Excavated

by Noelle Adams

  Lucy lay beside him in bed. Her hair was tangled messily around her face, her cheeks were paler than they should be, and her green eyes were wide open, watching him.

  “Hi,” she said.

  She didn’t smile, so neither did he. “Hi.”

  They hadn’t done much of anything the evening before, after she showed up crying in his hotel room. They’d gotten dinner brought up from room service and gone to bed early. They hadn’t talked much. They hadn’t had sex. They’d spent the evening in a quiet, exhausted daze.

  But he'd held her until they'd gone to sleep. At least she'd let him do that.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked, his heart starting to beat faster as he realized he would get her final decision about their relationship today—maybe right now.

  She released a long sigh, still not raising her head from the pillow. “I’m tired.”

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  “My head is kind of fuzzy. You know?”

  “Yeah. Mine too.”

  She swallowed, her eyes still resting on his face. “I’m scared.”

  Despite everything, his heart went out to her. “I know, baby.”

  “I believe you—about what you said yesterday. About why you did what you did back then. I really do believe you. I think I understand.”

  “But?” he prompted.

  “But it’s just not that easy.”

  “I know.”

  She took another deep breath, this one shakier. “This is when I run away. This is always when I run away.”

  He knew that about her. Her broken engagements were the evidence. There was no particular reason why she’d want to commit to him now, when she hadn't been able to commit to any man before.

  He just desperately wanted her to.

  "Are you going to run away now?” he asked, as quietly as he could, so she wouldn’t hear how he was starting to panic.

  She looked away from him for the first time. She rolled over on her back and stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t know. I don’t want to.”

  “Then don’t,” he said, his voice rough with emotion despite his attempt to keep it mild. “Baby, please don’t run away.”

  He couldn’t resist any longer, and he reached out and cupped her cheek, turning her face back toward his.

  A tear streamed down her face to disappear in the pillowcase. “I don’t know how to commit, Philip. Even if I want to, I don’t know if I can do it. I've never done it. I just don’t know how.”

  “Yes, you do. You’ve committed to your career. You’ve committed to your friends. Hell, you’ve committed to Arthur. You know how to commit, Lucy.”

  Despite the tension in the air and the seriousness of the conversation, she gave a little huff of amusement. “I’m not sure committing to my dog is really evidence of…of anything.”

  “Isn’t it?” Philip's blood was surging with urgency, and he had to sit up from the momentum of it. “You feed him, you take him for walks, you take him to the vet, you pay all the bills for him—and not just when you feel like it. It’s a commitment, Lucy. Have you ever once thought about not taking him out when he needs it, even when it’s raining and you’re tired and you don’t feel like doing it?”

  She shifted uncomfortably, obviously thinking about what he said. "Of course not. But—“

  “It’s a commitment. You know how to commit. Tell me why you take care of him.”

  She sat up too, adjusting the sheet around her hips. “It’s different, Philip.”

  “Not that different. Tell me why you take care of Arthur—even when you don’t feel like it.”

  For some reason, her face crumpled with sudden emotion. “Because he’s mine.”

  Her emotion affected Philip too. He felt an unexpected tightness in his throat. This was too important, though, so he spoke through it, his voice hoarse, thick.

  He reached out to take her face again, this time in both of his hands. “I’ll be yours, Lucy. I’ll be yours. If you’ll have me. If you’ll be mine.”

  She was crying for real now, her shoulders shaking, her eyes tightly shut. But she lifted her hands to cover his on her face.

  Philip was starting to hope, although it was too soon to really let himself. So his stomach dropped like a stone when she pulled her face away from his grip and started to get off the bed. “Sorry. I’ve got to go to the bathroom for a minute.”

  He didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer.

  She must have seen something on his face. She wiped her tears away with her palms. “I’m not running away, Philip. I really do need to go.”

  He released his pent breath in an embarrassing gust. "Okay.”

  After the toilet flushed, he heard the sink running for a long time, and he figured she was washing her face.

  She looked better—more pulled together, more herself—when she came out. “I used your toothpaste.”

  “Did you use my toothbrush too or just squeeze it into your mouth?” He felt some of the tension leave his chest and muscles, since she looked and sounded so natural.

  Maybe it was going to be all right.

  “I used my finger.” She crawled back into bed and smiled at him.

  Philip chuckled and decided he might as well go to the bathroom too, and he brushed his teeth while he was in there—just in case he was right about things moving in a promising direction.

  He couldn’t help but sigh in relief when he came back in the hotel room and Lucy wasn’t getting ready to leave, wasn't heading back to her place to escape from him. He crawled into bed beside her.

  He didn’t know what to say, so he just looked at her.

  She didn’t speak immediately, but he could tell she was working toward something. He waited as patiently as he could.

  Finally, she said, “I want to, Philip. I want you to be mine.”

  For the first time, he set free the glimmer of hope. It filled him. Warmed him. Momentarily took away his breath. “You do?”

  “Yeah.” She reached out and gently stroked his hair. "And I want to be yours.”

