Passion Restored

by Carrie Ann Ryan

  “Hey, you two. If you’re done, you might want to clean up. Graham is about to start cooking the meat.” Murphy laughed on the other side of the door, and Liz froze. “Of course, it sounds like you two have all the meat you need.”

  “You’re an idiot,” Tessa called out, and Liz closed her eyes, mortified. “Don’t worry, though all the adults knew what you two were up to, only Murphy and I heard the end. Good job, Owen! She needed that.”

  “I’m going to kill you!” Liz called back.

  Owen was still buried balls-deep inside her, and was currently laughing against her skin. If she weren’t equally turned on, sated, and embarrassed at the same time, she might have laughed with him.

  “You love me,” Tessa called out. “But I think you like riding Owen’s dick more.”

  “Murphy,” Owen said, his voice low.

  “I’m on it,” the younger Gallagher said slowly. “Come on, Tessa. Let’s go outside and give them a minute to clean up. Don’t be too long, you two. Blake and Maya will be in next, and compared to them, we’re the gentle ones.”

  Liz hit her head against the door as Owen kissed behind her ear. She hated herself for shivering in delight but leaned into him when he kissed her again.

  “I can’t believe I just had sex with you with your family right outside.”

  Owen pulled out of her, and she winced. When he turned her around and cupped her face, kissing her softly, she leaned into him. “I honestly can’t believe it either, but only Tessa and Murphy heard, and if they had heard more than the tail end of it, they’d have said something. Every single adult outside has had sex before, Liz. It’s okay that we did this. It’s really okay. We just couldn’t wait, and yeah, I’ll get ribbed for it, but I’m always getting ribbed for something.”

  Liz kept her eyes closed. “But they have kids out there.”

  “Who didn’t hear or see anything and were most likely kept distracted by sugar. Now let me get us cleaned up and take care of the condom. Then we’ll go out there, get a drink and a burger, and enjoy the rest of the evening. Okay?” He kissed her again, and this time when he pulled back, she opened her eyes. “Don’t regret this, Liz. Don’t pull away because you’re embarrassed. I’ll kick their asses if they make you feel like what we did was wrong.”

  She pressed her lips together and did her best not to say something she would regret but she knew it was too late. He’d seen it in her eyes. He let his hands fall and took a step back.

  “I see.”

  She shook her head. “No, you don’t see. Because I don’t. I just…this was fast for me, Owen. I need time to think.” She pulled up her jeans, wincing at how sore she knew she’d be later. “I’m going home. I’m not running from you, but from them. I don’t want it to be awkward.”

  Owen shook his head. “It’ll be more awkward now, but I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do.” He leaned forward as if to kiss her, then thought better of it. “Find me when you’re ready to talk.” And with that, he walked back to the bathroom attached to his room, and Liz pulled down her shirt.

  She knew she was being an idiot and making a mistake, but she couldn’t think. She needed space to process what had just happened, and sitting with his family wasn’t going to help that.

  She just hoped that when she figured it out, Owen wouldn’t hate her for it.

  7

  Well, it was official, Owen was a fucking idiot. He was pretty sure he’d said those exact words to himself concerning a certain blonde next door before, but it didn’t change the fact that he was well and truly fucked.

  He shouldn’t have moved as fast as he had, and they both knew it. It had only been two days since he’d had Liz’s body wrapped around him as he’d made her come with his fingers before pressing her pretty breasts to the door so he could fuck her from behind. He’d never done or seen anything as erotic as her in the throes of passion, and yet he knew they shouldn’t have gone that far, that fast.

  If they’d merely kissed, he knew there wouldn’t be this awkwardness between them—or at least this level of it. Instead, she’d run right out of his home before he could even tuck his dick back into his pants—if he had been wearing any. Every single adult in his backyard had known what happened and had given him either humorous looks or ones of accusation. It wasn’t as if he’d been alone in the mauling. She’d had her hands on him just the same and hadn’t been able to deal with it.

