Sheltering His Desire

by Allyson Lindt

  Tate clapped Jared on the shoulder before stepping around him. “I promise any trouble she gets into will be fully supervised by me.”

  This time when Tate’s gaze met hers, she had no doubt mischief and desire danced behind his look. Damn it, she couldn’t go back to casual flirting with him so soon after.

  “Glad to hear it.” Jared finished saying his goodbyes and seconds later, the townhouse door closed behind him.

  Alyssia summoned every last ounce of calm and cool she could find, and dragged her gaze away from Tate. She couldn’t spend the whole night staring. “Should we get to work?”

  He raised an eyebrow, and she hid a wince. Maybe she shouldn’t have had so much ice in her tone. “Nice to see you, too.” His voice was pleasant, and light.

  She could be civil, no big deal. It was the meaningless innuendo she’d struggle with. “Sorry. I’m just—” What? Desperate to relegate last night to a pleasant memory, rather than intense longing? No, she’d go with a different truth. The one she’d managed to ignore in favor of more fleeting, less stressful things. “I’m just eager to get this thing online, and put more distance between the shelter and Thompson’s bullshit.”

  Tate’s left hand clenched into a fist, and he gritted his teeth. “Right. Let’s get that done. Lead the way.” He gestured toward the stairs, and then paused, and wrapped a loose hand around her wrist. “What’s wrong with your arm?” He was looking at a large piece of gauze taped to her skin, below the elbow.

  “I had a patient get a little excited, and he hadn’t had his nails trimmed in a while. It’s not a bad gash, but it’s long.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Sure.” She hadn’t even thought about it, but his concern filled her with a soft glow. Injuries like this were status quo for her. “I’m on antibiotics just in case, but it’ll be fine.”

  “Good. As long as you’re all right.” He rested a hand at the small of her back, his light touch all but searching her skin through her T-shirt. She did her best not to focus on the touch. Not to associate it with memories of his hands running over her bare skin. By the time they reached the doorway to her office, her imagination was working overtime, and her breathing shallow. She pushed aside the vivid images and tried to be subtle about pulling away from him.

  “What first?” She cringed at the too-bright chirp that tore from her mouth.

  “Have a seat.” His tone was flat, any of the earlier teasing gone. “You do the setup, I watch and make sure it’s all intuitive.”

  Her insides twisted in on themselves as she pulled up the admin panel for the crowd-funding site. Apparently, without the rampant fantasies of Tate, her mind was free to linger on Thompson’s threats instead. The lawyer she kept on retainer had sent letters to Thompson and to the news station threatening a defamation suit if Thompson didn’t retract the statements. She hadn’t heard anything back, and didn’t know if that was a good sign or not. But if they could get her campaign online tonight, and get promises of funding, that would help. It had to. It would be a chance for her to remind people the shelter did good things. That it was worth people’s time and investment to support the animals.

  She shoved aside the chaos tumbling through her head, and tried to clear her mind. “What first?”

  “The art department had time to implement all your requests, so give this a look and make sure you’re good with it.” Tate rested his hand on her shoulder, leaned around her, and plugged a USB drive into her laptop.

  His familiar scent filled her nostrils, and she inhaled deeply. His warmth radiated through her sleeve, and dragged her jumbled thoughts back to the surface. This wasn’t the way to move on from last night. That would have to become her mantra if she was going to make it through the evening with her sanity and heart intact.

  She leaned toward the screen, breaking the contact between them, and clicked the auto-run icon that popped up. After recording her voice-over that afternoon for the promo video, she’d sat with the art department, giving her feedback with each new tweak, so there would be as few surprises as possible tonight.

  She played the video, pleased with the results. Tate told her all of the pilot groups had similar access to Skriddie’s art and marketing departments, to help make the crowd-funding software launch go as well as possible. She still felt like she’d gotten a little extra attention. Not that she minded in this case.

  The application was fairly easy to navigate. With only a little prompting from Tate, she finished setting everything up.

  “That’s it.” Tate rested a hand on her shoulder, but pulled away too quickly for her liking.

  Nervous energy hummed through her. Everything else aside, this project was going to take her shelter to new places. Owning the land they were on would give them new options for expansion, the opportunity to implement new projects for the animals. Her fingers twitched in anticipation. She inhaled deeply, then pressed the ‘Go Live’ button.

  All the air escaped her lungs and she sank back in her chair, as the world continued on around them. “That was anti-climactic.” She laughed at her own anxiousness. It wasn’t like the world should have turned upside down just because she clicked Go.

  Tate draped his arms over her shoulders and squeezed. “Congratulations.” His breath caressed her cheek.

  She wanted to sink into the hug, but forced herself to draw back. She navigated to her dashboard. “Do I take the system down if I refresh obsessively?” She forced her tone to stay light.

  “No.” A hint of strain lined Tate’s response. “It’s built for that. Refresh away.”

  She clicked the refresh button several times in rapid succession, just for fun, impressed when the system responded instantly each time. And then the system hung. It sat for several seconds before rendering in a jumble. “I think I broke it.” She joked.

  “It’s a hiccup. Try again.”

