Fierce at Heart (The Kincaids of Pine Harbour)

by Zoe York

  “I’ve got you,” he murmured.

  “Can you tuck me into bed?”

  Adam groaned, and then she realized how that sounded. Sexy, like an invitation.

  Would she still have the courage to say something like that to him in the morning? Would she be brave enough to be that honest in the morning?

  She hoped so. She liked the noises he made when she admitted what she wanted.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Isla hesitated outside Adam’s door for the second time in twelve hours. It was early, but his alarm had gone off. She’d heard it as she’d lain in bed. Heard him get up, heard the shower come on. She’d imagined him brushing his teeth and combing a bit of touchable product through his hair.

  She’d expected him to come downstairs next, but he hadn’t.

  So here she was, trying to work up the courage to knock on her husband’s bedroom door.

  As she raised her hand, the panelled wood swung open, and she narrowly missed knocking on Adam’s nose.

  He was faster than she was, though, and dodged the unintended attack with a laugh. “Hey there,” he said, catching her wrist in his hand.

  Her breath whooshed out of her chest at the warm, sure contact. She opened her mouth to say something witty, and a gasp slid out instead.

  Time slowed as Adam dragged his gaze up to her face, as she stepped in closer, then stepped back again, bumping against the doorframe. There wasn’t enough room for both of them in the narrow space of his open bedroom door, not early enough space, or oxygen, and he was expecting her to say something.

  To do something.

  She had come upstairs to find him, because she had woken up with a startling and frightening realization: she really wanted to kiss her husband. She wanted to kiss him when nobody was watching, she wanted to kiss him for her own reasons. Hungry, confused, horny reasons. And she didn't want to lie about that anymore, to herself or to Adam. She just wanted to kiss him and she really didn't want it to be a problem.

  But now that she was here, and he was looking at her with an impossibly sweet warmth, what she wanted—and how frightening it was—had her paralyzed.

  Adam whispered her name, and she nodded.

  He grinned. “You came up here.”

  Another nod.

  He slowly released her wrist, letting her arm tumble to her side, and he leaned in very close, bracing his arm above her on the door frame. “Did you come up for a reason?”

  Heat flooded her torso and she swayed in the tight space between his body and the wall. “I—”

  His eyes glittered as he searched her face. “How’d you sleep?”

  Restlessly. Tormented by dreams.

  He’d told her he dreamt of her naked, and her mind had run wild with that overnight.

  “I dreamed of you,” she finally managed to say. “And I woke up thinking about you.”

  He swore under his breath, which made her laugh weakly. It was an honest response, at least. His jaw flexed as he set his mouth back to rights and fixed his piercing gaze back on her face.

  “I don’t know how to do this,” she admitted, her voice shaking. “Was that too much, too soon?”

  “You can’t do this wrong.” He strangled the words, grinding them out. “It’s all good. Whatever you want to say, or do, I’m here.”

  She raised her hand and brushed her fingertips against his face. His jaw, his cheek, and the corner of his mouth. She liked the way his eyes darkened, grew inky and stormy as she got close to his lips.

  In August, she hadn’t known what she was doing by kissing him in the dance club, hadn’t understood the journey that would spark. Now she couldn’t claim ignorance or innocence. Kissing Adam now would spin them wildly out of control, and neither of them could predict where it would take them.

  Was she willing to take that chance? Risk their friendship to see what his barely restrained fervour tasted like?

  “I’m scared,” she finally admitted, and saying it out loud was freeing. She breathed his name next, suddenly filled with something else more powerful than fear. “Adam…”

  Every muscle in his body flexed against her, his thighs hard, and when she slid her hand down to his waist, she felt his abs contract against her touch, like a bow pulled taut. She wanted to be his arrow, see how far he could send her flying. She remembered now how good it had felt to have his mouth on her skin, his hands on her body.

  She wanted that again. She wanted him.

  So she took a final, shaky breath and wound her arms around his neck.