  He wasn’t doing much better, though.

  Owen couldn’t get over how she’d felt beneath his touch, and how much she’d pushed at him to do the same things to him as he was doing to her.

  She’d said she hadn’t run because of him but because of their audience, and as much as he wanted to believe that, he couldn’t quite do so. She’d told him they’d moved too fast, and he agreed since this was the outcome, but he didn’t regret their time together. There was no way he could ever taint that heat, that hunger, with regrets.

  But no matter what happened next, she would have to make the next move. He wouldn’t risk himself like that again, because despite what others may think, he had feelings. He wasn’t a drone behind a desk, wasn’t a robot who simply got through the workday.

  He was a damn man and wasn’t about to push Liz too hard because he was careless.

  When she was ready—if she were ever ready—she’d come to him, and then they’d see what the next step was. Owen honestly had no idea if she would make that choice, and hell, he had no clue about the next step either. For all his planning and organizational skills, he’d never thought to plan for this and didn’t know where to begin.

  While part of him hadn’t wanted to let her go, he knew that forcing the issue would have been a mistake. So now, here he was, on a weekend where in the past he’d have been at the worksite getting things prepped for Monday, sitting around with this thumb up his ass. There had to be a better way to spend his time other than ruminating on what had happened with Liz.

  With a frown, he pulled out his phone and scrolled through his house chore list. There were a few deep cleaning things he could start since spring was on its way, but he wasn’t in the mood to begin that. Plus, though he was almost up to a hundred percent from the accident, he wasn’t sure that bending and doing a heavy cleaning would be the best idea for him.

  He had a few shopping items on his list, but that didn’t sound interesting at the moment either. When he got to the next thing, he gave a small nod. Outdoor work would be just the thing. He’d be able to breathe in the clean, mountain air, enjoy the sun on his face since they were hitting the time of year when it could be warm, hot, cold, and cool all in one day, and get his lawn and garden ready for the spring and summer.

  While he wasn’t the greenest thumb in the world, he wasn’t too bad at it. All it took was research and practice to get some semblance of a yard that could almost take care of itself. At least, that’s what he told himself. He’d only killed a couple of plants that first year, but he’d been an idiot and had listened to the wrong person about installation instead of doing the research himself. As much as some people touted experience and knowledge, Owen knew he could only take some of it at face value. Research and careful organization were the only ways to make things work in his mind.

  With a sigh, he put away his phone before going back into his bedroom to change into outdoor clothes he wouldn’t mind getting dirt on. While he sometimes wore suits or at least nicer clothes than his brothers for his job since he met with the clients more often than they did, he still owned more than his fair share of jeans and t-shirts that bore holes and stains from working on the jobsite. Before his accident, at least half of his days were spent working side by side with the crew, sweat and dirt dripping off them as they laid tile or put up drywall. Hopefully, soon, he’d be able to get back to it since he was almost fully healed. He’d just have to get past his brothers, and that didn’t sound like it was going to be easy. And while he couldn’t fully blame them since he’d have done the same—and
had in some cases—if any of them were in his position, he still resented it. He wanted to get back to work as if nothing had happened; like he hadn’t been hit by a damn truck in a parking lot.

  He shook those thoughts off like he always did and quickly got dressed, picking up his phone again on his way out the back door. He did his best not to think about Liz pressed up against him in his bedroom since those thoughts wouldn’t be helping him today, but it wasn’t easy.

  Deciding to work on the front of the house first, he picked up his tools from his custom shed out back and lumbered his way to the front. While the back yard had more things to do, the front yard held the sun this morning, and it was the first thing people saw when they walked up. He might as well make that look like he cared since he was out here.

