Second Chances (Nugget Romance 3) (17 page)

“Then again, you never were like the rest of them,” Al said, hovering over the plate Colin had pushed in front of him. “Always a fish out of water. But, son, you have to make a life for yourself. The furniture, the carpentry, this house—all good. All anchors. But I like that you’re finally getting yourself a social life. This newspaper reporter, she good people?”

That was parole speak for, Does she have a sheet? A drug or alcohol problem? Basically, can this woman get you in trouble?

“Pure as the driven snow.” Colin handed Al a couple of napkins. “Don’t talk to her, Al. She’s just a neighbor who occasionally invites me to things. She doesn’t know about my past and I want to keep it that way.”

Al nodded in acquiescence. It wasn’t like him. He never skimped on the job. As much as he advocated for you, Al was a hard-ass. Part of his job was keeping an eye on Colin’s friends and family and making sure they weren’t bad influences. For whatever unfathomable reason, Al had decided to make a concession this time. For Colin.

“What makes you think she doesn’t know?” he asked Colin.

Because if she did, Harlee wouldn’t want anything to do with him. “I just know. She’s from a nice family. Dad’s a doctor and mom owns a store. Her brother is a cop.” He looked at Al pointedly.

“The chief is a cop. He seems to like you.” Al wiped up the rest of his omelet with his muffin and popped it into his mouth.

“His wife likes me,” Colin said. “I helped restore her inn.”

“Even more reason not to like you.” Al let out a harsh laugh, and Colin got the impression that he might’ve had a bad experience in that area.

“This neighbor the one who told you about the acupuncture?” There went Al again with his spooky powers of deduction.

“Yeah,” Colin said.

Al got off his stool, went to the sink, rinsed his plate, and put it in the dishwasher. “I’ve gotta go.” He slapped Colin on the back. “Glad we could have this talk. Stay out of trouble.”

Colin waited to hear the door click closed and Al’s tires on the gravel road before going into the mudroom to get his jacket. Searching the pocket, he found the note, unfolded it, and read.

Colin noted this time there were no hugs and kisses. Colin banged his head against the pine log wall. What the hell was he supposed to tell her?

I
f Harlee didn’t hear from Colin by noon, she planned to put out an all-points bulletin. Or at least she’d get Wyatt to do it. Or maybe even the chief. He’d seen the whole thing go down. He knew how freaked out Colin had been.

Now that Harlee had had time to think about it, she’d come to the conclusion that a combination of his demophobia—the crowd had been elbow to elbow—and seeing Hunter Boy maul her had strained him to the limits. It was the only way to explain his feral behavior. Especially taking off like that at the end.

In the meantime, she kept herself occupied by running a background check for DataDate. Even on holidays, the Internet remained open. And so far, everything about Paula Duggan’s boyfriend had checked out. Except one crucial problem.

According to his social security number, Eric Wong was dead.

She’d already had Paula double- and triple-check the number. Finally, out of frustration, she picked up the phone, called Brad, and explained the situation.

“Either it’s a mistake,” Brad said, “or the guy got himself a fake green card. It happens all the time. Let me guess: He works in Silicon Valley.”

“Yep,” Harlee said. “How much trouble can he get into if he’s caught?”

“Look, I’m not ICE, but it’s a pretty good guess that he’d be deported.”

Eric might not be a bad person, but if he got deported, he’d be geographically undesirable. And that would seriously suck for Paula. “Thanks, Brad. And happy New Year.”

“You too, Harveyleigh.” He always called her that. It used to bug the bejesus out of her; now it just made her laugh.

She heard someone knocking on the door, quickly got off the phone, and ran down the stairs.
Colin!

“I was getting ready to call search and rescue,” she said, pulling him across the threshold and shutting the door. “Where’s Max?”

“Home,” he said.

“I’m so glad you’re okay. Where’ve you been?”

“After I left the Ponderosa I went for a drive. Tried to cool off.” He ran his thumb along her cheek. “Did he hurt you, Harlee?”

“Hardly. He was a drunken troll. Nothing I couldn’t handle.” Not exactly true. Until Colin had come along, she’d been in a bit of a fix.

He examined her from head to toe and she was glad that she’d actually dressed this morning, instead of lounging around in her pink flamingo pajamas. Ever so slightly he turned her face up so that she was looking directly into caramel brown eyes.

“Did I scare you?” he asked, and his voice held a barely traceable tremor.

“No.”
Yes.
“You were just very intense. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like that.”

He let out a breath and scrubbed his hand over his face. “When I saw you struggling against him, I lost it.”

She pulled him into the living room and patted the couch for him to sit. “How did you find me?”

“I saw Darla at the bar. She said you were in the bathroom. I went to wait for you, heard noise coming out of that little closet area and. . . Ah, Jesus, Harlee.”

