by Bella Andre
“Can I ask you something?”
He took her hands in his, brought them up to his mouth for a kiss. “Yes,” he answered, “I’ll be ready for another round soon.”
It would have been easy to use their incredible attraction to skip over the hard stuff, but she didn’t want that. And she was pretty sure he didn’t want that, either.
So even though she couldn’t help but smile at his teasing, she still said, “This is a hard day for you, isn’t it? Despite the baby,” she clarified, “and us. Because of your father.”
His hands tightened on hers for a split second before he shrugged. “It’s a good thing that we have something to celebrate now, instead of being bummed every year on this day.”
The dogs were all but throwing themselves against the door, and when he pressed one more kiss to her knuckles, then let her go to let them out, she really couldn’t stop him.
Wishing that love came with instructions, she went to the shower and got under the warm spray. If only she knew how to heal him over his father the way he’d helped her with hers.
She sighed as she faced the truth. Yes, she’d been brave and had opened up her heart to Zach. But just because she’d said “I love you” to a man for the first time in her life, didn’t mean there wasn’t more to say.
And how could she expect him to be completely open with her when she hadn’t been completely open with him?
When she’d told him a flat-out lie.
Zach found her forehead-to-wall as he joined her in the shower. He wrapped an arm around her waist.
“Already regretting it all?” he teased against her neck, but she could hear the real worry beneath his joking words.
She turned in his arms so she could press her face to his chest and hear his heart beating strong and steady in her ear. “Have I ever told you that I love the way you make me laugh?”
Maybe that was why she knew she could tell him anything; because he wouldn’t let her take anything too seriously, would always find a way to show her the joyful side of life.
“You mean like this?”
He tickled her ribcage until she was giggling as the water splashed down on both of them and made everything too slick for her to get away from his teasing fingertips.
And when laughter inevitably turned to passion and he pressed her back against the wall, she welcomed the chance to clear her mind of anything but the sweet ache of taking him inside her yet one more time, letting him fill up all her empty spaces with his heat, his kisses.
And his love.
* * *
Good thing Sullivan Autos was a well-oiled machine, because if it were a choice between hanging out under the engine of a car or spending time with Heather—naked or not—Zach would happily blow off every future day at the office. He was in the bedroom pulling on a T-shirt when he heard Heather speaking to Cuddles.
“Uh-oh, did you find another yummy shoe?”
He walked into the living room just as she picked up a slobbery hunk of brown leather.
She gave him a crooked, very cute smile. “I suppose we’ve been a little lax with training her the past few days.”
“I’ve got this,” he said as he grabbed a tiny chew toy from the floor and held it out for the puppy, who immediately latched onto it with her sharp little teeth. Cuddles shook it with her tiny mouth, her fur flying around her face, and he told her what a good girl she was.
Heather leaned back against the counter. “It used to really annoy me how good you were with her. The fact that she so easily accepted that you were the boss.”
He grinned at her. “I liked annoying you.”
She laughed. “Liked? Don’t you mean you still like it?” Her laughter fell away as she asked, “You’re not going to give her back, are you?”
He gave the other side of the chew toy to Atlas so he could take over. “She’s not my dog.”
Heather made a face. “I know your niece-to-be will probably be disappointed, but she only had her a couple of days. It’s incredible the way the two of you have bonded.” She pinned him with a serious look. “Cuddles is your dog, Zach.”
As he washed his hands at the kitchen sink, he reflected on the fact that two weeks ago he’d been a bachelor with nothing bigger to worry about than where he was going to drink his next beer.
“Two weeks. I was going to watch her, keep her fed, take her on a few walks, and then hand her back.” He figured he should have felt grumpier about it, and made himself say, “This wasn’t how it was supposed to work out.”
“Things don’t always work out the way they’re supposed to.”
He knew that firsthand. His father dying so young shouldn’t have been in the cards for his family. But it had happened anyway.
Heather looked really serious. The same way she’d looked in the shower when he’d thought she was regretting loving him.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” she said softly.
His gut twisted. She wasn’t going to leave, was she? She hadn’t decided it was a big mistake after all?
But when she held out a hand for him to take, he gave silent thanks. If she’d been planning to tell him she’d changed her mind about the two of them, she would have kept her distance.
He pulled her closer before threading his hands into her hair and leaning his forehead against hers. “You can tell me anything.”
“I lied to you,” she whispered before lifting her eyes to meet his. “I didn’t get the scars on my arms in an accident. I made them myself. With razor blades.”
Just the thought of anything hurting Heather tore up Zach’s insides. But knowing she’d done it herself? “Why would you hurt yourself like that?”
“After I found out about my father, I was still keeping it together in school, pretending with my mother, but every time he came home from a trip I found myself locked in my room. Almost like I was trying to bleed out the pain. Trying to control something. And to find a way to distract myself from all the anger.”
Zach had to reach for her hands, had to press kisses to the soft skin of her pulse, along the tendons and muscles on her forearms. He’d heard about kids cutting themselves, but he’d never known anyone who did it.