  He groaned as she softened her body, melting into him, removing the final few centimetres of space between them.

  Yes, this felt good. She smiled as she brushed her lips against his, then opened her mouth and teased the seam of his with her tongue. Repeating his name, she licked at the corner, savouring the way he tasted.

  The whole time, he held completely still, letting her explore without taking over.

  But when she nipped at his lower lip, then fit her mouth more firmly against his, when she kissed him firmly, that was the signal he seemed to have been waiting for. With a rumble, he wrapped his arms tight around her, one hand sliding down her back to settle on the curve of her bum, the other tangling in her free flowing hair.

  His mouth opened, his tongue swiped against hers, and it was game on. His embrace tightened as their kiss deepened. A push-pull, weeks of desire battling against a flood of newfound need. She wanted all of him, now. Every thrust of his tongue made her shiver, each retreat dragged an unholy moan from her throat.

  Who was this man, and why were his kisses now affecting her on this intense, primal level? She’d kissed Adam before. It had been pleasant, arousing, friendly, kind, sweet, and most recently, a bit distracting.

  This was all of those things jacked up to a thousand amps.

  He wasn’t quite ravaging her—he was still holding himself back, she could feel that tension in his body. But this kiss was undeniably sinful, with a healthy layer of fresh Hey Friend, So Maybe My Feelings Aren’t Platonic After All poured on like molten lava.

  Did her kiss taste just as different to him? Could he tell that her feelings had changed over time, maybe even more than his had?

  Her pulse was a drumbeat now, hammering inside her head. Loud enough she could swear Adam would be able to hear it, although the way he was plastered against her, he could probably feel it, too.

  Bang, bang, bang.

  Double bang.

  With a gasp, she wrenched away from her husband’s embrace. That wasn’t her pulse, that was the door. Blinking away the lust fog that had descended on her, she turned her head to the stairwell and the foyer below. “Catie’s here.”

  Adam blinked at her, his eyes glassy and unfocused. “What?”

  “It’s Monday. Catie’s here to work out.” Her legs didn’t work, though, so she didn’t move.

  He laughed. “Fuck.”

  “I know.”

  He glanced down his body, and her attention followed to where his erection strained against his jeans. “I need a minute.”

  “I’ll tell her to go away.”

  He caught her hand and lifted her wrist to his mouth. “No.” He dragged in a deep inhale, then let out a shaky laugh before kissing her tender, sensitive skin. Every inch of her was on fire, and he wanted her to go work out with a friend? “We’ll take our time. Yes. God, you smell good. But that’s a great plan.”

  Like he was convincing himself, too.

  Isla stepped back, her legs shaky and reluctant to move away from the warmth of Adam’s body. But her friend was downstairs, and he was right. They could take their time with this.

  She ignored the fluttery feeling in her chest as she wrenched the front door open. “Sorry, I was, uh…” And then she trailed off, because she didn’t have a good excuse. “Come on in.”

  Catie slid inside, shivering, then glanced at the stairs, where Adam was now sitting wearing a sloppy grin. “Hey, Catie.”

  Her friend gave her
a knowing raised eyebrow, and for the first time, Catie’s assumption that they had a smoking hot marriage wasn’t wrong. “Am I early?”

  “Nope. We just lost track of time,” Adam said. The fluttery feeling in Isla’s belly intensified. “She’s all yours—”

  Another knock interrupted them.

  This time it was Will on the other side.

  “Shouldn’t you be at the school?” she asked as she stepped back, letting him in. He hesitated a beat when he saw Catie, but then nodded in greeting to her and Adam before answering. “I should be, but our boiler stopped working in the middle of the night, so school was cancelled for the day. I went in to check on the repair progress, but I was just getting in their way. Thought I might convince my brother to come to the garage for a few hours.”

  “Yeah, sounds good.” Adam stood and ambled down the last few stairs. He grabbed his coat, then turned back to Isla. “I’ll be back for lunch.”

