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Shit. Shit shit shit.
Abigail’s smoke alarm screeched and she stepped first one way, then back the opposite direction. Wave her dish towel by the alarm and open her windows, or turn the stove off and chuck the burnt remnants into the sink?
“Not again,” she wailed to no one. This marked the fifth time her increasingly pathetic attempt at cooking set off the cottage’s fire alarms. Had those alarms been nothing more than noise makers, this would be an annoyance. But no, oh no, her mother insisted on equipping her with a full service security system.
The fire brigade would be here in minutes and, very likely, the most beautiful man she’d ever seen would be along for the ride with his trademark scowl. She looked down at herself and grimaced. Her oversized sleep shirt had holes in it and a healthy splatter of olive oil, and her sweatpants were threadbare, and—dear God, not the fuzzy slippers…
Her hair was piled atop her head in an arrangement far from what Instagram would call a cute messy bun and she suspected she had some manner of food detritus on her face. She scrambled for her stairs, made it up three steps, then hurtled back down to shut off her stove and fling the scorched mess into the sink, just in time to hear the truck pulling up outside.
“Oh, bloody-”
A hard fist rapped on her door.
“Miss Ashe?” a painfully familiar, deep voice called loudly enough to be heard over her damned alarm.
She closed her eyes and cursed the cruel gods who gave her no cooking skills, the world’s most sensitive fire alarm, and placed her dream man in the fire brigade that covered the neighborhood she’d oh-so-carefully chosen.
“I’m fine.” She had to shout over the alarm. With a deep breath, she opened her door and braced herself for another series of rote questions, each punctuated by that look, the one that said, “Seriously? Are you wasting our time again all because you don’t know how to work a stove?”
Lieutenant Manderly’s lips were pressed into a hard line. He wasn’t even wearing his yellow fire fighting outfit, whatever that was called, which had the unfortunate side effect of revealing all the muscle underneath in uniform trousers and a brigade t-shirt. It was one thing to face a scolding fireman—though he never once said a word that might be construed as scolding—quite another to be scolded by a fireman she wanted to climb like a tree, who had apparently given up on wearing the whole kit for calls to her house.
“Miss Ashe…” He looked over her head and managed to frown even deeper. “Do you mind if I shut that off?”
Spared the humiliation of speaking, dumped into the humiliation of letting this man into her house and the high probability he was about to see her cooking failure, she had no choice but to step aside and let him in.
He instantly filled her entire home. She imagined even her bedroom down the hall shrank a little.
To get the smoke alarm off her ceiling, she required a small ladder. He simply reached a long arm up, twisted, and popped it off its backing to remove the batteries. Like it was nothing. The screeching died and a thick silence followed.
“I’m very, very sorry,” Abigail said. “I don’t know why this keeps happening-”
“First,” he said, “we’re going to relocate this.”
In two quick strides, he reopened her front door and waved the big red truck away. It was then she noticed the Mini Cooper painted like a mini-fire truck. The mental image of this big man folding himself into and out of a Mini Cooper was almost too much to stand. No, now was not the time to laugh.
With that mission complete, he placed his hands on his trim hips and exhaled slowly. He scrubbed a hand over his chin and said, “Alright, in my entire career I’ve never suggested this before, but you need a less sensitive alarm somewhere a healthy distance from your kitchen.”
“That’s an excellent idea.”
Her cottage was so small the distance from the hallway to her kitchen, particularly with his sweeping gaze, was miniscule. He used that gaze to zero in on her sink and counter.
“Are you using cooking spray on a stainless steel pan?”
“Um,” she shifted from foot to foot, “isn’t a pan just a pan?”
His lips—those damn, full lips—curled inward and released with a smack. “Do you know anyone who can cook?”
That was the question. Mrs. Benanti cooked every meal at her parent’s house. Proper ladies didn’t cook. They certainly didn’t squirrel away their money, move out, and take a sales job at a bookshop on the other side of the country. She liked the women at the shop, she enjoyed listening to the chatter of the monthly book club. The ladies at her yoga studio seemed nice enough, but as the resident single and childless woman, she wasn’t exactly invited to their playdates. Six months in this village and she had yet to make a proper friend. As soon as they connected her last name to her father’s, it was like they pulled the curtains shut between them. Not a door, precisely. They were still friendly, but it seemed no one was keen on socializing with a disgraced earl’s daughter.
“Not really.” She twisted her hands together and took a fresh whiff of extra-extra-extra blackened chicken fettuccine. Really, the frozen package said to grease the pan, dump the entire contents, cover, and stir occasionally until the pasta was tender. Nothing could be simpler. And yet.
He blew out another breath. “Right then. I can give you some basic cooking lessons, here or at the firehouse, wherever you prefer.”
Whatever she thought he’d been about to say, it wasn’t that. All she could do was sputter.
“Sorry,” he said. “That was probably inappropriate.”
“No,” she said quickly. “No, I’d appreciate it. You must think I’m an idiot.”
For the first time, the corner of his mouth quirked up. “Half the men on my crew can’t boil water.”
