Rescue My Heart

by Jill Shalvis

  She winced and tried to back away, but he tightened his grip. “Oh, hell no,” he said. “I’m not letting you go, not ever again.”

  “Ever?” She sniffed. “You don’t do ever, remember?”

  “We’ll talk about this after I get you to the hospital.”

  “You don’t do talk, either.”

  He dropped his head to his chest, and then looked at her. “That was me being that chicken you accused me of being,” he said. “I’m sorry, Holly. So fucking sorry. I’ll straighten my ass up, but I’m going to need help. I’m going to need to learn how to share more of myself with you.”

  She ignored the apocalyptic moment of an Adam apology for a moment to concentrate on the prize in that statement. “All of you,” she said. “You have to share all of you—the good and the bad.”

  “Yes, but only if you do it, too.”

  She pressed her face into the crook of his neck and nodded, smearing blood, tears, and rainwater on him.

  “Did you just snot me?”

  She let out a watery laugh and nodded.

  “Just checking,” he said, and because she was shivering, quite violently now, he pulled her in close. “Time to get you up the embankment, Holly, and then warm and dry.”

  Her limbs were boneless, she could barely control them. Shock, she figured, and it was damn annoying. “How are we going to get up there? I’m tired…”

  “No problem. I’ve got you.”

  He might be the most stubborn man she knew, but he was also the best man she knew. If he said he had her, he had her. She managed a weak smile. “I owe you.”

  “I like the sound of that.” He wrapped her up in one strong arm and used his rope to begin to pull them up the embankment, just as, from above, flashing lights approached.

  The cavalry had come.

  Twenty-six

  When Holly woke the next morning, it was still dark. She could see Adam asleep in the chair by her bed, head resting on his hand, long legs sprawled out. When she struggled to sit up, he came instantly awake. Standing up, he moved to her bed. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” After getting her up the embankment, Adam had called her dad and Kate, who’d met them at the hospital. Holly had been cleaned up, poked, prodded, and

  x-rayed. Her ribs were bruised, she’d received four stitches above her eye—which was also black and blue by now—and she had a mild concussion.

  But she’d slept in her own bed.

  “How do you feel?” Adam asked.

  She had little men jackhammering in her head and her ribs felt like she’d gone ten rounds in the ring, but she was breathing. Breathing was good. “Like I drove over an embankment.”

  “Your head hurt?”

  “No.”

  His eyes smiled, but not his mouth. “Liar.”

  She scooted over and he sat on the bed facing her, a hand on either side of her hips, his gaze running over her as if reassuring himself she was in one piece.

  “I’m okay.” She touched her bandage. “Just a little bump.”

  He drew a deep breath, his eyes never leaving hers. “Then you’re right, you are okay, since you’ve got the hardest head of anyone I know.”

  He was the same solid, warm presence he’d been last night. The same solid presence he’d always been, with several days of stubble on his face, making him appear even darker, more dangerous.

  At least to her heart.

  Looking into his eyes, she could see how tired he was, but she saw something else, too. Lifting her hand, she cupped his jaw. “Did you sleep?”

  “Not yet. Your dad went into town to get some food. He’ll be back in an hour, and then I’ll get some sleep.” He turned his face and pressed his mouth to her palm. “We need to talk, Holly.”

  Her stomach dropped. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  She closed her eyes. Because that made it so much better. “About?”

  “Relationship etiquette.”

  Her eyes flew open. “Relationship etiquette?”

  “Yeah. See, when you’re in a relationship, you charge your cell phone so that the person that you’re in the relationship with doesn’t have heart failure when he knows something has gone FUBAR and can’t get ahold of you.”

  She must have hit her head harder than she thought. “What?”

  “FUBAR. Fucked-up beyond all recognition.”

  “I know what FUBAR means,” she said. “I’m stunned over the word relationship coming from your mouth. We have a relationship?”

  “We have a relationship.” He didn’t exactly sound thrilled about it, either. He pushed her hair from her face and eyed the bandage on her head, mouth grim. “Not that we seem to have any control over it.”

  And, oh, how he hated that. Anything that wrestled precious control away from him was a cause for concern. Her warrior didn’t like to be vulnerable. “I scared you,” she said softly.

  “Took at least ten years off,” he admitted.

  She pulled him down to her, cupped his face, and kissed him. His lips were soft, a sharp contrast to the hardness of his body. He let her have her way with him for a minute, but when she tried to tug him over the top of her, he resisted. “No,” he said. “You’re hurt.”

