by Jill Shalvis
Zoe loved buddy-cop flicks, thought of them as love stories. “How about something real-life-based?” Darcy asked.
“Fine,” Zoe said. “For all the damage our parents did, they’re still together. And Wyatt’s in love with Emily and planning on marrying her. It could happen to us, too.”
“Yeah, well, you first,” Darcy said and finished off her tea. “And if it works out for you, then we’ll talk.”
“I think you’re afraid of rejection, not love. You’re afraid you’re going to put yourself out there and you’ll be the only one.”
Hard to argue with the truth. Especially when it had already happened.
Twenty-one
When AJ got to the gym and saw Wyatt already there working out, he nearly turned around again. But it was too late; Wyatt nodded at him.
“You get the money guy on the hook?” Wyatt asked.
“He’s thinking it over, said he’d get back to me soon.”
“So it was good?”
“Great,” AJ said.
“Getting snowed in with a cranky Darcy was great?” Wyatt asked in disbelief.
“Well, not that part.” Just the part where he’d been buried deep inside her with her legs wrapped around him, his name on her lips …
“What part, then?” Wyatt wanted to know. “Where you got stuck spending two nights together?”
AJ nearly dropped the weights on his own face. When he righted himself, Wyatt was watching him with narrowed eyes.
Definitely not the time to be thinking how his sister’s curly hair looked streaming out across his pillow, her naked curves sprawled across the sheets. Shit. Redirect, soldier. “What?”
“You tell me what,” Wyatt said.
AJ opened his mouth just as Wyatt’s phone went off. “Emily,” Wyatt said, and answered with a goofy smile. “Hey, sweetness— Yeah?” Wyatt’s voice lowered to a deep timbre. “Tell me more …” His eyes glazed over. “I’ll be right there.”
Saved by the sexy, horny fiancée …
Since it was Darcy’s turn to cook dinner, she did as she always did. She went and grabbed takeout. Tonight was Thai, and after she paid, she walked back to her car, head down while she texted with a new S&R dog breeder who’d been referred to her by Adam. He had a five-year-old Siberian husky with a bad knee. The dog needed to retire from the physical demands of S&R work but would make a great therapy dog due to his sweet, patient temperament.
Darcy texted that she’d buy him and find him a great home. She hit send and looked up, stopping short.
The sight of AJ leaning casually against her driver’sside door made her heart skip a beat. When she got closer, he pulled something out of his pocket.
Cash.
And all the warm fuzzies along with the heat she’d started to feel went ice-cold. She was way too tired to be on her game enough to deal with him. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Paying you for the trip.”
“No, you’re not. And move,” she said. “You’re in my way.”
He didn’t move. “Take the money, Darcy.”
“No. I told you I wouldn’t take payment after you did all that physical therapy pro bono. Now go away. I need to sit down.”
He moved instantly and opened the door for her. She slid in behind the wheel, grateful to sit since her legs had started to tremble.
AJ crouched in the space between the opened door and the driver’s seat, one hand on her steering wheel, the other on the back of her seat. It was a possessive stance and also a protective one, and her brain didn’t know how to process it.
“What’s wrong with taking the money?” he asked.
“Oh, please. I owed you a favor and we both know it. Just as we both know that me talking to Trent and Summer doesn’t come close to settling the score between us. Especially after—” Nope, she couldn’t say it, couldn’t go there.
AJ leaned in and gave a quick twist of her keys, turning off her car. Then he turned her face to him and she was surprised to find that his rare, almost nonexistent temper had kicked in.
“A deal is a deal,” he said. “I never go back on my word. And as for you owing me for your treatment, listen carefully because I’m only going to say this once. What we give each other? There’s no tab.”
“Exactly. So forget paying me. I’m not taking your money, not after we—” He arched a brow and she broke off. “You know,” she said.
“I do,” he agreed. “Do you?”
She put her hands to his chest and gave a little shove. He didn’t budge. “Dammit, AJ, I need to go.”
“I see what you’re doing with the dogs, helping people.”
“Yeah? So?”
“So you’re getting involved, Darcy. Invested in Sunshine. You want all of us to think you’re just blowing through, that you’re stuck here only until you’re good enough to fly the coup. But you know what I think?”
