Chapter Twenty
The only thing Siobhan knew for sure in that moment was that she wasn’t going to be able to sleep until she’d quenched some of her thirst for the man whose scent had been filling her senses since she came upstairs.
She’d thought being away from the campground and returned to her regular daily life would diminish her attraction to him, as though he was a summer fling during a holiday on a tropical island—not that she’d ever had one, but she’d watched her share of romantic comedies. She’d been wrong.
Now, because she wasn’t capable of anything else and was sick of resisting, she stepped forward and let Brian haul her into his arms, his mouth claiming hers.
He kissed her hard, letting her feel the hunger that matched her own, and slid her hands under his T-shirt so she could feel the hot, solid muscles of his back under her palms.
It wasn’t until she was out of breath and her entire body ached with need for him that Siobhan realized he’d been slowly backing them toward the bed. The bump of the mattress behind her knees broke through the haze of desire and she put her hands on his shoulders to hold him still.
“We shouldn’t do this.” She didn’t sound convincing, even to her own ears. “We can’t.”
“We can’t do this,” he agreed. But then he tucked her hair behind her ear and then trailed the backs of his fingers over her cheek and neck. “Can we keep seeing each other and being a part of each other’s lives and not do this, though?”
Resting her forehead against his shoulder, she sighed. “Not without cold showers, buckets of ice cream and a lot of tossing and turning.”
“Why should we both suffer like that?”
“Because we might mess everything up.”
“We won’t let it. I know you’ll put Oliver first, no matter what. And I know I will,” he murmured as he pressed a line of kisses down her jaw to punctuate his words. “This is separate. Ours.”
“Maybe just this once, to get it out of our systems.” She tipped her head back, baring her throat to his mouth. “Or twice.”
She already knew this man was like potato chips. Just once wouldn’t be enough.
It was as if consent lit a fire in Brian, and she gasped when his mouth closed over the soft fabric of her shirt, which did nothing to lessen the impact when he captured her nipple between his lips.
Everything faded away except his mouth and his hands on her body. He was ravenous for her, and it didn’t take him long to make her sleep shirt and shorts disappear. Once she was naked on the bed, he stripped off his shirt and then gave her a look so hot it made her shiver.
“Damn,” he said in a husky whisper. “You are so gorgeous.”
Siobhan pulled him down, burying her fingers in his hair so she could kiss him thoroughly.
Then she released him so she could run her hands over his arms and shoulders, and then skim her fingernails over his back.
She was fascinated by the way his muscles rippled and flexed, reacting to her lightest touch.
Brian talked to her the entire time, letting her know how beautiful she was and how the feel of her turned him on. Her nails dug into his shoulders as he licked his way down her stomach, and she sank her fingers into his hair as he reached her thighs.
It wasn’t until he’d gotten one orgasm out of her, the back of her hand pressed to her lips so she wouldn’t cry out, that he kissed his way back up her body. He was briefly distracted by her breasts, but she wrapped her legs around his and nudged him to keep him moving.
It only took him a few seconds to don the condom he’d fished out of the bedside drawer at some point. Then he was inside her, moving with slow and measured strokes, as his blue eyes held her gaze captive.
Then she moaned against his mouth as he thrust deeper into her because she’d wanted this for so long, and his strokes quickened in response. She dug her fingers into his hips, wanting all of him as the need steadily built.
When Brian reached down and stroked her with his thumb, she raised her hand, biting down on her knuckle to keep from crying out. Siobhan heard him groan as her body clenched around him, and then he quickened his pace, thrusting deeper and faster until his orgasm shook him.
When he collapsed on top of her, his fast and hot breaths punctuating the kisses he pressed to her shoulder, she wrapped her arms around him and held him close. Neither of them spoke as their breathing slowed, and Siobhan was content to bask in the afterglow.
With a reluctant sigh, he withdrew, and Siobhan heard the rustle of the tissue box and then a plastic sound she assumed was the lid of the small trashcan under the bedside table. A moment later, he pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head.
There was no harm in cuddling, she told herself. But only for a few minutes, and then they needed to go their separate ways. Waking up naked and tangled together in the morning was definitely not part of the get it out of their systems plan.
But when his breathing slowed, coming in deep and even puffs against her skin, she nudged him with her foot. “Brian.”
