Desire After Dark: A Gansett Island Novel (8 page)

After shaking hands with the McCarthy and Martinez brothers, Slim held out
a hand to Erin, who was still reeling from Jenny’s pronouncement. “Ready?”

Eyeing his hand the same way she might an unpinned grenade, she nodded and let him help her into her coat and lead her from the house.

“Leave your car here,” he said. “We’ll get it in the morning.”

“Oh. Okay.” Relieved not to have to drive, she let him help her into the passenger side of his truck and
tried to put on her seat belt. Her fingers were like a bunch of thumbs, refusing to behave, which was why she was still fumbling with the seat belt when he got in and clipped it for her.

He turned on the engine and cranked the heat. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Could you not do that? Could you not say it’s nothing when anyone who knows you even a little can see it’s something?”

Remember that thing about the way he saw her? Yeah. So…

“Have you changed your mind about this, Erin? If you have, all you’ve got to do is say so. I’ll be disappointed, but I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want.”

Suddenly, that was the very
last
thing she wanted. “I don’t want you to leave me alone. But I also don’t want…”

“What?” His hand was warm upon her cheek
as he caressed her face so tenderly it brought tears to her eyes.

“I don’t want you to hurt me. And you could. You could so easily.”

“Erin, sweetheart… God, that’s the last thing I’d ever want to do.” The seat belt he’d just clipped was released, and he lifted her right out of her seat onto his lap and into his arms.

“How’d you do that?” she asked, stunned by his strength
and how quickly he’d reacted.

“I will not hurt you. I promise.”

Moved by the ferocity behind his words, she said, “You can’t promise that.”

“I can promise I’ll do everything I can to make you happy if you give me the chance. That’s all I’m asking for. A chance, and that’s more than I’ve wanted from anyone, if that tells you anything.”

“I’m afraid.”

“Why?”

“I don’t do things like this. Not anymore. It’s been so long, I… I may have forgotten how.”

“You’re doing fine so far.” He kissed her softly and sweetly, making her head spin with awareness and desire and a craving need for more that took her by surprise. How could she be trying to wiggle her way out one minute and craving more the next?

“We should probably talk before this goes
any further,” she said.

“We probably should.” He kissed her again, drawing her bottom lip into his mouth and running his tongue over it.

Erin gasped and fisted handfuls of his coat, needing to hold on to something. “That’s not talking,” she said when he released her lip.

“It’s communication of a different sort.” Holding her close to him, he said, “We’ve done a lot of talking
in the last few months, but we haven’t talked about what it is we’re doing here.”

“No, we haven’t. And we need to. Before anything else happens.”

“
Anything else
. Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

Erin laughed at his predictably witty reply. His humor had attracted her from the first night they met, and it made whatever they were doing easier than it would be
otherwise. “You’ve got to let me go so you can drive us home.”

“In a second.” He held her for another full minute before he released her to climb back to her own seat. “Jenny probably thinks we’re getting busy out here.”

“Hopefully, she’s entertaining her guests and not paying attention to what we’re doing.”

He steered the truck toward the long driveway that took them past
the greenhouses on the way to the main road. “Oh, she’s paying attention.”

“What do you mean?”

“She watches over you like a mother hen. No harm shall come to you under her watch.”

“She’s more my sister than my friend. I think she’d kill for me.”

“So noted. I vow to never give her a reason to kill for you.”

Though his tone was joking, she believed the underlying
sentiment was sincere.

T
hey rode
the rest of the way to the lighthouse in silence tinged with anticipation, at least for Erin. She had no idea what to expect. Would they pick up where they’d left off before Luke’s call, or would there be awkwardness now that they’d had hours to think about what’d nearly happened earlier?

As if he knew she was spinning, he reached for her hand.

The heat of his hand around hers calmed and soothed her. He released her only so she could open the gate for him when they arrived at the lighthouse property. After he drove the truck through, she closed and locked the gate, sealing them off from the rest of the island for the night.

“I can’t remember the last time I
did this,” she said.

“Did what?”

“Brought a man home with me for the night. It’s been… years.”

“I’m honored to be spending tonight and this week with you.”

“I’m far too old to be nervous, but I am. I don’t want to be, but I can’t seem to help it.”

“There’s nothing to be nervous about. We’re just hanging out, having fun.”

“That’s what I thought, too. Until…”
Whatever truth serum had her spilling her guts to him dried up at the thought of telling him everything.

He parked the truck outside the lighthouse and shut off the engine, casting them into darkness. “Until what?”

“You walked into Jenny’s tonight, and I was so incredibly happy to see you. It… It stopped being casual for me. I’m not sure that’s what you want—”

With his hand
on her face, he turned her toward him. “I’m exactly where I want to be tonight, with the woman who’s worked her way so far under my skin in the last few months that I can no longer imagine a day without her being part of it.”

His gruffly spoken words made her heart leap and her blood race. She could feel the throb of her pulse in her neck and between her legs.

“Let’s get out of the
cold,” he said.

In the time it took Erin to gather her belongings, he was around the truck, helping her out and guiding her over a patch of ice that she would’ve missed if he hadn’t been there. They removed their coats in the mudroom and hung them on the hooks one of the previous tenants had installed.

