by Sue Wilder
“Okay, I get that I upset Luna. I shouldn’t have been driving and she was trying to talk me down. Then a car hits from behind and you think I don’t understand how dangerous that was. I understood. But hiding behind you every time I get frightened only makes me feel weak.”
“And running doesn’t make you vulnerable?”
“You see it that way,” I accused. “But I wasn’t running. I remembered a beach, and I was going there to think. Then I needed to do something. I was tired of waiting for the next shoe to drop.”
“It more than damn dropped,” he growled. “Someone’s inside your circle, and until I know who he is, you aren’t leaving my sight.”
The impulse to argue froze in my throat. From the deep sound of his voice, I knew he was truly angry, while I felt bruised and unable to cope.
My gaze darted around the bathroom. “I can’t fight with you right now.”
“We aren’t fighting.”
“No, this is you, telling me what to do when I’m still scared. And when I’m scared, Garrett, I make decisions I regret.”
“I’m making this decision.”
“It isn’t your life.” My voice was thready. “You said we’d be equals. That I wouldn’t drown in you, but that’s what it feels like right now.”
He stared, silent, and in the billowing steam, our closed-in intimacy rocked through me. I stood partially nude while Garrett was fully clothed, and after the past few hours, I was running on empty.
I’d lost myself in Garrett’s magic years ago. He was heroic, amazingly beautiful. At eighteen, his power and grace made him a heartbreaker. He threw the football with arrowed focus, with only one foot on the ground and still hitting his receiver. The memory was more precious now, with the damage to his back, and I mourned the loss of something great and fearless. Mourned what he once had—an innocence, despite the animosity.
A soft sound rose helplessly in my throat.
One of his hands stroked down my arm. “Get in the tub. I’ll make chamomile tea.”
Luna’s go-to for stress, and the little betrayal hit bitterly. My eyes closed. “I’m not falling apart, Garrett. You didn’t need to run to Luna, ask her for help.”
“I didn’t have to ask. She was my therapist for two weeks, long enough to learn about the tea.”
“Why?” As soon as the word left my lips, I realized the mistake. Luna’s expertise was anxiety disorders. She taught clients how to deal with panic attacks, like mine, and she’d said his recovery had been rough.
Shame hit, and I wiped at my damp eyes. “I’m sorry. Your reasons for seeing her are none of my business. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Just get in the damn tub and stay there.”
He left me standing while steam fogged the mirror. My wet clothes ended up in the corner, and I slid gingerly into the heated water. But my mind refused to settle, and I was still floundering when Garrett returned with a mug of tea.
Water sloshed as I drew my knees up, leaned forward to breathe in the reassuring fragrance. Chamomile could remind me of Luna in an instant, her steady support.
I huddled while Garrett dragged a stool to the tub and sat down. A large bath sponge was in his hand. He dipped into the water, squeezed, then dipped again, and I felt the spiky texture as he dragged the sponge against my shoulders.
“I need you to listen.” He dipped the sponge again. “The man who hit you today used a precision blocking technique. It’s illegal and dangerous. Deliberate. Ty suspected and asked me to look at your car. The damage was conclusive.”
Goose bumps rose on my skin. “It wasn’t road rage or the rain?”
“No. It’s called a pit maneuver. The pursuing car comes from behind, hits the fleeing car and sends it into an abrupt spin. Usually off the road and out of control—or in your case, over a cliff. A few years ago, I taught Con how to do it. How to drive out of it if someone hit him, and he saved your life today. If you hadn’t followed his instructions, you would have gone into the ocean instead of high-centering on those rocks. Tip your head back.”
“Why?” I sloshed tea into the bathwater and Garrett took the mug from my hands.
“I’m washing the blood from your hair. Now, tip back.”
Obedient and numb, I closed my eyes and did as he asked. I heard him rise. Recognized the sounds as he brought back the ceramic pitcher Luna kept on her counter.
Slowly, he poured warm water over my head, sliding his fingers through my hair. “Who wants to hurt you, trouble?”