“Why did you change your mind . . . about coming?”

His shoulders hitched and he suddenly became very distracted by something outside the window. “I wanted to be with you at midnight.”

She couldn’t tell if that meant
I didn’t want to be alone
or
I changed my mind about us
. The man was all kinds of mixed signals. “Did the crowd bother you?”

“It took me about an hour to work up the nerve to go inside,” he said. “Then I saw that man touching you and nothing else mattered. I know I overreacted, but . . .”

She brushed a stray strand of hair away from his eye. He looked tired and something else that Harlee couldn’t quite read. Ashamed, maybe?

“Colin, I appreciate what you did more than you know. When you’re a reporter, you have to stand up for yourself, or no one will respect you. Even when I was in sticky situations, going door to door in a bad neighborhood to get quotes or getting creepy email threats from someone who didn’t like what I had written, I never asked for backup.”

“I don’t want to hear that,” Colin said, closing his large warm hands around her smaller ones. “Ask for backup. Always ask for backup.”

The concern she heard there made her breath stall. She felt it deep in her midsection and for a second she considered crawling into his lap and burying her face in his chest, absorbing all the goodness that was Colin. But he’d made it clear: They were strictly platonic. “Where did you go this morning? I knocked on your door until my knuckles turned red.”

“To the police station. I wanted to make sure I hadn’t killed the idiot. Chief Shepard says he’ll live, although, according to Rhys, you may have turned him into a eunuch.”

“Yeah, that,” she said, mildly embarrassed. “I was so angry that he ruined your big night. Colin, I think the acupuncture might be working.”

“Maybe,” he said, but she sensed that he was just trying to placate her. “I should go.” He started to edge up from the couch.

“My mom sold more of your stuff,” she said, following him to the door. “She wants more.”

“Then I better get to work.” He stopped for a moment to look at her, his eyes wanting and mournful, like a boy with his face pressed against a shop window, surveying all that he couldn’t have. Well, he’d been the one to put up barriers, not her.

“Don’t go,” she pleaded, then silently cursed herself for sounding pathetic, like a bottomless pit of need. Men did not find begging particularly sexy.

He closed his eyes and stepped into her. “Ah, Harlee. This isn’t going to turn out well. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He should have told her right then and there. About everything—the conviction, prison, how he was on parole. But he wanted her so badly, more than anything he’d ever wanted in his life, that the words stayed choked up inside of him. When things went bad, because they would, they always did, he’d have Harlee. Or at least the memory of Harlee. Even though he knew she was only temporary, a fleeting instant of true happiness, Colin would feed off this moment forever. So he took what she offered and hoped that he would last long enough to savor it.

He kissed her against the hallway wall, rocking up against her until the hard ridge in his pants pressed against her belly. Harlee threaded her fingers around his neck and pulled his head down lower so she wouldn’t have to go up on her tiptoes. They stayed like that for a while, just kissing. Her mouth was warm and sweet and he’d never known a woman to smell so good, like soap and baby powder. His hands inched up her sweater, where he felt the smooth, warm skin of her stomach. So soft and supple that he just rested his hands there, feeling her breathe in and out. She pressed her full breasts against his chest and his blood pounded.

“Harlee, baby, let’s take this into the bedroom.”

“Okay,” she whispered, but didn’t move.

“Change of heart?” he asked, afraid to hear the answer because he was burning for her.

“Are you sure you’re into this? I just feel like I might’ve . . . you know . . . thrown myself at you. I don’t want you to feel like you’ll hurt my—”

He covered her mouth. “I’ve never been into anything more in my life. So if you don’t get moving into the bedroom, I’m gonna take you right here, against the wall.”

“You sure?”

“That I’ll take you against the wall? Yeah, I’m sure.” He covered her mouth again and murmured into her lips, “You talk too much. The only words I want to hear are ‘Oh, Colin, don’t stop.’ ”

She giggled. “Oh, Colin, don’t stop.”

“You think that’s funny? Just wait and see.” He tossed her over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold, carried her into the bedroom, and tossed her onto the middle of the bed, falling down on top of her. Pushing up on his elbows so he wouldn’t crush her with his weight, he stared down into her deep blue eyes. With the light seeping through the shades, hitting the red plaid bedspread, they looked almost violet.

“God, you’re beautiful.”

She reached up and drew a line down his face, staring into his eyes, not saying anything. She didn’t have to, because it was as if those small hands, strumming his cheek, had wrapped around his heart. He lifted her sweater with his mouth, exposing an expanse of her tummy and kissed her there, licking into her navel.

“All the way off?” she asked.

He didn’t answer, just peeled it over her head. She had on a black-and-white lacy bra that extended lower than her rib cage and pushed up her breasts. “What is this thing?” He kissed the vee of her cleavage.

