Hitched (19 page)

That thought made her sit up straighter.

If she saw them on the streets of Promise Harbor, that meant she’d be back
in
Promise Harbor.

Of course, she’d be back in Promise Harbor eventually. Wouldn’t she?

She had to be. She couldn’t stay away forever. She couldn’t stay in Bend, Alaska, forever.

Could she?

But if she didn’t stay, she wouldn’t be with Gavin.

He was clearly happy here. He’d found the contentment, the respect and the success that he’d always been searching for. And the harbor had nothing for him.

Her heart started pounding and she felt like doubling over, the pain similar to what she’d felt outside thinking about her mom. Dammit.

This was what happened when she was left alone—thinking.

She shoved herself up off the couch, returning the photo album to its place on the mantel.

She needed something to
do
.

Gavin let himself into the house an hour and a half after heading for George’s farm. He couldn’t wait to get to Allie…and get her upstairs.

But he stepped into the kitchen to find Lydia banging pots and pans. Loudly.

“What’s going on?” He hung his keys on the hook by the door.

“She’s using my Wii.” Lydia banged a metal pan onto the countertop.

“She?”

“Allie.”

Gavin tried not to smile. Not that Lydia was looking at him anyway. She was currently stirring something in a big pot on the stove—making an incredible amount of noise with the wooden spoon she was using—and alternately checking something on the laptop she had open on the middle island.

“Why are you letting her use your Wii?” Lydia had shown up in Bend having hitchhiked from somewhere in the States. She’d never said where exactly and he’d never asked. She had a suitcase and a big paper bag that he later discovered held a Wii and several games.

“It keeps her out of the kitchen,” Lydia muttered.

He did smile then, but quickly hid it. “Did she eat anything?”

“I set pasta salad and bread out on the coffee table while she was upstairs.”

“That was nice of you,” Gavin said, even though he knew she hadn’t done it to be nice.

“I couldn’t let the pasta salad go to waste. Especially since you weren’t here to eat. Again.”

Lydia loved taking care of him. He just labeled their relationship “complicated” and didn’t think too much about it. But he knew that Lydia took her job with him seriously and found a lot of reward in it. So, when things happened—like him not being here to take care of—she got pissy.

“But she didn’t eat it,” Lydia added.

Dammit, again. When was that woman going to start taking care of herself—or letting him take care of her?

“Why not?”

Lydia scowled at him. “Probably to piss me off.”

Gavin thought about that and decided not to agree or disagree on that point.

“All I know is that she eventually came back downstairs. I just ignored her until I heard her swearing. Then I went to check.”

“To make sure she was okay?” Gavin asked with a small smile.

“To make sure she hadn’t broken a lamp or that she wasn’t bleeding on the carpet or something,” Lydia said. “Blood’s a bitch to get out.”

Gavin
definitely
wasn’t going to comment on that.

“But she was just using the stupid workout game that came with the Wii. I’ve never done it. It looked like yoga.”

Gavin glanced toward the living room. Yoga. Yeah, Allie did yoga. He remembered it vividly. And fondly. The yoga pants made her ass look amazing and some of the poses were downright erotic—at least when it was Allie doing it in front of him. More than once he’d come home to find her working out and had been unable to keep from working her out in another way.

“Yoga, huh? I better go check on her.”

“It’s not gonna work to calm her down,” Lydia said. “She can’t relax. She’s like a frickin’ hummingbird. She can’t sit still, she can’t just chill. I liked her better when she was sleeping all day.”

A hummingbird. Not a bad analogy. “She’s been having a hard time.”

Lydia just looked at him for a long moment. “Lots of people have hard times.”

“Yep. And some of them handle it by going to bed for several days, some handle it by keeping busy, and some…” he paused meaningfully, “…handle it by running away.”

Lydia turned to the stove and banged her spoon on the pan again. “Just make sure she doesn’t break my machine or she’s buying me a new one.”

Got it. They weren’t going to talk. That had been working for them for almost a year now.

He headed for the living room, hoping to find Allie in the bridge pose.

But he pulled up short in the doorway.

She was most definitely not doing yoga.

She was punching and kicking. Hard. She was gasping for air and sweating and looked like she’d been at it for a while. She also looked like she was worked up enough to keep going.

He propped his shoulder against the doorway and watched for a few minutes, not wanting to get in the way of this. It looked like kickboxing wasn’t new to her. Besides, she was wearing yoga pants and an exercise bra. Only. It wasn’t yoga, but he couldn’t help but appreciate the view.

Finally she stopped and put her hands on her knees, bending at the waist and pulling in long breaths. Clearly she didn’t know he was there, so he took time to drink in the sight of the curve of her back, the way tendrils of hair escaped her ponytail and clung to her wet skin, the way her breasts lifted and fell as she breathed.

After a minute, she lowered herself to the floor and then sprawled on her back, knees bent, still just breathing. Her eyes were squeezed tight and she flung an arm over her face. There was something about her, something about how she was pushing herself, something about all of this that felt…wrong. Something was off. He should have been concerned about her working out so hard. She’d just gotten over being sick. In fact, she wasn’t even done taking her antibiotics yet. Surely she should be taking it easier than this.

He started into the room, but just then Allie pounded her fists onto the floor beside her. “Fuck!”

