I hadn’t seen the entire wing and I doubted I’d remember much of the route we took to get there, but the one thing I knew I would remember was her personal pool.

It wasn’t big by any standard. Probably ten by ten feet and square, inlaid with some sort of tile that made it look a surreal shade of blue. The lights danced off her body as she stripped and I vaguely wondered how they made me look.

Then she was in the water, her skin glistening, and I followed her in. I would go slow with her later, take the time to explore every inch of her, let her know that she was mine. Right now, I just needed to be inside her.

I caught her around the waist and pressed her back against the wall, my eyes locking with hers. Neither of us spoke as she wrapped her legs around my waist. I slid my hand between us, stroking her clit until she began to writhe, sweet little mewling sounds falling from her lips. Once I felt her start to come, I slid into her.

We both moaned as our bodies came together. I hadn’t stretched her and she was tight, even tighter still as the friction gave her that last little nudge she needed to fall over the edge. I didn’t wait for her to come down, instead taking deep, hard strokes that took me to the end of her. She clung to me, crying out my name even as her nails dug into my back and shoulders. I pressed my face against her neck as her body convulsed around me, drawing out her orgasm so that when I came only moments later, she was still with me.

We stayed together for several minutes, our bodies still joined. And when I finally slid from her, I knew I’d never walk away. I’d give my life for hers if that’s what I had to do to keep her safe, but I’d never leave her.

A few minutes later, we were wedged on the fat, padded lounge chair, wrapped in thick cotton robes. Although the chair was oversized, it hadn’t been designed for two, but that was fine. It meant we were snug up against each other. There was no other place I’d rather be.

Her fingers stroked over my lips. That light stroke made my spent dick twitch and I caught her wrist. “Stop it,” I said.

“Why?”

“It tickles.” It was the truth. Also, I was exhausted. If she kept touching me, I might try to work up the energy to do something about it, but I had a feeling if I tried, I’d collapse, like I was made of nothing but noodles and jelly.

I felt her smile against my arm and tightened my hold on her. We might not have talked about it yet, but there was no doubt in my mind I loved this woman.

“Do you ever wonder about...?” Her voice faded away.

I lifted my head to study her, or what I could see of her at least. That was the crown of her head, nothing else. “Wonder about what?”

She sat up, squirming. She shot me a look as she pushed her wet hair back from her face. “I was...” She sighed as she folded her hands in her lap.

I didn’t think I’d ever seen her look so uncomfortable, or so at a loss for words.

“What is it?” I asked her, shifting around until I could pull her in closer. She draped her thighs over mine and rested her head on my shoulder.

“You have a child.”

Those words knocked the breath right out of me and I closed my eyes. After a few seconds, I was able to squeeze an answer out of my tight throat.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. Leah was seven months along when I went in. They, um, they did an ultrasound, but it wasn’t clear. They thought it might be a girl though. No one bothered to tell me for sure, and I didn’t ask when they had me sign the papers for her adoption.”

Carly lifted her head and stared at me. She was so close, I could see the dark striations of blue in her eyes.

“Do you think about her?”

“About the baby...or, well, she isn’t a baby any more, is she?” I almost lied, but I knew Carly deserved the truth. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. I think about her. Hope she’s happy. That she’s got parents who love her.”

“Don’t you...” She hesitated and then asked, “Don’t you want more, though? I mean, you’re out now. You could take care of her and–”

“No.” Carefully, I eased Carly off my lap and stood up. I paced to the edge of the small pool and stared down into the water. “It wouldn’t be right. Before I got arrested, I would’ve made it work, but after...Leah told me she couldn’t do it by herself, and I think she wanted a new start after everything that happened. I don’t blame her. In fact, I’m glad. Our kid deserved to be raised by good people, not me and Leah.”

“You’re good people–”

“No, I’m not!” I snapped, spinning around to glare at her. “I’m trying to be better, but I’ve got no business taking a little girl away from the people who’ve raised her all her life.”

Carly looked away. Her eyes closed. After a silence that seemed to last forever, she spoke, her voice soft, “Sometimes the people who raise you aren’t the good people they should be, though.”

I’d thought about that more than once. Hollister – he’d been a detective then, but he was a lieutenant now – he’d been the one who’d gone to bat for me and helped make the deal after I’d killed Dale. Part of it hadn’t had anything to do with my prison time. Hollister had made me a promise. A father himself, he’d understood. I’d seen it in his eyes. He’d promised. He’d made sure both the baby and Leah had been taken care of. That had been the day I told myself to start putting faith in something. I couldn’t go back on that now, and I had to believe my little girl was being raised by somebody more – somebody better – than an ex-con, a convicted killer.

“No, Carly,” I said, shaking my head. “It wouldn’t be right.”

Seconds ticked by into minutes, and then I heard her feet padding across the tile floor moments before she wrapped her arms around me. “Are you mad at me?”

I covered her hands with mine. “No.” Slowly, I turned back to her and stared down at her, watching as the light flickering off the water danced along her face. We didn’t kiss or do anything else. We just held each other, and bit by bit, I felt the sadness easing from her, and as hers faded, the tension fell away from me.

She smoothed her finger up along my jaw, down my cheekbone, up my nose. I felt like she was trying to learn my face, line by line.

I liked it. Of course, I’d spent the past six months memorizing everything I could about her, from the lines of her face to the freckles scattered across her nose – there were three right across the tip with two more higher up – to the blow-my-mind sexy fullness of her mouth, all the way down the powerhouse curves of her body. But it wasn’t just physical. I’d learned the kind of music she liked, even though it’d have been easier to list what she didn’t like, and so far, the only thing I’d figured out was bluegrass. She was hit or miss on a lot of alternative stuff and pop, but her phone was crammed full of everything from Christian rap to hard rock to heavy metal to Beethoven. I knew she liked to cook, but hated to bake. She could get lost in a parking lot, but put her in a mall, and it was like she had a GPS hard-wired inside her skull, even if she’d never been there before.

She drove me crazy in the best kind of way, and even if she didn’t know it, she had to power to break me.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked, her voice oddly hushed.

“You.” I twisted my hands in her hair. “It’s always you.”

She curled her arms around my neck and sniffled. “You talk like that and you’re going to make me cry, Bobby.”

“Can’t have that.” I tugged on her hair until she was looking up at me, and then I made her forget all about her tears.

Chapter 16

The ‘leak’ about the change in the relationship between us happened right outside Carly’s front gates.

It was carefully orchestrated, I had to give Ryan credit for how much thought he put into it. But it did make me wonder about how many ‘relationships’ in the gossip rags between big-time Hollywood couples were real. And I wondered how many people would think that Carly and I were staging everything, not just the reveal.