by Jill Shalvis
Her gaze skittered away. “What we’re working on?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Us.”
Now she met his gaze again, hers confused. “I wasn’t even aware there was an us.”
Yeah, he hadn’t been sure until right about now, either, but he was sure. Shockingly so. “Feels like there’s a big us,” he said.
Lily shook her head, and just before she closed her eyes he saw the truth. “You’re running from me again.”
“You know that my being here is temporary,” she said. “Soon as I get a job offer …”
No, that wasn’t it. Well, it might be part of it, but geographical issues were just a matter of logistics. Then the real reason occurred to him and his gut hit his toes. “You don’t feel like you deserve to be loved,” he said.
More stillness from her. Hell, he wasn’t even sure she was breathing. He stroked a hand up her back. “Lily—”
“I’m working on that,” she said softly. “I am. But you make me feel things I’m not ready for. I’ve been really good at keeping myself isolated so I wouldn’t engage my heart. So good that I’m not sure I can stop. I’m really talented at not feelings things anymore, Aidan.”
“I don’t buy it,” he said. “You’re warm and open and caring. You can’t be those things without feeling something. You give so much to everyone—”
She shook her head.
“You do. Jonathan,” he said. “Your clients …” He gently wrapped his hand up in her ponytail and tugged her head back to see her eyes. “Me.”
She snorted. “I don’t give to you. You give to me. Constantly rescuing me like one of your five-alarm calls.”
“I care about you.”
“You care about all your calls.”
“I care for you differently,” he said, narrowing his eyes, wanting to force her to believe this. “With a fire call, I don’t get a terrifying fear gripping me like I do whenever I hear that you’re on the trail heading up to Dead Man’s Cliff, or that you’ve fallen down a flight of stairs. You’re not a job to me, Lily. Not even close. You’re more. And I think I’m more to you too. You want to know what I think?”
“I’d say no, but I’m getting that it wouldn’t stop you from telling me anyway.”
He smiled grimly. “I think it’s not that you don’t feel anything, it’s that you feel too much. I scare you.”
“Your life scares me,” she said, and seemed shocked that she’d admitted such a thing.
His heart squeezed, hard. He’d never really given any thought at all to what the people who cared about him went through while he was working. The anxiety and worry. And for someone like Lily, who’d lost her sister so tragically, it would be worse, so much worse. “I get that,” he said quietly. “I do. And I can’t promise I’ll rein it in—it’s my job. But I can promise you that safety is of the upmost importance to me and everyone working with me. Always. But I don’t think that’s what this is. I think the real issue is that you’re afraid of loving someone and letting them love you.”
The look on her face said he’d hit bingo. But he could also tell that she wasn’t ready to go there, wasn’t ready to admit her feelings yet at all.
But at least he could show her his. Especially since he was more of a show-don’t-tell kind of guy anyway. “Come here,” he said.
“I’m right here.”
“Closer.”
She walked into his arms. He pulled her in and kissed her. He kissed her until he knew he’d taken it as far as he could without tearing off that pretty sundress right then and there, and only then did he lift his head.
“Oh,” she breathed, staggering back a step, clearly trying to play it cool—which might have worked if her eyes weren’t dilated and the pulse at the base of her throat wasn’t going apeshit crazy.
He gave a slow smile and pulled her back in, not hard for him to do, since she already had a grip on his shirt like he was her lifeline and she was going down for the count.
She cleared her throat. “So you showed up all Captain America to save the day, and now what? I jump into bed with you? Was that your plan?”
“Yeah,” he said, “but in my version we didn’t talk this much.”
“A full-service rescue then,” she said evenly.
He tried a cajoling smile. “I’m really good at full service.”
“Do you really think this is a good idea?”
He laughed softly and let his mouth brush over her temple and then her ear, which caused her to shiver. “Of course it’s not a good idea. Or we’d have gone for it already. But sometimes the bad ideas turn out to be the best ideas of all.”
“Yeah?” she asked. “Name one.”
“Bringing out your keys from the convenience store after the postcard display demolition.”
She let out a soft laugh and fisted her hands in his hair. “So what now? We really going to try this out?”
Were they? He’d promised himself he wouldn’t give her a chance to devastate him again. But somehow over the past few weeks he’d lost sight of keeping his heart safe and moved onto wanting to heal her heart. “I’m game.”
