Kitabı oku: «The Complete Christmas Collection»

Chapter Nine

Erik had told her not to worry.

Rory wasn’t sure she knew how to do that. The unwelcomed trait had become second nature. Yet what concerned her far more than her lack of skill with gas-fueled equipment was how she found herself wishing Erik’s solid presence could be part of the community that encouraged her with its potential.

Ed Shumway, the neighbor who’d loaned Erik the saw, was married to Edie, the loquacious neighbor who’d first welcomed her to the neighborhood. He had come to repay Erik for his assist moving a limb from his garage that morning. Having heard on the news that it would be at least two days before crews could get in to restore power, he’d brought his bigger saw to help him clear the uprooted oak from the road that was their main access to town.

Even for her neighbors who didn’t have access to TV news, word traveled fast by cell phone. Crystal Murphy, her laugh infectious and her carrot-red hair clashing wildly with her purple earmuffs, brought her four-year-old son to play with Tyler while her husband, Tony the roofer, joined the men. Her mom was at their house a quarter of a mile away with their two-year-old. They didn’t have power but that seemed just fine with them. They had a woodstove and kerosene lamps and Crystal confessed to liking the throwback lifestyle. She turned out to be the candle maker Edie had told Rory about.

Jeremy Ott came for the same reason as Tony and Ed. Talia, his wife, who taught riding lessons at the stables a mile farther up, had braved the cold with her five-year-old twins because Edie had mentioned that Rory had a son their age.

Edie herself showed up with her two children, twelve and six, and a half gallon of milk. With all the children, hot cocoa went fast.

Even with all the activity, Rory found her attention straying to the man who stood just a little taller than the rest.

It was nearing four o’clock when the women stepped out onto the porch to see how much longer the men would be. The kids were warming up in front of the TV, under Edie’s preteen’s supervision, and it would be dark soon. There were suppers to prepare.

Rory doubted that Erik had taken a real break since lunch. All she’d noticed him stop for was to stretch his back or absently rub his neck before tossing aside another log or attacking another limb on the downed oak.

She was standing by the railing between Crystal and Edie when he made a V of his arm and hitched his shoulder before putting his back into hefting another chunk of tree. He and Tony were hauling cut sections of limbs to the side of the road while the other two men continued decreasing the size of what had blocked it.

Seeing who had Rory’s attention, Edie flipped her braid over her shoulder and tipped her dark blond head toward her. A navy Seattle Seahawks headband warmed her ears.

“He’s an attractive man, isn’t he?”

“Who?” asked Talia, leaning past Crystal.

“Erik,” the older woman replied.

Rory gave a noncommittal shrug. “I suppose.” If you like the tall, dark, unattainable type, she thought. Suspecting her neighbor was fishing, she glanced to Edie’s nearly empty mug. “More coffee?”

“I’m good. Thanks.” The loquacious woman with the too-keen radar kept her focus on the men methodically dismantling the tree.

“He and his business partner have done quite well for themselves, you know.”

“I’d say they’ve done extremely well,” Crystal emphasized. “Pax—his business partner,” she explained helpfully to Rory, “is from here, too. I’ve heard they’re both millionaires.”

“I’ve met Pax. Nice guy,” Rory admitted. What she didn’t mention was that she already knew that Erik had means—that he even had friends among the very rich and famous.

She had been surrounded by the well-to-do, and those intent on joining their ranks, from the moment she’d married until she’d moved mere weeks ago. The understated way Erik used his wealth and the way he didn’t balk at getting his own hands dirty just made her forget that at times.

Edie gave her a curious glance. “Would you mind a personal question? I didn’t want to ask when I first met you,” she explained. “I mean, I did, but it didn’t seem appropriate at the time.”

Rory smiled, a little surprised by the request for permission. “Ask what?”

“How long you’ve been widowed.”

“A year and two months.”

“That’s too bad.”

“It really is,” Crystal agreed. “I’m sorry, Rory.”

“That has to be so hard.” Talia placed her gloved hand over her heart. “I don’t know what I’d do without Jeremy.”

Edie shook her head. “I meant it’s too bad it hasn’t been longer. I was just thinking how nice it would be if you two hit it off. I’m sorry for your loss, too,” she sincerely assured Rory. “But I imagine you need a little more time before you start thinking in that direction.”

