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  I can only nod, because if I speak I will surely start crying again.

  "Thank God you found me." He pulls me down beside him. I feel like I'm in high school again, and I have to admit I kind of like it.

  "I've been looking for you for hours," I finally say. "Ever since I saw the news. Are you okay?" I stroke his face, expecting the same clammy skin from Germany. But the Damien in front of me looks as gorgeous and healthy as always, not to mention exquisitely happy.

  "I am now," he says.

  "I don't understand why she released the photos."

  "She didn't," Damien says. "I did."

  I sit up and gape at him. "You? But--but why?"

  "Because I didn't have any other choice." He eases me back down, then slides closer. He twines our legs together and his arm goes around my waist. I snuggle in close, and press my cheek against his chest, wanting to be as close to him as possible. "I was dying without you, and once Ollie told me the choice you made, I knew that I had to make one, too."

  "But the photos--that's the thing you've been fighting against all along. That abuse is the reason you wouldn't testify. You were willing to go to jail rather than let it go public."

  "I was," he says. "But I'm an arrogant son of a bitch, and I don't think I ever really believed that the court would convict me. I don't think I believed that I could lose you." He strokes his thumb along my chin. "But I lost you anyway, Nikki, and I had to make a decision. And the truth is that I'm doing fine. I wouldn't call it an ideal situation having my private life be the topic of editorials and talk shows, but I'm surviving. And it was my choice. Not a decision forced on me because my lawyers said I needed to put up a defense, but a real, honest decision where I weighed what I have and what I fear against what I want."

  I shake my head, not following.

  "What I mean is that there is only one thing that could rip me apart more than those photos--that did rip me apart--and that's losing you. So I balanced the weight of my past against the promise of my future." He brushes a kiss over my lips. "The future won."

  My smile is watery. "I'm sorry for what I said to you. About secrets and shadows. I needed you to believe I was really breaking up with you."

  "You were right," he says.

  "No, not entirely. But we don't have to argue about it. I know damn well your secrets aren't going to start spilling out just because I won that argument."

  His smile is soft. "You probably have a point." His eyes soak up my face, and a small smile plays at his mouth.

  "What?" I finally say.

  "I'm just happy you found me." He frowns. "How did you find me?"

  I allow myself the smallest of smug smiles. "Sweetheart, I will always find you."

  "I'm very happy to hear that," he says. His fingers trail down my arm, bare beneath my paint-splattered tank top. I'd been too eager to find Damien to bother changing out of my crappy clothes, though I did manage to take a shower yesterday, so I'm not totally disgusting. The trajectory of his hand shifts, and he cups my breast, his thumb flicking lightly over my nipple, and each tiny tug sends a hot wire of electricity jolting through my belly and down to my sex.

  As if he's curious about the effect his touch has on me, Damien trails his hand down, leaving my breast to ease lightly over my tank toward the drawstring waist of my shorts. "I want to know everything you did these weeks we were apart. I don't want to feel like we've missed a moment of our life together. But, Nikki, I don't give a damn about that now. All I want is you naked and wet and open for me."

  I meet his eyes, wait a beat, and then peel off my tank top. It has a built-in shelf bra, so I'm now naked from the waist up. "You can take care of the rest of that yourself," I say, putting my hand on his and sliding our joined fingers into the shorts. I'm not wearing underwear, and I buck with pleasure when his fingers stroke my clit, then slide inside me.

  "I think you want me, Ms. Fairchild."

  "Desperately," I say, then fumble to shove down my shorts.

  I lay back, naked, as he leans over me. "Leave your T-shirt on," I say as my fingers work the fly of his jeans. "You look like a sexy rebel."

  He laughs. "I am. I thought you knew."

  He kicks his jeans off, then brushes a soft kiss over my lips, then nips at my lower lip, catching it in his teeth and tugging lightly before easing his mouth down my neck, over the swell of my breast, to finally suck on my nipple. He draws it in, teases it with his tongue, and slides his hand between my legs to tease my clit in time with the pull of his mouth.

  "I've missed your taste," he murmurs. "I've missed feeling you slip beneath my fingers. The way your skin quivers when you're excited. I want to watch you aroused, I want to watch you come. I want to tie you up and spank your ass and make sure you know that you are mine, and that you damn well better not leave me again. But right now, baby, all I want is to be inside you." He straddles me and I feel the head of his cock press against my sex and see the answering rush of pleasure in his eyes. "I'm going to fuck you now, Nikki." His words are low and steady with the quality of a growl. "Hard and deep and very thoroughly."

  "Yes," I say. "Oh, please, yes." I spread my legs and I am so wet, so desperately in need of him, that he sinks deep inside me with one long thrust. I am on my back, and I cup my hands on his rear, feeling Damien's tight ass and strong muscles pound into me, harder and harder until all I am is a mass of sensation. Until all I want to do is spin off into space and take Damien along with me.

  My orgasm takes me by surprise, building so fast and so furious that I cry out when it rips through me. I feel my body clench hungrily around his, and then the sweet tension and pressure of his own release before he collapses, spent, beside me.

  "I love you," he whispers.

