Guilty Needs(38)

A minute later, she disconnected and looked up and found Colby watching her over his coffee cup. “Flat tire.” She grimaced. “I’ve gotta go pick him up. The jobs today will take twice as long if he isn’t around.”

“Still think you’ll get done fairly early?” he asked, reaching out and catching her hand. His thumb stroked along the inside of her wrist as he lifted it up and pressed a kiss to her palm. He hadn’t shaved and his roughened cheek rasped against her flesh.

“Should be. Why?”

He shrugged and tugged her to stand between his widespread thighs. He had one bare foot braced on the floor, the other on the rung of the stool. Wearing nothing but his jeans, he looked entirely too good to walk away from. His eyes were still heavy with sleep and the early morning sun filtering through the window did amazing things to his body. She found herself fantasizing about sliding her fingers through the hair on his chest, tugging just a little before she continued on downward and unzipped his jeans.

Fantasizing to the point that she was practically drooling and she hadn’t heard a damn thing he’d said, she realized, jerking her eyes up to his face. A sexy smile curled his lips as she said dumbly, “Huh?”

“I was thinking maybe I could take you out tonight. Something nice.”

“How nice?”

He grinned. “Nice as in I’m going to see if I can find a tie, maybe talk you into wearing a dress…and not wearing any panties.”

Blood rushed to her cheeks. Heat curled in her belly. “How does me not wearing any panties have anything to do with how nice a place you take me to?”

He slid a hand between her thighs and cupped her, rubbing the heel of his palm against her. “Well, I don’t guess it would be fair if I said I’d only take you out if you leave the panties off but it sure as hell would be fun for me to think about you being naked under some sexy black dress.”

She cocked a brow at him, tried for a cool smile but ended up whimpering as he pressed his finger against her, pressing through the layers of her shorts and panties. “I think I can find something black and sexy. And panties are overrated.”

He hauled her against him and kissed her, quick and rough. When he let go, they were both breathing hard and heavy. “Clothing is overrated, if you ask me. Especially considering how damn good you look without any.”




Colby stood in the doorway, staring into the room.

It looked bare.

Over the past month, he’d slowly been getting rid of all of Alyssa’s things. All of her clothes had been donated to a local church group. Other things, like books, her knick-knacks, the fairies and dragons she’d collected had been boxed up and given to DAV.

All that remained in their room now was the furniture. A guy who worked for Bree was taking the bedroom set. He was coming over tomorrow to pick it all up and then the room would be empty.

It was hard, but not as hard as he’d expected. Instead of a driving grief, he’d been able to go through her things with a sad sort of acceptance. His wife was gone. In the past month, he hadn’t even heard the whisper of her voice and he supposed it was because he had finally come around to accepting it—and getting back to some sort of life.

Life.

Yeah, he had a life again and it was actually looking a hell of a lot better than he could have expected. Better than he had even wanted, in all honesty.

He was falling in love with Bree. It was a slow, lazy drift, completely different from the way Alyssa had danced into his heart back when they were still kids.

But he’d mostly expected that. Everything with Bree was different.

The friendship that had always been between them had grown into something else and he could even admit, without feeling too guilty, some of it had started before he’d even left. The way she’d been there with Alyssa as she’d gotten more and more ill, the way she’d stood by him, a silent source of comfort during those last days. It had planted something inside him.

Falling in love again wasn’t something he’d planned on.

Wasn’t even something he’d wanted. The pain of losing somebody was enough to make most people leery, he guessed.

But it had crept up on him. Colby was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a complete idiot. Life was giving him a second chance at happiness and he wasn’t going to walk away from it.

Well, there were still a few unanswered questions there. Like how Bree felt, for one. He thought he knew, but he needed to know for sure. Needed to hear her say it. Tonight, he was going to see if he couldn’t get her to do just that.

Slowly, he stepped into the room, staring at the bed. He’d shared this bed with Alyssa for years. He’d saved this part for last, determined to work his way up to it, but now he realized he hadn’t needed to do that. He stripped the comforter away, folding it neatly and laying it in a box by the door. If the guy wanted the sheets and blankets, he was welcome to them, otherwise Colby would just drop them by DAV with the last of the books he still had to box up.

He stripped off the pillow cases, the top sheet, adding them to the box. Reaching under the mattress, he tugged the gathered corner of the bottom sheet. On Alyssa’s side, near the top, he did the same. His fingers brushed against something. His heart skipped a beat as he grabbed it and pulled it out.

Her journal. He knew what it was even before he saw it. There was a box full of them up in the attic and that was one thing he had no idea what to do with. He couldn’t just give her journals away, but throwing them out didn’t seem right. One thing Alyssa had done faithfully was write in it almost every day. Even the day before she died, she’d written something in it. Granted, it took her forever to finish an entry but when he offered to write it down for her, she’d always refused.