by Noelle Adams
He wasn’t used to being trusted.
“I’ll carry him,” he said.
Andrew did carry him—the whole two miles back to the inn. It wasn’t easy going, since the dog was big and ungainly and not inclined to lie limply as he was held. In fact, once, Andrew had to stop and rest, since Theo was wriggling out of his arms.
By the time they finally made it to the inn, Andrew was soaked through with sweat and his chest burned each time he breathed. His arms were trembling with exhaustion.
Hector called a neighbor, a retired doctor who evidently functioned as a veterinarian for a lot of the locals. Shortly afterwards the man arrived and, after carefully inspecting Theo’s leg, said no bones were broken. He must have torn a ligament, and there was nothing to do for that but let it heal. Theo should do as little walking as possible for at least a month.
Laurel was so intent on Theo and then so focused on the herbs the neighbor and Agatha were discussing that would best treat the pain that she seemed to have forgotten about Andrew. So, once he knew Theo would be all right, Andrew went back to his room.
He needed to shower and bandage his knees and arms. Instead he just sat down on the side of his bed.
His lungs still ached slightly from his effort earlier. Blood from the scrapes on his knees was drying in rivulets down his legs. He tasted something faintly bitter in his mouth. He knew it was the aftermath of adrenalin overload.
He needed to drink a lot of water, take a shower, and then try to exercise to work off the lingering effects.
But he couldn’t seem to move.
He heard a knock on his door and made a noise that must have sounded like permission to enter.
Laurel came in. She’d washed her face and hands but hadn’t yet changed clothes. She was a mess, with dirt on her legs and dress and her hair tangled around her face. She carried a first aid kit.
“Are you all right?” Her voice was strangely gentle.
He nodded and managed to make his voice work. “How’s Theo?”
“He’s fine. He’s sleeping. Are you sure you’re all right?” She peered at him closely.
He nodded again and made himself smile. He wasn’t quite sure what was wrong with him, but there was no sense in embarrassing himself. “Yeah. I’m just fine.”
She set the first aid kit down at his feet and then went into the bathroom. She came back with a wet washcloth.
Then she knelt on the floor and started to wipe the blood off his legs.
“You don’t have to do that,” Andrew said, when he realized what she was doing.
“Why shouldn’t I?” She was quiet, strangely mild, and her hands were very gentle as she cleaned up his knees and then wiped the cuts with antiseptic wash.
Andrew felt the weird heaviness in his belly intensify as he watched her tend him.
When she finished, she lifted herself higher on her knees and took his right arm in both of her hands. She wiped up the blood and applied antiseptic to that cut too.
She wasn’t looking at his face. She focused intently on her task. She seemed different somehow—hesitant, almost uncertain.
Andrew wanted to say something light and amusing to cut the tension, but, for the first time in his life, he couldn’t think of anything to say. He just sat there in silence and watched her, the clench in his stomach spreading up to his chest, to his heart.
She got back up without speaking and went into the bathroom again. She came out with another wet washcloth.
She sat on the bed next to him and started to wipe his face.
He sucked in his breath at the feel of the cool, wet cloth against his skin.
“Thank you,” she said at last, her dark lashes lowered against her skin. She slid the washcloth down to his throat, and it felt deliciously cool and clean.
“It was nothing,” he managed to say.
“It wasn’t nothing. You saved Theo. It…it meant everything to me.”
“Well, what did you think I would do?” Since he felt so weirdly unsettled, his tone came across as more grumpy than he’d intended. “I like Theo. He’s a good dog. And, even if he wasn’t, do you really think I’m the kind of man who would just let a poor dog die?”
“No,” she said, her voice cracking. Her eyes lifted to meet his. “I know you’re not that kind of man. I know what kind of man you are.”
“Do you?”
“You’re so good. And so generous. And…and so brave.” She swallowed hard, dropped her eyes, and then look up at him again. Said so softly he almost didn’t hear, “And I know I shouldn’t, but I just can’t stop wanting you.”
They stared at each other for a long time—on the cusp of understanding so deep it ached. Then finally Andrew couldn’t hold himself back.
He leaned into her, curled one hand around the back of her head, and sank into a kiss.
She gave a little moan against his mouth and grabbed his damp t-shirt in both of her hands, leaning forward into him.
Her eager response fueled his need, and he deepened the kiss, easing her back down onto the bed. He moved over her, slightly awkwardly since her legs were still off the side of the bed. He couldn’t stop kissing her, compelled by a mingling of desire, excitement, and need he’d never experienced before.
Laurel seemed to be feeling it too. She arched beneath his weight, her hands grabbing for fistfuls of his shirt. He broke the kiss long enough for her to pull his shirt off over his head, and then he claimed her mouth again.
“I want you too, Laurel,” he murmured against her mouth. He kissed his way down her jaw and neck, loving the salty, natural taste of her skin, the way he could feel her pulse fluttering under his lips. “I want you so much.”
It was true. And it was terrifying.
He’d never wanted anyone as much.
***
Laurel had never felt like this in her life, so completely out of control—as if her body and her heart had revolted against her mind.
