Page 21

21

J uliana woke as she often did, with nary a heartbeat between sleep and full awareness. It served her well on the mornings she slept late, but usually, she wished she could linger in that place between a little longer than a nanosecond.

Not this time, though. Despite being fully awake, she didn’t move. Something was off.

Opening her eyes, the room looked exactly as it had when she’d fallen asleep with Simon’s arm wrapped around her from behind. The pale gray of the area rug covered the dark wood floor. Her jeans and bra—because no way in hell was she sleeping in that—sat folded on the mid-century chair tucked into the corner. The sliding door to the closet, closed.

Only Simon’s arm no longer rested in the dip of her waist and their hands were no longer tucked against her chest.

And an odd—though soft and familiar—glow filled the room.

Rolling onto her back, her gaze fell on Simon. Sitting up in bed with the sheets pooled at his waist, the dim light of his phone illuminated his impressive—and delicious—chest. She took a moment to admire the muscles—the defined planes and lines—as she remembered the heat of his body enveloping her when he’d pulled her toward him. The man was a blast furnace. Which would come in handy in a few months when the snow arrived.

That thought hovered in her mind. Not so much the thought itself, but the image it conjured. And the ease with which she conjured it. She’d never let her mind wander to the future with other men—not since she’d been eighteen and discovered that Randall Covington had “scraped the barrel”—his exact words—in dating her just to get close to her uncle. It hadn’t helped that two years later, Kalen Jacobs had walked away from her for the exact opposite reason—his parting words spat out in disgust, asking how she expected him to stay involved with someone related to Wesley Morgan. His departure had stung, but in her heart of hearts, she couldn’t argue his point. The policies her uncle supported were abhorrent, resulting in families being torn apart, disproportionate incarcerations, bankruptcies, and even deaths. She couldn’t fathom why the people of North Carolina continued to elect him. Then again, she had her suspicions that not everything was aboveboard when it came to his campaigns.

Simon shifted, then frowned, pulling her mind away from thoughts of her family.

“Can’t sleep?” she asked.

His frown deepened. “Someone is breaking in.”

She shot up and crowded into his side to see better. Sure enough, his phone displayed two images, one of the empty back patio and the other of a man dressed in black testing the window into the garage.

“What should we do? Will the alarm go off?” she asked, calculating how long it would take her to get her jeans, bra, and shoes on.

“I turned the alarm in the garage off,” he said.

That gave her pause. “Why?”

“I want to see what he’s going to do.”

She didn’t mean to doubt him, but… “Are you sure that’s wise?”

Simon glanced over and smiled at her before dropping a kiss on her temple. “It’s good. I’m armed, and I won’t let him enter the house, just the garage.”

“What happens if he tries?” Her gaze slid back to the phone. The man in black had managed to pry the window open two inches.

“The alarm will go off,” he replied. “I’m almost certain I know what he’s going to do, and I want to let him do it.”

“Can I ask you more questions or are you concentrating?”

He flashed her another smile. “You can ask me anything, any time.”

She arched a brow at his insinuation but leaned up and kissed his cheek. “What do you think he’s going to do?”

“Put a tracker on my truck,” he said. “They obviously found the connection to this house through the club, which means they know about the Falcons, but they may not know who I am or where I live. They’ll back off for a bit now, though, because they’ll know that after this evening, we’re on alert.”

“So they’ll let the tracker show them where we go, even where you live, and then come after you—us—again when we might not be so on guard,” she finished as the man slid through the window and into the garage.

“Exactly,” Simon said. They both fell silent as a skinny man of average height assessed the truck. Two seconds later, he pulled something from his pocket, took three strides to the fender, then knelt and slipped his hand underneath it.

“Predictable little fuck, isn’t he?” Simon muttered.

Less than a minute later, the man was back out the window, closing it behind him. A minute after that, he vaulted over the eight-foot fence into the alley behind the house.

“You have to admit, he might be predictable to someone like you, but those acrobatics were impressive,” she said, certain that if she tried, she’d end up straining a hamstring and breaking her nose.

“It’s all about leverage and timing,” he said, closing the camera views and typing in a code that she assumed would reset the alarm.

“Says the former Delta Force dude,” she mumbled. He chuckled, then set his phone on the bedside table.

“I could teach you,” he said, wrapping an arm around her and pulling them both down on the bed. They lay face-to-face, his arm draped over her hip, his fingers brushing her lower back.

“I’ll pass, thanks. I have no desire to humiliate either you or me.” She paused, tracing the lines of the tattoo on his right biceps. “You are so calm about someone breaking into your house. You have a plan.” It wasn’t a question.

“I do,” he replied. “A simple one. But it will distract them long enough for us to get back to Mystery Lake.”

“Are you going to tell me?” she asked as his fingers dipped under her shirt and grazed her skin. A heated chill raced through her body.

“It’s not a secret, but I’d rather do other things with my mouth right now,” he said, tipping his lips to touch hers.

She leaned into the kiss as much as their positions allowed. His hand flattened on her back, the searing heat a stark contrast to the shiver that rippled across her skin, raising goose bumps along her arms and waking her nipples.