“I don’t know about that,” Talia piped in. “My uncle remarried six months after my aunt passed.”

“I think men do that because they don’t know how to take care of themselves,” claimed Edie.

Crystal frowned. “I thought that the men who married fast like that were the ones who’d had good marriages, so they weren’t afraid to jump back in.”

“If that’s true,” Talia said, leaping ahead, “then the opposite could explain why Erik hasn’t remarried. I’ve never heard what happened with him and...what was her name?”

“Shauna,” the other two women simultaneously supplied.

“Right. She wasn’t from here,” she explained to Rory. “They met one summer and she moved here after they married, but they left for Seattle after a year or so. My point, though,” she claimed, getting to it, “is that maybe his experience has put him off women.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say he’s off women,” Rory admitted. “We’ve had a couple of meetings where he had to leave because he had a date.”

Talia shrugged. “Well, there goes that theory.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s not gun-shy,” Crystal supplied supportively.

“True. But Rory’s not looking right now,” Edie reminded them. “Anyway, I was just thinking it would be nice if Erik would come back. I can’t imagine that he ever would,” she insisted, certainty in her conclusion. “Not with his business so well established over in Seattle. But he still seems to fit in so perfectly here.”

The woman who’d brought up the subject of her potential availability had just as abruptly concluded it. Relieved to have escaped matchmaking efforts, for a while at least, and not sure how she felt having reminded herself of her mentor’s social life, Rory found herself silently agreeing with her well-intentioned neighbor.

Erik did seem to fit in. But then, he’d been raised there. Without letting herself wonder why, she’d also wondered if there was ever anything about this place that he missed. Or if his emotional barriers kept him from even noticing.

It hadn’t sounded to Rory as if the women knew the other, more personal reasons why he wouldn’t be coming back. The dreams he’d buried there. Still, Edie was right. Everything Erik cared about was in Seattle.

And everything she now cared about was here, she thought, and went back to looking a little concerned about him again.

“Why didn’t you stop?”

“Because we were almost finished.”

“You were out there another two hours, Erik.”

“That’s close enough to almost. I’ll be fine after a hot shower. How did it go with the neighbors?”

The man was hopeless.

“It was nice.” You escaped the part where Edie wanted to make us a couple, she thought, but other than that... “Crystal is going to bring me samples of her candles to see if I’d be interested in selling them. And Talia’s twins go to the school I enrolled Tyler in. We’re going to carpool.”

She frowned at the way he cupped his neck as he sat down at the island. He’d said he’d be fine, though. The man had a scar as wide as Tyler’s tired smile on the inside of his forearm. It was visible now where he’d pushed up his sleeves. He knew how much discomfort he could handle.

“What are you grinning about, bud?” he asked, tired but smiling himself.

Tyler took a deep breath, gave a decisive nod. “This was the best day ever.”

“Wow. That’s pretty cool.” Forearms resting on either side of his heaped and steaming bowl of stew, he looked over at the little guy who’d mimicked his position. “What made it so good?”

Tyler looked over his shoulder at the white lights softly illuminating the room behind them. The fire in the stone fireplace crackled and glowed.

“My tree. And the ice on everything. And my new friends.” He wrinkled his little brow, thinking. “And Mom, ’cause I got cocoa two times. And you.”

“Me?” Erik exhaled a little laugh. “What did I do?”

“Well,” he began, pondering. “You fixed things. And you made Mom laugh.”

Erik’s glance cut to where she sat at the end of the island, back to the child between them. “I did?”

“Uh-huh,” Tyler insisted, his nod vigorous. “When you dropped your coat on her.”

Though Erik looked a little puzzled, Rory knew exactly what Tyler was talking about. The two of them had just gathered boughs for the wreath. She’d been sorting them on the porch, her head bent over their project, when Erik had walked up behind her and asked if she’d take his jacket. With her back to him and him in work mode, she’d no sooner said she’d be glad to when he’d unceremoniously dropped it over her head.

He’d meant it to land on her shoulders. But she’d looked up just then. Heavy and huge on her, she’d practically disappeared under the soft black leather.

She’d already been smiling at what he’d done and gone still at the unexpectedness of it when he’d lifted the back of the collar and peeked around at her.

“You okay in there?” he’d asked, and the smile in his eyes had turned her smile into something that had sounded very much like a giggle.