She should have been hiding in fear, trying to recover from having to rely on Andrew so much, from having to admit to herself her own insufficiency. She should have escaped until she could work back to her normal, controlled existence.
She didn’t want to, though. This felt too good—and not just to her body. Every part of her wanted to give herself to Andrew, seek strength and solace and pleasure and bone-deep understanding in him.
He started to pull off her dress, and she raised her arms to let him. Then he lowered his lips to one of her breasts, and she pressed up into his mouth, moaning softly as pleasure rippled through her from his touch.
She felt him hardening against her thigh as she writhed beneath his caresses. After a few minutes, her arousal pulsed with such insistence that she gasped, “Andrew, please. I want you now.”
He’d been mouthing her belly, fondling her breasts with both hands. But now he sat up with a jerk, panting and staring down at her. “Condom,” he managed to mutter. He was flushed, aroused, tense, rumpled, and almost dazed. Utterly irresistible.
Since he looked to be in worse condition than her, she managed to climb off the bed, although she could feel arousal intensely between her legs. “Where?”
“In the bathroom. In my case.”
She hurried to get one and returned to the bed. He was still sitting on the side of the bed, and he reached for her as she approached.
She pushed him back onto the bed, stroking her hands up and down his bare chest. He was still sweaty and so was she, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.
She moved on top of him as they kissed, rubbing her breasts against his chest, humming at the feel of the coarse hair against her nipples.
She fumbled at the button on his shorts and finally managed to undo it. He lifted his hips as she pushed down his shorts and underwear, and then she took his erection in both hands.
She loved the way his breath hitched when she touched him, the way he groaned when she stroked her fingers up and down his length.
She felt so strange—not jus
t aroused but deep, tender, and possessive. She slid out of her panties and then rolled the condom on.
She was about to mount him the way she had the last time, but he rolled them over before she could.
She gasped in surprise and then gasped again in pleasure as she felt him between her legs, nudging at her entrance. “Andrew, please,” she breathed, rocking her hips up impatiently, wanting to feel him inside her more quickly.
He entered in a series of slow thrusts and retreats, reangling every time her channel resisted the penetration. When he was fully sheathed inside her, he raised himself up on straightened arms, panting and closing his eyes as he evidently fought for control.
She didn’t want him to be controlled. She wanted him to be as out of control as she was. She writhed around the tight penetration and fisted her hands in the bedding.
“Andrew,” she gasped at last. “Please now.”
He groaned and opened his eyes, gazing down at her as he began to thrust. His eyes were so deep, so intense, she couldn’t look away, even as the sensations intensified.
His motion was slow and pleasurable, but it wasn’t what she needed. She made a whimpering sound. “I need more, Andrew. I need it fast.”
He choked on a rough sound, as the last thread of his control snapped. He thrust harder, faster, and Laurel panted in pleasure as she eagerly matched his motion with hers.
There was nothing gentle, rhythmic, or graceful about their lovemaking. It was raw, sweaty, and primitive, and they were both almost clumsy in their urgency. Andrew started to grunt, low in his throat, and Laurel kept making sobbing sounds that got louder and louder as she rode toward climax.
She clawed at his back and his ass, trying to get him even closer. She wrapped her legs around his waist and squeezed as tightly as she could, and she still couldn’t look away from his intent gaze, even though she felt completely vulnerable, completely known.
She surrendered to it, surrendered to the agonizingly intense sensations that overwhelmed her. She cried out helplessly as she reached climax, unable to hold anything back.
He came right after her, as if he’d just been holding on for her. He let out a loud, uninhibited sound before she felt him come in shudders and gasps above her. His release was as powerful as hers, and it took as much out of him.
He collapsed on top of her, and she clung to him desperately.
“Laurel,” he said hoarsely, his face buried against the curve of her neck. “Laurel.”
She loved the sound of his saying her name like that. She loved the way his body slowly softened above her, as if she’d given him what he desperately needed. She loved the way her own body yielded to draw him in.
She didn’t want him to ever get up.
Finally he did. He had to take care of the condom. He raised himself up with a reluctant groan and gently pulled out of her, making sure the condom didn’t leak.
She lay in an exhausted heap as he walked naked to the bathroom. She saw red scratches on his smooth back and his tight butt where she’d clawed at him. She heard the water in the sink running.
She wanted him to come back to bed with her. She wanted him to take her in his arms and hold her. She wanted to feel safe and treasured in his embrace. She didn’t want to let him go.
She sat up with a surge of panic as she realized what she was thinking.
It was wrong. It was wrong and dangerous. It was everything she’d spent her life protecting herself from.
Andrew was walking back to the bed. His face was relaxed and his eyes almost tender, as if he was coming to take her in his arms.
And it was so much more than she could handle.
She almost leaped out of the bed, grabbing for her dress and pulling it over her head in a clumsy rush. She couldn’t see her panties, so she didn’t take the time to look.
“What’s wrong?” Andrew asked, bewildered.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I can’t. I just can’t.”
She fled.
