Seventeen #2
“Do you want to walk up a flight of stairs?”
“Currently, no. But I also don’t want to make you haul me up the stairs like a sack of potatoes.”
“It’s no problem, Mia.” When I don’t budge, he cocks his head. “Did it look like I had trouble hauling stuff around today?”
That earns him an eye roll. “You are not seriously using this as an opportunity to flex.”
“I mean...” He draws his arms in front of himself, bending them in a way that makes his biceps pop. He’s messing around,
but there’s nothing funny about the way the sleeves of his shirt mold to his muscles, or how a slant of sunlight turns the
light dusting of hair on his forearms into spun gold.
“You’re not the only one who moved dirt around today.” I lift both arms in what I assume is a classic weight lifter pose. To sell it, I contort my face into my best tough girl expression.
He lets out a laugh and reaches out to clasp my upper arm. “Where’ve you been hiding these guns?” My pulse skyrockets at the
casual touch and I lower my arms, blushing.
“Never underestimate someone who can type seventy words a minute.”
He smiles. “Won’t happen again. How’re your legs, though?” For half a heartbeat, I imagine he’s going to give my thighs the
same treatment with a playful squeeze, and I honestly think I’d lose consciousness on the spot, so ridiculously keyed up as
I am. But instead, he lifts his chin over his shoulder at my building. “You can walk if you want, but if you let me carry
you, I promise not to hold it against you.”
It’s too impossible to resist. “That’s what he said.”
He rolls his eyes heavenward. “This is what I get for trying to be a gentleman.”
“Trying? You’re a gentleman through and through. You don’t have a rakish bone in your body.”
“Rakish?” he says. “Is that some sort of insult based on my profession?”
“Oh my gosh, no.” I really need to get him some historical romances. “Rakes are the devilish heroes in regency romance. An
old-school bad boy type. Readers go wild for them.”
“Not surprised. No one wants the nice guy.”
“I do.” I’m so used to debating tropes and archetypes in interviews and panel discussions that it takes me a moment to realize
we’re not talking about book boyfriends, and I’ve just said I’m into sweet guys like him. So be it. I am. “It’s a lie that
nice guys finish last. Give me a guy willing to embark on a life of crime for a wronged woman over the bad boy any day.”
“I wish you’d stop referring to our first meeting as a crime scene.”
I shrug. “Call it how I see it.”
“Also, isn’t stealing the definition of being a bad boy?”
“You were taking back what was mine. Robin Hood stuff.”
“I’ll take that.” He grins. “Now will you quit being stubborn?”
“If you really don’t mind.” I scoot to the edge of the seat, legs splayed, and Gavin bites his lip.
He turns with a brusque motion and steps close again, bending so I can climb on. I drape my arms around his neck, and he scoops
under my thighs, hauling me up, and oh geez, I didn’t think this through. Now I’m plastered to his back, fully touching him
from chin to inner thighs, and I’m pretty sure my body couldn’t care less whether this man is a friend or foe.
He kicks the truck door closed and I let out a squeak, clutching him hard with my thighs. The moment my legs press into the
firm ridges of his obliques, he lets out a muffled groan, the sound reverberating through my chest. “Sorry,” I tell him.
“Don’t be. It helps if you hold on.” The words sound ridiculously dirty out of context, and since I make a living out of innuendo,
my mind inevitably goes there in a heartbeat. And when he shifts his grip, tightening his fingers on the backs of my thighs,
I pinch my eyes closed and focus on cataloging every aching part of my body, which unfortunately is a very short list at this
point. One singular part of me is aching, and it’s not my hands.
We make it inside, and Gavin’s barely out of breath. Never again will I underestimate yard work as cardio. I’m more winded
than he is just from the effort of not focusing on how much of our bodies were connected.
I expect him to set me down once we’re inside, but he carries me all the way to the chaise lounge. Maybe he sensed I was tired
enough to collapse by the door and use my entryway rug as a mattress.
“Consider your bid for Rake of the Year denied.” He’s kneeling by my side, which only enhances the knight-in-shining -armor act he’s got going on.
Except it’s not an act. Over the years, he’s found ways to take care of me every time I’ve been sick, dropping off chicken noodle soup at my doorstep when I’m contagious, keeping me company when I’m not.
“You haven’t even tried to flirt with me for your troubles. ”
“Haven’t I?” His eyes flicker to mine, haloed by lashes tipped with gold. Is he remembering the greenhouse? Or our conversation
in his office? Or how we flirted during the workplace romance trope test, mere feet from where we are now? The implication
that none of it was fake for him leaves me breathless.
