by Jill Shalvis
It was midday by the time Brady replaced the gauge on the Bell and got them back in the air. For the return flight, he plied Lilah with a glass of wine first.
She denied that it helped, but he could tell by how relaxed she looked that it did—though that might have been from all the orgasms. Hard to tell.
She was quiet this time. Not so unusual for him, but absolutely unusual for her. Halfway home, she turned to him, nibbling on her lower lip.
He braced for the worst.
“About whatever it was that you wanted to talk to me about in your hotel room last night before I—before we . . .” She grimaced. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you with wild sex.”
That made him smile. “Yes, you did.”
“Okay, true, I did. But I’ll listen now to whatever you wanted to say.”
He slid her a look.
She smiled at him, completely unrepentant, and he blew out a breath. “I wanted to warn you off of me,” he told her.
“I like being on you.”
He let out a low laugh. “Lilah.”
“You like it, too.”
“I love it,” he admitted. “And you know what I mean.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m a big girl, Brady. You’re leaving soon. I haven’t forgotten. I wanted this.”
This won him another heart-stopping smile, which he told himself was the wine.
It was early evening when they landed. Lilah had checked in with Cruz several times, but she still headed right off to the kennels to make sure everything was okay. Brady went through his postflight maintenance, then walked across the meadow to Belle Haven.
Twinkles was lying beneath a tree out front looking glum, but he went bat-shit crazy when he saw Brady, wriggling, waggling, rolling in ecstasy when Brady stooped low to rub the dog down. He tried to remember the last time he’d come back from a trip and had this sort of reception but couldn’t.
It was after closing time, and Dell and Adam were in the parking lot playing basketball like it was a war zone. Having clearly finished up at the kennels for the day, Cruz was playing, too, the three of them taking their game very seriously.
“Thank Christ,” Adam muttered when he saw Brady. “It’s these two idiots against me, and they don’t know a foul from their own ass. We’re skins.”
Brady peeled off his shirt and joined the game.
In less than two minutes both Dell and Cruz were pissed. “You can play,” Dell said to Brady in disgust. “When did you learn to play, because you were shit in high school.”
It was true. He’d been shit at basketball in high school. “I played in the army every night with the guys in my unit. They were street players, hard core.”
Adam grinned and passed the ball to him. Brady caught it, pivoted, and shot, making a very sweet three.
Dell swore viciously.
When the game ended, they were all sweating like hookers in a confessional, and Adam and Brady had won by two. He turned to grab his shirt and found Lilah standing there, his camera around her neck.
“I’m back,” she said, and handed him his camera. “Nice game.”
“Thanks.” Brady watched her head off into the center. He took Twinkles and headed to the loft to shower, then checked in with work via e-mail to see if Tony was still pissed.
He was.
Brady closed the e-mail program and downloaded the pictures from his digital and realized he was in many of them.
Lilah had seen to that.
There was a photo of him flying the Bell, a look of concentration on his face as he spoke on his headset. Another of him glancing over at Lilah, eyes still serious, and then yet one more taken in the next instant, when he’d softened for her, a warm, caring smile in his eyes and on his mouth.
He would have sworn on his own life that he never looked at anyone like that, and yet here he sat staring at the proof.
Lilah had taken several pictures of the view, and they weren’t half bad. There were also his shots from the restaurant, of Lilah. She was laughing in all of them, a silly, sweet little smile on her face, her eyes lit up with pure joy.
There was one of him at the table, clearly absorbed in watching Lilah. He had yet another small smile on his face, but that wasn’t what caught him about that picture.
It was his eyes and the heat in them. The hunger.
The need.
A little shocked at the naked longing he’d displayed, he turned to the next group of pictures, which were of the basketball game, including a close-up of him sweaty and grinning from ear to ear as he came down from a layup.
The very last picture was him turning his head toward the camera—the exact moment he’d realized that Lilah was standing there watching. He was smiling with triumph right into the lens, looking more carefree than he could remember feeling.
He shut his computer just as Adam came up the stairs, suited up for a rescue, two of his dogs at his side. “Need a lift,” he said.
“To?”
“There’s a big search for a lost kid up in the Kaniksu National Forest. They need all the help they can get. You in?”
