I shake my head, not following.

“What I mean is that there is only one thing that could rip me apart more than those photos—that did rip me apart—and that’s losing you. So I balanced the weight of my past against the promise of my future.” He brushes a kiss over my lips. “The future won.”

My smile is watery. “I’m sorry for what I said to you. About secrets and shadows. I needed you to believe I was really breaking up with you.”

“You were right,” he says.

“No, not entirely. But we don’t have to argue about it. I know damn well your secrets aren’t going to start spilling out just because I won that argument.”

His smile is soft. “You probably have a point.” His eyes soak up my face, and a small smile plays at his mouth.

“What?” I finally say.

“I’m just happy you found me.” He frowns. “How did you find me?”

I allow myself the smallest of smug smiles. “Sweetheart, I will always find you.”

“I’m very happy to hear that,” he says. His fingers trail down my arm, bare beneath my paint-splattered tank top. I’d been too eager to find Damien to bother changing out of my crappy clothes, though I did manage to take a shower yesterday, so I’m not totally disgusting. The trajectory of his hand shifts, and he cups my breast, his thumb flicking lightly over my nipple, and each tiny tug sends a hot wire of electricity jolting through my belly and down to my sex.

As if he’s curious about the effect his touch has on me, Damien trails his hand down, leaving my breast to ease lightly over my tank toward the drawstring waist of my shorts. “I want to know everything you did these weeks we were apart. I don’t want to feel like we’ve missed a moment of our life together. But, Nikki, I don’t give a damn about that now. All I want is you naked and wet and open for me.”

I meet his eyes, wait a beat, and then peel off my tank top. It has a built-in shelf bra, so I’m now naked from the waist up. “You can take care of the rest of that yourself,” I say, putting my hand on his and sliding our joined fingers into the shorts. I’m not wearing underwear, and I buck with pleasure when his fingers stroke my clit, then slide inside me.

“I think you want me, Ms. Fairchild.”

“Desperately,” I say, then fumble to shove down my shorts.

I lay back, naked, as he leans over me. “Leave your T-shirt on,” I say as my fingers work the fly of his jeans. “You look like a sexy rebel.”

He laughs. “I am. I thought you knew.”

He kicks his jeans off, then brushes a soft kiss over my lips, then nips at my lower lip, catching it in his teeth and tugging lightly before easing his mouth down my neck, over the swell of my breast, to finally suck on my nipple. He draws it in, teases it with his tongue, and slides his hand between my legs to tease my clit in time with the pull of his mouth.

“I’ve missed your taste,” he murmurs. “I’ve missed feeling you slip beneath my fingers. The way your skin quivers when you’re excited. I want to watch you aroused, I want to watch you come. I want to tie you up and spank your ass and make sure you know that you are mine, and that you damn well better not leave me again. But right now, baby, all I want is to be inside you.” He straddles me and I feel the head of his cock press against my sex and see the answering rush of pleasure in his eyes. “I’m going to fuck you now, Nikki.” His words are low and steady with the quality of a growl. “Hard and deep and very thoroughly.”

“Yes,” I say. “Oh, please, yes.” I spread my legs and I am so wet, so desperately in need of him, that he sinks deep inside me with one long thrust. I am on my back, and I cup my hands on his rear, feeling Damien’s tight ass and strong muscles pound into me, harder and harder until all I am is a mass of sensation. Until all I want to do is spin off into space and take Damien along with me.

My orgasm takes me by surprise, building so fast and so furious that I cry out when it rips through me. I feel my body clench hungrily around his, and then the sweet tension and pressure of his own release before he collapses, spent, beside me.

“I love you,” he whispers.

“I know,” I reply. I glance around at the Jeep and can’t help but smile. I prop myself up on my elbow and look down at his gorgeous face and sleepy, just-fucked eyes. “How many billions do you have, Mr. Stark? And we’re making out in the back of a Jeep? How very gauche.”

He flashes the kind of sexy smile designed to make me wet all over again. “Fuck my billions, Ms. Fairchild. All I care about is you.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

“I want you to know I’m not sad,” Jamie says as the moving guys lug my chest of drawers out of the bedroom and toward the front door. As of today, the last of my stuff will be in Malibu and I will have officially moved in with Damien. Despite the fact that I want this more than anything, there are little butterflies dancing in my stomach. But they’re soft and the dance is sweet and I’m actually enjoying the sensation.

“I’m completely excited for both of us,” she adds. “But you more than me.”

Jamie has rented the condo out for the next six months. She decided that Texas made sense—but that she wasn’t yet ready to give up on LA entirely. So she’s driving back to stay with her parents and, as she says, “think about her shit.” Hopefully she’ll come back. If not, she’ll sell the condo. But at least she doesn’t have to decide right now.

I hold tight to Damien’s hand. “I’m not going to say that I’ll miss you,” I say. “Because you’ll be back. I’m certain of it.”

“If nothing else, I’ll be back to bum a week in Malibu.”

“Anytime,” Damien says.

She glances at her watch. “I gotta go pick up my car,” she says. “I left it at the corner for an oil change and all that stuff. I don’t really want to get stuck in El Paso.”

“Call me tonight,” I say as we hug. I blink, not wanting to cry, but afraid I won’t be able to help it.

“Hell yeah, I will.”

She gives Damien a hug, too, and as soon as she’s gone, I turn to Damien, an odd mix of happiness and melancholy rumbling inside me. “We can go, too. I don’t need to hang out in my empty room for nostalgia purposes.”

“It’s not empty,” he says, then nods toward my bed.

“I’m leaving it,” I remind him. I hardly need a bed at any of Damien’s houses, and Jamie rented the place furnished, so I’m sure the tenant won’t mind.

“Not the bed,” he says. “The package on it.”

I look more closely and see the flat white box sitting on the white duvet. I glance between him and the box. “What is it?”

“I’m going to suggest you take a walk on the wild side and open it.”

“Funny,” I say, but I hurry to the package. I open it and find a fold-up map of Europe with tiny colored stickers already affixed to Munich and London.

“We faced reality and told it to go fuck itself,” Damien says. “So now I think we should slide back into that bubble. One month. Europe. A limo. Five-star hotels. And you.”

“Doing whatever you want, whenever you want it?” I ask happily.