Eyebrows up, he watched her push to her feet, stomp to the Wii and change the game disc. A moment later, she stepped back, pushed some buttons on the controller in her hand and then started shooting the crap out of the bad guys that were jumping out from behind buildings and cars on the screen.

She blew up a couple of buildings, used a rocket launcher on a truck, and shot several more men before she got nailed by one of them.

She stood, staring at the screen, panting.

“Allie?”

She swung to face him, visibly startled to find him there.

“You okay?”

She just stared at him, breathing hard. Then she shook her head, let out a little sob and stumbled toward him.

He caught her against his chest. Her arms wound around him tightly and she buried her face in his neck. He just held on.

Hands splayed big across her back, he held her. And when it became clear that she was crying, he held her tighter. Her tears were hot against his skin, her body shook and all he could do was stand there, squeezing his own eyes shut and rubbing up and down her back.

He had no words. And he hated it.

It felt like two years had passed by the time she loosened her hold slightly and the shaking in her body calmed.

Minutes later, the crying seemed over, but she clearly didn’t want to move out of his arms. Which was just fine with him. He bent and scooped her up. She didn’t protest, didn’t even gasp. She just cuddled closer as he started for the stairs.

His own shaking didn’t start until they stepped into the bedroom. She right here, real and alive and warm and sweet, and…he had no fucking idea what to do with her.

Having Allie in his bedroom had always been simple before. They made love all the time. There wasn’t a position or a time of day they hadn’t tried. And it was always fantastic. She was expressive and honest in bed and he’d quickly learned what she liked, what made it good for her, and then he made sure that every single time was incredible. Loving her, physically and emotionally, had been easy.

Now, though, everything was new. Her needs weren’t as straightforward as they’d been before. He wasn’t the expert at knowing what she wanted and needed now.

He hated that.

The thing, the person, he’d always been most sure of was now what he was feeling most insecure about.

In the past, he’d been well acquainted with the things he was trying to prove, the things that he felt less than amazing at. He’d been trying to make his way, make his mark, earn his place for a long time now.

In Bend, he’d done it. He really had. He belonged here because of who he was, not because of his father or some favor someone had done for his father. Gavin was accepted and liked and respected because of who
he
was. He was confident and calm and happy with himself for the first time in years.

Until now.

Confident and calm were not how he was feeling with Allie.

He’d grown up, he wanted to be serious but—he didn’t even know all the details about what she needed him to be serious about.

Then his shaking got worse. What if she told him what the tears were all about and he had no idea how to fix it?

He didn’t have serious conversations with anyone. He and Lydia danced around her past, he and his family didn’t stay in touch, Hayley was the closest thing he had to a lifelong friend and they’d mostly just screwed around and gotten into trouble together. If there was anything serious or life-changing going on in her life, he sure didn’t know about it.

And now there was Allie—who needed
something
. Something he wasn’t sure he could give her.

Yeah, calm and confident were definitely not the things he was feeling here.

He glanced around and then headed for the bathroom.

He set her gently on the counter and pulled away slowly, making sure she could hold herself up. “You got it?” he asked.

She nodded.

He turned and started filling the tub. He didn’t have bubble bath or scented candles or any of…whatever else girls used in the bathtub. But warm water couldn’t hurt.

They didn’t try to talk over the running water and he resisted looking at her. Without the tears, he was more aware of just how much skin really showed in her workout gear, and he was trying to ignore the fact that she was going to have to undress to take a bath. Hopefully she could manage that on her own and not need his help…

Her turquoise workout bra hit his shoe.

He looked up to find that she’d shimmied off the countertop and was now peeling her yoga pants off, watching him as she stripped.

Her bare breasts bounced as she moved, the tips hard, making his mouth water.

With her pants and panties at her ankles, she kicked the clothes free and Gavin greedily took in the sight of her. She reached up and pulled her ponytail loose, shaking her hair out, and he watched as the strands floated up, then came to settle around her shoulders.

He was rock hard within seconds.

“Allie,” he rasped, not really sure what he was going to say after that.

“Touch me, Gavin.”

God. How could he resist that? He’d walked away from her like this already once today. How could he be expected to continually say no to what they both wanted so much?

He stood and took a step forward. He ran his hands from her shoulders to her fingertips, still battling with the wisdom of doing even that much. But Allie took his hands and lifted them to her breasts.

His air whooshed out as her nipples pressed into his palms and she rocked closer, her eyes sliding shut. “Yes. Touch me. Make me think only about you.”

He wanted to help her work through it, not just distract her from it all. But even as he thought the thought, his thumbs brushed over her nipples, sending electricity skittering up his arms.

She gasped and pressed closer. “Yes, Gav.”

He should say something. Something supportive and encouraging. He should tell her that he was here, for her, for so much more than this. But her hands slid under his shirt and up over his chest and the contact made everything in him tighten.

She needed this. She needed him. For this. No one else could make her feel the way he did.

And he still had no effing idea what to say or how to say it anyway.

So he kissed her instead.

And when her tongue stroked against his and her nails dug lightly into his pecs, his brain shut down and his body took over.

He knew one thing—
this
he was good at. Making Allie feel good physically was something he was very good at.

He lifted her back onto the counter and stepped between her knees, then filled his hands with her breasts again. She arched into him, kissing him hungrily, her hands in his hair, then under his shirt again, then around to his ass. She wrapped her legs around him, her heels digging into his butt, urging him closer.