The Tycoon's Temporary Bride: Book Four (47 page)

“I thought I apologized for that, over and
over again. And I remember you accepting my apologies, quite
enthusiastically, I may add.”

Her sweet lips puckered. “Want to apologize
again?” she asked, placing the camera on the nightstand. “I love
the way you say you’re sorry.”

Chuckling, Adam tossed the rose aside, caught
her hand, and pulled her down on top of him. Clasping the back of
her head, he drew her face to his and kissed her deeply while his
other hand caressed her body through the silky material of her
gown. The musky, intoxicating odor of morning-after- sex was
pungent on her skin.

She moaned in pleasure and kissed him back,
but when she began to rock against him, teasing him through her
nightgown, he lifted her head from his, and in one fluid movement,
he flipped her over on her back and settled himself on top of her.
He pushed her hair away from her face and admired her early morning
beauty. “Do you realize that when we’re together all we do is make
love?” he asked. “I think I’ve made love more times in the past two
weeks than I’ve done in an entire year of my life.”

“Is that bad?” She held his hair away from
his face.

He traced the outline of her arched brows
with his thumbs, and gazed into her eyes that sparkled like green,
polished jade. “No. It’s very good.”

“Then why are you complaining?” She wiggled
beneath him, sending fire shooting through his already burning jade
stalk.

“I’m not complaining. It’s just that the way
I feel about you scares me sometimes. I would do anything for you.
Anything
. I would commit murder and treason, demolish
companies, and disown my family for you.”

“I hope you never have to do any of those
things, Adam,” she said with a faint tremor.

Already committed one. Maybe two
. He
still couldn’t believe that Claire has sent her girlfriends to
occupy the table next to Tashi and the girls just to eavesdrop on
their conversation that day at the esplanade. Armed with a photo,
the information that Tashi was born in Cleveland, and that she had
attended college in New York, Claire had set out to dig up dirt on
her, just so she could humiliate her. Adam cringed inside to think
of the danger Claire had placed Tashi in, and what could have
transpired if Paul hadn’t been the one Boris had sent to Granite
Falls to kidnap her. He could really strangle that woman with his
bare hands.

“Sometimes I get scared of my feelings for
you, too.” Tashi’s voice cooled his thoughts. “But I’m even more
scared of losing you. You didn’t come home for two days, even
though you did call. Where were you?”

Adam averted his eyes by glancing out the row
of French doors that led to the balcony. It was going to be a
gloriously sunny day, for so many people.

“Adam.” She gently turned his face back to
her, and tenderly caressed the stubble on his chin and the sides of
his face with her delicate little fingers.

“I was planning a surprise for you. A huge
one.”

“What kind of surprise planning would take
you away for two days?”

“Can’t tell you. And you’re not allowed to
ask me anything about it.”

“Am I going to like it?”

“I hope so. I hope you love it.”

“When can I have it?”

“How quickly can you get dressed?” What he
really wanted to do was spread her wide and love her, but there
were other important matters to take care of this morning. Once
those were squared away, he would love her for the rest of the day.
He kissed her lips and attempted to roll off her.

“Wait.” She grabbed his arms. “I have a
surprise for you, too. I’m pregnant. Dr. Walsh called me to confirm
it yesterday. I’m two weeks along. I’m going to have your baby, our
first baby, Adam.” Her emerald eyes shimmered.

Adam’s heart stopped beating for a split
second. He’d suspected it, been expecting it, but to hear it
uttered aloud filled him with the sweetest joy. “Oh, baby, that’s
not really a surprise. I knew there was a ninety-nine percent
chance the first time we made love.” He kissed her deeply, and
thoroughly, their tears blending into a river of joy and excitement
before he trailed his lips down her body. He pushed her gown up
above her waist and dropped a series of warm kisses on her flat
belly. “Hi there, little guy. This is your daddy. Welcome to our
little family.”

Tashi chuckled. “Could be a girl.”

He rested his chin on her belly and captured
her gaze. “I know it’s a boy because I saw him the instant I first
gazed into your hypnotic eyes. He has dark curly hair and emerald
eyes like his mom.”

“Oh, Adam,” she said in a breathless
whisper.