  She gave him a secret smile. “I’ll see you then.”

  He hesitated for a split-second, not even long enough to look like a pause to anyone else, then stepped in close and brushed a quick kiss across her mouth that sent her heart soaring. “Can’t wait.”

  As the door thunked shut behind them, Catie mock-swooned. “Jeez, you two…honeymoon heating up as the temperatures drop outside, or what? Your husband loves you so much, it’s adorable and gross at the same time.”

  Isla laughed, because that was the appropriate response given what it looked like from her friend’s point of view, but inside her chest, something soft and squishy felt a little bruised. Adam didn’t love her. He didn’t believe in love, and neither did she—not anymore.

  Adam liked her a lot, though, more than anyone else, and he thought she smelled good. He wanted to kiss her, and was always going to be there for her.

  That was all that mattered.

  That was all she could ever want, really. Anything else was romantic dreams, and Isla didn’t play at those anymore.

  “I didn’t know Catie and Isla were friends,” Will said tightly as he headed for the harbour.

  Adam shot his brother a quick glance from the passenger seat of Will’s work-in-progress, an orange Duster from the seventies. “Why do you say it like that?”

  “No reason.”

  “Do you have a problem with Catie all of a sudden?”

  “Nope.”

  Adam should let it drop, but he wasn’t the one who’d brought it up in the first place. And twenty-nine years of youngest-brother training meant it was a reflex to push his thumb into a bruise when he saw it—on his brothers, at least. “It sure seems like you might.”

  Will shrugged. “What were they doing?”

  “Isla’s helping her train for something.” He changed the subject temporarily as they arrived at the garage. “What are we doing today on this beast?”

  Will schooled his features, his annoyance falling away. “Josh ordered me a sway bar. Should be an easy install.” He stopped the car and honked his horn. The right-hand door on the garage bay slowly rolled up, revealing an empty slot for him to pull into. “Let’s get to work.”

  Yeah, Adam wasn’t nearly as interested in that as he was getting to the bottom of whatever was going on with Will and the real estate agent.

  He climbed out of the car and hollered across the bay to Josh. “Hey! Have you ever noticed Will acting funny around Catie?”

  “Fuck right off,” Will snapped, then pointed to Josh. “Don’t answer that. He’s barking up the wrong tree.” But their brother’s cheeks were decidedly pink, and not from the cold weather.

  “Oh, no. This is too good to let lie. Man, if you’re interested in her, just ask her out.”

  “Last I checked, Will was a grown-ass man who should know how to just ask a lady out on a date,” Josh drawled. Then he squinted at his older brother. “Oh, wait, nope. Sorry, wrong brother. This one’s uptight about everything and unlikely to ever get laid.”

  “Says the jerk who won’t say boo about his own personal life,” Will snapped.

  “The jerk who ordered you in a custom-built sway bar?”

  “That one.” Will grinned. “My favourite jerk.”

  Adam hopped up onto a raised ledge at the back of the garage. “I think we should cover all of this in great detail. Josh, when was the last time you got laid?”

  “None of your fucking business.”

  “Will?”

  “I went on a few dates with someone in the summer.” Will grabbed a wrench off the wall and pointed it in Adam’s direction. “We know, you’re all newly wedded and happy as can be. Don’t rub it in.”

  The truth couldn’t be further from that assumption, although Adam was pretty fucking happy right now. The sweet memory of Isla’s mouth still lingered on his lips. “Hey, I’m no relationship expert. Isla and I are…still figuring out how to be good to each other.” That wasn’t a lie. “If either of you have suggestions for me, I’m all ears. We can start with me, and then loop back to your problems.”

  Will stopped joking around and gave Adam a serious look. “Is everything okay?”

  “Never better.” Another truthful statement, he was on a roll.

  “It’s not like you to ask for advice.”

  Josh hauled a long cardboard box from one of the cabinets on the haul. “That’s a good point. Something must be wrong.”

