“All quiet?” Talia asked, her voice ringing out through the stillness.
Reed raised a finger to his lips.
“Sorry,” she stage-whispered. “Everyone asleep?”
“Or pretending to be.”
He walked to the bed where she was sitting, her feet tucked up, pajama shirt falling off her shoulder, exposing the soft skin he’d been longing to kiss all night.
“That was quite a party,” she said.
He laughed, trying to keep his voice down. “Sorry to let the wolves descend on you like that. Although you seemed to hold your own.”
She’d sat with his grandma, kept his mother’s plate full, even challenged Danny to an arm wrestling match. The look on Danny’s face when he realized he might actually lose— Reed hadn’t laughed so hard in his life.
She reached out a hand and hooked her pinky around his. “I like wolves,” she said. “They have a strong sense of duty and loyalty to the pack.”
She pulled him down so he was lying on top of her, their bodies pressed close on the narrow twin bed. He felt something in him loosening, unlocking. The exhale of a breath he hadn’t known was trapped inside him all this time.
“You were amazing,” he said. “To everyone. You made my brothers laugh, listened to my mother’s endless stories, danced with my cousin’s kids. And you looked absolutely stunning.”
“And you, Agent Bishop,” she said, running a hand up his biceps. “I had no idea you cleaned up so well.”
“Did that cause any trouble for you?” he teased.
“I was in trouble long before that,” she murmured, and brought her lips to his.
He slid a hand between her legs. “This is a little weird,” he whispered.
“Shh,” she pretend-scolded.
“I mean it,” he said. “We have to be quiet.”
“I can be quiet.”
“You’ve never been quiet a day in your life.”
She put her arm around his neck and pulled him close. “I can be quiet for you,” she whispered low in his ear as she parted her legs for him.
It wasn’t like she’d said anything dirty. He’d heard much worse come out of her mouth, begging him to fuck her.
But the lust in her voice, the movement of her hips. The reason they had to be quiet—because they were in his childhood bed, in his childhood home, and his mother was right down the hall. The fact that none of that could keep him from getting his hands on her.
All of it made his dick nudge up hard against her, so that she was the one making him stifle his groan into a pillow and telling him to shush.
They undressed in the cramped darkness, trying not to giggle like teenagers as he banged his elbow on the wall and she flung her underwear onto his bureau. Then he was on top of her, kissing her, trying to hold back in the stillness of the house. Trying to keep their lovemaking a secret they alone shared.
He fingered her slowly at first, then faster, building momentum with the movement of her hips, feeling her wetness make everything soften inside her.
“Shh,” he whispered as her whimpers grew. “You can’t come if you can’t be quiet.”
He eased off touching her clit, but her hips bucked up against him, demanding attention.
“I can be quiet,” she panted. “Just please, please. Make me come.”
His dick thrust against her thigh, one arm around her and the other hand between her legs, holding her close so that when she erupted, her cry was buried in his shoulder. Her whole body trembled with the release, and he knew he was holding something precious. Someone strong and independent that he’d still cradle and take care not to break.
He eased her head back down on the pillow, kissing her softly. Kissing her breasts, her nipples, down her stomach, licking sweetly and softly at the tender place that made her cover her mouth so as not to moan.
He got off the bed, rummaged through his bag, and got a condom. All he wanted was to be inside her, to feel her taking him in, moving with him, giving every part of herself.
But as soon as he pushed inside her on the bed and began to move, they both had to hold back not just their moans but their giggles. The twin bed was old, and it immediately started to squeak.
“How did you ever survive high school?” Talia whispered.
“Three nosy brothers meant I got good at sneaking down to the beach after dark.”
“Naughty boy,” she teased.
He pushed against her, and the bed responded. He pushed slower, and it seemed to whine less about that.
“I’ll just have to take my time,” he whispered.
“Take anything you want,” she murmured, and all Reed could do was press his forehead to hers and move slowly, slowly, drawing out every ounce of sensation in the dark.
It wasn’t the hard, fast pounding they’d done in his bed, on the couch, on the roof, in the shower, even bending her over the kitchen counter one morning while the coffee brewed.
This wasn’t just fucking. There was no escaping who he was with, who he was pressed so close against. No telling himself this could be any number of women, or anything he’d done before. No pretending there was a single other woman on the planet he’d have brought here this weekend to be part of his whole life. Not just the pieces he showed in New York, but all of it. The soft parts. The scary parts. The pictures on his mother’s mantle of four kids standing on the prow of Uncle Jim’s boat, his dad holding up a huge catch. The same four brothers, years later, holding up a catch…but no dad in sight. His mom’s cooking. His grandma dancing with a cane. His crazy cousins and his crazy family and this home he loved but had still moved away from. All of it. He’d shown her all of it.
And she was still here, moving beneath him, holding back the sounds, holding back the pleasure, but pressing her nails down his back so he’d know, oh God he fucking knew, that she could feel it.
She was biting her lip, making tiny whimpers, trying to stop herself, and it drove him out of his mind with the need to tip her over the edge, to make her lose it right as she was trying her hardest not to let herself go.
