips weren’t on her skin at the moment, lest he feel the leap in her pulse.
“Just being with you.”
She clamped her eyelids shut as emotion rushed her. He’d said it so concisely. She loved being with him too. His absence would hurt. She didn’t want to think about that now.
She turned partially onto her back, opening her eyes to study the shadowed angles and planes of his face. “You’re right.” She laughed to ease the tightness in her throat. “‘Not so serious’—is that what you said? What do you have in mind that’s nice and frivolous?”
His gaze traveled over her face, neck and chest. “Did I say ‘not so serious’?” he mused. “Wrong word usage. Completely,” he added, lifting his hand to her shirt. He began to unfasten the buttons, his patience and somber purpose making it hard for her to catch a full breath. He stopped at her ribs and deliberately moved back the plackets of the shirt, exposing her breasts. His nostrils flared slightly as he stared down at her. Her sex seemed to flex inward. She suddenly felt empty because he wasn’t fused with her.
“If this isn’t serious, I don’t know what is,” he growled softly.
; His hand cupped her right breast. His head lowered. She sighed at the sweetness of the sensation of his warm, suckling mouth and pressing tongue on her nipple. They shifted in unison, seeking each other out like an invisible cord that joined them had just been drawn tight. She flexed her hip against his cock. He ground against her. He groaned low in his throat, the vibration resounding into her breasts, thrilling her.