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And he would help her any way she would let him, for as long as it lasted.
When she murmured, ?
??Stay with me,” he couldn’t walk away. If this was all they could be to each other, then he would savor every moment. And bide his time while he figured out a way to help her pull the rabbit out of the hat at her shop.
Maybe then she’d want him to stick around for longer than a night.
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” he said as she came around the table and folded herself into his arms.
Alexa expected sex. More, she expected peel-the-paint-off-the-walls and call-the-cops-from-the-noise lovemaking.
What she got was a black-and-white movie and Dillon’s hard chest serving as her cushion as they tangled together on her sofa. It wasn’t a bad trade-off, all things considered.
He toyed with her hair throughout the movie, and the soothing motions of his hand relaxed her more than she’d been in forever. Even his muscled body cradling hers wasn’t enough stimulation to keep her eyes open. Twice she jerked awake, and each time he nudged her back down with a soft “Sleep” that acted as an instant sedative.
The third time she woke, he didn’t nudge her back down, just smiled at her in the glow from the TV and finger-combed her snarled curls away from her face. “Hey, sleepyhead. Feel better?”
“Much.” She gave in to the urge to wrap her arms around his torso and snuggled in. He smelled so good, like minty soap and sawdust, and the combination had her softening against him. She’d never been a cuddler, but right then she couldn’t resist. “Thank you for staying.”
“It was a good movie. Two good movies,” he amended with a laugh as she poked him in the ribs.
“Who says chivalry’s dead?” She shifted and barely repressed a smile at the definite hardness between his legs. She moved again and he let out a soft protest, not even hiding his interest. “Feels like some parts of you didn’t get much rest,” she teased.
“With you on top of me? That would be a no.”
His almost resigned tone made her laugh. She leaned up to press a kiss to the underside of his chin, delighting in the prickle from his growth of beard. “I want to see your tattoos. If you’re good, maybe I’ll show you mine.”
He drew back to regard her with curiosity. “You have one?”
“Mm-hmm.” Playing coy, she lowered her lashes. “I do.”
“Hmm.” He slipped his hand under her cotton top, his palm resting lightly on the small of her back. “I bet it’s right here,” he added, tracing the line of her spine.
She shivered from his feather-light touch. “Nope.”
“No?” He toyed with the shoulder strap of her cami, his eyes dark in the light from the TV. Utterly focused on her. “Let me see.”
“If you insist.” She fumbled for the remote and turned off the TV before straddling his waist. On the verge of pulling her top over her head, she startled when he laid his hand on her belly.
“Hang on. Let me up.”
She sat back on her haunches and watched him unfold that long, sexy frame in one slow motion. He flicked on her newly purchased box fan—though the AC seemed to be working better now, she still got hot at night—then yanked on the sill of one of the windows. “It’s fucking hot in here,” he muttered, grunting as he lifted it.
A draft of humid, rain-laden air wafted over her and she shivered again at the tightening in her nipples. Though it wasn’t just the breeze that made them wake right up. Those broad shoulders, silhouetted in moonlight, had a lot to do with it too.
He moved to the other window and shouldered that one open as well, finally returning to her while the faint bluesy notes of a saxophone bled into the room.
“Jazz club on the corner,” he said, correctly reading her questioning expression. “Well, it’s just a bar normally, but they have weekly jazz nights.”
“Oh. I like it.” She cocked her head as he stopped beside the couch and flicked on the small Tiffany lamp. “The sax is sexy.”
“So’s light, and seeing all of you.”
She didn’t respond, since he’d reached back to tug his T-shirt over his head. Hot damn, he had the kind of abdomen a sculptor could spend a lifetime trying to get just right. The contours of muscle and bone, the dusting of hair that arrowed into a happy trail down his stomach, the small black outline of a skull-and-crossbones just above his left hip.
“Nice tat,” she said, with an incline of her chin. “For a pirate.”
A smile lurked around his lips. Combined with that faint cleft in his chin, she was in big trouble. “Hey, at sixteen, I thought it was badass.” He flicked the button on his jeans and her amusement fled.