That was supposed to make her feel better, she supposed, but it had the opposite effect. Being compared to a young man fresh out of his mother’s house (if that) was hardly flattering. At least she already knew how to do her own laundry, a necessary skill at university. A lifetime of watching maids also equipped her to keep her home meticulously tidy.
“Naturally,” she said, wishing the floor would open her up and swallow her.
He ran a hand over the back of his neck. “If you’re not comfortable, um, -”
“I am.”
“-it’s only that I don’t want the lads assuming it’s a false alarm every time and...you are? Comfortable?”
He visibly relaxed at her nod.
“Yes, though, please, not at the station. I don’t think I could bear the added humiliation of all those witnesses.”
At this, he actually chuckled. “Sweetheart, I think they already know.”
Three days later, he knocked on her door again, in well worn jeans and, God help her, a fitted black Henley, with a sack of groceries in his arm. This time she was prepared with a nice sundress and wedge heels that weren’t at all appropriate for cooking, but were a marked improvement from her house slippers. If she absolutely must suffer the embarrassment of this man discovering exactly how inept she was at cooking—as though five previous fire visits weren’t enough—she could at least look nice. These shoes did wonders for her calves.
“Thought we’d try something simple.” He held up the bag. “Chicken fettuccine.”
She almost, almost replied with an explanation about his last visit when she realized that’s precisely why he’d chosen that dish.
She stepped aside to let him. “Of course it’s chicken fettuccine.”
He came in and paused in her tiny hallway. “Did...do you want something else? I saw what you were, um, cooking the other night, so I thought you’d like it.”
It warmed her to imagine him in the grocery store carefully considering what she might like to eat and falling back on the one and only thing he’d ever seen her trying to eat: fettuccine.
“I love pasta, thank you.”
Of all the inanely stupid things to say. I love pasta, thank you. Good God, woman, get it together.
She caught a hint of his aftershave, maybe cologne. She didn’t recognize it, couldn’t for the life of her describe it except it smelled like man and left her wondering if he wore it all the time or if, like her, he’d felt the need to dress himself up in some manner.
No. She was overthinking it. He was in charge of a fire crew, the same crew whose time she wasted with stunning regularity. Lieutenant Manderly was a man here on official business, keeping the village safe from walking fire hazards. If she had a cat stuck in a tree, she’d have more valid reason for interaction with his station than five false alarms.
He set the bag on her meagre countertop and one by one, revealed the ingredients: pasta, obviously, raw chicken breasts (terrifying), butter, a carton of cream, peppercorns, an entire pepper grinder, salt, garlic gloves, a packet of spices, and parmesan cheese. This was something simple? He couldn’t have gotten the pre-made frozen bag with the big cubes of sauce and spices?
In that one decision, she learned quite a bit about him. Namely that his idea of simple and her idea of simple were two different things.
He made quick work of organizing the aforementioned ingredients to his liking, explaining all the while what they were and why he organized them in this fashion. It sounded like jazz to her ears; pleasant, but nonsensical.
“You have to heat the pan first. You’ll know it’s ready when you splash a little bit of water on it and the water sort of balls up and skates around the pan.”
She looked down at the pan like it might reveal the secret to what he just said. “Water does that?”
“On stainless steel pans it does.” He glanced around her kitchen. “Do you have a cutting board and knives?”
“What’s the difference with a stainless steel pan?” she asked as she produced the items he requested. She had some things.
At this he frowned. “Not really sure, except that it’s not non-stick and requires a bit of finesse to work properly.”
It had never crossed her mind that different cookware had to be used differently. To her, a pan was a shaped hunk of metal and that was it. Now she felt like twice the fool.
“Miss Ashe?”
Oh, he’d been speaking while she spiraled over what he must think of her. “Hm?”
“Do you have a pot?”
If there was one thing she’d done right in this department, it was purchasing the home kitchen starter box with three different pans, two different pots, and a variety of baking sheets. Not that she’d used anything except the biggest pan.
“Here.” She produced the bigger of the two pots. “And, please, it’s Abigail.”
“Billy.”
She hadn’t known what to expect of his name, but “Billy” wasn’t it. It seemed too young for him, not suitable for a big man with an important, dangerous job, who was always so stern with her. Billy was a boy’s name, something you called a laughing teen who grew into a man who spent his time traveling around the world on a surfing expedition. On second thought, however, there was a shyness to him she hadn’t counted on. He didn’t seem to know quite what to say and had stumbled over himself when he offered to do this.
He slid comfortably into talking her through the process—the best way to chop the chicken breast, what kind of oil to use in the pan (not non-stick spray), why adding salt to the water was probably unnecessary, the importance of opening her windows and having a fan ready while she was learning.
“Do you do this often?” she asked, turning the diced chicken and marveling at the way it wasn’t already a smoking heap.
“No,” he huffed a dry laugh, “you’re the first one.”
“Why? I mean, I know I’ve wasted so much of your brigade’s time you should probably start billing me for it, but…”
He made himself busy measuring out the ingredients for the sauce. “Like I said, I don’t like the idea of you having a real emergency and my guys not responding the way they should.”