“And we’re not circumcising him, nor cutting
his hair,” he continued. “He’ll be all natural, just like his
papà
.”

She giggled as he tickled her tummy. “Natural
is good.”

“Very good.” He crawled back up to lay beside
her, but kept his palm open on her belly. “Why the sad face?” he
asked, noting the faraway look in her eyes.

She sighed. “I was just thinking about my mom
and if she was as happy when she found out she was pregnant with
me.”

“I’m sure she was, sweetheart. The way you
talk about your memories of her, it’s clear she loved you very
much.”

“Then why didn’t she tell my father about me?
Why is he listed as
Unknown
on my birth certificate? Didn’t
he want me?” She paused. “Maybe she had multiple partners and
really didn’t know which one of them fathered me.”

Adam’s heart broke for her. He wished he
could tell her that Agent Dawson was alive, that he was her father,
and that he wanted her. But that secret was not his to reveal, that
gift not his to deliver. That was Paul’s gift to his child. Paul
had already given him a gift by creating that child with Evelyn
Holland, twenty-two years ago. He cleared his throat. “I’m sure
your father would have wanted you if he’d known about you,
Tashi.”

A hopeful smile played at the corners of her
mouth. “You think so? You think he didn’t know about me?”

Paul had filled Adam in about his
relationship with Evelyn Holland and the reason she might not have
told him she was pregnant. It was so sad. Adam couldn’t tell Tashi
that story, but he could tell her the truth. “There’s no other
reason your father wouldn’t have been there for you,
cara
.
If he knew you existed, he would have been in your life.” He kissed
her forehead.

“It’s not just not knowing my father that
makes me sad,” Tashi continued in a dismal voice. “My mother’s
death was ruled a suicide, but my uncle told me that she would
never have killed herself and left me alone in the world.” A fresh
batch of tears gathered in her eyes. “I wish I could find out what
happened to her. I wish I could find out who my father is so he
could explain why he wasn’t in our lives. I can’t tell my children
about their ancestry. There are so many things I don’t know, and I
can’t— I can’t do anything about them until the people who want me
dead are caught. And then there’s Agent Dawson. I might never know
what happened to him either.”

Adam’s gut was ripping apart. This was wrong,
so wrong. Hearts got broken and lives got ruined when people didn’t
talk to each other, when they we’re honest about what and how they
truly felt. “Tashi, darling.” He gathered her and held her tightly
in his arms. It was all he could do for now.

She trembled on a sigh and locked her arms
around him as if he was all she had in this great big world. “I’m
glad our children will never have to live with the pain of not
knowing their father. I’ll learn what a good father is all about by
watching you with them. Thank you, Adam. Thank you for rescuing me,
and helping me find myself, and teaching me about love.”

“No, thank
you
, Tashi,” he said,
untangling her arms from around him and gazing lovingly into her
eyes. “Thank you for coming into my life, for loving me, and
changing me. And I promise that all your questions will be answered
in time.”

“You’re the only family I have, you and our
unborn child.” She rested her hand on his that was still on her
stomach, and entwined their fingers. “I know we made love last
night, but can you love me, Adam? Our baby and I want to connect
with you.”

As he gazed at her, Adam lost sight of
himself in the sacred holiness of her love. “You never have to ask
for my love, sweeting. It’s yours for the taking. Always.” He knelt
beside her, tugged her gently to a sitting position, eased her gown
over her head, and dropped it behind him on the mattress. He
settled her back against the pillows, and the sight of her curly
red hair strewn across the white pillowcase fanned the eternal
flame in Adam’s heart.

“Now,” he said, raising her arms above her
head and curling her hands over the cushioned headboard, “this is
my gift to you. Do nothing, but receive.”

Tashi quivered at the tenderness in Adam’s
blue eyes. They spoke to her wordlessly, spilling the secret desire
of his heart to worship her. Her lips parted on a smile, because
she knew that by her merely embracing his worship of her body, his
would be worshipped in turn as he reached across the space that
separated them as two and touched her skin—the doorway to her
body—and made them one. Even though they’d made love so many times
already, she knew she would never tire of this man, never reach the
point in her life when she would not yearn to be joined with
him.

