Page 31 of Desire Me
Now here Saint was, once again with Rae in the front seat of the company Escalade, driving to his home. Only this time he wasn’t taking her to his apartment. It was too likely their enemy knew, at minimum, which building he lived in—they couldn’t risk taking Rae back there. So the house it was. And though everything in him usually balked at the idea of strangers in his home, with Rae, it felt natural.
“Where are we going?” Rae asked him now.
“Home.” He couldn’t hide the satisfaction saturating the word.
Rae’s fingers twisted in her lap, a sure sign of agitation. She did that a lot. Saint fought the need to cover her hands with his, to calm her with his touch. The need was getting harder to ignore, harder to hide every second he was with her.
“So… I might remember living there.”
If it had been someplace familiar, which neither his apartment nor home was, yeah, but no such luck. “We lived in my apartment, Rae,” he told her, the lie leaving his lips reluctantly. “With the situation as it is, I’m taking you to my home.”
“You have two places to live?”
He chuckled. “Sounds fancy, huh?” Given the fact that he was only two generations along from the first of his family members to start over in this country, he was often amazed by it himself. “My grandparents immigrated from Spain just after they married. They both worked in factories up north until my grandmother became pregnant with Mamá. Wanting to raise their family someplace better than what they had, they moved down here, rebuilt their life from the ground up a second time.” His admiration for his grandparents and all they’d been through expanded his chest. “My parents married young too. Five kids.”
“Big family.” Rae sounded shocked.
“You have no idea. All four of my sisters are married, and all of them have kids.”
“You love every one of them too.”
“To absolute pieces,” he agreed, then shrugged. “I’m lucky, that’s all—what I do pays very well. And I don’t have anything to spend my money on but a dozen little angels. The apartment is for convenience, to be near work, but the house, that’s for family.”
She glanced out her window, where downtown Atlanta had given way to the lush green suburbs despite the continued heavy traffic. “Sounds wonderful.”
Was that a wistful tone? “Have you thought about your family, Rae?”
He caught her shrug from the corner of his eye. “I think about them all the time.” Her tone was absent, though the tension he felt emanating from her belied it. “Or want to think about them. There’s just…nothing there.”
He couldn’t imagine, especially with the close ties his family had, being untethered in the way Rae was. In that moment he couldn’t help himself—he reached for those twisting hands, clasped them in one of his own, stilling their restless movements. “We’ll figure it out, I promise.”
He glanced her way to find her staring down at their joined hands. “From what you’ve said, it doesn’t sound like I was close to anyone. Maybe I don’t have any family.”
Or maybe she wasn’t in contact with them for a specific reason, if she’d been on the run. He debated mentioning that but hesitated for the same reason he had every day for the past two weeks—what if she wasn’t ready? Instead he squeezed down, willing his warmth into her cold fingers. “We’ll find out one way or another. You’re not alone, Rae.”
“Aren’t I?” Her mouth twisted. “I know what you’ve told me about our relationship, Saint, but I don’t remember you. I don’t remember any of this.” She extricated a hand to wave toward the window. “How can I not be alone?”
“Because I won’t let you be.” It was a promise, whether she knew it or not, accepted it or not. He wasn’t walking away, no matter what she remembered.
The rest of the drive was quiet. Traffic snarled on I-85 with construction, delaying them a good half hour but also giving King and Elliot the chance for a thorough look at the cars around them. There was no way to hide a tail in close quarters like that, and Saint breathed a sigh of relief when he finally exited the interstate toward Peachtree City, then onto the rural highway leading to his house. Rae dozed beside him, stirring only when he slowed for the gate that blocked access to his driveway. He pulled through, stopped to make certain the gate closed behind them, then proceeded through a wood-canopied section of the drive before entering the clearing that surrounded the house.
“Wow.”
Ridiculous male pride puffed his chest as Rae surveyed the rustic-yet-contemporary structure rising before them. He hadn’t realized how much he wanted her to like it until this moment, wanted her approval. He’d built the home a couple of years ago after a visit to the Colorado Rockies had him salivating over the contemporary mansion his team had stayed in while protecting a client. His version was greatly scaled down from that ten-thousand-square-foot mountain house, but every time he drove down the driveway and the trees parted to reveal the view, he got a swell of satisfaction. He loved this place, and not only because his entire family could visit and not feel cramped.
“Like it?”
Rae stared as they pulled into the circular drive in front. Black board-and-batten siding gave the three-thousand-square-foot building an imposing feel, softened by cedar and stone accents and the winter-subdued landscaping. A cedar covered porch ran the length of the front, with a recessed entry that framed massive dark oak doors. Rae leaned forward, keeping her wide gaze on the house as he parked. “Wow,” she said again.
He couldn’t help grinning. “Wait there.”
He was out of the truck and around to her door before Rae could blink. She allowed him to grip her waist and lower her down from the tall cab, bypassing the running boards in favor of getting his hands on her rounded hips. Her lush breasts skimmed his chest along the way, and his attention centered sharply on her lips as she licked them. Had her mouth gone dry just like his had? Did being this close to him affect her the same way? He’d forced himself not to push her to react to him, keeping things teasing and light, but sometimes that restraint was hard.
And so was he.
The arrival of King and Elliot interrupted the moment. Saint released Rae and stepped back, allowing her to move so he could close the door. While she rounded the truck, he opened the back door and grabbed the overnighter he’d packed with her things from the hospital. They mounted the front steps up to the porch, and then he was ushering her inside the great room with its massive wall of windows along the back that framed the valley behind his home. Rae beelined for the view.
“Want these in your room?” King asked, pulling Saint’s attention away from Rae’s figure at the window.