“Way too much of yourself, for one …”
“I think you’re enjoying having a home base for once,” he said, eyes serious. And still pissed. “I think you like having family, friends, people to care about—and in return, people who care about you. Yeah, I think you’re getting into it, feeling good. And maybe even happy. And since that probably scares the shit out of you, you’re one inch from destroying it all.”
Oh how she hated that he was right. About all of it. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?” he asked softly. “Are you telling me you aren’t chomping at the bit to get the hell out of here?”
“I never intended to stay in Sunshine and make roots.”
“But you did,” he said. “Can you really just uproot now and go?”
“Absolutely.”
“Worst. Liar. Ever,” he said. He slid a hand to the nape of her neck, pulled her in, and kissed her.
And that was the thing about AJ. He could make her feel so many things. Angry. Frustrated. And in the case of right now, like the most incredibly sexy, fascinating woman on the entire planet. With words, a look, or even a single touch he could erase all the doubt in her mind and reinstate any confidence she’d ever lost. She’d never imagined a man being able to make her feel that way, but here he was. Ready, willing, and able.
The question was—was she ready, willing, and able?
She was trembling when he pulled back, and this time it had nothing to do with exhaustion. He stared at her and then gave her one last kiss and walked away.
When she turned forward to turn her car on again, she found the cash was in her lap.
She couldn’t sleep that night. At all. She was dead tired and achy, too, but her brain wouldn’t stop racing.
She was going to have no trouble finding a home for the husky, she had a lot of people on her waiting list. She thought about Ronan, AJ’s PTSD patient, who she knew desperately needed a dog’s help out in public, navigating crowds and social situations. She’d call him tomorrow.
Just before dawn Darcy gave up. She could take something to knock her out, but it wasn’t a foggy oblivion she wanted. No, she wanted a different type of oblivion altogether, one that involved a hard body and talented hands, both of which belonged to the one man who’d ever made her want to go back for seconds.
And thirds.
She took a shower, dressed, and then tiptoed past Zoe’s bedroom door, stilling with a grimace when Zoe called out to her.
“You okay?”
Darcy rolled her eyes and took a step back to the doorway. “Great.”
Zoe’s nightstand lamp went on and she sat up in bed looking sleepy.
“Didn’t mean to wake you,” Darcy said. “I’m just going out for some Gummy Bears.”
“At …” Zoe squinted at the clock. “Four thirty in the morning?”
“Hey, I don’t have control over my cravings.”
“Uh-huh. You do know that Gummy Bears aren’t what you really want, right?”
Darcy did her best to look innocent. She wasn’t ready to discuss what she wa
nted—which was to jump AJ’s bones.
“Is the pain that bad?”
“No. Well, I mean, yes, sometimes, but not as bad as you think. Honest, Z, I’m okay. I’ll be back in a little bit.”
“Want me to drive you?”
“No,” she said quickly. Too quickly, because Zoe went still and stared at her thoughtfully. “I’m fine in town.”
The highways were still another story entirely.
“I’ll take a rack of chocolate donuts,” Zoe said. “Unless, of course, you’re not really going for goodies but to AJ’s house.”
Darcy blinked. “That’s … ridiculous.” Wow, AJ was right, she was a terrible liar.
“Just tell me this,” Zoe said. “Did you shave your legs?”
She totally had and she knew where this was going, but she played dumb. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“You know damn well what,” Zoe said. “If you shaved your legs, you’re not going for junk food. You’ve got other … expectations.”
“I do have expectations. For you to mind your own damn business.”
Zoe laughed and flipped off her light.
Darcy was nearly halfway down the hallway when Zoe called out, “Tell him hi for me.”
Darcy pulled up to AJ’s house, which was lit from within.
He was up.
His place was an old farmhouse, which he’d restored and updated. The front yard wasn’t large but the back of the property butted right up to the river. Off to the side was a fenced-in pen where Sergeant, AJ’s horse, grazed. Actually, Sergeant was his father’s horse but AJ had taken over care of the aging animal for him.
Two huge cats—Thor and Stark, left to AJ by his superhero-loving grandma when she’d passed away—sat perched at attention on the front porch, eyes narrowed in feline suspicion, watching Darcy approach as the sky lightened.
