by Amy Andrews
It had been a long time since someone had kissed her. And never like this. Brian’s kisses paled by comparison. He’d kissed her like the seventeen-year-old he’d been. They’d taught each other, fumbling their way through the joys of sex but too often constrained by lack of privacy. Doss houses and homeless communities, where people all huddled together for warmth and security under whatever bridge or shelter they could, were not conducive to long, lazy days of sexual exploration.
Bri had kissed like a teenager learning the ropes. Reid kissed like a fully grown man.
Like a master.
Like a grand freaking wizard.
‘How’s that sandwich coming along?’
Eddie’s voice came from somewhere out in the hall but it had a galvanising effect. They sprang apart and were on their feet by the time Eddie poked his head into the kitchen.
‘Sorry, Eddie, just dropped the pickles,’ Trinity said, her pulse fluttering madly, her face hot as she blindly grabbed two slices of bread out of the packet and started buttering.
‘We usually keep more than one jar,’ Reid said, heading for the pantry. ‘I’ll get it.’
‘No!’ Her knife clattered to the bench.
Reid stopped and Eddie blinked at her vehemence. ‘You need to be getting back to work.’ She forced herself to look at him but all she could see was his lips, a dark, dusky red from their kisses. ‘I can get the damn pickles.’
Their eyes met and held for long moments before his gaze dropped to her mouth too.
‘She’s right, Reid,’ Eddie said, completely oblivious to the highway of crackling electricity arcing between them. ‘You really should be at work.’
He dragged his gaze off her and smiled at his grandfather. ‘Sure thing, Pops. I’ll see you some time after two. No more slipping out for beers without telling Trinity first, okay?’
Eddie chuckled. ‘I promise.’
Trinity was aware of Reid switching his attention to her. Aware in the same kind of way she’d been aware of him since the day she’d met him. She didn’t need to look at him to feel it. Hell, she could have been totally blind and she’d have felt it.
‘See you later, Trinity.’
She wasn’t sure whether it was a statement of fact or some kind of illicit promise but she was damned if she was going to clarify it. ‘Yep,’ she said, refusing to look up from the job at hand.
She sensed his gaze on her, hot and heavy for long moments before he clapped his grandfather on the back and exited the kitchen.
It was only then Trinity dared breathe deeply again.
CHAPTER NINE
REID COULDN’T CONCENTRATE on work once he returned. Trinity had done the right thing ringing him and his grandfather was safe at home but Pops’ cheeky pint at the pub with his mates was not what occupied his brain.
It should be. Trying to balance his grandfather’s rights to an autonomous, dignified life with the need to keep him safe was going to present all kinds of future challenges if the drug trial wasn’t successful and he started to deteriorate. But all he could think about this afternoon was that kiss.
Both of them.
Even her first chaste kiss played on a loop in his head. So innocent compared to the next one but just as sexy.
He couldn’t remember ever being kissed by a woman like that. Most women who took the initiative usually went in with all guns blazing. Open mouths. A lot of tongue. Squashing themselves up against him, squirming deliciously, raking their hands into his hair and moaning his name.
Trinity hadn’t done any of those things. It had been a closed-mouth, very still, very silent kiss. Yet it was probably one of the sweetest kisses that had ever been laid on his mouth.
It had turned him on more than any kiss he could ever remember.
Frankly he was a fan of all types of kissing but this one had reminded him a bit of his first. Starting off simple, not daring to move or get too fancy in case he’d screw it up even as his body yearned for more.
Yearning.
He’d seen that in Trinity’s eyes just prior to her making her move. As if she couldn’t stop herself. As if she couldn’t deny herself. The knowledge had flared through his system like a lit match and still buzzed through him a couple of hours later.
Reid tried to drag his attention back to the report he was writing for the hospital board on partnering with a robotics lab going into the future but he couldn’t stop thinking about Trinity.
About where they went from here.
It was clear she’d been embarrassed at the prospect of being caught kissing him. Although, in all truth, by the time Pops came along he was kissing her.
She might have started it but he’d definitely finished it.
Hell, he hadn’t been any too pleased at the prospect of being sprung by his grandfather either. He wasn’t some fifteen-year-old kid any more and he’d rather not flaunt whatever it was that was happening between him and Trinity when it was something he wasn’t exactly proud of. He’d been trying since she’d arrived at his place not to think of her in any kind of sexual way but he couldn’t deny he was attracted to her.
He just wished he knew why.
A life in the military hadn’t been conducive to forming long-term relationships but a man didn’t get to thirty-four without female companionship. He guessed he had a type and it wasn’t Trinity. Women who were flirty and witty and easy to be around. Who were relaxed and could hold a conversation in a room full of army officers or laugh at a dirty joke. Hell, tell a dirty joke. Who were confident in themselves and their bodies and their sex appeal.
Trinity was none of those things.
She was quiet and unassuming. Wary. Contained. Prickly, more often than not. Slow to trust. If anything she hid her sex appeal beneath ill-fitting clothes and a wall of polite indifference that could morph to out-and-out hostility.
