Secondhand Smoke (Dartmoor Book 4) (21 page)

              “No, Aidan,” she said soothingly. “I don’t want proof. I just–”

              “Just what? You’re being weird as shit.”

              “No, I’m…”

              “What?” he pressed, crowding her, his scowl menacing.

              “Trying not to get my hopes up.” She scowled back at him. A small voice in the back of her mind told her not to be honest, not to give him too much. But she was riled up, and the words were heavy on her tongue, wanted to get loose. “Last night was amazing. Las night was…” She groped.

              “For a writer, you sure don’t have a way with words.”

              “Last night,” she snapped, careful to keep her voice low, “was the fantasy come to life.” Her cheeks flamed. “All these years I’ve wondered, and imagined, and hoped…and suddenly it was happening, and it was, yeah, so sue my vocabulary – it was amazing. But in my experience, amazing things don’t happen to me. So I can’t let myself believe too strongly. I can’t put any stock in the idea that I’ve been the one to make you go straight and narrow, after all this time. I won’t be stupid enough to let myself get hurt like that.”

              She was shaking by the time she finished, chest heaving. But she’d had to say it; it had been clawing at her from the inside, and she hadn’t even realized it until this moment.

              Aidan stared at her. His throat worked as he swallowed. His anger was now tinged with something wilder and more fragile. “So you do want proof,” he said through his teeth.

              “No, I never said that. Proof is built over time. Proof isn’t just a handful of pretty words you say in the heat of the moment.”

              He glanced away, swallowed again, and the overhead light made him look almost haggard.

              It hit her like a fist to the gut, the knowledge that she’d hurt him just now. Badly.

              “You want me to go?” he asked.

              “No.” She stepped in close, laid her hand on his chest and felt the hard throbbing of his heart through his clothes. “Aidan, no, that’s not what I meant.”

              His gaze came to her slowly, accusing and wounded.

              Damn, what a mess. But what had she expected? The neurotic, grownup geek and the irreverent, tatted-up bad boy. A match made in hell if ever there was one. How could there ever be anything but fascination and strange longing between them?

              “Aidan,” she repeated.

              His movement startled her. One moment he was tensed and waiting, and the next his hands were on her face and he was pushing her back against the cabinets. His kiss was hard and desperate. His fingers pressed at her throat. She was shocked, but not afraid. Her hands curled in the front of his shirt.

              As quickly as he’d struck, Aidan pulled back, hands still clamped to her jaw. His eyes darted across her face; he sucked in a huge breath. He wanted to say something, she could tell.

              “Just kiss me again,” she whispered, “and we’ll pretend I never said it.”

              “Yeah.”

              It was gentler this time, but no less fervent, the hot stroke of his mouth against hers. He was good at this, and had to know it. He plied her with his lips and slow surges of his tongue until she was liquid and grasping at his shoulders.

              His hands moved down her sides, lingered at her hips a moment, squeezing, and then unfastened her jeans.

              “Wait,” she tried to say, but it got muffled in the kiss and he was too wild at this point for logic. “Aidan…”

              He skimmed her jeans and panties down to her ankles and dropped to his knees in front of her.

              She glanced down at the top of his curly head, breathless, the blood pounding beneath her skin. She was amazed at the speed and accuracy of his movements as he unzipped her ankle boots and removed them as she lifted each foot in turn. In a matter of seconds he had her totally naked from the waist down, her jeans and boots in a little pile off to the side. God, he was a master at this.

              “Aidan,” she said again, a reaching, incoherent quality to her voice she couldn’t alter.

              “Be quiet,” he told her softly. His hands slid up her bare thighs, bundled the hem of her long sweater.

              The air chased across her skin, contrasting sharply with the heat of his palms. She shivered.

              She knew what he intended, but it was still a shock when he pulled one of her legs over his shoulder, thrust his head up between her thighs and kissed her sex.

              The first velvet sensation almost took her balance. A sound caught in her throat and her hands speared through his hair. Push him away to make the acuteness stop? Or bring him closer?

              Closer won.

              His hands found her hips and anchored her; he stroked her with his lips and tongue, pushed her harder, gave her no chance to catch her breath.

              She was going to fall. She grasped wildly over her head and found a cabinet pull, clutched at it, the position arching her spine, driving her against his ceaseless mouth.

              “God.” She cupped the back of his head with the other hand, cradling him there where she needed him.

              His fingers flexed, the tips pressing into her skin. A tiny communication.
Go for it
.

              And she did. The last vestiges of absurdity, the hesitation that this was happening in her mother’s kitchen of all places, melted away. Sam shut her eyes, dropped her head back against the cabinets, and let herself fall into the release he was working to give her.

              She gasped. His tongue flickered deep one last time.

              It was exquisite.

              Slowly her leg was lowered, and his hands withdrew. When she opened her eyes he stood in front of her, lips glossy, eyes dilated.

              She didn’t recognize her voice, the depth to it. “Take off your shirt.”

              His quick grin finished the melting job on her insides as he stepped back and ditched his t-shirt.

              Speaking of
exquisite
… She took a moment just to stare, eyes tracing over each strong bone, each tight muscle, every intricate detail inked into his skin. The two rivers in the middle of his chest tugged at the storyteller inside her. There were so many more, so many she had to ask about… Later.

