Page 110 of Along Came Amor
When she shattered, so did he.
The orgasm shot through him, leaving him as devastated and wrecked as if it had been a lightning bolt from the storm raging around them.
Harsh breaths sawed in and out of his lungs. He dropped his head onto her shoulder and her arms wound around his back. Seconds ticked by, and she held him while his heart rate returned to something closer to normal.
“I meant what I said earlier,” he said into her neck. It was perhaps slightly unfair to bring this up when he was literally still inside her, but he needed her to know.
Her breasts pressed against him as she inhaled. “I know you did.”
He rolled her on top of him so he wasn’t crushing her, and so he could see her face. “I don’t want this to end, Ava.”
Her expression was soft, and she brushed his hair back from his forehead. “I need to think about it, but... you mean a lot to me, Roman. More than I wanted you to, if I’m being honest.”
He thought back to their first encounter. “I didn’t expect this either.”
She placed a hand flat on his chest, as if seeking his heartbeat. “You feel safe. It’s my own feelings that don’t.”
His heart squeezed, thinking of how much she’d been hurt. She felt safe with him. She trusted him. It was enough, for now. But, greedy bastard that he was, he always wanted more.
“Sleep in my room tonight,” he said.
There was a fifty-fifty chance she’d say no, but she nodded. “Okay.”
But then she lifted her head and looked around, as if noticing their surroundings for the first time. “How do we—”
“Oscar’s gone,” he told her. “The house is empty. And there are towels in that chest in the corner.”
She ducked her head, hiding a smile. “You know me so well.”
Not as much as I want to, he thought. But what they’d shared tonight was a start. The start of the rest of everything.
Assuming she didn’t hightail it to the airport in the middle of the night.
Chapter 34
Ava did not, in fact, run away in the middle of the night, but she couldn’t blame Roman for being worried. Instead, she slept with him in his room upstairs, and the next morning, she woke him with a kiss, which led to more.
By the time they left to finish the last of the wedding tasks, she was floating on a cloud of bliss. And now that they’d figured out each other’s patterns, they got through the meetings with minimal fuss.
From there, they spent the rest of the day at the resort spa, getting massages and facials. After dinner and a quick swim in the pool, Roman shuttled her off for another “surprise,” which turned out to be the bioluminescent bay in Fajardo.
Ava had been kayaking exactly once in her life and wasn’t a fan, and she was even less excited about the possibility of large aquatic animals swallowing her whole out of a dark, neon-accented abyss. But New Ava embraced new experiences, right? So she’d gone. Then, when she’d been very close to a panic attack, Roman had sidled his kayak as close to hers as he could and whispered the filthiest dirty talk she’d ever heard. Miraculously, it calmed her down to the point where she could actuallyenjoy herself. After they returned, exhausted but exhilarated, Ava was more than happy to curl up in Roman’s arms.
“This was the best day ever,” he whispered to her before he fell asleep.
“For me too,” she murmured into the darkness. She expected the admission to scare her, and it did, but only a little.
She slept like a rock, but the next day, she woke up with a ball of dread sitting low in her gut. Their private island getaway was coming to an end and they were returning to New York in a few short hours.
Ava didn’t want to leave. Once they got home, she’d have to go back to being Old Ava, the pathologically helpful middle-school teacher who wasn’t involved with a handsome hotelier who was sweet, thoughtful, charming, and sexy as hell.
She’d have to go back to a world where Roman wasn’t hers and hers alone.
With a deep sigh, she shoved down her worry. She refused to spend her last few hours of vacation feeling depressed. Besides, something smelled really good, so she sat up in bed to investigate. Blinking in the muted sunlight filtering through the filmy curtains, she rubbed her eyes and peered around the room.
“What’s all this?”
A massive floral arrangement took up the nightstand on her side. Red gingers, orange lobster claws, and yellow orchids exploded from a base of palm, monstera, and philodendron leaves. At the foot of the bed sat a tray laden with food. Ava breathed in the mouth-watering trifecta of bacon, maple syrup, and orange juice.
