“You’re right.” I grinned. “Alright, go back to your little magazine, but just so you’re aware, I’m gonna figure you out, girl.”
“Are we up for a visitor?” Someone asked as they knocked on the open door.
“Uh, just a second.” I looked at my watch with a frown. The nurses weren’t due to give Ari her nightly meds for another hour.
And I selfishly wanted every one of those sixty minutes alone with her. I’d grown addicted to our little routine over the past two weeks and the feel of having her fall asleep on my shoulder. Outside this room, I was distant and cold—painfully aware of what it would mean if people spotted us together.
Proving once again that she wasn’t like the rest, the whole thing had been Ari’s idea. It was a request I’d been only too willing to accept, though.
Maybe once we were both out of here, we could go public. In the meantime, I fully respected her desire to stay out of the spotlight. Getting rid of one old woman had been easy enough, but I couldn’t go after the press every time they posted something derogatory about my girl.
My girl.
I couldn’t explain when it had happened, but lately, I’d become consumed with the idea of having her by my side, having someone to share my ups and downs with.
A partner.
When I looked at her, I saw us walking hand in hand down the block to my favorite coffee shop and takeout on the couch when neither one of us felt like cooking. I pictured her thighs, gripping me as I took her on the kitchen table. My bed. The floor…
Ari met my gaze with a soft frown before pointing toward the door.
Right.
I was getting ahead of myself again.
First things first, get rid of the unwanted guest.
“Yep.” I swallowed and sat the leather chair up before retrieving my crutches from the wall. “I’ll take care of it.”
The woman at the door gave a small wave before gesturing to a little wagon beside her. “I was wondering if you might be—”
“Absolutely. Come in.”
I couldn’t help the small pang of jealousy as I watched Ari’s confusion give way to pure, unadulterated happiness. I wanted to be the reason her smile lit up the whole damn room.
Baby steps, Killian.
I didn’t want to rush this, but my days at True North were numbered. Rocky had confirmed it this morning. And, as much as I wanted full use of my legs and therapy in the comfort of my own gym, I’d imagined us leaving together.
One of the puppies yipped out an excited bark when the woman placed it on the bed, before scurrying up to frantically lick Ari on the nose.
“Now the golden retriever here is Kyrie. She’s still in training and needs a bit of correcting.” She grabbed another one. “And the little black lab is Milo.”
The puppies were introduced one by one before joining Ari on the bed. They scrambled over each other, as eager to be near her as I was.
I just hadn’t resorted to licking her nose… yet.
“I’ll give y’all a few minutes to get acquainted. Pups, settle.”
At the stern warning, they immediately flopped down, as still as could be. Only Kyrie checked to see if the woman was watching before playfully tugging at Ari’s cat shirt with her teeth.
Once we were alone again, Ari looked up with a wide grin. “Come pet them, Killian. They’re so happy.”
Yes. Yes, I was.
I shifted two of the puppies over and joined her on the bed. “Hey, I have a question—it’s not about Helen, I swear—but I was wondering, why don’t you talk more?”
She stroked Milo under the chin. “I’m talking now, aren’t I?”
One of the puppies got too close to the edge. I snaked out a hand, returning it to Ari’s lap. “No, I mean, with anyone but me. Well, and I guess Tsega.”
Ari cleared her throat again, choosing to focus on the puppies again. “I don’t know.”
I softened my voice, resisting the urge to touch her skin. “Hey, you don’t have to tell me if it makes you uncomfortable, I was just curious. If someone said or did something, you give me a name. I’ll take care of it.”
“It’s not that. I—I just…” She was silent for a few moments, before admitting, “Before my car accident, I had a stutter, so I got used to being quiet, I guess. Now, I have the memories, but seem to have lost my stammer.”
I scratched one of the puppies behind the ear, earning his undying devotion in the form of licks. “So, Mrs. Peacock, did you attack Helen in the library with a candlestick?”
Her brow furrowed. “Is that—did you just reference the game of Clue?”
