Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
She slept like the dead.
Not only that, she spent the entire night sleeping like the dead directly on top of him.
Rush woke up before dawn, with warm, soft, sweet weight draped over him like a blanket.
Somewhere in the night, despite her reassurances, Lily had ended up on top of him, or she’d tried to anyway.
He had woken up more times than he could count with her sprawled on his chest, and every time he’d gently moved her back, another body part had flung itself over him.
One of her legs over his thighs, an arm around his chest with her face buried in his neck. After an hour or so of moving her back to her own side of the bed, he’d given up and held her in place next to him just to get some sleep.
Even now, her head was on his pillow, and she was wrapped around him, soft and warm, and completely oblivious to the havoc she was wreaking on his self-control.
Rush exhaled slowly and let himself look at her as the sun rose and light filled the cabin.
Her face was relaxed in sleep, and she looked younger without any makeup, fine boned and delicate.
Her skin was creamy and pale against his own darker body and lightly freckled on the bridge of her nose. A stray red curl had escaped her bun.
Her lips drew his attention before he could stop himself.
They were soft and full, slightly pouty and parted.
He groaned silently. Those were fuck-me lips, and he was far from immune.
Lily Hart was exactly the type of woman he went for: soft, curvy in his favorite places, with her long, smooth legs wrapped around him like an octopus.
It had been too long since he’d had a woman in bed with him.
There was no other explanation for what had happened between them in the shower the night before.
She was too soft, too fucking tempting for the thought not to cross his mind.
He’d tried his best to be professional and distant, but when she pressed her heat against him, Jesus, he’d thought about it. Of course he had.
He didn’t know her. But his body didn’t give a damn.
He was no stranger to physical chemistry, but this was different.
Sharper. Hungrier. Like his instincts had locked onto hers and weren’t letting go.
Even now, his hands itched to touch her and pull her into his body.
She was damn inconvenient and distracting when he needed peace and calm more than anything.
She made a sleepy noise and nuzzled closer, her knee nearly leveling his morning erection. He grunted, gripping her thigh to keep her from causing permanent damage. Soft. Warm. Sleekly muscled. Wrapped around him like she wanted to climb—nope. He pushed it off him gently. He needed to move. Now.
Lily hummed, still half asleep, and burrowed even closer against his chest. Her nose nuzzled into his throat, and she let out a soft, contented sigh.
Rush froze, swallowing hard, and forced himself to think of anything else. Paperwork. Parking tickets. Cold showers. But his mind, traitorous bastard that it was, only fed him more images of her.
Lily standing under the hot spray in his shower, her big, gorgeous breasts all wet and gleaming, water sliding in rivulets down the slim curve of her waist and flaring over the hips he’d gripped.
He’d tried not to look. He’d tried to keep himself strictly professional by focusing on neutral spots.
The old shower tile, the beam of the flashlight, literally anywhere that wasn’t her body.
But he wasn’t a damn monk. And she’d been standing there, stripped down to nothing but a scrap of white lace panties and an unmistakable heat in her eyes.
He’d held it together until she’d pressed herself against him. Just a little nudge of her pelvis against his thigh where he could imagine the soft, slick hidden part of her riding him, and he’d lost it for a minute. He gritted his teeth, the memory washing over him like a punch to the gut.
This was a problem.
Carefully, he shifted away from her.
“Mmm.” She blinked her eyes open. Rush gritted his teeth while she made cute noises, and her—his—flannel shirt rode up on her flat stomach.
She blinked up at him, sleep-heavy and disoriented, and then stretched her leg out—narrowly missing the evidence of all that morning cuddling.
“Jesus, woman. Are you trying to castrate me?” he yelped, covering himself.
Color bloomed high on her cheeks as she snapped her head away, looking at the ceiling like it was the most interesting thing she’d ever seen.
He sat up, grateful for the distraction, and swung his feet to the floor, rubbing the tight muscles covered by scar tissue on his thigh.
The damn thing was also always stiff in the morning.
“Oops. Sorry,” she muttered, rubbing her eyes. “I can’t believe how well I slept,” she said through a yawn. “Did you sleep well too?”
Rush snorted. “Like a rock.” A granite one.