              She lifted her sweater off and set it on the counter, stepped toward him. “Will you sit down?”

              He dropped into a chair immediately, hands coming up to catch her waist as she straddled him. She hadn’t taken her glasses off this time and she could see everything: the stubble on his jaw, the warm chocolate streaks in his eyes, the tension in his chest and throat as he waited, not so patiently, for her to lead the dance.

              Her hands shook as she reached between them and opened his fly. His cock was hot and hard in her hand; she could feel his pulse just under the skin.

              “Shit.” He hissed and pressed his face into her shoulder, breath striking hard across her chest. “Baby, lemme get a rubber.”

              “It’s okay. I’m on the pill.” In truth, she didn’t want the barrier. She wanted to feel him come inside her; wanted to know that basic physical intimacy between them.

              He hesitated, gasping as she worked him with her hand. “Sam…”

              “Are you trying to tell me something?” she asked, grinning against his hair.

              “No. No, I…I just wanna be careful with you…I wanna do the right thing…”

              “Oh, Aidan,” she breathed.

              “Are you sure?”

              “Yes.”

              She sank down on him slowly, gasping when he was fully rooted inside, hands spasming on his shoulders. It was the same as last night, that overwhelming sensation of being overfilled.

              He stroked her waist, her hips, his breathing choppy. “Do you need to go see Walsh’s old lady at the farm and get some riding lessons?” he asked with a chuckle.

              “Brat.” She kissed his ear, pulled the shell gently between her lips. “You mean you’re not an instructor?”

              He groaned quietly, and his hands slid down to cup her ass. He pressed her down, until it was almost painful, that deep touch inside her belly. And then lifted. Helped her find a rhythm that left them both speechless.

              The chair creaked as he leaned against the back.

              Sam hooked her toes in the rungs below and used them for leverage, riding him, loving the way his hands kept tightening and tightening on her bottom.

              They struggled and chased it for long moments, working for breath, the room blurring around them. And then they found it, that perfect moment where they fell over the edge.

              Sam tucked her face down into his neck to muffle her whimpering, fingers digging deep into his skin.

              He cursed and his hips kicked, and he whispered something dirty and sweet that she tucked away into her memory banks to save for later.

              As the spasms faded to warm pulses and the blood began to drain from her face, she sat back, braced her hands on his chest and took in the drowsy expression of total contentment on his face. It was beautiful.

              “Can I come upstairs?” he asked.

              “Yes, please.”

Sixteen

Walsh was awake before the phone rang, staring at the black ceiling, listening to Emmie breathe beside him. Some sixth sense had stirred him from a heavy, ominous dream, launching him into the cold dark before dawn with something like dread crawling up the back of his neck.

              Emmie made a startled sound at the first ring, and he’d answered it before it finished. “Yeah.”

              “King.”

              Fox.

              He had six half-brothers and two half-sisters, and each of their voices was catalogued away in his mental file drawers, distinguishable with one word.

              This was Fox.

              “Charlie,” he greeted, lifting his arm to give Emmie room as she rolled toward him.

              “We’ll be leaving here in a few,” Fox said.

              “Okay. I’ll tell the boss.”

              “Okay.”

             
Click
.

              What thrilling conversations they had.

              Emmie sighed and slid a leg across his hips, rubbed her face against his bare shoulder. Her voice was throaty with sleep. “Who was that?”

              “My brother.”

              “Hmm. Which one?”

              He smiled up at the ceiling. “Fox. He’s coming in with the Texas boys.”

              “Fox. I like that.”

              He squeezed her hip.

              She snorted and sounded more awake. “Not like
that
. Though I do appreciate the jealously.” She stroked a hand down his chest. “Don’t worry. It’s not half as cool as King.”

              “Hmph.”

              “So Texas,” she said. “Why are they coming?”

              “They’re the cavalry, love. Let’s just pray we don’t need them.”

~*~

“Yeah. Thanks.”

              Maggie listened to Ghost disconnect his cellphone with a beep and set it down on the nightstand. Dawn was just breaking and the pale blue light coming in through the blinds fell across his face, illuminated his eyes before he covered them with the heels of his hands with a sigh.

              “Texas is on the way,” she said, and it wasn’t a question.

              “Yeah.” He pulled his hands back and rolled his head toward her. “Candy’s bringing Colin.”

              She smiled and then winced.

              “How did he and Merc leave things? Are they gonna try to kill each other?”

              “You’d have to ask Ava” – Ghost’s expression tightened at that, that old dad resistance to the idea of his little girl and his expert torturer – “but I think they smoothed things out. Doesn’t mean Mercy won’t hate seeing him.”

              “Yeah.”

              She rolled to her side and propped up on an arm, so she could face him fully. “Kenny.”

              The mattress twitched beneath her as he stiffened.
Kenny
was a rare thing, used only for moments of extreme passion, tenderness, annoyance…or fear.

              “We’re not kids anymore,” she said quietly. “We’re grandparents. We…”

              “Mags.”

              “I don’t want another war,” she told him. “Not like last time. I don’t want to be afraid of drive-bys every time I go out for coffee. I don’t want to worry about my grandbabies that way. I don’t want to watch Ava bury a husband. I don’t want to bury you.”