When It Hooks You (It #1) (21 page)

“Are we dead?” Trish asked in huffing breaths, her arms thrown above her head. She and Adam lay side-by-side, coated in the sweaty sheen of their passion.

“If we are, this is definitely heaven.”

She tilted her head to the side, examining his elegant profile. “Now look who’s laying on the cheesy lines.”

He rolled over, hooking a leg over both of hers. He wrapped an arm around her waist, nuzzling his face into the warm flesh at the base of her throat. “What else can I do? You’ve captured me body—” he touched a kiss to her collarbone “—mind—” he flicked his tongue over the stiff bud of her breast “—and soul.” He pressed his warm lips to her belly. “Apparently this means you’ve also taken away my ability to speak in anything but cliché.”

He bared his teeth, tickling them over the soft tissues of her abdomen. Trish giggled, clawing her fingers playfully through his mussed hair. She’d never seen anything sexier than Adam Helms with bedhead.

A ripple of light flashed across the high bedroom windows. Several moments later, thunder cracked. “Ooh! Let’s go onto the porch and watch,” Trish said, already rising from the bed.

“Love to. But wait.” He rolled off the mattress and lifted its soft, cream-colored blanket.

Trish smiled, stepping close to give him a light kiss and let him wrap the blanket around both of them. Together, they rounded the corner into the living area. Trish spotted the food and said, “Detour.” She wrapped an arm around his waist, nudging him toward the counter where she picked up a bag of almonds. “Proceed to porch.”

As a bulky unit, they made their way outside. The forest had been transformed since they’d last seen it. Rain fell in slick, black sheets. Only the murkiest glimmer of moonlight soaked through the cloud cover, leaving the world in muted shadow. Two faraway streaks sliced through the black, casting a glare and igniting the magical realm surrounding them. Emerald occupants of the jungle stood with their heads forced down by the relentless pelting, bowing to the slate giants in the distance—majestic kings crowned in amethyst. The vision only lasted a few short seconds but stayed imprinted on Trish’s brain.

“Wow,” was her lame attempt to describe the scene. Adam’s awed silence did a much better job of it. The boom of thunder that followed made Trish jump and press against him. “Wanna get cozy in that hammock?”

After many awkward attempts—accompanied by earnest persistence on Adam’s part and riotous guffaws on hers—they found themselves snuggled together skin-on-skin under the blanket. They were in perfect balance with one of Trish’s legs thrown casually over him and her head tucked into the flat plane of muscle between his shoulder and chest. He curved his arm around her, rubbing small circles at the base of her spine.

With one arm comfortably secure under his back, Trish’s other hand was free to trace imaginary lines over his smooth chest. They lay silently together, watching the night. She’d deposited the bag of almonds onto his abs, and after a while fished around for one. The moment her teeth gnashed down, emitting an inelegant crunch, she regretted the move. But the inevitable stomach gurgling that would ensue if she didn’t eat something soon would be far less attractive. “Here, you have some, too, so I don’t feel like such a cow,” she said.

“I’ve never heard a cow make that much noise.”

She lifted her head and narrowed a teasing glare at his adorable smirk. “I see you’re done speaking in platitudes.” Pulling out three nuts, she shoved them into his mouth. He bit down, and the two of them chomped away, snickering at their racket and giving each other small pecks in between.

She resisted an urge to tell Adam she loved him. She’d suspected that was where her heart was headed ever since it had been so difficult to say goodbye at the airport. After their magnificent bout of lovemaking, there was no point in denying it. The question was—given the circumstances, should she say it out loud? She mutely tossed her quandary into the night and was answered by a low grumble from the restless sky.
You don’t need to say it
, Thunder told her.
He already knows
.

Pressing a kiss to his chest, she inhaled his natural, musky scent. He brought his fingertips to her jaw, guiding her to him, and they kissed, long and luxuriously. Dread of their impending final kiss invaded Trish’s thoughts, causing her throat to tighten. Pulling away, she dropped her cheek to rest against his chest, intentionally putting her face out of his view. She wouldn’t taint their precious remaining time together with angst.

Long moments passed as she stared into the night that was passing much too quickly. The rain didn’t seem like a force of nature, anymore. It was more like infinite tears.

“Thanks for getting me another stamp on my passport,” she said with forced lightness, happy to hear her voice hold steady.

“I felt sorry for the poor thing collecting all that dust,” Adam teased.

Lifting her head and settling her chin on his chest, she made a proclamation: “I’m going to start traveling more. I’ve let enough sands slip through the hour glass. Maybe it’s even time for me to start looking for a new job. One more challenging that’ll force me out into the world.”

“One passport stamp inspired all of that?”

After taking a moment to process his question, she said, “One passport stamp plus an amazing man who makes me want so much more in my life than I’ve allowed myself to have.”

She shifted her weight, upsetting their balance for a moment before swiftly centering herself on top of him, a bent leg planted on either side of his hips. What she’d said was true, though she hadn’t realized any of it so distinctly until that moment.

During the repositioning, Adam had grasped onto her thighs, holding her steady. His grip tightened as the intensity of their gazes locked together. His eyes stayed evenly on hers, deviating not so much as a flicker, when he said, “Be my girl in every port.”

“What?”

His eyes began to move, darting over her face and beyond. “I…I’m not sure exactly how it would work, but I know it
can
work. It has to. It’s too cruel to think you could be brought into my life, that I could come to feel all that I do for you, only to have to let you go.”

