Baby It's Cold Outside (30 page)
Read Baby It's Cold Outside Online
Authors: Addison Fox
“She loved life and it was taken from her too soon. But she wouldn’t have wanted me to lose mine along with her. I’m not sure why I couldn’t see it for so long, but sitting there tonight, watching those guys flirt with you in the diner. I just knew.”
“Knew what?”
“Knew it was time to do something.”
She squeezed his fingers, wanting to believe him. Desperate to believe they’d turned some sort of corner.
“I never meant to go after you. I hope you know that.”
“What?”
She unthreaded their fingers, twisting hers before her as she tried to find the right words to explain.
“I don’t horn in on my friend’s husbands and even though she and I didn’t know each other that well, I liked Molly, too. I wasn’t one of those women waiting in the wings, hoping to land you. I hope you know that.”
“I never thought that.”
“Yeah, well, a lot of other people have.”
“No one knows what happened between us, Jess.”
“I suspect more people know than you think.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter if they do. It doesn’t concern them.”
“We live in a small town, Jack. And gossip is the engine that keeps it running.”
“Well, then”—he smiled up at her as he nestled closer, his fingers reaching for the bottom of her sweater—“maybe we should give them something to talk about.”
Chapter Eighteen
W
alker knocked on Sloan’s hotel room door, his stomach in more knots than a teenage boy on his first date. He’d watched her from his front door until he saw she had safely arrived at the Indigo and had intended to go back inside and finish his beer, followed by a chaser of scotch.
alker knocked on Sloan’s hotel room door, his stomach in more knots than a teenage boy on his first date. He’d watched her from his front door until he saw she had safely arrived at the Indigo and had intended to go back inside and finish his beer, followed by a chaser of scotch.
It had taken exactly two more minutes to acknowledge he was the world’s biggest asshole.
“What are you doing here? I didn’t think the hotel let strange visitors up after ten?”
“Sloan. Come on.”
Her arms folded and the mulish expression on her face let him know she wasn’t only mad, she was good and mad.
An important distinction that made a difference to war generals, police officers and men who were about to grovel.
“Can I come in?”
“What’s the point?”
He stood there a moment, letting her words penetrate.
What
was
the point?
was
the point?
Either he was in or he wasn’t, but he knew this parade of bad behavior wasn’t fair anymore.
“Maybe I’ve been thinking about what you said.”
“Yeah. Well, maybe I’ve been thinking about what you said, too. And it dawns on me”—she reached for the door to push it closed—“we’re way too far apart to come to any sort of compromise.”
With a quick step, he put his foot inside the doorframe. “Not so fast.” She arched an eyebrow, but stopped pushing on the door. “Can I come in?”
“Be my guest.”
He moved into the room and shut the door quietly behind him. Her room was exceptionally neat, with everything put in its place. Her suitcase was perched on a small stand in the corner and he couldn’t find a thing lying on the floor, the bed or even peeking out of the closet. The TV blared a twenty-four-hour news station as he made his perusal of her living arrangements. “Can you turn that off? I’d like to talk to you.”
She flipped the TV off with the remote and took a seat in the chair in the sitting area of the room.
Now that he had her attention the nerves whipped up again, battering his stomach with a series of dive-bombs that made him very glad he hadn’t added the scotch on top of his beer.
“I owe you an apology. I was surly when you wanted to look at the lights and then I got all moody and assholeish on you.”
“Assholeish?” Her lips maintained their frown, but he thought he might have made a slight dent in her armor—the light note in her voice was encouraging.
“It’s a very special legal term, reserved for very special occasions. And it’s an incredibly apt description of my behavior this evening.”
“I see.”
“Look. The whole thing with my parents is ugly and raw and just not something I share.”
“Obviously.”
“And looking at the lights brought it all up. Add your questions on top and, well . . .” He trailed off as the mulish expression resettled itself on her face.
Whatever inroads he’d made with the joke had evaporated. The deep blue of her eyes had gone a stormy gray.
“So it’s my fault?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Yeah, but if I hadn’t asked you any questions . . . If I had just closed my eyes on the damn town square and kissed you and not made a big deal about the lights, none of this would have happened. Right?”
“Yeah. Well, no. I mean.” He ran a hand through his hair, tugging on the ends before he took a deep breath. “Okay. Look. I’m fucking this up royally and you’re not making it any easier.”
“You don’t deserve to have me make it any easier on you.”
He stopped at that, his fingers going slack midtug on his hair. “What?”
“You’re not the only one with a shock of emotions you don’t know what to do with, Walker. Did you ever think about that?”
“Well . . .” As he broke off, he realized the answer
was
simple. No, he hadn’t thought about it.
was
simple. No, he hadn’t thought about it.
“I didn’t come up here to meet a man and I sure as hell didn’t come up here to get my groove on with one. I came up here to help my friend who’s in a tough spot.”
He couldn’t stop the smile that broke across his face and he’d dare any healthy, red-blooded American male to resist the same at the image of this woman getting her groove on. “What would be so bad about that?”
“About what?”
“The groove part.”
“Nothing, except grooving and caring have no place together.”
“They do when they’re done right.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about here.”
“So what are you talking about?”
“If I’d come up here for a fling and nothing more, I’d treat this thing between the two of us like a fling. We’d groove a bit and I’d go on my way. No harm, no foul.”
A tight fist closed around his chest and he was helpless to hold back his next words. “You do that often?”
