“The point is… my condo is safe.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe… plants. I never would have guessed?” He nudged her chin up with one finger. “I’ll worry about you all night.”
“I know it’s not the best neighborhood, but I’ve never had any problems.” She curled her body against his. “You could stay here…” she hedged. “I have a comfy sofa.”
He lowered his head and narrowed his eyes. “If I stayed here, there’s no way I could stay on the sofa.”
Kristina licked her lips in response. “Works for me.”
Derrick opened the door and pulled her through the doorway. Anxious to get to the third floor, he moved to the middle of the stairwell and listened for a second. Nothing. He was familiar with each tenant’s voice. They were all doing something other than traveling the corridors. “Works for me too.” He pulled Kristina up in his arms.
She whooshed out a breath in response. “Um… you’re going to carry me up three flights of stairs?”
“Nope. I’m going to jump three flights of stairs. Ready?”
She bit down on her bottom lip, but nodded.
Derrick knew the exact force; he’d done this many times in the last two years since she’d moved into the building. He softened his knees and propelled himself off the concrete, soaring upward and over the railing, landing in front of her door.
He felt Kristina’s heart pound against his chest, but she smiled. “Well, that was different.” She laughed. “Whew! The blood is rushing to my head. Give me a second to get my bearings before you let me down. I think my feet are still on the ground level.”
Derrick continued to hold her in his arms as she handed him the keys. “I can hold you as long as you wish. You weigh practically nothing, and I rather like having you this close.” He unlocked and pushed open the door.
As he stood in her tiny living room, he dipped his head to hers. Her lips parted and he sealed his mouth to hers. Walking to the sofa, his lips still pressed to hers, he sat with her in his arms.
Kristina wrapped her arms around his neck, her hands moving through his hair. It felt so good. He didn’t ever want to let her go. How did people function? He couldn’t imagine having to go to work or eat, or anything for that matter. He wanted to lie down beside her and never leave her side. His father had tried to explain to him once, but it was difficult to understand. Hard to comprehend how you could want one person forever. He’d liked women before, thought that he could make it work, but the couple times he’d mentioned to his father that he thought that maybe he’d felt something, his father had laughed. He’d bellowed, “When it happens, you’ll know. It’s like nothing you’ve ever felt.”
His father had been correct. Derrick had been a fool to think he could have forced this with anyone other than Kristina. He’d been in love with her spirit for too long. His soul had known all along what it wanted.
Kristina pulled back, smiling. “As much as I don’t want to stop kissing you, Derrick. I really need to take care of my plants.”
He sighed, running his hands through his hair. “Tell me what we have to do, please. I never thought I’d be upstaged by plants.”
She scooted off his lap and sauntered toward the kitchen, shaking more than she had to he was certain. Unable to resist, he followed. As she filled the pitchers in the sink, he nuzzled against her. Her body squirmed beneath him as the heat of his breath tickled her neck. He moved his hands down the length of her arms, pulling the first pitcher up to the counter. He pressed his mouth against her skin and she cooed in response.
He lifted the second vessel out of the sink and she turned in his arms, inching her fingers up his shirt, unbuttoning it along the way. When she had it completely undone, he allowed her to move it off his shoulders, throwing it over a chair at the dinette.
Kristina ran both hands over his chest and down his arms. “Are you trying to distract me?”
He smiled. “I was filling water pitchers. You’re the one who started undressing me.”
“Maybe they can wait until morning,” she said, drawing out her words slowly, in the sexiest voice he’d ever heard.
“Oh, no. We’re watering these plants now.” He drew up one of the canisters and headed over to the first window, then whooshed through the house before Kristina could move toward the first plant. He appeared in front of her, an empty water canister in his hands. “Done!” He whisked her off her feet and carried her to the bedroom.
“Aww… you didn’t show them any love. You have to talk to them so they can get their life-sustaining carbon dioxide—”
Derrick pressed his lips over hers, cutting off her words. He lowered her to the bed and crawled over top of her. Stupid plants, he thought. Thankfully, Kristina seemed to forget about her foliage as her hands traveled over his shoulders and across his back. He groaned with pleasure, wanting her fully. His body lit up, ready to partake, but he pulled away. “We’re not going to do anything tonight, Kristina.”
She crinkled her eyebrows together. “What do you mean? Why?”
“It’s just not right. Not yet.”
“But you said—”
He rested his fingers over her lips. “I know. We’re committed. But it’s still our first night together. It just doesn’t feel right. I want it to be more romantic, more of a buildup.”
She sighed. “I don’t understand. How can there be more of a buildup than we’ve already experienced? What I felt was the most incredible sensation ever.”
He smiled and warmth seared through his chest at her words. “Thank you. But trust me; it’ll get better. Right now, I just want you to kiss me again.”
Kristina lifted her head and parted her lips, allowing him access to taste her again. The same feeling as before soared through his system. He couldn’t imagine ever tiring of kissing her.
He jerked his head up at a sound outside and saw a shadow pass by the window. “You don’t have a fire escape on this window, do you?”
She squinted in the dim light. “No. It’s outside the kitchen window.”
“That’s what I thought.” Derrick jumped to his feet and peered through the wood slats. The shadow moved across the roof of the next building. No way would he catch the perp. They’d heard his words and had moved for cover. Definitely a creatus based on the speed. He could only pray it was someone from his family checking on him and not the rogue.
Chapter Ten
Kris stared at her reflection in the wide chrome-framed mirror while Derrick stood behind her. “Are you sure this is okay?” she asked for the hundredth time, checking her makeup in the unnatural light of his vanity mirror. Her bathroom, though smaller, had soft natural light. Her entire apartment was warm and sunny, even in the dead of winter. It was how she preferred it.
Now, due to his insistence, she’d lined up all her plants in front of Derrick’s wall of windows in the living area of his condo. And now she was attempting to figure out if her makeup looked acceptable in his master bath, which had no windows.
Derrick touched the collar of her sweater, which rested at the edge of her shoulders, pressing his lips to her bare skin. “You look beautiful. What are you worried about?”
“I just want to make sure they think I’m good enough for you.”
He hummed out a breath, smiling. “It doesn’t matter what they think. I love you, and that’s all that matters.”
Kris gulped, tears forming in her eyes. He hadn’t said those words. He had said he’d fallen, but in her language, those three little words meant everything. She turned to him. “I love you too, Derrick. I always have.”