Chapter Eight
When Billy woke up the next day, the room was lit bright as a tiki torch.
Sunlight warmed the room, making it feel lazy and cozy.
Roxie was tucked up against him, her body warm and soft.
His cock was nestled against the curve of her bottom, already stiffening and ready to say hello.
Nuzzling his face into her neck, he swept his hand up to cup her breast.
Outside, a songbird sang from a treetop at full volume.
“Damn Tweety,” he muttered.
Feeling the moment, he parted her legs with his knee and settled closer to her heat. Last night, they’d simply fallen into bed and crashed. He didn’t think either of them had woken since then, or even moved. Sometimes things just built up to the point where a person had to shut down.
But he was revving up again.
He kissed his way across her shoulder. Damn, she felt good.
“Not good for you. Not good for you.”
He threw a glare at the window.
Roxie shifted, and her legs parted further. She rolled more solidly into his hold, and her nipple poked at his palm. Billy inhaled deeply as arousal surged through him. He shifted his hips forward, ready to penetrate her…
“Not good for you. Trouble.”
What the hell was that thing? A mockingbird?
“Son of a bitch.” Rolling onto his back, he stared at the ceiling and tried to catch his breath. His cock ached and his teeth ground.
Outside, the bird was tweeting up a storm. The high notes pierced right into his conscience. “Hooked. Your promise. Not good for you.”
Rocking upwards, Billy swung his legs over the side of the bed. The weight of the previous day settled once again on his shoulders. So much for a good night’s sleep.
He glanced over his shoulder when Roxie shifted.
So much for a good morning.
He plucked his jeans off the floor and watched her sleep on, oblivious, as he zipped them. What would have happened if she’d woken up to find him inside her without a rubber?
He blew out a breath. Yeah, that would have been trouble, all right. All hell would have come raining down on his head.
Raking a hand through his hair, he headed to the kitchen.
What was wrong with him?
He’d spent hours under the hood of Skeeter’s truck yesterday. As he’d tinkered with the engine, he’d also analyzed what was going on under his own lid. It hadn’t been pretty.
He was messed up over her. He knew it. He felt it.
Things had to change. They couldn’t keep going around in circles like this. So yeah, he’d made some promises to himself.
Then he’d gone to the bar and found her feeling up that blond Brad Pitt type, and he’d broken every last one of them.
How was he supposed to know the guy was Lexie’s brother?
And did that really matter? Seeing her with somebody else had shut down his brain.
He’d been acting on gut instinct. Pure, primal instinct.
He swore when water spilled over the countertop and dripped onto his bare foot. Unplugging the coffee pot, he cleaned up the mess. He poured the water down the drain and turned on the light overhead. Seeing the problem, he started pulling open drawers, looking for something he could use to fix it.
Too bad he didn’t have a tool to fix what was wrong with him.
But he did.
He’d figured out what would solve everything—time and space. He’d meant what he’d said. Once he left this time, he wasn’t coming back.
It was the only way to preserve his sanity. It was the only way he’d ever be able to move on.
He stared at the coffee as it began to stream smoothly into the pot.
But did he want to move on? He heard her mumble in her sleep, and his fingers curled around a coffee cup he found in a cupboard. He wanted her so badly, his chest ached.
Was this like the craving his mother fought day in and day out?
He moved to the sofa, away from the bedroom and, hopefully, out of hearing range. As close as he wanted to be to Roxie, she always held him at arm’s length. The sex was great but being pushed off her afterwards wasn’t. She held him off emotionally, too.
He couldn’t keep fighting against that brick wall.
He took a drink and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He might as well start tying up loose ends.
“Fishing today?” he texted to Charlie.
The answer came back sooner than he expected.
For someone who’d worked the night shift for decades, the former barkeep was transitioning well.
Billy quickly made plans with his old friend.
With the way things were going, he’d probably be heading out of town sooner rather than later.
He didn’t want Charlie to get caught up in the middle.
Task done, Billy took another drink of his coffee. He was rubbing at the tension in the back of his neck when he noticed something on the floor, tucked up under the sofa. Something black and dangerous looking…
Roxie’s boot.
He picked up the leather footwear and its unattached heel. Sitting back, he considered the break.
She’d done it up good.
