Right now, however, he’d settle for being glad that Shay thought Maddie had been worried for his safety.
Also? “If Maddie felt the quake,” Pete said, “that means she’s still somewhere local.”
“So not in Manzanar,” Shayla said. “Or Sacramento.”
“I’m betting Los Angeles didn’t even feel this one,” Pete told her. “Manzanar and Sacramento are both much farther away.”
She gave him some serious side eye. “I knew that. I’m not that geographically challenged.”
He laughed. “My bad. I just thought…But you’re keeping it together really well.” He paused. “Unless you were just kidding about the diving under the table, and the earthquake helmet?”
She shook her head. “Inside, I’m a mess. Outside, I’m Mom. Last thing I ever want to do is scare the boys, or somehow transfer my fears to them. Of course, they’re older now. Tevin’s definitely aware that earthquakes aren’t my favorite thing. That’s why he was texting me with all the science.”
As she spoke, Pete tried to listen, but that I’m Mom reverberated in his head, and all he could think was that the world had changed enormously from the days when moms went to bed with rollers in their hair and mud masks on their faces. And Shayla may have been focused on being Tevin and Frank’s mom, but she was also a tremendously beautiful, sensual, incredibly strong, sexy woman, and he wanted to…
He wanted…
She’d stopped talking and he looked up and into her eyes, suddenly aware that he’d been staring at her mouth. Her mouth, and the soft curves of her body beneath that shirt that was so thin, he could see right through it.
She was aware, too, of the direction his thoughts had turned, but she didn’t back away. She didn’t say a word. She just sat there, looking back at him.
She wanted, too.
He waited a moment, just looking into her eyes, because God, he didn’t want to get this wrong. But she just held his gaze—until she didn’t. Her eyes slipped down—just for a fraction of a second—to his mouth.
So he leaned in, slowly, and even reached to touch her face and gently pull her chin up and…
He kissed her.
As far as kisses went, it was G-rated. His lips against the sweet softness of hers. No tongues, no way. He wanted to—Jesus, his heart was pounding—but he didn’t.
He just pulled back to look into her eyes again, and time seemed to slow and not-quite stop, but change and expand. He’d experienced something similar a few times, while out on ops with the teams. There was a name for it, that sense of being present and acutely, intensely aware: kairos. The word also meant opportunity, and he was not a fool, so he slowly leaned in and when, once more, she didn’t pull away, he kissed her again.
This time, she opened her lips to him. This time, she leaned in, too, and he took that as an invitation to put his arms around her, even as she slipped her arms up and around his neck and her tongue into his mouth.
And their G rating was instantly revoked as he tried to devour her in return, because the way she was suddenly hungrily kissing him completely ignited the fire in his veins that he’d been trying to control.
Pete pulled her up and onto his lap even as she tried to move closer, and she straddled him as he wrapped himself more tightly around her. Her arms and shoulders and back were cold, but the softness between her legs was hot against him. Jesus, her fingers were back in his hair as she kissed him and kissed him, and Christ, he was going to come, her breasts soft against his chest, his body straining and sliding against hers through their thin layers of clothes.
He needed to be inside of her. He needed a condom, and he needed it now.
He started to pull back to tell her that—that he was going to pick her up and carry her inside. But as he moved his hands down her back to the incredible softness of her ass, the added pressure pushed her even more tightly against him, and God, God, God, the way that felt both against his dick, and in the palms of his hands…So instead he kissed her harder, deeper, longer as she rubbed herself against him, and then his fingers slipped beneath the thin fabric of her shorts, and he found her—hot and soft and wet.
He pushed one finger, and then two, just a little bit inside of her, and she came almost instantly, with a moan, right there in his hands, pressed up against him, and it was such an incredible, mind-blowing, total turn-on that he came, too.
The earth was shaking again and Shayla lifted her head from Peter’s shoulder.
“Aftershock,” he murmured. “Just a little one. We’re okay.”
Aftershock. Was that what this was?
Shay was still clinging to him, her legs still tight around his waist, the tips of his fingers still inside of her as he smiled into her eyes.
“That was a first for me,” he said.
So okay, they were going to have a conversation right now. Like this. Before moving and adjusting and doing all those awkward post-orgasm things. She had to clear her throat to get her voice to work. “Sex in the backyard?” she asked.
“Well, that, too,” he said. “Sex—or not quite sex—with our clothes still on.”
“It’s called dry humping, and you’ve seriously never…?”
“Nope. In high school I was pretty single-mindedly in love with Lisa. And back then, she wasn’t having sex with me.”
That’s right, he’d told her they hadn’t hooked up until college, in the relative comfort of their dorm rooms.
“For the record, that name for it is deceptive. I’m pretty sure it can’t be called dry humping at this point,” he said. “At least not on my end.”
Shayla laughed—which caused her body to tighten around his fingers and push him a little more deeply inside of her. She drew in a sharp breath, and their gazes met and locked. His eyes were hot.
“Let’s go inside,” he said. “I have a sudden burning desire for us to achieve a sexual hat trick. I’m thinking, I’ll make you come with my mouth while my gentlemen’s accessories catch up, and then, a little later, we can finish with good old-fashioned full penetration.”
