‘I had a plan, woman,’ Abe said. He cleared his throat. ‘I was headed somewhere.’ His eyes looked happy.
Fiona kissed him again. Kissed him with the knowledge that she loved him. With the knowledge that it changed nothing. That she wanted nothing more than just this moment. She, who always had a plan, who always knew what was coming next, knew nothing about tomorrow. She knew no moment in the future. And the man next to her only knew the past.
But she understood the feel of his lips on hers, his hands skimming her cheekbones, his tongue a gentle rasp.
This was all she needed. All she would ever need. Fiona memorized every second, burning it into her brain so she could replay it on cold nights when she’d be alone, when she’d need it.
CHAPTER FORTY
Love like you knit, like you were born to do it. Because you were. – E. C.
Abe couldn’t stop kissing her. And when he did, when he finally got around to moving down her body, finding the other places that made her give those growly purrs, she swam through the sheets so that they were kissing again.
He could kiss her for the next hundred years or so. That would probably be just about right.
But dammit, he had a mission. He’d almost driven her away. She’d almost left, he knew that. And who knew when he’d get her back? If he’d ever get her back. It seemed kind of doubtful, honestly. What with the way he was and always had been. Probably always would be.
So he needed to blow her damn mind.
Abe bit her bottom lip lightly and said, ‘Lie still.’
‘Oh? Bossy?’ Her voice was amused.
‘Always.’ He nipped at the skin on her neck – so soft, how could she be this silky? – and worked his way down to the top of her breast. Simple kisses. He tasted her, loving the combination of salt and sweet he found on her skin. Cupping one breast with his hand, he traced his tongue around the other one, getting nearer to her nipple but never touching. Just breathing, warmly. Then a quick puff of air that made her nipple tighten.
She gasped as the air hit her.
‘Oh, do you want me to stop?’ he said with a half-smile. ‘Is this too much for you? Maybe we should just lie here and talk some more.’
‘No,’ she grated. ‘Please don’t. Don’t stop.’
‘Okay, then.’ He tugged on her nipple with his teeth, gently enough to not hurt her, but hard enough to make her give that noise in the back of her throat again.
Jesus, he’d never been so hard in his whole damn life.
He slid a hand down her body, over her belly, to where the soft hair curled. She was – God – even wetter now than she’d been before when he’d touched her. Abe pushed a finger into her slickness and moved down her body, slowly, so slowly, until his mouth found the right spot.
Above him, Fiona said something that he didn’t understand. It didn’t sound like stop, though. Kind of the opposite.
So he moved his hand inside her and speeded up his tongue until she was panting above him like she’d been running for hours.
‘I thought you were an old-fashioned kind of … guy.’ She gasped each word.
He nodded against her, taking her in. Lifting his head, he said, ‘Hey, I watch the pay channels.’
Her breath got faster, and she got tighter inside until he could barely move his fingers, and then she made a sound that almost made him lose it, just hearing her.
‘That’s it, love. That’s my girl.’ He watched her come, delighting in her, wanting more, wanting everything.
Love.
Once the word slipped out, he knew it wasn’t wrong.
But it was going to fuck up his life.
Well, then. Bring it on. He wanted to say it again, but he didn’t want to send her running away again. He couldn’t take that. Not tonight.
Fiona’s breath still fast, she dug the tips of her fingers into his shoulder blades and dragged him up her body. Without pausing to ask, she tipped her hips, opened her legs wider, and guided him to where she was slipperiest. A few precious seconds wasted fumbling with the condom, and then, her own juices still on his lips, she drew him into a kiss as she led him into her.
For a moment, Abe couldn’t see. He couldn’t think. The whole world had just blown apart, simply because of the way she was moving underneath him. When he could draw air into his lungs again, he started to move with her. She groaned, and he drove himself faster. Deeper. Her fingers curled into the muscles at the small of his back and she tugged him into her, deeper with every move.
