Page 47 of My Heart Before You

She’d only seen him wearing surgical scrubs, workout clothes, or a suit at the Christmas party. As incredibly handsome as he had looked in his tailored suit, he looked completely different in casual clothes.

A blue and grey plaid flannel laced with hopeful thin stripes of yellow was layered over well-worn jeans and scuffed leather boots. The shade of his shirt made his eyes even more striking than normal. There was an easy ruggedness to him that suggested he was as comfortable alone in the woods as he was scrubbed into surgery. A long navy wool coat covered his attire, and he must have driven here since he was lacking the accoutrement of walking in the snow.

It had been three days since he walked her home from work. Three days since she’d cried through his scrubs onto his strong, solid chest. Since she had felt so completely safe and secure in his arms. Three days since she’d felt giddy and light bantering with him as they walked in the falling snow. Wasn’t three days the requisite time before calling a girl back after a date?

“Hey.” His voice brought her out of her cogitation.

“Hi.” She felt a smile tug on her lips before her brain reminded her to explain her appearance. “I’m not a morning person. I usually sleep in on my days off.”

He looked as if he had majorly overstepped. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I wake you up?”

“It’s fine. I needed to get up anyway.” She looked into her condo towards the microwave clock. She really needed to get a real clock and hang it on the wall; there was no way she could see the time from here. “What time is it?”

Pushing his coat sleeve up, he glanced at his watch. “Almost nine thirty.”

She was still standing in her doorway, and he was still on the landing.

“Why don’t you come in?” She moved out of the threshold. “I need some coffee. Do you want some?”

“That would be great.” His shoulders visibly relaxed.

Leaving him to close the door behind them, she busied herself in the kitchen making coffee. She caught her slight reflection in the kitchen window and wished she’d taken the time to wash her face and properly brush her hair. Colin laid his coat over the same armchair he sat in when he was here last time before joining her at the kitchen island.

“Black, right?”

The grin that pulled at his lips as he said “yes” had her blinking hard. She turned to pull two mugs from the cabinet, keeping herself moving so she wouldn’t reveal her nervousness. Today would have been a good day to have used the timer on her coffee maker so that it would have been ready now.

“I wanted to talk to you about something. Something I wanted to mention the other day at work.”

Ohhhh crap.

She had misread the situation entirely. Her eyes squeezed shut in embarrassment for a second before strongly walking to the island and placing her hands on it.

“I’m sorry about that. It’s just Bo and Mary became like family to me, if that makes sense. I’m incredibly close with mine, and this is my first time moving away from them aside for when I went to college, and even then I had my sister with me. I didn’t mean to act unprofessionally in any way. I was just overcome when she died.” The last word caught in her constricting throat.

Her eyes drifted to the countertop remembering how small Mary looked swallowed up in a green checkered hospital gown, monitors bleating all around her. A heaviness pushed on her, and she fought to take a deep breath against it reminding herself how Mary had been surrounded by everyone who had loved her—her family by blood and the family she built from those in her community.

“Emilie.”

She’d been so lost in her own thoughts, she hadn’t noticed him move beside her. His subtle, comforting scent reached her nose as he gently laid his hand over hers. As her skin relaxed at the warm solid weight of his hand, she tried to control her response. He was just being kind like he’d been the other night.

“That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.” His voice was low.

She chanced getting lost in his beautiful eyes. “It’s not?”

He searched her face. “No, but if you would like to talk about it, I’m happy to listen.”

Feeling her heart leap into her throat, she asked, “Why are you here?”

Colin opened his mouth as if to explain in a reasoned manner his presence in her home before his eyes lingered on her lips. She felt herself holding her breath as anticipation surged through her veins. Closing his mouth, he leaned slightly toward her, decreasing space between them. His other hand found her cheek and with the tenderest caress, he tilted her face towards hers.

“For you.”

Her eyes fluttered closed, sighing the breath her lungs had held into his lips as they pressed gingerly to her own. All the pent-up tension she’d tried to ignore since Christmas relaxed in an immediate sweeping sensation. Everything about this moment, the heat rising from his body, the smell of his skin, the buzzing of his lips on hers, felt right. Her fingertips tingled as her hands hesitantly raised, brushing lightly against the flannel fabric covering his biceps before pushing her palms flat to grip his arms.

A slight groan vibrated against her mouth as she felt his other arm wrap snugly around her waist. Pressed against him, heat soared instantly though her body. Her lips parted at the surprising pleasure of his strong and solid frame against hers. When she felt the slight touch of his tongue, hers raced to touch, to taste, to savor him. He sweetly explored her mouth, never letting the tender caress of his thumb leave her face.

Her hands wove up his arms, over the skin at his collar, and into his sandy hair. An image of his boyish locks tousled between her fingers as he hovered over her naked flashed through her mind. Shocked by the brazenness of her thoughts, she pulled back.

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