“I can wait,” she said, pressing into her pillow to better angle her head.

Simon smiled, his lips against hers, then rolled her onto her back and covered her body with his, wedging a leg between her thighs. His hand slid to her rib cage, resting under her breast.

She pushed herself into his hand, desperate to feel him cup her, to feel his rough palm against her sensitive skin. But rather than comply with her not-so-subtle demand, he left his hand cradling her ribs and deepened their kiss. She started to protest, but as their tongues tangled and he parried and thrust, then retreated and teased, she realized that while she wanted more, in this moment, this was what she wanted—what she needed.

She’d never had a kiss quite like this—one so heated that her body felt as if it might explode. One that held so much promise, but no expectation. As if Simon would be happy to keep kissing her all night long. Not that she’d complain.

His hand shifted, and his thumb caressed the underside of her breast as his fingers closed around her ribs. His thigh rocked between hers, flexing against her.

Okay, she’d complain a little.

“More, Simon,” she said, pulling away only far enough to speak.

Neither the intensity of the kiss nor the tempo changed, and for a beat, she wondered if he’d heard her. Then his hand, his blessedly talented hand, curled around her breast and his forefinger and thumb captured her nipple. She arched into him as a sharp stab of desire shot down her abdomen and heat pooled low in her belly.

Lifting her leg, she wrapped it around his thigh, pulling him tighter against her core. At the same time, she curled her hip, pressing her body into his impressive erection. Beneath his boxers, he swelled against her as he clamped and rolled her nipple between his fingers.

“So fucking gorgeous,” he muttered, trailing kisses across her jaw and down her neck as she rode his thigh.

“More,” she said, knowing he’d understand. Understand that she wanted them both to find release, even if she wasn’t quite ready to take him fully into her body.

“Anything, any time,” he said, shifting his hand from her breast and sliding it toward the waistband of her boyshorts.

She grabbed his wrist before it disappeared under the fabric. “I don’t want this to be only about me.”

His dark eyes studied her, then in a flash, he withdrew his hand, grabbed hers, and pulled it under the waistband of his boxers. Curling her fingers around his length, he closed his eyes as he stroked himself, her hand under his, three times.

Heat poured off his body, and his unsteady breathing had her taking control, had her untangling her fingers from his to hold him on her own. She needed to feel his soft skin in her palm and to explore his arousal.

Without missing a beat, he released her hand, then slid his own down her belly and into her curls. When his fingers dipped inside her, his lips crashed against hers in a demanding kiss. She’d already been teetering on the edge, but the desire and need she felt in every one of Simon’s touches, in every one of the small sounds that escaped his throat, had her spiraling higher.

“Fuck, you feel so good,” he said, spearing two fingers inside her. She gasped, then moaned as he pressed his thigh up, tightening the space and increasing the friction.

His cock jumped, and he pulled back from where his lips had been pressed against her neck. His eyes fluttered closed, as if focusing on the feel of her, of her hands on him, of his in her. The taut pleasure she saw there had her closing her own eyes and thinking only of him. Of his fingers exploring her, bringing her pleasure. Of his rigid length in her palm. Of the sounds of their heavy, uneven breaths, and the scents of sex and need.

The smell of Simon’s—their—arousal flooded her body as his need pulsed against her palm. She opened her mouth to say something, to tell him how good he felt, but no sound came out. Her head lolled back, and she bit her lip to keep from crying out. Of its own volition, her grip tightened around him. In response, he snapped his hips against her, moving within her hand, as his own fingers worked their magic on her. But it was his groan—thick and heavy with need—that sent her over the edge. Her orgasm crashed over her. Not a subtle flutter that grew and spread from her core to her toes, but a tsunami of pleasure that took her breath with it and tossed her body into an abyss.

She might have yelled, she might have moaned, she might have silently screamed. So focused on her body—on it clenching and clamping down on Simon, on the dampness that poured from her coating his palm—that the world could have ended around her and she wouldn’t have noticed.

Except she noticed Simon. Everything centered on the two of them. His hips pumping into her palm in the same rhythm as hers rode his hand. The pulse of his release in time with hers. The mingling of their breaths as pleasure stole them away. Then the steady silence that followed as their breathing slowed and what they’d shared sank in, the residual feelings of desire and need and satisfaction ebbing and flowing through their bodies.

She still held him, though gently, and his fingers were still buried inside her, though lax, as if neither wanted the moment to end. Eventually, Simon lowered his head until his forehead rested on her shoulder. Slowly, he withdrew his hand and splayed it across her belly. She considered being embarrassed by the wetness but couldn’t bring herself to care that much.

“You good?” he asked, raising his head. His dark eyes held a mixture of concern, lingering desire, and sleepy satiation.

“So good,” she said, raising the hand that wasn’t still tucked in his boxers and tracing the line of his hair across his forehead. She shifted to her side, and the move made her acutely aware of the wet spots they’d both created. She couldn’t help the sheepish smile when she added, “Although, we may need to do a load of laundry before we leave in the morning.”