Skin Deep (Station Seventeen #1)(61)

“But—”

“Moreno.” He slid a kiss into her hair, putting yet another kill shot on her determination. “It’s two o’clock in the morning and I’m not wearing any pants. Don’t make me get up and walk you to your car.”

Dammit, she laughed. “I carry a Glock instead of a purse and I’m trained to the teeth in self-defense. I can make it to my car just fine, you know.”

“I do. But the thing is, I don’t want you to go right now. So could you do me a favor please, and just lie down with me and close your eyes? We’re talking a couple of hours of shuteye on the couch, here. No big deal. Plus, after the night we’ve had, you’ve got to be tired.”

Well, shit. Of course he had to go and have a point. “Okay,” Isabella finally said, letting him guide her back to the oversized cushions of the couch, which just so happened to be deceptively comfortable. Her breath found a slow, steady rhythm, and her body finally gave in to the full letdown of her adrenaline rush. Her muscles unwound one by one, their tight hold of awareness slipping into relaxation. Walker’s chest was warm against her back, which was oddly comforting considering how hard-bodied he was, and didn’t that just make it that much easier to let him hold her.

“Mmm.” She settled in against his back, trying—and failing—to stifle her yawn. “I’m still really mad at you for ambushing me,” she murmured. Whoa, how was keeping her eyes open so difficult all of a sudden?

Kellan tightened the circle of his arms around her, her relaxation growing even deeper as he dropped a kiss to her temple. “I know,” he said.

It was the last thing Isabella heard before drifting off to sleep.





15





Between two years in a fire house and as many tours as a Ranger, decent sleep was one of those things that Kellan had pretty much written off. He wasn’t a robot—of course he needed (and got) a few hours here and there. But considering he’d spent his night on a rush of endorphins topped off with incendiary sex, managing even the slightest bit of shuteye was a complete fucking no-go.

Especially since his partner for both parts of the evening was curled up in his arms.

Kellan scooped in a breath, watching the very first strains of daylight color the room from the windows behind him. For the thousandth time, he catalogued the events of the past six hours in his head—watching Isabella’s uncut determination as she brazened her way past security at the Metropolitan, then again as she fast-talked her way past DuPree to get out the door. The certainty in her eyes as she’d told Kellan to invite her upstairs. The seductive fierceness that gave way to the tremble beneath it before rebuilding into even hotter intensity as she’d screamed his name and made him scream hers.

And for the thousandth time, he was shocked down to his balls that she’d agreed to stay.

Not that he hadn’t put effort in trying to convince her. With Isabella’s arm’s length, I-don’t-date attitude, Kellan had known that even asking her to go down the hall to his way more comfortable queen-sized bed would likely make her balk. But despite her initial bid to race out his door mere minutes after they’d finished having sex, he’d seen the vulnerability in her eyes when he’d asked her to stay, and felt the tension leave her body when he’d pulled her in close to hold her as she fell asleep.

So what was Isabella hiding beneath all that armor?

As if her stalwart defenses had somehow honed in on the question filling his brain, she stirred beside him. “Mmm.” Her drowsy murmur lasted for only a fraction before she stilled. “Walker?”

Easy. If sticking around after sex wasn’t her thing, chances were, morning-after conversations were pretty far from her repertoire. “Were you expecting someone else?” he asked.

Isabella let go of a laugh, and bingo, mission accomplished. “Of course not. I thought you might be asleep.”

“Nope.”

“What time is it?”

Kellan eyeballed the degree of muted daylight now beginning to creep over the wall in front of them in earnest. “Just shy of six, I’d guess.”

She turned her chin in obvious surprise, her hair rustling over the bare skin of her shoulder. “Did you sleep at all?”

“A little.” He’d closed his eyes. For now it would have to serve. “You slept.”

After a pause, she said, “Yeah, but I really should get up.”

He didn’t tighten the arm he’d slung around her over the navy blue fleece blanket keeping them covered, but he also didn’t move to let her up. “It’s Saturday. You’re not meeting Angel until nine, right?”

“Right.” The response came out with a heavy flavor of what does that have to do with anything, making Kellan’s pulse flash faster through his veins. The smart thing to do would be to cram all these weird feelings back into their boxes and let Isabella be on her merry way.

But fuck it. He was never going to get past her armor if he didn’t earn his way in. “So give me five more minutes.”

She tilted her hips, just enough to brush her ass over his morning hard-on. “If I’m remembering correctly, you take longer than five minutes.”

Okay, so his brain wasn’t the only part of him that was wide awake and standing at attention. But come on. He might be aiming at decency, but Isabella was still hot, not to mention pressed up against him and oh-so-naked.