  “Either come down here or I’m going to get up and climb you like a tree.”

  “Holly.” He lay alongside her on the bed, his hands gentle. But she didn’t want gentle. She bit his lower lip.

  He responded without hesitation, deepening the connection, devouring her mouth with his.

  Wanting even more, she again tried to pull him over her, but he shook his head.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he said, voice thick.

  She slid her hands into the back of his jeans and rocked him into her. “You won’t.”

  He groaned once and then again when she sucked on his neck while attempting to work his shirt up and off. He lent his hands to the cause, tugging it over his head.

  “Now mine,” she demanded.

  “Holly.”

  Oh, hell no. “You can’t say we’re a bad idea anymore. Because you’re here, Adam.”

  “I am.” He came over the top of her, supporting his weight on his forearms. His fingers slid into her hair and he lowered his head to brush his lips over the bandage covering her stitches. “I’m here.”

  “Why?”

  He shook his head. “You know why.”

  “Humor me.”

  Quiet now, he ran his thumb over her jaw, then he swallowed hard. “When I saw your Jeep trapped in the river, with the water filling up the interior…I thought I’d lost you. I thought I’d lost my chance to tell you how I feel and that I’d have to live with the regret for the rest of my life.”

  She felt his words all the way to her heart. “You didn’t lose me. You saved me.”

  “Luck.” He shook his head again. “I can get through almost anything, and have. But losing you isn’t something I’d be able to get through. I’m crazy about you, Holly. You’ve worked your way under my skin.” He closed his eyes. “Into my heart.”

  She pulled him down and softly caressed his mouth with hers. “You love me,” she whispered, not quite successfully keeping the triumph out of her voice.

  He choked out a laugh. “I do. I love you. I think I always have.”

  “Show me.”

  His gaze darkened. “Your injuries—”

  “You won’t hurt me.”

  He stripped her out of her pj bottoms with little effort. “Don’t even think about moving,” he commanded. “Not your ribs. Not a muscle.” He stared at her until she nodded with a secret thrill that his simple male strength could both arouse and protect her.

  In the blink of an eye he had his jeans off and then spent long moments kissing every inch of her, and some inches twice. When she’d shuddered and cried out his name, he made himself at home between her wet thighs. The sure and solid weight of his body was as comforting as it was arousing.

  Holding her gaze, he entered her. She cried out
again, unable to help herself. Still panting for breath, she watched as he dropped his head, taking in the sight of them joined, then lifted his head and met her gaze again. She tried to see herself as he must. Hair wild. No makeup. A black eye…

  “You are so fucking beautiful,” he whispered hoarsely, one hand sliding up her back to cup her head, his touch gentle and sure, tempered by his care of her injuries. “And you’re mine now.”

  “Always have been.” She struggled not to rock up into him like she wanted to do. “And you’re mine now?”

  “Always have been.” Holding her gaze, he began to move. It was heaven. He’d had her every way she could have imagined, and every time felt like the first.

  The thought took her over the edge, and she took him with her. After, still breathing hard, he lifted his head, his gaze searching hers. She put her fingers over his lips to still any questions of her comfort, because in truth she’d never felt better. Sated male satisfaction lit his eyes and they lay together, waiting for their heart rates to return to some semblance of normal. “I waited a long time for you,” she finally said.

  “I know.” He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face between her breasts. “Turns out I’m a little slow on the uptake.” He breathed her in deeply—taking comfort from her, she realized, her heart swelling. He’d never allowed himself to take comfort from her before, but he did now.

  “Sometimes I think about my life before I let you in,” he said. “I was afraid that loving anyone this much would make me weak.”

  “So I take it since you’ve dropped the l-bomb, you’re longer worried about that?” she teased.

  His arms tightened. He wasn’t playing. “I’m going to drop more than the l-bomb, Holly. I want you. The forever kind of want. No more messing around.”

  Forever. The air left her lungs, and something new replaced it. Hope. Affection. And a love that warmed her from the inside out. He had a way of erasing all her doubts, of reinstating her confidence. He could make everything right in her world with one word, a touch. She hadn’t been sure a man could do that for her, but he did, and she thought maybe he was offering to do it for the rest of her life, but she had to be sure. She’d been wrong before and couldn’t bear to be wrong now. “Maybe you should define forever.”

  “Is there more than one meaning for the word?” he asked.

  “So…you mean forever like a diamond ring and white picket fence, that kind of forever?”