It was strange, having someone worry about her. Ever since her father dove headfirst into his criminal enterprise, both he and her mother’s focus had shifted inward. Had that started while she was at university, she might not have noticed, but it started when she was sixteen, almost ten years ago. When she was still at home to feel every seam that held their little family together pop and unravel. Her mother’s insistence on the security system had been a shock, a spark of her old self flaring to life long enough to worry, really worry.
She might have been insulted or disappointed by his reason for being in her kitchen, except it was such a soothing change of pace after nearly a decade on her own. Someone out there felt some obligation to look out for her well being. Maybe he wasn’t panting over her the way she was for him, and that was alright.
They cooked together in quiet harmony and Abigail was delighted when the meal not only came out unburnt, but delicious.
Then he truly surprised her: he asked if they could try steak, asparagus spears, and rosemary potatoes next time. After that, it was the art of the full English breakfast, because, according to him, her life would be lesser if she never learned how to make herself a proper breakfast.
And over the next few weeks, she learned about him. Billy was the only child of two aging hippies, both their greatest pride and their incomprehensible alien creature. They never predicted two consummate anarcho-socialists would raise a man who actively participated in government . Sure, it was only the fire service, but any form of government work was anathema to their sensibilities. And it made Billy smile to discuss.
She learned he read almost as voraciously as she did, though he had a penchant for anything and everything nautical. He saw his whole fire brigade as one big extended family and had a tendency to get so single minded about the brigade and his work, they sometimes teamed up to drag him back into the world, whether it was something as simple as a night at the bar or a kayaking expedition through Scotland.
It was this single minded purpose that resulted in his unattached state. Abigail wished she had a similar excuse. When Billy asked her questions about herself, she kept things recent and shallow, and he didn’t press. He knew her favorite color and that she liked her vegetables roasted to a crisp—something she could do herself now, thank you very much. He knew where she worked and her focus of study. If he knew who her father was, he never commented on it and for that she was grateful.
He came over once a week like clockwork and it was all too easy to get used to his presence in her space, her safe haven from a world that turned its back on her. Each Saturday she sat on pins and needles in a house she’d spent Friday night cleaning, too keyed up to read, to focus on a television show, and even her daily morning yoga routine fell by the wayside. All this without their cooking lessons being anything but friendly. If they touched at all, it was an accidental brush of the hands, a bump of the shoulders in her already too small kitchen.
Once, he placed one of those massive hands at the small of her back to gently squeeze by and her heart skipped. It actually skipped, like she was the simpering heroine of a romance novel. Her breath caught, her skin lit up with an electric charge he sparked. She’d had a boyfriend in university, up until last year when her life imploded. Henry’d had no desire to be around for that fallout and left almost exactly the way he entered her life; with a polite explanation of his intentions. Like when they started dating, she’d felt almost nothing about his departure beyond resignation that this was how things were supposed to go.
Well-to-do men set to inherit a title couldn’t marry the daughter of a convicted criminal, regardless of the criminal’s previous station in society. The past year forced her to reconcile a number of things about her life, including everything she might have missed out on by committing herself to a man for whom she felt almost nothing.
Billy made her feel things. Nice, fuzzy, warm things. Hot, throbbing, needy things. Bright splashes of color in her tastefully neutral life. She’d tried, on her own, in small ways—mismatched plates and bowls, a back garden run amok, a completely disorganized bookshelf. Though no one would ever accuse Billy of being a colorful character, not with his quiet seriousness, laconic sarcasm he tried and failed to hide from her, the steadfastness that permeated everything from his ethics to his methodical cooking. If she knew anything about baking, which was very little, he’d make a brilliant baker.
Even being at work wasn’t enough to keep her mind from turning over each word they shared, each look, each accidental touch. She went through the motions of her day, shelving, straightening up displays, answering questions, checking customers out, all while Billy never quite left her mind. It didn’t help that they’d taken to texting each other recipe ideas and book suggestions.
She held her phone over the cover of an adventure novel that just came in, about a crew of privateers blown off course to a mysterious island, and snapped a picture, then set aside a copy behind the counter. If she was very lucky, he’d come in to pick it up.
The bell over the door jangled, ushering in three women who immediately went quiet upon entering the shop. They shared surreptitious glances and the younger brunette made herself busy browsing the nearest displays. The other two approached the counter, looking friendly enough, but dread pooled in Abigail’s belly.
They didn’t look like journalists, but that didn’t mean they weren’t on the hunt for a story where there wasn’t one. How many times did she have to admit the shameful truth? “I loved my father and naively believed he’d never do anything wrong in his life. I was utterly blind and have no juicy tidbits to share.”
She steeled herself for the facade of polite conversation before the questions started, before they explained they were podcasters doing an episode on an earl’s fall from grace. Maybe they were bloggers or, God forbid, influencers. Maybe People of New York decided to expand their reach all the way to this tiny seaside village where people came to fish, sail, and disappear. That was why she chose it, after all.
“Hello, Abigail,” the older of the pair said with a serene smile, as if it were entirely ordinary for a stranger to know her by name, to know where she lived and worked.
