Chapter Twenty-Three
I love you.
Tasha couldn’t believe he’d said it. She couldn’t believe she had too.
It was terrifying. But at the same time, it felt so right.
It absolutely had to be right. She couldn’t make another mistake.
Daniel hadn’t wasted any time taking her home with him to San Francisco. It seemed to have suddenly become his mission—to bring her into his work, into his life, to take her out of the mountains. And she would go anywhere he asked.
Yet during the four-hour drive, he’d seemed a bit pensive. Not like he was rethinking his declaration, but…something. She couldn’t put her finger on exactly what. But the words and the feelings were so new between them—and leaving the mountains after a three-month, self-imposed exile was such a huge step—that she didn’t quite know how to ask him whether anything was wrong. She couldn’t seem to quiet her nerves. Still, she truly believed things would get easier.
Because being with Daniel was nothing short of miraculous.
They made two quick pit stops for the puppies, who traveled extremely well, especially when Tasha leaned back between the seats to talk to them through the bars of their crate. Once across the Bay Bridge, they soon arrived at Daniel’s renovated apartment building near Nob Hill, with its magnificent view of the Bay and Alcatraz. When the sun set, the city lights would be spectacular.
Daniel carried the puppies in the crate, and they took the express elevator to the penthouse, a luxury top-floor apartment straight out of a James Bond movie.
“It’s so beautiful, Daniel.” Even though beautiful felt like such a paltry word for this mind-blowing home.
The entry opened directly onto a living room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking sparkling blue waters, sailboats, Alcatraz, city streets, and even the Marin side of the Golden Gate Bridge. Brown leather furniture matched the hardwood floors and rosewood coffee and end tables. A monstrous TV hung on the wall opposite a massive fireplace, surrounded by wood shelves filled with books, statues, porcelain, and artwork. She didn’t know the artists, but it was all so tasteful it had to be hugely expensive. And were those two Ming vases in a display niche above the TV?
Daniel set the crate down just inside the entry hall and bent to open the door.
Tasha dashed over. “You can’t let the puppies out. They’ll cause complete and total havoc. Their nails will scratch the floors. They’ll knock over your statues and pee on your priceless carpets.” Heck, she was so worried about ruining something herself that she shoved her hands in her pockets so she didn’t accidentally destroy a thousand-year-old piece of art.
“The puppies will be fine,” Daniel replied, utterly unconcerned about three furballs running amok. But when the still sleepy dogs seemed content to stay in the crate, he closed the door. “Let me show you my home.” He took her hand.
“Did you do this shelving and inlay yourself?”
“I like working in wood, so I did the bookcases and the fireplace.”
“Are those andirons something Charlie Ballard made?”
“They are.” He gave her a pleased smile. “How did you know?”
“I looked her up on the Internet. Her work is very distinctive. So emotional.”
“She’d love to hear you say that. When she was up here one time for dinner, she claimed the hearth needed something special.”
He guided her through the dining room, which had oriental scrollwork on the table, chairs, and sideboard, then into a kitchen equipped with every utility imaginable. Copper pots and pans were slung on a rack hanging from the ceiling next to a gas range with both a griddle and a grill. Marble counters hosted the coffee maker, espresso machine, juicer, blender, mixer—the gadgets went on and on. A double oven, microwave, two sinks—just so you didn’t have to move too far to fill a pan—even a wine cooler. The fridge was massive, with two top doors and a double bottom freezer.
“This is amazing.” She loved to cook—in a real kitchen, not on a barbecue grill like Daniel—but had never dreamed of having access to a kitchen this fabulous.
“While you were letting the puppies out on the drive,” he said, “I had my grocery service deliver something for us to cook tonight.” He opened the fridge, which was large enough to climb into, revealing the ingredients for a gourmet salmon dinner.
After carrying a bowl of fresh water back for the puppies, he led her down a hallway, past a powder room and on to two extra rooms he used as a guest bedroom and his home office, the centerpiece of that room being a huge rolltop desk.
The furniture was gorgeously crafted, and yet again, she had a feeling Daniel was instrumental in their design, if not the actual building. The computer console looked like mission control at NASA. At the end of the hall, a door led to a workout room with weights and every mechanical gym device, from rowing machine to bike to treadmill, plus a mounted TV in the corner.
Through another door, she thought she’d find his bedroom, but instead, a wrought-iron spiral staircase led to the roof, where there was a huge enclosed rooftop garden resplendent with flowering bushes and potted plants.
She was totally overwhelmed.
The entire city was visible through the surrounding glass, from Grace Cathedral to the Mark Hopkins, the Fairmont, and the Pacific Club, then all the way down to the Transamerica Building, and out to the Golden Gate and the Bay. Central to the garden lay a lap pool, Jacuzzi, and a built-in outdoor kitchen with barbecue and smoker. Daniel pressed a button and the glass canopy opened, letting the warm sun stream down on them since the famed San Francisco fog hadn’t yet rolled in.
Leading her to the opposite side of the pool, he opened the door to another spiral staircase heading back down. At the bottom they stepped into a huge bathroom with a whirlpool tub, tiled shower with four heads, and even a sauna.
