Chapter 24
Raphael
Eva's warm body clings to mine when my eyes blink open the next morning. Her head is on my shoulder, her arm across my chest, her legs twisted with mine. Her lips are parted and her face is smushed to the pillow in the most adorable way.
Only Eva could make that facial expression look cute.
Grinning like an idiot, I try to ease myself from under her without waking her up. No luck. She stirs and her big blue-green eyes blink up at me, bright and disoriented.
"Morning," I say, dropping a peck to the bridge of her nose.
She gives me a drunken smile. "Morning." Her sleep-voice is so sexy. It coaxes my cock to life.
"Did you dream well?" I brush her hair out of her eyes.
"I dreamt about you." She gives me a little squeeze, pressing her naked body closer. Her mouth falls to my chest and she kisses me there. I feel like such a lucky fucker.
Last night, we left the Opal Lounge together. I brought her back to my hotel room. I spent the night indulging in her curves and her sweetness. I’m addicted and I’ve finally admitted it to myself. I want her.
I roll on top of her, caging her on the mattress. “What did you dream?”
She wears a seductive light in her eye when she gnaws her lip and says. “I dreamt you were fucking me so hard that I nearly blacked out.”
I chuckle deep in my chest as I slide over and swing my legs off the mattress. “That wasn’t a dream, baby. That was real life.”
Grimacing, she tries to turn onto her side. “So that explains the back ache, huh?”
I peer at her from over my shoulder before I rise to my feet. “Yeah, you’ll probably be limping for the next few days.” We chuckle together.
"Wait – where are you going?" she asks. She sits up and the sheets fall from her perfect breasts.
I run my hand through my messed-up hair as I glance around the room for my underwear. "I have some emails to send and a brokerage proposal to get started on," I tell her.
She gives me the cutest annoyed face. "Raph, it's 7:00 on a Sunday morning."
"That means I'm already an hour late," I tell her, teasing her, deliberately stirring her annoyance.
"Come back to bed," she beckons me, pulling the sheets back and pouting her bottom lip. "Come cuddle with me."
I push out a sigh, my attention darting from the messy papers spread out on the table in the corner of the room to the dishevelled head of blonde hair flowing across my pillow. Which is more appealing…?
For the first time in my life, the blonde wins out.
I find myself climbing under the covers and hauling her body onto mine. She smiles contentedly at her victory.
"Thank you," she says softly as she snuggles against my pecs and closes her eyes happily. "This is nice," she whispers.
It is. I run my hands over her curves, listening to her purr in my arms as she gets comfortable. She smells like sex. My own scent mixes with hers and rises off of her skin. Evidence of my love bites cover her chest and neck. I love it.
"Can I ask you a question?" she says suddenly, distracting me from my perusal of her frame.
"Oh boy," I say on a deep chuckle.
Giggling, she slaps my chest playfully. "This is serious, Raph!"
"All right then." I resign myself to her curiosity.
"What do you do it for?"
I furrow my brows, not quite understanding her question. "What do you mean?"
"Why do you work so hard? You don't have any kids to feed, or a wife. You have more than enough money to live comfortably. So why do you work so hard? Why do you push yourself the way you do?"
Anger begins to tighten my gut but I halt it immediately. I try not to take offense to her question. I know she's only trying to understand me. I quickly realize that my irritation stems from the fact that I don't know the answer to that question myself.
Why do I work so hard? If I didn't lift a finger for the rest of my life, I'd still have enough money to finance a small country for several decades. So why do I push myself so hard?
Maybe it's because for the longest time, I didn't have anything else more deserving of my time and attention. I didn't have anything else I'd rather be doing. But as I look down at my Kitten sprawled off in my arms, I realize that that's changed...Now, I have her and I’d rather devote myself to her than to the empty pursuit of money.
Still I wouldn't be a big, tough alpha male if I poured out every detail of my thoughts to her. So instead, I give her a flat answer, deflecting from this important discovery that I've just made about myself. "I don't have to work so hard," I tell her, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
I don't have to work so hard. And today, I won't. I'm taking the damn day off.
But my vague reply doesn't satisfy her. She presses me again. "Somebody hurt you, didn't they?" she asks sagely. "That’s why you’re so devoted to your work. Was it Diane? Did she cheat on you?"
I sigh. I don't want to drudge up memories of my blood-sucking ex, especially when I’m here with this angel, but knowing Eva, she won't let this go until she has an answer. "She fell in love with someone else," I say simply.