He understood why. She was a single mother with a young son who’d been doing it tough for a long time. She didn’t have time for the frivolities of life. She was working her fingers to the bone just to survive. Her son was her priority—not herself.
And he admired the hell out of her for that.
But since when had he found it sexually attractive? Because there was something about her that definitely piqued his interest. That didn’t just pull at his heart strings but at the ones in his groin too.
Maybe it was her resilience. Her...gumption. It was the word that had popped into his head the first day they’d met and it’d stuck. He’d always admired gumption—in anyone. But Trinity wore it better than anyone he knew.
Who knew that could be so damn sexy?
Maybe it was the fact it had been a long time between drinks for him? He’d had a couple of one-night stands when he’d been on the road. Women he’d met along the way. Fellow travellers.
Maybe it was some weird misplaced, macho, protection thing left over from the military. But Trinity had already demonstrated she didn’t need his protection.
Whatever it was, it was a problem because he’d been thinking about kissing her a lot this past couple of weeks. It was that mouth. The fullness, the lushness. For a woman who made nothing of her features, it drew his gaze like moth to flame.
But he hadn’t acted on it. The power dynamic between them sucked and he did not want to be that guy.
He wasn’t that guy.
Until today. When he’d thrown his moral high ground right out of the window.
Her kissing him was one thing. But him kissing her? Taking over? That was a whole other thing. She hadn’t even been able to look at him after so he’d no doubt destroyed any kind of fragile trust they’d been building this past couple of weeks. And that wouldn’t do. He’d been trying to show her that there were good people out there, that she could trust people.
That she could trust him.
So he was going to have to rein himself in because what he wanted here didn’t matter. She wasn’t the kind of woman that would indulge in a fling and even suggesting something like that to someone in her position was completely abhorrent to him.
He would never put her in that kind of situation.
Trinity and Oscar were with them temporarily. Until she got back on her feet. He was giving her breathing space. The last thing she needed was him breathing down her neck.
Another guy she couldn’t trust.
So kissing Trinity was out. No matter how damn much he wanted to.
* * *
Trinity came home from school pickup sans Oscar the following Friday. It was strange to be without him. They’d rarely ever been apart and she was feeling stupidly fragile.
It was so dumb. It was what she wanted for him. She just hadn’t realised how hard it was going to be.
‘Where’s the little dude?’ Reid asked when she wandered into the kitchen. He was making a giant sandwich.
Of course.
The man was always eating.
Facing him again after their kiss had been awkward to say the least, even a week later. Facing him in the kitchen—the scene of the crime—was especially awkward.
By tacit agreement, neither of them had mentioned the kiss. Trinity figured the less attention that was drawn to it, the quicker it would be to forget. Re-establishing the distance that had been eroded between them had helped too. Keeping herself aloof from him both physically and conversationally had given her back some control.
Now if only she could control what went on in her head when she shut her eyes. A series of very hot dreams about way more intimate things than kissing had left her tired and achy in places that hadn’t ached in a long time.
She might have actually blushed at the thought as she faced him now but she was battling other emotions. ‘He’s gone on a play date to Raymond’s house.’
Her son had a friend.
The words were foreign and her voice sounded wobbly so she cleared her throat. This was a good thing. It was exactly what she’d hoped for when Oscar went to school. That he’d make friends and finally have a normal life.
‘Oh. That’s great,’ Reid said. His gorgeous face cracked wide open; he was obviously chuffed at the news, his blue eyes shining.
‘Yes.’ She nodded, swallowing the massive lump in her throat. It was awesome. It was beyond her wildest dreams.
So why then was she about to burst into tears?
The tears she’d been battling all the way home prickled in her nose and burned all the way along her sinuses. They pushed at her tear ducts, threatening imminent appearance. They’d been threatening since Celia, Raymond’s mother, had approached and asked if it was okay for Oscar to come over for a few hours.
Trinity had met Celia and Raymond the first day. She’d liked the other woman instantly and they’d chatted outside the classroom most days waiting to pick the kids up in the afternoon. And Oscar had talked about Raymond non-stop.
He’d been barely able to contain his excitement and had wrapped his skinny arms hard around her neck when Trinity had said yes to the play date. Watching him skip away, hand in hand with Raymond, had been the most beautiful thing she’d ever witnessed.
And the hardest.
‘She’s dropping Oscar home at five on their way to Raymond’s swimming lesson.’
‘Cool. Do him good to mix with some people his own age for a change.’
Reid munched on his sandwich oblivious to Trinity’s inner turmoil. She knew he wasn’t criticising her but she wasn’t feeling particularly strong at the moment.
Goddamn it. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d cried these last five years and they’d all been at Oscar’s hospital bed when things had seemed utterly hopeless.
She hadn’t even cried when she’d found out Brian had died. She’d had a premmie baby with a serious heart condition on life support. There hadn’t been any spare emotional energy for someone she’d left months beforehand and who hadn’t wanted his child anyway.
