She pulled against him, but he drew back. “I do,” she breathed. “I do want you.”

“Forever,” he said. “Tell me it will be forever.” He needed to hear the words, even though they might not be true. He had to believe, somewhere, in some corner of her heart, she felt the same connection he did.

Her eyes stared up at him, clear and sober. “Forever,” she repeated. “I will want you forever.”

With that Ian plunged back inside, feverishly driving into her as she writhed against him. And when she finally cried out, her orgasm racking her body with pleasure, Ian pulled her hips tight against his and allowed himself to yield. Caught in the midst of a shattering orgasm, he felt as if he could almost touch heaven.

They slid down along the steps, their limbs tangled, bodies moist with perspiration. Ian smoothed the hair from her damp brow and took in the beauty of her face. There was no use denying it any longer. Maybe he’d known it all along. He was falling in love with Marisol Arantes. And even if he could stop himself, Ian didn’t want to.

MARISOL SIGHED SOFTLY and sat up, brushing her hair out of her eyes. She glanced over at Ian, sleeping next to her, his face buried in the pillow, his arm curled around his head.

She reached out and smoothed a lock of his hair from his forehead. The lines of tension that usually creased his brow were gone and he seemed so much more relaxed than he had in the past week. It was her fault. She was making this more difficult than it need be. If she really cared about Ian’s feelings, then she’d spend her nights in her own bed and stop tormenting him. But instead, Marisol chose to be selfish, to satisfy her own needs.

This was the only place she felt safe, in Ian’s arms, in his bed. The rest of her life had become one big anxiety-her father, the gallery opening, her future as an artist-and that damned painting. If she wanted to worry, there was plenty to worry about. But when she was with Ian, all her troubles seemed to disappear, if only for a short time. The moment he touched her, her mind and body were swept away to another place.

She carefully crawled out of bed and searched for her clothes, then remembered they were downstairs in the kitchen.

“Stay.”

Marisol turned and looked at Ian. He’d pushed up on his elbow and was watching her, his hair mussed, his eyes wide. “It’s starting to get light,” she said. “I should go.”

“Don’t. I want you to stay.”

She smiled. “And what will the gossips say? Aren’t you worried about your reputation?”

His jaw twitched, the movement barely visible in the pale morning light.

“Whenever we talk lately, it seems to end in an argument,” Marisol said. “Perhaps it’s just better to be silent.”

“How can that be better?” Ian asked.

“Not better, just more sensible.”

“I like to hear the sound of your voice,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what you say. Just talk to me, Marisol.”

“About what?”

“Anything. I’m beginning to think that I dream you into my bed, that you’re not really here. When I wake up you’re gone and all I’m left with is the smell of your hair on my pillow.” He reached out and grabbed her hand, then pulled her back onto the bed. “Tell me a story. I don’t care what it’s about, I just need to hear your voice.” He pulled her naked body against his, throwing his leg over her hip and kissing her softly. “Tell me about your childhood.”

She closed her eyes for a long moment, relaxing into his arms again and letting her thoughts drift. “There aren’t a lot of things I remember, but I do remember the first time I picked up a paintbrush.”

“Tell me,” he whispered as he kissed the skin below her ear.

“My mother insists I was only three, but the memory is so vivid I think I must have been older.” Marisol snuggled against him. “We were still living in Portugal in a small town on the sea, not far from Lisbon. My father was painting and having modest success. My mother had just retired from dancing with a ballet company in Spain. And I was the center of their universe.”

Ian pressed a kiss to the top of her head and Marisol smiled. She liked this feeling, this comfortable closeness. When they were like this, she could almost believe what they shared might last. “I’d sneaked into my father’s studio while he was eating his lunch and all of his paints were there, such pretty colors in little tubes. So I grabbed a paintbrush and squeezed some of the paints out on the floor and began to apply them…to my body and to my clothes.”

“You painted yourself?”

Marisol nodded, giggling at the memory. “I have photos of my very first work of art. My mother was horrified, but my father refused to let her clean me up. He felt that to do so would have been stifling my creativity. And so I walked around our little village for days, covered in colorful paint, like a pretty tropical bird. And the tourists took pictures of me and the old ladies fussed over me and my papa was so proud. I think that was the moment I decided I wanted to be an artist.”

