Our home. This could be our home.He was still feeling the effects of that when Luz spoke.
“What happens now?”
“Tomorrow we meet with him, and if he is not amenable to our demands, we’ll ensure that his mind is changed,” Evan said grimly, and Luz sucked in a breath at whatever she heard in his voice.
“If you’d prefer to be out of the city while the dust with my father settles, Apollo and I have made arrangements for you to go to his estate in the Highlands. You can go there with Clarita and the ladies at first light tomorrow.”
“I am not leaving you,” she said fiercely, as if daring him to attempt to take her from his side. “And I have business to attend to. We have the prototypes for the cordials to see from the glassblower your aunt Odessa put us in contact with.”
“Will you at least consider the idea of going to the Highlands?” he asked again, and Luz sighed.
“Evan, what could he possibly do? Your lawyers have already begun the process of repossessing the distillery, and the proof of Apollo’s birth is undeniable.”
“I don’t want any harm to come to you over this, Luz Alana.” Warmth covered him, and her arms strongly tightened around his waist. She felt so solid, everything he needed. The one thing he could not lose. “Nothing is worth putting you in danger.”
“Your distillery is worth fighting for. The future you and Apollo want to create is worth fighting for,” she told him, with that relentless faith she seemed to have when it came to him.
The prospect of living up to that terrified and galvanized him.
He looked out the bay window at the gardens behind the house, then at the inky-blue night of the city he loved so much but that had become unbearable to him in the last few years. It all seemed to have new life now.
In the dark of this room, supported by the love of a woman he almost certainly didn’t deserve, he could speak the truth. “I don’t know what any of this was about anymore, if it really was about the distillery or just about reclaiming the only part of my family’s legacy still worth saving.”
Luz made a pained noise. He felt the vibrations of her shudder all over his body. She unclasped her hands at his waist, and he almost gripped her wrists to keep her there. But he knew better now. There was no hiding from Luz Alana. Not anymore.
“Where is your sister?” he asked as they pulled apart, already mentally cataloging what he’d need to have in place in the event there was a need to leave rapidly. Luz frowned at that.
“She’s at Beatrice’s.”
Evan nodded considering. “She will be fine there. My father wouldn’t dare incur Gerard’s wrath.”
Finally ready to take Apollo’s advice, he rose from the chair and pulled on his wife’s hand. She looked at him in question.
“I’m taking you to bed.”
Luz was absolutely done with conversation.
What they both needed was connection, to say with their hands, with their bodies, what they could not otherwise articulate. What she felt for this man at times seemed beyond words. His touch, the way he made her feel had grown from a seed of need and a desire to a flower in full bloom, hungry for sun, for air, for room to grow.
They were so close to that. To the place where they could fully plunge into the future they both seemed to want. Where they could voice without fear what they both knew to be true. She would not rush him—she knew he needed to see things settled with his father—but in his eyes tonight at the ball she’d seen it.
Flames that burned as intensely as hers did.
“This is quite convenient,” she said, going to her knees and lifting the flap of his kilt.
She ran her hands up his legs and those broad, strong thighs that could hold so much, that could holdher, until the side of her thumb was grazing his hardness. His skin fluttered under her palms.
She loved that he let her see him react to her touch. That he didn’t hide his reactions to her. She leaned to press a kiss to that living, breathing marble and smiled at the way his muscles tightened at the contact.
Sculpted and perfect and hers.
“Luz,” he said, sucking in a breath when she palmed the tight sac of his scrotum. Without a word, she took his erection in her hand and pressed a kiss to the tip, then lapped it with her tongue. With a groan, he brought his hand to the back of her head and nudged her to take him deeper.
In the past few weeks, she’d come to love pleasuring him in this way. It was a heady act, this, to feel such power and so in control while on her knees. She gripped his shaft and made a line from the base to the head with her tongue. Sucked the pearl of liquid there and still would not take him into her mouth.
“Come on, love. Don’t torture me.” He palmed the side of her face, a thumb caressing her cheek, as she turned her eyes up to him.
“Take me inside you,” he begged, making wetness pool at her core.
