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  “I can understand that. But that trust fund would help a lot of people, and it’s yours, regardless of how you feel, so why not—”

  “I tried to talk to Lionel about my feelings, which was pretty foolish, looking back. I went to Aunt Trudy first, though, and she encouraged me to talk to him. I should have known better. And that’s when I realized that there really was something to my concerns. It was clear I’d struck a nerve, and he all but shoved me out of the conversation. As I said earlier, I can be stubborn. And, unless he was going to confide the truth in me, about my heritage—all our heritage—then I wasn’t going to touch anything that came from it. I know it sounds high and mighty, and it’s really not. It’s more—”

  “You being a stubborn idiot?”

  He laughed, which surprised him. But she made it easy to see things with a bit more perspective. “I’m sure it looks that way. And, I probably am, a little. But it was a choice I made. To live on my own terms. Not Hamilton terms, and that meant not living on Hamilton money.”

  “And you’ve still never found out the whole truth.”

  “No. And it’s not like something that colors my every waking moment. I have moved on with my life. But, yes, it is something I want to know, need to know, at some point. I hope to have a family some day, and I want to know what legacy it is I’m passing down, skeletons and all. I don’t want any child of mine to question where he or she came from, or why they might not feel the same as I do about things.”

  “Why do you think the proof you need is here? Wouldn’t Lionel keep important family documentation like that at the family estate in town?”

  “Trudy was the matriarch of the Hamilton family, and, in that arena, she took great pride in the caring and maintaining of the history we’ve accumulated, both in physical artifacts and written history. She had all the certificates—birth, death—from generations back, along with journals and Bibles.”

  “And you think that’s the missing link for you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you get to see any of it while she was alive?”

  “I was just starting to dig when she first got sick. She was sick a very long time, and spent most of her time here. She loved this place, and Lionel had most of her things and anything dear to her, moved here. He’s never changed that since her death.”

  “How long was she sick?”

  “A little over two years. And when I had the chance to see her, I didn’t want to bother her with everything I was thinking or feeling. We all knew she wasn’t going to get better, she knew it, too. So we enjoyed our time together.”

  “Any regrets about that?”

  He stopped poking at the fire and looked over his shoulder at her. She’d perched herself on the edge of the bed, with the flashlight dangling in her hands, which were pressed between her knees. “No,” he said, never more sincere. “None.” He replaced the poker in the wrought iron stand, and pushed to his feet, turning to face her. “Lionel and I don’t see things the same way, and though I haven’t exactly been banished or anything, we don’t exactly enjoy each other’s company. So he politely invites me to family functions, and I politely decline, and we coexist with little adversity.”

  “Like you did with your folks.”

  “Sort of runs in the family, it seems, yes.”

  “Until now.”

  He stepped closer. “Until I heard he was going overseas for two weeks and giving his staff some seasonal time off. Usually he rattles around up here alone, just him and the dogs and that damn parrot, as he calls him. Cicero was one of Trudy’s…eccentricities. She loved that bird. And Lionel loved Trudy, so he put up with him. I’m somewhat surprised he’s kept him all these years, since he really can be obnoxious. And Lionel doesn’t put up with obnoxious from anyone.”

  “People do interesting things to keep the memories of loved ones close. My dad actually keeps my granddad’s—his dad’s—ashes in this huge, cheap trophy he had them sealed into. It was a thing he won when he was, like, twelve years old. But his dad had coached his team that year and it had been the thing that had brought them close after my grandmother died. So that’s where my grandfather is spending eternity.” She smiled, and looked a little embarrassed about sharing something so personal and, perhaps, unusual.

  He moved closer, bumping her knees apart and stepping between her thighs. He took the flashlight from her, flicked it off, and tossed it to the carpeted floor beside the bed. “You know,” he said, “there is another reason I have no regrets about not pursuing things when Aunt Tru was alive.” He took her hands in his, and lifted them up.

  “Why is that?” Emma asked, her voice trembling just the slightest bit. But the look in her eyes wasn’t one of trepidation. It was one of anticipation.

  Which made Trevor smile. “Because then I wouldn’t be here. On this stormy night.” He kissed the back of her hands, then pressed them to the bed beside her legs, and started scooting her backwards, climbing right up with her, and over her. “Finding you.” They reached the pillows and he pinned her hands beside her head, lowering his body to hers, until they both groaned in satisfaction at the perfect fit of his hips between hers. “And discovering that, maybe, I’ve been right in pursuing my own life. Because what’s really important isn’t where you came from…but what you do with who you are.” He nipped the point of her chin, then at her bottom lip. “But I’m thinking now that I stopped short of the real goal.”

  “What goal?”

  “Of figuring out the rest, which is that it’s all fine and well to find yourself, create and pursue your own path, and stick with what works for you and let go of what doesn’t.” He grinned then, and looked into those sparkling, direct, honest eyes. “But, it’s not entirely complete until you find someone to share yourself with, and maybe leave something behind when you go, that makes other people smile.” He kissed her then, tenderly. “Like you did, talking about your dad and granddad.”

  “And like you do, talking about Aunt Trudy.”

