“What if I wasn’t ready yet?”
“Then you shouldn’t have ground your pussy down on me like you wanted to get fucked on the beach.”
“Was it that obvious? You sure I can’t talk you into breaking another rule?”
“I’m not fucking you out here. Not unless you want me to rip a hole in your leggings, because I’m not taking them off. You’d be too cold.”
God, this man. He was gruff and stoic, a rule-follower to the extreme and my complete opposite. But he was caring and considerate, would fight to the ends of the earth for the people he loved, even if he hid those parts of himself away, burying them under bravado and barked commands.
“A good mananda softy,” I teased, wrapping my limbs tighter around him.
“You won’t be saying that in about fifteen minutes.”
I pulled back and grinned at him, catching my lower lip between my teeth as the lights from the festival softly illuminated his face. A face I’d come to love. His eyes were dark, heated. But I saw a warmth in their depths that hadn’t been there before. Warmth for me.
I refused to think about what that meant. Or what it’d do to him when I left.
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
LUNA
Back at Brady’s house,I stepped out of the hall bathroom and headed toward the guest room, stopping dead in my tracks before I made it through the doorway. The bed had been stripped and was now just a bare mattress, and my bag wasn’t anywhere to be found.
Cocking my head to the side, I made my way to Brady’s room, and sure enough, my bag sat on the floor on my side of the bed. Though, truth be told, when I’d slept in here last night, Brady’s sidewasmy side. I hadn’t left the warmth of his body the entire time.
“Did you kick me out of my accommodations, Sheriff?”
Brady looked up from where he set his phone on his nightstand, his gaze sweeping me from head to toe. Then he strode toward me, a white piece of fabric clutched in his hand. “If you think you’re sleeping anywhere but my bed after I saw your van smashed within an inch of its life this morning, you haven’t been paying attention.”
As soon as he stood in front of me, he gripped the hem of my sweater and pulled it up and over my head, his eyes heating when he found me bare beneath it. “You always go out in public like this?” he asked as he circled his thumb around my nipple.
With a grin, I arched toward him, my body yearning for more. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this, Sheriff, but I don’t exactly have a need for support.”
He leaned down, engulfing a nipple in his mouth and sucking deep, pulling a gasp straight from my lips. “What I’ve noticed is your tits are perfect.”
Instead of continuing with his torture, he pulled the T-shirt over my head and covered me. Then he dropped to his knees—this big, beautiful, scowly man—and slid my leggings down over my hips until they pooled at my ankles, his brow lifting when he found I was wearing panties.
I rolled my eyes, bracing a hand on his shoulder as I lifted first one leg, then the other, letting him undress me. “I wasn’t going to be bare-assed while I was leading a one-on-one yoga class for Harper.”
He lifted the hem of the T-shirt he’d dressed me in, then pressed a kiss to my bare hip. “That’s fine, but you’re not wearing them in my bed.”
Then he stood, hauling me over his shoulder and chuckling lowly at my yelp. In three long strides, I was airborne before bouncing on the mattress as giggles erupted from me. My laughter died on my lips as soon as our gazes met. He reached behind his head and pulled off his shirt in one smooth motion. His jeans went next, and then he shut off the light before he crawled in beside me wearing nothing but black boxer briefs that did little to hide his reaction to me.
But instead of pouncing on me like I thought he would, he gathered me in close, my back resting against his chest, and tucked his legs beneath mine so every inch of me was touching some part of him.
I exhaled on a sigh, not realizing I’d needed this until he’d given it to me. The past twenty-four hours had been a roller-coaster ride, from Brady showing up in the storm to him dragging me away to having the best sex of my life—twice—with the man I wasn’t supposed to get along with, let alone actually care about, to finding my home crushed beneath a tree. Not to mention the secrets he’d shared, opening up to me in a way I knew he didn’t with others. But he had with me. For some reason, he’d seen me as someone worthy of those secrets.
He saw me, too, as someone worthy of his concern.
He’d shown me that in a dozen different ways, but it’d taken a tree falling on my van for me to finally see it. I wasn’t used to being cared for like this. Wasn’t used to being…treasured.
My stomach felt like a rocket launched into space, a volcano ready to erupt. I didn’t know how Brady and I fit together, only that we did. Had no idea how this could ever work between us, only that I wanted it to.
As we lay there, I felt the tension leave his body, his lips pressed against the back of my neck, nose buried in my hair, as if reminding himself I was here. I was safe.
“Did you tell your parents?” he asked after a while.
“That I’m lying in bed with you? No. But I could call them now if you want.”