She held her breath as Adam drifted over her
like a warm encircling shadow. She moaned softly when his thick
hair fell on her belly and breasts, glittering like a black threads
of silk against her brown skin, grazing her lightly, tantalizingly,
stirring familiar desires in her. She moaned aloud when his mouth
settled gently on hers and he worked his tongue inside and danced a
slow erotic silent tune around hers until she sighed her surrender
into his mouth.

Then his hands were soft and gentle on her
body. His touch divine ecstasy. His throaty moans a euphoric song.
She shivered as he hovered above her and slowly swayed his head
from side to side, brushing his silky strands across her sensitive
flesh, bathing her in a sea of tingling sensations, heightening her
awareness and deepening her desire for him.

His mouth followed in the wake of his hands
and hair as he made his way down her body, kissing her lovingly.
Her breath quickened, and her heart beat rapidly. Her body
tightened and the fine hairs on her skin rose up like miniature
antennas, sending sensual signals to him, begging, wanting all of
him to touch all of her.

Tashi’s hands dropped to the mattress when
Adam lifted her legs, brought her feet to his mouth, and began to
kiss and lick her soles. Tingling shivers sizzled up her legs and
thighs and headed straight to her throbbing sex when his tongue
connected with the underside of her toes and tickled her
mercilessly, groaning out his own pleasure as he sucked each into
his hot mouth.

Exquisite flickers of wanting hummed through
her with sated sluggishness, and as her body shook in the throes of
passion, Tashi fisted her hands around the sheets and curled her
toes inside Adam’s mouth. She whispered his name and squeezed her
pelvis, trying to hold the orgasm as her breath came hot and soft,
and her mind careened. But God, the pleasure was too hot, too
intense to be contained. Tashi felt the explosion deep inside her
womb, and as her body arced and quivered, liquid love poured from
her, ran down her thighs, and dripped on to Adam.

As she writhed in heavenly bliss, Adam spread
her wide and stretched himself out on her. “Do you feel loved,
Tashi?” he asked hoarsely as his big warm hands wrapped about hers
on the mattress.

“Yes,” Tashi whispered in a daze, feeding on
the sensuousness of his dreamy eyes. “I feel loved, Adam. But I’m
greedy and I want more. All of you.”

“As you wish, sweetheart.” Adam supported
himself on his elbows and knees and took her right hand and guided
it to himself. He sucked in his breath when her delicate fingers
clasped around him. He looked deep into her eyes and said, “I want
you to put me inside you and take all the love you want from
me.”

Tashi shuddered from the feel of the long
thick shaft pulsing hotly in her hand. She pushed back the thin
smooth foreskin and guided the tip to her quivering heat. She
gasped when the hard column of flesh grazed her slick softness. She
gazed up at Adam hovering rigidly above her. Understanding what he
wanted, Tashi gave her hand back to him and began to thrust up and
down, pushing her hips into his, riding him from below, taking more
of him deeper and deeper into the wet quivering interior of her
valley of love and solitude and soon the delightful friction of his
jade stalk grazing her slickness was too overwhelming and Tashi
began to sob from the sheer splendor of him and gave herself
completely over to the sweetness of loving him.

As Tashi’s sobs crashed over him and her
hypnotic green eyes locked into his, Adam began moving with
deliberate slowness inside her, each delicious stroke going deeper
and deeper as her body melted into his, filling his world with her
loveliness. He rocked backwards and forward, side to side, grazed
every crevice of her hot wet cave, coaxing their bodies into an
exquisite harmony, one with the other until passion’s fury churned
and soared within them both.

“
Ti amo. Ti amo, Tashi.
” Tears ran
down his cheeks and blended with hers as he watched her shriek, her
head thrashing uncontrollably on the mattress and her fingers
curled tightly around his as wave after wave of contained orgasms
coiled through their bodies. And when her eyes rolled back in their
sockets, and her lips trembled, and her mouth opened, and her body
quivered beneath him, tightened and arced upward like an evening
rainbow, Adam died a thousand deaths in the sunset of her passion,
only to be reborn in the glorious sunrise of her love, as they came
together, over and over again.