  “Yeah…like that.”

  She leaned up this time, and tugged her fingers free so she could hold onto his face and kiss him, taking his mouth, staking her claim, making her stand. Her kisses were passionate and strong, like her body presently moving beneath him.

  He drove his fingers into her hair, taking in return, tangling his tongue with hers, his groans mixing with her gasps. He moved his hips against hers as she lifted them off the bed, moving beneath him, with him.

  “This is a little insane, you know,” she panted when he reared back suddenly and tugged off his shirt. She worked just as feverishly to divest herself of her clothes, too. “I just met you.”

  It should have been comical, their frantic disrobing. It certainly wasn’t the slow, tantalizing unveiling of her for the first time he’d have liked for them both to indulge in. “I know,” he said. “But I feel like I’ve already waited a lifetime for you.” He kicked free of his shoes, shucked his pants, helped her tug off her own. “You are so beautiful, and there will be many times in the future where I will pay rapt attention to every inch of your lovely body—some, perhaps, with more detailed focus than others—but right now—”

  “I know,” she said, and all but yanked him on top of her.

  He grinned. “Did I tell you how much I like that you’re not a fragile flower?”

  She rolled him to his back, and he sat up and pulled her legs around his hips. The flickering fire behind her made the tips of her curls appear as if they were glowing embers. “My very own Vesta.”

  She twined her arms around his neck and started to tease him with kisses along the side of his neck.

  “You,” he said, as he pushed her backward, making her squeal in delight, while keeping her legs twined over his hips as he lowered himself slowly between her legs, “are going to drive me delightfully insane.” He stopped just short of pushing inside her. “I hope you’ll let me do the same.

  In response, she tightened her legs around him, bringing him into her body. “St
art now.”

  10

  Trevor drove into her, long, deep, and fully, staying there even as she arched up on a long groan of satisfaction. She felt tight around him, so tight, and he began moving before she could acclimate to having him inside her, filling her so completely. But where she expected discomfort, there was only this intense, pervasive heat, like a hot glow spreading inside her as he moved his body within hers, and she responded to it like they’d established this rhythm years before. Perhaps lifetimes before. His own Vesta, indeed.

  She didn’t question it, didn’t question the ridiculous things they were saying to one another. Two strangers, caught up in the moment, in the center of a raging storm, trapped during a time of year when sentiments ran high and emotions weren’t always steady. Later. She’d worry about all of that later. Because, this…this was worth every foolish thing she might say, and whatever mortification could possibly follow.

  Besides, they’d both said things. Made claims. Staked claims. If she was going to be made a fool, she wasn’t going to suffer alone.

  Which, having mentally settled that, should have allowed her to push everything else aside and just go on this glorious, intense pleasure trip he was taking her on.

  Except it didn’t. Because every time he drove into her, she felt something…more. And it had nothing to do with friction and the lovely places he was reaching inside her body. When he moved his head so he could tease her nipples, lick at the tips, make her squirm, make her scream, and ultimately make her come, writhing beneath him…it didn’t feel like simple, sweaty sex.

  It…mattered. More than slaking lust and exhausting pent-up sexual tension.

  He slowed in his thrusts, letting her climax ripple through her until every last shudder was spent. Like he knew her, he was partnering her, being in it with her, not just along for the ride. When she opened her eyes, she found herself looking into his, and there was so much there to see, naked on his face. This mattered to him, too.

  And because it did, her heart ached. Physically squeezed, as she felt him gather inside her, his strokes moving deeper, more rhythmically, and finally picking up speed and intensity…and his gaze never once left hers. He wasn’t just taking her, he was joining with her. It might have been just another foolish sentiment, except there were tears gathering at the corners of her eyes as he built higher, and came ever closer.

  And she never cried. Not ever.

  But when she moved, tightened her muscles just enough, tugging him over the edge into that long, sweet, groaning release, she didn’t just feel slaked and pleasantly fulfilled. She didn’t just feel him, the weight of him, lying spent on top of her. She felt like a part of him was hers now. A part no one else had. A part worthy of being tended to, of being held dear. She felt that he was hers now.

  And all she had to do was find a way to keep him.

  11

  He pressed his lips to her temple, then buried his face in her hair. “That was…” He had no words for it. None that would do justice to what had just happened between them. It should have been sex. First sex. Awkward, getting-to-know-your-body sex. Even with someone who held all the promise in the world of being special to him, it was still, at first, just sex.

  Only, not this. Not with her.

  “I know,” she said.

  He slid to his side, pulling her to him even as she was naturally turning into his body, her leg draped across his, her head finding its natural spot between the crook of his arm, and the space over his heart.

  He slipped his hand into her hair, keeping her cheek gently pressed over his slowly recovering heartbeat, and pulled her tightly against his hip with his other arm. “You do know, don’t you?” he said, somewhat in awe.

  “What do I know?”

  “Just that…you’re right, we’re strangers. And yet, not. I don’t know you, but I know of you, if that makes any sense. And, it would be insane, and ridiculous, to think I know what you are and what you can be to me, except you look at me, and I see that same understanding on your face.” He tilted her face up to his, and looked down into those stunning, knowing eyes of hers. “It’s not crazy if we’re both thinking it, feeling it…saying it. Right?”