  “What’s wrong is that Will’s interested in Catie and for no discernible reason, won’t ask her out on a date.”

  “You have it all wrong,” Will barked. “Although there would be no point in asking Catie out, because she certainly doesn’t think I’m—if you must know, she was looking for volunteers for a bachelor auction to support the animal shelter. I put my name forward. She—uh, she declined my offer of participation.”

  He said the last six words with mechanical precision, like he was reciting them from the memory of a cold-ass email.

  Yikes.

  Josh set down the box, his mouth hanging open. Adam had a similar expression on his own face, he could feel it. “What?”

  “She declined— You heard me.” There was that pink-cheeked expression again. Will was embarrassed, but not because he liked Catie. Because she’d told him he wasn’t an eligible bachelor?

  Adam was hot under the collar now for his brother. “That’s bullshit. Do you want me to talk to her?”

  “Jesus Christ, not in the slightest.” Will waved his hand to the car. “I’ll pop the hood. Let’s get this done, then you can go make your wife happy, which is the only thing you should be concerned about from this whole unnecessary conversation.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Isla’s car was in the drive when Adam got home, but the house was quiet when he let himself in. He poked his head down the hall and saw that her bedroom door was closed. She had come upstairs to find him this morning. Could he return the overture?

  With a nervous hitch in his step, he carried himself right to her door.

  And hesitated.

  In the quiet as he stood there, he realized the shower was running on the other side of the wall. Flashes of Isla burst in his mind like fireworks. Her wide-eyed expression as she stood outside his door that morning. The flushed abandon in her cheeks as she rolled back on a hotel bed. The way she’d moved beneath his body and the scent of her as she’d climaxed. He’d forced himself to forget, but after this morning, it was all there in his frontal cortex, like a buffet of imaginings.

  And he didn’t need to imagine for much longer.

  He pulled out his phone.

  Adam: I’m back. Came to find you, can hear that you’re in the shower. I’ll be playing it cool in the living room if you want to hang out.

  Adam: And by hang out, I mean kiss some more.

  Then he stalked back to the living room and spent the next five minutes second-guessing everything about both texts.

  When he heard her bedroom door open and her footsteps quietly pad down the hall, before she appeared in the doorway, he though
t his heart might stop working. He managed to get himself to his feet just as she stepped into view. Her hair was still damp, dark blonde tendrils falling past her shoulders, and she was wearing a tank top and a worn pair of blue jeans. Nothing else, and she looked like his fantasy come to life. Better than his fantasy, because she was real. She stopped in front of him, but only for a moment, and then she leapt into his arms. He caught her with ease, the weight of her feeling so damn good after weeks of the briefest of contact. Had he known, truly, how much he wanted to hold her before now?

  This time it was Isla who kissed first, her mouth eagerly finding his, and then his thoughts scrambled. Soft, sweet licks quickened, then slowed as she quested deeper into his mouth. He opened for her, letting her lead. His heart pounded with need, but he resisted the urge to rush to the next step. This was a gift in itself—but a gift with a countdown clock on it.

  As her thighs tightened around his waist, and his craven desires started to spool out a feature-length film list of fantasies he wanted to turn very real with her, he knew they didn’t have time for that. He needed to be in bed early tonight, and then he’d be gone for twenty-four hours.

  Fucking and running away was a recipe for disaster.

  Even as his blood pounded in his veins, Adam knew they couldn’t get naked today. Now he just needed to stop kissing Isla long enough to explain that to her.

  Maybe they should sit.

  He turned and blindly carried her in the direction of the couch. When he bumped into it, Isla slid down his body, catching his hands and pulling him down on top of her in one fluid, beautiful motion.

  He caught himself on his forearms as she rocked her hips against him from below, and his brain went on the fritz again.

  What had he wanted to talk to her about? Was it how good she felt beneath him, how intoxicating he found the rub of her breasts against his chest, even through both of their shirts?