“Wow.” She got out once he’d parked. The sharp scent of sand and salt water painted the evening air. It was cold enough she needed to clutch the front of her sweater together to ward off a chill.

And he was there, beside her, putting his arms around her. “Mmm. You feel good. Come on inside. We’ll drop off the bags and head to the restaurant.”

The place was lovely, romantic and intimate. The meal had been pleasant as Andrew held her hand while they talked about everything under the sun.

Until the bill came.

She reached for her bag, and his eyes goggled. “What are you doing?”

“Helping pay.”

He shook his head. “No you’re not. I invited you away for the weekend. I invited you for dinner. I’ve got this.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I want to help.”

“You tried this the other day at Top Pot too. I’ve got my own company; I make more money than you do. It’s silly to try to pace me like I have a mental tally in my head. I don’t.”

He studied her as she tried to figure out how to let it go or else make him see her perspective.

“Remember when I told you you were transparent, and everything you felt showed on your face?” He kissed her knuckles. “Tell me. This is clearly more than you feeling generous or like you ordered lobster or something.”

“I like to pay my own way. Paying my own way means I own everything in my life, all my decisions, good and bad. No one can take it away from me because it’s mine.”

He got it then.

“Ella, I get it. But I’m not him.”

She put her fist on the table, and he took that one too, kissing it, unfurling her fingers and wrapping them with his own. “I’m not keeping a tally, nor do I want to. I have no desire to control your life or your destiny. It’s dinner, and I’ll be taking you out a lot; it’s what couples do. You can’t pay every time, nor do I want you to. Why don’t we meet in the middle? You can pay the tip?”

“The middle is twenty percent of this meal? I told you I didn’t become a doctor because I hated math, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get math at all.”

He sighed. “Since you’re being so honest, let me be too. I hate this. I hate that, even though I know this isn’t about me, that it’s about me anyway. I don’t want to tell you what to wear or who to be friends with. I want you to be in my life because you like it. I get this, I do, but I don’t want it to be part of what we have.”

She blinked several times, peeked at the bill and tossed down a tip closer to 30 percent than 20 percent. “What? The service was very good, and they did those substitutions for us.”

He grinned, kissing her hard and fast. “All right then.”

Bundled up, they’d walked along the beach, not needing words. He kept an arm around her, loving how they fit together so well. And when they got back to the house, they’d paused on the deck, looking out over the water, listening to roaring white noise of the sea.

Funny how quickly he’d gotten used to how she looked as his woman. Having her there to put an arm around, to hold her hand. But it was his ability to touch her, touch every part of her, that he loved most. She was his to caress, to kiss and nuzzle, his to breathe in at the hollow of her throat.

He turned her to face him, the deck railing at her back. “Hi there.” He kissed her.

“Mmm. Hi yourself. I’m stuffed, warm, wrapped in your arms. Dude, this is pretty damned good as life moments go.”

He skimmed his hands up, over her hips, beneath the hem of her sweater until they found her br**sts. “Love these.”

She smiled, head tipping back, body arching into his touch.

“I knew she was in there,” he murmured, nuzzling her neck as he moved the cups of her bra down to get to her ni**les.

“Who?”

“The woman who arches her back to get more from me. Sensual. Beautiful. The woman who glories in her sexuality and allure.”

She snorted a laugh, and he pulled her inside.

Not bothering to stop pulling her clothes off as they made it to the pillow-strewn floor in front of the fireplace, he rolled her onto her back. “You laugh?”

“I’m so not those things. You are those things.”

“I have an aching c**k that says different.” He looked at her as he eased her panties off, leaving her totally naked to his gaze. He loved that she no longer hid her scars from him. Dropping a kiss on the hollow of her hip, he licked his way to her belly button.

“It’s my turn,” she gasped out.

“I’m trying,” he said before finding her clit and giving it a lick.

“Oh. Well, that’s not what I meant, but”—she made that sex sigh he loved so much, and he wanted to laugh at how easily swayed she’d been—“I’m so easy.”

He did laugh at that while he situated himself between her thighs. “Thank God for it.”

Two orgasms later, he slid into her body just as she opened her eyes and met his. The shock of recognition made him freeze a moment at the raw intimacy of it. He was exposed. Turned upside down by the way she saw him.

She used that moment to change her position and roll him over. “I like it this way. I like looking down at the most beautiful man in creation. Naked and spread out for me.”

“You give good compliment, darlin’.” What else could he say? That he was ass over teakettle in love with her? He wanted to, but he didn’t want to scare her or move too fast.