All Wrapped Up (A Pine Mountain Novel) (24 page)

“I know. But you didn’t kill Mason. None of this is your fault.”

He grabbed onto her in one uninterrupted rush,
locking his arms around her waist in a fierce grip. Their mouths touched together in a vital connection, and a desperate sound issued up from Brennan’s throat. She ignored the tears pricking the backs of her eyelids, holding steady even though she felt anything but.

“It’s not your fault.”

Ava cradled Brennan’s face more gently, but kept her intention front and center. Lifting up as high as
she could onto her toes, she used her four-inch heels to her advantage as she kissed his forehead, the thrumming pulse points on his temples, the lashes cast down over his cheeks. His breath pitched against her in bursts, as if oxygen was at a premium, yet still, she didn’t let go.

She studied Brennan’s face, taking in every nuance and shadow cast by the orange gold glow of the fireplace. Sliding
her fingers from his cheeks to his hair, she moved a trail of kisses over his jawline, repeating the process on the other side. Rather than eliciting passion, as all their other kisses had up until tonight, Ava kept her movements soft and reverent, trading desire for intimacy. Each soft brush of her mouth had Brennan’s fists growing tighter and tighter over the wool covering her dress, his exhales
pushing out of him in ragged need.

Need Ava was fully prepared to fulfill, in any way she could. “I want to show you what I see when I look at you. Please.” She placed both palms over his wildly beating heart, canting her gaze up to meet his nearly black eyes. “Let me in.”

Brennan slanted his mouth over hers in a kiss so needful and pure, Ava felt it resonate in every part of her. But he didn’t
push, didn’t pursue or take control. Instead, he pressed his lips to her mouth, relaxing his chest against the front of her borrowed jacket, letting his hips melt in with the seam of her body. He wordlessly stood in front of her, letting her deepen the kiss by degrees, parting his lips to grant her access to the warmth of his mouth, his tongue.

Ava took her time, reveling in the fresh, crisp
taste of him. She kissed him languidly, as though time just didn’t exist for them and this moment, right now, was everything she’d ever wanted or known. Pausing to capture his lower lip between her own, Ava teased and stroked and sucked. She tested the heat of his mouth again and again, until finally, she pulled back on a breathless sigh.

“I love the way you fit against me,” Ava murmured, shifting
back from Brennan’s body just far enough to separate the edges of the coat around her shoulders. The cool air of the room felt welcome on her skin as she shrugged out of the garment, leaving her in nothing but her thin-strapped, green silk sheath. She raised her fingers to the hard plane of Brennan’s chest, loosening his tie and freeing his shirt buttons one by one.

“Ava.” Whatever else he’d
thought to say got lost on the tide of his low moan as she reached down to slide her hands beneath his now open dress shirt, pressing past the T-shirt under it to find the warm expanse of his skin.

She countered his moan with one of her own. “I love the way you say my name.” Her hands traveled up, the friction of skin on skin sending a deep pulse of want directly between her hips.

Brennan’s
head dropped back as he said her name again, and oh God, Ava wanted everything about him.

“I love the way you sound when I touch you.” Greedy to illustrate the point, she pulled his dress shirt off his body, tugging the thin, cotton T-shirt that remained over his head and to the floor. The soft dusting of hair on Brennan’s chest lay at odds with the hard angles of his shoulders, and he shivered
as she moved her fingers over first one, then the other.

Fueled by the open pleasure building in his dark, hooded eyes, Ava stopped at his biceps, squeezing tight. “I love the way you like to watch.”

His breath cut out on a round curse as she reached for the hot sliver of space between their bodies, the corded muscles of his inner thigh jumping under her whisper-light touch. Brennan’s gaze
never left her hands, both busily working his belt buckle, and Ava couldn’t fight the lust spinning up in her core.

She paused for just a split second, closing the barely there distance to fit herself to his chest. The dizzying heat of his bare skin tightened her nipples to stiff points, a reaction he clearly felt if the rock-hard erection pressing into her belly was any indicator.

“I love
how you feel,” Ava murmured, her voice throaty from the unchecked need making her breath unsteady and her panties damp between her thighs. But what she wanted was so much less important than Brennan’s need, and even though it took willpower she hadn’t known she had, she broke from his touch to hold only his glittering stare.

“You’re the only person who ever made me feel perfect, even when I
didn’t deserve it. I love you, Brennan. I love you.”

His eyes widened, but she lifted her fingers to his mouth, coasting them over his kiss-swollen lips.