  It took all his strength not to look over at his neighbor’s and see if Liz’s vehicle was in the driveway. Neither she nor Tessa seemed to want to park in the two-car garage, but he had a feeling it was because that’s where they currently stored some of the boxes they hadn’t yet unpacked. It would annoy him to no end to have things left undone like that, and knew it annoyed Liz to some degree. She and Tessa were both take-charge women—a trait he admired—but they also worked even longer hours than he did. Between work, getting parts of the house fixed up, and needing to sleep, Owen didn’t know how the two of them had any energy at all left at the end of the day.

  No wonder Liz wanted nothing to do with him.

  He closed his eyes and let out a small growl. Hell, he was out here on his hands and knees, digging up the front bed for the spring so he wouldn’t think about her, and yet all he’d done so far was exactly that. There was a reason Owen usually ended up sleeping with women who had nothing to do with the other parts of his life and fit neatly into boxes. They were always casual, put together, and would end up walking away sated but not hurt when Owen wanted to move on. That made him sound like an ass, though, so he once again pushed those thoughts from his brain.

  Resigned, he dug into the older mulch and cleaned up leaves that he’d missed the previous fall, as well as any weeds that dared to show their faces. He had a few bags of the new mulch in the shed out back, and would use the wheelbarrow to get them out instead of just carrying them on his shoulder like usual. He might be healing, but he wasn’t stupid. There was no way he wanted to push back his recovery just so he could prove himself.

  “Fuck me.”

  His head turned so fast he almost made himself dizzy. Liz stood with her hands on her hips as she glared at a yellow bush in front of her house. And since he happened to know that the bush should be green all year round, he had a feeling the poor thing had seen the last of its days.

  After wiping his hands on his jeans, he stood up and made his way over to Liz, knowing he was taking his life in his hands. He might have said he’d stay away from her sexually, but she was his neighbor, and being helpful came with the job.

  Sure, Owen, keep telling yourself that.

  “Fuck me,” she repeated, and his dick went on alert.

  Down, boy.

  “I’d say I’d help, but I’m pretty sure we already covered that.”

  Smooth, Owen. Smooth.

  She turned and glared at him, her cheeks going slightly pink. From embarrassment or arousal, he didn’t know, but damn if he didn’t wish it were the latter.

  “I didn’t know anyone was out here.”

  He tilted his head over at his lawn. “I was on my knees over there, working on the front bed, so you probably didn’t see me when you looked out.” And at the mention of knees, an image of Liz on her knees in front of him while she sucked him off filled his brain, and he did his best to push it away. Holy hell, that was one image he wanted to make real, but only if she came to him first.

  Only then.

  He wouldn’t push her, not again, but damn it, he wanted her, and not just for that smoking body of hers.

  Danger, Owen Gallagher, danger.

  Sometimes, his brain was a little off-kilter.

  “Well, I’m sorry my outburst distracted you,” Liz said after a moment, her eyes darkening the longer the two of them stared at each other. He’d done his best to keep a reasonable distance between them, but it would only take one step, one touch of skin against skin to have them practically on top of one another.

  “You didn’t,” he said with a shrug. “I’m just working slowly since I was bored as hell in my house.” He nodded toward the plant. “Having an issue?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “It’s fine.”

  He gave the yellow plant a sad look. “It’s dead.”

  She huffed out a breath. “It can’t be. We just moved in. I can’t have killed a plant after just moving in. It’s not possible.”

  He stuffed his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t make a mistake and touch her. “It could have been on its way out before you moved in. Plants die for all sorts of reasons, and the people renting the house before you didn’t really take care of anything.”

  She closed her eyes and groaned. “I know. That’s why Tessa and I bought the house for what we did. The previous tenants, and probably the tenants before them, treated the house like shit. The plan was for Tessa and me to clean it up and upgrade it over time, but it’s looking to be more of a challenge than we’d thought considering plants are outright committing suicide before I even get a chance to figure out how to take care of them.”

  Hell, she and Tessa had even more on their plate than he’d thought. And though he’d soon be working all hours of the night on the new project, he knew he couldn’t just stay away.

