Where Their Hearts Collide: Wardham Book #2 (16 page)

“Our chemistry is real, and unique. I’ve never…tonight has never happened with anyone else for me. Not like this. But maybe it’s special in part because we’re going in opposite directions.”
She pressed a finger against his lips as they parted in protest. “No, don’t. There’s no point in wishing things were different when they can’t be, right?”

The set of his jaw said he didn’t agree with something
she said, but his eyes were gentle and after a beat, he kissed her and pressed her into one of the chairs. “Come on, let’s eat.” He leaned over and brushed his lips past her ear. “You’re going to need your strength tonight.”

And just like that, the momentary awkwardness passed. The sandwiches and beer went down quickly, and before long Paul was checking the locks at the front and back door and turning off lights. Something about his maneuvers told Karen she was spending the whole night, and the thought thrilled her. Would one night together include morning sex? Maybe she’d wake him up with another blowjob.

“Whatever you’re thinking about right now, I like it.” He held out his hand and led her to the stairs. “Brave enough to share?”

She laughed quietly and took his direction to lead the way. “I was thinking about how much I enjoyed everything I had in my mouth tonight.”

Silence wasn’t the response she expected, so she stopped and turned back to look at him. The blast of heat in his gaze made her insides melt in anticipation. Her breath hitched as he moved up the two steps between them, stopping immediately below her. His hands met her bare legs at the knee, and ghosted north until his grip tightened at the top of her thighs, his fingers curling around the front, his thumbs teasing the curve of skin where her legs met her bottom.

“I knew you were going to be trouble,” he muttered, squeezing her flesh. “How the fuck am I going to get those words out of my head after tonight?”

Her gut clenched. So they’d both have vivid fantasy material. It was only fair. And he kept filling those coffers with responses like that. She’d never forget the press of his fingertips sinking into her legs. Knowing that her ass and pussy were right there, bare and accessible, and it was just
her
that he wanted to hold on to for a moment while he wrestled for control. Knowing that it wouldn’t be long before he shifted his attention to the aforementioned bits, and that would be awesome, too.    

She turned, slowly, and took his hands. Without breaking eye contact, she moved backwards up the stairs, guiding her lover back to bed. In his room, she peeled off his t-shirt and stood naked. He raised his hands to her face, kissing her gently at first, then harder and deeper until they were both breathless.

“Can I turn the light on?” he asked, his voice rough with need. She nodded silently, and he eased her back onto the bed, kissing her again on the mouth before moving south to love her breasts, then the softness of her middle, her hips, and finally her very core. He pressed his face into her curls, then stroked her thighs, guiding them up and apart.

“Fuck, yes,” he muttered, as she slid one ankle up and over his shoulder. “Wrap the other one around, too.”

She did as she was told, her face hot with equal parts anticipation and anxiety. She was soaking wet, and spread wide open. And she wanted his mouth on her so much it hurt. That need trumped everything else.

“Paul…” she keened his name
, and he roughly slid his hands under her ass, tilting her pelvis up at the same time as his mouth descended.

This was a kiss unlike any other.

His whole mouth covered her pussy as his tongued explored her for the first time, licking between her folds and around her clit, then searching out her entrance and delving deep, lapping up everything she gave him and demanding more. He growled as she surged against his face, squeezing her skin hard enough that he might leave marks. She arched her back, trying to get him to hold on even harder. He snaked one arm under and around her hip, placing it flat against her stomach, pinning her in place as he sucked her clit into his mouth, pulling and licking at the same time. He was driving her insane.

“Fuck me.” The words tore out of her mouth on a wail, and she repeated them twice more, thrashing her head from side to side. In a flash, he was on top of her, his cock hard against his hip, and he was reaching past her toward the bedside table. With a crash, he wrenched the drawer open and dragged a strip of condoms onto the bed beside them. He ripped open the foil blindly as he kissed her. Her scent covered his face. She wanted him to do that again and again. Panic rose from her chest into her throat, and she pushed it away. “Paul, I need you inside me.”

“I know, baby.”

Fuck
. Where did that name come from? And why did it make her want to cry?