“I don’t know.”
“Pit maneuvers are too risky for law enforcement. Private contractors use them, security details. Professional drivers. Stuntmen.”
I drew in an unsteady breath, because if Garrett researched me, he also knew about Brand. My ex trained with a professional driver and did his own stunts. “You already know.”
“Would you protect him?”
“No,” I said as warm water trickled down my spine.
“You saw the man driving that car.”
“I did, but it wasn’t Brand. I would have recognized him.”
“What about his jilted lovers? Could one of them be angry enough to come after you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Slowly, thoroughly, Garrett washed my hair as if it soothed him more than it relaxed me. Boneless, I floated in a languid warmth. My eyes closed. When Garrett leaned in, I savored the woodsy, male scent of his skin before I lost it in the lemon scent of shampoo.
“When you think of Brand, what comes first into your mind?”
“He was a mistake I wish I’d never made.”
Garrett’s hands were impossibly gentle as he washed blood from the roots of my hair, moving to my temples before his thumbs stroked the stress lines between my eyes.
“We all have those, trouble. Mistakes we wish we’d never made.” He bent down, and I shivered beneath the graze of his mouth against my forehead. “You scared the shit out of me today.”
Twice, now, he’d told me the same thing, that I’d frightened him, and I tilted my head to stare into his gorgeous face. His eyes were a glittering hazel laced with green, framed with dark lashes. I remembered being told that a man revealed his soul through his eyes—and I was drowning in those flint-hard depths.
“Come down when you’re finished. We’ll talk then.”
Garrett stood. I wasn’t ready to let him go. When he paused in the doorway, he braced one hand against the doorjamb, and I wondered if it was my expression he didn’t want to see.
Or if he didn’t want to leave.
Both choices left me unsteady.
I was still unsteady when he turned back.
In two strides, he was beside the tub, dragging me from the water. His mouth closed on mine, hungry and scorching hot. His tongue pushed hard between my lips, and the ferocity devoured me.
Ah—God! I’d never been kissed the way Garrett kissed, as if he owned my soul and always would. As if I owned his.
He unraveled me, and when he fisted my hair, bent my head back, I trembled, weak and strong at the same time.
“Garrett…”
“Hush.” He nibbled on my bottom lip, sucking the soft flesh into another deep kiss. His tongue stroked. My hands curved around his shoulders. With my skin still dripping from the bath, his shirt quickly dampened, and I gasped at the tactile abrasion. I rubbed to increase the sensation, arching back when Garrett’s hand moved to cup my breast.
He squeezed gently, his thumb sliding over the hardened tip of swollen flesh. I inhaled on a rush of pleasure.
Our eyes locked.
When he pulled back and dragged the damp tee shirt over his head, I helped, my hands unsteady as I tossed it aside. His ragged inhale thrilled as I slid my palms across his chest, down his arms.
“You’re beautiful,” I whispered, tracing the scars that ridged beneath his collar bones. The divots carved into his shoulder. “Each scar I see, trace, touches something inside me.”
It was dangerously int
imate, telling him what I saw when I looked at him. I wondered how many other women saw his scars the way I did.
“It’s not pity, Garrett, but awe.” He shuddered when I kissed the small crescent indent in the crook of his neck. “These are marks of honor.”
His voice roughened. “Don’t.”
“You don’t believe it?” My fingertips brushed against his mouth. “Or you don’t want to hear it from me?”
The light darkened in his eyes, and I curved my hand against his nape, felt the rigidity. For an instant, I feared I’d pushed him, that the scars were off limits. “If I said the wrong thing.” His eyes closed. “If you want to stop.”
“What you said meant something.” But his chest lifted on an indrawn breath, and I cupped both sides of his head.
“Let’s not think about it now,” I whispered. “Just think about this.”
I pressed my lips to his, tender and hesitant, waiting. When his mouth parted, the tip of my tongue touched his, invited him in. Gently, I scraped my fingernails down his nape to the hard line of his shoulders. “You are… important to me.”
