Country Roads(90)

“You’re a good brother.”

“You’re not the only person who’s said something like that to me today. But it doesn’t change anything.” He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it, his silver eyes going hot over their joined hands. “Let’s go back to my place and I’ll give you a tour.”

Pulling her up and against him, he ran his hands under her shirt and up her back, so she could feel his touch on her bare skin. He lowered his mouth slowly to hers as he opened the catch of her bra and slipped around to tease her nipples to hard peaks. Her body responded before her mind could catch up to the abrupt change of his mood.

He deepened the kiss, his tongue touching hers, and she arched into him, her hands twined into his hair as much to hold herself up as to feel its strong texture. She moaned when his hands skimmed down and around her rib cage to slip under her jeans and knead her buttocks with a powerful, erotic grip. His revelations were forgotten as heat went zinging down between her legs. “Oh God, yes! Lift me up!”

“Easy, sweetheart. We’ve got the rest of the day.”

“It’s not enough,” Julia said, using her grip on his hair to hold his mouth to hers. “Carlos comes tomorrow.”

He squeezed her butt one more time before he slid his hands upward to retrieve the two ends of her bra and deftly refasten it. “Carpe diem.”

“I know what that means, and it’s not legal Latin.”

She felt rejected. Why didn’t he ask her to stay in Sanctuary?





Chapter 25




JULIA TRIED TO savor the swift rush of their ride back to town, but her body was jittery with arousal and her mind kept running through Paul’s story. The enormity of his sacrifice took her breath away. She understood he had powerful obligations in Sanctuary, so he couldn’t think only of himself when it came to the future. He couldn’t leave, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t stay. Yet he seemed to be pulling away from her, not trying to keep her here. Was he too proud to ask her to remain? Did she need to make the offer first?

She was out of her depth here.

“You can unlatch your arms now,” Paul said over his shoulder, as they turned and rumbled into a driveway. “I think you may have cracked a few ribs in the last couple of miles.”

Julia yanked her arms away, noticing her muscles were shaking with fatigue. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was squeezing so tight.”

“I slowed down in case I was making you nervous, but it didn’t seem to loosen you up.” He held the bike as she clambered down. “Is everything all right?”

Was that her opening? Should she say something now? She glanced around the quiet neighborhood where dusk was just drifting in and golden light bloomed in house windows. No, this conversation needed to be more private.

Something caught her attention and she focused on the house they stood in front of. It was Victorian but had a distinctive shape and design. “Is this an old train station?” she asked, noting the simple but elegant crisscrossed gingerbread decoration under the peak of the entrance gable.

He nodded, his eyes on his home. “I rented it originally and then it grew on me. It used to be right in town, but they moved it when the train stopped running. You can still see the ticket window inside.” He walked to the attached garage and keyed in a code, making the door rise so he could wheel the big bike in.

She followed him, skimming her palm along the sleek lines of the black Corvette crouching in the dim light, as the garage door clanked down again. The car looked sexy, ominous, and fast, reminding her of her first sight of it on the gravel shoulder of the interstate. When she stopped to admire the long, elegant hood, Paul came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. His voice rumbled past her ear. “I’m picturing how your bare skin would look against the shiny black paint.”

She sucked in a gasp as she wondered what it would feel like to lie naked on the hood of the car with Paul’s silver eyes locked on her. “Wouldn’t it dent the car?”

He made a strangled sound. “That would be one repair I wouldn’t mind paying for.”

She turned in his arms and pulled his head down. He came willingly, locking his mouth on hers. Her body caught fire and she opened her legs so his thigh pushed between them, the friction making her throw her head back and moan. “Oh dear God, yes!”

“Ah, Julia,” he breathed against her throat as he dragged his lips down the skin bared by the neckline of her shirt. She worked her hands up between them and ripped the shirt off over her head. He understood the invitation and ran his tongue along the lace edge of her bra before he closed his mouth on the hard, sensitive nipple.