Erin felt his gaze on her as she went up the spiral stairs ahead of him. The enhanced
sense of awareness she experienced when he was near made her feel out of sorts and off her game, but not necessarily in a bad way. How had she made it to thirty-eight without having experienced anything that could compare to the way she’d felt when he’d walked into Jenny’s earlier?

Mitch, the man she’d lived with in law school, had been handsome, sexy, intelligent and funny, but he’d never
made her blood boil the way Slim did simply by walking into a room. At one time, she’d expected to marry Mitch. That seemed like such a long time ago now, so far in the past as to be part of someone else’s history rather than hers.

Slim poured two vodka cocktails, handed one to her and took a deep drink of his, all without taking his eyes off her. “You’re a million miles away. What’re you
thinking about?”

She forced herself to meet his gaze. “I’m thinking about the last man I was seriously involved with. It was a long time ago. During law school. I thought I was going to marry him and have it all—a family and a career and a home.”

He took her by the hand and led her to the living room.

Drink in hand, Erin curled her legs under her and sat on the sofa while
he plugged in the tree lights and killed the lamp before settling next to her.

“What happened?”

“9/11 happened. He tried. God knows he tried. He stuck it out for more than a year afterward, but…” She sighed, the weight of the difficult years that followed her brother’s death still heavy on her soul after all this time. “I’ve avoided anything that smacked of entanglement ever since.”

“Whatever became of him?”

“He graduated from law school, and last I heard he’s a partner in a firm in Philadelphia. He married one of our law school classmates, and they have a bunch of kids. Four at last count.”

“So you keep in touch?”

“I get Christmas cards with pictures of his beautiful family.”

“That must be hard to see.”

“It’s not, really. When I look
at him and his family, I don’t feel anything other than happy for him that things worked out.”

“That’s awfully generous of you.”

She shrugged off the praise. “I don’t care about him. Not anymore. I stopped caring about him the day my brother died. It was like every emotion inside me died with him, and it took years—literally
years
—to feel anything other than numb. What guy wants
to be around that?”

“If he truly loved you, he would’ve stuck it out.”

“I think he truly loved me, but I don’t blame him for leaving. I never have. It was almost a relief when he finally pulled the plug. There was one less thing that needed my attention when my grief required all my energy. I had nothing left to give him or anyone else. It was all I could do to be somewhat available
to my parents.” She looked directly at him. “I’m not numb anymore. Not like I was. But I still don’t know if I have what it takes to do something like this, because I haven’t tried again since then.”

He brought her hand to his lips, and the caress of his skin against hers set off a reaction she felt everywhere.

“I’m not looking to pressure you, Erin. And I can’t possibly understand
or even fathom what you’ve been through losing your only sibling—your twin, no less—in such a horrible way. But when I look at you, I don’t see grief or loss. I see resilience and fortitude and a stunningly beautiful woman who deserves to be happy after all she’s been through. I don’t know if I’m the guy to make you happy, but you make me want to try—and that’s a big deal for me, too, in case you
were wondering.”

Erin smiled at his adorably vulnerable expression. “So what you’re saying is you want to try to make a go of this?”

“I think I do, but only if it’s what you want, too.”

“And what would ‘making a go of it’ entail? We’re not exactly babes in the woods here. We’ve got established lives that don’t intersect for a big part of the year.”

“A, you are most
definitely a babe, and B, those are details that can be worked out later if it comes to that. God knows I’m no expert on relationships, but it would seem to me that two people who are relatively new to them might want to take it slow and not get ahead of themselves worrying about what happens down the road.”

“I can’t help but worry about that. In eleven days, you’re headed back to Florida
for months.”

“And I’ll remind you again that you’re more than welcome to come with me.”

“What if you’re sick of me by then?”

“That won’t happen.”

“How do you know?”

“Because.”

She raised a brow. “Care to elaborate?”

“I couldn’t wait to get back to you tonight. Every minute I was gone felt like pure torture.”

Okay, that was a pretty damned
good answer.

Before she could formulate a reply to such a stark statement, he said, “What if I forget to put the toilet seat down or leave my wet towels on the floor? And the underwear… That could end up anywhere. You might be ready to give me the heave-ho days before I’m due to leave.”

Erin shook her head.

“You seem awfully certain.”

“I was awfully glad to see you
at Jenny’s.”

He leaned in, his intentions clear, and even though she knew what it was like to kiss him, this felt like the first time all over again now that they’d declared their intentions to give it a whirl. He kept his eyes open as he kissed her, so she did the same, watching him watch her.

Outside, the frigid wind howled and the waves crashed against the rocks below, but inside
the cozy confines of her lighthouse, it was getting warmer by the second. His lips were soft but insistent, his eyes closing when their tongues met in a sensual caress.

Though the last thing she wanted was to stop what had only just begun, Erin broke the kiss. “Let’s go upstairs where it’s more comfortable.”

“I’m perfectly happy to sleep right here if you’re not ready for that.”

