by Lori Ryan
They’d talked a lot about his brother. Jarrod was being careful not to get his hopes up where Tommy was concerned, but she could also see that he was going to do all he could to support Tommy’s turnaround. He and Tommy had come to the shelter to help clean out one of the unused floors for the clinic expansion. It had counted toward Tommy’s community service, but the two brothers also seemed to be using it to reconnect.
“Are you feeling okay?” Jarrod asked, as she snuggled next to him on the couch at her place. They’d kept their dates low-key since she was still healing. This one was take-out dinner at her place.
“I’m fine,” she said, laughing. Her voice was still scratchy and she couldn’t exert herself without her lungs burning and going on strike. But this, sitting with him, was right up her alley. She could handle this pace.
Carrie rose to her knees, then straddled him on the couch, nestling onto his lap as his hands came to her hips and pulled her snugger still. She loved the feel of the strength in his hands when he held her. It was comforting and erotic all at once. She felt calm and safe with him, not like her world had been turned upside down, which was all she’d felt for two days.
“Carrie,” he said with a groan and sat up, bringing her to his mouth. “We shouldn’t,” he said, but the objection was a token one at best. He’d been treating her with kid gloves since the fire, but she was over that. She was taking matters into her own hands tonight.
Until he took over. It happened nearly instantly, and she smiled when she saw his protests die on his lips. He kissed her and her whole body responded instantly. She pressed against him, wanting more as his hands traveled up her waist. His thumbs grazed the sides of her breasts and his tongue teased at the crease of her mouth as she let him in.
She might be sitting on top of him, but she’d lost control. He took over, his mouth moving to her neck. She tilted her head to the side, giving him more access.
“Please, Jarrod.” She whimpered as he pushed his erection up toward her hips, grinding against her, right where she needed him most. But she didn’t need all the clothes between them. She pulled at his shirt, breaking the kiss to expose a solid wall of muscle.
He pulled his shirt over his head and she took advantage of the chance to run her hands over his chest. His skin was warm and smooth. Her touch roamed lower, where muscles cut a six pack on his stomach. The last man she’d been with had been an accountant. His stomach hadn’t been anything like this. Jarrod dropped his shirt on the floor, drawing her attention back to his face.
“Not on the couch again,” he said.
She had to take a minute to process that. “Oh. Bedroom?”
He laughed again and a warmth swept through her. It was odd, but she liked that they could laugh easily together, even when they were in the middle of peeling each other’s clothes off. That the passion she felt was mixed with the comfort to just be herself. He stood, lifting her with him and she yelped, wrapping her arms around his neck. She locked her legs around his waist.
“Staircase,” she said and tipped her head toward the circular stairs in the back corner of the condo. They led to a loft. She’d loved the spiral staircase the minute she’d seen the place. It was what sold her on it. The romance of it made her think of pretending to be a princess when she was a little girl.
And Jarrod was just like the knight in shining armor she used to imagine as he carried her up the stairs. She lowered her head and bit his shoulder, eliciting a groan.
Jarrod barely saw the covers and pillows he was tossing off the bed. Carrie stood, laughing at him as he cleared a spot for them. He raised a brow her way. “How do you find space to sleep at night?”
“I take the throw-pillows off before I go to bed.”
“Then why put them on?” He took the last two of the frilly pillows off as he spoke.
“They make the bed look pretty.” She had a feeling he wouldn’t get it, and the look on his face as he shook his head at her confirmed it.
He grabbed her around the waist, pulling her down on the bed with him. One flip had her underneath him and he slowed to look at her. He liked this view. Carrie lying under him, soft body pressed against his, soft eyes on him. He shoved one more of the tiny pillows that made no sense to him off the bed as she laughed.
She stopped when he caught her mouth with his. God, he could lose himself in this woman for days. Months, maybe. He didn’t know what it was about her, but she did things to him no other woman ever had.
He pulled back and looked at her. Even now, as he watched her eyes, he felt something pass between them without words. She gave him that small smile that made something in his chest tighten and pulled him back down to her.
He could follow directions, even when they were unspoken. And right now, she was giving all kinds of directions with her body. He was all too happy to oblige. He stripped her bare, reveling in the feel of her skin against his. His erection strained at the fly of his jeans, but he wanted to take the time to explore everything about her body. Every spot that made her moan or whimper with need. Everything that made her come off the bed, straining for more.
As his hands and mouth took their fill, she responded. When he reached between her legs, she was swollen and wet and so ready for him. He lost the ability to hold back any longer. Standing, Jarrod shucked his pants and found a condom in his wallet, putting it on before coming back down over her.
“God, what you do to me, Carrie. You’re so beautiful.”
