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He shook his head, smiling at the concern in her voice. “Not serious. Just happy.”
This so wasn’t just a weekend booty call, for either one of them.
“Happy I can handle,” she said, smiling as she relaxed.
If she knew what he was thinking, she’d probably freak-out again, the way she had on Saturday when he’d given her a simple compliment. So he decided not to tell her. Not yet anyway. But even if he couldn’t tell her how he felt, surely there was no harm in showing her.
So he sunk his fingers into the short curls of hair, angling her head and placed his lips over hers.
She tensed for a moment, her hands covering his, but as he traced the seam of her lips, coaxing her mouth open with his tongue, she softened up again.
The tempting tug of hunger weighed down the pit of his stomach like a hot brick, as he poured everything he felt into the kiss—the ardent strokes of his tongue firm and seeking. At last her tongue danced with his and he wondered if she could feel the solid thumps of his heart beating against her ribs.
She dragged his hands down from her face, and drew back first, her eyes shadowed, her fingers trembling.
“Let’s go home and fuck,” she said, sending him that confident come-on smile which was supposed to make him think sex was all she wanted. All she needed. But her bottom lip quivered a tiny bit and he could see the flicker of need in her eyes.
She’d used the word fuck to shock him, to bring their relationship back to the level she was comfortable with. But Ty Sullivan had never shocked easy. And all he’d really heard anyway was the word home.
“Your carriage awaits, princess.” He dipped into an exaggerated bow, opening the passenger door for her.
She hopped into the car and he slammed the door. He said nothing as they raced home through the night. Or as he fucked her hard and fast, then slow and easy in the moonlit bedroom, bringing her ruthlessly to climax before he found his own release.
He held her close afterwards, satisfied when she lay in his arms as docile and trusting as a child. Did she know she was breaking her own rules?
“It wasn’t you, was it?” he murmured in the darkness, stroking her cheek with his thumb.
“Hmmm?” she said, her voice heavy with sleep, as she snuggled against him.
“Who stole the wine at that fancy boarding school.”
It wasn’t a question, because he already knew the truth. Zelda would never have stayed silent, if she had been the guilty party. No way would she have let Faith get suspended over a crime she had committed. Or Dawn or… That other girl whose name he still couldn’t remember. Because under her bad girl exterior he’d discovered a woman who was smart-mouthed and strong enough to always own up to her mistakes, and far too aware of her own faults to ever judge others.
She stilled beside him. “Why does it matter no
w?” she said, not contradicting him.
He dropped his hand to her shoulder. Resisting the urge to hug her too tightly, he let his thumb drift backwards and forwards over her collarbone.
He didn’t want to scare her. But he needed her to know this much at least. “It doesn’t, I guess, except…”
She tilted her face up, those dark blue eyes wide with astonishment. And it crucified him. How could she not know how smart and strong and brave she was?
He pressed a kiss to her forehead, inhaled the pine-forest scent of his own shampoo on the blond curls.
“I just wanted to say how sorry I am,” he continued. “For convicting you that day without a shred of evidence. For assuming you were the guilty one, because you were rich and privileged and I’d gotten it into my head that you were corrupting my kid sister, when you were just a kid yourself.” A kid who had lost so much and had no one to stand for her, or support her, except his sister and her friends. “You didn’t deserve that. I was being an asshole and I wanted to apologize.” He smiled, his Adam’s apple swelling to the size of a boulder in his throat. “Even if it is ten years too late.”
She gave a half laugh and tucked her head back under his chin, her cheek resting against his chest. “That’s sweet, Ty, but entirely unnecessary.” She yawned, her cheek rubbing his sternum and making the hairs stand to attention. “Even if I didn’t do that, I was guilty of pretty much everything else. And it gave me a massive thrill when you noticed me, so we’re all square.”
He chuckled but her confession only made him feel sadder. For that rebellious girl who had used her defiance to protect herself from being hurt. He held her, listening to the solid thunks of his heartbeat in his ears, the creaking of the boat as it settled into the tide, and the murmur of her breathing, as her body softened into sleep. He wanted to say so much more. But he forced himself to hold back.
They’d moved on from a weekend booty call, surely she could see that? So what if their lives were worlds apart? They could make this work, if they were both willing to try. But he needed to put the case to her properly. And he would have more than enough time to do that before she left in the morning.
*
He woke up to the beep of his iPhone alarm refreshed and alert the next day, the case he’d planned out in his head still clear in his mind, to find the bed beside him empty and Zelda gone. The only trace she had ever even been there were the two T-shirts she’d borrowed, that still carried her scent, neatly folded on the couch, and the note stuck to his coffee pot written in a looping blue scrawl which read:
Thanks for everything, counselor. You’re a prince.
