I grab the shot and look at Jessica. “Are we back in Sweetwater with the gossip or what?”
“I know, right?” she says, lifting her glass, and together, we down the tequila.
“Come on,” she says, taking my hand. “There’s something I’ve always wanted to do, and now that we’ve drunk too much, we can. Come with me.” She tugs me forward into the crowd and onto the dance floor, but she doesn’t stop there. She heads to the steps leading to a packed stage and turns to me. “No one can ask you about Roarke if we’re up here.” The song “Con Calma” comes on, and Jessica gets all excited. “I want to dance.”
My head is spinning, and I really want to escape the way that spinning is starting to take me in circles with Roarke and my forgotten birthday. I eagerly let her lead me to a corner where we’re alone, and no one can talk to me again and ask if I’m Roarke’s woman. I start dancing, and Jessica and I are laughing and having fun until the stupid music changes. It’s Brett Young again, and this time, it’s a slow song—“Mercy.”
The words start to play, and in them is a plea from one lover to the other. Basically, please don’t break my heart. Please step away and leave what is left of my heart. They resonate. They hurt. I blur out with the emotions this song brings and the lyrics go in and out. I turn to Jessica, and I think my face must be a mess because she pulls me into a hug. “Oh, honey. What’s wrong?”
“I lost him. He hates me. I hurt him just like the song, and I still love him so much.”
We talk like that the entire song, and she tells me how wrong I am. She tells me it’s the tequila talking. “I shouldn’t have given it to you.” The music breaks as it has here and there for short announcements, though I don’t hear this one. I’m just glad the emotional drug that is that song is over.
“Jessica! Hannah!”
“That’s Jason,” Jessica says. “He must know you’re upset.” She strokes my hair and pulls me to the side of the stage, where we squat in front of Jason.
“What’s happening?” Jason asks. “What’s wrong?”
“She’s missing Roarke. She just needs him to be here already.”
“I’m here.”
At Roarke’s voice, I look up to find him standing next to Jason. “You didn’t think I’d miss your birthday, did you?”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Hannah…
Jessica leans in close and wraps her arm around me. “It was killing us not to tell you happy birthday!”
“Happy birthday, little sis,” Jason says.
“Thank you,” I murmur, but all I see right now is Roarke, standing there in a black T-shirt hugging his perfect chest. No fancy costume. Just him. And that’s all it takes for him to be perfect to me.
I stand up, and Roarke grabs my waist and pulls me off the stage, catching me with his body, my hand on that perfect chest. “I thought you were done with me after the Luke thing.”
“I will never be done with you, Han. Never.” He eases me to my feet, and then he’s kissing me, this deep, drugging kiss, and I don’t care who sees. It’s everything. That one kiss is just everything. “I love you,” he says. “I have never stopped loving you.”
The music starts to play, and the DJ says, “This one is from Roarke to Hannah.” “Girl Like You” by Jason Aldean begins to play.
“You requested this?” Which is, of course, obvious, but there’s tequila and Roarke involved, which means my brain is not exactly operating well right now. My body, however, is in overdrive.
“I did a lot of things to make tonight special for you, baby.”
My heart squeezes with the message in this song, and Roarke hauls me onto the dance floor more fully, and we sway together. “I need you to know I’ve had tequila,” I warn as my feet feel unsteady, “but that’s your fault.”
His lips curve. “Like you going in the men’s bathroom?”
“Exactly,” I assure him, hyperaware of his hands on my body, but then I’ve always been hyperaware of this man touching me.
“I see,” he says. “All my fault.”
I give an incline of my chin. “All your fault.”
He gives my dress a once-over. “I like the costume.” His gaze lands low on my cleavage. “A little deep, isn’t it?”
“That’s your fault, too.”
His gaze lifts. “How is it my fault?”
“It just is.”
“All right, then. As long as I’m the only one enjoying the view, I’ll happily take credit for this one.”
