by Amy Andrews
Even the thought of it now was enough to make her blood run cold.
Oscar was her son. She’d sat and watched too often as he’d fought to survive, to breathe, to live. There wasn’t any system she wouldn’t have fought to keep them together.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘SO...’ HE STARED into her eyes, confusion in his own. ‘Where did you go? Have you been homeless for five years?’
‘No.’ Trinity shook her head vehemently. It was important that Reid knew she hadn’t been irresponsible with her son’s welfare. ‘I told you, that’s only been a few times.’
‘Okay.’ He held up his hands in surrender. ‘I believe you.’
‘Initially I was able to rent a room in a share house. I got a job as a cleaner at a small hotel. The boss allowed me to bring Oscar to work. I strapped him to my chest and went with him from room to room. But then Oscar caught a bug and it knocked him flat. This time he ended up in Paediatric Intensive Care for two weeks. I lost my job. And the accommodation.’
‘So. He’s had ongoing problems?’
‘Multiple readmissions with respiratory infections. Multiple ventilations. Many, many weeks and months in hospital. In fact he’s spent more of his life in hospital than out of it.’
‘I’m assuming that meant a lot of lost jobs and accommodation.’
‘Yes.’ Trinity grimaced. ‘We got by though. I always found work again and another place to live. But...it was stressful. Nowhere near as stressful as seeing your kid hooked up to monitors and machines, struggling to breathe though.’
He nodded and she could see in his eyes that he knew what it was like to witness someone in respiratory distress.
‘You wouldn’t know it now,’ he said. ‘I mean, he’s a little pale and a bit on the skinny side but he seems healthy. He’s bright and alert and has oodles of energy.’
Trinity smiled. ‘It’s been six months since his last admission at the beginning of winter. The specialists told me he should improve as he grew and his lungs got bigger and I’m starting to hope that he really is over the worst of it. Knock on wood.’
She looked around for some wood but in the wrought-iron love seat there was nothing. She wasn’t superstitious but she’d learned not to tempt any kind of fate where Oscar’s health was concerned. Reid smiled and dipped his head towards her for Trinity to knock.
She stared at the long glossy hair for a few moments. A patch of dull gleamed where it caught the muted starlight. The urge to tunnel her fingers into it, to sift through it, almost overrode her need to pander to superstition. Not trusting herself, she gave a quick knock, her knuckles protesting as they met unyielding skin and bone.
‘Ow.’ She gave a half-laugh as she withdrew her hand, rubbing the bony knobs absently. ‘I think it’s made of rock, not wood.’
He lifted his head and grinned at her. ‘Are you accusing me of being hard-headed, Ms Walker?’
Trinity’s breath hitched at the lightness in his gaze, at the tease. Almost as if he was...flirting. The knowledge whispered against her nipples and trembled through her thighs.
‘Well,’ she said, smiling at him, trying to keep it friendly and not flirty, which was what they’d agreed to, ‘your head did almost break my knuckles.’
He threw his head back and laughed, big and full and strong, and her heart fluttered a wild tango as the deep, rich sound resonated through every cell of her being. Her gaze fell helplessly to the bare stretch of his neck, to the line where his beard ended and his throat began. To the thick thud of the pulse bounding just within touching distance.
Licking distance.
The laughter cut out and he lowered his chin until his eyes met hers again. ‘I’ve been called worse. Including soft-headed.’
Trinity smiled at his self-deprecation. ‘Well, I don’t know about that but definitely soft-hearted.’
His low dismissive snort oozed all over her, her breath stuttering to a halt as his gaze strayed, zeroing in on her mouth. He stared at it—hard. As if he was mapping its contours, deciding just how he was going to kiss it.
Her pulse fluttered madly at her pulse points.
There wasn’t much distance separating them, he could lean in and his lips would be on hers in a heartbeat and for a crazy moment she thought he was actually going to do it. He made a slight, almost imperceptible, move towards her. Less than a move, really, more a disruption of the air currents.
But then it was gone, in the blink of an eye, leaving nothing but her madly pounding heart.
‘Okay,’ he muttered, swivelling his eyes forward again, shaking his head. ‘I think I should definitely leave now.’
It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. A purely rhetorical one that required none of her input. He drained his drink. ‘Thank you,’ he said, not looking at her, staring out into the night instead. ‘For telling me about your stuff. I know it’s not something you usually talk about and I appreciate that you shared it with me. I’m really sorry that you’ve had to go through all you’ve had to go through. I’m sorry that life is so unfair to so many while it’s abundantly good to others.’
Before she had a chance to answer, the love seat was swinging crazily and he was gone, passing in front of her like a shadow. Trinity blinked as the door slid and clicked shut behind her.
Soft-hearted indeed.
* * *
Five hours later, Trinity was still wide awake staring at the ceiling. She’d like to pretend that it was because Oscar wasn’t snuggled in bed with her or that she was fretting about how he was getting on at Raymond’s, but that would be a lie.
She was lying awake thinking about that moment with Reid. The one where he’d almost kissed her. If that was what it had been. If it hadn’t been a trick of the dark. If her fevered body hadn’t just...imagined it.