“You don’t have to say anything,” she whispered, and she meant it. The words made her vulnerable, yes. But they were the truth no matter what, even if he didn’t say them back.

“I know.” Brennan kissed the pads of her fingers one by one
before placing her hand over the center of his chest. “But I want to. I love you too, Ava. I have from the minute I saw you standing in the Double Shot. In fact, I don’t think I ever stopped.”

They joined in a passion-filled kiss she felt in every fiber, all the way down to her most fundamental parts. With a few swift movements, Ava undressed him until he was bare. Her body, her mind, her heart,
every part of her begged to have him inside of her until they both came undone, only so they could start from the beginning and do it again.

Brennan’s hands rode the length of her thighs, forging a path of tingling demand as he moved higher over the silk of her short hemline. A moan lifted up from her chest when he paused at her breasts, creating blissful friction between the ultrathin fabric
and the purposeful movement of his thumbs.

Unable to wait even another second for him to touch her naked skin, Ava swung around in his grasp, so close that the heat between their bodies hypnotized her with raw suggestion. She dropped her chin toward her aching nipples to give him access to the zipper on her dress, looking over her shoulder at him without hesitation.

“Please. Take this off
and take me to bed.
Please
.”

The taut muscles of Brennan’s chest flexed into her shoulders and back, and he seamlessly threaded his fingers through her hair, guiding the zipper of her dress down to the small of her back. Ava sighed with both relief and yearning as the dress floated to the floor with a
shush
, and Brennan tightened his grasp on her hips as he pulled her even closer from behind.
His cock pressed into her back, and she arched to meet him, his mouth and hands moving over her now-bare skin just slowly enough that she thought she’d scream.

His palms flashed over her shoulder blades, moving around to test the weight of her breasts from behind before sliding his hands down to the flare of her hips. She rocked against his arousal hard enough that he dug his fingers into the
ribbons holding her panties together, and she did it again just to take in his involuntary exhale over her shoulder.

Together, they made their way to the bed on the far wall, the firelight reaching for them in strains of amber and gold. Brennan stopped only for a brief second to take a condom from the bedside table drawer before joining Ava on the soft sheets.

“Hey.” He lay down next to her,
their bodies side by side, and brushed a kiss over her mouth. Everything about the moment, from the rasp of his goatee on her lips to the slide of his fingers under her chin as he held her close to kiss her again, made Ava feel beautiful and brand new.

“Hey.” They parted for just a breath, forehead to forehead, chest to chest. But the desire drawing them together quickly became too strong to
ignore, and Brennan put on the condom with a few circumspect movements. As soon as he finished, Ava slipped out of her panties, guiding his back to the bedsheets and pushing him prone to straddle his hips.

“Jesus, Ava. I want you so much.” Brennan tipped his body up, fitting his cock against her slick entrance, but she didn’t rush. The scent of brisk oceans and pure need filled up her senses,
and she gasped as he rocked into the cradle of her hips, slowly filling her body as well.

“Brennan.”
She leaned forward, framing his shoulders with both hands and saying his name as if no other words mattered. Brennan kissed her neck, twisting his fingers through her hair to reveal more skin, more want, more everything as he slid his tongue over her. They moved together in slow, suggestive thrusts,
but all too soon her body demanded more.

Brennan surged beneath her, arching up again and again until they were joined so completely that she had to let go. His hands wrapped around her hips, lifting and lowering in gorgeous rhythm. Ava surrendered control of her motions, gripping the sheets with tight fists and leaning all the way over his chest as Brennan led her higher, tighter, faster. His
eyes never left hers, and when he hooked both hands over the curve of her backside to open her even wider as he thrust, Ava shattered on a ragged cry.

“I love the way
you
sound when I touch you,” he said, bringing her back to earth with a series of soft kisses and shallow movements. Need rekindled under her skin, but it wasn’t desire for her own release.

It was desire for his.

“Like this?”
She moaned her approval of Brennan’s touches, his left hand still firm on the swell of her ass, his right doing wicked things to the spot where their bodies joined. His ministrations intensified with her gasps, his own voice blending in with pleasured groans until finally, on one last thrust, he went completely taut beneath her.

After a portion of time Ava couldn’t measure, they shifted apart,
but just long enough to quickly clean up, then resettle against the sheets and each other. The gas-powered firelight draped over the bed, providing just enough illumination for Ava to catch Brennan’s gaze.

“It’s been a long day. Let’s get some sleep,” she whispered, gathering him close. Although it wasn’t terribly late, he looked exhausted, and the words he’d spoken earlier sprang into Ava’s
heart with a jolt.