Her eyes softened with that warmth she couldn’t hide, even when she tried. “You make me feel so much,” she whispered and he didn’t waste any more time. He eased inside her, watching her as he did. He loved seeing her as she took him in in the most intimate way. This was what he wanted. He wanted a life together with this woman. And he was willing to fight for it, to sacrifice for it, to do anything he needed to make it work. It was worth anything he had to give to be with her.
Epilogue
Jarrod watched Carrie as she laughed with Kelly. He and Carrie had arrived at the barbecue a little early, so it was only he and Jack and the two women for now. The rest of the group from Jack’s company, Sutton Capital, would be arriving soon. Jack’s kids were running around the yard, Jack Junior moving on legs a lot less steady than his sister’s. The boy was still new to the walking thing.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Jack asked, as he handed Jarrod another beer. Jarrod had initially been friends with Jack’s cousin, Chad, but he and a lot of the people at Sutton had grown closer in recent years. He liked Jack. The man wasn’t at all what he expected from a CEO. In fact, he reminded Jarrod of Warrick Staunton in that way.
“What’s that?”
Jack looked to where the women sat and nodded. “Finding the one you were meant to be with.”
The comment should have made Jarrod panic. A year—hell, even a couple of months ago—he would have tried to brush it off, or make a joke and walk away from the conversation. Now, he smiled and nodded. “Yeah, it really does.”
“You gonna close the deal soon?”
He laughed at the business reference. Jarrod wasn’t much of a business man. He was made to be a cop. Luckily, he hadn’t lost his job over his relationship with Carrie. She was cleared in the case at this point, so it didn’t matter that they were seeing each other.
But, yeah, he would close the deal soon. In fact, he planned to ask her to marry him as soon as he could pull together a little more money for a ring. That, and figure out how to ask. He knew these things had to be planned, romantic, and all that. He’d come up with something, though. Because he wanted to do exactly what Jack had said. He wanted to build a life with Carrie.
Jack cut into his thoughts. “Anything happening on the case?”
He didn’t have to tell Jarrod what case he was talking about. They’d been looking for William Tyvek for three months. He was a ghost. Absent that maddening fact, Jarrod’s life would be pretty damned perfect. He was trying not to let the frustration of the case invade the happiness
he was feeling in his personal life.
“Nothing.” He wasn’t going to share details with Jack. What the man was really asking was whether they’d found Tyvek yet. Jarrod didn’t get into the month he’d spent pouring through every document he could find in Tyvek’s home. Sadly, William Tyvek seemed to have had a complete break with reality. In addition to the notes they’d found detailing the testing done on the homeless population of New Haven, they’d found hundreds of letters Tyvek had been writing to Victoria. All of them written after her death.
Initially, the letters seemed to be nothing more than a father’s attempt to cope with the loss of his daughter. Over time, though, they’d changed to angry rants over her death, all of them directed at Warrick Staunton. The letters had made less and less sense as they went on.
Jarrod heard a chorus of greetings as Jax and Mia came in, followed by Chad and Jennie, their daughter racing in an arc around the group of adults to beeline for her cousins. He and Jack walked over to join in greeting the newcomers.
“What is that?” Kelly lifted Mia’s hand to examine the diamond band.
Jax pulled Mia against him and the couple lit up as they smiled at their friends. “We got married over the weekend.”
“You what?” This came from Jennie who didn’t have a lot of volume control.
Mia laughed and nodded. “It was a spur-of-the moment thing. We were headed out to dinner on Friday, and the next thing we knew, we were hopping on a plane to Las Vegas.”
“Vegas? Classy, bro.” Chad knocked Jax on his shoulder, but there was a smile on his face.
“Hey!” Mia defended her man. “It was classy. We went to a really nice place, not one of the fake Elvis wedding places.”
Kelly and Jennie pulled Mia into a hug, asking if her mother had killed her for eloping, and Jarrod took advantage of the moment to circle around to Carrie. She was, understandably, standing a bit off from the crowd. She didn’t know them as well as he did. She’d only met the group a few times over the last few months. It was his fault. He hadn’t wanted to share their time together with anyone else. He wanted her all to himself.
She wrapped her arms around his waist and looked up at him. He dropped a kiss to her mouth, still amazed at how fast she could take him from zero to sixty with nothing more than a look. He had the urge to rush her out to the car and home instead of staying for the barbecue.
“No,” she said.
He laughed. “No, what?”
“No, we’re not leaving without eating and visiting with your friends.”
His smile went wide. “What makes you think I was going to suggest that?”
“Maybe the fact that we rarely make it out of the house to start with?”
“Guilty.” He kissed her again. “Promise we can go home right after the burgers and dogs?”
She made a face. “What if I want dessert?”
“Oh, I’ve got dessert covered.” He drew her closer, pressing his body to hers. “I’ve got dessert covered.”
* * *
THE END
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