Page 45 of Guilty as Sin
“Softness is the enemy?” he asked. He wanted to touch one of those golden curls, to rub it between his fingers, to see if it could possibly be as smooth as it looked.
“Yes.” It was barely a breath.
“Is that why, then?” he asked, giving in to temptation and touching that curl. Just a touch. Just one. “The reason you’re single? A woman like you? I told you my story. Tell me yours. Burnt too badly by that cop?”
“Maybe.” She took a sip of tea, breaking the contact, but she didn’t move away. “But probably nobody’s fault. Being involved with a cop isn’t easy. Watching your partner leave for work every day and not knowing if they’ll come home. Or when theydocome home, but it’s been a bad day. That’s not so good either. Maybe they want to tell you and you don’t want to hear it. Or maybe they don’t want to tell you and they just need you to understand. To hold them. It’s a lot to ask. A lot to understand, if you’re not living the life yourself.”
It wasn’t an excuse. Or it was, but it was… odd. “Takes guts,” he said. “Takes ticker—heart. Takes strength. But then, I’d have said you had strength.”
“I’d have said so, too,” she said. “Before. But some things test you. Maybe you don’t always meet the test.”
“Maybe not.”
She took a breath. Shaking it off again. “So how is it thatyouaren’t swiping right, like you told that cop? Most guys, after their marriage breaks up, they go right for that other painkiller, the one that’s free. Temporary amnesia.”
“You seem sure of that.”
She didn’t answer, just looked at him, and he said, after a moment, “Could be that painkiller isn’t as free as it looks. Could be a man gets old enough to find that out. Or it could even be that it takes the right person to get through the walls.”
Her voice was soft. Her eyes were honest. “Especially if you don’t have anything to prove. If the bragging rights don’t matter anymore.”
“Careful,” he said. “You could be giving me too much credit.”
“Oh,” she said, “I don’t think so.”
She was so close, and she wasn’t just soft on the outside now. He could feel it, that warmth in her pulling him in. His hand went to one of those curls again, and this time, she didn’t draw back. He rubbed it between his fingers, felt the silk of it, then brushed his fingers down the side of her jaw, and she hauled in a breath.
A hand at the back of her head. His other arm going around her, because he needed her closer. A parting of her lips, a gentle sigh. Her hand coming out to hold his shoulder, her eyelids fluttering closed.
Soft lips under his. Her hand holding him, not grabbing, but as if she had to touch him, needed to feel him.
It was tender, it was heat, and he was falling.
He took her breath.
Not because he was rough. The opposite. He held her like she was precious. He kissed her like she was beautiful.
His lips were moving now. Brushing her dimple again, then taking her mouth in a long, slow, sweet kiss, lingering there a while before they moved down the side of her neck like he had all night, like there was nothing like hurry and nowhere else to be. Hard mouth keeping itself gentle, rough beard offering its sweet friction. She was making some humming sounds, and both her hands were somehow on his shoulders now, stroking down his arms, then up under the flannel shirt, touching the rock-hard planes of his side, his chest.
And the harder surface of a holstered weapon.
He felt it, too, because he murmured, “Shit,” laughed softly against her neck, sat up, and stripped off his flannel shirt, then unfastened the black mesh holster and laid it and the weapon on the coffee table. He turned back to her, laughter still showing in those blue eyes. Then the eyes softened. He traced a hand over her bare shoulder, ran his thumb along the edge of her sweater, and said, “Such a pretty girl.”
His thumb was working its way across the tender spots beneath her collarbone, then diving just a little lower, brushing the top of her breast. She wanted to close her eyes again, but she wanted to look at him, too. That midnight-black hair falling over his cheek, the intensity in his face. The strength of his neck and the breadth of his chest. She put a hand out, looked into his eyes, slipped it under the hem of his T-shirt, and heard the hitch in his breath as her fingers encountered warm skin.
Her palm flat against his abs, feeling the wonderful ridges there, her other hand around the back of his neck, pulling him down again, pulling him into her, and a buzz in her blood like she’d been sipping on whisky. His lips on hers again, taking the invitation, and she was going back, down on the couch. Giving in to the pleasure and the sweetness and the hunger.
Lily’s couch.
You can’t,the voice in her head said.
I have to,she tried to tell it.
You can’t.
“I…” It wasn’t easy to get the words out. Her hand had slid around to his back now so she could feel the muscles shifting as he moved, all the fined-down hardness of him, and he was on an elbow, his own hand stroking up her arm, pushing up her sleeve. He was kissing the soft skin on the inside of her forearm, then moving up her arm. Not getting anywhere fast. Not needing to. But his hands, his mouth were more demanding now. “Uh…” she said. “This is just… this one time. Right?”
That smile again. She could feel it. How could youfeela man smile against your skin? “No.”
