He pushed himself off her, as if unable to bear her exoneration. “But what I did to you...”
She pulled him back, never intending to let him go again. “I don’t care anymore what you did when you thought I was Burton’s accomplice. Neither should you.” He shook his head, face gripped in self-loathing. She grabbed his face, made him look at her. “What matters is that you gave me everything.”
A spectacular snort answered her claim.
It made her burst out laughing. His scowl deepened, not accepting that she should make light of it. Her lethal Cobra had turned out to be a noble knight after all.
Grinning so widely it hurt, she stabbed stinging fingers into the mane he’d let grow longer, as she loved it, which she’d been dying to do since he’d imposed the no-touching ban.
“You have,” she insisted. “You’ve given me passion and pleasure like I never dreamed possible. And you did something else no one could have—you freed me from Burton, opened up my life to new possibilities.”
“That was totally unintentional!” he protested.
She overrode his protest. “You did try to save me, and if I hadn’t been so busy protecting you, I would have come with you, or I would have at least sought you, and you would have protected me.” As he looked about to reject her qualifications, she tugged on his hair, stopping him. “But the greatest gift you gave me is Rico. And since your return, you’ve given me our own small family, and an extended one. Now you’re giving me your love, this incomparable gift you’ve never given another.”
Listening to her enumerate his countless contributions to her life, his expression softened with that tenderness she was already addicted to.
“I’m giving you everything I have and am. You already have it, will always have it. You can weed through the mess and extract only what you like. You can toss out the rest.” Just like that, he was the uncompromising Richard Graves again.
Laughing, her heart hurting with too much love and exultation, she stormed him with kisses again. “I’m hoarding every single thing about you. I love every gnarled shred of what makes you the man I worship.”
He only got more serious. “I mean it, Isabella. Just tell me everything on your mind the moment you think it, and whatever it is, it’s yours, it’s done or it’s gone.”
As he melted back to the bed, taking her with him, she luxuriated in his sculpted magnificence, her pleasure magnified unto infinity now that she knew this majestic being was hers as she was his and she’d always have the right to revel in him.
“As long as this is a two-way street and you tell me anything you want different.”
“You’re beyond perfect just the way you are.” He looked alarmed. “Never change!”
She chuckled, delirious with his new transparency. “I guess I’ll have to one day. I’ll grow older.”
“I already told you, you will only grow better.”
“It’s you who is growing so much better with age. There should be a law to curb your improvement.” She nipped his chin, caught his groan of pleasure in hungry lips. “I constantly want to devour you.”
Hunger blazing in his eyes, he pressed himself between her spreading thighs. “Devour away. I’m self-regenerating.” He suddenly groaned, grimaced. “I didn’t promise you the most important thing.”
She wrapped her legs around his hips, pulling him back to her. “Nothing is more important than having you.”
“Yes, there is. Safety. Yours, Rico’s and that of everyone you love. I promise you my near-fatal slipup will never be repeated. If I feel I can’t be sure of that, I’ll scrap this identity and start from scratch.”
Terrified all over again, she clung to him. “Oh, God, Richard, how did it happen?”
He told her and she sank back in relief. “You don’t have other people who want to kill you, do you?”
“Actually, it’s in everyone’s best interest to keep me safe...so I can keep them safe.”
“If so, what’s with your security fetish?” At his rising eyebrows, she grinned. “Yes, I’ve noticed our security detail everywhere. I know if I’m being watched. Comes from my years in Colombia and then on the run.”
He groaned, the knowledge of her ordeals something she knew would hurt him forever. “It’s been a well-established paranoia since I escaped The Organization. Knowing what it would mean if they ever found out I defected, and who I am now, I’d rather always be safe than sorry.”
“But you are generally safer than anyone on earth, barring that aberrant situation, which could have happened to anyone.”