Abe couldn’t keep his eyes off hers. Fiona’s gaze said so much, he wanted to hear her mouth say words that he was dying to feel against his lips – but in this moment, as they moved together, faster and faster, he let himself drown in her eyes.
Sometimes, maybe, drowning wasn’t that bad.
Fiona moved her hands to the back of his head, drawing him down into a kiss so deep he felt dizziness swim through his blood. ‘I want to …’ she started.
‘Anything,’ he promised her, meaning it.
With a simple and sudden twist, she rolled him over onto his back, straddling him without losing contact with him, even for a moment. Even their strokes remained steady, as if it were a dance, as if he’d just turned her under his arm in a waltz.
Fiona looked at him. Her hands splayed on his chest, she tilted her head and looked at him so gently, so … lovingly … that he stayed with her, moving with her, matching her slower rhythm. There was no denying that she felt amazing. They felt amazing.
Speed came next. Abe watched her move on top of him, lifting one hand to brush her hair off her face and over her shoulder, her hips lifting, dropping, lifting, and then pressing down, so fast, then faster, and faster …
He felt her tighten, and her eyes dropped to his again. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and seemed to be trying to stifle a scream, so Abe drove his hips into her deeper, one hand capturing her buttock and pulling her hard. Harder. Her lip loosed, she cried out, spasming around him. Abe felt himself meet her, the heat of him releasing with a shudder, an ache he didn’t know he’d held let go. Lost.
She tumbled, bringing her cheek down to the top of his chest, turning so that her ear was over his heart.
‘So fast,’ she said.
Abe didn’t know what she meant. The sex? How she – or he – came?
Or what he was feeling? Because damn, that was fast. Way too fucking fast.
And yet his arms went around her, and he kissed the crooked part in her hair. ‘Fast. But just right.’ He held her tighter, reveling in the way she pressed herself harder against him. ‘Just right.’
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
When presented with an instruction you don’t understand, hold your ground. You are the boss of those needles you clench in your fists so tightly. – E. C.
Fiona woke to a splashing noise, stuck in a dream in which she was tangled – trapped – in a fishing net. The splashing grew louder, bigger and wider. It was below her, all around her. Her inner ear told her she was moving, just a little bit. Was she on a water bed? Fiona tested the motion in one leg carefully.
The bed remained still, blessedly so.
But the body next to her didn’t.
Abe blew out a deep breath and slung his leg over hers. ‘Hiya,’ he mumbled in her ear.
Shit. She was tangled in him.
Abe was pressed against her, his arm over her stomach, her hair under his head on their shared pillow. He was huge, a warm, solid presence, hard in the places she was soft. His forearm under the tips of her fingers felt more muscled than the strongest ones in her calves. The man was made of muscle. An image from the night before, of her grasping the top of his shoulders, digging her fingers in between the ropes of hard tissue she found there, made her stomach twist in a not-unpleasant way.
God. How was this fair? What was a girl supposed to do, in bed with the guy she’d had a crush on for approximately eleven thousand years?
Get out as fast as humanly possible, probably. So she coul
d plan the next day, without him. Before he confused her any further.
‘So,’ she said, sitting up, trying desperately not to care that the sheet stayed underneath him, and that Abe was staring unabashedly at her breasts. ‘I’ve got to go see about a fish.’
‘Huh,’ Abe drawled. ‘So do I.’
Fiona glanced down at him sharply and then dove off the side of the bed, coming up in her t-shirt. ‘Not the same at all. I’m going to feed mine.’
‘Mine are going to feed me.’
She stood, pulling on her jeans as fast as possible. Her panties were nowhere to be seen, and while she tried not to care, those had been expensive. She got down on her knees and peered under the bed, which was surprisingly clean for a bachelor pad. More magazines than dust-bunnies.
‘Looking for my porn?’
‘The good stuff?’ She slid out a glossy brochure. Deep Sea Fishing in Alaska. ‘Hot,’ she said. Good, if she could just keep up the banter, maybe she’d be able to find her panties and push them in her pocket, and get back to the shop before she was late to open. ‘What time is it?’