Finally, he pulled her into his master bedroom, where a duplicate of his sleigh bed in Tahoe occupied one wall facing a fireplace.
“So tell me,” he said as he drew her closer, “do you want the sleigh bed, the guest room, the Fairmont Hotel, or do you want to call a friend?”
Her body heated against his, but her mind was still trying to process the opulence. The way he lived had stricken her speechless before they’d even come out on the roof. She knew he was rich—he owned a home-improvement empire, for God’s sake—but he drove a truck and wore old jeans and barbecued like any other guy. Only, the reality of Daniel’s home was beyond anything she’d ever imagined. The kitchen was a cook’s dream, she could live in the master bathroom, and the rooftop garden was a fantasy come true.
She wasn’t sure she could live up to it, or the expectations of the man who commanded it. But this was who Daniel was—and she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving him, no matter how intimidating his lifestyle might be. No matter how much money he had, no matter how big his homes or how deep his bank account, he was still the strong yet gentle man who had saved her from falling off her roof—then loved her even when she was certain she didn’t deserve it.
“Sleigh bed,” she whispered, feeling oddly shy as she spoke her choice aloud.
He cupped her face in his hands. “Thank the Lord,” he said a beat before he took her lips in a long, sweet kiss that melted her bones, forcing her to grab his arms to hold herself up.
She lost herself in his kiss, forgot about the pool and the Jacuzzi and the sauna and the other luxuries. Daniel was all that mattered. Not his lifestyle, not his money.
Playing his fingers through her hair, he said softly, “During the drive here, all I could think about was getting you into bed.”
She needed him too, needed his lovemaking to help her erase the doubts that had gripped her from the moment she’d walked through his home. She had a fleeting thought for the puppies, but they had water and they’d be fine. She needed Daniel. And he needed her.
“In the bed,” she said. “On the carpet. On the sofa. In the Jacuzzi. I don’t care where we make love to each other, Daniel, just as long as I’m with you.”
* * *
She was all he desired. As her scent had wrapped around him in the cab of the truck, as she’d talked to him and filled his head with her voice, all he’d craved was seeing her in his home. All he’d dreamed of was this—Tasha begging him to take her.
He picked her up in his arms as if he were carrying her over the threshold. “We’ll christen this bed first. Just like we christened the one in the cabin.”
He’d never brought a woman here. Hotel rooms were anonymous, with fewer expectations. But this time he was the one with expectations. With hopes and dreams, ones he believed she shared.
During the drive, he’d wanted to tell her about his conversation with his mother, but he’d sensed Tasha was nervous and didn’t want to add to her tension. Now that she was here, in his home, he wanted to revel in having her in his bed.
Afterward, once she was lying sated and relaxed in his arms, he’d tell her what his mom had gone through, and how much both she and Tasha had taught him.
He had her naked in one minute and himself in the next, then he dived on her, skin to skin. “You feel so damn good.” She was smooth lines and curves, sweet scents and tastes, from her lips to her neck to her breasts, and all the way down. He covered her with kisses from her throat to her navel. Then he delved deep.
She gasped when he put his tongue to her, followed by a long moan, and a whispered, “Daniel.”
He blew a warm breath over her. She quivered in reaction, and her fingers flexed, reaching for his hair, trying to pull him closer.
“Don’t tease,” she begged. “I can’t wait.”
But tease he did until she was like ice cream melting against his tongue. He couldn’t get enough of her taste, kept her riding the edge for long, delicious minutes. Until he lifted his head, just long enough to say, “Come for me, Tasha,” and he gave her what she needed, right on the mark, with his mouth and his fingers, inside and out.
She called his name, bucking against him, panting, gasping, crying out. Then she laughed, a blissfully happy sound as she fell back against the pillow, her body still quaking with aftershocks.
“Now,” she said, her voice hoarse from crying out her pleasure. “I need you now.”
“After you come for me again,” he told her. “Two more times. No, five more.”
But he hadn’t counted on the strength or the passion of her intent as she climbed on top of him. “I want to make you come now, the same way.” She gazed at him as she slowly wrapped her hand around him. “I want to feel like you’re mine. Like no one else can do this to you.”
“Only you can,” he vowed. “Don’t you know what you do to me? Don’t you know how beautiful, how wonderful, you are?”
Joy flashed through her eyes, but pain still lingered there too. Pain he would do absolutely anything to banish.
“Take me, Tasha. All of me. Any way you’ll have me, I’m yours.”
She ran slow, heated kisses over his face, his shoulders, his chest, then finally took him in her mouth, the long slow slide of her lips and tongue down, then back up, tearing a groan from him. His hips lifted, and she took him even deeper, teasing him with her tongue.
It was glorious. It was wild. His body trembled in reaction, his hands curled in the bed sheets, his legs quivering with the strain of holding back as she blew every circuit in his brain. Teasing him the way he’d teased her, she made him ride the blade’s edge, then pulled him back without letting him jump into oblivion.
Until she whispered, “Now.”
And he gave himself up completely to the only woman he’d ever love.