“Summer’s coming home today and I need to get a few things ready for her.”
Gabe wanted to pull her back down onto the bed with him, but he knew he should take this as a step forward from what had happened in the hotel room. She wasn’t running to the farthest corner. Wasn’t throwing around the word never.
As it was, it had been a stroke of sheer luck that he hadn’t been called into the station overnight. His official shift started in a few hours, enough time to make love to her again, to run his tongue over every sweet inch of her skin—
Stick to the plan, hotshot.
Deciding to heed that voice in his head that had been right so far, he said, “Why don’t you take a shower and I’ll go upstairs and get your clothes.”
She looked more than a little surprised by how quickly he agreed to her plan to get on with the day. Away from each other.
“Okay.” She paused, smiled a slightly wobbly smile. “Thanks.”
He grinned at her back as she walked, gorgeously naked, into the bathroom and closed the door behind her with a soft click. Hopefully, she’d have a hell of a time taking a shower without remembering every little thing that had happened in the nearby bathtub just hours before.
He pulled on a pair of faded jeans, went upstairs to get her clothes, and left them for her on his bed before going out to the kitchen to make breakfast.
A few minutes later, she walked toward him, her hair wet around her shoulders, her expression slightly shy. “I could smell the bacon from the bathroom.”
Gabe didn’t want to push his luck, but some things were unstoppable, like pulling her into his arms and kissing her. When they were both breathing hard, he pulled back an inch.
“I like waking up with you in my bed.” He took her hand and pulled her over to her seat at his dining table. “I like watching you eat, too.”
But before either of them could take a bite, his cell buzzed. He quickly looked at the code on it.
Megan was frowning at him when he looked back at her. “Do you need to go?”
“No, not yet. In a couple of hours I’ll start my shift. It was just a reminder from one of the guys about taking over his shift, too.”
“How long is your shift?”
“I’m usually on for forty-eight hours. But this one is seventy-two.”
She looked shocked by the hours. “Do you sleep at the station?”
“When I can.”
She looked as serious as he’d ever seen her. “I wish things were different, Gabe, but they aren’t. Last night was great, but...” She took a deep breath, looked him straight in the eye. “Nothing has changed.”
Her words settled like cement in the bottom of his gut and it wasn’t easy to keep his voice relaxed. “You’re having breakfast with me. That’s change.” A huge one, for the better.
She pushed away from the table, shoving her phone into her pocket and grabbing her bag from his couch as she headed for the door. “I need to go.”
Gabe wanted to beg her to stay, wanted to force her to confront their feelings for each other, wanted to make her admit those feelings weren’t going to go away just because she was scared about her past repeating itself with him.
Instead, he took her plate into the kitchen, pulled off a sheet of tin foil, and moved her food into the foil. He grabbed the keys to his truck. “I’ll take you home.”
“I’d like to walk.”
He could tell from the stubborn tilt of her chin that she was set on getting out of there—and away from him—ASAP. And, for all his male cluelessness, he knew better than to do anything that would push that stubbornness up a notch.
“Thank you for sharing New Year’s with me, Megan.”
She blinked up at him, looking almost surprised that he hadn’t insisted on taking her anyway. Or, he thought as her expression shifted again, had she been expecting him to kiss her again to try to get her to stay for breakfast? Was she disappointed that he hadn’t? And didn’t she realize he couldn’t force her to do anything? That he didn’t want her to resent him for pushing her too hard, too fast?
Finally, she said, so quietly he would have missed it if he hadn’t been so attuned to her every breath, “I had fun.”
She turned to go, but then, at the last second, she moved back toward him. This time, he was the one who was surprised as she took the warm foil packet from him, said, “Thanks for breakfast,” and went up on her tippy toes to press a quick kiss to his cheek.
* * *
Nothing made sense anymore. Megan was old enough to know right from wrong, to know when she was setting herself up for a huge fall. So then what was she doing, falling back into bed with Gabe whenever there was one nearby?
She could accept that there wasn’t a woman alive strong enough to resist his charm. She couldn’t imagine someone not liking him. Only, liking someone, appreciating someone for his good qualities, laughing with him, enjoying a meal together—all of that was very different from begging him for a kiss.
Worse, she’d taken it further than begging. Much further. She’d actually ripped her clothes off and then shredded his, too. And, okay, maybe making love on his rooftop had been unavoidable given a long week of wanting him, of thinking of him whenever her brain wasn’t otherwise occupied with work or Summer.
But what had happened in the bath...she lost her breath just thinking about it, remembering how boldly she’d asked to live out a secret fantasy with him.