  She did. Each time, the response took longer, until nothing was returned at all. “Nope, definitely broke it.” Her teasing came out more forced than she intended.

  “Can you get to other sites?”

  She navigated to a couple without any issues, but still couldn’t get back into her admin panel.

  “Shit.” Tate’s curse was so soft she barely heard it. “May I?”

  She stood and let him have her seat, furrowing her brow. What was going on? This shouldn’t be a big deal, right? She’d been watching Tate and Jared work long enough, though, she knew something was wrong. “Do you want me to call Jared?”

  Tate’s fingers flew over the keyboard, new windows opening, including one with a black background and white text, and another that looked like a different computer desktop. “He and Mikki have plans.” His voice was tight.

  “You know he’ll cancel. Is it bad?” She crossed her arms, and tapped her toes. What was going on? It was just a little glitch, right? So why did she feel like everything was about to go sideways? Her gaze drifted toward her phone, at the edge of her desk. Maybe she should call Jared anyway. Tate wouldn’t let his ego get in the way of doing this right.

  The high-speed clack of keys drew her attention back to what Tate was doing. Her limited understanding of what they did at Skriddie told her he was dialed into a remote computer, switching between a performance monitor and a window with text in different colors. “Fucking load balancing issue.” Tate muttered a string of curses, and continued working.

  Guilt joined the swirl of emotions in her head. She should have remembered, Tate had the same background as her brother, he just used it differently.

  Watching Tate now, he really did shine when it came down to it. At least, she assumed he was. He never paused for more than few seconds, and as the minutes ticked away, he clicked through more things she only vaguely recognized.

  The light faded outside, until the primary source of light in the room was her laptop screen. A nudge at the back of her mind told her she should turn on the light, but she was too engrossed in watching Tate work.

  It seemed like
eons later, but according to her clock it was less than two hours, when he leaned back in her chair with a loud exhale. “So weird.” Despite his quiet tone, the sudden statement was loud in the room.

  She chewed on her bottom lip, not sure what to say. “So… It’s fixed?”

  He stood and gestured for her to take the chair again. “Yes. You’re back online.”

  “What happened?”

  “Do you want the technical details?”

  She might feel smarter if she heard them and understood them. Then again, if she described the details of neutering a dog, he wouldn’t be able to keep up either. “Not really.”

  He gave a light laugh. “Something was wrong with the server configuration. It wasn’t set up to handle as much internet traffic as it should have been.”

  As in, none? She had to have been the only person on the site. The clench of his jaw and way he kept glancing back at the machine made her wonder what he’d found that bothered him so much.

  “It’s back online now. You’re good to go,” he said after a final glance at the laptop.

  She reached for the mouse, then paused. He’d said it was fixed, she was being silly. Still, as she clicked into her admin dashboard again, her earlier enthusiasm was missing. A whisper of disappointment mingled with the rest of her thoughts. Of course there wouldn’t be any donations. The site had technically only been online for a few minutes. Still, she clicked refresh again, bracing herself for anther slowdown.

  Her heart leaped, and a smile broke her face. Was that a donation? She hit refresh again. Yup, it was. It was several hundred dollars, from an anonymous source. She had no idea how it had gotten there. A voice in the back of her mind asked how that had come in so quickly. Technically they wouldn’t be live until tomorrow. Advertising would go out then. The social media campaign would start up.

  But it was a donation. How was that bad? “Yay.” She hopped to her feet, giddiness flooding her, and spun to Tate. She tossed her arms around his neck. “It worked.”

  His hands rested on her back, and he squeezed. “Congratulations.” He didn’t let go.

  Heat flooded her as the seconds ticked away. His pulse hammered a beat against her cheek, and she extracted herself from his embrace, not able to meet his gaze. She really needed to get over this.

  “Hey.” He placed a finger under her chin and raised her head until she was looking him in the eye. “Enough. We both had fun last night, right? I know I did.”

  It was okay to admit to that. Fun had been part of the point. “I did too.” Alyssia felt a touch of relief being able to say it aloud.

  “I don’t regret it. Not in any way.” His expression was soft, attention focused completely on her.

  She didn’t either. She just had to say so, and things would go back to the way they were. So why couldn’t she say the words?

  Chapter Eight

  Tate’s heart froze for the briefest moment when Lys didn’t reply.

  “No regrets.” Her words were a reassurance he didn't know he needed.

  “Good.” He intertwined his fingers with hers, and tugged her out of the room. He knew what his problem was. He’d been over-thinking everything since last night. He needed to step back, get an objective perspective, and just let instinct drive. “Let’s go celebrate.”

  “What did you have in mind?” Lys paused by the front door long enough to slip on a pair of sandals, and grab her purse.

  The one thing they always did. Something nagged at the back of his mind, asking how they had an ‘always’ anything. He shoved it aside. It’s just the way things were between them. It didn’t mean anything. “We grab a pizza and head up to the lake.”

  “Sounds perfect.” Her grin latched onto something inside him, and send a wash of need over his skin.

  Apparently he hadn’t reached that objective point yet. He’d get there, though.

  “You drive.” She tossed him her keys.

