“You’re welcome. Thank you for not giving up on me.”
“I love you, son.”
Arizona sucked in a breath. “You, too, Dad. I’ll talk to you soon.”
He waited until his father hung up the phone before he replaced the receiver. He glanced at Chloe and saw tears on her cheeks.
“That was so great,” she told him. “I’m so glad you called him and talked to him. How do you feel?”
“A little strange. Relieved and nervous, I guess. I’m not sure about him visiting me.” He told her a little about the culture on the island. “My father is nearly seventy. I think he might be threatened by the ladies wanting to take his equipment for a test-drive.”
Chloe wiped her face with the back of her hand and smiled. “It might be just the thing he needs to give him a new lease on life.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. You’re right. He might enjoy the challenge.” He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “How does everything get so complicated? These familial relationships get twisted and broken and yet we stumble on. My grandfather abandoned his own wife and child to travel the world. He was an adventurer at heart. He told me once that he never should have married, but when a girl from a good family turns up pregnant, there’s not much a man can do.”
“Your father grew up without his father?” Chloe asked.
Arizona nodded. “He swore he would be different, that he would marry for love and never leave her side. Which was true, even in death. But he also abandoned me as he had been abandoned.”
“So he only learned part of the lesson.”
He shrugged, not sure what his father had learned. Maybe they were all doomed to repeat each other’s mistakes.
“You break the cycle by not believing in love and I assume as a by-product of that, not marrying or having children,” Chloe said, as if she could read his mind.
“Something like that.”
“It is one way to deal with the problem.”
“Not one you approve of?” he asked.
“It’s not my place to approve or disapprove,” she told him. “I’m just glad you want to work things out with your father and that you’re going to see him soon.”
“Me, too.” He wanted to say more. He wanted to tell her that she was so incredibly beautiful, sitting there in the lamplight. He wanted to tell her that he appreciated the fact that she’d agreed to talk with him tonight, to be a friend when he needed one. Her support had given him the strength to do what was right.
But he couldn’t find the words. He could only look at her and want her.
Something must have shown on his face because she smiled faintly, then leaned close. “Fine,” she whispered, her breath soft and sweet against his face. “Change the subject if you have to. I don’t mind.”
Then she kissed him.
His body responded instantly. Even as Arizona moved his mouth against her, heat filled him as blood rushed to make him ready to take her. He was hard and aching in less than ten seconds.
There was little time for tenderness. They touched each other everywhere. Even as he tried to slow down, Chloe tugged at his clothing and whispered words of encouragement, telling him how much she needed him to be in her. When he touched her panties, he found her ready for him. He slipped past the elastic band and pressed a finger deep inside of her. She surged against him. As he kissed her, he cupped a breast with his free hand and toyed with the tight nipple. He moved his finger in and out of her. Within seconds he felt the rhythmic pulsing of her most feminine place surging around, drawing him in deeper. She broke the kiss enough to gasp out his name as her pleasure continued.
From then on it was a blur. One minute they were still half-dressed and on the sofa. The next they were on top of the bed, their clothes forming an untidy trail on the carpet. He plunged into her and felt her climax again. There was no way to stop either of them, he realized. The passion burned away social convention and left them only with driving need.
He dug his fingers into her hair to hold her still. She grabbed his hips and forced him in deeper. Their kisses were hot and wild and when she bucked against him in yet a third release, he exploded into her.
They clung to each other as the fire cooled. They were both slick with sweat and panting. Arizona slid out of her and settled next to her on the bed. Chloe came into his arms and they snuggled in a position that had so quickly become familiar.
Holding her felt so right, he told himself, and it was the last thought he had that night.
* * *
HE FELT HER stir sometime well before dawn. Arizona turned onto his side and squinted as she clicked on the lamp on the nightstand.