‘Early as hell.’ Abe rolled onto his back and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.
Fiona couldn’t help herself – she stared. The way his torso was so wide at his nipple line, the way it narrowed in ridges, covered with a fine, dark hair that got darker the farther south it went … now she knew exactly what was beneath that thin sheet. And what was under there was growing.
A low laugh. ‘I wake up quickly. Even without coffee.’
‘I can see that.’ Tempting as it was – and dang, what she wouldn’t do to get under those covers with him again and stay there – she wouldn’t. Couldn’t. She had to leave while she still had two brain cells to rub together.
‘Enough.’ Fiona clapped her hands. ‘I’ve lost my underwear. Help me find it.’
‘Is there a reward?’
Fiona merely arched an eyebrow at him. ‘Help. Now.’
Abe stuck his foot farther under the sheets. ‘This it?’ Reaching under, he pulled out her scrap of red lace. ‘Can I keep it?’
She snatched it out of his hands. ‘No. These are my favorites.’
‘I’ll say.’
She sucked in her lips so her grin didn’t give her away.
‘What are you wearing tonight?’ he asked, stretching his arms over his head.
Fiona – again – tore her eyes off him and shrugged into her jacket. ‘What?’
‘Will you wear those again tonight?’
‘I am so not rewearing underwear.’
‘I mean, something like them.’
‘At the council meeting?’
He gave her a huge grin.
‘No,’ she said.
‘Okay, what will you wear?’
She said, ‘I was thinking about my gray wool suit.’
‘Sounds hot. And I don’t mean sexy.’
‘It’s a nice suit. Don’t mock me.’ Fiona pulled on one shoe. She knew she could be doing this faster, moving more expeditiously. She probably could have been out the door five minutes ago. Why wasn’t she, then?
‘Under it. What will you wear under it?’
Fiona shrugged. ‘The regular stuff.’
‘Like what?’
‘Big white cotton gramma underpants.’
He rolled onto his stomach and stared at her. Fiona felt the flame lick her again, low in her core.
‘Tell me more,’ he said.
Fiona drew out her words, lowering her voice to a husky rasp. ‘Broken elastic, stretched out. A little too big. Saggy in the bottom area.’
‘More. What about on top?’
‘Mmmm.’ Fiona licked her lips provocatively and spoke as slowly as she could, elongating every syllable. ‘Sports bra. Oh, yeah. Gray. The kind that makes a girl flat on top, wide in back.’
‘You know what?’
What if he actually really hated sports bras? ‘What?’
‘You would be so fucking hot in that get-up.’
She bit the inside of her cheek. ‘Really?’ Immediately, she wished she hadn’t asked.
He reached out his hand to her, confidently, as if he knew she’d take it.
She did.
‘Really. You could wear those big flat leather sandals with built-in arch support and you’d still be the prettiest girl in nine counties.’
‘Just nine?’ Fiona was joking, but the answer felt more important than she wanted it to.
‘My buddy is married to Miss Universe 2012, and he lives about ten counties to the east, in Nevada. I’m not going to run you against her on a stage, but if I was the one doing the judging, you’d win that too.’
This was getting ridiculous. ‘Cut it out,’ said Fiona. She finished pulling on her cowboy boots. She found her hat where it had been smushed by his cat, who had apparently been sitting on it all night. ‘Lord,’ she said, smacking it flat-palmed. Digit moved to settle on a low bookshelf in the sun.
‘He sheds when he’s nervous.’
‘Why would he be nervous?’
‘There’s air in the room. That’s enough to spook that damn cat.’
Abe’s voice was gruff. He reached out a long arm to cuff Digit on the head, and the cat responded with a wild purr, rubbing himself along Abe’s hands. ‘He’s awful,’ said Abe. Digit growled like a dog and jumped onto the bed. Then he fell over on his side, drooling and purring at the same time.
‘I think your cat is rabid.’
Abe nodded. ‘That would explain a lot.’
