I lifted one side of my nose. “I doubt Emil will want it. Did he ever find a way into Milas’s office over there?”
“Here’s where it gets weird again. There was no office, honeybee. The address he has listed on his paperwork is nothing more than an empty field. He used a P.O. box for all his mail over there.”
“He had a home office then?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Emil said Milas doesn’t have an apartment in Denmark anymore. He checked the few boxes Milas had left with him, but there was nothing in them. Absolutely nothing.”
“Then we just haven’t found it yet. The box we found can’t be all the paperwork for his business. I thought you said he had multiple different ones.”
“That’s what he led me to believe, but I’m starting to wonder if that was truly the case. The deeper I get into this, the more questions I have. But”—he led me up the stairs—”don’t worry about it tonight. We have enough to worry about right now.”
At the top of the stairs, I rested my hand on his chest. “My bed or yours?”
“You choose.” He kissed me softly. “I’m going to shower, then I’ll find you. I love you,” he whispered, lowering his forehead to mine. “More than you’ll ever know.”
“I love you too,” I kissed him chastely. “But you know how much.”
His head nodded as his cobalt eyes held mine hostage. “Your love has been the one thing to give me strength when I’m not feeling strong.” His hand slid up my face to caress my cheek. “You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Honey Blois. Even when it seemed like I was taking you for granted, I hope you understand that I never was.”
“I know,” I promised, and then his lips were on mine to steal healing kisses in the night.
CHAPTER 18
After showering in the downstairs bathroom, I tiptoed to his bedroom and stopped in the doorway. The last two nights, we’d slept in my bed, him with his arms wrapped tightly around me. When he held me, I slept the entire night, and I could use that again tonight. I eyed his bed. His gigantic, king-size, soft-as-a-feather bed where I knew the cool, silky sheets would smell like Armani. I bit my lip and worried it between my teeth. Was it too forward to climb into his bed? He did say I could choose, so I supposed it wasn’t, but it felt like a line I couldn’t uncross once I stepped over it. Sure, I’d slept in it with him the night they found Milas, but that had been different. That was before the L-word had been tossed around. Now I might like it way too much, and when he sent me back to my bed, alone, it would destroy me.
I turned to go back to my room and ran straight into a brick wall. My hands came up to steady myself, and his soft T-shirt was there to soothe my skin. He held tight to my upper arms and stared into my eyes.
“Going somewhere?”
“Back to my room,” I whispered.
“Because?”
I rested my forehead on his chest so I didn’t have to make eye contact. “It feels like climbing into your bed makes this something more than a stolen ‘I love you’ in the dark.”
“You’re saying sleeping in my bed makes this real.”
I nodded, my forehead sliding over his shirt smoothly. “It scares me. If I climb into that bed, and you eventually decide my issues are more than you want to deal with, I’ll never recover.”
He tilted my chin up to make eye contact. “Honeybee, I’m well aware of your issues, which I don’t consider issues at all. The whole of you is more than your medical diagnosis. Trust me when I say it didn’t matter to me when I was ten, and it doesn’t matter now. I’m not going anywhere.”
He guided me to his bed, pulling the bedspread and sheets back—silk, as expected—and motioned for me to climb in. I hesitated for a moment but finally sat, swinging my feet under the sheet and allowing him to pull the covers up to my shoulders. I rolled to my side and inhaled deeply. “Armani.”
He chuckled and shut off all the lights but one small one on the dresser across the room. It threw shadows on the wall, but it kept the boogeyman at bay too. He slid into the bed in a way that wouldn’t have been noticeable if I had been asleep. He moved with a litheness few men do, and it was an instant turn on. I wanted him, and while the idea of taking our relationship to the next level scared me, I wouldn’t let the fear stop me. I had dreamed about the moment he’d take me in his arms and make me his for as long as I could remember. I didn’t have any experience when it came to making love, but I had years of experience with Mattie. In my opinion, that was the experience that mattered. The two of us together mattered because we trusted each other with our hearts and our bodies.
His strong arms pulled me over to rest on his chest. “The cologne is a trick to put you under my spell,” he teased, stroking my shoulder lightly with his long fingers as I rested against him. “Is it working?”
“It’s been working for ten years, you screwball.” I laughed, tickling his waist.
He barked with laughter and caught my hand, holding it to his lips to kiss. “Good. Mission accomplished.” His laughter slowly died, and his gaze settled on mine, turning serious. “Thank you for being willing to help with Milas’s business situation.” He ran a finger down my cheek and rested it on my lips for me to kiss. “I hate to ask more of you when you already have all the other businesses to deal with.”
“Not a big deal, Mattie. I could leave the marina and restaurant alone and they’d continue to run in the black. I could fold up shop on the honey business and no one would notice. I’m not going to, but what I’m saying is, I can spare you a day or two here and there to help sort out this situation with Milas. Have they released his body?”
He nodded against my head. “He’s being cremated and shipped to his brother in Denmark, who’ll hold a service and bury him there with his parents.”
I glanced up at him. “Are you going to go? Maybe it would be good to have closure.”
He shook his head and gave me a sad smile. “No, the only way to get closure is to take care of his business here and put it all behind me. I’ve never put much stock in the formality of funerals. I don’t need that to grieve and move on.”
