He grew very still. “Is that because you want it to be over?”
“No.” Georgia clutched his arm. “I don’t…but I thought you might. That last night was your way of telling me we were winding down.”
He scowled. “Why would you think that?”
Reddening, she shrugged and looked down, her eyes fixed on his chest. He was wearing a polo shirt and khaki pants, dressed more preppy than she’d ever seen him.
“Because we didn’t have sex. I thought maybe you were trying to prepare me for the fact it was over—that it was a ‘what happens in the mountains stays in the mountains’ kind of thing.”
Rainer groaned. He bent until his forehead touched hers as his hand moved down to cup her ass. “That’s not why I didn’t fuck you last night,” he whispered, the bad language transformed into a husky caress.
He paused to take her mouth, a short, sipping kiss. “I was just trying to give you a break. I haven’t been taking it easy on you, and I know you’re a bit sore.”
Her hands closed on his shirt reflexively, wanting him even now in this public place. “I’mfine.”
“Baby, you were starting to walk funny.” He laughed before the smile fell away. “I’m not about to let any harm come to you, especially not through my own hands or actions.”
He took her wrists, holding them against his chest. “That’s a part of us now, all right? I want you to understand—everything that happens from now started there. That’s our foundation.”
His grip tightened a fraction. “If I hurt you in any way, know that it was unintentional. Not that matters between us should ever get to that point—I expect you to call me on any shit you’re uncomfortable withasit happens.”
Georgia met his gaze, the minor bustle of their surroundings fading until she was alone with Rainer, the only two people in the world.
“I understand,” she agreed, throat tight. “And expect the same from me—I will never intentionally hurt you.”
The corners of his mouth pulled up. “Somehow, I never doubted that.”
Wrapping an arm around her, he turned them to face the approaching vehicle, a Mercedes town car. One of his security men got out of the passenger seat, coming around to open the door to the back before taking her suitcase to the trunk.
Rainer bent his head until his mouth was just next to her ear. “And for future reference, always assume I want sex.”
Flushing wildly because she was fairly sure the security man had caught that, she ducked into the backseat.
“Are you going to drop me at the apartment with Ephraim?” she asked as the car left the airfield.
Reassured that her new and intense connection to this man wasn’t going to disappear now that they were home, she was eager to see her foster father. “Because he’s expecting me. I spoke to him this morning. He said he likes the place but won’t tell me much about it.”
She thought that might be because he was missing the house too much, but when she asked, he’d told her that wall and floors were not what made a home.
“Our old house is not where Diamond’s heart rests,” he’d told her. “That will move with us and will go wherever we call home.
That had made Georgia cry, but she had been comforted by the words in the end because he was right.
Rainer raised a brow, seemingly satisfied by the uptick in her mood. “He didn’t send you any pictures?”
“He can barely text,” she sighed.
His nose wrinkled. “But he runs a business.”
“And he had his staff set up his website. His secretary would check his emails and reply to them. He can use a computer, of course, but the model he uses to run his accounting software is a stripped-down one that is at least five years old.” She smiled. “He fights against upgrading it, but he’s careful to make regular backups in case it dies.”
“That sounds like him—old-fashioned but not so much that he sticks his head in the sand. He’s careful.”
“Exactly.” She was glad he understood because it was more than likely Ephraim was going to kick up a fuss about staying rent-free in one of Rainer’s places, sooner rather than later.
Georgia nestled against him in the backseat. “It’s his way. Except for the tax code. That’s the one thing he keeps up with fanboy devotion, all the while pretending to be put out whenever they add a new codicil to some obscure payroll regulation.”
Amused, Rainer peppered her with questions about her foster parents and her childhood, not stopping until they had driven into the subterranean parking lot of a tall, sleek building with blue reflective glass windows.