‘So …’ Fiona started, shifting to her other leg. Wanna do this again? It wasn’t exactly the tone she was going for. ‘So. You’re coming to the council meeting tonight?’ Of course he was. She was saying it more to prepare herself than for any other reason.
Abe shrugged and leaned back on his pillow. Digit followed, batting Abe’s hands with his huge paws. ‘Only if you give me a show.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘If you wink at me from the stage, it means you’re not wearing underwear.’
God, he was cute. And there was no way in hell she was showing up for a city council meeting going commando. She’d probably trip and fall, ripping whatever she was wearing, and the whole town would see her bare ass – or worse – on display. ‘No. There will be no wink.’
‘What’s the point, then?’ he asked with a lazy grin. Fiona wanted to get back into bed and trace where that smile started and ended. First with her fingers. Then with her tongue.
She found her earrings on his nightstand. She didn’t even remember taking them off last night.
The smile faded on Abe’s face. ‘So you’re still going through with it?’
‘What?’
‘Your argument for pulling down the lighthouse.’
Surprised, she said, ‘Of course.’
‘After all we talked about, and what it means to me, you still feel the same way?’ Digit growled a warning, and then struck at Abe’s hand. He drew it back with a curse.
Fiona felt a little like lashing out at him herself. ‘Maybe you’ve forgotten what I told you about why I hate the place. Plus, we didn’t even talk about the fact that it’s completely unsafe. Someone’s going to get hurt.’
‘You can’t just …’ Abe pushed the covers roughly aside, and lurched for his boxers, pulling them on so fast Fiona didn’t even have time to ogle. Not that she wanted to, not at this exact moment. Not when she was suddenly this irritated.
She pushed her second earring through, yanking it too hard. A piece of metal broke off into her hand. She shoved it in her pocket. ‘I thought you knew this wasn’t up for discussion. That we would agree to disagree.’
‘You know I’ll argue against you.’
Of course he would. Why had she thought he wouldn’t? Somehow she’d thought by telling him the story of her mother last night, he’d understand her idea of making that plot of coastal land useful and attractive and safe – that there could be no better plan for the place.
‘I’ve been working on my pitch for two weeks,’ she said, as if that would help. ‘How’s yours going?’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll write it today.’
Fiona gave a disbelieving half-laugh. ‘You have to go fishing. You have a trip planned.’
‘I’m the boss. I’ll cancel.’ As Abe pulled on his jeans, Fiona told herself to keep her damn eyes off his thigh muscles.
‘It’s a conflict of interest. The town’s harbormaster can’t discuss land deeded to the town.’
Abe paused in pulling a white t-shirt out of a drawer tucked under the window. ‘Now you’re just making shit up.’
Fine. He had her on that one. ‘You’re not prepared.’
‘Who else is speaking? Elbert Romo?’
She gave a brief nod.
Abe gave a thumbs up. ‘I helped him get home a couple of weeks ago after too many at the Rite Spot.’
‘So he drinks a little.’
‘I helped him to bed. You know he sleeps in a sleeping bag on the floor?’
‘That’s awful.’
‘No, it’s because he’s too lazy to wash the sheets.’
‘He still has to wash the sleeping bag …’
Abe shook his head slowly.
‘Oh,’ she said.
‘Explains those overalls he always wears, huh?’
They were getting off track. ‘You’d have to debate me.’
He raised one eyebrow. ‘I’m doing okay right now. I think I did okay last night, too.’
Fiona saw a tiny flicker of amusement behind his eyes, and it made her stomach twist with anger. ‘Don’t do this.’
He didn’t back down an inch. He didn’t even blink. ‘Snowflake, no one’s told me what to do for years. I don’t expect that to change.’
Fiona said, ‘Felchitch.’ It was a combination of every swear word she knew, and it felt as ineffective as it sounded.
Turning sharply, she went into the living room, remembering to duck her head at the last moment before she opened the door. She’d already slammed it behind her – giving the screen door an extra kick for emphasis – before she realized that she’d left her hat behind. Shit, shit, shit.
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