  "I know," I reply. I glance around at the Jeep and can't help but smile. I prop myself up on my elbow and look down at his gorgeous face and sleepy, just-fucked eyes. "How many billions do you have, Mr. Stark? And we're making out in the back of a Jeep? How very gauche."

  He flashes the kind of sexy smile designed to make me wet all over again. "Fuck my billions, Ms. Fairchild. All I care about is you."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  "I want you to know I'm not sad," Jamie says as the moving guys lug my chest of drawers out of the bedroom and toward the front door. As of today, the last of my stuff will be in Malibu and I will have officially moved in with Damien. Despite the fact that I want this more than anything, there are little butterflies dancing in my stomach. But they're soft and the dance is sweet and I'm actually enjoying the sensation.

  "I'm completely excited for both of us," she adds. "But you more than me."

  Jamie has rented the condo out for the next six months. She decided that Texas made sense--but that she wasn't yet ready to give up on LA entirely. So she's driving back to stay with her parents and, as she says, "think about her shit." Hopefully she'll come back. If not, she'll sell the condo. But at least she doesn't have to decide right now.

  I hold tight to Damien's hand. "I'm not going to say that I'll miss you," I say. "Because you'll be back. I'm certain of it."

  "If nothing else, I'll be back to bum a week in Malibu."

  "Anytime," Damien says.

  She glances at her watch. "I gotta go pick up my car," she says. "I left it at the corner for an oil change and all that stuff. I don't really want to get stuck in El Paso."

  "Call me tonight," I say as we hug. I blink, not wanting to cry, but afraid I won't be able to help it.

  "Hell yeah, I will."

  She gives Damien a hug, too, and as soon as she's gone, I turn to Damien, an odd mix of happiness and melancholy rumbling inside me. "We can go, too. I don't need to hang out in my empty room for nostalgia purposes."

  "It's not empty," he says, then nods toward my bed.

  "I'm leaving it," I remind him. I hardly need a bed at any of Damien's houses, and Jamie rented the place furnished, so I'm sure the tenant won't mind.

  "Not the bed," he says. "The package on it." />
  I look more closely and see the flat white box sitting on the white duvet. I glance between him and the box. "What is it?"

  "I'm going to suggest you take a walk on the wild side and open it."

  "Funny," I say, but I hurry to the package. I open it and find a fold-up map of Europe with tiny colored stickers already affixed to Munich and London.

  "We faced reality and told it to go fuck itself," Damien says. "So now I think we should slide back into that bubble. One month. Europe. A limo. Five-star hotels. And you."

  "Doing whatever you want, whenever you want it?" I ask happily.

  His smile is slow and decadent. "Ah, baby, you know me so well."

  "I can't wait," I say.

  "We can go back for round two later," he says. "Right now I can only take a month if I'm going to be back for the gala."

  "Of course," I say. The first gala fund-raiser for the Stark Children's Foundation is only five weeks away. It's Damien's newest charitable organization, the primary mission of which is to help the recovery of abused children through play and sports therapy.

  "Just the continent?"

  Damien nods. We will not be going to the UK. I'm not surprised. I don't care if I never see Sofia again, and he's not ready to see her, either. For that matter, her shrink probably wouldn't let him.

  Sofia had OD'd on the roof of the Richter Tennis Center in West Hollywood about two weeks after Damien went public with the story of his abuse. Because of the timing of the overdose and the certainty that she would be found, the shrink considered it a cry for help, and the courts concurred, both in California and Britain. Now she's in a rehab facility, but this time under court order. I expect that someday Damien will want to see her. In the meantime, he's continuing to support her financially. I don't blame him for that; they have a history, however fucked up.

  "I'd like to spend a few days in Germany, too," Damien says, breezing over the specter of Britain that seems to hang in the room. "We didn't get to explore it before. And speaking of Germany," he adds, pulling a small box out of his pocket. "I bought this for you before the trial got underway. I planned to give it to you after I was acquitted, but I got a little sidetracked."

  "Can I open it?"

  "Of course," he says, with an odd twinkle in his eye.

  I open the box only to find a smaller velvet box inside. My chest starts to feel a bit tight, and my skin feels all tingly. I tell myself not to jump to conclusions as I pull out the velvet box, open the hinged top, and gasp when I see the platinum-set diamond solitaire winking in the lights.

  My knees go weak, and I'm glad of the door frame at my back. "Damien," I whisper, terrified of reading more into this than simply a beautiful ring. Another fabulous gift. "You bought this before the trial?"

  "I told you," he says gently. "I never truly believed I could lose. Not the trial. Not you. Now I know better than to take anything for granted."

  The words are still hanging in the air when he drops down on one knee. He takes my hand, and I get chills. I feel the pull of my facial muscles, but I fight it--I'm simply too scared to smile.

  "There's only one woman in the world who can bring me to my knees. So tell me, Ms. Fairchild. Will you do me the greatest honor? Will you be my wife?"

  My smile breaks free in a burst of glorious, delighted laughter. I beam at him, this man I love. And as I draw him to his feet and into my embrace, I say the only word I'm capable of speaking, the only word that matters. "Yes."

  About the Author

  J. Kenner loves wine, dark chocolate, and books. She lives in Texas with her husband and daughters. Visit her online at www.jkenner.com to learn more about her and her other pen names, to get a peek at what she's working on, and to connect through social media.