“I’m sorry, have we met?” She didn’t mean to sound so short. Maybe she did. Maybe she wanted to hurl books at these women until they fled the store and told everyone Abigail Ashe wasn’t a well of sordid entertainment.
The woman was unfazed by Abigail’s clipped response, however. “I used to be a friend of your mother’s. How silly of me, of course you don’t remember who I am. My name is Miranda Hamilton. You couldn’t have been older than six the last time I saw you.”
To her surprise, the name was familiar, as was the face that went with it. Miranda did seem friendly, as did the other woman, but Abigail had been down this road before. People either maintained a cool distance from her, or they feigned friendship until it became clear she really didn’t know her father’s inner secrets. That was a special kind of cruelty for a lonely young woman.
“I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you,” Abigail said, still not entirely sure she did recognize this woman.
Miranda waved a hand. “It’s fine, it’s been...what? Twenty years? Anyway, this is my friend Madi,” the other woman nodded, “and that’s Idelle.”
“Hi there,” Idelle called cheerily from across the shop.
Miranda reached for Abigail’s hand, but hesitated and pulled back. “You’ve grown into a lovely young woman, the absolute image of your mother. When Madi mentioned your name…”
If Abigail wasn’t mistaken, Miranda teared up a little.
“She’s getting ahead of herself,” Madi said in a lilting accent. “You see-”
This was it. This was the part where the cruel facade of friendship slipped away to reveal the ugly truth.
“-all of our men work at the fire station with Billy. When my John mentioned your name, Miranda was desperate to see you and Idelle and I had to meet the woman who got Billy to finally stop spending all his free time at the station.”
Had she heard this woman correctly? They were here because of Billy? Not because of her father, not because they wanted to roll around in the worst experience of her life, but because they knew Billy?
“Who are you kidding?” Idelle sauntered up to the counter with a grin. “I wanted to meet the woman who finally got that big idiot’s trousers off. I was starting to think he wore a chastity belt under there.”
Madi playfully smacked Idelle’s shoulder. “Would you stop it? Look at her. She’s red as a radish.”
“That’s not really what the phrase is-”
“Ladies,” Miranda interjected, “do you mind giving me a moment with Abigail?”
Idelle looked prepared to object, but Madi pulled her back out the door by the hand, calling, “It was nice meeting you!” as they went.
Once the door shut again, Miranda huffed a laugh. “Idelle is a bit blunt, but she’s a good girl once you get to know her.”
“Billy and I are just friends,” Abigail blurted. “He’s teaching me how to cook.”
“Yes, that makes sense. He’s been pestering me for recipes and according to James, foisting his kitchen experiments on the crew.”
It had never once crossed her mind that he didn’t already know how to cook, or rather, cook the dishes he showed her. If it was possible, she blushed harder at the knowledge that he was going to more effort than she originally thought.
This time, when Miranda reached for her hand, she didn’t hesitate and Abigail returned the gentle pressure. God, it felt nice, that simple, friendly contact.
“In the years I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him spend time on anything he didn’t care about. He’s….”
“Single minded to a fault?”
Miranda laughed. “Yes, that’s it in a nutshell. But that’s not the main reason I’m here. I wanted you to know that I know a thing or two about scandal. You aren’t alone. No matter what happens with you and Billy, I’m here, as are Thomas and James. They’d love to meet you.”
Something niggled at her memory, something about Miranda and her husband whispered by her parents, but she couldn’t remember.
“I wrote down my number.” She slid a folded bit of note paper across the counter. “If you don’t use it, that’s fine. I’ll just have to come back here until I convince you my intentions are honest. I promise it gets better.”
She didn’t wait for Abigail to respond, instead giving her hand one last squeeze before disappearing back onto the street with her friends.
First Billy, now this. If she wasn’t careful, her social calendar might actually fill up again. Since Billy was her only friend and a central figure in that visit, she shot him a text.
So, Miranda Hamilton,
Maddie, and Adele just
came by my shop.
The little typing bubbles popped up almost immediately.
Christ, I’m so sorry?
Silver put two and two together.
He’s a gossip. They were nice
though, yeah? Miranda is
the brigade mum.
Madi is Silver’s wife,
Idelle is with Featherstone,
and Miranda is
The typing bubbles stopped and started twice before he completed with,
complicated
She smiled down at her phone, something she did more and more.
Miranda was actually a
friend of my mum’s
when I was a kid.
I had no idea she was
here. Can’t believe we
haven’t run into each
other before.
Well, that was something she could believe. Abigail went to work, the grocer, her sailboat, and home. She’d managed to make this microscopic village even smaller. Apparently, she and Billy had that in common, though for wildly different reasons.
That’s a hell of a coincidence.
Sorry they ambushed you.
Like always, he didn’t ask about her past. As she debated telling him more, her phone buzzed again.
Still want me to come
by tomorrow? Thought
we could step things up
with meat pies, but if
you’re not up for it,
I understand.
Thanks to Miranda’s visit, she pictured him slaving over the station’s kitchen while he mastered a meat pie recipe just to share it with her. Her cheeks hurt from smiling.
I’d love that.