“Answer the question, madam.”
She released an exaggerated sigh and extended her wrists toward me. “You got me, and here I thought I was so clever.”
Unable to resist temptation, I latched onto her wrists, tugging her body closer to mine. “I knew it. Only an amateur would have chosen the candlestick over the revolver.”
The grin returned. “And who attacks someone in the library when there’s a perfectly good cellar nearby?”
I held my grip, running my thumb over her skin before teasing, “Rookie mistake, slugger.”
Her gaze settled on my mouth, a furious blush creeping up her throat. “I’ll try to plan my attacks better in the future.”
This time, when her voice moved between octaves, I suspected it was due to my proximity and not a result of her injury. Four inches stood in the way of our mouths.
Four. Inches.
If I pulled her wrists toward me just a little more, gravity would take care of the rest. Unfortunately, my plan hadn’t accounted for one of the puppies getting there first. Kyrie stood on her hind legs and began licking Ari’s mouth and chin, whipping my arm with her little golden tail until I shifted away.
Alright, maybe I had that coming.
Couldn’t slide into home without getting a little scuffed up on the way.
“Do you think this is what heaven is like?” Ari giggled, letting the puppy feast on her face like I’d wanted to only moments before.
Knowing there was no sense in getting jealous of an animal, especially one as cute as Kyrie, I shifted my focus over to her question. “If, uh, if I believed in that, then sure. I’d imagine this was pretty damn close.”
She lowered the pup back down to her lap. Her eyes lingered on the tattoos on my arms before coming up to rest on my face. “But you believe in angels.”
I shook my head. “No, I said my mama believes in angels. Religion is right up there with ghosts, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve seen too many people use it as a way to lessen their guilt. Like, ‘Oh, you can’t be mad at me for acting like an asshole because Jesus forgave me for my sins.’ It’s so hypocritical. I’ve yet to meet someone who wasn’t putting on an act to appease some deity. I’ll take something real over that crap any day.”
I’ll take you.
I looked away before I could finish the thought. Because while I didn’t buy into the supernatural, I couldn’t deny what I was starting to feel for Ari and it scared me to death.
Her eyebrows pulled together again, creating two small lines in the center of her forehead. She didn’t seem like an overly religious person, but it appeared my response had left her perplexed. “Well, who do you think that girl was?”
Ari had been hung up on my mystery savior since the night I told her, even going as far as talking about it in her sleep. While I found her need to reassure me she wasn’t an angel endearing, I preferred to focus on my future and not my past.
I wasn’t that guy anymore.
“A hallucination? Maybe some Good Samaritan who didn’t want to stick around to give a witness statement? I don’t know. Does it bother you that I don’t believe?”
“I guess it’s just ironic, that’s all,” she said, giggling as one of the puppies burrowed under her arm. At my blank expression, she elaborated. “Because your name means church. I take it your family’s religious?”
“Is yours?” I tur
ned the question back on her, unhappy with the sudden turn of events.
We were supposed to be kissing, dammit. We’d been dancing around it for the better part of the last two weeks with our heated stares, yet neither one of us had made a move.
Ari exhaled a sigh and reached out to stroke Kyrie’s head. “Yes.”
“You don’t sound very happy about that.”
She put all of her efforts into the petting. The pup flopped down in her lap with a drowsy groan. “I think that in the wrong hands, religion becomes a weapon instead of a tool.”
“Growing up, my mom dragged me to every Sunday service. My father—” I took a deep breath. “Well, for the longest time, I think he was attending the church of Jack and Jim.”
“Jack and Jim?”
“Whiskey, Ari. My dad was an alcoholic.” The words were just as bitter as they had been when I was a kid. “He’d go off on these benders, disappearing for days at a time. I begged my mama to leave. I thought we’d be better off just the two of us, you know?”
“Did he hurt y’all?” she asked quietly, her green eyes wide with worry.
