“It looks great.” Better than great. “But it's going to pay hell with my desire to talk.”
“I like knowing that,” she admitted as she sat on the edge of the lounger beside his.
“Like you were proud of yourself when you seduced me past the point of remembering to use protection?” He'd caught on to her.
She laughed. “Yes.” The smile faded. “It was so new. I can't tell you how incredible it feels to be wholly a woman and not think there's a major part of my femaleness missing.”
“And you don't mind being pregnant?”
She bit her lip. “I wish it had happened in marriage. I guess I'm old-fashioned, but I think a baby should have the benefit of two loving parents.”
“Ours will. Do you doubt it?” Did she think he would dismiss his responsibility to her and the baby, leaving her to fend for herself?
She shook her head. “Oh no. I don't doubt you. You're going to be a fantastic father.” She laid her hand over the tummy he loved touching. “I love the baby already. I'm going to be the best mother I can and make him or her feel so wanted.”
Not like her parents had done with her. She didn't have to say it, he knew she would do it differently. Amanda had so much love in her small body, she radiated with it.
She smiled softly at him. “I'm really glad I'm carrying your baby.”
“But you wish it had happened after we were married?”
She went completely still. “Are we getting married?”
A four letter word went zinging through his brain. He was screwing this up. He was supposed to ask her, not assume.
Operating under a compulsion stronger than any that had ever sent him disappearing into his lab, he stood up, taking her with him. He had to get this right. His whole future was at stake here.
There was one thing he had always gotten right with her and he took shameless advantage of it. Molding his mouth over her slightly parted lips, he gave her the emotion he found so difficult to vocalize.
And he found something in return. Warmth. Generosity. Love. He could taste her love. It had always been there for him, he realized now, waiting to flood his parched heart like the warmest, wettest rain.
He pulled back just far enough so he could look into the liquid depths of her Hershey-brown eyes. “I love you, Amanda.” It had been so easy to say. Why had he waited so long?
Those eyes drenched. “I didn't think you did.” She took a shuddering breath as two rivulets of tears trickled down her face. “I told you I loved you. Over and over again, but you didn't say anything. Nobody but Jillian has ever loved me. I didn't think you could.”
He wanted to dispel her fear and remembered pain. All he had was words. “Baby, how could I not love you? When I'm with you, I am whole. The shadows disappear; the frozen places in my soul melt. I've never known anything like it. Relationships before were always wrong. I didn't understand why, but now I do. Love isn't physical, though I think that's a part of it. It's spiritual and it doesn't happen just because you want it to. It's the most precious gift life has to offer.”
She swiped at her eyes. “I know, believe me.”
But she didn't believe he really did. Because he was the man she loved, she didn't see how inadequately he fit with the rest of the world.
“I was in college when I was fifteen.”
She looked quizzical. “I remember.”
“I discovered sex and older women. One woman in particular. I'd had a few girlfriends, but this woman was special. She made my head come off, or so I thought until I met you. Now I know what she gave me were minor explosions. With you, it's nuclear.”
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Amanda liked his description of how she affected him because it was mutual. “What happened with the woman?”
Simon's gray gaze went unfocused as he looked back into the past. His jaw tightened. “One night I went to pick her up in the dorm. I wasn't old enough to drive even, but I was having sex with this twenty-year-old woman. I'd go to her dorm room and she'd drive if we went out. Usually we stayed there.”
“Anyway, that night the door was open and one of her friends was in there with her. They were joking around, talking about me and what a stud I was. At first I felt great, but then she said I was just a kid though I knew how to use my cock, and that it was big enough to really pleasure a woman. She speculated on how big I would be when I was a full-grown man and then offered me to her friend when she was done with me.”
The pain in Simon's voice added to the fury growing in Amanda. “That perverted, pedophile bitch!”
“She was hardly a pedophile. I was full-grown physically and I lived in the adult world, Amanda.”
“She hurt you and she knew what she was doing. She knew you were vulnerable and too young for her.” Rage filled her on behalf of that younger Simon, who had believed that sex was love and that he'd find acceptance with a woman who was using him for her own physical gratification. “What did you do then?”
“I ran. I met Jacob that night. He was still in the Secret Service at the time, but on vacation where I went to college. He stopped me from doing something really stupid and helped me to refocus my energy on doing something with the amazing intellect God had given me.”
“Is that when you stopped living like the rest of the world?”
“I never lived like other people, Amanda. I don't think like other men. I forget things, get lost in my experiments, work out in my gym in the middle of the night and collect ancient fighting swords because they fascinate me. I'm not normal, baby. I'll never fit.”
She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight. “You may not be normal, but you're perfect for me. I love you so much, Simon. So, so much.”
“I wasn't sure you did. I don't have a lot of experience with romance and less with love. It took me a while to figure out what I felt for you, even longer to determine you loved me.”
That didn't make any sense. She'd told him. “I said it. Repeatedly.”
“During lovemaking.” His chin rested on top of her head. “Never any other time. I thought it was just sex talk.”
She felt the heat in her cheeks from a blush as she remembered what she was usually doing when she shouted out her love for Simon. “It wasn't. I really love you.”
“I figured that out.” She could hear the satisfaction in his voice.
