Cross-Checked (19 page)

I looked down at my toes, hovering several feet above the water. “Are there lots of fish in here?”

“Yeah, loads, that’s why there’s all these big birds about, they’re looking for lunch, same as me.”

Good, he wasn’t leaving ’til after lunch then.

“That should do it,” he said, holding the finished fly in the air for examination. “Perfect.”

It was like a mini work of art. So intricate and pretty, the thin wire crossed precisely over the base of the feathers and the little silver hook shiny and pointed.

“Where did you learn to do that?” I asked.

He pulled back on the rod and flicked the line with a practiced move. The colorful fly landed about thirty feet out and bobbed in its own ripples.

“My dad,” he said. “He was a keen fisherman, more so after he hurt his back, it was about the only sport he could do then.” He huffed. “If you can call sitting around in the sunshine sport, that is.”

“Did he catch much?”

“Yeah, he was a very patient man, would sit for hours.” He turned to me. “I think he did it to give Mom a break and try to bring home some supper too.”

“It must have been hard for him, not working to support his family.”

“I think he hated that more than not being able to get about like he used to, more than being registered disabled.”

I rested my empty banana peel on the wooden slats. “Do you miss him?”

“Every damn day.” Brick dropped the shades sitting on his head over his eyes. “But especially the days I play well, score goals. He would have loved sharing those achievements with me, he was always so proud of anything I did.”

“I’m sure your mom is proud.”

“Yeah, of course, but there’s something about seeing pride in your father’s eyes, hearing it in his voice, that’s real special to a son.”

A huge bird swooped down to the water just off to the right. We both watched as big yellow talons dipped beneath the surface and reappeared with a wriggling silver fish trapped in its grip.

“Wow,” I said, “look at that.”

Brick grunted. “Well there goes my chance of catching lunch for a few hours. He’ll have scared all the fish to the other end of the lake.”

My stomach growled.

“You still hungry?” he asked with a grin.

“Yeah, starving.”

“That’s a good sign.” He began to reel in his line. “Come on, I’ll rustle us something up. The fridge was stocked before we arrived by Matilda, she keeps an eye on the place when I’m not here.”

I smiled. Perhaps he’d hang around until later in the afternoon. Get going when it was cooler and the roads less busy.

We sat side by side on the sofa eating cheese omelet and watching the sports channel. The big game Brick was missing was on later and the analysts where having a field day discussing how Raven would cope after his break.

“You think he’ll be okay?” I asked, putting my empty plate on the table.

“Yeah, he’s an awesome player and I’ve seen him in training lately, he seems even more focused, more determined after his injury. There’ll be no stopping him.”

I glanced at my bandaged wrist.

“And you’ll be fine too,” he said, following my gaze and knocking back a glass of iced water. “I have a feeling this will make you even more focused and, heaven help us, even more determined.”

“What do you mean ‘heaven help us’?” I was indignant, there was nothing wrong with being determined.

“Well, you seem to go out and get what you want with a focus that is so damn intense I’m surprised it doesn’t crack you.”

“I don’t
always
get what I want.” This was one of the few times I wasn’t going to get what I wanted and I had no idea what to do about it. I wanted him, I wanted Brick. I wanted Brick to stay more than anything else in the world.

“What have you ever not had that you really, really wanted?” He tipped his head.

I sighed. “One year I wanted a horse-riding Barbie for Christmas and I got ballerina Barbie instead.”

He laughed. “That’s not quite what I meant.”

“Well, what about you?” I asked, not wanting to dwell on just how much I wanted him so near to his departure. “You’re pretty determined too.”

“I can’t deny that.” He tipped forward suddenly and his lips touched mine. “I was determined to have you,” he said onto my mouth, “right from that first moment I saw you in the photography studio.”

A flutter of longing tickled across my flesh. Having him so near, feeling his body heat, looking into his eyes, it could make me lose myself. “You were?”

“Oh yeah, honey, seeing you all cute and sexy and with those little torpedoes shouting hello at me.” He smiled sexily. “I was hard the whole way through the shoot.”

“Sounds uncomfortable.”

