Run (18 page)

       Slipping out of the sweats I’d pulled on before I’d left the room, I circled the bed and crawled over to him, trying not to wake him in the process. A few more hours of sleep and we’d climb into his truck, tow the trailer full of stuff all the way back to Austin.

       He stirred, cracked an eye and managed a sleepy smile. “Mornin’ already?”

       “It’s a little after five.” He withdrew his arm from under the pillow and scooted me across the bed until our faces were inches apart. “You should get some more sleep.”

       “What’re you doing up already?” The heat of his sleep-warmed skin on mine made me want to purr. He brushed his lips across my forehead, down the bridge of my nose, fitting into the dips and curves of my mouth and pressing harder. The contact wiped away some of my fatigue, warmth surging through my veins. Bracing himself on one arm, he threaded his fingers through my hair and kissed me properly, slow and hot and designed to make me forget my mother was awake in the kitchen.

       “Trevor…” I turned my face away, and he kept going, place sweet, hot kisses along my jaw. “You need to stop.” I caught his face in my hands. “My mom’s awake.”

       “Embarrassed?” He grinned.

       “Maybe,” I muttered. “I needed to talk to you first, though, since you’re awake.”

       He propped his head on his fist, eyes sleepy. “Yeah?”

       I gathered my courage, along with a deep breath. “I’m going back to Austin. Today.”

       My heart slowed, air trapped in my chest as I waited for his response. This was what I wanted. I’d go whether he wanted me with him or not. But it would
hurt
if I’d misread all the cues and words and gestures. He blinked, mouth twitching once, twice, before it spread in a smile. “You’re coming back.” His kiss was pure relief. The room spun in a lazy circle, and I clung to him.

       I’d been in love before. I knew how it felt. The giddy, stomach-drop sensation waiting to explode, that certainty, that
rightness
. What I felt for Trevor was exactly that, magnified. The words tumbled through my brain, and I poured everything I had into that kiss, knowing he’d understand.

       He broke the kiss, rubbed his nose against mine. “You sure about this? The last thing you probably want right now is questions, but I gotta know you’re doing this for you.”

       “I am.” He eased away. “Coming here reminded me it’s no longer home. There was a reason I didn’t return after grad school and try to find a job in the local school district. This is my chance to start over from scratch. It scares me shitless, because from the time I was twelve I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life.”

       “No reason you can’t try teaching again.”

       I frowned. “It’s a possibility, but it’s a slim one. Anyway.” I pushed a lock of hair off his forehead. “I’m going to take my time, look at all my options.”

       “Please tell me you’re moving into a better apartment.”

       “First bullet point on the list.”

       “Good.” Stroking a hand down my side, he rolled us so he was on his back. I studied his face in the growing light, smiling when he did, tracing one of the slight increases bracketing his mouth. “You gonna let me help you when you need it?”

       I threaded my fingers through his hair. “Depends. It just so happens I need a fuck toy.”

       His scowl drew a giggle from me. “Thought we had this discussion already. Don’t know where you got the idea I was okay with that.” He stretched up, nipped into my lip, soothed the hurt with his tongue. “I guess it’d be okay. Means I win, too.”

       “Yes, yes it does.” I lowered my head to his shoulder, sleepiness creeping in. “I have to start over,” I repeated. “And I don’t want to do it alone.”

       He pulled the blankets up. “Then we’ll do it together.”

       Together with Trevor. It was a beautiful word.
Together
.

Thank you for reading!

Want more sexy, snarky goodness? Sign up for my mailing list 
here
. It’s infrequent (no spam, I promise) but always spectacular, with new release info, exclusive excerpts, giveaways, and more neat stuff.

Not a newsletter person? Like me on 
Facebook
, check out my 
website
, or scroll through my woefully neglected 
Tumblr
. Got book recommendations? Friend me on 
Goodreads
 — I’m always looking for my next great read.

Prefer your romance short, sweet, and plenty sexy? Keep reading for a sneak peek at
The Perfect Man
, available January 2016.

The Perfect Man
sneak peek

       I had never been more uncomfortable.