He nipped at my lips. Licked the bottom curve. “When you walked into my bar.” His murmured response was a relief. “You killed me.”
“Not before you ruined me.” I nuzzled in, loving the sexy rasp of his stubble against my lips. “I’ve been ruined since I painted hearts on your car. Since before, even. I’m a mess.” My smile curved as I pressed my nose against his strong throat. “You smell so good.”
His husky laugh seized me, and he cupped my face, threading hard fingers through my hair. “You… are the most beautiful, crazy-gorgeous mess I’ve ever seen. With your bird’s nest hair.” He gathered the damp strands at my nape, quickly weaving a braid, which he then gripped in his fist, tilting my head back. “You make me ache.”
“Do I?”
“You know you do.”
I tried to turn my head. He held me, secured through the pressure on the braid. The sensual restraint was unexpectedly arousing. Anticipation sparkled, raced like forbidden champagne beneath my skin.
“I’m going to touch you,” he murmured against my throat. “Until you feel what I feel. Taste you, all of you, while you let me have control.”
“Garrett, I…”
“Will enjoy it.”
I couldn’t move. Wouldn’t. Light carved his gorgeous face, revealing his devastating control. He was not a man to be rushed or ruled, and the wait triggered a heat that consumed me.
My heart hammered like I’d run uphill. Beneath my palms, the strength in his body crushed what determination I had left. I thought I could handle him—when I hadn’t realized how inexperienced I’d be.
Garrett demolished me with painted hearts washed from his car. A shared whiskey and a memory, out on the ocean. He kept secrets he refused to reveal, but I was acutely aware of my own hidden secrets.
How I protected myself, held back, never fully committing. Disruptive emotions were not new to me, but with Garrett, I wasn’t sure where I ended and he began. And that was so dangerous, when I didn’t want to drown in a man.
But no man could turn me on the way he could, control me the way he could, and I was drowning, pulled under when one of his hands reclaimed my breast. A wave of pure pleasure washed over me. His palm was warm and firmly masculine, and beneath his attention, I grew unbearably sensitive.
When his thumb rasped, a torrid heat flushed my face. The seduction was skilled. The tugging, rolling, rubbing until my nipples hardened. He pinched gently, and my knee jerked shamelessly against his legs.
“God… Garrett.” Shudders raced through me. I hissed as I tried to resettle my breathing.
“Am I hurting you?”
“No, I—”
“Good.” Crackling tension spiked. His gaze never left my face, and I realized he wanted to pleasure me, and watch while he did it.
The eroticism left me helpless. My lips parted. Soft mewls rose in my throat and he captured the sounds with his mouth, tongue plunging, pulling back.
Fretfully, I moved beneath the savage intensity.
“Lift your arms,” he ordered. “I want your fingers in my hair.”
My arms lifted.
“Keep them there.” His hand traced my ribcage, over the curve of my hip until he cupped my thigh, slid his palm to my knee, lifting my leg to his waist. “Hook your ankle.”
Lust speared through me as he traced one finger slowly over my cleft. “I can’t stop touching you like this.” He rolled my clit with increasing pressure, then pushed his finger inside. “You’re so tight.”
My head fell back. I was shamelessly eager, aching.
“How long has it been?” His finger curled upward, slid slowly, and I gasped, rose up, precarious with only one foot on the floor.
“Too long—oh.”
“Breathe,” he warned.
I tried, sucking in a breath as he stroked. My fingers spasmed in his hair while a needful sound of surrender broke from my throat. He was stealing pieces of me I’d never get back, and my leg relaxed, widened helplessly. “Look at me, trouble.”
I forced my eyes open.
“You need this.” His finger pushed in again. “I need this.”
“Garrett… please.” He withdrew and my muscles clenched, chasing the sensations.
“Shush, I’m here.” Two fingers stretched me as he bent to capture my mouth. The steady plunge of his tongue echoed the rhythm of his hand, and I wanted to climb up his body. Needed more than his fingers, the thrust of his hand.