With one hand on his chest and the other holding tight beneath his shoulder, she waited until Brennan’s breathing evened out into long, deep pulls. When his face went totally lax with the mark of deep sleep, she kissed his temple and slid from the bed.

Ava dressed quickly in jeans and a long-sleeved
T-shirt, scooping up her bag with carefully planned moves. She padded into the hall, closing the door with a near-silent
snick
before flipping her cell phone into her palm to send Ellie a quick all-is-well text.

She’d deal with the fact that it was a bald-faced lie later. Right now, Ava had bigger things on her plate.

Namely, the newspaper article sitting spring-loaded and ready to deliver
to her knuckle-dragging overlord of a boss first thing Monday morning.

The hotel lobby was empty, not exactly a shock considering it was Christmas. All the guests were likely there for Ellie’s wedding, and by now, the late dinner reception had to be in full swing at the country club.

Ava slid into the damask wingback chair standing sentry by the computer reserved for guests, tapping the keyboard
to life. Her fabric-bound notebook lay nestled in the bag at her feet, but she left it there, unopened. A few swift keystrokes had her on the home page of her favorite search engine, and with her heart lodged firmly in her throat, she typed with shaky fingers.

The screen exploded with results, and each article made her heart break for Brennan that much
more.

She couldn’t add to his grief with another one, even though she believed in every word of the story she’d written. Turning in the piece she’d done—no matter how well intentioned and well delivered—would rip his old wounds right back open.

And this time, the pain just might ruin him.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Brennan blinked back the momentary displacement of waking up in a bed other than his own, blearily calculating the details of the night before. The muscles strung across his lower back threatened their usual mayhem, and he very nearly gave in and gritted out the pain.

Until he realized Ava was snuggled up next to him, wearing nothing but a bedsheet.

“Mmm.” She stirred
slightly, turning away from the morning sunlight slipping past the curtains on the far wall and further into his chest. “How’d you sleep?”

His muscles held tight, but the pain didn’t double like usual. “Okay.” In truth, he’d slept harder than any night in recent memory, although he felt more restless than revitalized.

Ava was the first person in two and a half years to know the full-blown
truth about his past.

And she was the
only
person on that very short list who thought he was a good man in spite of it.

“You barely moved all night.” Ava peered up at him, her sleepy-sweet expression kicking his unease down a notch.

All night . . .
damn it! “I missed half of Ellie’s reception.” Brennan pushed up from the bed, his pulse three steps ahead of him, but Ava calmed his burst of
panic with just a simple touch.

“I talked to her after you fell asleep. Twice, actually.”

Confusion replaced the unease darting through his gut. “You did?” Had he been that out of it, that Ava had talked to Ellie twice and he’d had no clue?

“Mmm hmm. I went out in the hallway so I wouldn’t wake you. She said, and I quote, ‘Tell him to get some rest, and to stop worrying about missing the
damn reception.’”

Okay, so his sister had his number, big time. “I feel bad that I wasn’t there for her.”

“You
were
there for her. For as long as you could be.” Ava paused, tucking the sheet beneath her arms as she sat up to look at him. “I think she feels bad that Alex and Cole were at the wedding.”

The panic he’d just gotten rid of returned tenfold. “Did she see me talking to them last
night?” They’d kept their words quiet, sure, but any idiot would’ve been able to see the tension on their faces if they’d been standing close enough to that alcove.

Ellie was far from an idiot.

“No,” Ava said, and a single syllable had never sounded so good in Brennan’s ears. “There were five hundred people spread out over three rooms at that cocktail hour. I don’t think anyone saw you. Not
to notice the conversation, anyway.”

“Good.” Brennan reached for the basketball shorts he’d discarded in a heap by the bed yesterday morning, skinning into them before letting his feet hit the floor. “We can get on the road as soon as you’re ready. I’ll call Ellie when we get back to Pine Mountain this afternoon. She and Josh aren’t leaving for their honeymoon until Monday.”

“Are you sure
you want to leave so soon?” Ava asked, no less than a thousand other questions banked in her wary, emerald stare.

Brennan should’ve known she’d hop the inquisitive path sooner or later. As much as he knew she was trying to help, he wasn’t changing his mind. Not about this. “It’s the only choice I have, Ava. I need to leave Fairview, the sooner, the better. It was stupid to think I could avoid
a blowout with Alex and Cole.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t.”