  “You do realize that my brothers and I own a business that deals with all of this, right? We can help.”

  Her eyes flared, and he knew he’d said the wrong thing. “We can do it on our own. We always have.”

  “But that doesn’t mean you have to.”

  “I’m not paying you to do something we can do, Owen.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t mention compensation.”

  Now she looked even angrier. “And I’m not getting the work done for free, damn it. What kind of woman do you think I am?”

  “You said you weren’t getting the work done at all. And there are other ways to pay for help.”

  He should have expected the punch to the gut, only it took more wind out of him than he’d expected.

  “Shit! I forgot. Oh my God. I’ve never hit anyone in my life, and I just hit a man with an open wound.”

  Owen waved her off, and she tugged at his shirt. His breathing was a little better now. “I’m not bleeding or anything. And you hit the other side of my body where there wasn’t bruising and where there hadn’t been an incision. I’m fine, and from the way my words sounded, I totally deserved it.”

  “I hit you.” Her eyes were wide, her face pale, and he took her hands in his, stopping her from pulling his shirt off in broad daylight.

  “And if you thought I was talking about payment with your body, then I deserved it. I was actually saying that we could trade off on things, or give you a discount since you’re my neighbor. Or even just find a way to make it work by showing you how to do things so you can do it yourself. I know you’re independent, Liz, and I wouldn’t ever take that away from you.”

  She still looked too pale, and he wasn’t sure if she understood what he was trying to say. He hated that he’d said what he did that way, and though his side wasn’t hurting from her fairly weak punch, he probably should have been hit harder.

  “Come inside with me and let me check you out.”

  He raised a brow but didn’t say anything as she pulled him into her house. He was really okay, but if she was that worried, he wasn’t going to stop her, not when it meant that he got to have her hands on him.

  He really was a bastard sometimes.

  “Shirt off,” she said when they’d made it into her kitchen. The place needed a new coat of paint, some patch-up work, and probably a brand new kitchen after someone gutted it, but Liz and Tessa had p
ut a sense of home into what they’d unpacked so far. If Liz gave him the go ahead, he knew he and his brothers could help her make this place a true home that she could be proud of. Only she was so independent, he wasn’t sure that was ever going to work, not with the way she kept pushing him away.

  Of course, now that he was shirtless in her kitchen with her hands roaming over his side, he didn’t feel very pushed away at all. In fact, from the way his cock was pushing at the zipper of his jeans, he felt very near to her. Very.

  “Your bruises and road rash are clearing up nicely,” she said, her voice low and so not like how she’d been when she was on duty. Their proximity had to be getting to her, as well.

  “I told you that you didn’t hit me that hard,” he said softly, putting his hand over hers. “I’m okay, Liz. I deserved the punch for the way my words sounded.”

  She finally looked up into his eyes and pressed her lips together. “I still shouldn’t have hit you. I’m a healer. Not someone who lashes out.”

  Knowing he might be doing something stupid, he cupped her face with his hand and licked his lips. “You need to relieve the pressure sometimes, babe. We all do.”

  Her mouth parted, and she let out a shaky breath. If he weren’t already hard as a rock, then the sight of her just now would have sent him straight there.

  “What are you doing to me?” she breathed. “I shouldn’t be doing this. I should be staying away and working on myself. Not getting caught up with you.”

  His thumb brushed along her cheekbone. “Why not get caught up with me?”

  “Because I shouldn’t.”

  “Do you always do things you should?”

  Her hand slid down his bare chest, her skin soft and sending shocks straight down to his dick. “Usually, but there really isn’t anything usual about you is there, Owen Gallagher?”

  His mouth quirked into a grin. “Maybe. But you’ll have to get closer to find out.”

  She leaned forward then, her hand on the edge of his jeans tightening. She brushed her lips against his. She had been the one to make a move, and for that he was grateful. Now if only she would move a bit farther south, then he could be sure that he wasn’t the one pushing too hard.