Loving The Temperamental Adonis
Chapter 152: After love making

Chapter 152: After love making

As the afternoon sun struggled to pierce through the winter haze, a blanket of frost clung stubbornly to every surface of the mountain house.

Propped up against the soft pillow in the master bedroom’s huge bed, Mia gazed at the dishes on the low table in front of the fireplace across the room. They had eaten a late breakfast there, and then Neil had taken her back to his bed and made love to her again. He’d kept her awake most of the night, making love to her with a mixture of demanding urgency and exquisite tenderness that Mia found wildly exciting and tormentingly sweet.

Each time he finished, he pulled her into his arms and held her close while they dozed into deep sleep. Now it was past noon, and she was sitting beside him on the bed, curved against his body, his arm wrapped around her shoulders, his hand lazily caressing her arm as they silently watched the snow covered mountains from the glass wall of his room.

Unfortunately for Mia, in daylight, she was finding it far more difficult to cling to the illusion that this was a house on the mountain where she was safe and warm in bed beside a wonderfully ordinary man who also happened to be her devoted lover. In broad daylight, she was unhappily aware that the man who made love to her with such violent tenderness and need, who groaned with passion in her arms and made her cry out and feel as if she were the only woman who had ever done this with him, had also made love to many experienced women in the past.

That had been his old life, and even though he had lost everything, she had no doubt that he would prove his innocence, now that he was free to search out the real killer__with her willing help to search for the real murderer who killed her mother. Once he did that, he would be free to return to his former life, to resume his brilliant image of the country’s hero, where he’d wear back his arrogance and pay no attention to anyone unless they would be of use to any of his missions; just like he’d come close to her in Ivy Grove to get information.

Once he cleared his name, his need of her would cease to exist then. And when that happened, when she was reduced to the status of an "old friend" of his, she knew the pain was going to be terrible.

He wasn’t going to fall in love with her and make undying declarations of love. It wasn’t like Neil Wayner. He simply needed her now, and for some reason destiny had meant for her to be here for him in this mountain house.

All she could do was live each moment as it came, cherish it, and memorize it for the years ahead when he would no longer be there with her. That meant never asking him for more than he could give, never burdening him with her feelings, and keeping as much of her heart intact as she possibly could. That meant finding a way to keep things as light and insignificant as possible. She wished she were experienced with men, that would have been a huge help to her now in accomplishing those things and a lot of others.

"What are you thinking about?" Neil asked as she’d looked to be in a deep thought the whole time.

Mia turned her head and found him studying her with a concerned frown.

"Nothing serious, just life in general." She said with a bright, artificial smile.

"Tell me about it."

Trying to avoid both his searching gaze and the entire discussion of her feelings for him, Mia moved out from under his arm and drew her knees up, wrapping her arms

around them.

"It really isn’t worth discussing." She tried to casually brush the topic away but he was persistent.

"Why don’t you let me decide that." He persisted.

She shot him a dark look. "Have you always been this persistent?"

"It’s one of my most unattractive qualities," he replied smoothly and impenitently. "What were you thinking about, specifically?"

Mia rolled her eyes at him in laughing disbelief, but when he continued to regard her in waiting silence, she gave in and told him a part of the truth. Perching her chin on her knees to avoid his gaze, she said, "I was thinking how strange life is. Everything can seem completely predictable, and then in a snap of a finger, everything can change."

Neil leaned his head back against the pillow, closed his eyes, and swallowed with relief. He had thought she was reflecting on the more logical and accurate fact that he was ruining her life by keeping her here, and for what had happened between them. He’d thought she regretted making love with him, but it seemed he had overthought it for a moment.

From the corner of her eye, Mia stole a quick look at his tense face and her heart sank. Laughter, lightness and sensuality were what he wanted and needed at this point of his life, not philosophy or anything with emotional intensity, and she decided not to let him corner her into a discussion like this again.

Neil gave a deep sigh and without opening his eyes, he asked in a flat voice, "Do you want to stay here with me, Mia?"

"Are you finally giving me a choice?" she teased, trying to stick to her decision to keep things light. But as soon as she asked that question, she noticed his jaw tighten, and she had the strange feeling that she hadn’t given him the sort of answer he wanted this time either.

"No," he said, after a long pause, "I’m afraid not."

"Do you think I would tell the military where you are if you let me go? Is that it?" She asked.

"No. If you promise not to disclose this to anyone, I would trust you on that."

"Why then do you refuse to release me?" She inquired, attempting to conceal her sense of hopefulness - that he was keeping her because he didn’t want to let her go - from her voice.

"Because I doubt you could withstand the intense interrogation the military would subject you to," he responded, dispelling her hope that he harbored any feelings for her. "Even if you informed them that I blindfolded you until we arrived here, they would persist in questioning you, trying to ’assist’ you in recalling something significant, and eventually, you would inadvertently slip up without intending to or being aware that you did."

Mia grappled with balancing sincerity and humor this time as she sought to mask her disappointment. "Alright. I suppose I’ll just have to remain in this luxurious cabin and endure a few more days with this frustrating, controlling, moody Ice Cube who possesses an insatiable sexual appetite. I might leave from here unable to walk or stand unaided."

Though his eyes remained shut, a half-smile played on his lips. "I am not moody."

"Yet you are frustrating, controlling, and insatiable," she retorted, laughing, feeling more at ease and in command of the situation and herself. "I have an idea, let’s step outside."

The grooves next to his mouth transformed into a broad smile that exuded laziness, contentment, and smugness. "Not a chance, querida. You’ll freeze your little ass off out there."

"I intended to put clothes on it first," Mia primly informed him, then was dumbstruck by how easily she’d heard and responded to his lewd remark without thinking what he said through.

"I mean fresh air and physical activity," she hastily added as his shoulders shook with laughter at her obvious embarrassment, "cure almost everything."

"Except frostbite." He informed.

She pursed her lips and smacked him hard on the face with a pillow, laughing because she had caught him unguarded with his eyes closed, and before he could reach out to catch her, she quickly started to untangle her limbs from the bedding. "Do you always have to have the last word?"

"Obviously." He chuckled softly as she slipped away from the bed before he could catch her.

"Then you’ll have to carry on talking to yourself because I’m going to go outside," she told him, pulling her robe on to cover her naked body. "Despite the luxurious delights of staying in bed with you, I need to get some sunlight and fresh air."

"Luxurious delights," he repeated, chuckling. "A very nice turn of phrase for what we did on my bed. I like that."

"Of course you would," she turned back over her shoulder with a smile as she reached for the doorknob, intending to go back to the room she’d been staying in to shower and dress up, but before she could open the door, Neil spoke from behind, "Use my bathroom, it’s much nicer."