Guilty Needs(25)

Her body slid forward to press against his. Now that she could remember.

The heat of his body, the muscled line of his back and thighs so close to her own. Overheated brain or not, she’d have to be dead to not remember the way he felt.

But even the ride home passed in a blur. A fogged, aroused blur where every breath was both heaven and hell because she could feel the strength of his body pressed against her own, where the vibrations of the bike rocked through her, and each small shift had her panties rubbing against her swollen clit. It was one hot, aroused blur.

She didn’t remember getting home. She did remember him walking her through the garage, pausing at the door to press his lips to hers one last time—light and quick—before he locked the door behind him. None of it registered until she heard the rumble of her bike once more.

On watery legs, she made her way to the front of the house and watched through the picture window as he rode off.

Abruptly, her brain turned back on and she started to shake. Her legs gave out beneath her and she collapsed to the floor. Drawing her knees to her chest, she pressed her overheated face against them while her mind replayed the past two hours.

Colby had kissed her.

Colby had kissed her.

She licked her lips and she didn’t know if it was remnant need or just her imagination but it seemed like she could taste him. Her body buzzed as though he still held her tightly against him. Her nipples burned, her * throbbed—she was so aroused, she hurt with it. Need could be so very painful.

Falling back onto the hardwood floor, she lay there, shaking, sweating and confused. Her body screamed at her. She was pretty damn sure, if Colby appeared right then and there and just looked at her the right way, she’d come. She needed it—hell, but did she need it. Briefly, she thought about trying to get upright and stumble into the shower. A massaging showerhead made for one hell of a tension reliever, but she discarded the idea almost as quickly as it formed.

It wouldn’t work. Not this time.

Bree wasn’t too certain that anything short of getting very naked, very hot and very sweaty with Colby would work. A few hours ago, her mind would have discarded even the possibility of that. Although she still remembered in vivid detail those few tense, heated moments right in her kitchen a year ago—remembered the hunger she’d glimpsed in his eyes—she knew he hadn’t really needed anything more than comfort that day. The kind of comfort he’d needed might have ripped her heart out, but she would have given it.

But now…he hadn’t been looking for comfort.

Bree recognized a man on the make easy enough, even if she hadn’t ever seen it coming from him. That was all it was, she just couldn’t believe it was anything deeper than that, no matter how much she wanted it. He needed a woman.

Alyssa had been gone a year, and deep inside, Bree knew that Colby hadn’t been with a woman since his wife had become too ill. He needed sex.

But Bree needed him and she wasn’t so certain her heart could handle it if he’d decided, for some f*cked up reason, to end his sexual fast with her.





Chapter Six


His hands were sweating.

Ever since he’d driven away from Bree three hours earlier, he’d been in a persistent state of arousal and he hadn’t thought much of anything would ease the burning ache in his balls. Well, anything short of stripping Bree naked and f*cking her until she screamed herself hoarse. That would work. At least until he needed to do it again.

But he’d been wrong—there was one thing that could douse the fire burning inside him.

Why it happened then, he didn’t know. It wasn’t that he consciously made the decision that he needed to let go of Alyssa. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t admitted his attraction to her best friend—an attraction that he realized had probably always been there. It wasn’t one he ever would have acted on, maybe not even one he would ever have been consciously aware of, if life hadn’t tossed him one major sucker punch and taken Alyssa from him.

He’d loved his wife. He still did. He never would have broken the promises he made her.

But sometime since he’d let himself acknowledge the fact that—okay, still not easy to think it—Alyssa was haunting him, he’d realized why she’d been doing so. He hadn’t died with her. Even though there had been weeks where he wished he had, he hadn’t. He was still alive.

And she hated how he’d shut down. She loved him enough, even though she was gone, to want him to be happy. She knew him enough to know who could make him happy.

He’d thought maybe he could get past the guilt.

Then he found himself standing in front of the door to their room. The room he’d shared with Alyssa—the room where he’d held her in his arms as she quietly passed away in her sleep.

He hadn’t gone in there once since he’d returned home. He didn’t want to go in there.

But he couldn’t turn away either. He inched forward, one slow, shuffling step at a time, and every step he took, memories flashed through his mind. Alyssa as she had looked on their wedding day. Bree standing in the rain when Alyssa’s coffin was lowered into the ground. Alyssa’s lashes lowering over her eyes as she’d drifted off to sleep that last day. Bree kneeling in his yard, surrounded by vivid bursts of color, tending to the flowers she’d helped Alyssa plant.

Alyssa… How often she’d been whispering to him over the past six months. But what if it wasn’t her? What if she really wasn’t okay with the fact that he found himself looking at Bree and realizing he had feelings for her? What if it was just some rationalization his guilty conscience had dreamed up?