I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Tara, you just rocked the fuck out of my world. So much so, that I’m trying my hardest not to ravage your body again, right this second. There is nothing generous about how much I want you. It’s all greed. I want all of you, and I don’t ever want any other man to have his hands on what I’m already claiming as mine.”
I couldn’t have stopped blabbering with the bit about rocking my world? Did I really have to keep going and probably scare the shit out of her by admitting I thought of her as mine? I opened my eyes, afraid her thoughts of horror were written on her face. Instead, she was smiling.
“Yours?”
“That’s right. All mine.”
“What about you? Do I get to claim you back?”
“You did the first time I saw you.”
Tara and I made love for the rest of the afternoon. That’s what it was. It wasn’t fucking. It wasn’t sex. It was making love to each other’s bodies. Like so many other things I’d admitted to myself in the last few hours, I added another to it. I never dreamed I’d be the kind of guy who thought those words, let alone said them out loud. Making love. Tara and I made love. The more it repeated in my head, the better it sounded.
“What are you thinking now?” she asked, her chin resting on my chest again.
“That I want to make love to you all night.” I waited for something to happen. Lightning bolt? Tara to laugh? Me to feel like an idiot as soon as I stopped talking? None of those things happened. Instead, Tara rested her cheek against my heart.
“I want to make love to you too, Knox. All night…”
“Why do I sense a ‘but’ coming?”
“But I’m really hungry.”
We ate, we talked, we laughed, we made love all night, and the next morning, the farmhouse was still standing. The earth hadn’t shattered, but every wall I’d unknowingly erected around my heart, had. I was captivated by Tara Emsworth.
A few days later, Agent Casavetti called to say he’d discovered more information regarding Richard Emsworth and asked if I could make arrangements to return to his office.
“You have to leave again?” Tara asked, biting her lip when I told her I’d be going back to Florence the next morning.
I cupped her cheek. “Are you going to miss me?”
“No. I mean, yes, but…”
I tightened the arm I had around her as we lay in bed. “But?”
“Ever since… the kidnapping. I get anxious.”
I kissed the top of her head. “Completely understandable, but I assure you, you’re safe here.”
“We were supposed to be safe then too.”
I’d heard about the mission that resulted in Tara, Aine McNamara, and Penelope Ramsey being kidnapped by a group of Armenians. I hadn’t heard how the kidnappers got to them, and I wasn’t sure now would be the right time to ask.
“Did you know I was also kidnapped?”
She looked up at me with wide eyes.
“I was in Somalia, undercover. Tackle was with me. A band of pirates thought we were their tickets to vast riches.”
“What happened?”
“Striker brought a team in, and they rescued us.”
“I thought they were going to kill us. I was sure of it,” she said.
I put my finger on the bottom of her chin so she’d look at me. “I wish I had been there to keep you safe, Tara. I promise you now, though, you are. No one can get to you here.”
“I wish I could say that makes me feel better, but it doesn’t. Before I left New York, I was on medication for anxiety. I’m obviously not anymore.”