“What are you saying?” Her heart tapped an ecstatic drumbeat against her ribcage.

“I’m saying you’re an exceptional woman, and I’m tired of traveling this world alone. I want you with me everywhere I go. You and I could be a team. No—you and I
should
be a team.”

“Business partners?”

“More.” He wrapped a hand around the back of her head, lifting his mouth to hers in a heady, passionate kiss that felt something like a pact.

She leaned into it, and this time there was no way to recover their balance. They crashed sideways onto the decking. Bruises, splinters, and mosquito bites be damned—he took her right there. Roughly, possessively. She met his force with fervor. Lighting and stray drops of rain illuminated and licked their twisting, mutating, fused silhouette.
Yes
, she said to Thunder.
I know he loves me, too
.

Chapter 18

“I
T’S
L
IKE
W
ITH
Y
OU
A
ND
H
AYDEN
,” Trish said to Lyssa. She’d called her friend from a sunny park bench in Grant Park on a crisp fall day. “Right when you stopped looking for love, poof, there he was.”

“You’re quitting your job for him?” Lyssa asked. As usual, she was too pragmatic for fairy tales.

“Says the unemployed girl who left her sweet position to shack up with Wonder Boy.”

“I left my job to attend graduate school at a respected university.”

“That so happens to be in Wonder Boy’s city.”

“I waited until a full year after Hayden and I started dating. Do you even know what this job he’s supposedly going to give you is?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not quitting anything yet. He said to hold tight until he works some things out.”

“What things?”

“I don’t know. Business things. It doesn’t even matter to me if the job falls through. I’m happy he wants to keep things between us going.”

“Yeah, what’s up with that? You said he had reasons for not wanting to let the relationship extend beyond your stipulated three dates. What happened to those reasons? Did they go poof, too?”

“Love makes what seemed impossible possible. He leads a busy, complicated life, and travels almost all the time, so he thought it was impossible to have any kind of serious relationship. Then he got a load of me and rewrote his self-imposed rules.” She kicked at a thick tuft of grass with her closed-toe Mary Jane shoe. “I thought you’d be more excited for me. Isn’t parade-raining more JoAnne’s territory?”

“I am excited for you. But don’t you think things are moving a little too fast? You hardly know anything about him or his business.”

“Not all of us need to analyze the crap out of everything before making a big move.”

“Ha ha.”

“I’m serious. You almost let Hayden walk out of your life because you two didn’t have all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed. I’m not willing to do that with Adam.”

“I’m not saying you need to dot all of his i’s…but don’t you think you should know at least some of his t’s?”

“Trust me—that man is no tease.”

“Yeah, I sorta got that when you said your jaw wasn’t the only thing that was sore this time.”

Trish smiled. “I know why you’re having trouble with all of this—you haven’t met him yet. Once you do, you’ll see how great he is and you won’t worry.”

“It’d be nice to look the guy straight in the eyeballs.”

“They’re such pretty eyeballs.”

“So you’ve said.”

“He lives on the East Coast. Maybe he and I can meet up in Boston one weekend soon.”

“That’d be great.”

“I’ll see him briefly next Tuesday when he’s at O’Hare for a long layover. I’ll ask about it then.”

Two days later, Cliff swung by Trish’s desk wearing a long, black topcoat. “I’m heading out to grab sandwiches to-go. Want anything?”

“If you can wait a couple of minutes I’ll go with you. I’m about to be relieved for my lunch break.” She’d told Cliff earlier that she and Adam had decided to continue seeing each other but hadn’t elaborated on details.

He waited, and they soon stepped out onto the sidewalk. After exchanging compulsory commentary on the sudden briskness in the air, Trish launched into the topic that had shanghaied her brain. “Are you feeling better about Adam now that he hasn’t abducted me?”

“I’m not so sure he hasn’t,” Cliff said. “Your body’s here, but your mind’s still off with him.”

Trish studied his dark brown eyes and saw warmth rather than anything accusatory. “It’s that obvious?”

His wide mouth stretched into a grin. “Totally.”

Trish’s smile matched his. She definitely preferred his approval to Lyssa’s skepticism. Of course, Cliff didn’t know everything yet. “What would you think if I told you I’m considering putting my body with him, too. Full time.”

“Marriage?”

“No. Not yet. We’ve still got a lot to learn about each other before making a commitment like that. But, Cliffy…he’s the first guy I’ve been with who, when I think about
forever
, I want to go running full speed toward him instead of away. Occasional weekends together aren’t enough for us anymore, so he’s offered me a job traveling with him. Specifics still need to be figured out, but unless it looks like a terrible deal, I think I’m going to do it. Am I moving too fast? Am I being stupid?”

Cliff stopped walking and turned toward her, putting his hands on her shoulders for emphasis. The crisp temperature brought pinkness to his pale, rounded cheekbones. “Sugarplum, the look on your face whenever you talk about him or think about him—which seems to be all the time—is a look we all hope to wear one day. You can’t move too fast when you’ve got something like that in your sights. The only stupid thing would be to let it get away.”

She lunged forward, circling her arms around his ribcage like a vise. Her face pressed into his coat so tightly, she felt the trembling of his chest as he chuckled. She hadn’t realized until that moment how much she’d needed his reassurance.