He thrust harder, deeper, and now he couldn’t hold back from making the bed shake, making the whole house rattle and threatening to wake everyone up with his need.
“Reed,” Talia panted. “We have to be quiet.”
He pulled out of her and brought her to the floor. She got on all fours on the rug and he kneeled behind her, hands on her hips, and thrust in. Now there were no bed springs to give it away. Just the sounds of them swallowing their breathing, the muted slap of skin to skin.
It was dirty, animalistic, the definition of fucking, to be down on all fours panting like this, her back arched, his hands grabbing her ass, the rug he’d grown up with, run his toy trucks over for years, dimpling the skin of his knees as his balls slapped against her with every thrust.
But even in their fucking, in the very dirtiness of it—because of the dirtiness—there was something else.
They couldn’t speak. They couldn’t say it out loud.
But in Talia’s breathing, in the arch of her back, in the way she reached around and grabbed the back of his thigh, drawing him toward her—he knew she could feel that something, too.
The more that was there. The piece that was different from anything that had happened before.
When he came, he collapsed over her, spent, pressing his body against hers. Eventually he pulled out and carefully wrapped the condom in a million tissues before putting it in the trash. But even as Talia drew him to bed, he wasn’t done yet. Because he knew she wasn’t done yet.
He pulled her legs over the edge of the bed. As she lay there, he kneeled on the floor between her thighs and licked her to another orgasm, his fingers inside her, her thighs wrapped tight around his face.
She may have been absolutely silent as she came, her fingers gripping the sheets. But he knew that inside, she was screaming, and that holding back made it all the more thrilling to let go.
He kissed her clit until the tre
mbling stopped, and then he rested with his cheek against her thigh, feeling her pulse leap beneath him and gradually begin to slow. Finally, she drew him back up into bed, reaching to keep him close.
“That was hot,” she whispered, throwing a leg across his.
What an understatement. “I’ve never been so glad to have such a huge family and not enough space.”
He twirled a strand of hair in his fingers, loving how it felt when it spilled across his chest. It was as if there’d been some barrier between them, the wall that was supposed to stay up between people, only it had finally been knocked down when it came to the two of them.
Not just the sex, but the way she fit in his whole life, like a puzzle piece he hadn’t known was missing.
“I really appreciate you coming,” he said, not for the first time that night. But he was tired, and felt amazing, and he couldn’t help it from slipping out again.
“I’m glad you let me,” Talia said, nuzzling close to him, sleepy and soft.
He was grateful, in some ridiculous way, for the twin bed. Not that he needed an excuse to hold her. But to know that no matter what happened, he wasn’t going to let her go.
…
Talia stepped out of the shower to the sound of voices downstairs. Reed wasn’t kidding—sound carried in the old house. She could only hope they’d been quiet enough the night before.
But it was hard to feel worried, or embarrassed, when her heart was so full.
She smiled as she headed back to his bedroom to change. Everything about the weekend had been incredible. His family, warm and welcoming. The party, the dancing. And yes, the champagne.
It was like a whole other side of Reed had come out, this tender guy who hugged his grandma and chased little kids and made sure Talia had everything she needed. He was quieter than the rest of his family, gruffer and more reserved. But he was the caretaker, that much was clear. He’d never let someone he loved be alone or in need.
Someone he loved. Her heart stumbled as soon as she thought the words. She knew how she felt about him after this weekend. She was beginning to think she might know how he felt about her, too.
As she toweled off her hair and threw on pants and a T-shirt, she did a series of pirouettes under his childhood Mets posters, too happy to keep still. For the first time in a long time, she wasn’t thinking about rehearsal, the audition, everything she should have been doing.
All she could think about was what she wanted. Coffee, breakfast, and the enormous slab of bald, surly, tattooed muscle that was waiting for her downstairs.
She wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep her face from lighting up as soon as she laid eyes on him. Maybe they weren’t ready to say it yet. Certainly not until they were alone. But the way he’d kept his hand on her all night at the party, she wasn’t sure their feelings were a secret they needed to keep around here.
The voices in the kitchen grew louder as she headed down the stairs. Reed, Trudy, one of the other brothers—they all sounded alike. She smiled. She’d grown up with just her and Shawn at home, and they were always running around somewhere—her at dance rehearsal, Shawn at baseball practice or on yet another date with his flame of the week. This thing where a big family hung out together in the kitchen and talked was entirely new, and she liked it.
Then she heard her name.
She paused, uncertain. But of course they’d mention her. Probably something about Talia, the lazy bones who was still sleeping. That’s what her mom would have said, although she had a feeling Reed’s mom would say it with more of a laugh.
She took another step, but quieter this time. Listening.
She knew she shouldn’t do it.
It was probably nothing, anyway.
But then Reed said, clear as if she were in the same room and he was saying it right to her face: “Talia’s not my girlfriend.”
She stopped on the landing.
Was he kidding? Playing it cool? She knew her coming here had been a little last minute, but hadn’t it been clear to everyone that they were a couple? Hadn’t he made her feel that way every second of the night?
