Backdraft (13 page)

Dave rolled his eyes, chuckling, as he let his hand fall to his side. “Right, that’s why she’s in such a big hurry to marry you.” He looked at Maya. “Maybe you should tell him what happened in Brant, baby.”

It was dark and her face was in shadow, but she knew he wouldn’t miss the warning glare she shot him. “I already told him we slept together.”

He was probably disappointed, hoping to have the element of surprise working in his favor when he lowered the boom on Chris.

“Did you tell him the real reason you came back to Brant that night?” he asked, narrowing his eyes. “Did you tell him that you bid on me at the auction, and then you lured me up to your suite, handcuffed and blindfolded me…”

She reached out to cover his mouth with her hand and he took advantage of the opportunity to grab her around the waist, flattening her tits against his chest. A rumbling sound erupted from his throat and he dipped his head, nuzzling his face in her neck. “God, you smell good.”

He obviously didn’t care that they had an audience.

The last thing she needed was for Chris to witness first-hand the elemental connection that made them such an explosive force in the bedroom. “Stop it,” she said, flattening her hands against his chest, trying to push him away. The man was built like a brick wall and every bit as unyielding.

Turning his head, he said to Chris, “You can stand here and watch this go down, or you can get the hell out of here while you still have the chance, ‘cause I promise you, this is gonna happen whether you’re here or not.”

Maya gasped, unable to believe his audacity. “Stop it…”

“You know it’s true, baby,” he said, sliding his hand up to tangle in the hair at the base of her neck. He brought her lips in for a kiss. It was long and deep and wet, and by the time it was over, her body was plastered to his, leaving little doubt in anyone’s mind about what came next.

She dropped her head against his chest and struggled to catch her breath. “I can’t believe I let you do that.”

He chuckled. “Honey, I think you had something to do with it. It takes two tongues to tango.”

“Chris, I…” She looked up, but he was gone. “Shit, I didn’t even hear him leave.”

“I think he got the message loud and clear.” He shrugged. “I guess he’s not into voyeurism.”

She slapped his chest, struggling to escape his strong grip. “This is not funny. This is my life you’re playing with, Dave.”

He backed her up against one of the huge columns supporting the wraparound porch. “I’m not playing, baby. This is real to me, as real as it gets.”

“Why are you doing this? Why did you come back?”

“I was a stupid bastard for walking out on you.”

She had waited so long to hear those words, she was half-afraid it was another cruel fantasy. She would wake up alone again, sobbing into her pillow, missing him.

“I shouldn’t have left last weekend. Hell, I shouldn’t have left ten years ago,” he said, sliding his hand up her ribcage to cup her breast. “I should have tried to work through it. I let one night rob us of the life we could have had together.” Kissing her gently, he looked into her eyes. “The life I think we can still have together.”

She held her breath, afraid to breathe, afraid to speak. If this was a dream, she didn’t want to wake up, ever. “Don’t say that unless you mean it,” she whispered, choking back a sob.

Sinking her teeth into her bottom lip, she tried to hold back the flow of tears. “I’ve wanted you for so long. God, I’ve loved you for...”

“Ever,” he whispered, sliding his thumb across her cheek to capture the falling tear. “I feel the same way, baby. I feel as though I’ve been in love with you forever, ever since I knew what love was.”

“About Craig…” If he wanted a future with her, she couldn’t base it on a lie about their past. She wanted him to know everything, and she would help him find it in his heart to forgive Craig the same way he’d forgiven her. They could have it all, she had to believe that.

“I don’t want to talk about Craig,” he said, flattening his index finger against her lips. “I don’t care about that now. All that matters is you and me, and…” He paused. “That’s not true. I walked out last weekend because I couldn’t stand the thought of you making love to another man. That hasn’t changed. You and Chris…”

She grabbed his wrist, pulling his hand away from her mouth. “Chris is not you,” she whispered. “You’re the man I love, the only man I’ve ever loved.”

He grinned. “Say it again.”

“I love you.” She kissed him. “I need you. I want you.”

He threaded his hands through her hair carefully. “I was a wreck this week. The old man told me to take some time off, and I sat around the house day after day, thinking about you, missing you…”

She brushed her cheek against his, closing her eyes as she reveled in the scrape of his course whiskers against her soft skin. “I thought about you too, all the time.”

“When I called Jack today, I was just so desperate to connect with you.”

She smiled, loving that he was finally willing to be vulnerable with her. She wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to trust her enough to let his guard down again.

“When he told me you went to Vegas, and that you might get married…” His voice cracked, breaking. “That’s when I knew I couldn’t go on this way. I knew you were moving on without me, and I couldn’t let that happen.” He pulled back to look her in the eye. “I won’t let that happen,” he said fiercely.

She felt that familiar flutter in her stomach. The same one she used to get when they would talk about the future: anticipation, excitement… contentment. “I didn’t want to let you go,” she said, sliding her hands up the back of his t-shirt. “That’s why I came back to Brant, because I couldn’t let go. I needed to know if there was even the slightest chance…”

Resting his head against her forehead, he said, “Jesus, baby, we’ve wasted so much time. If I wasn’t such a stupid prick, we’d be married with a couple of kids by now. We’d be…”

“Ssssh,” she said, kissing him. “I don’t want to waste another minute on frustration or anger. Please, I just want to be thankful for what we have. Can we do that?”

He smiled. “Yeah, we can do that.” He sighed. “I wish I hadn’t walked out on you last weekend though.” He fisted his hand in her hair. “I hate that he got to make love to you again because of my stupid mistake.”

Shaking her head, she smiled. “He didn’t.”

He frowned, pulling back to look at her. “What are you talking about? Are you telling me you didn’t have sex with him this weekend?”