  He snagged them without missing a beat. The Bentley was nice for freeway and city driving, but Lys’s ancient Suburban would handle the off-road lake paths a lot better, and he was more familiar with the route than she was.

  An hour later, they’d found a quiet spot of trees, and a clearing with no one else around, and backed the SUV up several feet back from the lake. They finished the pizza and discarded the box half an hour after that, and then sat next to each other on the tailgate. Lys swung her legs in a lazy arc, and Tate leaned back, palms resting on the upholstery behind him. Once upon a time, Lake Lanier had been one of his least favorite places. His parents had a summer home that was really more of an excuse to show off than a reason to vacation. They’d sold it when the area got too crowded.

  Spending time with Lys up there, though, helped him discover an appreciation for the beauty again. Especially when they could find an isolated spot of land and just unwind.

  “Remember that night we came up here to study for my finals?” Her question blended into the calm of the night.

  “Which time?”

  She leaned into him. “Every time. I doubt I would have made it through undergrad without your help.”

  “I was zero help for vet school, so I guess that evens everything out. What about the time you ran away?”

  “Oh, God.” She scrubbed her face, laughter spilling through her fingers. “I don’t even remember why I did that, but I know it was childish. I’m still grateful you never told them you found me up here.”

  “Right. Because I was going to tell J—anyone you hitchhiked to the lake.” Tate wasn’t sure why he stalled on Jared’s name. Something told him he didn’t want to ruin the mood that way.

  She tucked one leg under the other knee, and turned to face him. “Or three years ago when I closed on the loan for the shelter.”

  Her eyes sparkled with amusement, holding his gaze captive. If he leaned in a few inches, he could lose himself in the soft perfume of her shampoo. His senses prickled at the idea, and he shelved the desire. “You mean the night you drank way too much champagne and almost puked in my car?”

  “I don’t remember it that way.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. His fingers itched with the desire to cover her hand. What was wrong with him tonight?

  “You were wasted.” He struggled to keep the conversation light, friendly, and as completely unsexy as possible. “I’m surprised you remember anything.”

  “I remember enough.” She twisted her mouth in mock-irritation. “Was that really the last time we were up here?”

  He had a feeling she knew the answer as distinctly as he did. “It was.”

  “Why did we stop?”

  “Coming to the lake?” He was stalling. He knew exactly what she meant. “Our schedules got busy. Life got in the way.” The excuse slid out without thought. It was the same one he fed himself every time he wondered why they didn’t hang out more. With the question between them now, it bounced in his head.

  He studied her closer. The flush of laughter on her cheeks. The smile tugged forward by the memories. Had they really spent so much time together? Up here. At home. He sifted through stacks of memories, and she was a part of so many of them.

  She poked him in the arm. “What are you staring at?”

  He shook away his rambling thoughts. “Just you.”

  Fuck it all. He was lingering too much on this one thing. Putting too much thought into a simple, physical response. She’d been open to no strings last night, would she go for it again? Once the physical wasn’t taboo anymore, the tension between them would vanish, and they could go back to being casual and friendly, without the awkwardness.

  ****

  Alyssia tried not to notice the sudden silence. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought up the celebration night. She remembered it far more vividly than she’d ever let on. She’d actually only had a couple of glasses of champagne, but had definitely enjoyed the excuse to fall asleep on Tate.

  “But you know.” His voice was suddenly too loud in the still. It sounded too cheerful, but
strained at the same time. “That’s life, right? We’ll drift our separate ways, you’ll meet a great guy to bring up here, and he’ll be one hell of a lucky dude if you give him a chance.”

  But she’d already met a great guy. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep the comment from escaping. “I guess.”

  He hopped to the ground, and disappointment spread through her at the sudden distance between them, even though he’d only stepped a few feet away. Was the moment ruined? Was he waiting for her to say something?

  “However.” The strain vanished from his voice. He stepped closer, and tugged her foot so both of her legs hung over the tailgate again. “If you want a distraction until then…”

  Anticipation seared her veins and her pulse kicked into overdrive. She tried to keep the teasing in her reply. “I’m not sure I know what you’re suggesting.”

  “I’m just thinking, waiting for Mr. Right has got to get lonely sometimes.” He nudged her legs apart with his knee, and pushed between her thighs. Friction built, teasing her thoughts. “And I’m guessing a battery operated boyfriend doesn’t always do the trick.”

  Her face warmed. “I don’t—” His raised brows made her pause, mid-protest. “No, it doesn’t.”

  He glided his fingers over the backs of her hands, up her arms, and along her jaw. “I’m offering something a little more… organic, from someone you already like and trust.”

  Like. Such a tame word. Desire glided under her skin, focusing in her belly, then spread outward again. Could she really have casual sex? Tate didn’t do long term, but he was being up front about it. She could fool around, indulge her fantasies, and then they could both step back once their needs had been met. “It sounds like a perfect arrangement.” She almost stammered on the words. Where had that come from?

  He cradled her face in his hands, searching her eyes. “Couldn’t agree more.” When he kissed her, mouth pressed to hers, palms holding her head in place, excitement squeezed her chest. She could keep things casual if it meant more of this. More of this kind of attention from Tate. Definitely.