Sadness and empathy shape her features but she speaks with conviction. "Then she wasn't the one for you. When you look into someone's face and their eyes show you the answer to every question you've ever had, being loyal to them isn't a chore. It's the most natural thing in the world."
My chest tightens at her words. I agree with her completely although I've never been able to say it quite so succinctly. "What do you see when you look at me, Eva?" The level of vulnerability in my voice surprises me. I haven't been this in touch with my feelings in a long time.
I think in logic – numbers, percentages, statistics. That’s my language. This ‘emotions’ thing is foreign to me.
"When I look in your eyes, I can hardly think, I can hardly breathe...when I look in your eyes, I don't have any questions to begin with. All the answers are right there, clear as day."
I want to tell her that I feel the same but my throat closes down and I can't even squeeze a word out.
I settle deeper into the bed and allow myself to drown in the essence of her. Eva, Eva, Eva. I'm in over my head with her. I can't wrap my brain around it. She just has this thing about her.
She's forcing me to live in the moment, to shift my priorities, to see that life is about more than chasing the next big deal or the next fat check. She's forcing me to slow down. I've been moving at breakneck speed for so long that I hadn't noticed the sunrise in years or the feeling of sand between my toes or the tiny flecks of radiance in someone else's eyes.
But with Eva, her eyes are all I see and I feel everything when she kisses me and every moment is sunrise.
And I'm starting to forget that she's so young. I'm starting to not care that she's my best friend's daughter...I'm falling in love with her.
I feel her shift uncomfortably in my arms, pushing away just a little. The moment has gotten too intense. Thick emotions suck all the air out of the room. We can both feel it.
She runs her hand up my chest and it sets my skin on fire. She changes the subject. "So, I guess you're really passionate about trading precious metals, huh?" She sighs dreamily. "I wish I felt that way about anything.”
I’m grateful for the reprieve. "You don't know what you're passionate about? Aren’t you passionate about modeling?”
She chuckles mirthlessly. “Not really…”
I make a surprised sound but don’t utter a word.
“Don't get me wrong,” she says. “Modelling is a lot of fun. I got to travel and meet cool people and see my face on billboards halfway around the world...but it never really lit me up. It didn't light a spark in me." Her voice is laced with melancholy and defeat.
"So why exactly did you do it?" I ask softly.
She twists her lips to the side and sort of stares blankly at the ceiling. "It made me feel special," she says after a long pause. "It was something I could do that most people couldn't. Only a 'selected few' make it in the modelling industry." She draws invisible quotation marks around the words. She drops her head back against my heart. "No, I wasn't smart enough to be a professor like my mom or a genius mathematician like my dad or a lawyer like Prescott. But who cares? Anybody can do that, right?” she chuckles sarcastically. “But opening the Versace runway show at fashion week? Only a select few."
I feel wetness pooling on my chest. That’s when I realize that she's crying. "Eva..." I coo tenderly stroking her hair. This girl is more broken than anyone would ever guess. Her self-esteem is so fragile.
"Modelling made me feel special...but now that it's over, I'm not sure who I am anymore."
“So what do you enjoy doing? What makes you happy?”
She looks up at me with shy eyes. "There is something I really like...but it's stupid. And I'd never make any money doing it."
"What's that?" I ask, curious to know what makes her tick. She stares into my face trying to decide whether she can trust me with her dream. "Come on, Eva," I prod softly. "Tell me what you want."
"It's silly. It's not important like being a professor or a lawyer. It's...silly." She looks away from me, dragging her thumb along the cluster of trinkets on her wrist.
Pinching her pouty bottom lip between my fingers, I bring her focus back to me. "If it makes you happy, it's important."
Still, she fumbles with her words. "I haven't worked out all the details yet. It's really just an idea for now. I'm not sure it would even work—"
I interrupt her rambling. "Just say it, Eva."
She steals a deep breath as her eyes go shy. She hesitates to speak. "I want to share my love of handcrafted jewelry with the world," she spits out quickly then flinches, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth.
Well, that sounds like a perfectly reasonable dream to me. It sounds doable. The wheels in my head already start turning. “Tell me about that.”
She pushes a breath past her lips. "I've been collecting jewelry. In every country I visited for modeling, I would go to the markets and buy local handcrafted pieces from the artisans. Shells and beads and colorful glass.” She lifts her arm in the air, showing off the multi-coloured beads on her wrist. “This one is from Jamaica. I bought it from this little old lady sitting in the market in Montego Bay. You see my name engraved in the beads?”