  He smothered a groan and pulled her into his arms, holding her too tightly, unable to stop himself. “You are mine, Lucy,” he murmured into her hair. “You are.”

  She hugged him back for a long time. Then she lifted her head, her eyes glinting with teasing affection. "And?”

  He immediately knew what she meant. "And I’m yours.”

  They kissed for a minute, softly, gently, then she pulled away and settled herself at his side. He wrapping his arm around her more snugly.

  “So how does this work?” she asked.

  Philip was filled with so much feeling and excitement that it took him a minute to talk naturally. He spoke lightly, knowing she was still nervous. “Well, I’m not sure it will look that different than the way we were together before. Only we’ll know it will definitely last longer than each day.”

  “Well, that doesn’t sound too bad.”

  “I don’t think it will be bad at all.”

  She laughed and stretched up to kiss him on the chin. “We still live on different continents.”

  “True. But that doesn’t have to be a permanent arrangement.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He’d been thinking about this for a while—since he and Lucy had gotten together, in fact—but he didn’t want to rush things and scare her when she’d just now taken her first step. “Not now, but eventually—if we both want it—I can look for a job at a university in the States.”

  “But Erland—“

  “It would still be my site. That wouldn't change. Most archaeologists don’t work at institutions near their dig sites. It’s just those weeks in the summer when I can dig there anyway. For the rest of the year, I can live anywhere.”

  She stared down at him in awe, despite his attempt to be casual and laidback. “You’d really move?”

  "Of course, I’d move. I’m not saying I’m going to do it right now. It’s too late in the year for faculty searches anyway, and it might
take me a while to find a job—since universities aren't beating down doors for archaeologists. But down the road…it's a possibility. We won’t have to live on different continents forever.”

  She made a choked sound and lunged for him, pressing kisses all over his face. He had no idea why what seemed obvious to him should have meant so much to her, but he wasn’t about to complain.

  Eventually, he couldn’t hold back so he took her face in his hands and kissed her more deeply.

  Then the kiss turned into more. And soon he was kissing and caressing her body until she gasped and shuddered beneath him.

  Then she made room for him between her legs and he sank inside her. He was still kissing her as they started to move together—urgent, needy, hungry.

  Her body clung to him, responding to his every touch, and it was more than just pleasure he felt in her. He knew it. He felt tenderness, affection, understanding in her body.

  He felt trust.

  It was overwhelming but he didn’t—couldn’t—pull away. He tried to meet it, match it, show her he felt the same way.

  When her tension finally broke and she came with a breathless cry, Philip came too, her tightening body pulling him into climax as he choked out her name.

  Then they just lay tangled together for a long time. He occasionally pressed little kisses against her warm skin, but mostly he didn’t have the energy.

  She gently stroked his back and head, and he loved the feeling.

  “Philip,” she said, after a long time.

  “Hmm?” He pressed a little kiss against the pulse in her throat.

  “When did you get to be such an expert on commitment?”

  He smiled as he lifted his head to gaze down at her. "Are you serious? I’ve never had a problem with commitment.”

  She thought about that for a minute and then seemed to realize he was right. “I guess your problem was finding the right thing to commit to.”

  “Yeah. I used to always choose badly. I would pour myself into the wrong things, the wrong women, and they would only hurt me. So, for years, I figured it was better not to commit to anything at all.”

  She lifted a hand to brush her fingertips along his cheekbone. Her eyes were softer than anything he’d ever seen. “So what changed?”

  “I finally found the right thing.”

  Epilogue

  At eleven o'clock in the evening, Lucy’s patience ran out.

  She put down the book she’d been reading and stood up, slipping on her shoes.

  Arthur had been curled up on his dog bed, but he bounced up immediately when he saw her moving, and he was at her feet when she stepped out of the trailer.

  Erland Island on a summer night was exactly as she’d known it would be. Eerily empty. Quiet. Lit by a perpetual twilight.

  She walked toward the standing stones, where she knew Philip would be, even if she hadn't seen his silhouette, squatting near a trench.

  All the grad students had turned in for the night. Only Philip was stupid enough to still be working.

  “It’s after eleven,” she said as she approached.

  “Is it?” He sounded distracted, absent-minded. He was drawing something on a pad of paper.

  There was a large spotlight aimed at the trench, which gave him enough light to work. Barely.

  Arthur ran over and poked his nose onto the page. Philip pushed him away gently, but not before he’d scratched the dog’s head.

  “Yes, it is. It’s late. You can finish this tomorrow.”

  “I’ve just got a little more—” He broke off when she turned off the spotlight. “Damn it, Lucy.”

  “I’m serious. It’s late. You’re going to hurt your eyes working so long. Not to mention your back. You need to rest a little.”

  He frowned at her, obviously not happy about her intrusion. “I only have a few weeks a year when I can—“

  “I know that. But that doesn’t mean you’re allowed to kill yourself.” Sometimes she could shake the stubborn man. She reached down and snatched his notebook away. “Now come to bed.”

