Chapter 29
Gwen
“I was out of line. That’s not how this job is supposed to go, but I…” He unfolded his arms and rubbed his face.
Was he apologizing for the kiss? Or was he embarrassed by it?
I dropped the blood-covered antiseptic pad onto the table with the rest of the mess. “Are you sure you kissed me?”
He dragged his hands through his short hair and finally looked up at me again. “You don’t remember?”
“No, I mean…” Gravity took over, drawing me toward him. “I mean, I was pretty sure I was the one who kissed you.”
He stared at me. Apparently, it was his turn to be confused.
“When you wiped the sauce off my chin,” I said, “and you put your thumb in your mouth? I almost lost my mind.”
“You did?”
“I wanted you to kiss me. I was standing there, willing you to kiss me. And when you didn’t, I moved in, and you did, too, and I… I wasn’t sure who started it, but I thought maybe since you left, I had.”
He pushed off the wall. Not toward me. Sideways, as if the cramped room left him nowhere to go. “Gwen, I’m your—”
“If you say bodyguard, I will throw this first aid kit at you.”
He stopped retreating.
“You’re exhausted,” I said. “You’re hurt. You said you care about me, and in the same breath, you apologized for kissing me. So let me be clear: I wanted that kiss.”
His jaw loosened. “But you hesitated. You knew it was a bad idea.”
“No.” I closed the rest of the distance and touched his chest. He was so solid I wanted to press my whole body against him. “I was surprised. Confused. I got too deep into my head. I was checking myself to be certain what I wanted.”
He put his hand over mine. “And?”
And? And that was the right question. The last time I let myself fall for a man I shouldn’t have, he took my heart and ran. My work, my judgment, my reputation. Me. He took me.
I swallowed hard. “I handed everything over to Lionel because I couldn’t tell the difference between red flags and green. And when we kissed, for one awful second, I worried I hadn’t learned the difference after all.”
I waited for Arthur to wrap his arms around me, to reassure me, to talk me into hopping into bed, where we could both forget the chaos around us. That was what Lionel would have done.
But Arthur didn’t.
He let me go and stepped away, giving me all the space the tiny room had to offer. “Then we stop here. You’re tired, you’ve had a horrible day, and I refuse to be another bad thing that happens to you, Gwen.”
“I don’t think that’s possible, Arthur.”
A man who would stop right there, with a desperate woman all but begging him to take her to bed? Where had he been hiding all my life?
“I forgot who I was after everything blew up with Lionel. I was trained to recognize the truth and put words to it.” Sure, it was usually for armor and weapons, but I’d screwed up so badly at authenticating the real Lionel that I doubted myself in my job, too.
“Which is exactly what you did at the archive. One mistake doesn’t change how brilliant you are.”
“And one article in a defense magazine doesn’t change how kind and generous you are.”
His brows drew down as though he meant to argue the point.
But I cut him off and kept talking. “The real you is the man with stories about a winery owner. The man who walks in the rain to keep someone else dry. The man who stands between a woman and people who want to hurt her.”
“It’s my job,” he muttered, as though it had nothing to do with who he was as a man.
That was the difference. Lionel would have used my words to get what he wanted. But Arthur? He took all the power I’d handed him and gave it straight back.
So I closed the distance myself. “Honestly, Arthur, I have wanted you since I saw you tasting your sauce at your cottage.”
He cupped my cheek tenderly, as though I were precious to him.
If you’re going to be honest, be honest, Gwen. “Actually, since The Train Station. Or maybe at Ferraro’s, but that makes me sound a little desperate, so let’s go with the restaurant.”
He caught me around the waist and brought me flush against him. “Same.”
Really? “You mean if we’d just talked like adults, we—”
“Might have wound up at your hotel or my place after dinner?” He gripped my ass and drew me tighter, pressing the unmistakable evidence of the memory against me.
“I’m not normally someone who sleeps with a guy the night I meet him.” I nestled into his palm and kissed it. I couldn’t deny any of this anymore. I’d wanted him from the second I’d laid eyes on him. “But probably.”
“It’s just as well.” He brushed his thumb across my cheek. “I wouldn’t have been able to take you on as a client if we were involved.”
“Too late now?”
“Way too fucking late,” he whispered as he leaned in to kiss me.
It was gentle at first. I tasted blood and antiseptic, but when his tongue found mine, my brain zipped straight to everything else. To my hands sliding up to his neck, and his heartbeat against my chest.
He hooked his thumb under my jaw and tilted my head back, deepening the kiss until it stopped being gentle at all. Until it was open and wet and hungry, until he was kissing me like he’d been starving for it and gave up trying to pretend otherwise.