Sweet God, yes please. But then Shay said, “Gentlemen’s accessories?”
“Isn’t that what you called it? It’s a nice euphemism, although I wasn’t in a position to discuss it at the time.”
Dear God, this man actually listened to the words that came out of her mouth—even after getting whacked in the balls and hit with a bucket of shit. So she told him, “Tevin and I were out shopping when he was just learning to read, and there was a sign—I think it was in Macy’s—and he thought the accessories were specific to the male anatomy, although that puzzled him, because aside from a jockstrap, he wasn’t sure what that might be. For a while, we called athletic supporters gentlemen’s accessories, and somehow it transitioned to become the full euphemism.”
He nodded, then leaned in and kissed her, and it was a replay of their first kiss—tender and gentle—and God, his lips were so soft and warm. “Let’s go inside,” he breathed against her mouth, before kissing her again—really kissing her now.
He tasted as delicious as he smelled—Navy SEAL–flavored, had to be—and she lost herself in the sweetness of his mouth, the feel of his hair between her fingers, the heat of his chest against hers.
But then she felt him start to shift, as if he was going to just stand up and carry her inside, so she made herself stop kissing him. “Wait.”
He waited, but the heat in his eyes had ramped up in its intensity.
“God, you’re beautiful,” she told him, touching the side of his face. “And as good as that…hat trick sounds, I’m just…Well, can we…not?”
She could tell that he didn’t fully understand, that he thought she was shutting him down, so she quickly added, “Go inside, I mean. I…don’t suppose you’d want to help me set up our…tent? It’s a pop-up. Pretty quick and easy.”
He got it—it was the going-inside to which she objected. “Oh, Shay, no. The likelihood of another earthquake—”
“I’ve read tha
t sometimes the aftershocks come first,” she said. “And if that was an aftershock, the real quake’s gonna be huge. I mean, yeah, it’s rare, and I know I probably sound irrational and crazy, but…” Her voice shook and she felt her eyes fill with tears, despite her best intentions. “That scared the fuck out of me.”
“Fair enough.” Peter immediately nodded. “I’ve got an air mattress and one of those crazy-fast pumps. We’re gonna need a blanket or two, tonight’s gonna get cold. But other than going inside to grab that—and make sure the gas line’s okay—we can stay outside as long as you need to.”
Stupidly, his kind response to her crazy made her tears well and overflow. God, she hated crying in front of anyone—in fact, she hated crying when she was locked alone in the privacy of her own bathroom. She hated it, because it never changed anything; it never helped, it only impeded. And on top of that, it made her feel weak and helpless and gave her a congestion headache.
But everything she was feeling—or trying not to feel—was jumbled up inside of her. The residuals of her overwhelming fear—not for herself, but for her precious babies and even for Carter and Tiffany, but then also for herself as the quake had slammed her to the bedroom floor again and again—and the knee-weakening relief of finding out, quickly thank God, that everyone was all right, combined with the crazy whatever-this-was that she was feeling after dry humping her Navy SEAL neighbor in her own backyard…
It was all apparently exiting her body through her tear ducts. Damn it.
“Hey,” Peter said, pulling her close and wrapping his arms around her even more completely. “Hey, hey. It’s okay.”
“You’re so nice,” she told him.
His laughter was a rumble in his chest. “Not really,” he said. “But I’m okay with you thinking that I’m being nice when I’m really just trying to shorten the time it’ll take before we can, you know.”
She did know. She also knew that the responsible adult thing to do would’ve been to have a conversation in which they discussed the high emotions that had led to that unexpected orgasm, because really, where was this going to go besides a place of hurt or awkwardness? Despite knowing that, she threw caution to the wind as she wiped her eyes and smiled and said, “Hat trick. I’m with you on that. As long as you’re in a tent.”
“Where’s the tent?” he asked in response.
“In the garage. Left side, top shelf. Plastic container. Purple. Airtight. Spider-proof.”
His smile broadened. “Of course.”
“California has some very nasty spiders. Black widows—”
He kissed her as he moved her off his lap. “Your backyard or mine?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Maddie risked a glance at Dingo. He was clinging to his steering wheel with both hands as he drove, his eyes focused fiercely on the freeway ahead of them.
The earthquake had shaken him up and gotten his adrenaline flowing—or so he’d said. So much so that he’d insisted they forget about sleeping and drive through the night, hit Sacramento at just past dawn.
But Maddie knew that it wasn’t the earthquake that had shaken him—it was the fact that after he’d grabbed on to her to try to protect her as his car rattled and shook, he’d kissed her.
She’d kissed him back. In fact, they’d made out for a good long time—until he’d jumped away from her as if he’d been bitten by a snake.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked him now.
He laughed, but it was a sound of despair, not joy. “Nope.”
“Well, I wanna talk about it,” she said. “I don’t know what the big deal is. I like you and you seem to like me—”
“Fiff,” he said. “Teen. As in: You. Are. Fifteen.”
“Drama, drama, drama, drama,” Maddie said on an exasperated exhale. “So what?”