Her eyes fell to his chest. “No, I couldn’t. I told him it wasn’t the right time for me. He thought I had…”

He laughed. “Please tell me that’s not true.”

“No, it’s not. It was a little white lie.” She wrapped her arms around his waist, laying her head on his solid chest. “I just couldn’t bring myself to sleep with him. I mean, I know it wouldn’t be the first time, but since we made love, I couldn’t get you out of my head. I knew I would be thinking about you while we were…”

“I’m just so glad it didn’t happen,” he said, smiling. “You don’t know what it was doing to me, imagining you with him.” Tipping her chin, he asked, “Did you consider marrying him?”

She shook her head. “No, not really. I knew I wasn’t in love with him. He knew that too. I told him how I felt, but he tried to convince me that my feelings would grow with time. I knew that wasn’t true. I’d already had the real deal, and I didn’t want to settle for less.”

Sneering, he said, “I can’t believe that loser tried to talk you into falling in love with him. And he had the nerve to call me pathetic?”

Pressing her hands to his chest, she said, “I don’t want to talk about him anymore, okay?”

“Hey, that’s fine by me. In fact, I don’t want to talk at all.”

Chapter Nine

Dave felt like he was getting a second chance, and he didn’t intend to waste a second of it. “If we don’t move this inside, like now, your neighbors might call the cops,” he said, cupping her ass. He couldn’t wait until his hand was fully healed, so he could love her without having to worry about his injury.

After slipping her hand into her purse, she held her keys up. “You’re right, let’s take this inside.”

He followed her, wrapping his arm around her waist and nuzzling her neck as she struggled to unlock the door. Pressing his arousal into her backside, he chuckled. “Are you havin’ a little trouble with that, sweetheart?”

Cursing, she almost dropped the keys. “If you don’t stop kissing my neck like that, I’m going to fuck you right here on the porch.”

He threw his head back, laughing. God, he loved everything about this woman: her brain, beauty, compassion, but most of all, her sass. “We’re going to have to figure this thing out,” he said, nibbling on the sexy indent in her collarbone.

“What do you mean?” she asked, turning into his arms as she walked them, backwards, into the house.

“If you think I’m going to be happy seeing you a couple of days a week, you’re crazy. I need you every night, in my arms, in my bed.” He kissed her deeply, punctuating his point.

“We’ll take turns,” she said. “You can stay here when you have a few days off and I can stay in Brant when you don’t have to spend the night at the station.”

That sounded temporary. He wanted permanence, commitment. Hell, he wanted the life they’d dreamed about. “Maybe we should think about buying a place in Lindsay,” he said, kicking the door closed with the heel of his boot. “It’s only twenty-five minutes for both of us. That way, I won’t have to worry about you driving so far to the hospital.”

She touched his cheek, smiling. “Don’t you think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself? Why don’t we just try dating for a while, see what happens?”

Scowling, he said, “Don’t you think we’ve waited long enough? We’ve already wasted ten fuckin’ years, Maya. I thought you wanted to be with me. Was I wrong?”

She reached down, grabbing the hem of his t-shirt and pulling it over his head. She groaned when she revealed his bare chest. Between moist kisses on his pecs, shoulders, and neck, she said, “Can we talk about this later? Right now, I just want to get you out of these clothes so I can have my wicked way with you.”

He knew she was trying to distract him, and that left him feeling uneasy. He wanted to talk about it now. He needed to know by the next time they made love that she was as committed to him and their future as he was. Cupping her face in his hands, he tilted her head up, forcing her to look at him. “Do you want to be with me or not?”

“Are you serious? Of course I want to be with you. What kind of question is that?”

“A fair question, I think. I’m trying to plan for our future, but you seem stuck in the present, or is it the past?”

Sighing, she flattened her palms against his chest. “We spent a lot of time planning for our future when we were young, and look how that turned out.”

Frowning, he asked, “Are you telling me that you’re afraid of jinxing it if we talk about it? That’s stupid.”

She pushed him away and glared at him. “It may seem stupid to you, but I’m scared to death.” She ran up the stairs, forcing him to sprint to catch up.

When he reached the top of the stairs, he spotted her sitting on the window-seat in her bedroom, her knees tucked under her chin. She looked out the window into the darkness, so he couldn’t read her face, but he didn’t have to. He knew what she was feeling, the same things he was: fear and trepidation. This was so new to them, and they were both afraid of saying or doing something to screw it up.

He sat down on the bed quietly, waiting for her to say something, hoping she would make a move towards him.

She turned her head, looking at him. “Do you know how many times I’ve sat here, staring out this window, wondering where you were, what you were doing, who you were with?”

“I’ve wondered about you a lot over the years too.” He smiled. “Too damn much for my piece of mind.”

“I’d think about you at the craziest times,” she said, shaking her head. “I’d be at the hospital, and some kid would come in with a football injury and it would remind me of how stupid and reckless you were when you played. I’d sit up in those stands… my heart was in my throat half the time. I was so afraid you’d wind up flat on your back, out cold.”

He laughed. “I prefer to think of it as fierce, not stupid or reckless.” He knew if he was lucky enough to have a son one day, he’d want him to approach everything in life the same way, as though he had nothing to lose, giving it everything he had to give.

“I loved that about you, but I hated it too. It scared the hell out of me.”

“Why’s that?”

“You were fearless and brave. But sometimes, I got the feeling you didn’t stop to think about your safety or what it might mean to the people who loved you if you got hurt or worse…” She turned her head, looking out the window again.

He sensed this had little to do with his high school football games. This was bigger, more important than that. His gut told him this had nothing to do with their past, and everything to do with their future, or her reluctance to make plans for the future. He got up and slid in on the bottom of the bench, needing to be close to her. “You want to tell me what you’re thinking? What’s really scaring you, baby?”