Good heavens, this man can kiss.
I pressed closer, unable to—
He winced.
I jerked back. I must have hit one of his bruises or cuts. He had so many of them. “Sorry!”
“Don’t apologize.” He yanked me back to him. “It’s worth it.”
I kissed the hollow of his throat. The patch of skin above his collar where his pulse hammered. The side of his neck, below his ear. His throat moved under my lips, and the low sound he made vibrated against my mouth.
His hands found the hem of my shirt. “May I?”
“Please.”
He stripped off my shirt and tossed it aside. His gaze traveled over me, unhurried. Then he ghosted his fingertips over my skin as though waiting for permission to touch. “You are so fucking beautiful.”
“Thank you.” What a ridiculous response.
“No, sweetheart.” He eased his own shirt over his head, revealing a chest and abdomen mottled with bruises. His forearm was wrapped in gauze. His knuckles were swollen and dark. Every one of those injuries was evidence of what he’d sacrificed for me. “Thank you.”
I traced my fingers across his chest, and he caught my wrist.
“Where do I start with you, Dr. Lyons?” He drew one of my fingers between his lips and sucked, tongue flat against the pad. He held my gaze, and I burned to ashes under it.
“Wherever you—”
He sucked harder, sending a jolt from my core all the way into my throat. He’d known precisely what he was doing with his thumb on my chin at the rental. He guided my finger out of his mouth. “I need to savor you. Taste every ounce. Learn every sound beyond the cake sound.”
“The cake sound?”
“The one you made at The Train Station.” He pressed a kiss to the tender skin of my wrist. “When you bit into the chocolate cake.”
I sighed, and whether it was the sound he meant or not, he smiled.
“I dreamed about that noise.” He ran his tongue up my forearm. “About being the cause of it.”
My eyelids fluttered shut beneath the slow, wet drag of his kisses up my arm.
“Come here.” He kissed his way along my upper arm as he inched us toward the narrow bed.
“That’s going to be tight,” I said.
“The tighter the better.” He sat on the edge and drew me between his knees.
He unhooked my bra, and it fell to the floor.
He cupped my breasts, thumbs brushing across my nipples, and my legs nearly gave out.
He bent and lavished one nipple with his tongue until it ached.
When his lips closed around it, the light scrape of his teeth made me press into him and grip his hair.
“God, Arthur.”
He moved to the other breast, giving it the same slow, thorough attention. “You’re sure about this? We can stop if you want to stop or if you want to sleep.”
I’d been exhausted a half-hour ago, but now? “I don’t think I’m capable of sleep at this moment.”
Arthur gazed up at me through heavy lids. “Need an orgasm?”
“Yes, please.”
He slid his hands to my hips, thumbs tracing circles on my hip bones while his mouth returned to my chest. Slow. Unhurried. As though we had all the time in the world. “I’m happy to oblige.”
I undid the button of his torn pants, and he lifted enough for me to push them down. He groaned as I closed my grip around his thick, hard cock. I stroked him from base to tip, and his hips rose with every pass. A gasp escaped him when I spread the bead of precum over the end.
He caught my wrist and stopped me. “Oh, sweetheart, that’s not how tonight’s going to go.”
“No?”
“You first.” He unfastened my jeans, his lips following his hands. “I need to see your face when you come. I need to see how beautiful you are before I get off.”
Oh god.
Between us, we got the rest of our clothes off, and he pulled me down onto the bed.
He rolled me underneath him, careful to keep his weight off me and protect the worst of his injuries.
He traced a path down my body, over my breast, across my stomach, between my thighs. He nudged my legs wider with his knee.
“Fuck, Gwen, you’re soaked.” He dragged one finger through my folds, and my breath hitched. “This all for me?”
“Yes.” My hips chased his hand. “All for you.”
He played with my clit until I rocked into his touch, already embarrassingly close. He was relentless, and when he slid a finger inside me, I dug my fingers into his shoulder.
“That’s it.” His voice was raw against my ear. “Let me feel you. Show me how bad you want me.”
He curled his finger against a spot that caused my hips to lift off the bed, and he held the pressure while his thumb circled my clit. I caught him by the nape and drew him down, kissing him as I came closer to falling apart. His tongue was magic as it tangled with mine.
What will that tongue do between your legs?
“Arthur,” I moaned. “I need you.”
“Soon, I promise.” He added a second finger, and my whole body tightened around him. “But you’re going to come on my hand first, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart. I liked that. I liked the promise under it more.