She pursed her lips. “And now you’ve had time to process it?”
“Yes.”
Suspicion warred with a desperate need to know he believed her. She shook her head. “You have to trust me, Nik. You have to let me in. You have to know that I am different.”
His mouth thinned. “I just shared with you an incident that nearly broke my family apart. I told you about my father earlier. We are talking, Sofía. I can’t promise it’s always going to be easy for me or I’m always going to be perfect at it, but I am giving it my best shot.”
Her heart softened. He had been trying. Had been opening up slowly, piece by piece. She knew in her heart they could make it together if he’d just continue to let her in. If she could continue to let him in. They had so much to build on.
She stepped closer to him. “You promise I’m not going to wake up tomorrow with you doubting me again?”
“I promise.” He slid an arm around her waist and pulled her close. “Lypamai. I’m sorry. I’m sorry my suspicions have made this so difficult for us.”
She held his gaze with hers. “Everything for me right now is based on me trusting you. On taking a leap of faith that petrifies me, Nik. I need to know I can rely on you. That you will be there for me.”
He brought his mouth down on hers in a whisper-soft caress that drained any remaining anger from her. “You can jump,” he murmured. “I will catch you. You are right, Sofía. We are more. We can be a good team. I promise you.”
Team. It was a vivid reminder of who she was marrying. A man who might have just promised to build a relationship with her, who liked and desired her, but who would never love her. Nothing had changed there. He had married her to secure his heir.
She vowed to remember that as her lips clung to his and the kiss moved deeper. This time their coming together wasn’t about urgency or release, it was about leisurely exploring each other, about sealing a promise they were making. To do this together.
She sighed and sank back into the wall, her palms coming up to cup his face. He inserted a knee between her thighs and moved in closer, deepening the kiss. He had never really lost his erection. It lengthened, thickened against her now. Pulsed with his desire for her.
He wrapped his fingers around her thigh and hooked it around his waist. She pulled in a breath as he nudged the tender flesh between her legs with his shaft. “Sore?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He buried his mouth in the hollow of her throat. “I’ll be gentle.”
“Yes.”
He eased himself inside of her. Her body drew him in. He rocked against her, his eyes holding hers as he fused them together. Slowly, with heart-stopping tenderness, he took her. Higher, deeper until her sensitized body stirred back to life.
The struggle she saw in his eyes gave her hope. He didn’t want to want her this much. He was fighting the connection they had. Fighting what they had always had that had seemed to be bigger than both of them. Out of their control.
It scared her too, terrified her. But she needed him to be her anchor in this. Knew that he would be even if he never loved her. And that had to be enough.
He surged inside of her again and again with deliberate precision, the friction of his body against her flesh almost painfully good. She came apart on a long, delicious surge of pleasure, her fingernails digging into his biceps. Nik groaned, clasped her hips tighter and came inside of her, the skin of his beautiful face pulling taught as the pleasure consumed him.
Their breathing slowed. Her legs slipped to the floor. The haze of passion enveloping her lasted throughout the hot shower Nik set her under and until he tucked her into the big, luxurious bed. As she drifted off to sleep she curled against his chest.
She didn’t want to think about the jump she’d just taken. The stakes that had been raised, just as she’d known they would be tonight. The fact that if she crashed this time, it would be a far bigger fall than the last.
* * *
Two sun-soaked days passed, and with it Sofía’s hope for her and Nik grew. They ate delicious food, played in the sea and indulged in an endless amount of lovemaking that had her convinced her fiancé had the stamina of four men.
It was the time they’d needed to be able to focus on one another away from all the pressure. It had made all the difference in the world. Slowly, Nik was opening up to her. He was still guarded. He would likely always be guarded given his past, but less defensive when she probed, as if he was learning the rules of a game he’d never played. But then again, so was she. In that way, they were perfect for each other.
What worried her, she thought pensively as she watched Nik return from a sail on their final day in Evangelina, his lithe, beautiful body as he secured the boat a major distraction from the sketch pad in front of her, was when they returned to their stressful life tomorrow where Nik literally carried the weight of a nation on his shoulders. Where she was going to have to face the forces that awaited her and somehow not let them destroy her. She feared their progress would be sorely tested.