“I’d like to see the photos,” Ian said. “Will you show me sometime?”

Marisol hesitated. They’d been so careful to maintain a distance between them, to avoid any talk of the future. Their relationship was supposed to be casual, no strings, no expectations. But now, Ian was changing the rules. He wanted to know who she was and where she’d come from. And “sometime” was the future, a date hovering off in the distance that required a promise of something more…forever.

Had he taken her words seriously? Had she made him a promise beyond the forever that was a night in his bed? Marisol knew she ought to beware, but at the same time, she needed to believe there was more to them than just this, a bed and two naked bodies.

“Now, you tell me a story,” she said, attempting to shift focus back to him. “Tell me about your childhood.”

“It wasn’t nearly as perfect as yours,” he said.

Marisol forced a smile. He didn’t know about her father’s trial and conviction, or about her mother’s breakdown afterward, or the struggle that life had become for her. “When did you realize you wanted to become a policeman?”

“It wasn’t such a clear choice for me,” Ian said. “I spent most of my childhood wanting to be a rubbish man. A trash collector. They guy who stands on the back of the truck.”

“Why?” Marisol asked.

“Survival,” Ian replied. “My brothers and I were sent to Ireland when my ma got sick, and somehow we got it in our heads that we were going to run away and live on our own. Like The Boxcar Children.”

“What are the boxcar children?”

“A book I read when I was young. About four orphan children who run away and live in an abandoned boxcar and find everything they need to live in a rubbish heap. Once my brother Declan and I realized that we weren’t going home, we decided we’d run away. So we began to collect little items from the rubbish tips and hide them in the closet beneath the stairs at my grandmother’s house.”

“And did you run away?”

Ian shook his head. “My little brother, Marcus, talked us out of it. When we told him about our plans, he reminded us if we ran away and our parents came to fetch us, they wouldn’t be able to find us. So it was better to stay put. It was only after I pulled my brothers out of a dozen school yard brawls that I decided law enforcement might be a good choice for me.”

“It would have been an adventure to run away,” she said.

“Our supplies got confiscated,” Ian explained. “We started hiding food, fruit and bread and milk, and it started to smell really bad. My grandmother’s cook found our stash and threw everything away.”

“There were times when I was a kid I wanted to run away,” she said. “My parents separated and my mother was…fragile. Needy. I raised myself and I’m not sure I did a very good job.”

Ian tipped her chin up and gently kissed her. “I think you turned out real nice.”

She giggled. “Thank you. And you turned out real nice, too.”

“Another reason why we’re perfect together,” he teased.

“We are perfect together,” she agreed. Marisol rolled over on top of him, stretching out until every inch of her naked skin was pressed against his. “See. We even fit perfectly.”

Ian clasped her hands and stretched his arms out above his head. They lay together for a long time, her cheek resting on his shoulder, his breath warm on her temple. There were moments when her choices seemed so simple-Ian, passion; Ian, a future. But instead of focusing on those choices, she’d been forced to make her choices with her father in mind.

Would she have to suffer the consequences for his actions? Would his desperation destroy her chance for happiness? If there was a simple way out, she’d grab it. But it was too late to give the painting back to her father.

“Why didn’t you read the file?” she asked. Marisol was afraid to look at him, afraid her question would open up another argument between them. “Didn’t you want to know what was inside?”

“Maybe I should have,” Ian said. “I guess I didn’t want to ruin the illusion. I didn’t want to trust what someone else had to say about you. I’d rather trust what I know.”

“And what is that?”

“That you’re beautiful and crazy and passionate. That you throw yourself into life like there’s no tomorrow.” He paused. “Up until a few weeks ago, I was waiting around for my life to start, waiting for someone to appear and suddenly everything would make sense. But when I met you, I realized I’d have to go out and grab it and make it happen.”

She untangled her fingers from his, then smoothed her palm over his cheek, kissing him, deeply and thoroughly. “You know I would tell you if I could,” she murmured against his lips.

“I know you would tell me if you trusted me,” he countered.