She ran out of the building and then up to her own quarters, her own room. She jumped into the shower, trying to wash Andrew off her body. She cleaned off the dirt. She cleaned off his sweat and hers. She cleaned off the evidence of her arousal. But none of it helped.
She cried a little bit, her tears streaming down with the water, and she wondered how she’d done this to herself and how she could get herself out.
She didn’t feel any better as she dried off and got dressed. She was still so terrified she was shaking with it.
Plus, she couldn’t help but think about Andrew, about how he must have felt when she ran away.
She went to check on Theo, but the dog was sleeping comfortably. She got a glass of water and drank it all the way down.
If she’d had sex like that with someone who had run away afterwards, she would be devastated and deeply offended.
She didn’t want Andrew to feel that way. He’d been so good to her. He didn’t deserve it. Even if she was scared about letting down all of her defenses, that didn’t justify being a coward.
She went back to his bedroom, but he wasn’t there. So she looked around the other areas of the inn until she found him on the pool deck.
He stood near the rail, looking out at the lowering sun over the caldera. He must have showered and was now dressed in a clean t-shirt and another pair of shorts.
He turned when he heard her approach.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice cracking. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have run away.”
“Why did you?” His expression was quiet, careful, guarded in a way it almost never was.
She knew she’d hurt him.
She shook her head and lowered her eyes, but that was cowardly too, so she gave him an honest answer. “I was scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of you. Of everything. I’m so sorry. I just don’t know what to do. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I don’t know what’s going on here. It really scares me.”
Telling him the truth like that was brutally hard, but she knew it was the right thing when she saw his face transform.
He reached out for her and pulled her into a hug. She shook against him for a minute, releasing the pent up emotion, hugging him back as hard as she could. He smelled clean and felt strong. His body and his heart were so incredibly warm. And she needed him.
“I don’t know what’s going on either,” he murmured thickly, holding her tightly against him. “But please don’t run away from me again.”
Chapter Nine
“I don’t know why you can’t just trust me,” Laurel said, staring down at her folded hands on the table. “I have the deed. My husband inherited it from his grandfather, and then he gave it to me. I’m not making it up. The inn is really mine.”
Andrew sat across the table from her, leaning back in his chair. They’d just eaten breakfast on the kitchen patio, delaying the discussion for as long as they could.
They had to figure out what to do about the inn. They couldn’t put it off forever.
“I do trust you,” Andrew said, reaching over and covering one of her hands with his big, warm one. “And I know you’re not making this up, but that doesn’t solve our problem. You’ve acted in good faith in everything you’ve done, but my uncle has well-documented evidence that your husband’s grandfather didn’t legally own the inn at the time of his death so your husband should never have inherited it.”
Andrew’s face was utterly serious, not a trace of irony or humor. That alone made Laurel’s blood run cold, since it proved how firmly he believed his uncle’s claim was valid. He was telling her—probably in direct defiance of his uncle’s instructions—what the Damon claim on the inn was. This was the whole story she’d never known, and it might prove the inn wasn’t hers at all.
“I don’t understand how that’s possible.” She tried to sound natural and composed. “Surely Jerry wouldn’t have been able to inherit if the inn didn’t legally belong to his grandfather. Don’t they look into all that
when they execute a will? How did he have the deed in his hands if he didn’t own it?”
“I don’t know. They should have looked into everything, but obviously they didn’t. You have to understand this was many years ago, and it involved several people over two continents. The lawyer who executed his grandfather’s will was not…” He cleared his throat. “He doesn’t appear to have been as careful as he should have been.”
“So why didn’t his grandfather legally own it? What does Damon Enterprises have to do with it?”
“His grandfather took out a large loan from a local bank, putting the inn up as collateral, and he defaulted on the loan. Ownership of the inn transferred to the bank.”
Dread built up in her stomach, her chest, her throat—as if she were about to hear something devastating. In an attempt to ward it off, she said, “No. That can’t be right. If the bank legally owned the inn, why didn’t it take possession years ago?”
“The bank itself went bankrupt and its assets were sold off in the process—to a subsidiary of Damon Enterprises. It was a very complicated legal process. The inn just slipped through the cracks because of the timing. No one followed up as they should have, and I guess your husband’s grandfather hoped the whole thing wouldn’t be discovered.”
“So that’s why you haven’t come after the inn until now. You didn’t realize it belonged to you?” She couldn’t believe what she was saying, what she was allowing herself to consider.
If she didn’t have the inn, she didn’t have anything.
Andrew would never try to cheat her, though. He just wouldn’t.
“So what do you think we should do?” She still felt uncomfortable asking anyone for help—even Andrew—but she didn’t know what else to do.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, his face strained. “The only way the inn legally belongs to you is if his grandfather did in fact pay off his debt, but the bank’s records are pretty clear. If there was any evidence in your favor, I’d recommend to my uncle that possession of the inn should remain yours. I’d recommend it in a heartbeat, Laurel. But I have to have some sort of justification for it, or he’ll never agree to it. He’d just assign someone else to this, and they wouldn’t… they wouldn’t care about the outcome as I do. Evidence that your husband’s grandfather did in fact pay off the debt isn’t likely to turn up.”
