Chapter 12
A heavy weight across her midsection pulled Polly from her sleep. It took her about five seconds to realize the weight was an arm. Then another two to realize who it belonged to and why.
Her eyes flashed open.
Shit. Big, she’d-done-something-dumb shit.
She’d had sex with Joel Dawson.
Good sex. She wrinkled her nose. Maybe even the best sex of her life.
She turned her head and, yep, there he was. And damn her soft heart for aching at the sight of him.
He looked so peaceful when he slept.
But she was not catching feelings. She certainly wasn’t craving a repeat of the night before. Absolutely not. That would be careless and reckless and possibly very silly, and she was none of those things.
She was logical and pragmatic, and she protected her heart at all costs.
Carefully, she slithered out from under Joel’s arm. Her heart galloped. Weren’t SEALs supposed to wake at the first flicker of sound and movement?
But he didn’t wake. Thank God she was so stealthy. Well, not super stealthy, but heck, she hadn’t fallen on her face. An awkward “morning after” conversation was the last thing she wanted. Right splat at the bottom.
Quietly, she tiptoed to her neatly folded clothes on the dresser. When he’d done that, she had no idea. She didn’t want to think too much about anything right now. Instead, she pulled on her clothes from last night.
She turned to leave?—
Only to yelp at the sight of a chest. Not just a chest. An entire Joel-sized body. He wore only briefs, and holy cheese on a cracker, the man was carved from stone. Shadows played over his torso thanks to all the hard ridges.
Up. Look up, Polly.
One breath, then she did. And yep, his day-old stubble was beautiful too.
Humor danced in his eyes. “Morning, Sunshine.”
Even his husky voice made her lady parts hum. Damn him. “Hi. Hello. I didn’t, um, hear you get up.”
“I tried to be quiet so I wouldn’t disturb your sneaking out.”
Well, the whole getting out of bed and standing right behind her had ruined that , hadn’t it? “Not sneaking out. Walking out.” With hopefully a small sliver of dignity.
She squeezed between him and the dresser, very careful not to touch that perfectly sculpted chest of his.
“Everything okay?” he asked, as he followed her out of the bedroom.
No. Everything was not okay. Her heart was racing, her skin was clammy and tingling, and all she wanted to do was turn around and lay one on the guy before begging him to take her against the wall.
What was wrong with her?
“It’s fine.” The biggest lie she’d ever told.
She grabbed her phone from the kitchen counter and turned—and Jesus flippin’ Christ, his chest was there again. He was doing this on purpose.
Saint purred by their feet and rubbed against Joel’s legs.
A nearly naked man with a cat. It was like a pinup board for designer briefs.
“Excuse me.” For the second time, she maneuvered around him. When she didn’t touch his body, she almost wanted to give herself a pat on the back. But she wasn’t safe yet.
She’d just reached the door when she cringed. “My car.”
Joel opened a drawer in the hall table and took out her keys. “The guys brought it over.”
Thank God. She tried to take the keys, but he pulled them back before she could touch them.
“Can we talk about last night?”
Her tummy flipped. “We had sex.”
“We did.”
“Adults have casual sex all the time.”
He lifted a brow. “Casual?”
“Yes.” Why did that not sound convincing? “It shouldn’t happen again.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” She grabbed the keys this time. “It was casual sex between two consenting adults.”
“You said that already.”
“I know.”
He nodded.
“So you agree?” She inched back toward the door. Distance felt safer.
“I didn’t say that.”
She frowned. “So…it wasn’t casual sex for you?”
One side of his mouth lifted. He stepped forward. She stepped back. She hit the door.
Slowly, he lowered his head. His warm breath brushed against her ear as he whispered, “There was nothing ‘casual’ about what we did last night, Sunshine.”
Out . She needed to get out .
Blindly, she reached for the doorknob behind her. “Well…I…you should… I’ll see you later.”
She took off outside. She was actually pretty sure the run to her car was her maximum speed. Which wasn’t saying a lot, just that she was beyond ready to get away from sex-on-a-stick Joel.
The second she dropped into the seat, she pulled out of the driveway like someone was chasing her.
She told herself not to look—in fact, she freaking screamed it in her head—but damn her for being weak, she looked.
And he was just coolly standing in his doorway in nothing but those gorgeous snug briefs, looking like a man who’d been sent from the heavens above.
The second she got home, she had the shortest, coldest shower of her life before leaving again for Bloom. She was almost at her café when her phone rang, Maggie’s name on the screen.
She hit the Bluetooth on her steering wheel. “Hey.”
“I tried to wait as long as I could to call because I didn’t want to wake you. How are you after yesterday?”