He paused above her.
“You still with me?”

“
Oh god, yes.” Even if it broke her, she needed this.

“
I need you, too.”

She gasped as he sank into her, filling her completely, pushing the ache and fear away. He paused
there, his hips seated fully against her bottom, and buried his face in her neck. She wrapped her limbs around his body, wanting to freeze the moment just as much as he did. But she was also on the brink, having been driven precariously close to the edge by the first thrust, and her body craved that release even if her mind wasn’t ready to let go just yet. As if her core had a mind of its own, her pelvis rocked against his, grinding her clit against the base of his cock, eliciting a groan in return.

Against her neck, he opened his mouth, sucking a bit of her skin into his mouth as he eased his hips back, then nipping gently as he surged into her again. She gasped, and he p
ulled her knees higher, shifting his entry to stroke a different part of her. A groan tore out of her chest, and he wrapped one hand around her neck, pulling their faces together.

“Tonight, you’re mine.”

“I’m yours,” she whispered, hot tears pricking at her eyes as her orgasm loomed fierce around them.

“Never doubt that this is real.” He ground out the words as he pressed his other hand against the headboard and let himself go, driving his hips home hard and fast, over and over again until they both exploded in bittersweet release, their mind
-blowing pleasure tinged with the agonizing knowledge that dawn would soon arrive.

He gave her a goddamn hickey.

She grinned at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, and went in search of a muslin scarf. Totally worth it, but difficult to cover up in the summer heat.

Paul had been right. They’d needed two more condoms that night, each of them taking turns waking the other before dawn finally arrived.

Sleeping with him had been an unexpected pleasure in itself. His body, hard and taut with tension while conscious, softened to a warm, snuggly blanket as he slept. Which he somehow did both under and on top of her—pulling her over his torso, then sliding one arm around to rest across her back and notching one leg onto her hip.

Waking u
p had been bittersweet and deliberately PG-13. Neither had known quite what to say, so they silently showered, made and drank coffee, and got dressed, all without talking. They exchanged a few words, but not the important ones. Not the decisive ones. About if they could stick to the one-night plan, when they both wanted more. Or if they might be brave and take a leap into the unknown, knowing it wasn’t ideal, but since it was all they could have, why not have it while they could?

Why not?

The question rolled over in her head as she changed again at home. She twisted the possible answers in every conceivable direction as she checked email, watered plants, put on laundry and by the time her phone rang mid-morning, she was quite certain there was no barrier that couldn’t be overcome. So she answered with more gaiety than she’d felt in a month, but her mood quickly evaporated as her mother’s teary words spilled out of the handset.

“Slow down, Mom, I can’t understand what you’re saying.” She swallowed hard against the panic rising in her chest. “Who’s in the hospital? Where are you?”

“Saint uhm…St. Louis. It’s your brother.” The words fell away, overcome by shaking and sobbing, and in the background, her dad’s voice got louder as he took the phone.

“Karen, Chad’s been in an accident.” Her father never called Chase by his given name.
Oh god
. “He was hit by someone who ran a red light. He’s in surgery right now, but we should know more soon.”

“Dad?”
She couldn’t ask what she really wanted to know. It didn’t matter as much as his life.

“
It’s his legs, sweetie.”

No
. A keening wail threatened to rip out of her chest and she stuffed her fist in her mouth. A thousand kilometers away, her mother made a matching sound, and Karen’s heart broke. All of their hopes and dreams for their oldest son… “Do you need me there?”

“I don’t know. I’ll call Davis next, can you call Audrey?”

“I can call both of them.”

Her dad sucked in a shaky breath. “Okay. Thank you. We’ll be heading back into the hospital in a second, so we’ll need to turn our phones off, but we have our laptop and I think there’s
wi-fi.”

Karen took down the hospital details and promised to email shortly.
Then she dialed her younger brother and willed herself not to lose it.

“
Yo, sis, what’s up?” Music and crackling loudspeaker announcements surrounded Davis’s voice.

She took a deep breath.
“Can you go somewhere quiet?”

