Chapter 12 #2
“She was our family dog, but really, she was Kevin’s. My parents got him when Kev was born, so they were already pretty established by the time I came along.”
“What was the dog’s name?”
“Lois.”
“Lois!”
I grinned. “My dad named her after his kindergarten teacher.”
Chelsea laughed, and the sound sent something tingling over my skin. I cut the gauze to size.
Her laughter died down, and she looked at me with such warmth on her face my heart cracked a little, knowing how her face would turn if she asked the natural follow-up questions.
But I realized, for the first time, I didn’t want her to shy away from them.
I didn’t quickly change the subject like I normally did, or walk away before she could keep going.
“Did Eli tell you how Kevin died?”
She shook her head.
My stomach churned as I ripped off a piece of tape with my teeth. So I was really doing this. “My brother drowned in the Quince. Lois died a week later.”
Chelsea blanched. Then, “Jesus. I’m so sorry, Seamus.”
I shouldn’t have said it. Fuck, I should have kept my stupid mouth shut. But it was too late now. My heart thudded, the truth out there, raw, vibrating with old pain.
“How old were you?”
“Thirteen.” Her face fell, and I folded the gauze. “Sorry. It’s a lot.” Suddenly I wanted to leave, to get up and go to Kevin’s truck and drive it as far away as I could from here. But some tenacious, new and wobbly part of me said something different.
Stay.
I didn’t know what to do with that feeling. I could feel Chelsea’s eyes on me.
“It’s not,” she said.
It was. It had been. But I nodded, pressing the gauze to her knees and laying down the tape. “It was a long time ago.”
“It doesn’t matter. Grief stays with you. At least, that’s what everyone keeps telling me.”
I bit my cheek, but the words dancing around were, What about if it should have been you? Does it live inside your bones, then? Tainting you for life?
She studied me a moment, like she knew they were there.
For a moment, I held her gaze, my pulse quickening.
Then she shifted and cringed, and I remembered what I was doing.
I wanted, suddenly, to ask her about her mom. For her to tell me something of her own grief. Not to relieve me, but so she would know I had room for all of it.
Maybe she saw the question in my eyes, because she smiled, clearly not wanting me to go there.
“Seamus?”
There went my pulse again. “Yeah?”
“I wanted to thank you for the other night.”
I lifted my brows. “Oh. Sure.” I should have been thanking her. That night had been the best night I’d had in recent memory. Years, maybe.
“I thought about it and… I’ve got a few more weeks off from work and I’m going to give it some time to think about what I’m going to do.
I can’t go back to what I was doing before, not exactly.
I knew that around my personal life but I hadn’t thought about it with my professional life.
You helped me think about that. So… thank you. ”
She blurted all of that out like she’d been thinking about it over the past few days.
I smiled. “I don’t think I did anything but… yup, I’ll take all the credit for whatever amazing thing you do with your life.”
She grinned—a great, beaming, toothy grin, flashing that crooked tooth in the front. I wanted to kiss her right then and there.
Fuck me.
“Also,” she continued. “I think you should get a dog.”
Now it was my turn to laugh, the tightness that had just coiled inside of me—me fighting my idiot urges—unwound, just a little. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. You’re good with dogs. We already established you have the perfect place, and you could use a friend.”
“I thought you were going to be my friend?”
“Is that what we decided?” She was smiling, and I knew it was an innocent question, but suddenly I wanted to tell her no. That being friends with her wasn’t enough. Eli was my friend. Chelsea was… very different.
I don’t know if it was the way she was looking at me, or the way our conversation had turned, but that tightness came back, rolling heat into my lower abdomen.
Hands—take care of her hands.
I reached for her hand, but when our skin touched this time, electricity shot through me, turning that warmth into something that burned. Shit.
Chelsea blinked, but her eyes didn’t leave mine. Had she felt it too?
I focused on her wound, turning it palm up so I could examine the angry red scrape from the asphalt. Her hand was so much smaller than mine; the skin so much softer. I brought my thumbs onto her wrist, resting them on her soft pulse.
Fuck.
I realized what I was doing and grabbed quickly for the antiseptic. Without warning or distraction, I spritzed her right hand quickly, needing suddenly to be done with this before I embarrassed myself.
But Chelsea sucked in air, and when I did the other hand, she sucked in a breath. “What happened to distracting me?”
What could I say? I wanted to stay here all day holding onto her? That the feeling of her skin against mine was enough to make my cock swell?