She hadn’t giggled since she was sixteen.

Erik apparently remembered now, too.

Looking over at Tyler, he gave his little buddy a knowing nod. He remembered the bright sound of that laugh, of hearing a hint of lightness in it he suspected she hadn’t felt in a very long time.

“She needs to do that more often,” he decided, and after arching his eyebrow at her, suggested Tyler finish his stew before he went after it himself.

Rory glanced away, stabbed a piece of carrot. She wished he wouldn’t do that—arch his eyebrow at her that way. Something about the expression seemed teasing, playful and challenging all at once. Except for the challenging part, it also tended to disarm her and she’d been having a hard enough time remembering why she needed to keep her emotional guard in place with him pretty much since he’d strong-armed her into trying Ed’s saw. Or maybe the problem had started last night, when she’d unloaded on him. Again. Or yesterday, when he’d sided with Tyler about the size of the tree.

There were reasons. Compelling ones, she was sure. She just couldn’t remember them as she gave him her most charming smile and told him there was more stew if he wanted it.

He had seconds, told her it was great, then finished the bit in the pot before she carried his and Tyler’s bowls to the sink.

“What Tyler said about it being a good day,” he murmured, handing her his milk glass when she came back for it. “It was.” He kept his focus on the glass and her hand, his tone thoughtful, as if he was a little surprised by that perception. Or perhaps by the admission.

“Now,” he continued, moving past whatever had prompted it, “if you don’t mind, I’m going to get that shower. You wouldn’t have a spare razor, would you?”

She told him she did. A small package of them was in the drawer below where she’d left the toothbrush on the counter for him last night. She didn’t bother telling him they were hot pink.

It did Rory’s heart good to know her little boy had had such a good time that day. It did something less definable to it to know Erik had somehow appreciated it, too. Something that fed an unfamiliar bubble of hope that common sense told her was best to ignore. But with Tyler pretty much worn out and in need of a bath, she gave it no further thought. By the time she’d helped him with his bath and his prayers, it was all he could do to keep his eyes open.

Erik seemed to have had the same problem. When she finally came back down the dimly lit stairs, the fire was nearly out and Erik had fallen asleep in front of the television.

He lay stretched out on the sofa in his jeans and pullover, one leg angled with his bare foot on the cushion, the other foot on the floor. With his dark head propped on the curved arm of the sofa, one arm thrown over his eyes, his other hand splayed on his stomach, it looked as if he’d intended to catch something more entertaining than the weather report before turning in for the night.

The volume on the detective series had been muted, though.

They hadn’t talked about it, but there had been no question that he would stay again that night. The negligible melt that afternoon had started refreezing the lower the sun had sunk and, last they’d heard, it was taking forever to get anywhere on the roads. Those that were open, anyway. That was why he’d followed the Otts home in his monster of a truck, because they’d made the drive on balding tires, and dropped off the Shumways since it was dark by then and they’d all walked earlier.

His breathing was deep and even as she picked up the television’s remote and turned off the set.

As exhausted as she suspected he was, she didn’t want to wake him. She shouldn’t stand there thinking about what a beautiful man he was, either. Or how kind and generous he truly seemed to be even when he didn’t want her getting too close. There was something terribly intimate about watching him sleep. Something that might almost have felt intrusive had she allowed herself to remain there any longer.

She lifted the soft throw blanket from the arm of the chair, moved back to lift it over him. Smiling a little at his freshly shaved face, she eased the covering over him. When he didn’t move, she let out the breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding and carefully lifted her hand to his head.

Her fingers had just skimmed the barely damp hair he’d combed back from his forehead when she went still. She hadn’t been thinking. She’d simply started to do what she always did with Tyler when she tucked him in and brushed back his hair. The gesture was one of simple affection, of taking care.

As oblivious as he remained to her presence, she let her fingers slip over the soft strands, then curled her fingers into her palm as she stepped away and quietly headed for Tyler’s room. Since she felt pretty certain Erik would wake up at some point and head for bed himself, she left the tree lights on so he’d be able to see.

It was to that soft light that he awoke a little after midnight, along with a cramp in his neck and an ache in his back that, he realized an hour later, made sleep impossible.

