Thank you. I had never loved that cranky old bastard more.
Expecting to come back to a dark, silent house—and my own inability to withstand temptation—I was relieved to be spared of both.
“You didn’t have to wait up,” I said.
“I didn’t. I’m watching TV.”
Three hours past his usual bedtime.
“NCIS?” Owen asked, jutting his chin toward the screen.
“I didn’t know you liked that,” I said, dropping onto the couch beside Walter.
Owen looked at me then—the first time our eyes met since we’d broken off that devouring kiss and came out of the fort. His little smile was there, subtle but knowing.I see what you’re doing.
You’re welcome,I tried to wordlessly communicate back.
I wasn’t being altruistic—because if this ended badly, it wouldn’t just be his friendship with Simon that shattered.
“Well. Night, Gramps, Rio. Babysitting was fun. And exhausting like a penalty shootout after overtime.”
“Good night,” Walter and I said in unison.
“All that physio, jogging on the beach, and working that leg in the gym is paying off,” Walter said, watching Owen, who was out of earshot. “He seems almost as good as new.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. He’d just hit the point where my body and heart were at war.
I kept my focus on the TV, even when Walter started shifting, yawning, signaling he was ready to turn in. I needed a buffer, a safety valve, something to keep me from knocking on Owen’s door and taking exactly what I wanted.
I had done it once before. And I knew I could do it again.
“It doesn’t have to mean anything”I had said back then, but it did, and I knew that it would mean much more now.
Much. More.
I NEVER KNEW MY BODYcould react like this—not just to someone’s touch, but to my own touch on him. My head was already swimming from that first kiss—the way Owen responded to me, how he kissed me back, how he tasted, how he deepened the kiss until my knees trembled even though I was sitting.
Then he pulled away, breaking the kiss but staying close.
I brushed my fingers over his shoulder and down his arm, and even that—just that—sent a ripple of heat to my core. I slipped my hand under his sleeve, fingertips tracing bare skin over corded bicep, and the burn inside me ignited.
If he had sent me back to my room right then, I wasn’t sure my legs would have carried me.
I kissed him again—because I wanted to, needed to, burned to.
This time, Owen didn’t hold back. He ravished me, pulling me against him so hard I found myself straddling him. We were face to face, hands cupping each other’s faces, fingers threading into hair, grasping, desperate. A quiet moan slipped from me, pulled out by the sheer force of arousal, by sensations so overwhelming I could barely make sense of them.
Owen’s hands chafed down my back, then lower—gripping my ass, dragging me even closer until my core was flush against him. And I felt it.
For the first time in my life, I felt what it was like to have a man hard against me.
If I thought I was aroused before, now I was drenched. I rocked against him, and his groan vibrated into my mouth. His hands raked under my shirt, palms rough and searching, branding a path up my back. When he reached my bra, he hesitated, then slowly slid his hands back out, breaking the kiss.
For a second, I thought he was stopping. Regretting.
But then he looked at me—I’d never seen Owen like that—his eyes were stormy skies, dark and wild, as if he was barely holding himself back. Desire. I’d recognize it later when I had the capacity to think.
He held my gaze, waiting.