“So what?” he said. “So what? So I could go to jail. I’d have to register as a sex offender, forever. Forever, Mads. It happened to a friend of my cousin.”
“What happened to your accent?” she asked.
“It’s fake!” he shouted. “I’m fake! Everything’s fucking fake, all right? So, see, you don’t really like me after all! Say the word, I’ll turn around and take you home!”
“Well, that’s stupid,” she said. “If you take me home, you’d practically be handing me over to Nelson. And until I get the money or the proof that Fiona was the one who stole it, you’d pretty much be sentencing me to death.”
“Fuck,” he said, because she was right.
“You know, I think maybe I like you more now,” she told him. “So, really, all this time, you’ve been, what? Playing a character?” She imitated his Australian accent. “I’m Dingo from down under. That’s pretty freaking brilliant, Richard. I bet most girls really go for that.”
“See, you are mad. No one calls me Richard unless they’re mad at me.”
It was weird—that flat California accent coming out of his face, his mouth.
He glanced at her, several times, probably because she was staring at him. “What?”
“You’re a good kisser,” she said.
“Oh, no,” he said. “No, no, no, no, no.”
She shrugged expansively. “I’m just saying. Kissing isn’t sex.”
“Mads,” he begged. “Please. Can we just…not?”
She sighed heavily. “Can Dingo come back now? Because you’re right, I think I like him better than you. You’re a buzzkill.”
“Can’t have a buzzkill without a buzz, love,” he said in his fake Australian accent.
“Whatever,” Maddie said, sinking down in her seat. “Why should I have anything good or nice or happy in my life?”
“I’m not good or nice,” he whispered.
Maybe not. But when he’d kissed her, for the first time in a long time, she’d felt happy. Or at least less relentlessly alone.
Shayla surrendered.
At first, she was a little weirded out—going into that grown-up version of a bouncy tent with the deliberate intention of taking off her clothes and having some happy-fun time with the Navy SEAL. This was a man to whom she’d not so much as spoken two words until last night.
And now she was going to let him plant his face between her legs.
How do you do?
He hadn’t just brought blankets and pillows into her backyard along with his air mattress. He’d brought a hurricane lamp—an electric one that wouldn’t catch fire, but could still be turned down low. He’d also brought condoms and some towels and a bottle of wine. Pinot noir—how did he know? He’d brought a pair of stemless glasses, too, and he poured her one as the romantic light from that lantern played across his handsome face.
“I turned off the gas in both our houses,” he told her as he handed her the glass of wine. “Just to be extra safe. Everything looks good in yours—just a few things broken—a couple framed photos. Books fell out of bookshelves. Nothing big fell over.”
“There’s nothing big to fall over,” she pointed out. She’d purposely gotten rid of anything tall before the move to California. Now all of their bookshelves and cabinets were either built-in or low to the ground. “How about your place?” she asked.
“I had a few expensive casualties,” he told her. “Maddie’s computer was on the kitchen counter. It hit the floor and did not survive.”
“Oh, no.”
“Better hers than yours,” he said.
“I don’t know about that,” she countered. “I’m militant when it comes to backup. You know, I was thinking. About Maddie? That in the morning, we should push. Just a little. See if she’ll take a call—talk to me on the phone.”
Peter nodded. “I also want to touch base with that lawyer—Fiona’s aunt.”
“I thought you did that this afternoon.”
“No,” he said. “I tried, but she wasn’t in—she was at the courthouse. I was going to wait, but then I got the call to go to the base. And then everything took too much time. It’s okay—I seriously doubt she’s going to tell
me anything new.”
“I’d like to go with you,” Shayla said. No way was she making that I’ll go if you want mistake twice.
He smiled because, like always, he was paying attention. “That’s great,” he said, “because I’d like for you to come, too.” He lifted his wineglass in a toast. “To good communication.”
Shay smiled back at him as they clinked—and the earth shifted again. It was hard to know if that was real or an illusion created from the heat in his eyes. Either way, she felt safe.
He took a sip, so she did, too, and…“Wow, that’s excellent.”
“A reminder that California’s got a lot more going for it than earthquakes and black widow spiders.”
“And crazy people who ride around in their trucks with a bucket of feces to throw at sailors?”
“That was another first for me,” Peter admitted. “My day’s been full of them—some significantly better than others.” He smiled at her, leaning back on his elbow, but then wincing, because, yeah. That was the elbow he’d scraped, saving her from the flying shit-bucket of doom.
“Let me see that,” she said, putting her glass down on the ground beside the air mattress, and he smiled, because yes, again, he knew that she wanted to touch him, and this was an easy way to get that party started. He obediently held out his arm as she scooted closer, letting go of the fleece blanket that he’d draped around her shoulders to keep her warm while the mattress inflated.
Shay took his arm and angled it toward the light. The scrape was still raw, but he’d cleaned it well and although it looked angry, it didn’t look infected. He leaned back, in order to set down his own glass beyond the edge of the mattress, and all of his many, many muscles shifted and flexed as he did a halfway, diagonal equivalent of a sit-up, pulling her attention away from his elbow.
When he sat back up, his face was right there, so she took it between her hands, and kissed him.
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