She hesitated so long he took a step back from her and prepared himself to leave. But her hand came out and gripped his. “You’re wearing too many clothes,” she said softly.
Lily’s breath caught when, eyes glued on hers, Aidan pulled off his shirt. He kicked off his shoes next and reached for the zipper on his pants.
“Wait!” she cried.
Aidan froze, shirtless, his thumbs hooked into the opened waistband of his pants, looking so incredibly hot that she started to sweat.
“We stopping here?” he asked, voice rough but in control.
He’d do whatever she wanted, she knew that. The question was what did she want—stop, or go on … Oh, who was she kidding. She’d had enough of the yearning and endless need. She wanted to go on. Bad. “Never mind. Carry on.”
He raised a brow, a silent You positive?
And because he was being so patient, she suddenly found herself very, very positive. “I just needed a minute. I’m okay now,” she said. His bare torso was rippled with strength and very lightly dusted with chest hair including a treasure trail that left her without a coherent thought in her brain.
“Be more than okay. Be sure,” he said in a voice that made her go damp.
“I am.” Or at least she was ninety-five percent sure. Maybe seventy-five … Because the real problem was that the light was on and she was going to have to lose her clothes too and she didn’t look as good as he did. “So …” Mental knuckle cracking … “How are we going to do this?” she asked. Please say in the dark …
He just smiled. The kind of smile the Big Bad Wolf might have given Little Red Riding Hood. This caused a chain reaction of tremors inside her, the really good kind. “I mean where,” she clarified. “Because the light’s on and I’m having a fat week, so—”
He picked her up. Just scooped her into his arms like she didn’t weigh a thing—even though she’d singlehandedly wiped out her entire junk food collection the night before.
“I love your body,” he said, carrying her across the room.
Her heart squished in her chest, but her wits weren’t ready to give up the fight. “The light,” she said, pointing to it as they passed by. “Let’s turn off the—”
He set her very carefully on the bed and didn’t turn off the light. “You still with me?”
“Yes, but—”
But nothing because he straightened and stripped the rest of the way.
Every inch of him visible.
While she stared in shock and admiration, trying to take in everything at once, from his broad shoulders to the ridged muscles of his abs—which, by the way, she wanted to lick—she forgot herself.
Until, that is, he sprawled out on his back on the bed and pulled her over to straddle him. “Watch yourself,” he said. “Don’t do anything to pull on your cuts.”
What cuts? she thought, dazed. Aroused.
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Pressing openmouthed kisses along her throat, he unzipped her dress.
“Uh-oh,” she whispered, holding her dress to her as she remembered.
“What?”
She felt herself flush. “I’m not wearing panties. They weren’t in my closet where I got dressed so—”
He grinned. “You’re commando.”
“Yes.”
“I love commando,” he said, and then tugged the dress over her head with a gentleness that she knew was in reverence of her injuries even as he somehow also moved with absolute steely unwavering determination.
“Um.” She started to cover herself. “The light—”
“God,” he murmured huskily, holding her hands out, away from her body. “You’re so beautiful, Lily.”
She looked into his warm, soft brown eyes, saw he absolutely meant it, and … melted. Or maybe that was his hands making her melt as they cupped her breasts, then headed south as he slid one between her spread legs.
“Oh,” she breathed, and then her hands were busy, too, trying to touch every part of him she could reach, and with him beneath her, sprawled out for her touching pleasure, she didn’t hold back, wanting all of him. Every single inch.
And he had a lot of really great inches.
He said her name again, his voice low and rough, and then he very carefully rolled her beneath him and slid her hands above her head, pinning them lightly to the mattress.
He looked down at her as she squirmed. “Right where I want you,” he said.
She squirmed some more, but not in nerves now. More like she couldn’t not move. She needed him to touch, needed the feel of his mouth and hands on her. “Aidan—”
Lowering his head, he let his mouth brush over hers, hovering just enough to tease. She tried tugging her hands free, but he resisted with one of those wicked badass smiles tugging at the corner of his lips, nibbling her lower lip, sucking on it, running the tip of his tongue over it lightly.
Which had her ache intensifying. “Aidan.”
Letting go of her hands, he slid down her body. His eyes were darkened and focused on her. “I want to taste you.”