Rory heard the faint tap on the door, blinked into the shadows. It had been raining for a while now. She’d lain there, listening to the steady sound of it, imagining the drops taking all the ice away, before the new additions to her usual anxieties about what she’d taken on ruined the little exercise. Everything always felt so much more overwhelming alone at night. With Erik there, she’d at least been able to manage the more restful thoughts for a while.

Hearing the tap again, she slipped from the trundle by the night-light she’d moved to the only working outlet in the room and opened the door.

Her glance collided with Erik’s solid, shadowed and bare chest. Down the hall, light from her bathroom filtered through her bedroom door, too dim to reveal more than curves and angles and the shadow of his forearm as he gripped his neck.

He stepped back as she stepped out and pulled the door closed behind her.

She hadn’t grabbed her robe. Shivering a little, she crossed her arms over the sleep shirt that barely hit her knees. “Are you just now coming up to bed?”

“I came up a while ago. Do you have anything I can rub on my shoulder?”

He still hurt. Pretty badly, she assumed, to have come seeking help. Feeling guilty that he’d hurt himself helping her, feeling worse because his discomfort was bad enough to keep him from sleep when she knew how tired he must be, she headed for her bedroom door and the bathroom right inside.

The light above the vanity cut a swath across the near edge of the queen-size bed that had once occupied her guest room. If the rumpled purple comforter and sheets were any indication, whatever sleep he had managed had been as fitful as hers tended to be. As she turned into the bathroom, she noticed his nearly dry socks, his long-sleeved undershirt and a pair of gray jersey briefs on the towel rack above the heater vent. With the washer and dryer off circuit, he’d had to improvise.

Realizing what he wasn’t wearing under his jeans, she quickly opened the medicine cabinet, pulled out a tube and turned to hand it to him.

He’d stopped in the doorway beside her.

The light was infinitely better here. There were no shadows to hide the broad expanse of his beautifully formed chest, the flare of dark hair, the impressive six-pack of his abdomen or the fact that while he’d zipped his pants, he hadn’t bothered with the button.

Her glance jerked up. His hand still clasped his shoulder, his fingers kneading the tight muscles there. But it was his cleanly shaven jaw that held her attention. The hard line of it looked tight enough to shatter teeth. The way he arched his back and promptly winced made it evident his shoulder wasn’t the only problem.

His frown of discomfort shifted to the pastel tube he took from her.

“What is this?”

“Herbal cream. I bought it when I pulled a hamstring.”

“When?”

“It wasn’t anything I did here,” she assured him, since she had been known to acquire a bump, bruise or strain herself during her move. “It was in a yoga class. It’ll help,” she insisted, pretty sure he’d had something more industrial strength in mind.

The skepticism carving deep lines in his face remained as he held up the tube and backed into the bedroom to let her pass. A gravelly edge of fatigue roughened his voice. “I appreciate this. Sorry to wake you.”

She didn’t bother telling him that he hadn’t. Or that she was actually grateful for the reprieve from her sleeplessness. All that concerned her now was that he was in pain.

“Where do you need that?”

He’d moved to the foot of her bed, away from the narrow shaft of light spilling across the bedding at the corner. Her bare feet soundless on the carpet, she stopped three feet away.

“By my right shoulder blade.”

He wouldn’t be able to reach there. Not very well, anyway, as stiff as he appeared to be.

“Do you want me to do it?”

He didn’t look as if he thought that a very good idea. “I’ll manage.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah. I’ve got it,” he insisted, only to wince again the instant he moved his hand in that direction.

Not allowing herself to overthink the situation, she took back the tube. Twisting off the cap, she squeezed a hefty dab of the white cream onto her fingertips and handed the tube back to him.

“You have no business calling me stubborn, you know that?” With him filling the space in front of her, she added, “Turn around,” and after a second’s hesitation on his part found herself faced with his broad and sculpted back.

In the filtered light, the view of him half naked was no less unnerving, but at least he couldn’t see how hard she swallowed before she reached up and spread the cream between his shoulder blade and the long indentation of his spine. His skin felt as smooth and hard as granite when her fingers slipped upward.

Traces of rosemary and mint mingled with the scents of soap, shampoo and warm, disturbing male.

Silence didn’t seem like a good idea.

“Why is it that when I came literally a split second from wounding you, you said I wasn’t even close? You actually did hurt yourself,” she pointed out, rubbing the cream over a knot the size of an egg, “and your ‘almost’ is two hours.”