  “Yes. But not white picket,” he said with a head shake. “Rail-horse fencing.”

  She just stared at him. “Let me get this straight,” she said. “You went from worrying about being weak to wanting a fence with me?”

  “I don’t give a flying fuck about being weak. You’re the only thing I care about. You make me whole. You make me feel. You make me…” He searched for the word. “Everything.” He pulled her tighter to him. “It’s always been you, Holly. And it always will be. Say yes.”

  “Yes,” she said instantly. “To everything.”

  Dear Readers,

  Hi there! I hope you all enjoyed Rescue My Heart. I wanted to thank each and every one of you who wrote me begging/pleading/demanding for Adam’s story over the past year. I had so much fun torturing—er, writing—his and Holly’s long, passionate, windy road to their happily-ever-after.

  So what’s next? Well, I was thinking Griffin and Kate should get a story. I’m going to start their book at Adam and Holly’s wedding. I plan to bring Griffin home on leave for the festivities and torture him a little bit with the one girl he’s always secretly dreamed of but never dared to have. Their story will be coming your way in August 2013.

  In the meantime, if you haven’t already read Animal Magnetism and Animal Attraction, Brady’s and Dell’s stories of finding happily-ever-after with a special woman, why not? To entice you, here’s an excerpt from Animal Magnetism, the first book in the series.

  Happy Reading!

  Jill Shalvis

  www.jillshalvis.com

  facebook.com/jillshalvis

  One

  Brady Miller’s ideal Saturday was pretty simple—sleep in, be woken by a hot, naked woman for sex, followed by a breakfast that he didn’t have to cook.

  On this particularly early June Saturday, he consoled himself with one out of the three, stopping at 7-Eleven for coffee, two egg and sausage breakfast wraps, and a Snickers bar.

  Breakfast of champions.

  Heading to the counter to check out, he nodded to the convenience store clerk.

  She had her Bluetooth in her ear, presumably connected to the cell phone glowing in her pocket as she rang him up. “He can’t help it, Kim,” she was saying. “He’s a guy.” At this, she sent Brady a half-apologetic, half-commiserating smile. She was twentysomething, wearing spray-painted-on skinny jeans, a white wife-beater tank top revealing black lacy bra straps, and so much mascara that Brady had no idea how she kept her eyes open.

  “You know what they say,” she went on as she scanned his items. “A guy thinks about sex once every eight seconds. No, it’s true, I read it in Cosmo. Uh-huh, hang on.” She glanced at Brady, pursing her glossy lips. “Hey, cutie, you’re a guy.”

  “Last I checked.”

  She popped her gum and grinned at him. “Would you say you think about sex every eight seconds?”

  “Nah.” Every ten, tops. He fished through his pocket for cash.

  “My customer says no,” she said into her phone, sounding disappointed. “But Cosmo said a man might deny it out of self-preservation. And in any case, how can you trust a guy who has sex on the brain 24/7?”

  Brady nodded to the truth of that statement and accepted his change. Gathering his breakfast, he stepped outside where he was hit by the morning fresh air of the rugged, majestic Idaho Bitterroot mountain range. Quite a change from the stifling airlessness of the Middle East or the bitter desolation and frigid temps of Afghanistan. But being back on friendly soil was new enough that his eyes still automatically swept his immediate surroundings.

  Always a soldier, his last girlfriend had complained.

  And that was probably true. It was who he was, the discipline and carefulness deeply engrained, and he didn’t see that changing anytime soon. Noting nothing that required his immediate attention, he went back to mainlining his caffeine. Sighing in sheer pleasure, he took a big bite of the first breakfast wrap, then hissed out a sharp breath because damn. Hot. This didn’t slow him down much. He was so hungry his legs felt hollow. In spite of the threat of scalding his tongue to the roof of his mouth, he sucked down nearly the entire thing before he began to relax.

  Traffic was nonexistent, but Sunshine, Idaho, wasn’t exactly hopping. It’d been a damn long time since he’d been here, years in fact. And longer still since he’d wanted to be here. He took another drag of fresh air. Hard to believe, but he’d actually missed the good old US of A. He’d missed the sports. He’d missed the women. He’d missed the price of gas. He’d missed free will.

  But mostly he’d missed the food. He tossed the wrapper from the first breakfast wrap into a trash bin and started in on his second, feeling almost…content. Yeah, damn it was good to be back, even if he was only here temporarily, as a favor. Hell, anything without third-world starvation, terrorists, or snipers and bombs would be a five-star vacation.