Yeah, he was in. An excuse to fly? Check. An adrenaline rush of a search and rescue? Check and check.
A reason to keep his brain from fixating on one Lilah Young? Check, check, and check.
They spent the next six hours straight in the mountains, providing assistance to the search. The kid was located, not by them personally but by a group of rescuers using dogs that Adam had trained last season, which was just as satisfying.
On the flight back, Adam looked over at Brady. “About Lilah.”
“Christ. Again?”
“Just one thing. Don’t play her, man. She . . . she’s been hurt.”
If the subject matter hadn’t been so serious, Brady might have laughed. Because he was just beginning to realize the truth: for once he wasn’t the one doing the playing.
Lilah woke up the next morning to Sadie bumping her little kitty nose into hers.
“Mew.”
“It’s not time,” Lilah murmured. “The alarm hasn’t gone off yet.”
“Mew-mew-mew.”
This was from the eight-week-old kitten trying to get around Sadie, the sole leftover from a rescue the week before. Lilah had placed both of the little guy’s sisters but hadn’t yet found him a home. He was black, with a white spot on top of his head that looked like a little cotton ball, and he liked to be the boss of his world, which is why Cruz had named him Boss.
Lilah pushed them both away and snuggled down into her covers. She was warm and comfy but not nearly as warm and comfy as she’d been in Brady’s hotel bed, with his big, hot body as her personal furnace.
Just remembering the wild hotel sex heated her up pretty good. Sure, she had a small sneaky little feeling that maybe it hadn’t been just wild sex, but that was hopefully the endorphins messing with her brain.
“Mew,” Sadie insisted.
Dammit. “You have got to work on your aversion to the sandbox, missy.” Staggering out of bed, Lilah pulled on a pair of sweats and opened the front door for the irritated cat, who was weaving in and out of her legs and threatening to topple them both over.
She caught Boss before he could escape with Sadie. “You’re not old enough to run free, little man.” She paused and stared down at her porch. “There’s an army bag on my porch. Why is there an army duffel bag on my porch?”
Sadie didn’t answer because she was already gone. Boss didn’t answer because he was a man, after all, and didn’t talk much.
Lilah sat on the top step in the early chilly morning, Boss in her lap and the bag at her feet. Adam had been National Guard, not army. She only knew one man who’d been army, and the thought of him bringing her something left a silly smile on her face.
Inside the duffel bag was yet another bag, this one a pretty frothy pink color, from the Pharmacy in Boise. It was filled with soaps and lotions and . . . the pretty blue lingerie she’d been drooling over in the window disp
lay. “He didn’t,” she said to Boss.
“Mew.”
She laughed, even as her throat tightened. Heart melted clean away, she pulled out her phone and called Brady. “Morning, Santa.”
He was silent.
“At least I hope you’re my Secret Santa,” she said. “I can’t imagine Cruz or Nick picking out that thong—”
A growl sounded through the phone and she smiled. “Thank you,” she said softly. “I love it, and the soaps and lotions, too. You shouldn’t have.”
“I like the way you always smell.”
“That’s the coconut and vanilla and stuff.”
“It’s you. You make me hungry, Lilah.”
“You know,” she murmured. “You don’t have many words, but you seem to make the most of the ones you have.”
“You going to wear that thong today?”
“You are such a guy.”
“Guilty.”
Their silence was comfortable, and she found herself smiling like an idiot, all alone on her porch.
“Wear it today, Lilah,” he said softly, silkily.
And she knew she would do just that. “See you around, Brady.”
“See you,” he said, and she could hear the bad-boy smile in his voice.
She closed her phone. “I’m not falling for him,” she told Boss, and pulled out a soap. She pressed her nose to it, inhaling the delicious scent. But she was.
Falling and falling hard.
That night she drove to Dell’s house for their monthly poker night. Dell lived in town in a house he’d recently fixed up for himself. To Lilah’s surprise, she found Brady already seated at the big round table. He was slouched in a chair, long legs stretched out in front of him, a ball cap low on his head hiding most of his gorgeous face except for his mouth.
Which had the sexiest scowl on it she’d ever seen.
Amused—and more—she plopped down beside him. “Heard about your day, Ace.”