But her eyes, when she looked at me again, looked almost wounded. And for the hundredth time in the past however many minutes we’d been together, my body reacted without my mind telling it that it was okay to do so.
“Sorry,” I said, and pulled her hand up to my face. Before I thought about what I was doing, I lowered my lips and blew on the wound, softly, in slow circles.
The way her eyelids fluttered, I knew I’d made a mistake.
Heat punched my belly, going lower than it should have. My cock did stiffen then.
I swallowed the dryness in my throat. I wanted to say sorry again, but Chelsea blinked. “Do the other one.”
Fuck.
Our eyes locked. Bad. This was bad. But I couldn’t say no to her. It was impossible.
I took her other hand and blew. This time she closed her eyes, leaning back, exposing the long column of her throat.
“Chelsea,” I said, my head trying desperately to grab a toehold in the sudden heat going through me.
“Did you see I hurt myself here, too?” Her voice was nearly a whisper. She slid forward, so she was sitting at the edge of the couch, only inches from me. Then she turned, revealing the barest scrape across her jaw, right where it met her ear.
The heat ran lower, making my dick jump.
This was all fucking wrong.
I should have told her it wasn’t bad, the skin wasn’t even broken, but instead I slipped one hand up behind her neck, and the other on her throat. I tipped her head back and before I could stop myself, I leaned in and blew on that one, too. Then I blew again, this time into the shell of her ear.
Chelsea let out a soft sound, and something inside me melted. Something I didn’t know was frozen. My dick swelled thicker.
I knew, I knew how wrong this was. What kind of position this would put us in.
“Chelsea,” I drew my hand down her throat, pressing it against her chest. I could feel her heartbeat under my palm. Feel the soft swell of the top of her breast against my forearm. I kept my lips at her ear, knowing if I pulled back and looked at her, it would all be over.
I should have said I wanted to finish with the bandages and get her home. I should have said I needed to keep my word with her brother. I tried—I willed my blood to stop pumping so hard with desire for this woman. But my body wouldn’t surrender so easily.
I wanted to kiss her.
Instead, I brought my teeth to her earlobe, pressing down on the soft flesh and tugging. It was the only way I could keep my mouth away from hers.
She let out a soft breath, arching her back, and I dipped lower and pressed my lips onto the spot where her shoulder met her neck.
She was salty and sweet and perfect, and did I imagine it or were nipples hard against my chest?
Was her bra so thin I could feel them? My mind became cloudy with need and my hand slid down.
I needed to feel.
They were. Her nipple was a pebble under my palm. I pressed my hand, cupping the whole of it, and bringing my mouth down to the space where her top met her skin.
“Fuck,” I said out loud. I was doing this and I shouldn’t be doing this, but I wanted her so fucking badly I couldn’t think straight.
I slid my other hand up and gripped her hair, pulling her away from me, forcing myself to look into her eyes.
“Stop me. You have to say stop, because if you don’t, I’m going to kiss you, and if we do that… ”
She brought a hand up and held her fingers against my mouth. Her lips parted like she was going to speak, but she seemed as if she was restraining herself. As if by not saying anything, she could suspend this moment, abstain from the decision.
My eyes went to the soft pink of her lips, the quick dart of her tongue flicking out. My cock was so hard now it strained painfully against my zipper. If she looked down, she’d see.
I wanted her to see.
Fuck, I wanted her. But a punch of anger hit me, too.
I stood up, bringing her with me. “It’s not fair, Chelsea, leaving it up to me.
” I pressed her against me, lifting her to her toes.
I pressed her harder, bringing her up so her eyes met mine.
Her tits were pressed against my chest. Without saying another word, I demanded her consent, or her telling me no.
Whatever it was, I needed her to say the word.
And she knew it.
She swallowed, a bob of her perfectly soft skin at her neck.
Her expression was… torn. She wanted this. I knew she did. But she was fighting it.
I gritted my teeth. Then I set her back down on her feet.
“Seamus—”
“Don’t,” I said. I stepped away from her, bending down to shove the stuff back into the first aid kit.
“Seamus, I want it.” Chelsea reached down and threaded her hands through my hair. Her lips parted as I stood.
A kiss. It would just be a kiss.
But just as I brought my hand behind her head, there was an electronic chime, followed by a loud bark.
They were back.
It was like glass shattering, or a record needle shifting. Suddenly I could see everything before me like some kind of outside observer.