Page 86 of Carnal Urges

He pulls away, breathing raggedly. “Why aren’t you kissing me back?”

“I’m trying to figure out what’s happening.”

“What’s happening is that you’re breaking my bloody heart. Now fuckingkiss me.”

I do, mainly because I’m still in obedient mode and there’s no telling how much longer it will be before the sand in that hourglass will run out.

When we come up for air, Declan stares down at me with an expression like he’s in excruciating pain. It’s not exactly comforting.

“Maybe you could say something nice right now so I could stop feeling like such a gigantic idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot, lass. I’m the idiot.”

“That’s close to nice. Try again.”

He drops his head to my shoulder and hides his face in the crook of my neck.

“Oh my god. You can’t even come up with anything to say to me after I vomited my heart all over the place? Let me up. I’m leaving.”

Squirming with humiliation, I try to rise, but I’m flattened beneath his enormous weight.

He grasps my jaw and holds my head steady, then says gruffly into my ear, “What you just said is the best thing anyone has ever said to me. In my life. The bloody best thing. And I know I’ll be thinking about it for the rest of my days, long after you’ve forgotten me. You’re young and beautiful, and you’ve got dozens of men in your future who’ll fall madly in love with you—”

“Hundreds. At least.”

“—and I’ll be nothing but a distant memory for you. But I’ll still be trying to scrub your face and your taste and your sweet voice from my mind fifty years from now, because I already know nothing else will ever be able to compare to you. Nothing and no one will ever come close.”

My heart swells. I inhale slowly, feeling his words sink down through my flesh and settle into the marrow of my bones. When I speak, my voice comes out shaky. “I’m not sure you have fifty years left, geezer.”

“Not if I spend much more time in your company, hellcat.”

He takes my face in his hands and kisses me deeply, letting me feel everything he’s feeling. Then he rolls over again so he’s lying on his back, and I’m cradled in his strong arms with my cheek pressed to his chest, listening to his pounding heart.

We lie like that for a long time, until the emotion expanding inside my body becomes too unbearable.

“One last nugget of honesty.”

He groans. “I don’t know if I can take it.”

“You’re stronger than you think. So here it is. I’ll never forget you. And I’ll never call any other man ‘sir.’ Even if someone asks me to—which they won’t, I’m much too terrifying—that word will always be reserved for you and only you. You’re welcome.”

His exhalation is a big, sudden burst of air. “Holy fuck. I don’t know whether to laugh, kiss you, or jump out the nearest window.”

“You can decide later. For now, why don’t you just make me something to eat? I could really murder a salad.”

“No sane person craves salad.”

“Who said I was sane? Clearly, I’m not. I’m lying here with the elderly gangster who kidnapped me and whose idea of romance is calling me a camel.”

“How many times did you use the thesaurus to look up alternatives for the word ‘old’?”

“None. I just sat there looking at you when I woke up on your jet after you first kidnapped me and made a list in my head.”

“Very funny. Forty-two isn’t old.”

“Not if you’re a tortoise. Or a giant sequoia. Or one of those glass sponges in the East China Sea that can live to be like ten thousand. But in human years, you’re already more than half-dead.”

He laughs. “We just made love, and you’re telling me I’m more than half-dead? And you accuse me of not being romantic.”