Page 15 of After All

“Show me what you brought me,” he said in his best cop-in-charge voice.

Not that that voice ever worked with Peyton.

“You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?” she asked.

Which is what she always asked when she realized that he knew her better than she thought he did.

“Show. Me.”

With a heavy, mostly fake, put-upon sigh, she pulled her hand from behind her back.

It was a bouquet. Kind of. It was three bags of Corn Nuts stuck to three pencils and tied with a bow. It was a bouquet of Corn Nuts. His all-time favorite snack. She’d even included nacho cheese, barbecue,andranch.

He looked up at her. “If I wasn’t crazy about you before, now I am.”

She rolled her eyes as she laid them on the bed. And that was something he was going to change eventually too. Shewasgoing to believe him when he said that stuff.

“They’re just Corn Nuts. You know how I feel about them.”

He did. She felt they were one of the most overrated snacks. But her favorite thing was popcorn balls, so he couldn’t trust her taste. He definitely went for salty over sweet. Spicy was even better. And he loved that she’d brought these.

“You made them into a bouquet,” he said with a grin. Peyton was hardly the whimsical type. Or the crafty type.

“I was stuck in the Atlanta airport with nothing to do,” she said with a shrug. “In one shop, they had bouquets with candy bars and I thought…never mind. It’s dumb. Exactly why I was trying to hide them.”

Yeah, Peyton didn’t show her soft side much, but it was there. And he fucking loved it. Especially the idea that it might be directed at him. He tugged her down and as she leaned in, he knew that she knew exactly what he intended to do. She kept coming anyway.

“Not dumb,” he said gruffly against her mouth.

When her lips met his, a definite shot ofhell, yeahwent through him. But he kept it sweet.

Then she gripped the front of his gown in her fist and kissed him harder, deeper. Her other hand cupped his cheek, ran over his face, and down his neck and over his shoulder. Almost as if she needed to reassure herself that he was there and okay.

He wanted to grab her and hug her and comfort her. Even though he was the one hooked up to tubes and monitors. But that was a normal state for him with Peyton. Something about this woman made the protective, fighter-of-good-versus-evil inside of him swell to gargantuan proportions. Always had.

“Mr. Hansen.”

Peyton straightened quickly as the nurse came into the room.

Crap. That was horrible timing. Or maybe it was perfect timing. He cleared his throat. Peyton looked at him and he looked down at his lap. She followed his gaze and then grabbed the blankets and bunched them up over the erection she’d caused.

Scott grinned. The girl got him, even if she didn’t want to. She moved to block the nurse’s view of his happy-to-be-alive body part while he fought to get his desire under control.

But he didn’t miss that Peyton ran the pads of two fingers over her lips. Men didn’t kiss Peyton sweetly. Men didn’t make Peyton go soft. Except for him. He was different, and one of these days she was going to understand that.

Chapter Three

Peyton was sureher cheeks were pink as she moved to block the nurse’s view of Scott’s hard-on. And that was ridiculous. She’d been in all kinds of scandalous situations that were perfect for blushing. But she never did.

One sweet kiss from this guy though and she felt flustered. And then he had to be all obvious about how he felt about her. Resisting this guy tried every ounce of her patience.

Dammit. It was always like this with Scott.

Worse this time because yeah, she’d been worried. Really worried.

He’d beenshot, for fuck’s sake.

And now the panty-melting grins and smartass remarks were making her feelcomforted.Because they meant he was fine. And she’d realized that shereallyneeded him to be fine.

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