Saving Myself For You

by Teresa Hill

  I survive it all long enough for my nose to stop bleeding. Finally, I can stand up straight, and she backs away a step.

  The next thing I know, she’s coming at me with another paper towel. I grab it and take it from her before she can wipe the melted ice water off my chest and my neck. She looks at me like I’m being ridiculous, as if to say, What is wrong with you?

  Really? Is she kidding me? Does she think nothing of having her hands all over a guy? That thought pisses me off even more. I know it’s unfair. I get that completely. But I’m not quite rational where she’s concerned. And the sad truth is, even if I can’t have her, I hate the idea of any other guy being anywhere near her. I hate guys looking at her, wanting her, saying things about her.

  Which they do. All the fucking time.

  Guys talk. Believe me, it’s a damned miracle I fight as seldom as I do, considering what I hear about her at school. They talk about her ass, her long legs, her sweet mouth, her gorgeous hair, her laugh, her pretty brown eyes and which one of them will finally be the one to nail her.

  That’s another thing. If I had a million dollars, I’d bet it all on her being a virgin. No doubt in my mind. If our school had a Queen of the Virgins, she’d wear the crown. Not that she makes a big deal about it or tries to say she’s better than anybody else or to tell anybody else what they should do. She just doesn’t fool around with anybody. She’s the prettiest, most amazing girl, and she seems untouchable and untouched. A guy could never smile at her at a party and five minutes later be in a dark, quiet corner with his hands down her pants or have her on her knees in front of him.

  So completely not her.

  Which means guys see her as a challenge. Some of them try stuff with her, but as far as I know, she’s shot all of them down. I don’t know what I’ll do if, one day, I hear something different from one of those guys.

  And I’m here, in her house, late at night, might as well be alone with her because everybody else is asleep, and she wants to play doctor.

  She pulls out a stool from the little desk in the kitchen, and the next thing I know, it’s hitting the back of my knees. I sit, thinking if I don’t, she’ll have her hand on my chest, pushing me down, and I really don’t need that.

  Next, she’s up on her toes, trying to reach something on the top shelf of one of the kitchen cabinets. I see those toned, tanned legs of hers. Her shirt rides up enough from her jean shorts to give me a glimpse of her flat belly, her little belly button.

  I want my hand on her belly, my tongue teasing her belly button.

  No hardware of any kind there. Not that kind of girl.

  I bet there’s not a mark anywhere on her skin. It’s flawless. The only piercing is on her ears -- just one in each lobe.

  That’s my good girl.

  Okay, not mine. But in my head, she is. In every fantasy I have, she’s absolutely and completely mine. We have the most amazing life in my mind. It’s perfect. I’ve had her a million times in my dreams.

  She finally manages to get what she needs out of the cabinet, and I manage not to press my mouth to her belly as she does it. She shoots me an odd look as she sets a big first aid kit on the counter beside me.

  I close my eyes and try to breathe, to get that image of my mouth on her out of my head. She thinks I’m doing that because something really hurts and wants to know what that is.

  “I’m fine. Just tired,” I say again. Not that she’s listening.

  Damned stubborn girl.

  I open my eyes and see that she has a piece of damp gauze in her hand, and she’s standing right in front of me, nudging my thighs apart so she can stand between them, way too close. I sit up straight, then have to try very hard not to back up, stool and all, to get away from her. If I do, I’ll look like an idiot, and she’ll want me to explain what’s wrong. I can’t do that, either.

  So I sit here, trying not to breathe too deeply, to tense up too much, to back away from her determined efforts to patch me up. She’s trying to get all the blood off my face, and she’s concentrating hard, acting like she has to get every speck, moving slowly and gently like she’s really worried about hurting me. Like me hurting in the smallest of ways is important.

  She always finds a way to surprise me, to make me want her even more. Sometimes I feel like I need to touch her, to have her touch me, more than I need to breathe. The whole damned world may be completely unfair to me, but every now and then, I get to have this beautiful, amazing girl close to me, touching me, smiling at me, laughing with me, believing in me.

  How am I supposed to fight that?

  * * *

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  Excerpt: The Edge of Heaven

  Did you like meeting Dana’s parents? Emma & Rye? Here’s an excerpt from their story, available now.

  "How old are you?"

  He practically growled, as the scent of her, straight from her bath, settled deep in his lungs, warm and languid. It made him hungry in ways he didn't want to think about.

  "How old do you think I am?" She drifted a bit closer, the smell coming along with her.

  Vanilla, he realized a moment later. She smelled like vanilla.

  It made him think of warm cream dribbled over something sweet and sinful. Emma and warm, smooth vanilla cream.

  If the smell of her wasn't dangerous enough, the sight of her was even harder to take. Her skin was still flushed from the heat and slightly damp in places, as if she'd toweled off in a hurry. Her hair was piled carelessly on her head and the pieces of it that had escaped were damp, too.

  Her cheeks were flushed, and she looked all fresh faced and innocent and young. He had to remind himself he didn't mess around with nice women like her, not anymore.