“Mmm,” he kissed me again, a little firmer this time. “It was.”

I rested my hand on the ball of his bare shoulder, relishing the perfect smooth flesh beneath my fingertips and palm. I adored how he kissed me, how his lips moved gently but confidently over mine and how his tongue dipped into my mouth as if he was exploring me anew each time.

“Just like I’m hard now,” he said, pulling back with an expression that was part grimace, part humor. “Damn shame I can’t do anything about it.”

I pulled in a juddering breath and tried to dampen my own desire. He was obviously planning on leaving much sooner than I thought. Like now.

I stared up at the picture above the mantel. It was a deer, a female deer standing alone on a rock, green landscape surrounded her and her nose tipped proudly toward a blazing sun.

“What time are you leaving?” I asked. I had to know. I couldn’t stand the torment another second.

“What?”

“When are you leaving? I presume you’ve organized someone to come ‘babysit’ me.” I folded my arms over my chest, being careful of my wrist but needing to hide my protruding nipples poking like darts against my red t-shirt.

“I’m leaving next week, Carly, with you.” His forehead creased. “What are you talking about?”

I studied his eyes.

“That was always the plan.” His brow crinkled in confusion. “Wasn’t it?”

“But, but I thought…”

“What?” He sat back against the sofa and rubbed his temple with one finger. “What did you think?”

“I thought after last night, after I was so pathetic, you’d want to leave.” I stared up at the deer. “I don’t mind if you do.”

“You
want
me to leave?” he asked slowly.

“No, no, of course not. I want you to stay, with me.”

“Well that’s what I’m going to do, not because I promised your parents, or because you want me to, but because
I
want to.” He reached out and touched my cheek. “And why the hell would I leave just because you cried?”

I swallowed. “Because it was such a show of weakness, I’d dreamed about the accident, about being high up. I was so scared and out of control, it was awful for you to witness when you only ever saw me as strong before the accident, plus I was so snappy with you, so cranky when we arrived.”

He shook his head. “You were a complete grump but you said sorry, it’s over, forgotten and everyone has weaknesses, Carly. Everyone has demons to battle, no one on earth is lucky enough to get away without any.”

“You don’t have any.”

He smiled, though his brows pulled down in a frown. “Sure I do.”

“Like what?”

He tugged his bottom lip with his teeth. “I hate dentists,” he said, “which is a nightmare because whenever there’s a loose puck flying around it always seems to get me in the mouth.”

I looked at his perfect, neat white teeth.

“And,” he said, tucking a wisp of hair behind my ear, “I hate spiders, I never used to, but a few years back, when I was here in fact, sorting out the barbecue after the winter, I got bitten by some horrid little red thing, it made my hand swell like a balloon and I couldn’t hold a stick for nearly three weeks. So now I have a little arachnophobia going on. For a tiny thing they can really mess up your life.”

“But they’re easy things to cope with,” I said with a sigh.

His voice lowered and his brows dropped. “Maybe, but sometimes I miss my dad as much as I would miss all four of my limbs.” He paused. “When I feel like that I just need to be alone, to be quiet with my thoughts and memories. He fills my mind and takes away my concentration. I can’t do much when his birthday comes around or the anniversary of his death.”

“You can always talk to me,” I said, hating the look of grief in his beautiful eyes. “If that would help.”

“Perhaps I’ll take you up on that, if you don’t mind fishing trip and family holiday stories.” He grinned suddenly and took my hands in his. “But that’s what this is all about, Carly.”

“What do you mean?”

“Getting to know one another, finding out how another person ticks. You need to know their strengths and weaknesses, dreams and fears, their moods—good and bad—and if you still want that person, need that person even when you know all the crappy stuff as well as the good stuff then…”

I tipped my head.

His voice lowered and his gaze captured mine. “Then that is what it means to love someone.”

“Love?”

“I don’t know how you feel about me,” he said quietly. “Because you surprise me constantly with the workings of your mind, but I know how I feel about you.”

“How is that?” My head was whirring, my emotions ballooning in my stomach. A small pop of excitement burst way down low in my pelvis.