       That’s probably not true. There were likely moments in the past I was conveniently forgetting about that were as bad, or worse, as this one. But standing on the not-quite fringes of the crowd, clutching a whiskey and soda like it was a lifeline, I was pretty damn uncomfortable. I never should have let Lucy talk me into this. I definitely shouldn’t have let her talk me into the long-sleeve cowl-neck sweater dress I wore.

       I tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear and tried not to fidget. Luce might have talked me into covering up the tattoos, but there was no way I was re-dying my hair for a single evening. Besides, the red matched the dress, and the black looked good with my skin. I took pride in my hair — it was shiny and as healthy as it could get for being bleached to hell and back, then dyed black and blood red. The man currently giving me the side-eye as he took in my hair could kiss my ass.

       This was a mistake. A serious introvert at a drink-fest masquerading as a Valentine’s party for singles? Not only that, but I wasn’t even being
me
. Lucy had a point, I’d give her that. Too many people made assumptions based on appearances. Why not change that appearance to increase the chances of someone making the correct assumption?

       Except I had a hard enough time being comfortable in my own skin. Put me in someone else’s, and it only got worse.

       The country club-like venue, with its warm gold walls and dim lighting, gave the event a sense of class it didn’t deserve. Whisky burned a trail down my throat as I surveyed the room. So far I’d exchanged small talk with a couple of guys, and that was the sum total of my interactions this evening. Only one had been even remotely attractive to me, and while he’d been polite and sort of friendly, he’d deserted the field for the first woman to cross his path baring more skin than I was.

       I would have preferred to spend my Valentine’s Day at home, in my pajamas, drinking hot cocoa and watching
(500) Days of Summer
or some other movie starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, but Lucy had been worried about me for far too long, and I owed her, big time. So there I was, trying to pretend I was enjoying myself, because I loved my friend and wanted to show her how grateful I was she’d let me lean on her so hard I was surprised she was still standing.

       “Hey.” A blond haired, brown eyed man wandered up to me, a faint smile on his lips. I gave him a discreet onceover. Broad shoulders, chest hard and defined under his blue button-up shirt, the fabric straining at the button holes. Little too muscle bound for my taste, but he had nice eyes.

       “Hey, yourself.” I worked up a smile for him, determined to give him a fair chance.

       “I like the hair.” He gestured with his glass.

       I lifted a brow but bit back my sarcastic retort. “Thanks. Me too.” I held out a hand for him to shake. “My name’s Hannah.”

       “Jack.” He took my hand and instead of shaking it, he lifted it to his lips and pressed them to the back. Cute. Contrived.

       We made painfully — well, painful for me — awkward small talk. He was in finance and actually seemed quite normal. The crowd shifted around in front of us, and my hopes rose when he didn’t bat an eye as a petite brunette with too much cleavage tottered by, pausing to give Jack a slow, seductive smile.

       The volume in the room swelled and rose, and the crowd parted for a second, giving me a clear view of the door. Nice as Jack was proving to be, I still didn’t want to be here. I calculated the distance between me and the door. I could make a run for it. Lucy had been snatched up early on by some overly-muscled guy. She likely wouldn’t notice I was gone until much later.

       I was composing my excuse to Jack when the door opened and a man ducked inside, head down as he shook the snow off his coat. He lifted his head, and I almost dropped my glass.

       Jonah.

       The noise disappeared, along with the crowd. It was replaced with an almost silent whoosh in my ears, and Jonah stood at the end of a tunnel.

       “Hannah?”

       Oh. Oh dear lord. I absolutely had to get out of there.

       I mumbled something to Jack and edged farther into the back of the room, toward the hallway that had to lead to a back exit. I’d walk home. I could come back for my coat.

       I thought I heard my name over the noise of the crowd, and I all but ran for the hallway, desperate for the first door I could find. It didn’t have to go anywhere at this point, just give me a place to hide for a while.

       The first door was locked. The second one was not. I pushed it open and slipped inside.

       “No, don’t let it—”

       The door clicked shut.

