The Perfect Man (8 page)

He held it out again, and I took it. He was here. In my apartment. He’d been here exactly one week ago, and by this point, he’d already brought me to several mind-bending orgasms. I stared at the envelope. Strange how much changed in a week.

He’d tipped his head back to rest on the couch and his eyes were shut. Stubble coated his jaw. I scooted forward, unable to resist touching him. I cupped his cheek. He leaned into me, and the shoddy barricade I erected around myself collapsed. I wrapped my arms around him, his head resting against my breast. Tension drained from his body and he lifted me up, settling me on his lap.

“Something wrong?” I loved his hair. The soft, silky weight of it on my fingers sent little bolts of pleasure through me.

He groaned. “Where do I start? Lost an amazing woman because I was an ass. Wrote her letters without knowing if she’d even read them or if she’d let me see her.” He was quiet for a moment. “Shift tonight was one of the worst in a while. Twenty car pile-up on the highway. Ten casualties. Three died enroute to the hospital because we couldn’t get through the snow fast enough.”

I stroked his hair. “Were they in your ambulance?”

“One of them was.” He shuddered. “Little girl, about five. Same age as my middle nephew.”

We sat there, wrapped around each other, the air growing colder as the fire died. Alex broke the silence. “I feel guilty. I never told you that.”

That didn’t sound promising. “Guilty about what?”

“That fucking click. Heard it with Callie. Heard it immediately. With you? Same thing, only it was a hell of a lot louder. He tipped his head up. “There was something about you that fit right away, and I realized if I’d met you before Callie, I never would have fallen for her. Feels fucking awful.”

I glided my fingers down his neck. “But you
did
meet her first. Don’t tell me you regret that.”

“No.” His answer was fierce and immediate. “I don’t. Feel guilty just the same, though.” He took my hand from the back of his neck and kissed my knuckles. “I keep saying it, but I’m sorry. I messed up, and I messed
you
up.” I shivered a little from the cold, and he tried to move me to the side. “I’ll get out of here. You probably want to go to bed.”

I grasped his wrists. “Don’t.” I dropped my gaze and took a breath. Let it out. Drew in another. “You want a second chance.”

He stilled beneath me.

Fear uncoiled in my belly. “What’s your obsession with my hair?”

He blinked, then smiled, his lips spreading slowly. He freed a hand and lifted it to my hair, tucking it behind my ear. “Saffron. Had a huge crush on Saffron. I saw you, and it was like I had a chance with my dream girl.”

My heart plopped right at his feet.

“We do this, we go slow. We do it the way we should have in the first place. We start with a date, a real one.” Gathering my courage, and my heart, I held them both out and cupped his face. “You knew I was scared,” I whispered fiercely. “You knew, and you walked away. If I’d known you were just as freaked out as I was, we could have talked. Backed off. So you want this chance, you have to promise me we talk.”

He nodded once, a long, slow bob of his head, and released the breath he’d been holding. I tapped a finger on the end of his nose. “Go on in the bedroom. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

His brows drew together. “Hannah—”

“Quiet. You’re exhausted, in more ways than one. I’m not letting you try to make your way home, and you need to sleep. I’ll be fine on the couch. Take the bed.”

He glared at me, and I glared back harder. He was my guest, and as such, he’d get the bed. The couch was plenty comfortable. He broke first, grumbling his agreement. I slid off his lap and got to my feet, then made my way out of the living room in search of extra blankets and a pillow. I made up a bed for myself on the couch while he shuffled around in my bedroom.

Staring at the ceiling, the occasional crack and pop of wood breaking the quiet, I knew this was the right thing. Not just giving Alex another chance, but sleeping apart. We’d gone with our gut the first night, and it had spooked us both. This space, this time, it gave us a buffer.

It was so damn hard to do the right thing.

As I was drifting off to sleep, the floorboards creaked, and I was scooped up, blankets and all. “What are you doing?”

He didn’t stop until we were in the bedroom and he lay me on the bed and slid in beside me, tossing the extra blankets on the floor. “I’ve had a shitty, shitty day. I appreciate you not kicking me out, but I can’t sleep, knowing you’re out there. Just sleep,” he said quietly. “Will you tell me? About the tattoo?”

