Page 48 of That Reunited Feeling

“Who knows what will happen?” I ask the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen. “But the worst-case scenario is we have an amazing few weeks. Would that be so bad?”

She digs her teeth into her kiss-swollen bottom lip before speaking. “You mean, like be each other’s Bridge People?”

I take that irresistible lip between mine. “Bridge People?”

She tugs my shirt out of the back of my jeans, then her hands are on my skin, sending crackles of electricity up my spine.

“Yeah,” she says as I kiss my way around the outline of her mouth. “We have a short, amazing time together. To bridge us from our last bad experiences to finding our forever people.”

Right this second, I can’t conceive that anyone but Hannah is my forever person. Yes, we’re different people now than before,but it’s unimaginable that I will ever feel anything for anyone else that even comes close to the craving that rages inside me. And I’m terrified I just might fall in love with her all over again.

But if she sees it as nothing more than a just-while-we’re-in-the-same-place thing, sure, I can run with that. For now.

“It would be an honor to be your Bridge Person,” I tell her.

Then I claim her mouth in a way I hope will spoil her for any other man—sucking her lips, gliding my tongue over hers, teasing her with my teeth.

She slides her hands down my back, leaving my skin aching for more of her touch. Her arms circle my neck, fingers sliding against my scalp and grabbing a fistful of hair.

I ease my hands over her ass and rub my aching cock against her as I reach lower, my fingers searching for the hot spot between her thighs.

A few cells at the back of my brain are somehow able to process information beyond what’s going on in my pants and register the squeak of the front door opening. Lacking the capacity to deal with such inconvenient information, the rest of my otherwise occupied mind kicks it out.

But the sound is immediately followed by Maggie’s voice. “This will do well in the morning light in the study.”

“Shit.” Hannah jumps off me like I’ve just emitted ten thousand volts.

“I’ll put on a fresh pot of coffee,” Jim says as Maggie’s footsteps approach the other side of the door I’m now staring at like a mesmerized rabbit in the headlights of a fast approaching truck on a dark road.

It opens and Maggie appears, holding a plant with striped dark and light green leaves.

“Oh, hi,” she says, surprised to see me doing apparently nothing, alone, in the middle of the room.

I look around to find Hannah has moved at record-breaking speed to the far end by the bookshelves.

“Oh. AndHannah,” Maggie adds. Her eyes flash from the top of my head to my feet.

“Hi, Maggie.” Hannah glances at my aunt over her shoulder then turns back to the shelves, revealing the back of her hair to be a tangled mess. “I was just…” She runs her fingers along the books, examining them with the earnestness of a nearsighted professor who’s forgotten her glasses. “…wondering…about reorganizing the books…alphabetically…or…something.”

“And I was”—I snatch the guitar up off the sofa—“about to get in some practice.”

“Riiiight,” Maggie says. “You’re obviously both very busy.” A smile creeps across her face as she looks from me to Hannah and back again.

“Won’t disturb you,” she says, bustling toward the front window. “Picked up this lovely croton while Jim and I were in the village.” She places the plant on the sill. “Thought it would be perfect for here.” She turns it one way, then the other, and stands back to admire the angle. “There. Perfect.”

She heads back toward the door. “Okay, well I’ll leave you two to…” She looks at the guitar I’m still mindlessly holding in midair. “The practicing and the alphabetizing.” She waves at Hannah, who’s still facing away from us and panic-pulling random books from the shelves.

“Great,” I say at the same time Hannah chimes a cheery, “See you later.”

“Oh, and Tom…” Maggie’s halfway through the door, hand on the knob, closing it behind her. “…you might want to tuck your shirt in.”

The second the door clicks shut, I place the guitar back on the sofa and move toward Hannah, who now has her back to thebookcase and is sliding down, her eyes as wide as the magnifying glass on the shelf next to her.

“Christ,” I say, dropping to the floor beside her. “Why did we behave like that? We were worse than they were with theOverlord Hybridstickets.”

“She knows, right?” Hannah asks with a grimace.

Obviously. But that might scare Hannah off. “Don’t think so. She was concentrating on the plant.”

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