Shit, gotta run. See
you tomorrow? Same time?
Definitely.
Imagine her surprise when there was a knock on her door just as she was turning off the lights to go to bed that very night. The village didn’t exactly have a crime problem, but her general lack of visitors made this 11 p.m. knock made her wary.
“What on Earth?”
She tapped the panel for her home security system and brought up the doorbell camera, floored to see a distorted image of Billy standing outside, running a hand over his face and muttering to himself. Muttering her camera broadcast through the panel.
“What the fuck am I doing? Jesus.”
To her horror, he turned to leave. Heedless of her sleep tank and shorts, she rushed to open the door in time to see his back retreating into the shadows.
“Billy?”
He stopped and turned. It was hard to see him beyond his general shape, but she made out the way his head tipped back, exposing his long throat.
“I’m sorry. Go back to bed. I meant to go home. I don’t even know how…”
“Do you want tea?”
He faced her in the darkness and shook his head. “No.”
She shifted on her feet, acutely aware of her state of undress and the night chill on her bare skin. He wasn’t leaving, but he wasn’t coming either. He might have been a Greek statue placed on her stone walkway for all that he stood there, unmoving but for the unsteady rise and fall of his chest.
Something must have been seriously wrong for him to show up like this. She’d never seen him so off kilter. The man she’d gotten to know was a pillar of steady control. This man looked ready to snap, or collapse, and couldn’t decide which. Even in the shadows, she saw every muscle drawn tight as a bow string, practically humming with tension.
“Billy,” she held out her hand, pale skin almost glowing in the darkness, “please come in.”
He snapped. Billy didn’t walk to her, he stormed so fast she didn’t have time to yelp in surprise before he caught her up in his arms and slanted his mouth across hers. This was no timid, polite first kiss, but a scorcher. He devoured her and she let herself be swept along in the tsunami.
Henry certainly hadn’t kissed like this. Billy’s kiss was raw and brutal and she quickly found herself returning his intensity. She matched the bold strokes of his tongue and tightened her arms around his neck. Their height difference meant he had to hunch over her and she was glad of all her yoga practice to accommodate the way he bent her backward.
His hands traveled down her back and when they landed on her rear, he growled against her mouth. The corresponding echo rumbled in his chest, pressed so close to hers. He lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist, dimly aware he was walking them back inside. Later, she would marvel over the ease with which he carried her, and the wild abandon of her response.
Whatever dam had broken in him broke in her, too. All her frustration and loneliness poured into their kiss, all the desire she’d kept so carefully pent up she hardly knew it existed exploded from every pore on her body.
The door closed with a slam, but that wasn’t enough to stop what they started. For the first time, she finally got to touch him, to run her fingers over the softness of his close-cropped hair to the ropes of muscle bunched along his shoulders and down his arms. He smelled like some generic soap and soot over faint traces of sweat that lingered after the shower he must have taken.
They were a study in contrasts; where she was small, rounded by soft curves, he was mountainous, a map of hard lines, solid muscle. She wanted to revel in it, burrow against him and never come back out. Something told her that if she let him, Billy would be her bulwark against anything. That’s what men like him did, wasn’t it? Run into burning buildings and dutifully show up with lights and sirens blaring even when he knew the useless woman inside almost definitely wasn’t in the process of torching her own house.
With one hand on her rear and one cupping her head, he walked her back in the direction of her bedroom. They made it as far as her lone, minuscule bathroom before he wrenched his mouth free from hers.
“Where?” was all he managed to get out.
She released one hand to point at the correct door and slammed her mouth back down on his. God, she’d never felt like this before, this out of control. He kissed like he’d trained his whole life to kiss her and she fit against him like they were made for each other, differences be damned.
She was so out of her head for him, for the moment, the mattress hitting her back came as a surprise. He braced himself over her even as she urged him closer. She wanted his weight, that contact everywhere they could touch. She wanted his hands on her, not the bed.
It wasn’t enough. They needed to be closer. She needed him to fill that emptiness throbbing away between her legs. She wanted...she wanted . After a lifetime treading water in a placid lake, she wanted to dive into a roiling ocean, and he was roiling. Whatever happened that day, after they stopped texting, shook him.
To her horror, he pushed up and sat back on his heels. His brows pulled low and tight and he closed his eyes and winced.
“I don’t have a condom.” He scrubbed a big hand down his face and shook his head. “I just snatched you up like a caveman and I don’t have a condom.”
She sagged in relief and opened her mouth to tell him that she, in fact, had a small supply of them in her bedside drawer. Then a series of thoughts cascaded down on her in quick succession. 1) Next to the never-once-opened package of condoms was a small vibrator she’d initially bought hoping to entice Henry into a more interesting sex life, only to have him first cringe away from it, then make relentless jokes at her expense about his secret pervert girlfriend. 2) She had no idea how to explain why buying and storing condoms, alongside the vibrator, in her nightstand had felt like an act of glorious rebellion when she first moved into this house, but it had. 3) The first two things were going to make her look like the secret pervert Henry said she was, but given how she’d latched onto Billy like a barnacle at the first encouragement, that ship had probably sailed. 4) In the dim light of her lamp, cast a pale orange thanks to the scarf she’d tossed over the shade, she finally got a good look at the man in question. His cheek sported a butterfly bandage over a cut, the skin around it already discoloring with a bruise, his forearm was wrapped in a white bandage, and his pinky and ring finger on that same hand were splinted together. How she hadn’t noticed that before was a testament to how damn strong he was. Also how damn good she felt in his arms.