She only smiled, the broad grin a mocking reminder to him of what he’d just stepped in. “I’m not answering that. But let’s just say that I’d guess I’ve done it far fewer times than you have. And never with a perfect stranger.”
He skipped doing a quick estimate and refocused on the other thing she’d said. “And the other? About meeting someone and a shock of emotions?”
“Yeah. That. I’m not looking for a relationship, Walker. But damn it to hell if you don’t make me see dates and picnics and all that other mushy shit that lives in a woman’s mind and reaches up to grab her around the throat at the most inopportune times.”
“Mushy shit? Is that another legal term?”
“It’s a fucking pain in the ass is what it is. I see picnics and dates with you, Walker. And it pisses me off. You’re supposed to be fling material and instead you look at me the way you do and you engage in snowball fights and you even think I’m sexy in the most hideous hat in the entire world. So, yeah. You make me think of mushy shit.”
He moved in, unable to stop himself. Leaning down, he neatly boxed her into her chair, his hands wrapped around each of the wooden arms. “Maybe I like the fact that you think about mushy shit.”
“You mean you’re not ready to run for the door?”
“Not by a long shot.”
“So what are we going to do about it? We want different things and we have different lives.”
“We both want the same thing now.” It sounded like a line. He knew it, even though he didn’t mean it that way. But all he could see was Sloan. And while he couldn’t see his future, he couldn’t imagine anyone else in it.
Didn’t that count for something?
On a soft sigh, she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I know.”
Pulling her to her feet, Walker drew her against him and wrapped his arms around her slender frame. He settled his hands in the curve of her lower back and whispered in her ear, “I’m so glad we agree.”
With a dark growl, he pressed his lips to hers, suddenly desperate to feel the connection between them. Her arms tightened around him and their tongues met in a fiery wash of need. Desire speared through him in hard, pulsing waves and he abstractly realized he’d need to make the most of these moments because he wasn’t likely to get many more of them with Sloan.
The thought of her leaving stopped him momentarily and he pulled back to look at her. Her blue eyes were heavy lidded and she opened them slightly to peer up at him. “What?” she whispered.
“Nothing.” He hesitated, almost saying more. Like how glad he was she’d come to Indigo and how he’d like her to stay. Like how his feelings for her went beyond a fling. This wasn’t just a groove or a booty call or whatever adults came up with to explain scratching an itch.
She wasn’t an itch.
She was
Sloan
.
Sloan
.
And she had become everything to him.
How had she managed it? How had she gotten under his skin, forcing him to reevaluate everything he knew to be true?
Everything he
thought
he wanted.
thought
he wanted.
But he held back and didn’t say anything, pushing it all to the back of his mind. It was just the heat of the moment. The satisfaction of finally having her back in his arms.
Refocusing his attention on her, he dropped back into the here and now. “It’s nothing.”
Another searing kiss ignited between them, the soft mewls in the back of her throat so erotic it threw his already hard body into overdrive.
He pulled his mouth from her lips and kissed a path toward her throat. “Are you sure you want this?”
“Yes, Walker.”
With her arms still wrapped around his neck, she took a step backward, pulling him with her. With unerring movements, she maneuvered them toward the bed, tugging him down on top of her once her knees hit the edge.
She sighed.
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
As he followed her down, he couldn’t escape the thought that everything was about to change.
Everything he thought he knew.
Everything he thought he wanted.
Everything he thought he was.
Sloan reveled in the feel of Walker’s large body pressed over hers and the wanton reactions he could pull from her with the lightest touch of his fingers. Her core pulsed almost painfully where he fitted against her and she knew her panties were already damp.
With questing fingers, she ran her hands over the broad width of his shoulders, intrigued by the tight play of muscles at the backs of his arms before she moved on to explore other places. Her five-foot-eight-inch frame had ensured she never felt all that small, but Walker’s large, heavy musculature had her almost feeling petite.
The sensation was heady and enticing, all at the same time.
Her explorations continued as she ran her hands along the planes of his chest, captivated by the mix of hard muscle and heat that warmed her palms.
Suddenly impatient to feel him without so many pieces of clothing, she fumbled between their tangled bodies for the snap at his waist, sighing when the rough material of his jeans gave way. She gently loosened the zipper, insanely pleased when he let out a harsh groan as her fingertips grazed his hard length.
She couldn’t have stopped the exhale of breath if she’d tried. “Why, Counselor, that’s quite an impressive argument you’ve got there.”
“If you think my opening remarks are good, wait until you see me close.”
“By all means, then”—she nipped at his jaw—“please state your case.”
Heat and need coalesced and the laughter fled from her voice as he shifted, rolling to his back and taking her along. Straddling his hips, she shuddered as he ran his fingers under the edge of her blouse, skimming her stomach on their way to her breasts.
His large hands cupped her, his long fingers unerringly finding her nipples through the silk of her bra and Sloan arched into his touch, pressing herself forward into the swirling storm of pleasure.
“You are so beautiful.” His voice was quiet—reverent—in the silence of the room as he touched her and gave her pleasure. Long, restless moments unfurled, one after the other as the dark pleasure built inside of them both.
With suddenly impatient hands, he gripped the material of her shirt and lifted it up and off, tossing it carelessly over the edge of the bed. She reached for her bra herself, anxious for the feel of his hands against her skin without the barrier of silk.
Another wave of heat ignited within her as his oh-so-clever and capable touch again took her body to new heights.
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