And then there was AJ himself, too, in jeans and a hoodie sweatshirt, working a shovel in the horse pen, his body moving with easy grace. Like the cats, he stopped to watch her approach. Unlike the cats, his eyes weren’t narrowed, but warm and curious, making her heart leap into her throat.
She hadn’t the foggiest idea what she thought she was doing. In fact … yeah. This was really a terrible idea, and shaking her head at herself, she turned back to her car. She was reaching for the door when AJ caught her by the wrist and turned her to face him.
His eyes were still warm and curious, and now also assessing. “Hey.”
“Hey,” she said. Look at her all casual, like she hadn’t come here for a booty call.
“If you’re here to give me back the money, forget it,” he said.
“No.”
He studied her. “Same goes if you’re here to fight with me. I’m not in the mood.”
She shook her head again. “I’d love to fight with you but I’m too tired.” As for what she had come for … “Look, I’ve gotta go get Zoe donuts. And I want Gummy Bears.”
He grimaced at her breakfast choice. “So your car drove you here by accident?”
“Yes!”
“To … yell at me?” he guessed.
“Not exactly.”
“Then what?”
She pulled her lower lip between her teeth, and he smiled. “You want me.”
God help her, she did. But her legs were feeling a little shaky and she needed to sit down right now. So she did, right there on the grass lining his driveway, where she let out a huge, wide yawn.
Before she could even register his movements, he was in front of her, on his knees, cupping her face and looking into her eyes. “You’re in pain and you haven’t slept.”
“No. Not since …” When she’d been with him in the hotel room. She looked away. “No.”
The next thing she knew she was in his arms and he was striding toward his house, his long legs eating up the distance with no effort at all.
“What are you doing?” she asked as her arms went around his neck. For balance, she told herself, and not because of the entire body tingle he’d created by the strongman act. “I can walk.”
He didn’t answer, just shouldered his way into his house, kicked the door closed, and kept going.
“AJ, put me down.”
“How about you just pretend to enjoy being carried off to my bed. You know, the same way you pretend to enjoy my kisses.”
His bed? “Um—”
“Talk later.”
Oh boy. She didn’t know whether to be aroused or nervous.
In his bedroom, he let her slide slowly down his body.
Both, she decided. Aroused and nervous. She was still standing there thinking that when he tugged off her sweater and took in the fact that she wore nothing beneath it.
“Laundry day,” she said.
He worked her jeans open and tugged them to her thighs, grinning at her lack of panties. “I love laundry day,” he said, and pushed her jeans to the floor.
She opened her mouth to say something sexy-kitteny but yawned instead. Damn.
Before she could try again he’d nudged her—not all that gently, either—onto his bed.
Anticipation gripped her. Maybe they couldn’t get along to save each other’s lives, but they could have this. And his bed was perfect, big and warm and cushy … She lay back, watching as AJ stripped quickly and efficiently.
Hmm. Definitely way more aroused than nervous now, her eyeballs soaked up the sight of his gorgeous bod. She opened her mouth to say so but another wide yawn racked her. “Sorry,” she murmured.
He crawled onto the bed and kissed her. Then he flipped her away from him.
Okaaaaay. She preferred her wild monkey sex—when she could get it—face-to-face but she didn’t really have any limits, at least none that she knew about, so—
AJ slid a corded forearm around her hips and hauled her back into him, her spine to his front.
More yum. In this position she could feel his hard chest, his powerful thighs … and everything in between.
He pinned her in place with one of his legs over hers and a deliciously muscled arm holding her still as he nuzzled his mouth at the nape of her neck. “Close your eyes.”
She shivered in anticipation. “Do we get to skip a condom this time, too?” she asked hopefully. “Cuz I don’t have one.”
“Shh.” He possessively palmed a breast, lazily stroking his thumb over her nipple.
“That feels good,” she whispered.
His body shook as he laughed at her. “Darcy, shut up and close your eyes.”
“But I’m not tired anymore. Or mad.” She added a butt wriggle against his erection to prove it. “And neither are you.”
“Close ’em.”
“Okay,” she grumbled, “but I hope this means you’re about to do something really kinky.”