“I should, um…” he gestured vaguely back down the hallway, but otherwise didn’t move. He was still essentially between her splayed legs. Seemingly despite himself, he let his palms skate up and down her bare thighs, careful of his injured fingers. The scrape of his callouses against her smooth skin made her shiver. “Fuck me, you’re beautiful.”
“Nightstand,” she croaked out. His eyebrows shot up. She pushed to sit and fetch them herself, before he saw, but he figured out what she meant and beat her to it.
“Oh, God.” She flopped back onto the mattress and covered her face in her hands, listening to the faint rustle of him sifting through the contents of the drawer. He had to dig past two paperbacks, her notebook, a flashlight, a lighter for her bedside candle, an assorted collection of pens and hair ties, a small package of tissues, and god only knew whatever else detritus landed in that drawer to get all the way to the back where her illicit collection hid from the world.
Any second now, she’d hear the derision and he’d be out the door, never to return.
The sound stopped. Behind her hands, she closed her eyes and bit her lip. He made a small humming noise in the back of his throat and shut the drawer. His weight shifted on the mattress. Instead of getting up, though, he stayed where he was. She heard the sound of the condom package settle on the nightstand.
This was it. This was the moment when the other shoe dropped.
“Are you hiding from me?”
She cringed deeper into her hands at the lilt of amusement in his voice. She nodded.
“Why?” His hands traced up her arms. To her relief, he didn’t attempt to move her hands, instead choosing to let his fingers wander, coasting down her belly, her legs, back up, just skirting around her breasts. If this was a form of hypnotism, it was working.
It soothed her just enough to say, from behind her hands, “Because now you know.”
“Know what?” That soothing, sexual path of his hands continued. The backs of the knuckles on one hand skirted over her nipple and she couldn’t help leaning into it.
“I’m not…” She squirmed as he moved onto the other breast.
“Not what?” He pushed her top up until it only just covered her breasts. Her breath came faster and faster.
“Not right .” Whatever he was up to with his hands was a dirty trick, it made her say anything he wanted her to say.
He went still over her. “What the fuck does that mean?”
She dropped her hands and winced again to see his frown, the confusion writ large across his face.
“You know...” She faltered. This would be easier were he not between her legs with her top pulled up. If she thought he was going to let her off easy, she was to be disappointed. He merely waited for her to go on. “You found all those things. Ladies don’t have things like that. It’s not what it looks like. I’m not some weird...sex...fiend.”
She spat the last word out, threw her hands back over her face, and let out a long sigh.
Billy let her lay like that for a few beats before the bed started to shake. He was shaking it with his barely contained laughter. He was laughing at her. She removed her hands and gaped at him. He was almost at the point of tears and, tragically, so was she, for very different reasons.
“Sex fiend?” He choked, tried to restrain himself, and failed. At her stricken expression, he sobered. Barely.
He sobered enough to gather her into his arms. “Sweetheart, a six pack of condoms and a single vibrator do not a sex fiend make. What kind of fucked up Catholic school did you go to?”
“Saint Sebastian’s.” Abigail’s words were muffled against his chin. She couldn’t help herself and took a great inhale of his scent. “And it wasn’t them. I had this boyfriend, and he said-”
He leaned back to look her in the eye, all traces of mirth gone. “He said what?”
“He said...he said it was trashy. He said if I wanted to have sex like a prostitute, I should hit the docks.”
Billy didn’t speak for so long, she worried he agreed with Henry’s sentiments.
“And he was your only boyfriend?” Abigail nodded. “I don’t usually say this word in front of women, but that cunt lost the plot.”
It couldn’t possibly be that simple. Nothing was that simple. Unless it was. Unless her sheltered life hadn’t prepared her to deal with a cockwomble like Henry, or to deal with the fallout of his behavior. Her friends at school—an all girl’s school, naturally—had been as bookish and quiet as she was. She’d never had a wild phase. She went from St. Sebastian’s to university, where her parents had introduced her to Henry and that was that. Now she was in Billy’s arms, exposed in so many different ways, utterly lost.
“You,” he eased her back, “have been sorely misled, but don’t worry. I was in the navy for four years.”
She blinked up at him. “What?”
His lips quirked. “The docks. Navy. I thought it was funny.”
Her laugh came out bright and unbidden. She reflexively clapped a hand over her mouth, but couldn’t stop the ensuing giggles. He grinned and gingerly moved her hand away.
“No more of that. You don’t have to hide from me, Abigail.”
It was a good thing he didn’t wait for her answer, because she had no idea what to say to that. Instead, he leaned in and kissed her, slow and deep. It wasn’t the frantic mating of their mouths that had happened outside. And all the way to the bedroom. They savored each other with this kiss, letting the fire kindle larger.