The one on my foot. The Archer. I shifted and held up my arm, pretending I misunderstood him. “Anger’s a poison. You hold on to it, it eats at you from the inside. This was my reminder to let it go.” I moved to wind my legs through his. “Dragons are symbols of strength and luck. When I decide to quit my job and start working for myself, I figured I’d need all the luck and strength I could get.” I rubbed my foot over his calf. “My favorite aunt was a Sagittarius. She died of breast cancer a few years ago.” He picked up my hand and squeezed it, turned it over and pressed a kiss to my palm. I brought our joined hands to my hip. “Cats in ancient Egypt symbolized poise. It’s my version of a confidence booster, that the ones who could see beyond the skin and not assume were the ones worth hanging on to.”

He edged closer and brought his hand around to stroke up my back, tracing over the tattoo at the base of my neck. “Gaelic for wisdom. Pretty self explanatory.” Down, down, worming under the hem of my tank, following the lines from memory, the veins and bones and shadows. “Lucy always said I needed to toughen up. That I trusted too easily, that I’d offer my heart to anyone. She wasn’t quite right. Just to the ones who matter,” I whispered.

The silence stretched, my last words lingering in the shadows. Finally he nudged me around, my back to his front. His arm was strong and warm over my stomach. “I’ll take care of you, Hannah,” he whispered.

His face buried in my neck, tears burning in my throat, I shut my eyes and allowed myself to hope.

*

One Year Later

“Baby, I get it, okay? Stop bitching about it.” I rolled my eyes and let myself in the building.

“I asked for the night off three months ago. This shouldn’t have happened.” Alex sounded furious. I grinned. He’d wanted to make Valentine’s Day amazing, he said. I’d had a meeting with a client late in the day, and I’d planned to go straight from the meeting to the restaurant. But Alex had left me a message in the middle of the meeting, saying he’d gotten called in. So no fancy dinner for us.

“Seriously. It’s fine. Go save a puppy or something.” I tried to locate my apartment key on the ring, juggling my laptop bag and purse at the same time. “Look, I’m about to drop something. I’ll see you when you get home.”

He grumbled and hung up, and I slipped my phone in my pocket, then located the key. Before I could unlock the door to my unit, though, it swung open. Alex grinned at me, reaching out to take my laptop. “Surprise.”

I scowled. “You did it on purpose, you sneak. No Valentine’s Day blow job for you.” I edged past him and stopped short at the entrance to the living room.

He’d built a fire. Candles lined the mantel, the windowsill, the coffee table. He’d set the little table under the window with more candles, and there was a bucket of wine chilling in the middle of it, two glasses at the ready. A bouquet of dahlias, nearly impossible to get in winter, sat in front of one of the chairs.

Strong arms slid around me from behind. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” he murmured.

I turned around and looped my arms around his neck. “I love it.”

“You don’t even know what else I’ve got for you.”

“I don’t need to. There’s candles.”

He chuckled and teased my mouth with his. I rose on my toes, wanting more, a bigger, deeper kiss. Tracing the seam of his lips with my tongue, they parted on a groan, his fingers digging into my lower back. “Shouldn’t have done that,” he rasped when I let him up for air.

“Why not?” I kissed my way along his jaw, nipping into his earlobe.

“Because you know those boots make me want to fuck you.”

I drew back and smiled. They were the same boots I’d worn the night I met him, and he’d told me a while ago he’d wanted to bend me over a table while I was only wearing the boots. Of course I made him act it out, and we’d repeated the performance on more than one occasion.

Whatever he had planned for tonight, it could wait.

I unwound my arms from around his neck and reached for the hem of my sweater, pulling it over my head and dropping it on the floor. The skirt was next, pooling at my feet. Eyes locked on his, arousal growing as the gleam of desire in his eyes grew brighter, I twisted my arms behind my back, flicking open the hooks. The bra joined the sweater and the skirt, and as Alex tensed, I pushed my panties over my hips.

