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For good or ill, her desperate drive to Alaska had woken her up.
And there was no going back now. She was sleepwalking through a job she’d stopped finding exciting a long time ago, living for the clock to tick over to the precise minute she could escape and race down to the lobby to find Blue again. She was ignoring texts and calls from her friends and older brother, because she had some notion that pretending they didn’t exist would keep them safe. And also because she didn’t want to waste a single second she had left with Blue.
She existed for that walk home in Blue’s company. For the hours they spent training together in her living room. For the dreamy, too-hot showers she took afterward, when she could lose herself in vivid fantasies about his hands all over her, but without the workout clothes this time...
Everly knew what she wanted.
What she’d always wanted, if she were being honest.She’d been fascinated by Blue when she was a little girl, too young for crushes in any meaningful way. She was seven when he graduated from high school, but she’d followed him around for years before that, because she’d thought he waswonderful.
She still thought he was wonderful. But now she knew precisely what she could do with all that wonder.
Everly couldn’t understand why she was wavering. Why her heart was pounding much too fast and she was on the verge of pulling away, then running off to hide. Why was she worried about staying safe now? The past month had taught her that no one was safe, least of all her. Safety could be stolen from anyone in a few seconds.
It could be taken in an instant. In her sleep.
Do or die,she told herself.
And there were only so many nights left before somebody killed her. Or before Blue solved everything, made her life safe again, but then disappeared off into the Alaskan wilderness.
Any way she looked at it, whatever happened, she was running out of time.
Why not spend this one night the way she’d been imagining since that first night in Alaska?
She tilted her head back and smiled at him, reveling in that hard mouth of his. That beautifully stern expression. And that bright, hot gleam in his dark eyes, which she chose to believe was all for her.
Everly stopped dithering. It was like a key had slid into a lock, and everything suddenly made sense. She rose up on her toes, pressing herself against him as if she were stretching like a cat, and looped her arms around his neck.
And it wasawesome.
In this position, she could feel him in a way she never had before, not even when they’d been grappling in some or other lethal hold. She wasn’t wearing a bra beneath the T-shirt she’d been sleeping in, and it only now occurred to her that she wasn’t wearing her pajama pants, either.
Thank God.
Because she could feel him everywhere.Everywhere.Pressed up against her, hard and hot, and entirely Blue.
“You don’t need to do this.” His voice was low. Gravelly.
But what she noticed most was that he didn’t push her away. He didn’t step back. The gleam in his gaze went... molten.
And she did, too.
“But I do,” Everly said quietly. “I really, really do.”
And this time, she was the one who kissed him.
She set her mouth to his and indulged herself at last. She tested the shape of his firm, beautiful lips. Then she teased them apart and slipped inside, and drowned herself in all that sweet, hot fire.
And she felt it everywhere when he growled a bit, as if he liked that as much as she did; angled his head to one side; and took control.
It was a breathless catapult, wild and slick.
He took her head between his hands. He kissed her and he kissed her, and she fought to get closer. To go deeper. To taste every part of him she could.
Blue kissed her as if he had to. As if he couldn’t get enough. As if she’d broken something in both of them, and now they both had to pay the price.
The sweet, hot, glorious price.
Everly had the distant thought that she’d happily bankrupt herself if it meant she could have this.