Gradually, it heated until they were rocking against each other, a pantomime of the act to come. She rubbed himself against him, rendered totally shameless by the electricity sparking throughout her body, all centered on the throbbing between her legs. Not long after beginning her relationship with Henry, she’d determined that the average woman simply didn’t orgasm with a man. Billy was about to blow that theory out of the water, and they were still fully dressed.
His kisses trailed down her neck. Her hands slid inside his shirt, where she was so delighted to find that he felt as good as he looked, she might have started purring. Her top came off, followed by his. His light dusting of chest hair rasped against her breasts, adding another dimension of sensation, of the pleasure curling through her system.
Without preamble, he sucked a nipple into his mouth and lightly bit down. She cried out, back arching off the bed.
“Look at you.” He gave her other nipple the same treatment. “So responsive.”
That was a first. Henry once covered her mouth with his hand to silence her. She had to stop thinking about Henry, but it was next to impossible. Billy was so different. She was so different with him. The comparisons were unbelievable. This wasn’t apples and oranges, it was bruised apples and a ten-course dinner at a Michelin rated three-star restaurant.
She giggled. She couldn’t help it. Everything felt so good. A vice had been clamping around her heart and lungs so gradually, for so long, she hadn’t noticed it until now, now that it was released and she could breathe again.
He nipped at her hip bone. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.” She sank her fingers into the meat of his shoulders and squeezed.
“Tell me.” He nipped at her other hip bone and slid her shorts off.
“Tickles,” she lied. He arched a brow at her in disbelief, but apparently had bigger fish to fry.
He worked his way further down the bed, until he was kneeling on the floor, pulling her along with him and had her legs draped over his shoulders. She was truly on display for him. She sucked in a breath and closed her eyes against the wave of nerves. Her bedside lamp lit up the room, dimly, but more than enough. This was no rushed coupling under the covers in the dark. Abigail wasn’t sure anyone other than her gynecologist had ever seen her like this.
He ran his hands over her thighs and kissed the inside of one, then the other. “You’re perfect.”
She slowly opened her eyes to find him looking right at her. “Are you sure I’m not…”
Too furry? Smelly? Was everything shaped correctly? There was no way she could verbalize any of those questions. It wasn’t like she was ignorant about sex, only inexperienced. She knew what was popular—hairless, nonexistent labia, and wasn’t there something about eating pineapples she was supposed to do? In their current positions, he was getting a face full of musk, not fruity sweetness that, to her, sounded a little fake but damn if that wasn’t what magazines advised her to achieve.
“Sweetheart, I’ve been wanting to do this since the first time you answered the door.” To prove his point, he leaned in on a deep inhale and kissed her, just like he did her mouth, her neck, her breasts. She almost shot off the bed and would have if he hadn’t had a good grip on her hips.
“Perfect,” he repeated and dove in headfirst, literally and figuratively. If she had any lingering insecurities or nerves, he chased them away with gusto. He laved and sucked while she lost her head. The only thing she was consciously aware of was how damn good she felt; dissolving yet winding up and up. One of her legs started shaking.
If there was a land speed record for making a woman orgasm, he must have made breaking it one of his goals in life. Apparently, he applied his single-minded focus to all areas of his life.
She was making noise, she knew that much. Whether she was praising God, Billy, or just crying out was something he’d have to tell her later. Two fingers of his uninjured hand slid inside easily and she felt the corresponding spill of wetness. It was too much. It wasn’t enough. He brought her higher and higher, toward an inevitable crest she already knew was going to make any other orgasm she’d ever had look like hiccups.
Her body climbed until it seemed impossible to go any further, like teetering atop a mountain, buffeted by powerful wind with nothing to hold onto. With curls of his fingers and meticulously placed sucking kisses, he pushed her over the edge.
Wave after wave crashed, pulsing release. Behind her closed eyes, she saw stars. She had no idea how long she crested each wave. Eventually she fell back to earth, panting and covered in a fine sheen of sweat. Billy was there waiting for her with a look of smug male satisfaction, rubbing a soothing hand up and down her torso.
He slowly pushed to his feet and even in her liquified, dreamy state, she had to admire the sight of him. His chest rose and fell, not quite as quickly as hers, but faster than normal. The wound on his face and bandaged forearm gave him a dangerous air, especially when added to the almost predatory way he drank her in.
She didn’t see the faint tremor in his hands as he removed his boots, then his trousers and boxer briefs. His erection strained toward her, hard and long. She watched him set her purple vibrator next to her on the bed, something that might have embarrassed her had he not just reduced her to a puddle of endorphins. Next, he opened the box of condoms, pulled out one and set the box aside, all without taking his eyes off her.
There was something unexpectedly erotic about watching him don the condom, from the flex of muscles in his arms and torso to his big hands rolling it on. He was surprisingly dextrous with only three working fingers on his left hand.
He had more bruises and scrapes than she’d initially catalogued, including a particularly angry purpling that started high on his hip and bloomed down his thigh. She winced and pushed up on her elbows.
“God, Billy, you’re really hurt.”