The feel of him completely clothed to my totally naked burned right through me. “I’ve got a confession,” I murmured, threading my fingers through his hair. “Did you know the first night I met you, I had thoughts of you fucking me against the wall? Wearing the boots, and only the boots?”

He stared at me. Chest heaving. Eyes bright with lust.
C'mon. Take me.

His mouth came down, our teeth clacking together in a vicious kiss. His hands raced over my body, trying to be everywhere at once, and I fought with his clothes. Buttons pinged and skittered over the hardwood floor as I yanked at his shirt. The buckle of his belt fought back, and I shrieked as he thrust his fingers into my cunt, greed rippling through me. Belt undone, fly open, I pushed his pants and boxers down far enough to free his cock.

He backed me up to the wall, hitched my legs around his waist, and thrust forward, burying himself in one brutal stroke. He withdrew, plunged again, setting a fast pace, the hard slap of flesh on flesh mingling with my pleading cries for more. He groaned into my mouth as my heels dug into his ass. “Christ. Hannah. I love you.” He rotated his hips in a circle, flipping the switch on my orgasm. As it rose in a towering, crushing wave, he kept up the pressure. “Marry me.”

Those two words pushed me over the edge, and I threw my head back as I came, hard, throbbing around him. Over the rushing in my ears I heard his shout of release, felt it pulsing inside me.

His arms trembled as he dropped his head onto my shoulder. Marry Alex. Marry the perfect man. Over the year we’d been together, he’d proven himself to be the perfect man, shown me that even with our rocky start, he was right. What we had was real and strong and
amazing
. And he wanted to marry me.

He carried me into the bathroom and set me on the edge of the sink, cleaning both of us up from our impromptu fucking. “Alex?”

Nerves tightened the lines of his face. “C’mon.” He picked me up again, carried me out to the living room and set me on the couch. I watched his very naked, very fine ass retreat to the table, and he came back with a jeweler’s box.

Inside was a ruby, the heart of it so dark it was almost black, the band a gleaming platinum. After that, I couldn’t see much, because the tears started to fall, blurring my vision. The cool metal slid over my finger, and I blinked furiously to clear the tears.

It looked right. Meant for me. Just as the man kneeling at my feet was meant for me. Who else would propose in the middle of sex, and then follow it up with a naked presentation of the ring? My perfect man, that’s who.

I smiled and slid off the couch. “You’re such a dork,” I whispered, pressing myself against him. “I love you. Of course I’ll marry you.”

He kissed me, his hands stroking down to curve over my ass. “I vote you wear the boots on our wedding day.”

“I do that, I won’t make it down the aisle.” His face fell, and I laughed. “Honeymoon?”

“Promise?” His voice was husky with desire, with love, and he maneuvered me onto my back, following me down. I curved a leg over his hip.

“Promise.”

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Love will always chase you down.

McKenna thought she knew what she was getting when she walked into the bar: a one-night stand. Sweat, tangled limbs, a mindless rush of hormones. The perfect distraction from her problems.

She didn’t expect Trevor.

Trying to escape a tragedy that rocked her life three years ago, McKenna finds Trevor’s everything she wants — and needs. He’s convinced her to stop running and face her demons. But can she convince him they’ve got a chance?

I’d lost my mind.

The bar parking lot was less than half full. That wasn’t necessarily an indication of how crowded the place would be, once I got inside. People could have walked. Carpooled. Taken cabs. I stood next to my car and studied the place. Flickering neon signs for Budweiser and PBR graced the scratched and scarred windows. The exterior might have started out white, or off white, but its current grungy non-color reminded me of a woman stood up one too many times, her shoulders slumped in defeat at ever getting lucky.

Maybe not the best place to find a one-night stand. Then again, a bar was as close to a sure thing as I could get, wasn’t it?

I needed a distraction. I needed a hit, a fix,
something
. I’d drunk myself into a stupor the first few months until I’d woken up with one too many hangovers. I’d never developed a taste for pot. Sleeping pills scared me shitless. Yoga helped, to an extent. My flexibility had grown to downright circus freak proportions.