“Sure, hang on a sec.” The noise muffled for a moment, then
she heard shuffling and the click of a door. “What’s going on?”

She never called him. Their communication was limited to text messages, mostly dirty jokes and pokey reminders not to forget about family birthdays. “It’s Chase.”

“Shit, what happened? What do I need to do?” That was the Miller way. Leap to action.

“He’s been…Mom and Dad
are with him, but Davis…he’s been in a car accident. He’s in surgery.”

“Where?”

“St. Louis. I’m going to call Audrey next, I think we could probably get a direct flight there this afternoon from Detroit.”

“I’m in San Diego. I doubt there’s a direct flight, but I’ll see what I can do.” He tightened his voice
, probably fighting for the same control she desperately needed. They both wanted to do something. Doing might put their panicky adrenaline to good use. “What kind of surgery?”

It took two false starts to force the words out. “I think his legs were injured in the crash. Dad didn’t say, exactly. He probably doesn’t know yet.”

“Fuck!” A loud crash told her Davis had kicked or thrown something across the room. “Does the media know yet?”

Oh, crap. “I have no idea. I hadn’t thought about…”

“I’ll call his agent. When you get to the hospital, try and find a side entrance.”

“No one will know who we…”

“Just in case.” 

“Okay.”

“Kar…what was he doing there?”

That was the million dollar question.
Chase had given their parents tickets to Game Six of the Stanley Cup series, but after his own team had been eliminated earlier in the playoffs, Karen didn’t expect her brother to go to the game with them. So what had he been doing in St. Louis? “I don’t know.”

“Okay. You’re alright to drive?”

No. “Yes.”

“Be safe.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll see you later tonight or tomorrow.”

The next call was even harder. Audrey was out for a late diner breakfast with some friends, and started crying right away. She passed the phone to a friend, who promised Karen she’d get her baby sister back to the dorm and pack her an overnight bag.

After doing th
e same for herself, Karen called Melody and asked her work an extra shift, and call the rest of her staff and let them know she was going to be out of town for a couple of days. Melody didn’t ask why, and Karen didn’t offer, but by the time she was standing on her deck, locking her back door, a text message had come in from Davis. Someone from the team and Chase’s agent were en route to the hospital, since they were already in St. Louis, and given how much media presence there was in the city for the series finale, the accident would probably be breaking news before they got on the plane.

She pushed furious tears off her cheeks. That was the last thing her family needed.

“Karen?” She lifted her head in surprise. Paul was moving across the driveway in her direction, worry etched on his face. “What’s wrong?”

“My brother.”
She gulped for air. “He’s been in a car accident in the States.”

“What do you need?”

“Uhm…” Her mind was blank. She shook her head, desperate to focus. “I’m going. I need to pick up my sister in Windsor, then we’ll go to the airport in Detroit and fly to St. Louis.”

“Do you have tickets?”

“Not yet. I was going to do something about that when I got to Windsor and had Audrey with me.”

He flashed a glance at his watch and pulled out his phone. “Come on, I’ll drive you.”

“It’s okay.” She hated how small and pathetic her voice sounded. She was tough. She could do this on her own.

He stopped typing for a second and looked at her like she was an idiot.
Except with a bit of affection, which she appreciated. “It’s not okay. Your brother…which one?”

“Chase.”

Understanding flashed across Paul’s face. He could see the massive impact that she couldn’t yet fully comprehend. “Something awful has just happened to your entire family. It’s not okay, and I can’t do much, but I can do this.” He pulled her hard against his body and smoothed his hand over her hair, pressing her face into his neck. “I’ll drive you and your sister to the airport.”

“Okay.” She whispered the word against his skin.
Behind her back, he started tapping away at his phone again, and she let the clickety clack from his Blackberry keyboard drift into her head and push away the panic. Whatever he was doing, it was more than she was capable of right then.

A wave of fresh panic swelled from deep in her gut, and before the silent cry turned into something else, Paul had tightened his arms around her and brought his mouth to her ear. “We just need to get to Windsor, baby. Focus on that. Twenty minutes from now, you’ll have your sister to take care of.
You going to be able to do that?”

