Chapter 26
Sabrina opened the door, and Hew narrowed his eyes.
She’d bolted upstairs after the meeting, and he hadn’t missed the tight set of her jaw or the pale cast to her face. It was clear that all the talk of Black Widow and Bishop had shaken her.
“Y’okay?” he asked.
“Fine.” Her voice was thin. Not brittle, exactly, but close enough to have him arching an eyebrow.
“I hate callin’ bullshit. But…bullshit.”
Her sigh was theatrically breathy. “Come in.”
She stepped back, holding the door wide.
His boots sank into the plush rug as he crossed the threshold. He blinked when she shut the door behind him with a solid thud.
She never closed the door when they were together in her room. He’d always thought it was because she didn’t want the others to get the wrong idea about them.
“Okay.” She lifted both hands in a come-on gesture. “I’m ready. Give it to me. Lock, stock, and two smoking barrels.”
“Huh?” His pulse kicked hard enough to have him blinking rapidly.
“Let me have it,” she said. “I’m ready.”
Surely, surely, she didn’t mean what it sounded like she meant. Although images of him giving it to her and letting her have it crashed through his brain like a rogue wave in Penobscot Bay.
“I…uh…” He swallowed. Or tried to. Mostly, he just made a strangled sound.
Her beautiful mouth turned down. “I know I haven’t given you a chance to say your piece. So here’s your shot. Give it to me.”
Ayuh. That.
He didn’t know if he was relieved or disappointed she’d shut the door because she thought he needed privacy for a conversation instead of privacy for—
He put the brakes on that line of thinking hard enough to throw sparks. It was that or his jeans were going to start feeling two sizes too small.
It took him a moment to gather his wits. And even after two deep breaths, he still struggled with where to start.
Should he tell her he hadn’t bolted the night they flipped through his parents’ yearbook because he was nervous about her hand on his thigh, but because he’d sprung a hard-on like a goddamn teenager and needed a minute to cool his jets?
Or maybe he should admit that when she’d asked about his type after Red Delilah’s, it’d been right there on the tip of his tongue to say, My type’s five-foot-six, has a smile as bright as sunlight, and answers to the name Sabrina.
Or he could simply fess up that the day she’d tripped on the beach and landed in his arms, he’d wanted to kiss her so badly that his teeth had hurt, and the whole brushing-sand-off-her-jeans thing had just been a ploy to hide the lust in his eyes.
In the end, he went with, “You’re wrong.”
She blinked. Then, she nodded slowly. “I’m wrong about a lot of things. But what specific wrong are we talking about here?”
“I’m attracted to ya,” he said, seeing her expression blank, as if his words didn’t compute. “You’re a beautiful woman. Any man with blood runnin’ through his veins would be.”
“Yeah, okay.” She scoffed, waving a hand like she was shooing a fly. “But there’s attraction… and then there’s attraction. There’s the oh, she’s pretty sort of attraction. And then there’s the holy shit, I want to see her naked sort of attraction.”
She crossed to the chair beside the bed and dropped into it with a tired little huff. After picking up the stuffed lobster, she stroked its silk claws between her fingers.
He nearly groaned because damned if his body didn’t react like she was rubbing him.
Jesus, son, he silently told his unruly dick. Get a hold of yourself.
He imagined his dick replying, I’d rather she get a hold of me.
Great. Now, he was having a made-up conversation with his own penis.
He cleared his throat once. Then again before stiff-legging it to sit on the bed because, despite his best efforts, his jeans had shrunk.
Sabrina didn’t seem to notice—thank god. She was too busy frowning down at the toy as she continued to rub, rub, rub.
For fuck’s sake.
He had to look somewhere besides her hands.
His eyes dropped, and he immediately knew it for the mistake it was. Her sparkly purple toenails winked up at him like they knew what they were doing.
Teasing him.
Taunting him.
Putting images in his head of how they’d looked resting in the crooks of his knees as he thrust into her or hooked over his shoulders as he buried his face in her sweet, wet—
Damnit all to hell!
Okay. Shirt.
Just look at her shirt. Plain white cotton. A safe zone. Nothin’ to see there.
Except…he caught the faintest outline of the lace that edged the cups of her bra. Delicate. Sweet. Deadly to his ability to think or breathe or keep from having to sit funny.
Fuck it!
He gave up and focused on her face. On her eyes. Except…those sweet, brown pools weren’t soft and warm. They were wary. Guarded.
Get on with it, dickhead, he told himself. Stop torturin’ the poor woman.
After raking in a deep breath, he blurted, “When ya first came here, I thought ya were the sexiest woman I’d ever seen.”
She rolled her eyes. “When I first came here, I was terrified, malnourished, mourning my brother, and so traumatized I could barely see straight.”
“Exactly.” He pointed at her nose. That straight, perfect nose he’d stared at dozens of times when she didn’t know he was looking. “You were all of that. Which is why I made myself not see how sexy ya were. You didn’t need some big, hairy guy lustin’ after ya. You needed a friend.”
Her face softened. “Your friendship means everything to me.” Her tone was so earnest it hurt. “I don’t think I would’ve made it without you.”
“You’d have made it. You’re tough.”
Her eyes melted then, like molasses warming on a stove. “And you’re tender. Tender is what I needed. I’m not sure I’ve ever thanked you for that.”
“I’m not always tender,” he assured her.
“I’ve got impulses and instincts like any other man.
But I got used to white-knucklin’ it. I think maybe I got too used to it.
I didn’t notice when things changed for you.
” He watched the pulse flutter in her neck as delicately as a butterfly’s wings.
He wanted to cover it with his lips to soothe its rhythm.
“It’s why I didn’t realize you were hintin’ ya wanted more,” he finished, lifting his hands in a helpless shrug.
Her words about one door closing and another opening whispered through his head. I have Martin now. He dropped his hands so he could curl them around the edge of the mattress.
“It wasn’t like a switch flipped one day,” she explained, still caressing the lobster’s claws. “It happened slowly.” She made a sad face. “Because I was scared.”
“Of me?” He hated the very thought.
“Of me.” Her voice cracked, just a little.
“The idea of being intimate with someone terrified me. What if I freaked out in the middle of it? What if I couldn’t relax and enjoy myself?
What if I found out that the part of me that…
Eddy took”—she curled her lip like saying the man’s name made her sick—“was gone for good?”
He pictured Eddy Torres’s face. And he hoped there was a hell, because he hoped the bastard was burning in it.
Her expression turned sheepish. “I figured who better than my good friend Hew to see me through it?” Her chuckle sounded self-deprecating. “But now I realize that was unfair of me. I was being unfair to you.”
Unfair? he wanted to shout. In what world?
Then, her words sank in. My good friend Hew. She wasn’t confessing to romance or love. She was confessing to comfort and convenience.
He was her friend. He was safe. He wouldn’t judge her if things went pear-shaped in the thick of it.
What was that feeling tumbling around behind his ribs?
Disappointment?
“And now you have Martin.” Could she hear how the words dripped like bitter bile from his tongue?
“Maybe.” She nodded, and he felt a small kernel of hope lodge under his heart because maybe wasn’t a definitive yes. “He’s definitely expressed interest.”
“I’m sure he has,” he grumbled, his jaw working back and forth.
“But I haven’t told him about…” She swallowed. “What happened to me. And I’m going to have to before we…” Her cheeks heated, and she dropped his gaze. “Before we do anything.”
He made a decision then.
It was an irresponsible, hasty, reckless decision. It was a decision that might very well break his heart in the end. But the words were out of his mouth before he could think about the consequences.
“Or you could still let me be the one.”