He made a vague questioning sound that told her he’d been almost asleep, so she nudged him harder. “Ow. What’s the matter?”
“You need to go.”
“Go where? I live here.”
“Back to the couch.”
For a long moment, she thought he was either choosing to ignore her or had fallen asleep, but then he lifted his head. “Seriously?”
“Yes. This is all confusing enough for Oliver. I don’t want him finding us in bed together to make it even more confusing.”
He groaned and rolled onto his back. “He’ll probably call for you rather than roaming around.”
“You put the baby gate at the top of the stairs precisely because he might come looking for a parent,” she reminded him.
“Good point,” he admitted with obvious reluctance. “I’m going.”
But he kissed her again before sliding out of the bed to retrieve his sweat pants, and Siobhan almost changed her mind.
She wasn’t wrong, though. Knowing what Oliver understood at this age was tough, but he could probably wrap his mind around the concept of mommy and daddy as a family unit, and she wanted to avoid making her and Brian a couple in his mind.
And herself, she thought as she listened to Brian wrestle with the unfamiliar baby gate before his footsteps receded down the stairs. She couldn’t make them a couple in her mind, either, and waking up naked with him in the morning would be a giant step in that direction.
As she drifted off to sleep, she thought maybe she should have told Brian that instead of hiding behind her—their—son, but there would be so many tough conversations in their future.
Maybe they could just keep this one thing light and easy.
* * *
“Daddy!”
Brian jerked awake, the cycle of sleep to confusion to alarm racing through his head and circling back to the only important thing—Oliver yelling “Daddy.”
His son needed him.
Hitting the lever on the side of his recliner too hard as he tried to get up got him launched onto the hardwood floor, knee first. After pushing himself to his feet, he struggled with the first baby gate—which he’d closed after Stella kept trying to go upstairs and he got sick of her nails clacking on the wood—and then took the stairs two at a time, ignoring the dog’s panicked barking.
The baby gate at the top of the stairs stuck and he finally just shoved it hard, ripping the screws out of the wood.
Siobhan stepped into the hall as he scrambled over the plastic and pushed Oliver’s door open, practically falling into the room.
No blood. No tears.
No flames or smoke.
No man in a black ski mask in the corner.
He looked at his son, chest heaving and knee throbbing. “What’s wrong?”
Oliver smiled. “I’m awake.”
“Oh. Good morning,” Brian said, and then he flopped onto his back on the floor, trying to catch his breath and hoping his heart wouldn’t actually explode.
A high-pitched giggle echoed through the room. “Daddy’s silly.”
“Yes, Daddy is very silly,” Siobhan said, looking down at him and clearly struggling not to laugh. “Are you okay?”
“Well, he’s okay so I’m okay…but actually no. Not really.” He put his hand on his chest. “Did that not scare you?”
She laughed. “If he’s distressed, trust me, you will know. And also, I just rolled over and looked at that high-tech surveillance system you probably bought at a CIA garage sale and installed even though he’s right across the hall.”
He frowned. “A baby monitor is a totally typical thing to have. Even my parents had one.”
“Did theirs have high-definition video and also track his temperature and heart rate?”
“They might have if it existed. Don’t you have one?”
“Yes, I have a little baby monitor that’s a microphone on his end and a receiver on mine so I can hear him. It doesn’t double as a TSA body scanner.”
Stella, having sniffed Brian all over and determined that either he was fine or, if he wasn’t, there wasn’t anything she could do about it, circled wide around him toward the bed.
He put out his hand. “No dogs on that bed, Stella.”
She woofed once and veered just out of his reach before hopping up on the bed. Oliver wrapped his arms around her and she gave him sloppy morning kisses while he giggled.
“Since this is a test run, I’m going to go start a pot of coffee and leave you to it.” She blew Oliver a kiss and then looked back at Brian. “Do you need help getting up?”
While he might be fresh out of dignity, he still had some pride left. “Nope. Just a few more seconds of oxygen and I’ll be good to go.”
She was still laughing when she walked out of the room, and he had to listen to her moving the debris of the baby gate so she could go down the stairs.
He waited until she was on the first floor before rolling over and pushing himself to his feet in case he couldn’t do it without some moaning and groaning.