He lowered his head, gave a small groan with the movement.

“It had to do with circumstances.”

She was about to tell him he’d have to do better than that when he sucked in a breath.

She went still. “Did I push too hard?” she asked instead.

His breath leaked out, the tightness in his back audible in his voice. “In a good way.”

She’d smoothed her fingers alongside the wide curve of his shoulder blade, the long muscle there as unyielding as the bone beside it. Repeating the motion, keeping the same pressure, she felt his broad back rise as he drew another deep breath, then slowly released it.

What she was doing felt good to him. So she did it again, slower this time. It felt good to her, too, she realized, easing her motions even more. Though she’d tended to fight his efforts, he had been taking care of her in one form or another since the day they’d met. As little as there seemed to be for her to do for him in return, as little as he seemed to want from her beyond what centered on their professional relationship, the least she could do was take care of him now.

“What about the other side? Is it sore?”

“Not as bad.”

Meaning it hurt there, too.

Reaching around him, she held out her hand. “I need more cream.”

“You don’t have to do this,” he told her, but even as he spoke, he uncapped the tube and squeezed the analgesic onto her fingers.

“You hurt yourself helping me,” she pointed out. “So, yeah, I do.” As tall as he was, her elbows were even with her eyes as she raised her arms to work on the other side.

He seemed to realize how far she had to reach.

The bed was right there. “So it’s guilt motivating you,” he concluded, and sank to the nearest corner. He straddled it, his legs planted wide.

She sat down a little behind him. With one leg tucked under her, the other dangling over the foot of the mattress, she rested her hands on his shoulders to knead the knots with her thumbs.

“Must be,” she conceded as he lowered his head again. “Especially since I know this isn’t how you’d planned to spend your weekend.”

She’d thought before that there were reasons she needed to keep her guard in place with this man. She just hadn’t bothered recalling them at the time. With the feel of his big body relaxing beneath her hands, her palms tingling as much from the feel of him as from friction and herbs, it seemed wise to recall those points now.

Reminding herself of the subtle but definite distance he’d put between them last night helped her remember why that need was there. Recalling her comment to the girls about his dates helped, too. There were other reasons, she knew. Even more compelling ones. But for the moment, the last one served her purpose perfectly.

“I’m sorry you missed your party.”

“Everybody missed it.”

That would be true, she thought, now working her fingers up the cords at the back of his neck. “I’m sure your date was disappointed.”

For a moment Erik said nothing. Her fingers were making slow little circles at the base of his skull, reversing their motion to follow the rigid cords to where they met the equally taut muscles in his shoulders.

“I didn’t have a date,” he finally muttered.

She kept moving down, past the sore spot on the right, but before he could wish she’d stayed there, she’d continued lower, working her magic along the sides of his spine.

What she was doing felt like pure paradise. She had wonderful hands. Soft. Surprisingly strong. Yet incredibly gentle as she lightened her touch to soothe away the worst of the soreness, then gradually increased the pressure again.

He’d felt a different sort of gentleness in her touch before. He’d thought he’d been dreaming, that he’d only imagined her touching him with even more tenderness—until he’d opened his eyes to see her turning away. The brush of her fingers over his forehead had brought something he couldn’t remember ever experiencing from a woman’s touch. A feeling of ease, of comfort.

There had been a disturbing contentment to the feeling that didn’t coincide at all with the direction his thoughts headed now, but something in him craved that kind of caring. Something undeniable and essential and that should have felt far more threatening than it did with the feel of her small hands unhurriedly working over his back.

The ache running from his neck to the bottom of his ribs had started to ease, the tightness there no longer threatening another spasm. An entirely different sort of tension replaced it as her fingers methodically moved over his skin, massaging toward the base of his spine.

His breath slithered out when she stopped well above the waistband of his jeans. Still, the thought of her dipping her hand lower had every other muscle in his body going taut.

“I thought you might be taking the woman you’d gone out with before,” she said into the quiet. “Is she someone you’ve been with a long time?”

There was nothing deliberately sensual about her touch as she worked her way back up. Nothing provocative in the quiet tones of her voice. Yet the question added a certain strain to his own.

“I haven’t been with anyone in a long time, Rory.”