“But you accused me of using sex to keep you occupied while Daniel drummed up shareholder support for the merger,” she reminded him.
“Elaine calls them âdumb man' moments. She says Eric has them occasionally, but she loves him anyway.”
The last sounded like a question and she smiled against his shirt front. “I didn't stop loving you, but it hurt.”
“I'll never do it again.”
She believed him. “I know.” There would be other “dumb man” moments, just as she would mess up, but Simon trusted her and he would never make an accusation based on a lack of that again.
He leaned back and cupped her face, his gaze intent on seeing into her soulâor so it felt. “Are you sure?”
She lifted her hands to cover his. “I'm sure. You gave me the deciding vote, Simon.” Choking up with emotion again, she had to take several deep breaths before going on. “You trusted me with your future before you knew I'd quit my job. I'll never forget that.”
“And will you always remember I love you?”
She tilted her pelvis forward, rubbing against the bulge that had been there since she walked outside. “How long are we talking here?”
He kissed her. Hard. When he lifted his head, they were both short of breath.
“A lifetime. Living without you is not an option I can accept.” He sounded like he meant it.
She wondered what he would do if she said she had different plans. She didn't. There was nothing more she wanted out of life than to live the rest of it with Simon, but still. . . . He was a smart, creative guy. His method of convincing her would almost be worth holding off her answer. Almost.
“When I divorced Lance, I never wanted to get married again.” She'd never wanted to be that vulnerable to hurt again.
His body tensed. “I'm nothing like him.”
“I know that.” She brushed his chest, her hand tucking into the opening and laying against his heart. “You're so much more than any man I've ever known. You're such a gorgeous guy, I thought you had security to keep the groupies at bay.” He smiled, like he thought she was joking. She wasn't.
“You have an integrity I could trust my life to. You care so much for others that it humbles me.” Even being a near-total recluse, his concern for the employees of Brant Computers had eclipsed Eric's. “You're strong physically, emotionally, and mentally. You're the perfect father for my children.”
Leaning forward, she kissed the exposed patch of skin in his shirt's opening. “I never want to leave you. If you need the words: I'll marry you, Simon, and spend the rest of my life glad that I did.”
He shuddered, almost with relief. “I never want you to leave. I want to tie you to me with marriage, with love, with our baby. You belong to me. I belong to you. It's perfect.”
She felt like crying again, she was so happy.
“Don't cry, baby.” Then he kissed her, a beautiful seal to their commitment.
After several minutes of pure pleasure, he withdrew his mouth from hers. “Big or small?”
Deliberately misunderstanding him, she reached down and caressed him intimately. “It feels pretty big to me.”
He growled and grabbed her wrist. “I meant the wedding.”
“I don't care as long as it's soon and Jillian can be there.” She'd had the big wedding and it had all been for show. They could get married in the pastor's office with Jillian and Eric as witnesses and she would feel more married, more secure, than she ever had with Lance.
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They got married on the yacht two weeks later. Jillian was indeed there, as were Eric, Elaine and Joey. Jacob catered the reception for the small group before scuttling everyone off the yacht. He then piloted Amanda and Simon to a deserted stretch of ocean. Amanda was finishing some final touches on the stateroom when she heard a powerboat come alongside and then leave again a few minutes later.
She looked around the room, a sense of anticipation curling through her insides. She'd imagined this scene once before, but this time she
knew
Simon wanted her. Not the presentation of a business proposal. Nothing but her this time.
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Simon tapped on the stateroom door and pushed it slowly open. Amanda had disappeared the minute they left the dock, telling him not to come down until they were at anchor. Well, they'd dropped anchor and Jacob was gone. Had she heard the boat that came to pick him up?
He wondered if she would realize its significance, but then his brain short-circuited like a wet power supply without a ground strap. The stateroom was filled with soft light, sheer scarves covering the small lamps and diffusing their glow into a golden haze. Some kind of Eastern music was playing in the background and Amanda stood in the middle of the bed looking like a pasha's favorite concubine from the harem.
Her outfit seemed to be made up of several sheer veils and scarves and not much else. When he walked in, she started swaying, clicking small gold castanets in beat with the music. The lines of her body swayed sinuously against the silk giving him a glimpse of a rosy peaked curve here and creamy white thigh there.
Blood and heat surged into his sex and he started tearing off his tuxedo. She kept dancing, her body's gyrations making sweat break out all over his body.
“Is this another fantasy?”
She shook her head, her dark hair sliding across her unfettered breasts sensually. “No. This is for real. I love you and I want to give myself to you completely. I want to be every fantasy for you. I want you to be every fantasy for me, but not live in fantasy. I want to dress up for you and dance for you and seduce you the way you seduce me.”
Naked, he crossed to the bed. “Your love is the most seductive force in the world, baby, but you keep right on dancing. I'm so turned on, I ache with it.”
Her arms moved gracefully around her, drawing attention to different parts of her beautiful body, while she silently enticed him. Suddenly he understood the gift she was giving him. It was the same one he'd given her in the boardroom of Brant Computers. Complete trust. She trusted him to want her, to love her, to affirm her, although she'd learned so well not to trust.
He couldn't help it. He swung her off the bed and into his arms. “I love you, Amanda. Everything about you.”