It had split right along the seam. Dried glue globs had curled, and sharp nails pointed this way and that.
He aligned the parts, trying to figure out how to mesh them back up.
The two pieces had been made for each other, but now there was so much crap in the way.
What had held them together was now keeping them apart.
He was no cobbler. It was going to take special tools and probably a jig of some sort to fix this. It was a shame, because she’d been right.
They were pretty kick-ass.
The sound of padding feet made him lift his head. Roxie stood in the bedroom doorway, rubbing her eyes.
“You fixed my coffeemaker?” she asked, sniffing the air hopefully.
His gaze stuck on her. She was wearing his Harley tee. It draped like a dress over her smaller form and came down to midthigh. The thing covered her completely, but the soft material didn’t hide the shape of her nipples. They were perky and alert.
He cleared his throat. “The nozzle was plugged.”
“Mmm,” she hummed as she stretched her arms overhead.
Billy slowly put the broken boot pieces back on the floor. The T-shirt had lifted high on her legs with the move, and his mouth had gone dry.
She wasn’t wearing anything underneath it.
He watched as she walked into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee. The damn breakfast bar hid her from the waist down, but he saw the pleasure that crossed her face when she tasted the strong brew. Her hair was wild across her shoulders, and her eyes were still sleepy.
She took another sip before she felt his stare.
Watching him, she leaned forward and braced her elbows on the kitchen island that separated them. “Are we calling a truce today?”
Right now, he’d do about anything she wanted.
He nodded. “I’ll show you how I worked the computer search.”
They’d just get that out of the way and be done with it.
“Is that how you found your mother?”
He shrugged. “I went out and talked to people who knew people.”
“Why can’t we do that?”
“Who do you want to talk to?”
She scowled and her attention dropped back to her coffee.
Right, that’s what he’d thought. “Use the computer to find people who might know something. You can nose around town afterwards. Better yet, let me do that part.”
He didn’t like the thought of her running around confronting strangers. The scenes he’d encountered as he’d followed the trail to that bridge in Minnesota hadn’t been pretty. She was tough, but he didn’t want her to be in danger.
She frowned and set her mug aside. As much as she wanted answers, he could tell she wasn’t looking forward to the process of finding them. Patience had never been one of her virtues.
When she wanted something, she wanted it now.
Pushing her hair over her shoulder, she looked at him again.
Her eyes were more alert, and her cheeks were pink.
That bird outside had finally gone silent, but Billy could have sworn the sound of a pulse filled the room.
He felt her gaze draw slowly down his bare chest to his belly and then his jeans.
Right on cue, he was hard again.
“Where’s your duffel bag?” she asked.
“In the apartment downstairs.”
“Do you want to bring it up here?”
“It’s okay where it is.”
She stretched, arms overhead, and he was straining the zipper.
“Well, I’m taking a shower,” she said, her voice still morning husky.
She rounded the breakfast bar, heading for the bathroom, and his gaze was on her like a heat-seeking missile.
There was something about seeing her in his clothes.
That T-shirt should look like a sack on her, but it was touching her bare skin.
Sliding against firm thighs, kissing her curved bottom, and cupping those gorgeous breasts…
She didn’t throw him another look. She didn’t even lend him a smile.
But the T-shirt was lifting as she closed the bathroom door behind her…
Billy glided to his feet like a panther to follow her. He was unzipping his jeans before he was halfway across the room.
They might be bad for each other. He intended to leave all this dysfunctionality behind him, but he wasn’t a saint. He was here now, and he wanted her.
He was going to take as much as he could before time ran out.
Because it was going to have to last him forever.
* * * * *
The shower took longer than expected, because things had turned hot in there, too. Billy’s knees still weren’t feeling all that steady as he lowered himself onto the sofa beside Roxie.
She’d gone down on him.
Sexily and confidently.
It messed with his head even more, but he hadn’t complained.
He passed her another cup of coffee.
“Stop procrastinating,” he ordered as he jabbed the power button on the computer in her lap.
They were going to get serious about this search today. He’d promised her sisters and neither of them could go on in limbo much longer.
He watched as she navigated to the website she’d been on the other day. She was adept, but he couldn’t see her ever spending much time hunched over the thing. She had way too much energy and was way too impatient for that.