A Harmless Little Game (Harmless #1)(62)

“Oh, my God,” Drew groans, his body going limp. “What the hell did you just do?”

“What did we just do?” I correct him.

His long, slow inhale takes an eternity. In those seconds, four years go by. Four years of pain. Suffering. Misunderstandings. Anger. Grief. Plans for revenge. Plans for mourning.

Funny how I never had a plan for this.

In all those years, I had ideas for what I would do if I came back home to find Drew. In some of those fantasies, I slapped him, screamed at him, punched him – and in some, I kissed him. Hugged him. Cried in his arms and made love with him.

I never imagined I’d do both somehow.

I certainly never thought I’d learn that he’d been a victim, too.

Drew’s exhale comes out, loud like a train approaching, and he sits up, the sheets spilling over, showing off his now-nude body in the moonlight.

He’s a museum piece.

With a long, ragged scar that cuts down his left side and over the ribs, wrapping back toward the kidneys.

I look, and realize there are more.

So many more scars.

I open my mouth to ask about them, eyes on him like a laser, but his fingers cover my lips. My own scent overwhelms me. He cradles my jaw in his hand and moves closer, on his knees now like a lion in charge.

“Someday,” he says. “I’ll tell you about every scar.” His kiss is so sweet I almost laugh. We’re naked, covered in each other’s musk, and he’s giving me a kiss like our first one, back in high school, back when a French kiss and a sideboob grab was the height of intimacy.

Oh, how far we’ve come.

Literally.

A sound outside the window makes Drew jump up, his gun in his hand, his naked body taut and tense as he sprints to the side of the window, senses sharp and heightened. He puts one finger over his mouth to tell me to be quiet.

I freeze. I’m on my knees on my bed, completely exposed except for my wet panties, and all I can think is: I can’t die a virgin.

And I am a virgin. Truly. In all the ways that count.

“Jesus,” Drew says, lowering the gun, walking back to the bed. “It’s Gentian. Just made some noise out there.”

I eat him up, pulse pounding from fear and arousal, his body like watching pure strength in action. Broad shoulders covered in steel, slices of pale scars highlighted by the moonlight. An eight pack of abs I just stroked with my finger tips. The narrow waist covered in deep grooves of marble, veins popping out at random intervals, leading to the swell of a tight ass, and thighs that thin and thicken as he walks.

Drew sets the gun back in his gun belt, and then --

He leaps.

He leaps onto the bed and takes my mouth and we’re rolling and mired in each other, a current charged by happiness passing between us, the slick and roar of our bodies making the electricity gain power. He’s hard again against my leg and I want him in me so badly.

So much.

“Look,” Drew says, as if reading my mind. He yawns. I reach up with my fingertips and tap his lips, making his mouth generate a little whooping sound. It’s an old joke.

His eyes are so full of love and lust as he looks at me.

“Let’s sleep.”

“What?”

“Let’s get dressed and sleep. Lindsay, baby, this was f*cking amazing.” He pushes a lock of hair off my forehead, eyes roaming over my face with a tenderness and passion that shouldn’t exist. “But this isn’t where I want to make love to you for the first time.”

“You’ve – you’ve thought about this?” I choke out.

“Nearly every day for four f*cking years,” he confesses, his voice hitching at the end, deep and intense.

“Wow.”

“And I never imagined being in your childhood bed, with my security team on watch in your dad’s home, if you know what I mean.”

Ah.

“So, where did you envision this?”

He smiles and stands, searching the room for his clothes. I fish under the bedcovers and find his underwear, flinging them at his head. The cloth catches his cheek and he laughs, giving me a tsk tsk tsk look.

“A cabin on Lake Tahoe. Or a house on the ocean up in Big Sur. Something romantic, with lots of time.”

“How much time?”

“Multiple times.” He gives me a sultry grin and a half-smile that makes wild heat pool between my legs again.

“Oh,” I gasp.

I throw on my tank top. I should change my panties, but I don’t. The cold wetness reminds me of how hot things were between us. I need to know that really happened. That this isn’t just a dream.

We dress, then Drew pulls the covers back, straightening everything with military precision, until we’re clothed and snuggled in bed, spooning. He begins whispering.

“You are the only woman I’ve ever loved, Lindsay.”

I stiffen. “I find that hard to believe.”

“It’s true.”

“But you dated...you slept with...it’s been four years, Drew! You weren’t hidden away in a mental institution like some people.”

“Love, Lindsay. You’re the only one I’ve ever loved.”

My breath halts. I want to turn over. I want to curl into his arms and say the words. I want to turn the clock back and be the unbroken Lindsay who deserves every word he says, every touch he’s given tonight, every drop of pleasure we’ve found with each other.