When I don’t answer, he returns to tending to my hand. “How’d you get so good at that?” I ask, trying not to stare at the
peek of his tongue at the corner of his mouth as he dabs ointment into my cuts. “You chickened out of biology because the
labs involved dissection.”
He grimaces, brow creasing. “Not wanting to slice flesh is different than bandaging a wound.”
“Ew, don’t say ‘slice flesh’ when you’re dealing with my cuts.” I pull back my hand involuntarily, and he lets go, shifting
back on his heels. There’s a small tear in the knee of his jeans that wasn’t there earlier, evidence of how different his
days are to mine—dealing with weather and physical exertion and people, so many people.
“I don’t know how you do it,” I say, voicing my thoughts. My job isn’t easy, but it suits me, the solitary nature of it, working
on my own schedule.
He rips open a packet of gauze, forearms flexing, and, geez, the man has had arms since we met. What’s gotten into me?
“I’ve had my share of blisters,” he says, mistaking my comment to be about the bandaging. He holds up his palm as evidence,
but all I see is healthy skin, calloused near the base of his fingers. “Dad taught me and Scott how to care for them. They’ll
need air to heal, but for tonight, you should protect them.”
He unspools gauze as he says this, placing a pad against my skin, and I let out a hiss. He glances up, treating me to a flash of his blue eyes, gone aquamarine with the light streaming in through the bay window. “Sorry.” He bends and presses a featherlight kiss to the inside of my wrist.
So quick, so natural, that it takes me a moment to register what just happened. Gavin’s lips touched my skin. He. Kissed. Me. On my wrist, nowhere scandalous, but there’s a reason my collection of historical romances is dog-eared, the pages falling
open to the best spots. There’s something about a chaste kiss that’s anything but.
His head snaps up like he’s realized his mistake. “Damn, Mia. I shouldn’t have...” In one telltale instant, his eyes drop
to my lips. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” I lean over and kiss him.
His mouth is soft under mine, yielding, and his fingers tighten on my wrist, drawing me closer, obliterating any doubt I had
about whether he wanted this. His lips part, treating me to a delicious swipe of his tongue. Maybe kissing him after years
of keeping our distance should be strange or outrageous but all I feel is good. So good that I’m mad at us for not trying
this sooner. For being so worried about what we’d lose that we never realized what we were missing out on.
But all coherent thoughts are wiped from my brain when he deepens the kiss, lips sliding against mine. With him on his knees,
me on one elbow, we’re on the same level, both surrendering to a desire we’ve decided to stop denying. I never dared dream
of this, yet the need for his touch is all-consuming.
Why did we ever spend a single moment not doing exactly this? Gavin must be having similar thoughts, because his other hand
finds its way to my shoulder, my waist, my hip, tracing my body in a way that feels like an awakening.
Maybe it should feel out of place to be kissing him, but it feels like we’re right where we’re supposed to be.
We’re not testing the limits because who we are to each other has expanded.
This kiss doesn’t cross any lines, because the lines we’d drawn in the past don’t apply.
They were for someone else, an old version of Mia and Gavin, not the people we’ve become, the relationship we’ve developed over the years.
Right now, I’m not worried over the end of our story, I’m just enjoying the pure bliss of his mouth on mine, a gentle pressure
that slips into something hungrier, his breath catching when my hand skims his arm, fingers tightening of their own accord,
and I let out a yelp as my raw skin connects with his shirt.
He pulls away, eyes wide. Then he glances down at my open palm and worry knits his brow. “Are you all right?”
I nod, trying not to wince. He must notice, because he sits back on his heels, running a hand through his hair. “I should
head out so you can rest.”
Resting is out of the question, but I nod, feeling suddenly shy, though my brain hasn’t caught up to the enormity of the moment.
He rises to his feet, stuffing the scraps of trash in the bag. “Can I get you food or anything?” he asks, bringing over my
tumbler.
I shake my head, embarrassed by how much I’ve already let him take care of me.
“All right,” he says, seeming to be at a loss. “Call if you need anything.”
“Should I tell them I won’t be volunteering tomorrow?” I signed up to volunteer two days in a row, but with my hands like
this, I can’t imagine making it through a second day.
He shakes his head, not meeting my eyes. “I’ll do it. Take it easy.”
And with that, he lets himself out, locking the door with the spare key I gave him. No mention of the kiss we shared, and
I’m sure all he wants to do is forget it ever happened. Too bad that will be impossible.