I closed my eyes. Garret touched with a skill I’d never experienced. Sensation throbbed, triggering a carnal response. My fingers tightened in his hair. His arm muscles bunched, relaxed, and my hips jerked.
“You need more?” His tongue traced the curve of my jaw, down to the pulse throbbing at the base of my throat. Hot, wet, the way I felt. “Let me see you come, trouble.”
“I can’t…”
“You need my mouth?”
My knee shook violently.
“Move,” he ordered in a rough whisper. “Move against me.”
He gripped my waist as I stood, unsteady. Beneath his jeans, his cock bulged, and I shifted my hips, pushing upward, thrilled when his erection turned savagely masculine.
“Like this?” I panted, nearly breathless.
“Like… this.” His fingers dug into the curve of my butt, lifting me. I wrapped both legs around his waist, levering myself upward. With my arms braced against his shoulders, I kissed him, inflamed by his strength, startled when his fingers returned to my swollen core.
That touch—feather light yet filled with sensual knowledge—controlling my arousal while I remained open, helpless.
Aching pleasure ripped through me. Desperate, with arms wrapped tight, I clung to his hard body while his fingers teased, penetrated until every muscle clenched and the climax hit, pounding through me in waves. “Ah—God, Garrett.”
“This is what you do to me,” he growled. “Make me want you. Touch you like this. Hear those sounds in your voice and want to hear more.”
I couldn’t get away. Didn’t want to get away when the lust turned suffocating. His thumb flicked, rubbed as he carried me to the bed. We fell. Beneath my back, clean linen dampened from my wet hair, the moisture at my spine. The scent of lemons mixed with musk. Sanity disappeared. There was only the weight of Garrett’s body. The way he moved against me.
Shadows masked the room, our expressions. By touch, we explored. Tender one moment, sensual the next.
“I want slow,” he said against my throat.
“I don’t.” It was brazen. I didn’t care. His mouth tormented. The flick of his tongue grew decadent, the nips, the pressure of his lips as he savored each breast, traced my ribs, caressed my stomach. His palms pressed against my thighs and I arched, restless, trembling passion husky in my voice. He aroused with a ravenous skill until I gasped through the second orgasm like a starved woman, wet, too sensitive. Electrified by each f
ierce pulse.
I longed for a deeper penetration, a heavier weight, the thrust of his hips. The need to lift my knees grew overwhelming. To wrap around his body while he pressed me deep into the mattress. To feel the sweat, sticky on our bodies, and hear the hard rasp of his breathing. I wanted him more than I thought possible to want a man, and when he kissed across my stomach, over my breasts, the desire that raced through me brought fresh whimpers to my throat.
“Garrett—your back. Can you?”
“It’s been a while.” He dragged in a gusting breath, pressed his forehead against mine. “I can stop.”
“Let me be on top.”
His warning was enticing. “I’ll still be topping you.”
“You said we’d be equals.” I nipped against his throat, touched with my tongue to taste the salt on his skin. “Share control.”
He pushed to his knees, tugged down the zipper on his jeans to free himself. My body throbbed as he fisted an erection that curved upward above heavy balls. He stroked slowly. The rhythmic pumping became a wild tease, and watching this powerful man as he pleasured himself had me on a sexual edge.
With his jeans open and bunched at his thighs, his shoulders held rigid, the braced position on his knees as he straddled my legs—he looked smoking hot, thoroughly decadent. His submission, while remaining dominantly male, became a hedonistic invitation. He offered control, and I reached out, pushed his hand aside.
My body chafed as the expression on his face changed. Each rub of my thumb, the tracing of my fingers, the tightening pressure of my grip. Each low, throaty groan turned me on. His eyes closed. I fondled, aroused with one hand. With the other, I ran my palm across the sculpted muscles of his chest, down over the tight abs to the deep grooves above his hip bones.
His beauty moved me. Broke my heart with shattered insight.
My breath trembled in my throat.
Against the windows, a storm raged. Rain, driven by the wind, beat with primal force. I pulled him down, rolled him over, rose above him. Held his hands.
“Do you what this?”