“If I wasn’t ready to sleep with you, I wouldn’t have asked you to come upstairs with me.”

“Well, all righty then. After you.”

O
nce again
, Slim followed her up a spiral staircase, his eyes drawn to her sexy ass in the tight jeans she’d worn to Jenny’s party. Those jeans were a thing of beauty, but they had nothing on the woman who wore them. She was beautiful inside
and out, and the more time he spent with her, the more hooked on her he seemed to become. Her brutal honesty about the end of her last significant relationship had touched him deeply.

And earlier, when she’d let him know he had the power to hurt her…
Whoa
.

“I’ll be right out,” she said. “Make yourself at home.”

“Thanks.”

The bathroom door closed behind her.

As he unbuttoned his shirt, it amazed him to think of how far they’d come from the night in September when he’d rescued her and then slept next to her in a chair so he could be nearby if she needed him during the night.

Everything since then had been leading to this moment. From finding out he shared a name with her late brother to attending Jenny’s wedding and meeting her parents to hours
on the phone and FaceTime to their reunion last night, they’d been building something rare and fragile, something to be treasured and nurtured.

His worries about shackles now seemed foolish in light of what she’d shared with him. This, the way he felt when he was with her, was why men allowed themselves to be caught. He sat on the foot of the bed, waiting for his turn in the bathroom and
debating whether he should leave his shirt on or take it off. To hell with it. She’d seen him shirtless earlier. He shed the shirt, laying it over a chair when he might’ve dropped it on the floor at home.

Returning to the foot of the bed, he propped his elbows on his knees and dropped his head, rolling it from side to side to relieve the tension in his neck. He felt like he was on unsteady
ground with her, which was rare. Usually there were few mysteries in his dealings with women. They went out, they had fun, sometimes they had sex, sometimes they didn’t. That routine had worked for him. But now… Everything was different, and this situation reminded him of being with the only girl he’d ever loved, back in high school, when he hadn’t the first clue what she expected from him.

Unlike then, when the uncertainty had led to anxiety, now it turned him on. Being with Erin felt brand-new, like he was just waking up from a nearly twenty-year nap to find a whole new world waiting to be discovered. And now she had him waxing poetic, he thought with a grunt of laughter at the direction his thoughts had taken.

She came out of the bathroom wearing an oversized T-shirt
that left her long legs bare for his perusal. “I don’t own anything that might be considered sexy,” she said, her expression so vulnerable his chest ached with longing.

“Yes, you do. You’re wearing it.” He stood and went to her, kissing her forehead on his way into the bathroom, where he splashed cold water on his face and brushed his teeth. Then he took a minute to catch his breath, to
calm the rapid beat of his heart. His attraction to her was unprecedented.

This whole situation was unprecedented for him. He didn’t go out of his way for women, and he certainly didn’t
stay
with them. One of his cardinal rules of dating had always been never to spend the night, and here he was planning to spend
twelve
nights with Erin—and more if she agreed to come home with him.

Rather than feeling constrained by the idea of a real relationship, he couldn’t wait to see what would happen next. And he couldn’t wait to kiss her and hold her and…

Stop. Don’t get ahead of yourself. One step at a time
.

He took a deep breath and left the bathroom. Since he hadn’t planned to stay with her, he hadn’t brought anything to sleep in, which presented another unique dilemma.

Erin was in bed, head propped on her upturned hand, watching him as he made a snap decision to leave his jeans on—for now—and stretched out next to her, turning on his side. He traced a fingertip along the V of her T-shirt, which ended just above the deep valley between her breasts. “How can you say you don’t have anything sexy?”

“This is just a T-shirt. I used to have some slinky
stuff, but it didn’t make the cut when I downsized to the lighthouse.”

“You like the slinky stuff?”

“I used to love it, but I haven’t had much use for it lately.”

“Now I know what to get you for Christmas.”

“Oh. Are we doing that?”

“What fun is Christmas if you don’t have a present under the tree to open?”

“Don’t go crazy, you hear me?”

Keeping
up the subtle movement of his fingertip, he shifted closer to nuzzle her neck. “You make me all kinds of crazy. So crazy I have to remind myself that I shouldn’t tell you all my dirty thoughts about you.”

“Why not?” she asked, sounding as breathless as he felt.

“Because you’d stop thinking I’m a charming gentleman.”

“When did I think you’re a charming gentleman?”

“Ha-ha.”

“I won’t stop thinking that.”

“Yes, you will. You’ll think I don’t respect you when that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“Tell me one thing.” Her eyes glittered with excitement and desire that made him hard as a rock.

“Mmm, how to choose just one when there’re so many to choose from?”

“Try.”

“Your lips.”

“What about them?”

“When we would
FaceTime, I became obsessed with your lips.” He rubbed his finger over her lips. “I would think about your mouth and how badly I wanted to kiss you and how much I wanted…” No. Too far. Too much.

“What did you want? Say it.”

“I wanted to see your lips wrapped around my cock. I wanted to see your mouth fall open in surprise when I made you come. I wanted to hear you screaming my name
and leaving scratches on my back. I thought about your mouth obsessively. But not just your mouth.”