She held her breath, waiting. But she didn’t need to wonder if she’d hear what came next. Reed’s voice carried throughout the whole house.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” he went on sharply. “But it’s not like that, okay? So let’s drop it before she wakes up.”
“But you told me—” Trudy started.
“I told you she wasn’t, Mom. And she’s not.”
More voices, then Trudy saying, “You look so happy together.”
“I’m telling you it’s nothing,” Reed’s voice cut in. “Talia and I are just casual. It’s not like I’m going to marry her. We don’t need to keep talking about it.”
“Bringing her here seemed pretty serious.” Talia couldn’t tell whether that was Aaron, Zach, or Danny, but it was definitely one of the brothers.
“It’s not.” Reed’s voice was hard and certain, the way he had of making something happen just by saying it. Making her move to his apartment. Making her stay there. Making her come on command.
It was his work voice. The lieutenant in everything but name.
It was nothing like the voice that whispered in her ear for her to keep quiet while she was falling apart on his fingers, his tongue, in his arms. Nothing at all like the voice that murmured such sweet things in her ear.
She stood, frozen on the stairs, still straining to listen. But Reed’s word was final. The conversation was done.
Talia gripped the railing. There was no way she could show her face in that kitchen right now. She crept back up the stairs, holding her breath, hoping no one would hear her.
She got to Reed’s room and closed the door. She knew he didn’t mean it. Or she almost knew. But she could feel hot tears pricking behind her eyes, and she couldn’t help the hurt from cutting through her.
How could he look his mother in the eye and say those things about her, like she was nothing? Like everything they’d been doing together meant nothing?
She stood in the middle of the room, not knowing what to do. The sheets were tangled up from where they’d slept, the rug twisted at an angle from when they’d fucked on the floor last night. The sight of it made her stomach knot, thinking about what they’d done. How it had felt in the moment—and how different that same moment felt now.
She couldn’t go downstairs, she couldn’t see Reed, she couldn’t pretend everything was fine. She was terrible at masking her feelings. Everyone would ask what was wrong.
There was only one option. There had to be a train back to the city—maybe even one that could get her back in time to take Hal up on his offer for extra practice. That was what she should have been doing all weekend, not throwing herself headfirst into something that didn’t mean a thing.
Reed thought they weren’t serious? Then fine. There were plenty of other things she was serious about, and she’d be happy to put them all first.
Starting with herself. Starting now.
She wouldn’t waste his time anymore, and she sure as hell wouldn’t let him waste hers. Before she could lose her nerve, she pulled out her suitcase and started to pack.
Chapter Eighteen
Reed sat at the kitchen table, gripping his coffee mug so tightly his knuckles were white. He tried to make his hand relax, his neck, his jaw.
But he couldn’t. His family had finally dropped the Talia interrogation, but now they were tiptoeing around him like the time a storm brought down a powerline in front of their house and his dad ordered everyone to stay back, there was no telling what it might do.
He felt like that live wire, downed and damaged, electricity fizzing and sparking out of him with no place to go. He’d been having a perfectly fine weekend—wonderful, in fact—and then his mom had to start in on how Talia was so kind, so great with the family, so talented, and what was he doing to make sure he didn’t let her go?
“Nothing,” he’d said when he first sat down at the tabl
e, waiting for his toast to pop, too tired and groggy and annoyed to formulate more of a response.
Which had started a whole thing that had spiraled into half the Bishop family telling him everything he was doing wrong, just in time for the other half to wake up and fill in any details his mom and brothers might have missed.
So maybe he’d been a little too emphatic to get them to back off. In case his family hadn’t noticed, he’d started down that marriage and commitment path before. And hadn’t it gone and blown up in his face?
Unlike what his mother claimed, his problem wasn’t that he wasn’t trying. His problem was that he tried too fucking hard in everything he did, but he couldn’t control another person, he couldn’t make them want him and stay.
He looked at the clock. He’d kept Talia up late last night…and the memory of why made him shift in his chair and focus on his mom’s daisy dish towels to keep himself from flushing. But he’d heard the shower, so he knew she was up. He’d expect her to be down by now.
“Be right back,” he said to his mom, and went upstairs.
“Talia?” He knocked on the door. When she didn’t answer, he turned the knob and walked in.
And froze.
Her suitcase was open on the bed, clothes stuffed in along with her toothbrush, her heels…
For a second, he was shot straight back to his old apartment in Brooklyn, watching Lisa shove her things into a suitcase to take to her sister’s, telling him, “You can pack up this week and be out when I get back next weekend.”
Reed swallowed, his hands lying helplessly by his sides the same way they had that night.
But this was nothing like that, a stronger, rational voice took over in his mind. That was his fiancée kicking him out. This was Talia being confused about what time they had to leave. There was no reason to feel like he was suddenly drowning.
He cleared his throat in the doorway, but she didn’t look up.
“We don’t have to go yet,” he said. “I got the car so we’d have until tonight.”
“I know,” she said, and hefted the suitcase to the floor.
Wrong Bed, Right Girl Page 14