But it was circling around and around in her head, refusing to leave.
He’d looked at her mouth as if he’d wanted to devour it. As if he’d wanted to own it. And the way he’d lectured himself about needing to go inside? As if he was trying to convince himself. Compel himself.
Because why?
Because he might be too tempted to kiss her if he stayed?
For so long now she’d been denying that Reid was really attracted to her. Telling herself that the great dry-humping incident had been mostly one-sided and he’d just reacted as any red-blooded man would. That it was only her who thought about kissing him way more than was good for her. Who dreamed erotic dreams. Who woke with her body on fire and an ache between her legs.
It seemed ludicrous that he could reciprocate such desires. He was a well-to-do, successful, self-assured guy. He had a home, a job, he had family and every kind of creature comfort. He wasn’t hard up for anything.
She’d bet he wasn’t hard up for women either. Just because she’d never seen a woman and he spent all his time either at work or home with Eddie, Oscar and her, didn’t mean there wasn’t one.
Why would he lust after some chick who came with a sickly kid and more baggage than an airport who he’d plucked off the street?
Trinity’s fist curled into the sheet and she rolled on her side, a frustrated growl gurgling in the back of her throat. She stuffed her hands between her legs, pressing hard to ease the ache that was slowly becoming a roar.
She couldn’t deny how much she wanted him. How this feeling had grown from an initial flare of attraction to a full-blown obsession. Was it possible that he could actually want her too?
The man did funny things to her heart, things she didn’t understand and didn’t want to examine too closely. But what he did to her body she did understand.
Desire and passion had been dormant in her for so long but they were roaring to life with a potency that was blinding. Trinity tried to convince herself it was because it had been an age since she’d felt
them but deep down she knew it was because of the man who’d roused them.
She rolled onto her back, her body burning as she stared at the ceiling. If she had any kind of courage she’d slip into bed with him and find out once and for all whether that look in his eyes tonight had been real or imagined.
Why not? Oscar wasn’t home and Eddie, all the way downstairs, would never hear them. Her heart beat so frantically at the illicit thought, it practically exploded out of her chest.
But...she couldn’t. She was no seductress. She lacked the guts. And the finesse.
Something bumped in the hallway and her heart stopped with one loud definitive bang. Her breath cut off with a strangled gargle high in her throat. Her limbs froze.
Reid?
Her eyes darted to the door. Was he coming to her? Had he been lying awake too, burning with desire, wishing he’d kissed her?
Was he coming to seduce her?
Trinity shut her eyes and wished like hell he was. It was selfish and indulgent and very possibly crazy but she didn’t care.
Her ears strained for the slightest noise. Anything that indicated it might be him. But there were no footsteps. She couldn’t hear her name being called. Her door didn’t open.
Nothing.
Then she heard it again, followed by a loud meow outside her door. Her breath burst from starving lungs, her heart kicked in, belting along like a runaway train, her limbs jerked back into use as she rolled off the bed and opened the door for Ginger, who had taken to joining them in the middle of the night, much to Oscar’s delight.
The cat strutted in and Trinity’s gaze followed the high, proud flick of its tail as it leapt onto the bed. She looked down the end of the hallway where Reid’s door stood open. He never slept with it shut because he wanted to be able to hear his grandfather if he called out in the middle of the night.
But now it just sat there open. Taunting her. Nothing but night shadows on the other side, beckoning her to the dark side. She willed him to appear in the doorway but of course he didn’t.
He wasn’t coming for her.
Of course he wasn’t coming for her.
If she wanted to have a night of passion with Reid then she was going to have to make the first move because he was too honourable to do so himself. He’d told her he would never take advantage of the situation and she’d learned enough about him these past weeks to know that he wouldn’t break that promise, no matter how much he might have wanted to kiss her earlier.
Trinity stared at the door, her heart racing, torn between the needs of her body and the dictates of her head. It had been five years—longer—since she’d been with a man. Given herself up to sexual pleasure. Well, apart from a spot of dry humping with Reid.
She flushed at the memory even as her body tingled from top to toe. One thing she knew for sure: she was never going to be able to sleep like this and she didn’t want to lie in bed tossing and turning all night, aware of the ache between her legs and him just down the hallway.
Not even a session of self-love to take the edge off appealed. Her body burned for one person only. Her fingers just weren’t going to cut it.
She sighed. Lying horizontal in a bed was not going to take her mind off what her body craved. If anything it was going to keep reminding her of what she couldn’t have. She needed a distraction. So, she was going to take her book—a hard-core science-fiction tome—go downstairs, make a cup of tea and read it in the living room until she fell asleep.
Problem solved.
* * *
The moon had risen in the hours Trinity had lain in bed and milky moonlight flooded into the kitchen through the large bay window. It spilled over the central bench and the floor, turning the already white kitchen candescent. She stood at the sink, glass of water in hand as she waited for the jug to boil, staring out of the window, soaking up the moonbeams.
It was so beautiful she had a mad urge to strip off her clothes and run around in it.