I hold her wrist and angle her arm just so. The letters E-V-A are carved into the red, yellow and green baubles. “I see it,” I say with a smile.
She’s beaming now. “I just love it all. I wish there was a way for me to share it with the world and to make money doing it...but like I said, it's stupid." She tucks her head with shame.
"It's not stupid. It's amazing. And it makes you happy."
"It's childish. I should probably go back to school,” she says with a sad exhale. “Get a bachelor’s. I was thinking accounting."
Frustration bubbles up in my chest. Hearing her pour out her insecurities is causing my chest to fill with anger, it has red stars popping in my line of vision. This girl is perfect, an absolute dream. Hearing her doubt herself is pissing me off. "You don't want to be an accountant, Eva."
"Yeah well, it's the smart thing to do. The last thing I need is another failure. To show my dad that he was right about me being useless."
Now my frustration has morphed into full-blown anger. I'm livid with Brooks for making this girl doubt herself. He's her father. He's supposed to build her up. Not tear her down.
Anyway, I'm filled with protectiveness now. I want to help her heal. I want to fly her to every country on the planet, whisk her off to the most remote regions of the Earth and watch her collect seashell jewelry and eat fruit off of her naked body and make love to her under the stars. I want to make her happy.
"You can do it, Evangeline. You can turn your love of jewelry into a thriving business. I’ll help you."
Her eyebrows shoot up. "You will?"
My gaze sweeps over her sweet, innocent expression. And it makes me want to move heaven and earth for her. "Of course."
“You don’t think it’s stupid?”
“If you want it, it’s not stupid.”
She kisses my throat with a tender brush of her lips. "That means the world to me, Raph."
Her excitement means the world to me.
She sighs, her head collapsing against my ribs. "I really thought my life was over when that whole modelling thing came crashing down. Maybe I’m not hopeless, after all."
I haul her up into a sitting position and tilt her chin so we're looking directly into each other's eyes. "Don't you doubt yourself, Evangeline. Don't you dare. You are strong and tenacious and beautiful and persuasive. You could sell a bag of gravel to a metal dealer.” I wink and she giggles. “You're everything."
She looks me straight in the face. "If I'm all that, how come you don't want me?" Her voice cracks but her eyes remain steady.
I cradle her cheek in my hand. "I do want you, Kitten. But…”
“No buts!” she says firmly. “You either want me or you don’t.”
She’s right. I can't keep doing this to her. I can't keep pushing her away, especially when she's questioning her own self-worth. I can't sit by and watch this woman I care for so deeply hurting herself with her thoughts.
A brutal sigh comes out of me as I weigh what I want against what’s right. I can’t let my lust destroy everything around me but at the same time, I can’t just walk away from this girl.
“Let’s make a deal,” I say. “You were promised to me for thirty days. There’s three weeks left in that contract. So, let’s make the most of what’s left of it. Three weeks of you and me. No guilt. No remorse. Just us. For three weeks.”
I can’t in good conscience promise her more than that. I have a business in New York that needs my attention but we both owe it to ourselves to explore this connection unencumbered for a reasonable amount of time, to see if there’s really something solid between us or if it’s just something we need to get out of our systems.
She pulls her lips between her teeth as she considers my proposition. She doesn’t seem fully comfortable with the idea of putting another time limit on our relationship but she’s willing to give it a try. “Okay,” she says finally, her eyes shimmering with restrained excitement.
I feel it too, deep in my chest. “For the next three weeks, you're mine, Evangeline." I lower my lips over hers, lightly brushing our mouths together.
Her entire body constricts as she holds her breath. She pulls back and watches me. "And are you mine?"
I can't help the grin on my face when I whisper, "Completely."
My heart is so full, it may crack my ribcage. I flop back onto the mattress and pull her down on top of me.
"Come here," I growl roughly, "Let me kiss up on you."
She shrieks hysterically. “Are you quoting Beyonce lyrics?”
“Lemonade all day, baby.” I put little bites on her neck.
Laughing, she falls into me, eagerly, willingly. And I worship every part of her body with every part of mine. I eat her pussy, I thumb her nipples, I slide my cock against her tongue.
I ignore the niggling voice in my head telling me that our fairytale will go belly side up once the clock strikes in three weeks.