       “Close.” The voice, the very, very masculine voice, sighed behind me, and I stiffened. I turned around slowly, my heels clicking on the polished cement floor. A man stood about two feet from me, and when he saw me staring at him, I backed into the door.

       “Sorry. I didn’t realize someone else was in here.” I reached for the doorknob and twisted. The door stayed shut. I tried again. Still closed.

       “Fuck,” I whispered.

       “Yeah. That’s pretty much what I’ve been saying for the last ten minutes.” I turned back around to face the man. Tall. Dark hair. Slim but not overly so. Holy
crap
. He had the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen. Dark, sleepy-looking, heavy-lidded eyes with long lashes, eyes that immediately made me think of sex and the morning after.

       Heat stole over my cheeks. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. I slumped against the door. “How’d you get locked in here?”

       “Looking for a place to hide.” He grimaced. “There’s an over-enthusiastic blonde out there, and she wouldn’t stop pawing at me. Thought about hiding in the bathroom for a while but found this place and figured it was just as good, and there wasn’t anyone in here.”

       “Hiding? Why didn’t you just leave?”

       He shrugged. “Hey, I paid a hundred bucks to be here tonight. I wasn’t about to waste it in the first ten minutes because some woman wouldn’t leave me alone. I tried walking through the crowd, finding someone else to talk to. She followed me like a damn dog. So I ducked in here. Didn’t realize until I tried to leave a minute ago the door locks from the outside.”

       I frowned. “Didn’t you try yelling? Or banging on the door?”

       He stared at me. “Do you think if anyone had heard me over the noise I’d still be in
here
?”

       Good point.

       “I was looking for something to jimmy the lock open when you came in,” he continued. Great. If I’d made just a little more noise, neither of us would be in this position. He slouched against the wall. “You?”

       “Hiding as well.” I assumed that’s what he was asking, anyway, why I was in here and not out there. “Saw someone come in that I’d rather avoid and I panicked, tried to find a place to hide instead of searching for the emergency exit.”

       His gaze skimmed over me, and the heat returned. I stared at the floor. “No offense, but you don’t look like the sort of woman who’d willingly attend one of these things.”

       My head snapped up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

       He snorted. “C’mon. You’ve seen the women out there. Calling some of those things dresses is a stretch. You…” He waved a hand at my dress. “You’re too classy for something like this.”

       Really? Unsure if it was a compliment, I shoved one sleeve up to my elbow. “Yeah, well, there don’t seem to be a lot of these out there, either.” I held out my arm, displaying the script rolling across the inside of my forearm.

       
Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make angry
.

       I’d gotten the tattoo after Jonah told me he wasn’t coming back. “I could never marry you, Hannah,” he’d said. “I was trying to give you what you wanted, and it’s not working for me.”

       With a single sentence, he destroyed what little confidence I had. I thought someone had finally seen past my gawky, gangly exterior, and instead, I’d been pushed aside. Again. I was tired of being overlooked, tired of being hurt by it. That was when I started therapy. And then I got the tattoo.

       It’d been a slow, hard year, and I’d finally,
finally
started to feel good about myself.

       The guy stepped closer and took my arm, the gentle press of his fingers sending a shiver through me. “Nice.” He grinned. “Got any more?”

       I blinked, stunned by the charming smile. “Um. Yeah. I’ve got a couple more, on my hip, my leg, my foot, another one on my back, and one on my neck.”

       He released my arm, his hand drifting toward my neck, stopping in mid-air. “Can I—?”

       I nodded and turned around, pushing at the cowl of my dress. The small tattoo at the spot where neck met back had been hidden by the thick fabric, and his fingers skimmed my nape as he tugged it down. “
Crianacht
. What’s it mean?”

       My tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth. The feel of his fingers on my skin sent sparks dancing through my veins. It was kind of incredible — and a little frightening. “Wisdom.” Heat of a different kind spread over my skin. Heat I wasn’t ready for. I stepped forward and moved my collar into place. “Find anything that might bust open the door?”

       We searched the tiny room, bodies brushing on occasion in the confined space. A toolbox, buried under a pile of rags, produced a screwdriver. The hammer was missing. “We could try removing the doorknob,” I suggested.