Page 121 of The Au Pair Affair

How could this be the same man who said those callous words to her?

The fear ofthatman hurting her again lingered, ruining the moment—and she resented it like hell. Resented it so much that it eclipsed the trepidation to leap and so she went, her feet leaving the hard stone, gravity yanking her body down so fast, she almost didn’t have time to suck in a proper breath. But she did have time to watch Burgess’s face while she was still in the air. To watch him bare his teeth against the terror of watching her fall.

He loved her, too.

Big, boundless love.

That was the truth that was occurring to her as she sank into the warm water, bubbles dancing around her body and carrying her back up to the surface where she sucked in a breath and laughed, loud and shaky at the same time... but the sound broke off on a whimper as soon as she realized the water was a little too present on her nipples. And elsewhere.

She couldn’t feel the cloth of her bathing suit. At all.

“Burgess,” she gasped. “It happened.”

“Fuck.” He swam in her direction while looking around for Ozzie, glad to see the man was climbing the steep path back to the top of the cliff with his back turned. “Come here.”

Nodding, she swam to meet him. Beneath the surface, he took her bare hips in his hands and turned her around to face him, crowding her front to his warmth, the familiar texture of his hard, hair-covered chest. “Didn’t he say there was a cave behind the waterfall?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, let’s head that direction.” He looked around, both of them did, but there was no yellow in the immediate area. “You can hide while I find the suit.”

“That wasamazing,” she breathed, her head tilting back so she could see the cliff from which they’d jumped, smiling to acknowledge Apollo’s wave. “I want to do it again.”

“Me too, actually,” Burgess said slowly, surprising her. “But maybe we should get you a wet suit for next time.”

She snorted into his wet shoulder. “What were you thinking about on the way down?”

Too briefly, he looked uncharacteristically shy. “I was thinking I wish Lissa could see me. She wouldn’t believe it.”

Tallulah smiled to hide the fact that heat was crowding behind her eyes. “I think she would. I think she would even expect you to fly. You’re her superhero.”

His Adam’s apple slid up and down as they continue their progress toward the waterfall. “What were you thinking about on the way down?”

Apparently, cliff diving made everything clearer, or perhaps it just dislodged her filter, because the truth came spilling out in a big old, waterlogged confession. The truth as well as she knew it, anyway. Where she stood in relation to Burgess... the ground wasn’t firm, she only knew she wasn’t ready to say goodbye completely. “I was thinking I don’t know if I want to break up,” she blurted, her whole body turning to jelly. Wobbly, insubstantial jelly. “I was thinking... this morning I just needed to vent and get my frustration off my chest. I didn’t need an immediate solution, you know? I just wanted you to know what I’ve been going through. You didn’t have to try and fix it in two seconds, Burgess.”

They’d reached the edge of the waterfall and so she was yelling to be heard over the noise. Meanwhile, Burgess was staring downat her with an unreadable mask, but very clearly not breathing, not a single breath. “Are you saying you want to be with me, Tallulah?”

“I’m saying I...”Yes, screamed her head and her gut. Her heart, however, which had sustained the most damage, balked. “I’m saying I don’t know yet,” she said, sounding winded. Because she was. Mortally winded. “But it’s too soon to let you go. I can’t.”

Burgess’s chest rose and fell in a plummet. He ducked beneath the waterfall into the hollow behind it and Tallulah followed, the world turning darker and more muffled in an instant.

“Why?” he said, raggedly, taking her by the meat of her arms, his intensity yawning the pit in her stomach wider. Wider.

Once again, her wounded heart intervened, lassoing the wordsI love youand dragging them back into her mouth. The disappointment of her not saying those words were a visible blow to him. He closed his eyes and she closed hers, too, even while sliding her arms around his neck, her thighs wrapping tight to his hips, water lapping around them. “Can I show you, instead of tell you?”

“You’re not all here with me, Tallulah.” Their foreheads met, his hands slipping down her wet back to clutch her buttocks and rock her closer, his hips tilting in a way that drew a whimper from her throat. “Please, gorgeous, don’t break me like this.”

“I need you.”

Those three words weren’t fair, because she knew he’d cave.

Knew she could get what she desperately needed—to be connected to him again. It had only been a few hours since he’d started to shift away and her entire being bled as a result. Couldn’t he see that? Couldn’t intimacy be enough for now?

“Youneedme? Is that all?” Burgess waded out of the water, carrying her into the opening of the cave with his teeth bared against her mouth. “My survivaldependson you.”

“I’m giving myself to you,” she whispered, rubbing her bare sex on the ridge inside his shorts, eager to be filled by his strength, his heat and hunger and urgency.

“You’re not giving yourself to me completely. You don’t think I can read you by now?” Even as frustration rippled through that harshly delivered statement, he was reaching down to untie his board shorts. “Fuck it, though, right? We’ll call it a massage.”

---