The right side of his mouth curled up a fraction. “I feel like for the first time in my life I’ve found someone I can imagine falling totally, one hundred percent in love with.”

I watched his lips form the words. Beautiful words that made my heart soar and my breath catch.

He turned his head and looked out the doors at the lake. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” he said. “It’s just happened so fast for me, what with the accident and all. Thinking I was losing you before we’d really had a chance to begin bowled me over. It still does.”

“Brick,” I said quietly. “Look at me.”

He turned and I rested my good hand in the center of his chest, over the sprinkle of dark blond hairs on his sternum. “I’m falling in love with you too,” I said.

“You are?” His eyes widened.

“Yes.”

His brow creased. “You sure, ’cause you just asked about me leaving?”

“I just said I wanted you to stay.” I smiled. “In fact, no, I’m not falling in love with you.” I paused and saw uncertainty cross his face. What was the point in holding anything back anymore? This was where we were and this was how I felt. “I’m already in love with you,” I said, “I want, need to be with you. I don’t want you to go anywhere without me ever again.” There, it was said. It made me vulnerable, needy. But it was a truth that couldn’t and shouldn’t be denied for another second.

Suddenly he was kissing me. “I love you and I want you too,” he said as his mouth trailed across my cheek. “And I need you so badly.” He kissed right next to my ear, pushed back my hair and pressed his lips to my neck.

“So have me,” I said, delighting in his delicate touch and the words washing like fine wine over my body. “Have me now, all of me.”

He groaned. “I can’t, can I?” He pulled back to look at my face.

“Why not?”

“Well, you’re all bashed and bruised. I brought you here to rest and recover, not jump your bones.” He shifted his hips on the sofa. I couldn’t help but notice the strain under his fly.

“I think it might be the perfect diversion therapy,” I said, reaching for his nape and pulling him back for a long, deep kiss. I wanted him to make love to me. It was the only thing that was going to happen next.

He moaned into my mouth. “Are you sure? I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’m sure.” I reached for the button on his waistband. “More than sure.” It was what my body was crying out for. I needed his skin on mine. I wanted him inside me, loving me, making me feel like the luckiest, most cherished woman on earth.

“Wait there,” he said, standing suddenly.

“Where are you going?”

“To get a condom.”

“No,” I reached for his hand. “Please, you don’t need one.”

His brows lifted as he looked down at me.

“I got contraception covered while I was at the hospital.”

“But”

I pushed up and rested my hands on his shoulders. “And I’ve never gone without a condom.”

His jaw tightened. “Me neither.”

I went to my toes and kissed his cheek. “So scrap that idea,” I said by his ear. “Because I need you, flesh on flesh, nothing between. Just us.”

“Sweet Jesus,” he said. “I swear, you’re turning me inside out.” He curled his fingers beneath my t-shirt, started to lift then paused. “You sure?” he asked with his eyes narrowed.

“Absolutely.” I’d never been more sure of anything in my life. In my head and my heart I knew Brick was the man for me. He was the man I wanted to have sex with for the rest of my life, no one else would ever compare.

He slipped my t-shirt over my head and carefully stretched it over my wrist. The breeze fanning over the lake washed around my naked chest. A small shiver, part desire, part coolness, shuddered over me.

“Are you cold?” he asked, touching his thumb to my tight left nipple.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Honey, you’ve got goose bumps,” he said with a frown. “Come here.” He gently tugged me in front of the huge stone fireplace, reached for a remote under the deer picture and aimed it at the logs.

The fireplace burst to life. Orange and gold flames licked over the wood and flickered up toward the chimney, the heat instantaneous.

“Lie down,” he said, sinking to his knees and pulling me carefully down with him.

I stretched out on a luxuriously thick fur rug as the warmth of the fire enveloped me. The satin-soft hairs tickled my bare back and felt heavenly on my skin after the aches and pains of the previous days.

“Better?” he asked, stretching out next to me on his side.

“Yes.” I touched his lips with the pad of my index finger. “Thanks.”

He was propped up on his elbow and his gaze and fingertip trailed first over my collarbones and then my sternum. “You’re bruised,” he said, running a light finger over my lower ribs.