Page 12

He looked at me and frowned. “Yeah. Why?”

I got up, putting our plates and empty cups in the sink. Seeing no other dirty dishes in the sink, I figured he was the kind of man who would appreciate it. “Blankets?”

I walked into the living room toward the front door. Grimm raised his head as if to ask what the crazy lady was doing but didn’t move.

Wilder didn’t say anything, just grabbed a blanket from the back of the couch and followed me outside. I sighed in appreciation. He did have a porch. A big wraparound porch with a set of rocking chairs and an old-fashioned swing. Granted, there were no flowers or other frills, but it was exactly right. I sat down on the swing and patted the seat beside me. “Come here.”

He did, sitting down and placing the blanket over our laps. His large legs set the swing in motion. I moved closer, until I was up against his side. I smiled up at him. “For warmth.”

“Of course,” he replied. I smiled wider when he put his arm around me and pulled me closer.

Sighing, I snuggled as close as I could and watched it rain. The blanket kept the rain and wind off of us, and his big body kept me warm.

Cuddling in the rain. There was nothing like it.

Of course, my mind went to last night and other nice things I could be doing with this giant of a man. I wanted his hand back where it had been last night. I had gone to bed aching and wanting. I kept seeing his fingers sliding into his mouth. I kept feeling empty.

“I understand if you don’t want to talk about it, but I’d very much like to know how you got your scar.”

He was quiet long enough that I thought he might not answer. I let the silence sit. I had learned that much. He needed room to decide, not to be pushed.

“IED,” he said finally. “The vehicle I was in hit one. I got the scar and some hearing loss on this side.” He touched his right ear, briefly, his tone flat. “And I got to come home, which is more than some of the men I served with.”

He kept the swing in motion, and I stayed where I was. By his side.

“The hard part wasn’t the blast. The hard part was coming back to a town that decided I was either a hero or a horror movie, and either way, somebody they needed to stare at.”

“That’s why you keep the hood up and your head turned away.”

“That’s why I avoid a lot of things.”

He was quiet. Then his hand found mine under the blanket — warm, rough. I didn’t know who moved first.

His mouth found mine and he kissed me slowly this time. No first-time, fumbling urgency. This was deliberate heat being built. I turned into him and the blanket fell away. His hand cradled the back of my head and his other arm banded around my waist and pulled me half into his lap. Those things didn’t happen to me. Men didn’t move me at will.

I felt him under me. Hard and thick already, and I made an appreciative sound into his mouth. I shifted and felt that ridge settle against me. That made his breath go ragged and me smile. To have the physical confirmation that a man wanted you…

“Inside,” he said against my mouth. “It’s too cold out here for what I want to do to you.”

He stood and picked me up, throwing the blanket aside. “Wilder, what are you doing?”

I laughed at his actions but wrapped my arms around his neck. He didn’t stop when he entered the house, carrying me down the hallway. Straight into his bedroom.

He laid me on the bed and pulled off my shoes before toeing off his boots. I licked my lips as he climbed over me, slowly, like a big cat. Bracing his weight on one forearm, he held my gaze as he worked the buttons of my shirt. It seemed like forever until the last one gave way.

I wasn’t quite prepared for how he looked at me, because he actually looked at me. Taking in the plain cotton bra and the curve of my stomach and the stretch marks I had stopped apologizing for years ago — with an expression that had nothing polite in it.

“God, Autumn.”

He dipped his head and put his mouth on my nipple through the cotton. Hot. Wet. A broad stroke of tongue, then a hard suck that arched me off the bed with a broken cry. My fingers dug into the corded muscle of his shoulders. Each tug sent a pulse straight between my legs until I was throbbing, soaked, moving my hips for anything he’d give me. He used his teeth, slightly rough and perfect, and I made a sound in the back of my throat that had him biting down harder.

He got a hand under the cup of my bra and closed his big fingers around my breast. Then he put his mouth on my bare skin, and I almost lost my mind. I got my hands under his shirt, sliding along the hard planes of his back and around to the front—

And stopped.

The skin beneath my fingers was not smooth. It was a ridge of bumps and valleys, much wider than what I’d seen on his face and neck. He went still over me. Not the good kind. The kind that was waiting. Waiting to see if I would pull away.

I didn’t take my hand away. I followed the scar with my fingertips as slowly as he’d been touching me. The raised edge. The places it thinned and the places it didn’t.