  He rolled his eyes so she would know he wasn’t pleased with her, but he stood up.

  She saw him wince as he did. “I knew your back was hurting.”

  “My back is fine.”

  They walked together toward the trailer, Arthur running ahead. “Well, fine. In that case, I won’t give you a back rub.”

  Philip was obviously tired—his eyes were a little bleary from too many days of running himself ragged. She’d been on two film shoots in a row, since she wouldn’t have gotten to see him much while he was working the dig anyway. But she suddenly wondered if she should have visited earlier, if only to make sure he took care of himself.

  He rubbed at his face as they entered the trailer bedroom—one that held very fond memories for Lucy, since it was where they’d first gotten together.

  “Honestly,” he said, his expression changing, “I wouldn’t say ‘no’ to a back rub.”

  She grinned at him, unable to hold onto her annoyance. She’d missed him so much while they'd been apart. “You’ve got it.”

  She did give him a back rub. And, if his groans were anything to go by, he greatly appreciated it.

  It became more intimate than she’d intended, since his moans were turning her on, so by the time it was over he was hard.

  When he rolled over onto his back, she climbed over him and sank onto his hard length. She rode him until the bed shook, and they both cried out in pleasure.

  They were both tired, so it didn’t last long, but it didn’t matter. She collapsed on him afterwards, sated and affectionate.

  “Give me a minute,” he said, his voice hoarse, exhausted. “I might be able to do better.”

  She laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. It was wonderful. I’m too tired for more anyway.”

  Philip stroked her hair gently. “If you say so.”

  “You need to go to sleep.”

  “If you say so.”

  She giggled and kissed him one more time. “You’ve had a hard few weeks. Plus, you have a busy month or two coming up.”

  “Is that right?”

  “That’s right. We have to go to Dana and Sawyer’s wedding.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “And then you have to visit your mom.”

  He grunted.

  “You’re still planning on that, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  "Good. And then you have to move.”

  “I don’t really have that much to move.”

  “But still…moving to a different continent might be taxing.”

  She could feel him shake with quiet amusement, and he leaned down to kiss her hair.

  She added, “Then you have to start your new job. And what if you don’t like it?”

  Her voice was light, but he must have heard something there. His relaxed body tightened, and he took her face in his hand so she was meeting his eyes. “Lucy, I’m going to like it.”

  “I hope so.” She swallowed hard, still feeling anxious about his making such a huge life change. For her. “I want you to.”

  “If I don’t, I can find another job.” His blue eyes were deep, naked. It was impossible for her not to believe him. “The idea of moving, of living with you, makes me so happy. Maybe happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”

  She let out a shaky breath and smiled, some sort of radiance spilling out. “Me too.”

  Some of her radiance was reflected in his eyes too as he pulled her face down into a kiss.

  “I love you,” he said, against her mouth.

  “I love you too.”

  After a minute, she rearranged herself so that she was curled up by his side—the only comfortable position for both of them on such a small bed.

  “Now, you need to go to sleep.”

  “You’re kind of bossy, you know.”

  She chuckled. “Tough. I’m supposed to take care of you. That’s what happens when you’re mine.”

  There was
a pause, as her words lingered in the air.

  But Philip’s voice was dry, familiar, as he said, “Just remember—you’re mine too.”

  Excerpt from Seducing the Enemy

  If you enjoyed Excavated, you might enjoy Seducing the Enemy by the same author.

  Marietta sighed and drooped against the wall. “Yeah. I guess the moment is over. Every time I think I can…I end up…” Her resignation changed back into a smile. “Thanks for dancing with me, though. I really had a good time.”

  He realized she thought he’d lost interest—as if such a minor thing would dampen his attraction. If anything, he wanted her even more, her delicacy rousing some sort of latent protective instinct.

  “So that’s it?” he asked lightly. “You’re blowing me off now?”

  Her gaze darted up to meet his. “No, I just thought… I just thought—”

  “You thought I was such an ass that I’d be scared off by an irrelevant aversion?”

  “No. I didn’t think that.” She had the most delicious faintly French accent.

  He leaned in until his lips hovered near hers. “You thought I was such a beer guzzler that I couldn’t stand to spend time with someone who doesn’t love it as much as I do?”

  Surprised laughter rippled out of her and her hands closed around the lapels of his suit jacket.

  Harrison was mesmerized by her lovely face—warm, amused, sincere, utterly real. The urge to kiss her was so overwhelming he no longer resisted.

  He closed the slight distance between their lips, brushing hers gently with his.

  He heard her quick intake of breath, felt her fingers clutch at him even tighter. He kissed her again, lingering against her mouth longer this time.

  She broke the kiss after a few moments but didn’t pull away—just asked against his mouth, “So are you?”

  He tangled his fingers in her hair until he’d cupped the back of her head. “Am I what?” He couldn’t wait for the answer before he closed his mouth over hers, deepening the kiss with his tongue.

  She opened for him, her body melting against his and one of her arms twining around his neck. Her responsiveness intensified his desire.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted someone as much as he wanted her.