  "Something smells good," she said, coming closer, bringing that scent into the kitchen with her.

  Rye bit back a reply, something that would likely have come out as, Something certainly does.

  "Hungry?" he said instead, too late realizing that probably wasn't the best conversation opener, either.

  "Yes." She came right up beside him, damp and warm, and she might as well have doused herself in vanilla cream.

  Dessert, he thought. Emma.

  She turned to the cabinets. Opening one, she raised up on her toes to reach the top shelf, giving him a perfect view of her sweet bottom in a pair of jeans that fit like a glove and hugged every enticing curve.

  Abruptly, he remembered he had to know one thing about her. “Twenty-three?” he guessed. “Maybe twenty-five?"

  "Close enough," she said. She eased down off her toes, two plates in hand, seeming to take delight in throwing it right back at him.

  But at least she was smiling. He liked seeing Emma smile. Trying not to growl at her or take a bite of her, he thought, Please, let her be twenty-five.

  "Emma?" He took a plate from her and filled one for her, cheese crepes topped with a sauce he'd made using some of her aunt's blackberry jam and some whipped cream.

  "It's just a number, right?" she said, taking her plate and smiling mischievously.

  "No, it's not just a number."

  Not when he was thinking he might be ten years older than she was, maybe even more. Not that he was going to let anything happen between them. Still…

  "I'm starving," Emma said. "Can we eat?"

  He frowned. "You didn't tell me how old you are."

  "Old enough," she claimed, seating herself on one side of the breakfast bar and waiting for him to do the same.

  He made a plate for himself, sat down across from her, a good bit of pretty granite counter top stretching between them, which had seemed like a good idea at the time. But it meant he got a front-row seat as every spoonful went into her delectable-looking mouth.

  And he was supposed to be figuring out how old she was, dammit.

  He had a nagging sense that he wasn't going to like her answer, once he got one out of her. But honestly, how young could she possibly be? She'd said she was finishing college. So s
he had to be twenty-one or twenty-two.

  Twenty-one?

  He frowned.

  Twenty-one-year-olds were practically infants, weren't they? Didn't they still giggle and flirt shamelessly and guzzle beer at parties with frat boys?

  She probably went to parties with frat boys.

  Rye sat there while she moaned and groaned in appreciation over bite after bite. He tried to block out the sound, because it made him think of Emma in her bath, in her vanilla-scented water with her now vanilla-scented skin.

  If she was a day over twenty-three and he was anyone but who he was, he would have let himself imagine feeding her crepes in the bathtub, getting her out, and eating her up.

  "What's wrong?" she asked.

  He looked up at her, finding her chewing slowly, her pretty mouth pursed into something that looked like a kiss at the moment.

  "Nothing,” he claimed.

  It was an absolute lie.

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  * * *

  Excerpt: Bed of Lies

  Did you like meeting Zach & Julie? Read their story and find out how Peter came to live with them. The book is on sale now. Here’s an excerpt.

  Julie turned around, and there he was, bare chest, bare feet, weary, bloodshot eyes, razor stubble all over that stubborn chin. His hair was all mussed, a towel knotted hastily around his waist that was likely the only thing he wore, regrets like none she'd ever seen stamped across his face.

  Never in a million years would she have believed she'd end up in bed with Zach. She was sure he felt the same. He was the seemingly perfect older brother of her best friend from childhood, a boy who’d always seemed completely out of her reach.

  He still was.

  “I was... I'm going to go," she said. That was the answer. Go. Without another word. What was there to say anyway?

  He nodded toward her skirt barely hanging over her hips, the bra barely covering her breasts, the ruined blouse in her hand. "Like that?"

  "No" she admitted as he came closer.

  Without another word, he went to her back and carefully, competently raised the zipper and slipped the little button at the top of her skirt through the buttonhole. She tried to stay perfectly still, to not so much as breathe at the slight touch of his fingers against her bare skin, to not feel anything. If only she could manage that.

  The bra posed no challenge at all. It seemed he dressed women as easily as he undressed them.

  He took the blouse from her trembling hand, frowning at the state it was in. Running a hand through his hair, he looked down at that spot on the floor where they'd started last night and said softly, gravely, "Did I hurt you?"

  "No," she whispered.

  He came to stand in front of her, took her chin in his hand, making her look at him. "Are you sure? Because I was rough with you. I know I was."

  She held his gaze just long enough to say, "I'm sure. You didn't hurt me." Then she went back to staring at the same spot on the floor that seemed to fascinate him as well.

  Her skin tingled in places she didn't care to admit. Her back, from being pinned hard beneath him on the carpet. The skin around her mouth, her nipples, even between her legs, abraded by the rough stubble on his face. She felt a slight soreness between her legs deep inside as well, and maybe in the muscles of her thighs. He'd held her, probably tightly enough in moments that she had a little bruise here and there, but it had been sheer desperation driving him, and she understood that. He'd done nothing that needed forgiveness.