Yeah, just what Reid needed. Not. A crazy, pagan woman running around his back yard in the nuddy. She really had to do something about her horniness or she’d be howling at the moon next.
Another thump behind her dragged her gaze from the window. Damn cat.
Except it wasn’t the cat.
It was Reid. In nothing but boxer shorts. The sexy kind that clung to everything. As if her hormone-crazed brain needed any more stimulus.
He was standing beyond the line of moonlight but she could still make out the dark outline of his tats and his beard. Not to mention his shoulders, hips and quads.
The contours of his boxers too.
Trinity clenched the sink behind her. And her legs together as everything inside her dropped about a foot. Her pulse tripped as if she’d taken a little something other than the desperation of five years of celibacy.
Like cocaine.
‘Reid?’ Her voice was almost a squeak and she cleared it.
‘Oh...sorry.’ The apology rumbled out. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’
‘Me either,’ she said, her voice several octaves lower now, more husky than squeaky.
His eyes were hooded in shadow but she could feel his gaze eating her up. She was in her tatty old T-shirt that was too big for her and had a hole in the sleeve. It was about as sexy as a sack.
‘I was just coming to get a drink.’
The way he said it left Trinity in no doubt that he hadn’t been heading to the kitchen for a cup of tea. More like beer.
‘You want one?’ he asked as he strode out of the shadows into the full blaze of moonlight. It bathed his body to perfection, delineating every dip, line and contour. Every tattoo. Every muscle group.
Trinity pushed through a temporary circuit failure in her brain. ‘No... I’m just making tea.’
He didn’t head for the fridge but for the high cupboards, reaching up effortlessly for something and placing it on the central bench.
A bottle of Jack. The big guns.
He opened the dishwasher that had finished its cycle hours ago and pulled out a glass that sparkled with diamond clarity in the alabaster light and tinked as it was placed on the bench top. He unscrewed, poured a slug into the glass, then threw his head back and downed it in one hit.
He didn’t even wince.
‘You sure you don’t want one?’
Trinity shook her head, crossing to the bench where the boiled jug was waiting to be poured. She slid the glass of water onto the counter top and tipped hot water into the waiting mug, teabag already in situ.
‘You going to read?’ he asked, tipping his chin at her book that also sat on the bench top.
‘Yes.’
A muscle worked in his jaw as he glanced from her to the book then back to her. His knuckles whitened where they gripped the edge of the bench and he looked as if he was about to say something else but he didn’t, just poured himself another drink.
She crossed to the fridge as he downed that one too. She grabbed the milk and poured some into her cup, conscious of his gaze on her. It cranked every muscle in her body to attention.
‘Reading helps put me to sleep when my mind is going round and round,’ she said, needing to fill up the brooding silence in case she took leave of her senses and got grabby.
‘Worried about Oscar?’
‘A little.’ Although God knew that was not what was keeping her awake.
‘Reading doesn’t help me sleep,’ he said, his voice gruff.
‘You’ve tried?’
‘Army psychologist recommended it for post-nightmare management.’
Trinity slid her mug on the bench. She took a step closer. ‘You have nightmares?’ She supposed he must have seen some terrible things while in the military.
‘Not a lot,’ he dismissed, his tone terse, clearly not wanting to
elaborate.
Trinity backed off. ‘And the Scotch helps?’
‘Usually.’ He poured himself a third.
‘Not tonight?’
‘Apparently.’ He swirled the liquid in the glass, watching it intently.
‘So...’ She turned sideways, her hip resting against the counter. ‘Were nightmares keeping you up tonight?’
A short sharp laugh escaped his lips. ‘Not nightmares.’ He shook his head, still staring into his drink. ‘Dreams.’
He glanced at her then, his gaze lasering into hers. ‘You know the type?’
The timbre of his breathing roughened, becoming a tangible force. Caressing right between her legs. The caress became an ache, which morphed into a screaming demand.
The man had also been having sex dreams. She swallowed. ‘Yes,’ she said, her voice not much more than a husky whisper.
‘God, Trinity,’ he muttered, throwing the last drink down and hauling her close. ‘I’m drowning here.’
Reid was insensible with need as his mouth took hers. He’d come to the kitchen for a drink or two to obliterate the nagging desire that constantly pulled at him, to stop himself from knocking on her door, to do the right thing.
Only to find temptation waiting for him in the moonlight in a baggy T-shirt, her hair long and loose.
She moaned against his mouth as his hands grabbed the backs of her thighs and hauled her up, settling her on the bench with her legs wide apart. Moving on autopilot, he stepped between them, his body knowing exactly where it needed to be. His crotch aligned perfectly with the heat at the juncture of her thighs as her ankles locked tight around his back telling him he was exactly where she needed him too.
God, yes, this. This was what he’d been craving.
Trinity.
His hands slid up her thighs under the loose T-shirt, around to her ass then up her back, rucking the shirt up as he went, exposing more and more of her to his view. His nostrils filled with the scent of her, her soap and shampoo and the earthier scent of her arousal. His ears reverberated with the pounding of his pulse and the frantic nonsensical noises coming from the back of her throat.