Plus she looked adorable in her baggy blue sweatshirt and those loose men’s boxer shorts.
A surreptitious glance at her smooth legs had him tightening his grip on the couch. Oh, man, he really didn’t trust himself to stay away from her. He was feeling the effects of a week of not sleeping on top of his manic rush to the airport, the hour-long flight and the drive into Southie.
So he was weak right now. Or rather, his hold on himself was weak.
What he wanted was to reconnect with her skin to skin and to hell with the talking. But he respected her too much to try and seduce her, and besides, it was clear she was wary of him, as well she might be. Hell, he was wary of himself. Nothing about this thing with her was making any sense to him, and when he felt off-kilter, he tended to get more aggressive, not less.
Letting his head go lax, he eased back into the cushions and eyed her from beneath his lids. She was pretty, her hair all disheveled, her face clean and a little shiny. She reminded him of things that were real, not pretension.
“You look exhausted,” she said.
“I am.”
“When does your plane leave?”
“Whenever I tell it to.”
Her eyes dropped away. “Oh…yes, of course.”
He waited for her to say something else. When she didn’t, he realized he hadn’t reached her far enough. His apology had been accepted, yes. But there was no going back.
So he should head out.
Sean sat up and put his hands on his knees, feeling as if there were an anvil on his chest. “Well, I—”
“Have you eaten?”
“Ah…no.”
“Would you like to? Because I owe you one. You made me breakfast.”
Okay…maybe there was a little light at the end of the tunnel. “I would love something. Thank you.”
She nodded once and turned away.
“Lizzie?”
Her eyes bounced around the living room, avoiding his. “Yes?”
He wanted to keep pressing the apology stuff until she not only believed him but forgave him for having had so little faith in her.
“I don’t care what it is. The breakfast, I mean. I’ll love whatever you give me.”
She nodded and turned away. As he watched her go, he let his head fall back again and he closed his eyes. Just for a moment.
He wasn’t sure what woke him up or how long he’d been asleep, but it was still dark out when he came to. As he shifted and looked around, his neck was stiff and his jacket was wrinkled. There was a quilt around his legs as well as a plate with a sandwich on it and a glass of water on the table next to him.
He downed the water, ate the sandwich and went to find Lizzie.
The door to her bedroom was ajar and he pushed it open a little farther. Oh, man, just where he wanted her to be: curled on her side, her hair on her pillow, the room dim and cool.
He was such a bastard, he thought. Because he was going to get into that bed with her.
He quietly kicked off his wingtips and got out of his jacket then went over to the side he’d slept on before. As he lifted the covers, he eased his body in, but there was no way his two-hundred-and-ten-pound self wasn’t making a dent in the mattress. As he got horizontal, Lizzie was sucked into the hole he made, coming flush against him.
She was warm with sleep, a little ball of sumptuous ember, and he pulled her against his chest. As his head went down on the pillow, it found the crook of her fragrant neck.
He didn’t mean to kiss her there. It just happened when she made a noise deep in her throat and undulated against him. As she arched, her skin met his lips.
It was a match to gasoline situation for them both.
They went body-to-body in a single surge, melding together through his clothes and hers. As he found her mouth, he kissed her deeply, taking what she offered even though he had no idea where they stood. The only thing he knew as they devoured each other was that his curious desperation for her was his undoing.
He broke away from her only long enough to split his shirt down the middle, and as the buttons flew, she took her own top off and shrugged out of her boxers.
He stopped with his hands on his belt and cursed. “I didn’t bring any…”
“I got some in case you ever…um…we ever…”
His relief came out as a hoarse groan and he quickly ditched his trousers, tossing them to the floor as if they were trash.
“Where?” he groaned as he landed on top of her and pushed her legs apart with his own.
As she stretched out an arm to open a drawer on the bedside table, he latched onto her breast. There was a clatter as something hit the floor and then she was pressing a foil packet into his hand.