Her words arrived soft and sure, without indictment, but they still hit him like a flathead ax. “So you think I should just what? Go back to Station Eight and tell my side of things like it’s no big deal? You know what happened that night.”

“Yes.” Ava slid from the bed, the sheet rustling as she pulled it from its mooring in order
to reach the spot where he stood. “But do Alex and Cole?”

“They were there,” Brennan said, desperate to tamp down his churning emotions even though he couldn’t force himself to swallow the rest. “They had their radios on just like everyone else, and . . . they helped pull both of us out after the floor caved in. Believe me, they know
exactly
what happened.”

“After what I heard last night,
I don’t think they do.”

Brennan cursed. “I was heavily medicated right after the fire. My first surgery was only a day later, to relieve some of the swelling and start to repair the damage. Our captain came to see me, and at first the guys were there too. But I couldn’t face them after . . . Mason.”

Her chin snapped up. “So you refused to see everyone?”

“Not everyone. I saw my captain. And
anyway, I meant for it to be temporary,” he argued, fighting more with himself than Ava. “I felt guilty, and I guess part of me wanted them to hate me the way I hated myself.”

“You thought you didn’t deserve their support, so you pushed them away,” Ava said, understanding starting to break over her words.

“I saw Captain Westin twice. He tried to convince me to at least talk to Alex and Cole,
because we’d been the closest. I wanted to, but . . . any time a firefighter dies in the line of duty, it’s standard procedure for there to be an internal investigation. None of us had ever been part of one before, and the whole thing really messed with everyone’s head space. Reliving the fire, with all the details right there in the open . . . that made it even harder to face any of them. So I
shut them all out.”

Ava stood in front of him, her forehead dipped in thought, and Brennan opted for a preemptive strike to end the conversation. “Before you ask, Mason’s death was ruled accidental.”

“Then why don’t Alex and Cole think so?”

“Because I never talked to them to tell them otherwise. The investigation report goes into a closed file, so they only knew what they saw and heard that
night. By the time I got out of the hospital, I was already eating painkillers instead of three squares a day. My best friend was dead, and the career I lived for was an afterthought. Everything I’d ever known had been run through the shredder. I spent four months locked in my apartment, ignoring everyone’s phone calls and trying to go numb. Once I got my reality check courtesy of detox, it was
too late. All I wanted was to get the hell out of Fairview.”

Ava’s lips parted, the last piece clicking into place. “So you left right after rehab.”

“And I never went back. Clearly, Alex and Cole would’ve preferred that I had kept it that way.”

“Don’t you think it’s time you guys hashed things out?”

Ava clamped her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’m sorry. I know that’s easier said than
done.” She stepped in, defusing the argument brewing on his tongue. “But it’s been two years. I get that sometimes the past makes the present hard to deal with. But I also know that once you
do
deal with it, moving on is a whole lot easier.”

She stepped in, warming him instantly as she brushed her fingers over his cheek. “Brennan, you deserve to move on. You deserve to tell them your side of
the story.”

For a single second, Brennan’s gut panged in agreement. Christ, he wanted nothing more than to look Alex and Cole in the eyes and tell them the truth—the real truth—about everything that had gone down. How he’d been devastated not just to lose Mason, but the career he’d been made for. How he missed everyone at Eight horribly even though he’d been the one to walk away. How, as much
as everyone at the Double Shot had welcomed him, he was dying to return to his family.

His home.

“There’s nothing to deal with,” Brennan said, slamming the door shut on the possibility. His chance at forgiveness had come and gone ages ago, and he’d been the one to walk away from it. The only thing he could do now was put his nose back to the grindstone and move forward in Pine Mountain. “I
know you’re trying to help, Ava. But Fairview’s in my past.”

She opened her mouth to argue, and damn it, he just couldn’t do this. “I can be ready to go in twenty minutes. If that works for you,” he said, hating the frost on his words even as he did nothing to thaw it.

“Oh.” Ava swallowed hard, her feet tangling in the bottom of the sheet as she took a stutter-step backward. Her chin jerked
up in that tough-girl defense mechanism she always relied on, and Brennan hated himself with a little extra venom for bringing it to life.

“I’ll be ready in fifteen,” she said, then walked to the bathroom to shut the door.

 

 

Ava blinked back the heavy doses of Monday-morning sunshine blasting their way through the parking lot at the
Daily
, shielding her eyes with one arm as she auto-piloted
through the front door. At six-forty
A.M
. the day after Christmas weekend, the office was a graveyard, with only two other cars in the parking lot for the entire building. But sleep had pretty much laughed in Ava’s face ever since Brennan had told her the entire truth about the night he’d been injured.