She nodded. Somehow, she’d find the strength.

He led her to his garage, where he stowed her bag in the trunk. Déjà vu washed over her, the action triggering a recollection of their first conversation. She’d never have imagined that he’d be such a good friend. He’d seemed so solitary, barely aware that he was living in a community at all. Oblivious to her, and his place in her life. Or at least, his car’s place in her driveway.

But now…he still had no idea how much she’d come to need him. How much she wanted
him, that was no secret. But outside of their chemical reaction…this man had become her best friend. And in two short months, she’d be far away. If something happened—when something happened, because
fuck
, life was just like that, wasn’t it?—Paul wouldn’t see her out his window. Wouldn’t be next door to drive her to the airport. Wouldn’t—

The
press of his hand at the small of her back jerked her attention back to the task at hand. He murmured something about getting his passport, and then he stepped back. She nodded dumbly and slid into the car. It was tidy, just like everything else in his life. Like his life itself. Except for her, the trouble he didn’t want and couldn’t resist. After he returned and pulled out of the garage, she closed her eyes and tilted her face toward the side window. She couldn’t go there right now, but she couldn’t hold herself back, either.

“Thank you.”
She cleared her throat. “Do you have time to do this today?”

Low and immediate, his response warmed her core
and sparked bits of hope she didn’t want to latch on to. “I’d make time if you needed it. For anything.”

“
Even though I’m trouble?”

“I think we’ve established that I like
the kind of trouble you bring to my life.” The car shifted as he turned onto the street, and then twice more in quick succession as he navigated the few blocks to the county road that led to the city.

Once they were out of Wardham, he lifted her hand enough to slide his fingers through hers, and rubbed his thumb across her knuckles. She blinked her eyes open and took a deep breath.

“Maybe you should keep resting your eyes,” he murmured. “You might not get a lot of sleep over the next few days.”

“I’m okay.”

“Do you want to call your parents again?”

She shook her head. “They’re in the surgery waiting room. I’ll email them once I know our flight details.”

He squeezed her hand as his phone beeped. “Speak of the devil. Can you check that?”

She picked it up from the center console. She frowned at the display. “You have a text message from your ex-wife.”

He chuckled, then abruptly stopped as he glanced over at her. “Hey, it’s not—”

“No, it’s okay.
So very much none of my business.” The words were flat and false on her tongue.

“Read it.” Unmistakable challenge vibrated in two small words.

“
Two seats reserved on Delta Flight 1403 at 3:40 pm out of DTW. I need the names from their passports.
” Oh. “You did this?”

“Susan’s a travel agent.” He shrugged. “It’s not a big deal.”

Hesitation held her back from stating unambiguously that it was a big deal. It was thoughtful and exactly what she needed.
He
was exactly what she needed. But that conversation would have to wait, for when she was strong enough to deal with the possibility that need might only run in one direction.

Because Paul wouldn’t be moved by his wants. Hell, he probably would resist a need, too, unless she convinced him.

And that had never been her strong suit.

She’d never fought for anything. Never stood her ground, made her case, and damned the consequences. She’d hid behind what was safe and easy for her entire
life, and look where it had led her.

Right to Paul
.

Except it hadn’t.
She’d been frozen in time, and he’d stumbled across her at the same moment she’d started to thaw. And now her action plan, that she needed to follow, was going to take her away from him.
Just for a year
. God, she was going to give herself whiplash. Enough.

“That was nice of her.”

“She’s heard good things about you from Megan. She’d probably do it for you even if we weren’t getting along.”

“But you are?”

He reached out and entwined his fingers with hers again. “We are. Probably because of you.”

“What did I do?”

“You set a good example.” He cleared his throat. “That’s probably a conversation best kept for another time.”

Her lips curled into a slight smile. “No, I like where this is going. It’s a good distraction for me, too. You’re doing a public service by being nice to me.”

He dropped their hands to rest on her knee, and the warmth of his forearm resting on top of hers made her stomach flip in the most pleasant way. “You taught me not to shy away from the tough conversations. To push through and expect something good on the other side.”