Much Ado About You(80)
Roane’s continued silence worried me, and I didn’t look at him as I pushed up off the table to fix myself. However, as I bent to reach for the underwear around my ankles, Roane took hold of my arm to stop me. Finally, I met his gaze, and a renewed flush of desire floored me at the heat in his.
“Don’t bother putting it back on,” he said, voice thick with want.
A new shiver trembled through me as I followed him into my bedroom, where he undressed me to make love to me.
Slow, languorous, thorough lovemaking that seared me to the very soul, and as we lay panting, staring at the ceiling, skin damp with sweat and our legs entwined, I knew that was what Roane intended. He wanted to dig himself so deep inside me, there was no way I could let him go. I knew it, because he’d succeeded.
Now I just needed him to say those three. Little. Words.
Twenty-Three
The next morning when I woke up, Roane was gone. At some point the previous evening he’d texted Caro to ask if she could look after Shadow all night. We’d barely left the bedroom, and I’d fallen asleep, completely exhausted.
Seriously, the man had way too much stamina.
Okay, that sounded like a complaint.
I wasn’t complaining.
I’d be insane to complain about that.
What freaked me out was our lack of discussion about his sudden mood change and the fact that I’d woken up alone. For once I had no clue what was going on in Roane’s head, and I didn’t like it. The man was usually an open book, which I’d found was a rare quality in a guy.
The slight freak-out progressed into full-blown panic as the day wore on with no word from Roane. Around dinnertime I finally texted him to ask him how he was and if we were meeting at The Anchor.
He didn’t reply.
Pissed, heart heavy, I decided I wasn’t going to sit around in the apartment all evening waiting for him to decide to call. Instead I threw on my best jeans and a shirt that did amazing things for my cleavage and strolled up to the pub. As it was the first week of August and the beginning of a holiday week, I’d expected the pub to be busy with diners finishing their meals.
However, it was a fairly quiet night, and I recognized all of the faces sitting at the bar. To my delight, I found Caro at a table by the fire, and moved toward her after I greeted Milly.
Caro had her head bent toward her open laptop.
“Hey, you.”
Her head snapped up and she broke into a wide smile. “Evie, just the person I wanted to see. I’m trying to design my website and I want your opinion.”
“Design your own website,” I said, impressed. “Is there anything you can’t do?”
She blushed. “I’m afraid I’m unable to flirt in any language including English.”
Chuckling, I squeezed her shoulder. “That’s something we can fix.”
“Ugh, perhaps one day. For now will you look at this and tell me what you think?”
“Sure, just let me grab a drink. Do you want anything?”
“A Coke, please.”
I wandered over to the bar, glad to have something to distract me from the horrible butterflies that had taken up residence in my belly. Still, once Milly served me and I sat down at the table beside Caro, the first thing out of my mouth was “Have you heard from your cousin today?”
Caro blinked distractedly at her laptop. “Oh, he collected Shadow at the arse crack of dawn this morning, but I haven’t seen him since. Why?”
“No reason.” I shrugged, realizing I didn’t want anyone to know Roane was making me feel insecure. It felt stupid to be feeling that way. Not even a whole day of lack of communication had passed. He wasn’t under any obligation to stay in touch with me every second of every day.
It was just unusual for him not to want to.
Attempting not to scowl ferociously in a public display of my feelings, I leaned into Caro. “Show me the website.”
Thankfully, I got so engrossed watching her play around with the design for her site, I would have forgotten about Roane entirely if it weren’t for those butterflies reminding me of him. Even so, she must have successfully distracted me enough because it took Shadow sticking his face right into mine for me to realize he and Roane had entered the pub.
“Shadow.” I smiled, my heart lightening to see him. I scratched behind his ears as I looked across the table to find Roane standing before us. “Hey.”
His expression was almost as intense as it was last night. If we hadn’t been in public, I would have demanded to know what was going on with him.
As if he saw the frustration on my face, Roane’s eyes flashed, and he rounded the table to me. “Caro, take Shadow,” he said without tearing his eyes from mine.
Okay, he was acting so strangely.
Caro did as he asked without a word, taking hold of Shadow by the collar and guiding him around me to her side.
“Roane . . .”
Then quite abruptly Roane Robson lowered to his knee in front of me and it felt like my heart jumped out of my chest and into my throat. I could feel the pulse there throbbing so hard.
That fluttering turned to pounding as he held up the black velvet ring box between us.
A gasp sounded behind me, followed by another, until the loud mingled chatter of the customers lowered to a murmur and then to silence.
He waited, staring into my astonished face, with a flush on his cheeks and a curl at the corners of his lips.