My cheeks heat, as if he’s never flirted with me. “And what’s your costume supposed to be?”
“Horse Wrangler, of course.”
“You have no hat. A Horse Wrangler needs a proper hat.”
“A hat gets in between you and me. That doesn’t work for me.”
The song lifts in the air again, and he leans in and sings along with it in my ear. I can’t breathe, and every part of me is warm. He nuzzles my neck. “God, I missed you, Han.” His voice is low, rough, affected.
“I missed you, too,” I whisper, and when I pull back to look at him, I don’t have it in me to protect myself with Roarke. “Every day in some way.”
He strokes my hair behind my ear, sending a shiver down my spine. “Me, too, baby. Me, too.”
The DJ comes on the microphone again, and the music cuts. “Now it’s time for a special song. One for Hannah, who is coordinating the Sweetwater Christmas festival. Happy birthday, Hannah. Let’s sing it to her, everyone!”
Suddenly, the entire room of hundreds of people is singing “Happy Birthday” to me, and I’m staring up at Roarke, fighting tears. He molds me close, kissing me, before he turns me toward the room to show me the giant cake being wheeled in. “Oh my God,” I whisper, looking over my shoulder at Roarke. “I can’t believe you did this.”
“Watch,” he says. “It gets better.”
Now I’m intrigued. I face forward and gasp as Martha pops out of the cake, seventy-plus years young, in a fairy costume with rainbow wings. I rush forward and hug her, only to have Ruth sideswipe me and pull me into a hug of her own. Jessica and Jason show up to the hug party as well, and when Roarke and I are handed plates with the cake Martha created for me, it doesn’t get any better than this. There’s a warmth between us that I’ve never experienced with anyone but him, just him. The music starts to play again, and this time the song is “Rumor” by Lee Brice.
I start singing the words, about a small town gossiping about a new couple, much like this town is gossiping about me and Roarke. Roarke leans in and whispers, “Let’s make the rumors true. Let’s get out of here.”
“Yes. Please.” My entire body heats just thinking about being alone and naked with this man, this time without any emotional barriers. He kisses me, a slow slide of his tongue before he laces the fingers of one of his hands with mine and leads me toward the door.
The minute we’re outside the party in the corridor, his arm is around my shoulders, pulling me in close to him. We don’t speak during the walk, but that’s the thing about me and Roarke; words aren’t always spoken, but they’re felt. We enter the elevator, and it’s no different. He holds me close, and we endure the crush of a full car. Roarke places me in front of him, that big, perfect body of his cradling mine. That’s the thing I can’t believe I forgot all those years ago. Roarke was always there to have my back, to hold me up, to support me.
When we’re finally on my floor, I hand him the key. He takes it, leans down, and brushes his lips over mine. He swipes the card and shoves the door open. I hesitate, but not with regret. With the sense that this is a new beginning, with the certainty that I will never be the same once I walk in this room. But then who am I fooling? The moment he kissed me the first time, it changed me. I was never the same. That’s the power this man has over me.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Hannah…
<
br /> I don’t care how much power he has over me, because I don’t believe that Roarke would ever intentionally use that power to hurt me. That’s love, and I will never let insecurity or someone else’s viciousness make me forget the power of love. I walk inside the hotel room and gasp. The luxury room, which I’ve barely noticed until now, is filled with vases of my favorite flowers—while lilies—mixed with red roses. They’re everywhere, at least a dozen vases of a dozen flowers in each one. The door shuts behind me, and I turn to find Roarke right there, pulling me to him.
“I can’t believe you did this.” My voice cracks with the force of my emotions.
“Because I was such an asshole to you?” he teases, closing the space between us, his fingers catching my hip and walking me to him.
“No, I—”
“Thought I walked away because of Luke hitting on you?”
“You were pissed.” My fingers curl on his chest. “I know you and you—”
“You do know me, Hannah. Don’t forget that this time.”