Her hands had reached his shoulders. Feeling her go still at the status of his sex life, or maybe the fact that he’d so frankly admitted it, he turned as he spoke, catching her wrist as her hand fell.

“Why the questions?”

Beneath his grip, her pulse jumped.

Rory wasn’t sure how to answer. She hadn’t expected him to tell her how long it had been since he’d slept with a woman. That hadn’t been what she was asking. Or maybe it had been and she just hadn’t let herself acknowledge her need to know. The queries had started out simply as a defense against the undeniable emotional pull she felt toward him. She hadn’t allowed herself to consider why his being in a relationship with someone should even matter to her. But it had. And he wasn’t. And all she could do now was scramble for an explanation that wouldn’t betray how very much he already mattered to her. And he did, in ways she was only beginning to comprehend.

“I guess I wanted to know if you were involved with anyone.” She lifted her shoulder in a shrug. “Just curious, you know?”

In the pale light, she looked impossibly young to him. Incredibly tempting. Mostly, she looked much as she had last night. Far more vulnerable than she wanted to be, and trying hard for a little bravado.

He saw weariness in her guileless features. He’d heard that same drained quality in her admission. It was almost as if as late as it was, as long as the day had been, she was simply too tired to keep the bravado in place.

“I’m not,” he assured her. “I haven’t been involved with anyone in years.” Involvement implied an attachment he’d avoided for the better part of a decade. A need to be there for someone. A need to let that someone count on him to be there for her. A need to know she’d be there for him. He’d had absolutely no interest in that sort of commitment. Until now.

“Just curious, huh?”

“A little.”

If she’d been trying for nonchalance, she failed miserably.

“You know, Rory,” he murmured, self-preservation fighting the need to tug her toward him. “Now would probably be a good time for me to let you get back to bed.”

“Probably,” she agreed softly. “But I think I’ll just go downstairs and read for a while. Seems like a good night to tackle the business plan.” She lifted her chin, gave him a tiny smile. “I tried, but I can’t sleep.”

The simple admission pulled at him, the helplessness in it, the weary frustration of trying to escape what kept a person from rest. What got him, though, was the loneliness she tried to hide with the quick duck of her head.

She’d made no attempt to reclaim her hand, and he couldn’t quite make himself let go. Unable to shake the thought of how alone she’d seemed cuddling her son on the boy’s bed that morning, realizing how she undoubtedly spent many of her nights, he put self-preservation on hold.

“So what kept you awake? Old worries?” he asked, because he knew how long she’d struggled with them. “Or new ones?”

“Both.”

“Today probably didn’t help.”

He probably hadn’t helped. He just wasn’t sure how else he could have accomplished what they’d both needed for her to know. Yet while he’d been busy making sure she was aware of everything that needed to be done around the place to keep it up and how to take care of the problems she could expect, the weight of even more responsibility had piled on her shoulders.

“Today was actually a good day.” He and Tyler weren’t the only ones who’d thought so. “The worry part is just always there. It’s okay during the day when I’m busy, but at night...”

“You can’t shut it off,” he concluded for her.

“I managed for a few minutes tonight. But then it all came right back.”

“What was it about tonight that helped?”

She lifted her glance.

“You,” Rory said quietly. Of everything he had done for her in the past two days, everything he’d done in the weeks before, what he had done since yesterday had mattered to her the most. “You being here.”

Especially tonight, she thought. Tonight, for a while, anyway, because of him she’d been able to shut everything out and concentrate on nothing but the soothing sounds of the rain still pattering on the roof. Because he was there, because he had her back, because he had everything under control, for the first time in well over a year she’d had a day when she hadn’t had to make every decision on her own. She hadn’t had to worry about how she would get a tree home for her son, or get one out of her driveway. Or remove the one that had blocked the street. Because of him, they had heat and lights. And for that day, anyway, she hadn’t had to handle everything thrown at her alone.

Erik brushed the back of her hand with his thumb, conscious of the small weight of it where he held it on his thigh. The thought that he had somehow given her some measure of relief had just made it that much harder to let her go. Not until she was ready, anyway.

“Do you want to go downstairs?” he asked.

She met his eyes, looked away with a small shake of her head. “Not really.”

“Do you want to go back to Tyler’s room?”

Another small shake. “Not yet.”

“Are you cold?”

