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He wanted to cling to that, but he didn’t dare.
They’d been combustible back when they’d been a couple of naïve teenagers, fumbling around on the beach in the moments they’d stolen when she’d go out running, the only time her father allowed freedom.
Those runs were how they’d met, how this attraction had started.
All these years later, the passion still burned every bit as hot and bright.
For some reason, Travis wasn’t even that surprised.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a tight voice, struggling to lash his own needs down so he didn’t give in and reach for her again. Even the gut-wrenching pain in his side hadn’t been enough to kill the hard-on that was trying to punch a hole through the faded denim of his jeans.
Sooty black lashes lowered, shielding her eyes for a heartbeat and then she was looking at him with cocked brows and an amused smirk. “I’m pretty sureI’mthe one who kissedyou.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it.
“Nothing to say?”
He kept his trap shut, because what the fuck was theretosay?
She closed the distance he’d put between them and reached up, touching the tip of her finger to his lower lip.
He went rigid, that simple touch jolting through him like lightning. His cock pulsed, all but waving and demanding her attention. Other women could have stroked him off with less reaction—had.
But that wasn’t surprising.
It had only ever been her.
Isabel.
Always Isabel.
“You’re not leaving, Travis,” she said quietly.
He blinked, the words a far cry from what he expected to hear from her.
“I’m not?”
A slow smile curved her lips as she shook her head. “No. You’re not.”
“Why?” He scowled, staring at her even as that smile did things to him—twisting his heart into knots and soothing a thousand myriad wounds.
She laid a hand on his cheek, staring into his eyes as the firelight flickered across her skin. “Because I’m not yet sure what to do about you ... and I’m not going to letyouremove yourself from the equation until I figure it out.”
Then she turned and walked away into the darkness toward her house.
He was still standing there several minutes later trying to think that through when he heard her door close.
The text came at ninethe next morning.
Normally, Travis would have already been out of bed, finished the strenuous exercise regimen his lifestyle required, had breakfast and been on his computer, either researching for his next assignment or looking for one on his own.
Since the injury, his routine had changed more than a little. The workout routine had cut back—in a major way.
What little research he was doing was either abstract or focused on information he could pass on to contacts he’d acquired while working freelance.
But when his phone chirped out its alert, he was just starting to wake up and he lay there, bleary-eyed as he waited a fraction of a second for his brain to snap into focus.
The phone was in his hand in the next moment and he sighed because, in his gut, he already knew who it was.