“I won’t. I won’t forget. Roarke—”
“Not now, Han.” He cups my head with his hand, his forehead finding mine. “Right now, let’s just enjoy each other. We won’t lose each other again.” He pulls back to look at me. “Say it. We won’t lose each other again.”
His voice is rough, intense, full of demand that I happily answer. “Never again. We won’t lose each other again.”
He leans in to kiss me, and I press my hand to his chest. “I wasn’t flirting with Luke. I would never try to get back at you.”
“I know that, Han.”
“You were pissed. I know you.”
“Then you know I mean it when I say I’m not letting you go again.”
There’s a part of me that screams with past pain. He’s not letting me go now, but he did in the past, yet he doesn’t give me time to reply or to wallow in that pain. He’s already kissing me again, his tongue a long stroke of velvet that I feel everywhere, every nerve ending in my body on fire. “I love you,” he murmurs, and that’s all that matters. Him. Me. Us. Love. The past doesn’t matter.
He sits down on the stool at the end of the bed and drags me to his lap, and oh God, he feels so good. His hand slides over my back and down again, and there is nothing but this man who matters. Nothing. He has always been that missing piece of me. My fingers tangle in the thick strands of his dark hair as I sink into the kiss.
He moans, a low, rough moan, and tugs down the zipper at the back of my dress before he stands and settles me in front of him, turning me, my back to his front. Deft fingers unhook my bra, and his hands slip under the lace at my shoulders, but before he slides it down, he leans in and kisses my neck, scraping the delicate area with his teeth. My sex clenches, and I know how slow and well this man can make love to me, but I can’t take the wait. I just need him, now, right now.
I rotate in his arms, letting my dress and bra fall to the ground, leaving myself in nothing but panties and thigh-highs. My heels are gone. They must have fallen off when he pulled me into his lap. Funny how I didn’t notice.
Roarke’s hot gaze slides over my body, and then I’m in his arms in seconds, his mouth on my mouth, and he tastes tormented, like I torment him. I want to end that in him, in us. I feel that in him, too, the need to drive us to another place, a better one. One of his hands cups my backside while the other cups my breast, teasing my nipple, the assault on my senses leaving room for little else but him. So much so that now, I’m the one who moans, tugging at his T-shirt as I do.
He tugs it, too, over his head, and I’m already caressing all that hard muscle by the time it hits the ground. From there, there’s a whole lot of kissing and touching as we get his boots and pants off. The minute he’s naked, he takes me down to the bed, my back settling on the mattress, but he isn’t far behind. We end up facing each other, legs entwined, the thick ridge of his erection between us. “I didn’t think I’d ever touch you again,” he murmurs, molding me closer.
“Me either,” I whisper, and then his mouth is there, lips brushing my lips, a full-on kiss following, and the heat between us is burning me alive. He presses inside me, and suddenly, I’m so very naked, we’re so very naked, beyond the absence of our clothes, the vulnerability of wanting each other after hurting each other is there, present. But the funny thing is that yes, the past is here, it is, but somehow, it’s more a glove that fits around us and draws us closer, where we huddle together to weather the storm rather than push each other away.
Every kiss and every touch is tender and somehow erotic, a slow, sexy dance of our bodies that begins to burn hotter. He nips my lips, then licks the offended skin. He repeats the action at my shoulder. It’s almost angry, but it’s good. I’m angry, too. I’m angry at everything that went wrong, and that becomes a part of the burn. Our need becomes frenzied, and he’s thrusting and pulling me to him, our faces pressed close, our mouths parted. I don’t want it to end; I don’t want to ever end anything else with this man. But it does end. Release comes to me hard and fast, and I cling to Roarke. He shudders right over the edge with me, a low, guttural groan sliding from deep in his chest.
And then we’re there, on top of a Ritz-Carlton mattress in a room of lilies and roses, holding each other the way we didn’t think we’d ever hold each other again. We don’t speak. We just lay there together.