“A little.”

He knew what she needed even before he asked. He asked anyway. “Could you use a pair of arms?”

That was all he was offering. Just to hold her. This wasn’t about wanting her between her sheets. Heaven knew it wasn’t about self-protection. It was about giving her a break.

She didn’t have to say a word for him to know that his arms were exactly what she needed. But her quiet “Please” was all it took for him to rise and turn out the bathroom light. The night-light now filtering through the doorway cast the room in shadows.

“Come here,” he said, and tugged her to her feet.

Leading her to the side of the bed, he pulled the comforter over the sheets and propped both pillows against the headboard. He didn’t want her in the bed, just on it.

The distinction seemed just as clear to her as she snagged the wadded throw blanket from the foot of the bed and sat against the far pillow, hugging her arms around her knees when the mattress sank beneath his weight. With his back against his pillow he drew the throw over them both and pulled her knees toward him, his arm low around her back, his hand at the curve of her waist.

“How’s this?” he asked, coaxing her head to his shoulder.

He felt her sigh, the long, quiet leak of air leaving her nearly limp against the side of his body.

For a moment, Rory couldn’t say a word. She could barely believe she was actually where she had so badly wanted to be. It didn’t matter that his jeans felt rough against her bare calf, or that the contrast of his heat and the cool air against the back of her neck made her shiver. She could hear the heavy beat of his heart beneath her ear, could feel it where her hand rested on his hard, bare chest. It didn’t even matter that for some strange reason her throat had suddenly gone raw, making her quiet “Good” sound a little tight.

His chin brushed the top of her head as he settled himself more comfortably.

“Good,” he echoed, slowly skimming his hand over her upper arm.

She swallowed, then made herself take a deep, even breath. “Erik?” she finally said.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

A tired smile entered his voice. “For holding you?” It was hardly a hardship, he thought. She felt wonderful curled up against him. Small, feminine, trusting. The only difficult part was trying not to think of how curvy she truly was with his hand at the dip of her waist, inches from the curve of her hip.

Wanting distraction, he smoothed his hand back up her arm. The herbal scent of her hair teased him, filling his lungs every time he breathed.

“For all of it. But yes.” Her tone grew muffled. “For this, too.”

He wasn’t sure what all she meant. It could have been anything. He just forgot to wonder what might have meant so much to her when he caught the hitch in her voice.

He started to tip up her chin.

She wouldn’t let him. Instead, he cupped his hand to the side of her face, brushed it with his thumb and caught the moisture gathered at the corner of her eye.

His heart gave a strange little squeeze. “Hey.” Don’t do that, he thought. He could handle anything but tears. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Honest,” she insisted, keeping her head right where it was. “Absolutely nothing is wrong.” She tried to draw a deep breath, made it halfway before it caught. Swallowing, she tried again. “For the first time in...forever,” she said, because that was how it felt, “right now there really isn’t a thing wrong.”

Which was what had brought the sting behind her eyelids, she realized. Not because of sadness, fear or grief. But because of an amazing, unfamiliar and totally unexpected sense of relief. She knew it wouldn’t last long. That it couldn’t. It was just for now. While he held her. So just for now, relief was what she felt.

“Then why tears?”

Because of what you let me feel, she thought. “Because I’m tired,” was easier to admit to him.

She felt his lips against the top of her head. “Then go to sleep.”

“I don’t want to.”

The slow shake of her head brushed her hair against his chest. Letting his fingers sift through that dark silk, he gave a small chuckle. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to miss you holding me.”

It had to be the hour, the lateness of it, the need for sleep himself. Or maybe it was his need to let her know he’d be there for her in the morning if she’d just let herself rest, but he didn’t question what he did as he slipped down, bringing her with him.

His lips grazed the spot on her cheek where they’d literally bumped heads that morning. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”

Turning her face to him, she whispered, “Why not?”

He’d been about to tell her to go to sleep, that he wasn’t going anywhere. But with her sweet breath filling his lungs, the feel of her supple little body playing pure havoc with his intention, he leaned closer.

“Because you’ll make me forget why I shouldn’t do this,” he murmured, and brushed his mouth over hers.

Once.

Again.

“Or this.” He carried that gentle caress between her eyebrows, to the space where the twin lines formed when she was worried.

He cupped his hand at the side of her face.