But she’d been in this house for three weeks and she’d almost cried a dozen bloody times. And now she really was going to cry.
But not in front of Reid.
‘Will you excuse me?’ she said, a smile fixed on her face as she turned and walked out of the room.
She walked to the stairs, her sinuses burning from suppressing the well of emotion. Once she got to them she took them two by two, hurrying to her room, desperate to be tucked away inside when the well overflowed.
She shut the door behind her, her heart racing, silent tears falling down her cheeks now. Oscar’s old, floppy bunny sat in the middle of his pillow and the threatening tears burst like a dam.
She tried to choke them back as she curled up on the bed, bunny clutched to her chest. She tried to tell herself this was stupid and futile and embarrassing. That Oscar was happy. But she’d been so worried about him. About him not making friends or fitting in. About being teased because he was smaller.
And now he had a friend.
And it was wonderful and she was so happy she couldn’t stop crying. She tried to muffle her weeping, burying her face in his rabbit, but inhaling the smells of Oscar—the baby powder he still liked to wear after his bath and the orange blossom from the cheap-as-chips shampoo he loved so much—only made it worse.
She didn’t hear the knock on the door and, facing away from it, she didn’t see it open but she sensed Reid’s presence the way she always did. ‘Trinity.’
It was quiet and tentative, causing another well of emotion in her chest, and she shut her eyes hard against it as she suppressed a rising sob.
‘Go away.’ There was no way to disguise the sniffles or her voice, cracked and husky with emotion.
‘Trinity.’
‘God, please, just...go away,’ she half cried, half begged. Trinity didn’t have much in the world but her dignity and she didn’t want Reid to see her like this.
There was a hesitation then a quiet, ‘No.’
She sensed him coming closer and swallowed a painful lump. Bloody hell, Reid! She sucked in a husky breath, dashing the tears away with her hands as she rolled over to face him.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, her voice rough and low.
He was standing about a foot away from the bed, a line creasing his brows together, blue eyes telegraphing their concern and helplessness. He was in usual jeans and T-shirt and stood, hands on hips, looking down at her. Between the broad set of his shoulders and the tattoos on his arms he seemed to take up all the space in the room.
Trinity swung her legs over the side of the bed, levering herself upright. It was bad enough he was witnessing her crying for Australia, she didn’t want him looming over her as well.
He cocked an eyebrow. ‘You don’t look fine. Are you worried about this Raymond kid? Do you think Oscar’s not safe?’
‘Of course not,’ she snapped. ‘Do you think I’d let Oscar go and play somewhere I didn’t think he’d be safe?’
‘No. Absolutely not...sorry.’ He shoved a hand through his hair. ‘But something’s obviously upset you. Why else would you be crying?’
She had no idea why, seconds after being annoyed with him, tears swamped her vision and her face was crumpling again. ‘Because I’m h...happy,’ she choked out, a wave of emotion rolling through her body.
‘Oh, God.’ He searched her face, looking even more helpless, putting a hand out as if to reach for her then thinking better of it, shoving it on his hip. ‘Please...don’t cry.’
The statement and the distress in his voice surprised her. Where she’d grown up most men had been impervious to crying women.
‘Look... God...don’t, okay?’ He took a step towards her then stopped, raked his hand through hi
s hair again, hesitated another moment then covered the short distance between them and sat next to her on the bed, leaving a space big enough for Oscar to have sat between them.
His denim-clad thighs were big compared to the bared slimness of hers. Her baggy shorts had ridden up to reveal a lot of leg. If she’d been in her right mind she might have cared.
‘It’s okay,’ he repeated, awkwardly sliding a hand around her shoulders, patting her arm absently while scrupulously maintaining their distance.
Trinity was too much of an emotional wreck to pay any heed to her determination to keep a physical distance between them. His arm around her felt so good, she actually leaned into him, put her head on his shoulder.
It was a novelty to have someone comforting her. She was so used to wading through the ups and downs of life solo it was a new experience to not be alone.
She’d been too afraid in the past that any sign of fragility would be a signal to those in charge that she wasn’t coping. Too afraid that deeper questions would be asked. That the prying into her circumstances would begin.
It was different with Reid. While she was wary of her physical attraction to him, it was liberating to realise he already knew her deepest secret. She could let it all out with him and not worry about the consequences, just soak up how good it felt to lean on a man for a change.
‘I don’t know why I’m crying,’ she said, sniffling loudly as she lifted her head, her gaze fixing on his as well as it could through a tsunami of tears. ‘I never cry.’
‘Yeah.’ He inched closer until their thighs were touching and her head was more supported. He urged it back on his shoulder. ‘That’s probably why.’
His hand was warm, his palm gently rubbing up and down her arm. ‘I’m just so h...happy he has a friend,’ she said, more tears squeezing out around closed lids. ‘I’ve been so excited for him but I just didn’t expect to m...miss him so much.’