I clenched my jaw and shook my head. “Physically, no. He just wasn’t there when we needed him to be. But my mama, she took her vows seriously and stuck by him, for better or worse. When he found Jesus, he expected everyone to just forget about the things he’d done while drunk. Becoming a Christian was his get out of jail free card.”
Ari placed a hand on my forearm, quietly encouraging me to continue.
“There were no apologies. Nothing. And it just kinda soured me on the whole idea of religion.” The back of my neck grew warm under the weight of my confession. I’d just admitted something to her that even Bailey didn’t know about.
Reed men weren’t exactly known for their vulnerability. If I was honest, I wasn’t sure I wanted to take it up as a hobby.
Milo stretched until his paws dangled over my hand and gave me the side-eye, before going to town on one of my fingers like it was a teething ring. It was enough to zap me out of my funk. “Anyway, I don’t necessarily have the best judgment, so take from that what you will.”
“You don’t think you’re a good judge of character?” Ari asked, observing me with a small frown.
“It’s not a matter of what I think. My track record proves that I shouldn’t trust myself.” I forced a brittle laugh, wishing I could go back to discussing my ridiculous theories on how Helen had sustained her life-altering injury.
“To me, it seems you trust your own judgment just fine. It’s other people’s you seem to have trouble with.”
“How do you figure?”
“Well, take your injury, for example. You were so confident in your own judgment that you didn’t trust the call to stay on first.”
“Bit of an expert on baseball now, are we?” I teased, remembering how red she’d gotten when I found the magazine in her bed.
She shrugged and held a finger out to Milo. He released me from the grip of his razor-sharp teeth to happily tackle his new target. “Well, I mean, I watched the footage and read the articles, so I’m thinking ESPN is going to come knocking any day now.”
“You’re screwing with me—you watched that? Why?” I mashed my lips together, struggling to keep up the appearance of being annoyed.
Ari shook her head, giggling at my expense. “What? I do have interests beyond Georgia’s travel magazines. Is it so surprising that I might want to know more about you? A girl has gotta learn sometime.”
“Let me guess, you thought asking me directly would be too forward?” I asked with mock concern. “Better to keep it tucked away under your pillow, yeah?”
“Please. You would have had me thinking you were the best thing since—quick, name a great baseball player—” She squirmed away with a yelp when I squeezed her thigh, earning us dirty looks from the puppies that had been dozing nearby.
“Stop! I’m kidding,” she panted, struggling to escape the blanket of dogs on her legs. “You never bring it up. When I do, you change the subject. I didn’t think it was up for discussion, so I did my own research, okay?”
“Oh yeah?” My mouth tipped up in a smirk. “What else did you learn during your little fact-finding mission?”
Ari rolled her eyes and lifted her index finger. “Let’s see—one, Killian Reed is extremely conceited. It’s a wonder his shirts manage to fit over his big head”—
“Conceited?” I struck her side this time, tickling along her ribs, and reveling in the sound of her laughter.
“Please,” she begged through heavy-lidded eyes, grabbing hold of my wrist. Something passed between us. She moved closer, no longer smiling.
I wanted to reach out to grasp her shirt in my fist, tugging at the material until her body was flush with mine. Instead, I pulled back just as she lifted her chin. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel the significance of the moment.
It was just too soon.
Baby steps.
Ari released my wrist and tucked her fingers into my palm. A sudden jolt passed through me when she tipped her face up to mine, looking at me like maybe she believed I could save the world.
“You didn’t let me finish. Killian Reed is cocky and—”
“Pretty sure you covered that one,” I murmured, unable to take my eyes off her mouth. So damn beautiful. An electric current of lust coursed through my body, weakening my resolve. She was wrong. I didn’t trust my judgment at all when it came to her.
“Did I?” She looked up at me from under her lashes. “Well, here’s one hot off the press. I’m starting to think he just might be my best friend.”
True North was going to discharge me sometime in the next week, but at the rate I was moving, I wouldn’t get around to telling her how I felt until sometime next century. Screw baby steps. It was bottom of the ninth, with the bases loaded and two outs.
