Page 28 of Delivery After Dark (Gansett Island #28)

After being burned in every previous relationship, a girl would normally be thinking about self-preservation at a moment like this, but oddly, that was the last thing on her mind this morning after.

A slight adjustment in position gave her a view of his handsome face, relaxed in sleep with morning whiskers covering his jaw.

Except for the scruff, he looked almost boyish, as if he had not a problem in the world.

She wished that were true. When she thought about all he’d lost, she ached for him.

She’d never had siblings but had grown up close to her cousins.

Losing any one of them was unthinkable, as was the thought of life without her dad.

They were her essential people since her mom and grandparents had died.

He’d lost all his essential people and was forced to go forward alone.

That idea of him completely alone in the world made her feel fiercely protective of a man she barely knew. Although… after last night, she knew him better than she’d ever known any other guy she’d dated.

This whole thing should’ve been terrifying, but for some reason, it wasn’t, which was unsettling. Her normal MO after a hookup—not that she had a lot of them or anything— would be to get the hell out of there and try not to run into the guy anywhere until he forgot about her.

Sometimes they tried to track her down, but she’d become a master at dodging guys she never wanted to see again, which was most of them.

This one, however…

She wasn’t thinking about how to get away from him. Nope, quite the opposite, in fact.

“What’re you thinking about so hard first thing in the morning?” he asked in a raspy voice that made her tingle with awareness of him.

From his voice, for fuck’s sake.

“Nothing much.”

“You gonna start lying to me right out of the gate? Usually, it takes a while for the lying to start.”

“Has that been your experience?”

“Every time. Easier to stay single than to put up with the drama.”

“God, isn’t that the truth?”

“You’ve had your share of it, too?”

“That’s all it is. Nonstop drama and picking fights for the sake of fighting so we can make up and start the whole stupid cycle over again. It’s exhausting.”

“That sounds very familiar. I dated this woman Cheri a couple of years ago. Things were going really well until she got mad when I couldn’t go to her mother’s birthday party because I had Patriots tickets with some of the guys from work. That’d been planned for months, before I ever met her.”

“What did you do?”

“I went to the game, and I never saw her again. Whatever.”

“Don’t you just want to say please be so for real right now?”

“Yes. A thousand times yes.”

“I dated a local guy, Kyle, for six months a while ago. He works on the ferries and isn’t exactly on fire with ambition, but he’s a nice enough guy.”

“What happened?”

“We ran out of things to talk about in the third week, and after that, it was just… boring. Which made me lonely for something he’d never be able to provide. It just gets so tiresome after a while, to the point that I’d convinced myself I’d be better off alone than playing the game anymore.”

He caressed her arm with a light touch that set off goose bumps. “And now?”

Sierra hesitated, wondering how truthful she should be on the morning after the most momentous night of her life.

“Tell me what you’re thinking. There’s no wrong answer.”

“Well, this feels pretty good.”

“Only pretty good? I need to up my game.”

She choked on a laugh. “If your game was any better, I’d be in the hospital.”

He gave a satisfied smirk. “Is that right?”

“Don’t get cocky.”

“Speaking of cocks…”

“Put it on ice, pal. I’ve got to get to work. First client in an hour.” Thank God for the off-season and a first client at eleven rather than nine, the way it would’ve been in the summer.

“I never put ice on him. He deserves better than that.”

“Can I ask you something I probably have no right to ask this early in our situationship?”

“Is that a word?”

“I believe it is.”

“Ask away.”

“If you’re planning to leave here at some point, will you tell me sooner rather than later? Because…”

“Because what?” he asked, continuing that maddening glide of fingers over skin that had her wishing she had more time.

“I… um, well… After all this… You could probably break my heart pretty easily, and that would totally suck. You know?”

“I do know, and for what it’s worth, that’s the last thing in the world I’d ever want to do.”

“That means a lot, but I think maybe you need to figure out your life before we let this go any further. I don’t want to be another complication you have to deal with at an already complicated time.”

“You’re a ray of light in the darkness, Sierra.”

“Oh, well… Like that doesn’t make everything worse.”

His laughter was the best thing she’d heard in a while, because she knew he hadn’t had much to laugh about. “I mean it. Let’s try to enjoy this for what it is. We’ve both been around long enough to know this sort of thing doesn’t come along every day.”

“No, it doesn’t, and that’s what makes it scary.”

“Don’t be scared. I promise I’ll talk to you about what I’m thinking and any plans I’m making. For right now, today, I’m focused on getting through another day cleaning up after my brother while looking forward to seeing you later. If you’re not busy, that is.”

“I’m not busy.”

“Then this day is already looking up.”