I wouldn't know where to begin with that. When I saw Cleo at the museum her hand was void of an engagement ring and she spoke about marriage as if it would be part of her future. If she's not here under her maiden name, I doubt she's here at all.

"No, but thank you for checking." I scoop my smartphone into my palm from where I'd rested it on the counter before I turn to walk away.

"Wait." The woman behind the desk taps her fingers over her keyboard. "There's a Cleo Durand. Did your friend just have a baby?"

I should confess that she's not my friend. I should tell her that I'm on a fact finding mission that is only meant to quell my own desperate need to know more about the man I'm falling in love with but I don't do that. Instead I turn back towards the desk with a bright smile on my face. "That's her. She had a little boy."

Chapter 9

I stare down at the white, rectangular card in my hand. The woman at the reception desk had jotted Cleo's room number down for me. I'd walked away after thanking her in the direction of the elevators but before the lift raced back down to the lobby to pick me up, I'd darted out the hospital's main entrance doors.

I'd hailed a taxi then and during the entire ride back to my apartment, I'd contemplated whether I had any right to go see her. The woman doesn't know my name. It's highly likely that she won't remember my face either. Vanessa saw her without a swollen stomach which means that she's now a mom. A random woman who drew her portrait in a museum months ago is not someone she's going to remember.

If I'm being completely honest with myself, the only drive behind my desire to see her today was curiosity. She's Maisy's sister. She's also someone who is fundamentally important to Dane. She's not part of the fabric of my own life though and waltzing into her room, when she's just given birth to her first child, is not only selfish, it's also intrusive.

I turn just as I hear the faint knock on the door. I know it's him. He'd sent me a text hours ago asking if he could come over. I hadn't replied. It wasn't because I didn't want to see him. I longed to feel his arms around me and to hear his deep voice telling me again that he loved me.

My deliberate avoidance of him was wrapped up in that small card with the number 2049 written on it. He's been looking for her. I inadvertently found her and as much as my heart knows that I should hand him the card, my mind is causing me to pause.

Cleo is part of Maisy's life and even though Dane has been struggling with Maisy's refusal to leave his house since we met, I sense that there's a light of promise at the end of that tunnel. Guiding him back into the vicinity of Maisy's grasp isn't something I want to do.

I tuck the card into the front pocket of my jeans before I swing the door open.

"Bridget," he whispers my name as his arms circle my waist. "I was worried. You didn't answer my call or the messages I sent."

I fumble to find the right words. I pull back from his embrace to look up into his face. "You're wearing a ball cap. You look so young when you wear one."

"Young?" His brows shoot up. "How young are we talking?"

I push on his shoulder playfully. "You're one of the happiest people I've ever known."

He tugs the cap off his head before he rakes his hand through his messy hair. "I wasn't until I met you."

The concept of a man's words causing a woman's knees to go weak is real. I'm proof of that. I cling to the front of the dark sweater he's wearing. "You say exactly the right thing."

"I say the honest thing." He brushes his lips against my forehead. "You make me happy, Bridget. I live to make you smile."

I tuck my hand into the pocket of my jeans. My fingers fan over the edge of the card. "No one has ever made me smile the way you do."

"If I can put a smile on that beautiful face every day for the rest of my life, I'll die a happy man."

The words race through me with the power of a rushing wave. I reach for his shoulder to steady my stance. "I don't know what to say when you talk like that."

"You never have to say a thing." His right hand dips to my chin to pull my gaze up to his. "I can see everything you feel when I look in your eyes."

I tug my hand free of the pocket, lift it up to cup his cheek and I give in to my body's need to feel.

***

My hips involuntarily buck off the bed as he slides one of his long, firm fingers into me. I hear my own moan fill the quiet air in the room before I sense it within me. I close my eyes, not wanting him to see everything that I'm feeling. This time it isn't just about the magnitude of the pleasure that he gives to me. This time it's about the words he spoke when he kneeled in front of me. It's about the love that he feels for me.

"You're so wet, Bridget." His tongue dances over my clit. "I love how you taste."

I reach down to weave my fingers through his dark hair. I've never felt a need to direct the pressure or angle of his mouth on my core like I have with past lovers. Dane instinctively knows what I need. He can read my body better than I can and right now, I know that he senses that with just a few pressured licks of his skilled tongue on my swollen bud that I'll be racing over the edge towards an intense orgasm.

"Dane," I say his name not only to edge him on but to try to convey everything that I want to say. I wanted us to talk about his profession of love before we shared our bodies again. I wanted to hear my own voice saying it back to him. It's what I feel. It may be jumbled with confusion about his connection to Cleo or the lingering issues with Maisy, but my heart is bound to his. I know that now.

He buries his face between my legs with a soft sigh. His tongue races over my folds before he lashes my clit over and over again.

I don't want to cling to the edge of the sensation. I just want to feel and as the heat of my climax floods over me, I cry out from the sheer pleasure and the knowledge that this is the man I need in my life. This is the man I can't live without.

Chapter 10

"I love you, Bridget."

My eyes flutter open at the sound of his deep voice. I start to turn to face him but his chin is resting on my shoulder. His arms are draped around me, pulling my nude body into his. I can feel the pressure of his erection against my hip. After he licked me to orgasm, he'd crawled up my body and had kissed me with a fevered passion. I'd clung to him and as the tempo of our kisses quieted, he'd rolled me onto my back and had stared into my eyes before I started to drift to sleep.

"You love me?" I whisper as I try to crane my head to the side.  It's not what I want to say. I want to flip over and tell him that I love him too. I want those words to flow from my mouth with the same grace as they did from his but I know that they can't. I know that if I say them now that they'll sound like an empty reflection of his confession. This is his moment. Mine will come, but it's not right now.

His hands grip my waist to guide me to turn over. I do it slowly knowing that once I'm settled next to him that I'll want to look into his eyes to see if I can find the same meaning within the words there that I hear in his voice.

I rest my hands on his bare chest as my eyes catch on the tattoo. It's a symbol of his love and adoration for his mother. She's the one woman who Vanessa saw with both Maisy and Cleo. I push the thoughts from my mind, wanting only to focus on what he just said to me.