At least, he’d thought he didn’t.
“You don’t have any new scars, do you?”
“No.” She shook her head, almost smiling at him as she said, “I’m sure you would have found them by now if I did. There was a guidance counselor at school who could tell something was wrong. We all had to take one of those vocation tests and she suggested I should try working with animals. So instead of going home to cut myself that day when my father was coming home from a trip, I went to the local animal shelter.”
“That’s why you do so much for them,” he said in a low voice as he now realized what she’d been through. And how brave she’d been to come out on the other side so strong. Braver than he’d ever been. “Those dogs and cats in that shelter helped you the way you’ve always helped them, didn’t they?”
Finally, a tear fell. The first he’d ever seen her cry.
“I never trusted anyone with the truth about my scars before. I never thought I could.” Her mouth wobbled at the corners as she tried to smile. And failed. “Until you.” She shook her head, half laughing as she said, “I still can’t believe it ended up being you.”
“Thank you for telling me. For trusting me.”
“I don’t know why I’m still crying,” she said as her tears fell one after the other. “Especially when telling you has made me feel so much better, so much lighter than I’ve been in a long, long time.”
He wished he could come clean about his own demons, wished he had half the guts Heather did. But after twenty-three years of holding the darkness deep inside, he just didn’t see how sharing his fears would do anything but upset her. He also knew there was nothing he could say to take away her scars, or to change the man her father was.
Fortunately, he had a couple of backup reinforcements that came naturally
equipped to comfort the woman he loved.
“Cuddles, Atlas, come!”
Three pounds of fur and bone and teeth flew into his arms. He handed the puppy to Heather while Atlas leaned his big head on her thighs. Zach put his arms around her and the two dogs to let her tears fall on all of them.
And like the family they’d become so quickly, the three of them loved her tears away with the kind of slobbery kisses that only a couple of dogs—and a man who’d been likened to one many, many times—could.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Heather had never been so busy with dogs and work...and Zach. She wasn’t even coming close to getting enough sleep, not with a sinfully gorgeous man in her bed, or her in his. But the rest she did get, when his body was wrapped around hers, or when she was using his rock-hard muscles as a pillow, was better than a full night of sleep without him had ever been.
And every day he surprised her. Not just with laughter. But with more love than she could have ever imagined would be hers.
On Wednesday night, he took her and the dogs to an outdoor concert on the green. The band members were friends of his and he’d scored amazing tickets. Together they’d laughed at the way the dogs’ tails wagged in time to the music. And when the sun set, he pulled her between his legs and kept her warmer than any blanket could have.
Thursday found them out on Smith’s sailboat, the dogs in their own fitted life vests, Cuddles under one of Zach’s arms, his free hand holding hers tightly as Atlas lay at their feet. She’d never realized before just how beautiful the Golden Gate Bridge looked in the setting sun...or how nice it was to be able to share that beauty with someone she loved.
By Friday, when she thought she was ready for whatever he had planned, he completely blew her mind by suggesting they hunker down at home on the couch and watch movies together. He made her watch Hoosiers and even though she could have sworn nothing would ever get her interested in basketball, she had to admit to being hooked by the end of the movie. As payback, she cued up The Sound of Music, and even though Zach wouldn’t admit how much he liked it, she caught him humming “My Favorite Things” as he was brushing his teeth.
Heather had to give credit where credit was due. Zach was amazingly good at everything he did, from loving her senseless, to getting her to talk a little more every day about her feelings about her parents. Safe in his arms, she’d started to realize that even though blood tied her to her father and mother, she’d succeeded at building up a real family for herself via her close bonds with friends, co-workers, and the animals she’d taken in over the years.
A part of her still couldn’t get over the fact that Zach Sullivan was the one who had helped her see things more clearly. He was so far from the self-absorbed, vain man she’d once assumed he was.
Was he charming?
God, yes, he was charming. With charisma to spare, enough that her eyeballs sometimes hurt from all the eye-rolling he—and the reactions of women who constantly drooled over him—inspired.
But was he a liar and a cheat?
No, he wasn’t.
On the contrary, he was one of the most honest people she’d ever met. Everything was right there on the surface with Zach. He didn’t make you guess, he just told it to you like it was.
Still, she was nervous come Saturday morning. Not only because he was going to be racing again, this time at the raceway in the wine country near Marcus’s winery, but also because this was the first time she was going to be spending an entire day with his family.
She’d started off insisting to Lori and Sophie that she wasn’t going to date Zach, had clearly blown that by doing the friends-with-benefits thing, and then had capped it all off by flipping out at Chase and Chloe’s house and yelling at Zach on the sidewalk that he couldn’t possibly love her because they had an agreement.
Ugh.
“Looks like you need a little help relaxing.” They were walking onto the racetrack, hand-in-hand, and he was giving her the grin that told her he had wicked plans.
Very wicked plans.
“I’m fine,” she told him in the same firm, no-nonsense voice that she used with particularly rambunctious dogs when they needed to know she was not in the mood to play.