He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”
To prove his point, he pulled her legs up and around his hips and slid inside her in a single stroke. They stayed like that, locked together, while her body loosened for him. The fullness, the pressure, satisfied something deep and primal in her. Something she didn’t know she’d been missing.
Every muscle in his body was strung tight as he moved in and out slowly, almost gingerly, like she might break if he went any faster. He was holding himself back, she realized, and at great effort. He didn’t need to, but she didn’t know how to tell him it was okay. She wouldn’t break. In fact, she wanted him to unleash. That brief taste she’d gotten when he carried her into the house wasn’t enough. She wanted everything he could give her. Each time his pelvis made contact with her clit, her inner muscles reflexively pulsed around him. Even after that mind-melting orgasm, she felt herself gradually building back up to another release.
He released one leg to drag his hand up her body, coasting over her already sensitive nipples. It rested against her neck, not squeezing or holding her down, just a gentle weight that reminded her of his size, his strength, the trust she’d had in him since the first time they met. Surrendering to him was as natural as falling.
His hand shifted so his fingertips could skim her lips. There was something in his eyes as he watched her, an emotion she couldn’t identify. The darkness that chased him to her cottage was still there, swirling around them in her dim bedroom. She pressed a kiss to the pad of his forefinger, then his middle finger. His reaction was so subtle she almost missed it. His breath hitched and his nostrils flared. So she opened her mouth and deepened her kisses.
He lost control, or maybe threw it away, beyond whatever lingering reservations he still had. His pace increased. Abigail’s fingers clawed at the comforter. She met him thrust for thrust, needing more and more.
As she thought he couldn’t take her any higher, he leaned down and met her with a searing, tongue searching kiss, never breaking their rhythm. She wrapped her arms around his neck and reveled in the feel of his skin against hers, the light brush of chest hair, the mingling of their sweat, the brush of his tongue.
But he didn’t stay there. He straightened out of her arms and she immediately felt the loss. Cool air danced over her in his wake. The distance was important for what he did next. His purpose in kissing her had been twofold; he came back up with the vibrator in his hand. Her heart stuttered. This had been such an issue with Henry, such a source of shame she hadn’t been able to shake. Now she was with a man who was not only unbothered, but making a point of using it.
And use it he did. Holding her by the hip and never breaking stride, he turned it on and eased it over her clit. It didn’t take long after that, not with the vibrations, not with his persistent thrusting hitting that sensitive bundle of nerves inside her, not with the heady rush release. It wasn’t the release of orgasm, but the release of a body always held in check, of a heart she kept carefully sheltered. In Billy’s hands, she could just be whatever she was and he never sneered at her or looked at her askance. Now he fucked her, the way she’d always wanted but was too scared to ask.
No, it didn’t take long at all for her to shoot off like a rocket. This time he fell over the edge with her. This wasn’t crashing waves. It was fireworks, bright explosions of pleasure amplified by their physical connection. It rolled on so long she considered this might be her life now and she was okay with that.
He briefly left her and she moaned at the loss of him. Reality gradually returned and she found herself tucked up to her pillows and cuddled in the crook of his arm. His eyes were closed and for the first time since she’d known him, he looked perfectly at ease. The sweat dried on her skin and she snuggled in closer to stave off the chill. He tightened his arm around her and let out a rumbling noise of contentment.
“Are you alright?” She splayed a hand across his chest, where she could feel and hear his heartbeat.
He winked one eye open. “Am I alright? Before I say what I want to say, are you alright?”
There weren’t words to properly describe the ease she felt or the satisfaction that settled over her like a warm blanket.
“I’m wonderful,” was the best she came up with.
“Good.” He kissed her forehead. “That was the best fucking thing I’ve ever done. And when you feel up to it, we’re going to do it again.”
She knew he wanted her to laugh, and she was flattered, but laughter didn’t come. “You got really hurt today.”
Billy looked away. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.” She turned his face back toward hers and let her fingers scrape over his scruff. “You’re covered in wounds and...and you were out of your head when you got here.”
He didn’t turn back from her, or say anything, for a long time.
“You have beautiful eyes. Did you know that?”
She blinked. It wasn’t something she gave much thought to. They were a common brown, nothing spectacular, as far as she knew. She’d always wished they were green, or bright blue, like his, something that stood out against her fair skin and dark hair.
“A piece of the roof caved in on me,” he said. “Got pinned under it. The guys couldn’t get to me and I started to think I might not make it out. Started to think about you and the fact that I’d never even kissed you.”
Her heart panged at the thought of him lying there, injured and afraid as a building burned around him, and he thought of her. No one had given her that much thought in years, a decade at least.
“Well,” she curled tighter into him, “we’ve definitely kissed now.”
“A bit, yeah.”
They laughed together and again he kissed her forehead.
“Thanks for being such a bad cook.”
“Thanks for testing out all those recipes on your crew before acting like you knew it all along with me.”
He closed his eyes and bit back a groan.
“Shit.”
At that, they dissolved into laughter. Then tickling. Then kissing. Then he dug out another condom and together they worked very hard on making up for lost time.