  She smiled, and he actually felt his heart tip inside his chest. That was a smile he wanted to be blessed with, graced with, every chance he got.

  “I say yes,” she said. “Because the alternative is we’ve gone to some parallel universe, or this really is a dream. Except even I don’t dream this big, or this good.”

  He smiled, too, then, and stroked a curl-entwined finger down along her cheek. “So, by default then, it has to be real.”

  She turned her face, kissed his palm. “I sure as hell hope so.”

  He rolled them both slightly, reaching down for the coverlet and sheets they’d already tangled up, finally tugging and pulling the covers over their bodies, before settling them both back deeply into the down mattress and soft pile of pillows. “Stay with me.”

  “Try to make me leave,” she said, making him laugh.

  “You…” He shook his head, then kissed the top of hers before tightening his arms around her. “…better still be here when I wake up in the morning. Because if this is a dream, I’m going to be really pissed.”

  She laughed, and traced her fingers through the hair on his chest, as their breathing evened out. He felt an almost liquid warmth seep through him, relaxing him in a way he’d never felt before, like it went past muscle, past mind, somewhere beyond, somewhere deeper, as if soothing his very soul. He’d wanted to talk more, find out more, if for no other reason than to ground the fantasy of this connection they’d forged in as much reality as possible, as quickly as possible, before something in the real world shattered their dream one.

  But then her hand was drifting downward, and despite how sated he’d felt a moment earlier, his body began to stir to life all over again. This time there was no frantic coupling.

  This time they relished in every breath, every moan. She tasted him…and he tasted her. He spent the most glorious hour of his life exploring her body…then lay back in stunned shock as she, very delightfully and deliberately did the same with him.

  And when she could take no more teasing with his tongue, and he could take no more of her little nips down along his spine, he pulled her beneath him, and slowly pushed into her. Their gazes, as he was coming to know would always be the case, found each other unerringly, and remained locked, as he drove…and she took, then more, when she rose to meet him, holding him so tightly inside her he thought he’d die from the pleasure of it. And this time, when she climbed that last peak, so did he.

  “Emma,” he said, groaning as she arched beneath him and fell sweetly, perfectly apart around him. He took her mouth then, and took her. Claimed that last piece of her, and thought to himself that this time, there would be no being complacent and keeping the peace. This time, he would fight, and cause a scene, and do whatever it took, because this time, finally, he had something worth fighting for.

  He wanted to tell her, make her understand, only the sandman had other ideas, and they both drifted even as his heartbeat was still finding its balance. The last thing he remembered was the soft kiss she pressed directly over his heart.

  12

  The first thing Emma heard was howling. She blinked her eyes open and instinctively stretched, only to realize—and immediately recall every last detail of the fact—that she was in bed with Trevor. Naked, in bed. With a naked Trevor. A naked Trevor who had made love to her last night like she was the last woman on earth, or maybe the only woman for him.

  She closed her eyes, wanting to hold onto the fantasy that surely must be. But Jack was howling, the fire had gone out, and the thin gray light coming in through the tall, floor-to-ceiling windows announced that bad weather was still continuing. And the warm, hard body next to her, along with the wide, firm palm cupping her backside, were all far too real for her to pretend that any of this was a dream.

  “Jack needs to be pu
t out of his misery,” Trevor said, his body still heavy against hers, his eyes still closed, and his voice deliciously gravelly.

  “He just needs to go out,” Emma said, hearing the roughness in her own voice as well.

  “Not if he was dead he wouldn’t.”

  She smiled even as she gently pinched his waist. “Not funny.”

  “Neither is a howling dog at o’dark-thirty.”

  “I think it’s later than that, but outside isn’t looking so good.”

  “All the more reason we shouldn’t have dogs.”

  “We don’t have dogs. Lionel has dogs. And I need to go take them outside.”

  Trevor clamped his arm down more firmly around her waist and pulled her more snugly into the very warm and wonderful body heat he was also wrapping around her. “You need to stay here and keep the real world from intruding.”

  That sounded like a great idea. Jack howled even more mournfully, which made her groan. “Keep that thought. I’ll be right back.”

  What she was, however, was on her back. For a sleepy, drowsy guy, he moved remarkably fast when he wanted to. Something to make note of, she thought, then smiled at the idea that keeping track of his habits might be something she needed to be doing at all. It was the morning after…and there had been no crash landing yet.

  In fact, this felt pretty remarkably…normal. And nice. And…something she’d like to keep doing. With him. For a very long time.

  Jack’s howl took on a particularly plaintive tone, and Emma found herself thinking that Trevor had a point about owning dogs. But then, the only thing keeping her warm at night, up until the last one anyway, was her grandmother’s frayed quilt. So she could be excused for not being overly enthusiastic about her stubby-legged charge since it meant leaving Trevor’s delectable warmth, and what felt like a…growing interest in keeping her tucked away for at least a little while longer this morning.