“I—”
He started with her breasts, teasing her nipples before sliding down farther, kissing her sore ribs, then low on her quivering belly.
She opened her mouth to say God knew what, but he pressed his mouth to her hipbone and sucked in a breath.
He looked up at her, eyes hooded, before dropping his attention back to her body spread out beneath him. “Perfect,” he murmured, brushing a knuckle over the skin just beneath her belly button. And then lower, over the core of her.
She bucked against his hand and he did it again, the motion too light so she thrust harder.
He resisted the pressure and eased back.
“That’s just mean,” she gasped.
With a smile that promised all sorts of naughty pleasures, he lowered his head and brushed the stubble of his jaw over her inner thighs.
“Oh,” she breathed softly, going utterly still. “Oh, please.”
“Patience,” he murmured against her, the rumble of his voice sending another wave of pleasure through her as, with a featherlight touch, he rubbed the pad of his thumb right over ground zero.
She cried out and arched up, desperate to have him do it again, but he just held her down as his thumb rasped over her slowly, each stroke pure torture, lazily manipulating her into a panting frenzy. “Aidan!”
“More?” he asked politely.
“Yes!”
He slid a finger into her and then another, and she just about came undone.
Then he replaced his fingers with his lips, gently sucking her into his hot mouth, and her every single muscle clenched as she rocked up and came hard. He slowed but didn’t stop, drawing out the intensity for longer than she could have imagined possible. When he finally released her, he pushed up with his hands and met her gaze, his own blazing. “You liked that.”
She had to unpeel her fingers from the sheet beneath her. “A little bit,” she admitted and thrilled to his rough laugh.
And she wasn’t the only one who’d liked that. Aidan’s body practically vibrated with tension now, some areas more than others. Reversing their positions, she slid down the bed and wrapped her hand around one of his parts in particular, the one quickly becoming her very favorite part.
He twitched under her touch and pushed his hips into her hand with a groan. “And you like that,” she teased, throwing his words back at him. And then she bent over him and took him into her mouth.
He didn’t let her have her way with him for long, and she knew that was in deference to her injuries. He rolled her to her back again, kissing her long and deep and hot before lifting his head and pinning her with his very serious gaze. “Don’t move.”
To her disappointment, he left the bed. Naked and apparently completely unconcerned with that fact, he searched the pockets of his cargoes and came back with a condom.
“How about now?” she murmured playfully when he’d protected them both. “Can I move now?” And then, without waiting for his response, she guided him home.
They both gasped as he slid deep.
Aidan braced himself on his forearms on either side of her face as their gazes locked, and then his mouth found hers as he began to move.
Threading her hand into his hair, she slanted her hips against his and met him thrust for thrust. Deliciously pinned, the fire built inside her again with shocking alacrity. She could hear herself whispering his name. She was close, so close …
When his hands gripped her hips hard and shifted her, changing the angle so that he could go even deeper, she burst into a thousand pieces.
He was right behind her.
They were both breathing hard as he braced his weight on his forearms above her and kissed her, tenderly now, lazily, and full of something she couldn’t easily identify.
He simply stole her breath away.
After a minute he untangled himself from her and again left the bed. The loss of his weight was a huge gaping hole of desertion but she got it. He had a bazillion things to do, fires to put out, people to rescue, a resort to help his brother save.
But a small part of her wished the rest of the world would just go the hell away and let her have a few more minutes with him. Not in the cards, and that was probably for the best. She prepared to heave herself out of the bed, too, but then he was there, right there.
He pointed for her to lie back down, which she did, and then in the most surprising move of all he grabbed the covers and made to get back in with her with a questioning look, brow raised.
She scooted over, making room.
Taking the invite, he slid in and reached for her, hauling her into his arms. The first touch of his mouth along the column of her throat sent a jolt to her already overloaded system and she shuddered again.
“Okay?” he asked.
She was so far above okay she didn’t even have words.
Aidan lifted his head to look into her face and smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “You’re okay.”
“You can tell that just by my smile?”
“No. It’s the dazed I’ve-had-my-business-thoroughly-taken-care-of expression that gives you away.”
She laughed and closed her eyes, letting herself relax into him.
When she woke up, the light was finally off but morning had shown up. She replayed it all in her mind; the tenderness, the urgency, the passion … Still smiling she rolled over, but she was alone.
Chapter 20