He slid her a dark look that made her nipples hard before he went back to his cards.
“I’m in,” she said to Adam, who was dealing.
“Five-card draw.” Adam shuffled the deck like a pro. “And he had more than a hell of a day,” he said, tossing a look at Brady as he dealt, taking Lilah’s ten bucks and handing her a stack of chips. “He went with Dell on rounds. They were unable to save Mr. Williams’s dog after it got hit by a car, then got to the Cabreras’ in time to watch their elderly cat die, and as a bonus, on the way home, they headed out to a ranch and had to euthanize a horse with a broken leg.”
“It was just shit luck,” Dell said, studying his cards, tapping the table to indicate he was holding. “No one’s fault.”
Brady tossed in some chips. “Raise you five.”
“Fuck,” Adam said conversationally, but put in his five.
Since she had nothing, Lilah folded.
Dell tossed in his five and shook his head. “Best part is his new nickname.”
Lilah glanced at Brady, who was looking pained. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” Brady said, and adjusted his hat even lower over his face.
“Dr. Death,” Adam said, and flashed a rare grin.
“What?” Lilah burst out laughing. “Are you kidding me?”
The muscle in Brady’s jaw bunched and Adam shook his head, still grinning. “Now no one wants him to go along on out-calls anymore, no matter how badly they need Dell.”
Everyone but Brady cracked up. He just swore, with a colorful assortment of four-letter words. Lilah wanted to jump him right then and there, but she controlled herself.
Or maybe not quite.
Brady turned his head and met her gaze. He studied her a moment, and though he remained scowling, his eyes heated. He saw right through her, she realized, not knowing whether to be embarrassed or aroused.
So she settled for both.
They played two more rounds before Dell looked at the grease streaked down Lilah’s jeans. “Plumbing problems again?”
Her cabin had more problems than she could count, but she loved the old place ridiculously. For one thing, it was all she had of her grandma, and it was filled with precious memories that not even bad plumbing could erase.
For another, it was her only option, given that the money she made went back into the business or toward her tuition. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Lilah, you need to—”
“Change from brass to PVC. Yeah, I know.” She hadn’t budgeted for it this month. Or next month, for that matter. In fact, she wasn’t budgeted for anything anytime soon. “I’m babying the plumbing along for now.” Well aware of Brady studying her, she smiled. “Duct tape is a girl’s best friend.”
Adam shook his head.
Brady was still looking at her. Slowly his gaze dropped, taking in her clothes, probably wondering if she was wearing the lingerie. She gave him a secret smile. He didn’t return it, but his gaze singed her skin.
Her cell phone buzzed with a forwarded call from the office line, the one she used for the humane society, and she picked it up to hear Mrs. Sandemeyer’s voice.
“Someone did it again,” the elderly woman said in her eighty-year-old quavery voice. She lived on the outskirts of town right off the highway. “Dumped a dog they don’t want. I’ll hold her for you, dear.”
“Is the dog injured?”
“Not at all. And sweet as a lamb.”
Lilah closed her phone and reluctantly folded her cards. “I’m out.”
“But it’s just getting good,” Dell complained.
“Translation,” Adam said. “He thinks he’s about to kick our asses.”
“I don’t think it,” Dell said. “I know it.”
“Sorry.” Lilah rose. “Much as I look forward to that ass-kicking, I have to go. Someone dumped a dog off the freeway again.”
“Assholes,” Dell said. “Be careful, Lil.”
Brady stood up. “I’ll go with you.”
“No worries, I’ll call Cruz if I run into trouble,” Lilah said. “Finish playing.”
“It’s late.”
“She has Cruz,” Adam said softly. “It’s his job.”
Lilah patted Brady’s arm, nearly hummed in pleasure at the hard, knotted sinew of his biceps, and smiled. “Adam’s right. Stay for the ass-kicking.”
His eyes met hers, dark and unreadable, and more than her nipples reacted. Her heart actually skipped a beat.
Stupid heart. Because he was leaving soon, she reminded herself, ignoring the little ping in her belly at that thought. She was going to have to give him up, but then again, she was used to giving things up.
She gave her animals up all the time.
She’d given her grandma up.
She’d given certain dreams up, and knew she’d give up more