Roarke is the first to move. He kisses my temple. “Let me grab you a towel.” He pulls out of me, and I lay there with wetness clinging to my thighs, the insecurity that I know was a part of our breakup coming back to me. He’s back in all of his naked, perfect glory in less than a minute, pressing the towel between my legs. I’m not shy about such things with Roarke, and yet I find myself sitting up and scanning for my bag to grab my robe.
The instant I turn away, he catches my arm and brings me around to face him. “Don’t pull away. Don’t shut me out again like you did the other night.”
“I’m not. I’m not shutting you out.”
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he says. “Say it.”
“I can’t have babies, and you need to be a father. You’d be an amazing father.”
“I’m a father to hundreds of animals, Han. You know this. And we can adopt if we decide that’s what we want. It fits us. We rescue those who everyone else leaves behind.”
“This was part of why I felt insecure. This was brewing inside me back then, and then that video just ripped me to shreds. I thought: he needs her. I bet she can have babies.”
He drags me down to the mattress, catches my leg with his, and stares at me. “I didn’t cheat.”
“I believe you. I’m just being honest. I’m saying what I didn’t say back then.”
“And I’m listening. I should have listened closer. I should have known where you were on this, but, Hannah, baby, I’m with you. That’s the only place I am on this. Never once did I consider another woman and kids as an option for me.”
I suck in a breath and let it out. “I don’t know how to get by this.”
“We’ll go talk to someone together.” He strokes my cheek. “We’ll get by it together.”
“I should have given you a chance to explain the video, but I think some part of me thought that I was letting you off the hook. But you won’t move on. You won’t let me let you off the hook.”
“You belong with me, and I belong with you.”
“But you didn’t come for me. Some part of you—”
He cups my face and forces my gaze to his. “Don’t say what you’re about to say. It’s not true. I love you. And I meant what I said. I’m not letting you go again. Ever. You run this time, I will follow.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Hannah…
Roarke and I order room service, and we get ready for its delivery by dressing. I grab a robe as he pulls out a pair of sweats from a suitcase. “Your suitcas
e is here?”
“Is that a problem?”
“Not at all. Just wondering how you pulled all of this off.”
“I arranged the room and the party yesterday. I wanted to call you, but I knew I’d tell you I was leaving my father in charge of the problem in Houston and coming back.”
“Really? Well, how are the horses and your dad?”
“His friend found the toxin, and he’s tending to the horses and doing a damn good job.” We sit down on the couch in the corner, and he opens the champagne I didn’t notice for all the flowers, filling two glasses. “I really think he needed me gone. He needed to know something went well because of him.”
“I think that was the perfect thing to do. Tell me about the toxin and the horses.”
He’s about halfway through his story when the food comes, and we barely miss a beat when he grabs the food. We keep talking, with so much to talk about and catch up on, that we eventually move to the bed, while I tell him all about my life in the fashion industry. I don’t even remember falling asleep. I do, however, remember waking up because I’m on my stomach, and Roarke is kissing a line down my spine. I moan with the pleasure of it and look up at him. “You can’t do what you’re thinking about doing. I have to pee.”
He smacks my backside. “Then go pee. I’ll meet you in the shower.”
And so he does. For the first time in years, we shower together, and it’s not a quick shower. I end up in the corner, with him inside me, his mouth on my mouth, and it’s truly the best way to wake up. I’m in the shower with Roarke. I’m starting a new day and a new life with Roarke.
A good hour later, after a call from Jessica and Jason, we’re dressed to meet them for breakfast. Roarke is in jeans and a stallion T-shirt, and since I just happen to have my own stallion T-shirt, I pull mine on as well. I paint my lips pink, slide my purse over my shoulder, and exit the bathroom to find him sitting on the couch, on a call. “We’ll be down in ten,” he says, standing up and giving me a once-over, his gaze landing on my shirt. “You found your things under the bed.”
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