Of course, the truth was that she was always in the mood to play with Zach.
And, unfortunately, he knew it.
For all his teasing, she thought he seemed a little tense. As if he didn’t really want to do this race.
Maybe, she actually found herself thinking, it wouldn’t be so bad to find a private spot behind the stands where they could relax each other. Thankfully, before she could give into the insanity that Zach’s hands and mouth always inspired, Lori called out to them from the stands.
“Saved by a brat,” he muttered as she made a beeline toward his firefighter brother who had given him Cuddles. “Gabe, Megan, Summer, this is Heather.”
She smiled at the couple and the pretty girl between them, but before she could even say hello or ask them how their trip to Europe had been, Zach said, “You can’t have Cuddles back.”
Heather’s gaze shot to the little girl, worried about how she’d take the news. But instead of getting upset, Summer gave Zach a smile so smug, it might have actually out-smugged him at his worst.
“I knew you’d love her!” Summer said as she threw her arms around Zach’s waist. “When we saw her with all the other puppies, I knew right away that she was just what you needed so you’d smile more and be happier.”
Zach frowned as he looked from the top of Summer’s blonde head to his brother’s smirk. “I was set up.”
“It was like taking candy from a baby.”
This was the kind of family Heather had often wished she belonged to. One where even the tricks they played on each other came from the heart.
Then again, Heather’s version of the perfect family hadn’t included a movie star. Her friend Brenda would die right now. Because Smith looked just like he had last week on the big screen. Only better.
Zach slid his arm around Heather’s waist and pulled her tightly against him. So tightly that it almost felt like she was wearing a corset.
“Smith, this is Heather.”
Smith Sullivan gave her the smile that she was sure had melted a million panties. Interestingly, hers were fine. Well, they would be fine, if only Zach would stop rubbing his fingertips against the underside of her breast.
She tried to shift out of Zach’s arms but he only held her tighter. He was always possessive, but for some reason, today he was taking it to a whole new level.
As Smith’s hand curled around hers and he said a low, “Hello,” she felt Zach tense against her.
Wait a minute, did he actually think his movie-star brother would be interested in her?
Ryan appeared next to Smith and grinned at her. “Great to see you again, Heather.”
Just like Zach, Ryan was the picture of good-looking charm. But that was where the similarities ended. Where Zach thrived on his sarcastic edge, Ryan was all laid-back ease. She could see why women fell for him, beyond being impressed with his skill on the pitcher’s mound.
Smith nodded toward the track. “Looks like they’re ready for you down there, Z.”
Ryan grinned. “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of Heather.”
Zach’s jaw clenched. “Don’t flirt with her.”
Had they forgotten she was still there? She was just about to remind them, when Zach’s hands were in her hair and his mouth was on hers and he was kissing all the breath from her lungs.
And then he was gone, leaving her to gasp for air in the middle of a half-dozen Sullivans, all of whom were grinning at her.
“Come, sit with me,” Smith said, leading her to one of the padded folding seats out on the bleachers. Ryan snagged the seat next to her and her butt had barely hit the seat when Zach’s two famous, single brothers started flirting.
Big time.
* * *
Photographers were out in droves to catch the pro r
ace car drivers who’d come out in support of the San Francisco food bank. Zach figured he only had to put up with their flashbulbs until they caught wind of Smith in the stands.
Barry Jones made a crack about getting a run on him in turn two, but Zach didn’t have a comeback for him. Not when he was too busy staring up at the bleachers to make sure his brothers didn’t try anything with Heather.
He trusted her, of course. It was Smith and Ryan he was going to kill if he saw even one picture come out with their hands anywhere on her.
Zach slammed his helmet on and pushed through the other drivers to get into his car. He’d worked with this crew enough to skip the pre-race speech. He hadn’t wanted to do this damn race, but he was a man of his word and had to make good on it.
The race started and he drove like a man possessed. Not just to win, but because he wanted to get the race done, then take Heather back to bed, where it was just the two of them. Where nothing mattered but her laughter, her sweet little sounds of pleasure.
The sound of metal against metal came first, a split second before it slammed through his body.
Damn it, he thought as the car started spinning, he’d known his luck was going to run out one day, but he hadn’t thought it’d be this soon. Or that it would end like this. He’d always figured on having an aneurism like his father, had believed every headache was one step closer to the inevitable.
Zach’s brain and body went into the autopilot that any racer worth his shit immediately shot to in a crash. His hands worked the wheel. His feet worked the brakes and clutch. But as the colors all around him spun together, and his brain and body followed the do-or-die instructions his crew were yelling at him through his earpiece, his heart remained with Heather.
A dozen quick flashes of beauty, of pleasure, swelled behind his breastbone, pushing even deeper, all the way into his soul.
Heather with scratches on her knees, her shirt ripped, dirt smudged across her cheek as she clutched Cuddles to her chest and glared at him.
The feel of her soft curves beneath him as he rolled them out of the way of the skateboarder, and then her fingers slipping into his as they stared up at the blue sky together.