  He took the blouse from her hand and held it out for her. She slipped her arms through the sleeves, unable to keep from thinking how kind and considerate he was this morning, in contrast with the way he'd taken her last night. Not a typical night in the sack with Zach McRae. She'd have put money on that. He'd even shocked himself with what he'd done.

  With the kind of dexterity she couldn't help but admire, he began buttoning the tiny buttons on her blouse, frowning as he got to the gaping hole in the middle where the buttons were gone and her lavender bra showed through.

  "Not gonna do much good, is it?"

  She clutched the ends together. "I'll be fine. I just have to get home."

  "Not like that." He bent over and grabbed his own shirt, which was lying in a pool of stark white on the sofa. He held it out so she could slip her arms inside that, too. Then she quickly stepped back before he could go to work dressing her again.

  It seemed he never stopped taking care of a woman. She hastily buttoned his shirt and rolled up the sleeves. She pushed a hand impatiently through her hair, trying to get it to not look so mussed. She stepped into her shoes. All the while he stood there staring at her.

  "I don't know what to say," he began.

  "Nothing." She gave him an out. "There's nothing to say."

  "I'm sure there must be something. I just don't know what it is."

  "Look, it was a bad night," she said as evenly as possible, trying to look very much like it was nothing to her, either. "You were upset. You needed to not be alone."

  "And that's supposed to make it okay?"

  "It's just one of those things, Zach. It happens."

  "Not to me."

  She stared at him, a thousand questions running through her mind. He'd never once been that lost? Never once reached for a woman just because she was there and he needed to lose himself in her? His life had never been this bad?

  Well, hers certainly had.

  "It's all right." Stupid, but no harm done, right?

  He frowned at her. "That's it? I got drunk and poured out my troubles to you and then we ended up in bed, and all you say is that it's all right?"

  “I’m saying I understand. It's awkward, and I'm sure we both regret it and find it a little embarrassing, but people have done worse things. We'll just put it behind us and go right on."

  "Go right on?" he repeated.

  "What else would we do? I know what it was. Two people helping each other make it through the night. That's it. Now it's morning, and the thing is, problems never look quite so bad in the morning. You go put your life back together, and I'll go do the same to mine." She finally found her other shoe, grabbed her purse and her keys. "I have to go."

  He stopped her with a hand on her arm. "Julie, I'm sorry."

  "I know,” she said, his touch bringing back a million little memories of the night before, memories she certainly didn't need or want.

  Then, unable to help herself, she turned to face him. Which was a mistake. She needed to forget him and this sad, lost look on his face, too. And all that bare skin and him all rumpled and uncertain. She'd never seen Zach uncertain, and it made her want to try to take care of him some more. But look where that innocent little impulse had gotten them both.

  She rose up on her tiptoes and gave him a quick, soft kiss on the cheek. "Take care of yourself, okay?"

  He nodded bleakly.

  "And go home." Jesus, he had people who loved him, people who would take care of him. He didn't have to live like this.

  She was going to worry about him, even if he wasn't hers to worry about. He never would be. Just that little piece of him she'd had last night.

  Buy Bed of Lies

  * * *

  The McRaes Series in Order

  Twelve Days, Book 1

  Twelve Days before Christmas, Rachel McRae opens her front door and a social worker puts a baby in her arms—one who comes with a four-year-old boy and an eleven-year-old girl. The siblings were abandoned and need a temporary home.

  The problem is Rachel’s family is falling apart. Rachel and her husband, Sam, have dreamed of a house filled with children—a dream that has led them to repeated heartbreak. Sam McRae has finally decided the only thing left to do is leave his wife.

  Reluctantly, Rachel and Sam take the children in, but just until after Christmas. They will do their best not to fall in love with the children. They will do their best not to get their hopes up that this time a miracle will happen, that these children will sta
y, and their marriage can still be saved.

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  * * *

  Edge of Heaven, Book 2

  She looks at him and thinks, "Please, don't let him be more than twenty-five."

  He looks at her and thinks, "Please, let her be at least twenty-five.”

  Neither one of them is.

  And that's only one of their problems.

  Rye is a man with an ugly past. He didn't come to Baxter, Ohio, looking for a woman, but there she is. Emma is pretty and sweet, and the kind of woman he's always wanted, but never dreamed he could have. Her innocence and vulnerability tugs at Rye's weary heart, and the sizzling sexual pull between them can't be ignored.

  But Emma has a dangerous ex-boyfriend, plus an outraged, overprotective father with a family connection that dooms the relationship from the start.

  That and Rye's dangerous past make it impossible for them to have a future together.

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  * * *

  Bed of Lies, Book 3

  One very bad night, after more than a few drinks, the most perfect guy in the world falls apart and ends up in bed with Julie.

  She understands. It happens. It doesn’t mean anything, she says. But she’s lying to herself. It blows up her life and his — a specialty of Julie’s.

  Growing up, Zach McRae was her best friend's older brother -- sweet, protective and perfect. He shows up out of the blue at her engagement dinner and instantly sees right through all the lies she's told herself. Lies like she's fine, even happy, and right where she wants to be.