Love Beyond Words (City Lights, #1)(35)

He stood up too, held out his hands to steady her. “Natalie, wait—”

She tore away from him. “No! I feel all turned inside out. I don’t…You lied to me. For six months. Every day, every time I saw you, you were sitting there, lying to me.”

“I didn’t lie to you—”

“Didn’t you?” Natalie cried. “I seem to recall something about a trust fund…”

His arms dropped to his sides with a sigh. “Okay, yes, but that—”

“But that’s not the worst part,” Natalie said, her voice thick with tears. “I gushed about Mendón—about you—like a lovesick idiot and you said nothing. You let me talk and talk and talk, and all the while I never knew, never could have guessed.”

“Natalie, please…”

“Every word I’ve ever said about him—about you! It’s all ringing in my head like some clown’s bell. But that’s not bad enough. No, the worst part is that I used your books to try to get over you when you left.”

“Of course you did!” Julian cried. “Of course you did,” he said again, gentler. “Natalie, that connection you have to the writing? It’s my writing. It’s me. Everything that I am is in those books. And you found them. You found me, and by some miraculous twist of luck or fate, I found you. Or maybe it wasn’t luck at all. We were drawn to each other. I walked into that café because I was searching for you.” He smiled, his eyes shining. “My work is your refuge? You are mine, Natalie.”

She sucked in a breath as the truth of his words finally broke past the shock and confusion; shattered the fear of believing that something so impossibly good could be real. “Really?” she said, her voice watery. “Are you really…? Those are your books?”

“My books,” he said, smiling softly. He moved closer to her. “Above and Coronation, and all the rest. And that one,” he gestured to the stack of composition books on the desk in the library. “That one is for you.”

“For me. Rafael Mendón wrote a book for me.” The half-laugh, half-sob escaped her, and she fell against him, the tears coming in earnest when she felt his arms go around her.

“I’ll write you a thousand more if that’s what you want.”

Natalie said nothing but held him and let herself be held. Finally, she lifted her tear-streaked face and looked to the new stack of composition books. Taking Julian by the hand, she went to the desk and rested her hand on the topmost book. She imagined she could feel its pulse, but it was only her own.

“What is it called?” she asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

“What is it about?”

“You. It’s your book, Natalie. It doesn’t exist without you.” He pulled her close. “I love you, Natalie.”

She laid her hand over her heart that suddenly felt wondrously heavy and full. “You do?”

“I do.”

She raised her head, smiling through her tears. “Say it again.”

“I love you, Natalie. So much.”

She nodded. “I want you to know that I love you, Julian. I loved you before I knew. Remember that, okay?”

“Okay.”

She slipped her arms around his neck and as his mouth met hers, as he kissed away her tears, a thrill of pure joy suffused her. The last vestiges of pain and uncertainty evaporated. He was everything she’d hoped he would be and, when she was ready to confront it, he was so much more. She smiled into his kiss, feeling as if she’d just won the lottery and then turned around and won it again.

He held her and kissed her for what seemed a long while, and she knew he was giving her time. “Would you like to eat dinner now, or—?”

“No,” she said, over the thundering of her pulse. “After.”

He grinned, though his voice was husky. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

She felt another laugh try to burst out of her. She kissed him instead, infusing it with all the joy and euphoria that was welling up in her, moment by moment. This real. At long last…

The kiss deepened, became sweeter, then harder. She melted against him, and could feel the desire coiling in him, feel it humming under her hands where she touched him, emanating from him like heat. She marveled that she was the object of such intense desire…and that he could kindle the same in her. No more stops. No more hesitations. A thought whispered that this was Rafael Mendón in her arms, but she brushed it aside. No, this is my Julian…

He lifted her easily and carried her past the kitchen where the dinner he’d prepared sat, cooling and forgotten, and down the hall to his bedroom, kissing her always. Natalie was vaguely aware of more austere colors and furnishings, a bed that was an ocean of gray linen made silver in the light streaming in from the window.

He set her down and kissed her gently, touched her slowly, assuring her that he wouldn’t rush anything. But she felt as though she were burning from the inside out. She wanted to tear his clothes off and feel his skin on hers more than she’d ever wanted anything, but she didn’t trust her shaking hands could do anything besides reveal her own inexperience.

“It’s okay,” he breathed, “let me.”

He pulled her sweater off and let it slip to the floor. She shuddered as if a live current surged through her, while he undid the top buttons on her dress and bared her shoulders. He bent and put his mouth her naked skin, grazing his teeth lightly over the sensitive flesh of her neck while the buttons opened, one by one. The dress fell away, pooled at her feet.