“Or this.”

The admission vibrated against her mouth a faint second before he increased the pressure ever so slightly. His lips were firm, cool and far softer than anything that looked so hard had a right to be, but it was the feel of him tipping her head to gain the access he wanted that had her reaching for him herself.

Relief gave way to something infinitely less soothing. It barely occurred to her that this was exactly what she hadn’t wanted when she found herself opening to him, flowing toward him, kissing him back. She’d known what she would feel if she ever got this close to him again. And she’d been right. She felt everything she had when he’d kissed her before: that deep, awful longing, the yearning to simply sink into his compelling strength, his incredible gentleness, and have him take away the ache in her chest. To relieve the void, the emptiness. Only now with her fingers curling around his biceps and his hand slipping to the small of her back, pulling her closer, the hollowness inside her seemed to be receding, and the emptiness felt more like...need.

When he lifted his head long moments later, his features had gone as dark as his voice. “I think you’d better remind me.”

Her own voice came as a thready whisper. “About what?”

He touched the first of the short line of buttons on her nightshirt. His fingers trailed down, found her soft breasts unrestrained beneath thermal cotton.

His lips hovered over hers. “Why we should stop.”

Surrounded by his heat, that warmth gathering low in her belly, her voice went thin. “I don’t remember.”

She didn’t know what he saw in her shadowed face when he lifted his head. Whatever it was caused his body to go beautifully taut before his hand slipped over her hip.

“Me, either. But if you do,” he warned, the low tones of his voice sounding half serious, half teasing, “stop me.”

She was about to tell him that wasn’t going to happen, but he lowered his mouth to hers just then and she almost forgot to breathe.

There was no demand in his kiss. Just an invitation to a heady exploration that was deep, deliberate and debilitatingly thorough.

Winding her arms around his neck, she kissed him back just a little more urgently. With him, because of him, she finally felt something other than alone and uncertain, or the need to be strong.

She’d been so frightened by her doubts, so afraid that what she’d thought had been real in her marriage hadn’t been at all. If she’d been so wrong about all of it, that meant she couldn’t trust her judgment about anything, or anyone, else. But he’d helped her see that she hadn’t been wrong about what had mattered most. And more important than anything else he’d taught her, he was teaching her to trust in herself.

She could love him for that alone.

The thought had her clinging a little more tightly, kissing him a little more fiercely. It hurt to know how much of herself she’d let others take away from her. But he was taking that pain away, too, allowing parts of her to come back, allowing feelings she hadn’t realized she still possessed to finally surface. For the life of her she had no idea why those thoughts made the back of her eyelids start to burn again. She just knew that at that moment, nothing mattered to her so much as the sense of reprieve she was only now beginning to feel. And the fact that it was he who had finally allowed it.

Erik caught her small moan as she pressed closer. Or maybe the needy little sound had been his own. There wasn’t a cell in his body that wasn’t aware of how beautifully female she was, and of how badly he wanted her beneath him. To him, she was perfect. Small, supple and infinitely softer than his harder, rougher angles and planes.

He would have just held her if that had been what she’d wanted. It would have about killed him, but he’d have done it. Yet, incredibly, she seemed to hunger for the feel of him as much as he ached for her.

Stretched out beside her, he drew his hand over the nightshirt covering her belly, letting it drift upward, pulling soft cotton away with it. He kissed her slowly, tracing her soft curves, allowing himself the sweet torture of finally knowing the silken feel of her body, the honeyed taste of her skin. He didn’t know what to make of the tears he tasted again at the corners of her eyes when he kissed her there, or the almost desperate way she whispered, “No,” when he started to pull back to make sure she was all right. Slipping her fingers through his hair, she drew him back to her, meeting him in a kiss that nearly rocked him to his core.

Gritting his teeth against the need she created, he skimmed the bit of silk she wore down her long legs. It landed somewhere beside the bed, along with his jeans.

He’d left his billfold on her nightstand. Some miracle of common sense made him drag himself from her long enough to fumble for the small packet inside. He’d barely rolled their protection over himself when she curled into him, seeking him as he sought her.

The intimacy of gentle exploration had created its own tormenting heat. What they created as they moved together now, his name a whisper on her lips, had him thinking he’d never be able to get enough of her before that heat turned white-hot and he was barely thinking at all.