Lily smiled sleepily and rolled herself onto her side, propping herself up on one elbow. “See? I told you I don’t take up much space.”
Rush dug his fingers into the muscles of his thigh and snorted. “I need a shower.” A very cold one, which was all there was anyway.
He escaped to the bathroom and turned on the taps.
The water was icy, but it was a welcome distraction.
He washed up quickly and reached for a towel.
Hanging from the towel bar, fluttering like a taunt, were her panties.
White, lacy, delicate as hell. He held back a groan, yanked his T-shirt over his head, and dragged a hand down his face. He needed space.
The last time he’d been around a woman this intimately, it had ended with her walking away. Blake Carter had never been the settling-down type. He’d known that from the second he spotted her, and it had suited him just fine.
She’d been leaning against the bar at a club in downtown Rochester, her long legs crossed, one red-soled shoe dangling lazily from her foot.
The black minidress she wore barely covered her ass, clinging to curves made for sin.
She had picked up her glass, run her tongue around the rim, and tilted her head like she was already considering what it would be like to ride him.
And that was all the encouragement he needed.
The thing about Blake was she didn’t pretend to be something she wasn’t.
She liked kinky sex, fast rides on his motorcycle, and weekend trips on a whim.
She wasn’t looking for forever or promises.
She had enjoyed the Rush Callahan who pushed her limits and gave her a thrill.
She wasn’t the kind of woman who could sit through grief and dark moments.
Rush had known she would leave, and truthfully, he hadn’t bothered to keep her.
“You’re not the same man,” she’d said, foot tapping in her high-heeled sandal, standing in his kitchen like she was already out the door.
“I know you’re hurting, but I miss the guy who actually lived.
Not… this.” She’d looked at him with something close to pity.
“Honey, when are you going to forgive yourself?”
She’d left him, and the quiet heaviness had taken over, pressing on him every damn day, and he didn’t blame her. Hell, he respected her for it. Blake had never pretended to be something she wasn’t. She didn’t do grief. She didn’t do broken.
And since that night a year ago, that was what he’d been.
She still periodically sent him pictures of her on the lake with friends and at concerts. “Miss you! Hope you’re doing okay! See you soon!”
He usually responded with a thumbs-up or a smile and left it at that. Blake deserved that kind of life, but he no longer wanted it. He craved something he couldn’t find in Northfield anymore.
He dried himself and purposefully hung his towel over Lily’s panties. Lily Hart might look like an angel, but she disturbed his peace.
And when he stepped out of the bathroom, toweling his hair, the exact reason why she disturbed him was right in front of him.
Lily was on a blanket in front of the fire, her body folded in half with her head down, ass up in the air. Rush stopped in his tracks.
Jesus.
She wore his flannel, tucked in on one side into his sweatpants, but the other side had escaped to reveal just enough soft, creamy skin around the dip of her waist he had no business noticing. He leaned a shoulder against the doorframe and crossed his arms.
Lily exhaled slowly, her eyes still closed, and stretched her arms forward, the tips of her red hair touching the floor. Her back arched, and Rush felt the same bolt of pure, unadulterated lust shoot through him.
Then she hummed.
Long and deep. Like she was either orgasming or doing some seriously weird ritual. He hoped it was the second one because it would make it a hell of a lot easier to ignore the effect she had on him.
She took another deep breath and said, “I am a still lake. Not a stormy sea.”
Riggs lifted his head from the floor and shot her a sideways look. She’s a nutter, he seemed to say.
Rush’s eyes narrowed. “Are you casting spells over there?”
Lily cracked an eye open and looked at him upside down. “It’s called a mantra.” Her cheeks were a little pink, but that could be from the blood flowing upside down. “For focus and calm.”
“Never heard of talking yourself into being a pond.”
“A lake,” she said, sitting back on her heels. “It helps me to remember I don’t have to get swept up in everything around me. I can just be still.”
He almost sighed in relief. This was exactly what he needed to cool him off.
Rush had never put much stock in things not footed firmly in logic and reason.
He suspected she subscribed to all those alternative-healing ideas that his sisters were always talking to him about. Luckily, it further cooled his ardor.
She exhaled long and slow and rose to standing gracefully, arms high above her head, breasts thrust out against the worn fabric. “Your energy is bad.”