“Business to run; no toddlers. Got it.” I heard papers shuffling on his end. “Talk to me about the building you picked up in the South End.”
I stared at the patterned carpet beneath my feet. “I need Matt to check it out before I decide. If nothing else, it’s a hot area and I’ll be able to dump it for a profit.”
“Two of the properties you’re watching in Cambridge were sold today.”
“Motherfuck,” I groaned. I tugged my bag higher on my shoulder while I scanned the terminal for ground transportation signs. Will was driving up from Virginia, and we agreed to meet at The Jefferson, near DuPont Circle. “Ask Patrick to walk the other one I was looking at, and make an offer if—”
But Will wasn’t at the hotel. He was striding toward me, his hands fisted at his sides and a sharp scowl across his face. He shook his head and relieved me of my bag. “You could have canoed here faster than that fucking flight.” His arm curled around my waist, tugging me close to him, and he snatched the phone from my hand. “She’ll call you back next week.”
He ended the call and slipped the device into his back pocket.
“You could have waited a minute for me to finish,” I said, head reclined against his chest.
Will tipped my chin up and crushed his lips to mine. “They’ve had you all week. All month. All fucking winter. It’s been ninety-seven goddamn days since I’ve seen you and I’m not sharing. It’s my turn now,” he whispered into my cheek. “I have been climbing the walls waiting for you, peanut.”
“I know, I know, and my flight…” I trailed off as Will’s hands landed on my hips and he wrapped his arms around me. “I’m sorry.”
“No, Shannon, it’s not your fault,” he said, his lips pressed to my jaw. “I couldn’t wait in the hotel room any longer. I was losing my fucking mind.”
We made our way through the airport and into a taxi. We stayed close, always touching and leaning into each other, and this was different from the wild urgency of desire, but it was still a powerful tide of emotions, all swirling together, washing over me, dragging me from the safety of the shore. I was drowning in Will, and as he banded his arms around me and squeezed tight for the tenth time this evening, I knew this wasn’t scheduled sex anymore. It was tipping into affection and concern andother feelings.
It was scary, but then it wasn’t.
I knew scary things—death and disease, violence and abuse—and this wasn’t like that. This was warm and happy and special, and maybe…maybe it was finally my turn.
Will led me to our room, and he was pretty cute with my Burberry tote on his arm. “That really works for you,” I said, pointing at the bag.
“Yeah?” he asked, holding the door open for me. “You’re sure it goes with my shoes?”
“And the belt,” I laughed. He pulled my coat over my shoulders then dropped to his knees behind me, dragging his fingers down my sides. He stayed there, his face resting on my backside, and all the noise of‘What is this and what are we doing?’around me quieted.
His fingers moved under my shirt and to my belly, smoothing over my skin and dipping beneath my jeans, and then he freed the buttons at my waist. The denim slipped over my hips, and I bent to help him with my lace-up boots. “What kind of shoes are these? Do these things ever end?”
“You want to talk about my boots?”
“No, I want to get your boots off, and your pants and your shirt and everything else,” he said, laughing. “Maybe next time you go with the ones that zip, you know, when ripping your clothes off will be part of the agenda.”
Once the boots were abandoned alongside my jeans, and Will was kissing his way up from my ankles, heat was pumping through my veins, awakening all my nerves and filling me with this need to feel him against me and pour all my words and thoughts, and hopes and fears, and theeverythingbuilding up inside me over him, over us.
I sent my shirt and bra sailing through the air, and then I started tearing his jeans off. “I want you on the bed,” I whispered.
“I love your scent,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about this for months.” His teeth scraped over my upper thigh, pausing to bite along the line of my panties. “And I love it when you start handing out orders.” He stood, scooped me up, and marched toward the bed. “You’re hot when you’re bossy.”
He set me on the bed—for once, no tossing—and immediately crawled over me. His cock was heavy on my leg, and I arched up, starved for him. An impatient, whiny noise rattled in my throat and he chuckled, kissing the valley between my breasts.
Will shrugged out of his shirt, and my eyes landed on a measure of gauze banded around his bicep. There were tiny spots of blood seeping through. I bolted up and feathered my fingers over him. “What the hell happened to you?”
He glanced at his arm, his eyebrows lifting as if he was seeing the wound for the first time. “Oh, it’s nothing. Just a flesh wound.”
“A flesh wound?” I repeated. I might have screeched. Couldn’t be sure. “What does that mean?”
He tore the gauze off and balled it up, exposing a line of stitches the length of my hand. “The bullet barely hit me. I didn’t even notice until we were back on base.”
“You wereshot?” Definitely screeched that time.
His face softened and he leaned down to brush his lips over mine. “It’s okay,” he said. “It happens, and I live to fight another day. There are far worse things than a flesh wound.”
“But that’s just it,” I said, tears—dumb, hormone-fueled tears—threatening behind my eyes. I was bare save for my panties, my hands wrapped around Will’s arm. “Worse thingscouldhappen, and I can’t do anything to stop it. I can protect everyone but you, and you need it the most.”