If the heartbreak of his revelations hadn’t been bad enough, the sting of him shutting her
out so thoroughly after she’d suggested he try to talk to Alex and Cole had sure done the trick. They’d spoken maybe seven words to each other on the trip back to Pine Mountain, after which they’d picked at an early dinner and chastely kissed before parting ways.

Ava blew out a breath as she scanned the newsroom. Every
cubicle in the place bore zero signs of life—other than Ian’s, of course, but she was pretty sure he lived here anyway. As much as she hated to admit it, her inner voice had a point. Telling Gary they couldn’t run the hometown hero story was going to suck, and not a little. But Brennan’s gut-wrenching admission, plus the additional research she’d done Saturday night in the hotel lobby to fill in
what details she could of Mason’s death, had locked all the pieces into place.

Brennan’s name had been kept from public records to protect his privacy because he’d been injured. Ava just hadn’t realized he’d been hurt in more ways than one.

“Mancuso.”

“Oh!” Ava launched into an ungraceful flail, her leather tote pitching from her shoulder to the foot-worn carpet in front of her cubicle with
a muffled
thunk
. “God, you scared me to death.”

Gary lifted an unimpressed brow as she scrambled to scoop up her scattered belongings. “Your head needs a better swivel. I swear you’d miss a story if it fell right in your damn lap.”

“You’re never here this early,” she said in her defense.

“Royce will be here for year-end meetings in two days. Believe me, he’s not going to impress himself.
Speaking of which.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, his expression so flinty and cold that Ava had to bite back the temptation to ask who’d died. “My office.”

Ava’s stomach did a shift-and-drop that would’ve made most roller coasters proud, but she nailed her shoulders into place around her spine. She was going to have to come clean to Gary about her story at some point today, anyway.

Might as well do it when the newsroom was dead and no one would catch sight or sound of the fallout. Except maybe Ian, and it wasn’t like the guy didn’t already know the score.

“Actually, I need to talk to you about the story I’ve been working on. The firefighter piece,” she started, but Gary cut her off with an impatient wave.

“I
told
you that hero guy had dirty secrets.” He whipped a computer
printout off his desk, thrusting it into Ava’s shocked hands.

“What are you talking about?” She scanned the pages in front of her, a chilled spray of goose bumps washing over her skin. Oh God. This couldn’t be....

“That is an official investigation report conducted by the Fairview Fire Department. Seems your golden boy has quite the past out there in Virginia. It’s no freaking wonder he wanted
to come out here to the sticks and lie low.”

“How did you even get this?” The investigation had been done internally, just as Brennan had said, and none of the specifics were a matter of public record. Ava hadn’t been able to find the report, not even when she’d searched on Saturday night with Mason’s name and all the other particulars Brennan had told her attached to the search.

If Brennan
hadn’t trusted her with his crushing retelling of events, she’d never have connected all the dots. And she definitely got the feeling firefighters kept to themselves with their personal stuff.

No way would one of them talk to Gary, of all people.

“You’d be amazed at the doors that open up when you know how to work a source,” he said. “Let’s just say I found someone at the fire marshal’s office
who was amenable to incentives.”

Her mouth dropped in disgust that she had no hope of covering up. “Bribing a source is completely immoral.” Although it wasn’t illegal, which Gary knew full well.

Apparently, he was also well versed in covering his ass. “No one said anything about paying anyone, Mancuso. I simply came up with information. Information
you
couldn’t wrangle out of a source you’ve
been working for weeks.”

The implication reeked of innuendo, and Ava’s palms curled into clammy fists. “In the interest of full disclosure, I told you Nick Brennan and I have a personal relationship.”

“You think I give a rat’s ass about what you do in your spare time? As long as the story is true, I don’t care how you get it. But the fact remains that you didn’t.”

“Wait . . .” Gary’s words
tickled at the back of her brain before sliding into focus. “How do you know what’s in my article? I haven’t turned it in.”

He threw his arms in the air, sending the buttons on his too-tight shirt into red alert. “Jesus, you really are green. Who do you think owns your laptop? I’ll give you a hint, sweetheart. It’s not you.”

Ava’s jaw unhinged. “You
hacked
my laptop to read my story?” This
couldn’t be happening.

“Like I said, it’s not your laptop. Anything you write on that baby is property of the
Daily
. And there’s no chance I was going to leave you completely to your own devices after your last dud. I need a showstopper, and I needed it five minutes ago.”