Go big or go home time.
I lifted our joined hands up to my mouth, planting a soft kiss against her knuckles. “Is that right? Okay, picture this. My first ever at-bat was a little league game when I was seven. Got my first home run, sending the ball flying over the chain-link fence.” My voice turned wistful as I remembered it, the innocence of youth.
“I couldn’t tell you if my feet even touched the ground as I ran, it was like I was flying. Only, the other kids wouldn’t play like I did. It used to make me so mad until, one day, my mama sat me down. She told me a player could have all the talent in the world, but that a game won with heart would always be more fun to watch. But that’s just it. I’ve never had to work for anything, Ari. It’s always come easy to me. Until you.”
Green eyes moved over my face in confusion. “What does that—what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that you’re so goddamned perfect and good, and I’m not.” I blew out a frustrated breath. “Got a newsflash of my own—I don’t want to be your friend, Ari. I’ve been holding back because it feels like we just met, but I can’t keep doing it. I can’t pretend that this doesn’t mean anything. And I know I’m probably messing it all up by admitting this, but I want to be with you.”
Ari’s lips mashed together, her breaths coming a little closer together as she freed her hand from mine.
It was too soon.
I’d known that, but like an idiot, had gone ahead and said it anyway. “Look—”
“I’ve never—” Her voice faded. She placed her small hand in the center of my chest with wide eyes, silently begging me to understand.
She’d never—what?
The answer came to me in the form of trembling fingers and a flushed face.
Ari had never been kissed.
Any man with an ounce of decency would have taken that knowledge and locked it away, before pulling back to let things progress at their own pace.
But then Ari did something completely unexpected. She moved closer, brushing her lips lightly over mine before exhaling softly, “Just be gentle with me, please.”
And I was a goner.
; Fully aware of her intense gaze, I cupped her jaw in my hand, tilting her face up toward mine. Just like I had the first night I went to her room. Only this time, I wasn’t going to hold back. “Trust me?”
She swallowed with a jerky nod, her eyelids already fluttering to a close as I guided my mouth over hers. I’d had the rough, sloppy kisses that came after one too many drinks and perfunctory pecks given out of obligation, but those were minor leagues compared to this.
There was no overthinking it. Kissing Ari felt right as if I was acting on some instinct that had always known it was going to be her.
Mine.
My tongue swept across her pink lips. She parted them with a shiver, subtly inviting me in. One of her hands was still tangled up in the front of my shirt while the other moved up and down my jaw in furious strokes, encouraging me to continue.
The woman was a fucking natural, responding to me in ways I hadn’t expected, given her lack of experience. I devoured the sweetness from her lips, tilting her head to gain better access to everything she was offering me.
Maybe this was heaven.
I wasn’t a pious man, so if this was as close as I got—sitting in a pile of therapy puppies, kissing the hell out of this woman—I’d take it.
A life well-lived.
Ari moaned when I sucked her bottom lip between my teeth like a man starved. Instead of slowing down, the sound left me painfully hard and beyond reason.
First, I’d gather up all the puppies and shuttle them to the bathroom, keeping their innocence intact. Then I had plans of laying Ari back on the bed, so I could run my hands over every inch of her skin.
Wait—no.
Step two would be stripping her down while she looked up at me in silent excitement. Step three involved my hands taking a field trip over her curves before we progressed to step four.
Ari shifted restlessly against me, her hands frantically raking against my neck and shoulders before her tongue darted out to meet mine.
The puppies were just going to have to keep their eyes closed because I wasn’t stopping for anything.
I growled and progressed to step four, imagining the sounds she’d make as her body clenched and pulsed around my fingers. I’d pull my hand free just long enough to coat my tongue in the taste of her before doing it all over again. I wouldn’t stop until her body was drenched with sweat, and my name was the only word she knew.
Through The Water: Fairest Series Book Two Page 18