“It’s a cami bra. You like it?”

“Are you kidding? I effing love it. What do you have down here?” He dipped his fingers under the waistband of her jeans.

“Hopefully more good stuff.” She pushed her hands up under his henley and he sucked in a breath. “But I can’t remember. I may have opted for the granny panties this morning. You want me to check?”

“No, I don’t want you to check. Whatever you have on I plan on getting off in about twenty seconds flat.”

“Mmm.” She laid her head back as he stroked her breasts, then reached around to unfasten the clasps of her bra, or whatever she’d called it.

“I thought you liked my lingerie.”

“I do,” he said, pulling the straps down, tossing the bra somewhere on the bed and weighing each one of her breasts in his hands, studying their shape and size. “But I like these better.”

He sucked her nipples until they puckered into tight pink beads. “And these,” he hummed.

She played with his chest hair, so he tugged off his shirt to give her better access. He liked her hands on him; it aroused him even more than just looking at her.

“Take these off.” She started undoing his belt. Impatient to get out of his pants, which were growing tighter by the second, he took over.

He got off the bed and slid his Levi’s and boxers down his legs, while she watched with darkened eyes.

“Your turn.” With one flip of a button and the draw of a zipper, he had her pants and underwear pulled down and bunched around her ankles. Standing there, gazing down on her as the light filtered over her pale skin, he wondered how he’d ever gotten so lucky.

“Come back.” Harlee sat halfway up and reached out to him, kicking off the remainder of her clothes.

Colin found his wallet and pulled out a couple of foil packets, checking the expiration date. It had been a while, but apparently not that long, because they were still good. He put them on the nightstand and rolled next to her on the bed. She twined herself around him like a cat and he could feel her purr. God, she drove him crazy.

He nuzzled her neck and went back to work on her breasts, laving them with attention. She moaned and whimpered, assuring him that he was doing everything right. He’d never wanted to please a woman more than he did Harlee. She rolled to her side and wiggled against him as if she couldn’t get close enough. Colin slid his hands down her back and cupped her ass. Then he rolled her onto her back and she let him take the lead, stroking her between her legs. It surprised Colin. Harlee liked to run the show. But he liked being in charge in bed. To be truthful, he liked being in charge of everything, the residual results of a regimented decade behind bars.

Hopefully, later—if there was a later—they’d work that out and divvy up who got to be the boss of what. Anything she wanted. For now, though, he was going to rock her world. Make her see shooting stars and hear trumpets.

“Colin?”

“Hmm?”

“Please.”

“You want me inside of you?” She kissed him hard in answer, making his body tremble. He suited up and slid in, giving her time to adjust to him. “This okay?”

“So good,” she said, impatiently starting to move under him. Yup, that was his girl.

He spread tiny kisses across her forehead, nose and chin, building a rhythm that had her moaning with pleasure and shutting her eyes, heat sizzling between them.

“Open your eyes, honey.” He liked looking into those pools of blue.

She opened them, her lips forming a sensuous O that was nearly Colin’s undoing. He pumped harder and faster, urgently reaching under her bottom to pull her closer. She wrapped her legs around his waist, moved them higher so he could go deeper and deeper, giving her all she wanted. Everything he had, because she felt good. So right. So connected to him that he thought he would lose his mind.

She called his name over and over again, virtually sobbing, as her tempo became frantic. Her legs loosened from around his back and she put her feet flat on the bed. Colin pounded into her, feeling her heart rate quicken. She was almost there. He slid his hand between her damp thighs, worked her with his fingers until she shouted out, convulsing around him, coming again and again.

He thrust one . . . two . . . three times more inside her, threw his head back and let himself go.

They lay there plastered together on the bed, breathing hard and feeling sweaty. Colin got up to go to the bathroom. When he came back, he crawled back into bed with Harlee and ran his hand down her spine. She curled into him and they nodded off like that until they heard barking at the front door.

“Max,” Colin said, wiping sleep from his eyes.

“Let him in and come back to bed.”

“I should go home and feed him,” he said, leaning over the bed, searching for his pants.

Harlee glanced at the clock on the nightstand. “It’s only three. Go feed him. I’ll shower and we’ll have an early dinner. I’m starved.”

He hitched his shorts and pants up and scrounged along the floor for his shirt. It was slung across a chair. Funny, he didn’t remember tossing it there. He pulled it over his head, sat at the edge of the mattress, took Harlee’s face in his hands, and kissed her.

“This was amazing and you’re amazing. Please don’t take this the wrong way, because the last thing I want to do is hurt you. But I need to go home, feed my dog, and think.” Think about whether he should come clean and tell her everything at the risk of ruining whatever little time they had together, before she went off to Metropolis to be Lois Lane.