Yesterday. The bodies. God, she’d been so preoccupied with Joel that she hadn’t thought about them. “I’m okay.”
“Are you in the car?”
“Yeah. I’m almost at Bloom.”
“You’re working today? Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“I need to stay busy.” She parked in front of the café and wrinkled her nose before blurting out, “I had sex with Joel.”
There was a brief pause. “You did?”
“Yes. And then this morning I told him it was just casual sex, and he…”
“He what?”
“He put those washboard abs really close to me and whispered that there was nothing casual about it.” She closed her eyes, swearing she could still feel his breath against her skin.
“Oh.”
“Oh?” She revealed big, life-altering news to her best friend, and oh was all she got? “Maggie. I’m in the middle of a quarter-life crisis, I’m seeing dead bodies and falling for guys who I have no business falling for.”
“You’re falling for him?”
Shit . “No, I mean, maybe for a second I thought I was but…no.”
“You know, it’s okay to fall for him. Just because he’s a man doesn’t mean he’s like?—”
“No. I don’t want to fall for him. I don’t want to need him. Because if I do, I just leave myself open to…” To what? Getting hurt? Being like her mother?
“Polly—”
“I have to go. Al’s here with the flower delivery.” She hung up and rushed out of the car. “Hi, Al.”
He started unloading buckets of flowers. “Hi, Polly.”
Al was a middle-aged man with kind eyes, quiet but friendly. Once the café door was unlocked, she went back and helped him with the flowers.
He frowned at her. “Oh, you don’t need to?—”
“I do,” she interrupted. “It’s been quite the morning.”
“Is everything okay?”
She glanced at the wedding ring on his finger. “How long have you been married?”
His brows shot up. “Uh, almost fifteen years.”
“Fifteen years. Wow. Are you happy? Wait, don’t answer that. If you say yes, I won’t believe you. If you say no, you’ll just confirm what I already think, that loving someone is never a good idea.”
Inside Bloom, she set the flowers onto the counter before following him out to grab more.
“I have lived this shit, Al. I have lived and breathed the dating and the engagements and marriages that last all of fifteen seconds. Granted, there’s never been anyone close to me who’s been married for fifteen years—you deserve a medal—all I’ve seen are duds.
Men who masquerade as happily ever afters when really, they couldn’t give a single shit.
You know what I mean, don’t you? You have to know. You have to have seen it.”
“Um…”
“It’s a slippery slope, you know.” She grabbed another bucket of flowers while Al lifted three.
“You let one man in and he breaks your heart, it’ll probably be easier to let the next in.
And where do you draw the line? How do you protect yourself?
You can’t! It has to be all or nothing. I learned that a long time ago, and nothing, I repeat nothing is going to change my mind.
Particularly not some sexy former Navy SEAL who has eyes that are green in one light and brown in another. I?—”
“All done.” Al put the last bucket of flowers onto the table before rushing toward the door. “You have a good day, Polly.”
“Oh…yeah, you too. Sorry if I rambled.”
He shook his head. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Then he was gone.
Great. Now she was scaring off her suppliers.
The bell on the door sounded. Polly turned.
“Did you forget?—”
She stopped. It wasn’t Al. It was her mother, with Jonah close behind.
“When’s your first break?” her mother rushed, cheeks red and a wide smile on her face.
“Um, not for a couple hours. The café’s not even open. Why?”
“Because we need to celebrate!”
Polly’s stomach dropped. “Celebrate what?” But she already knew.
“We couldn’t wait.” Her mother held up her ring hand. “We got married!”
Usually, Joel couldn’t get enough of Basil’s pancakes. The homemade honey-butter syrup was unmatched, and the pancakes were so fluffy they melted in his mouth. But today, sitting with his team, talking about the women found in the basement—he had no appetite. None.
“Did you speak to the coroner?” Connor asked. “Has he started the report?”
Ethan leaned forward. “He hasn’t finished it, but we’re on good terms. He likes me.
Told me stuff he shouldn’t have. That just by looking at the bodies and noting the lack of external bruising, and given the amount of drownings he’s already seen in this town, he suspects these were asphyxia due to drowning. ”
Zac frowned. “So this sick asshole drowns the women and takes them back to his abandoned house to store the bodies?”
“Maybe he thought no one would find them there,” Joel said, pushing his plate forward.
“At least Ward can’t put these deaths down as suicides,” Ryan said, voice low. “These women were murdered and their bodies relocated. That’s the way he has to report this.”
“But where are the other missing women?” Connor asked. “The ones dating back five to twenty-five years?”