“Naomi, Naomi! Wait.” Jenny caught up with her. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. She’s drunk and stupid.”
“It’s all right.”
It wasn’t, it wasn’t all right. She heard the buzzing, felt eyes following her. And she saw Kevin making his way through the crowd toward them, annoyance and concern clear on his face.
“I’m just going to go. Why ask for trouble?”
“Oh, honey. Let’s just go outside, take a walk. You shouldn’t—”
“I’m fine.” She gave Jenny’s hand a squeeze. “She’s drunk enough to try something again, and I need to get home to the dog anyway. I’ll see you later.”
She didn’t run. She wanted to, but running made it too important. But by the time she got out to her car she felt as if she’d run a mile in a sprint. And the shaking wanted to start, so she just braced herself against the door until she could gather herself to drive.
She straightened quickly and dragged out her keys when she heard someone coming.
Xander just closed a hand over hers before she could hit the lock release.
“Wait.”
“I need to go.”
“You need to wait until you stop shaking so you can drive without running off the road.” He let go of her hand to put both of his on her shoulders, turned her around. “Do you want an apology?”
“You didn’t do anything.”
“No, I didn’t, unless you want to count that I had sex with Marla twice—when I was seventeen. That’s about fourteen years ago, so it shouldn’t apply here. But I’m sorry she upset you and made a fool of herself.”
“She’s drunk.”
“You know, like brilliance, I never find that a decent excuse for being an asshole.”
She let out a short laugh. “Me either, but it’s a fact she’s drunk. And she’s fixed on you, Xander.”
“I haven’t given her reason to be in fourteen years.” Hints of frustration leaked out, but he kept his gaze calm, and on hers. “Plus, for nearly seven of those she’s been with or married to someone I consider a friend. I’m not interested.”
“Maybe you should tell her that.”
He had, more times than he cared to remember. But given the current circumstances, he accepted that he’d have to do it again—and hurt someone he had a fondness for.
No, you didn’t get through life’s labyrinth without it.
“I don’t like scenes,” she added.
“Well, they happen. You play in enough bars, at enough weddings, you see every kind of scene there is, more or less get used to it. You handled it, and that’s all you can do.”
She nodded, hit the lock release.
He turned her around again, pressed her back against the door.
Not fair, not right, she thought, for him to take her over this way when her feelings were so raw, so unsettled.
Not gentle, not soothing, but a struck match to dry timber. And his mouth, just his mouth taking hers, set it all raging.
He took her face in his hands—not gentle there either—as if temper bubbled just under the surface.
“You walked in, and the air changed. I wasn’t going to tell you that. It gives you an advantage, and you’re enough of a challenge.”
“I’m not trying to be a challenge.”
“It’s one of the things that makes you one. I want you. I want you under me and over me and around me. And you want. I’m a good reader, and I read that from you clear enough. I’m coming by your place when we wrap tonight.”
“I don’t—”
He took her mouth again, just took it.
“If there’s a light on,” he continued, “I’ll knock. If there’s not, I’ll turn around and go home. You’ve got a couple hours to figure out what you’d rather. Text Jenny when you get home. She’s worried about you.”
He opened the door for her, held it open as she yanked at the seat belt.
“Leave the light on, Naomi,” he said, and closed the door.
—
She’d left a light on for herself, and turned it off, very deliberately, while the dog danced around her in desperate, delirious welcome.
“Just you and me.”
Determined not to dwell on the disaster of the evening—and wasn’t she racking them up—she went back to the kitchen. She’d make tea, take something for the stress headache banging in her skull. And let the dog out for a last round, she reminded herself, before she locked up and went to bed.
“Sleep’s the great escape,” she told Tag, who clung to her every word, every move.
Since he wanted her close, and she wanted the air, she went out the back with him, sat watching the moon over the water, drinking soothing tea while he wandered.
She didn’t want scenes, she thought. She didn’t want complications. This was what she wanted, this right here. The quiet, the peace of moonlight over the water.
It calmed her, settled the jumps the altercation with a drunk, jealous woman had wound up inside her. She’d just stay away from Loo’s, from Xander, from everyone else for a while.
Plenty of work to do, and she could take that trip to Seattle. Maybe take two or three days there.
Tag came back, sat beside her.
If she could find a motel that took dogs, she realized, and laid a hand on his head.
She hadn’t thought she’d wanted him either, she remembered. And now . . . Now she needed a motel that took dogs if she took a trip.
“Why don’t I mind that? I should mind that.”
They sat, companionably, for more than an hour.
He rose when she did, walked in when she did, followed her as she checked locks. He walked upstairs with her, darted to his bed to get his stuffed cat, and though he settled down with it, he watched her while she checked her email, her accounts.
As she worked, she’d glance back, see the dog continuing to watch her. Did he sense her restlessness? she wondered.
She got up to put on the fire, hoping that would settle them both.
When it didn’t, he walked back down with her, waiting while she turned on the light again.
“This is a mistake, a terrible, stupid, shortsighted mistake.”
Still time to change her mind, she thought. But she wouldn’t, no, she wouldn’t change her mind. So she walked into the kitchen again, this time pouring herself a glass of wine.
And went back outside with the dog again, to wait for Xander to knock.
—
He caught the tiny glimmer of light up ahead, and everything inside him unknotted. He’d told himself he’d accept the dark—the choice would always be hers—but that glimmer lit inside him like a torch.
She’d left the light on—just one, but one would do.
He parked his bike beside her car, swung off with the guitar case still strapped to his back. He wouldn’t leave it out in the air overnight—and he fully intended to stay.
He’d heard the dog bark, approved that. Nothing like a dog for an early-warning system. And his knock brought out another trio of woofs.
When she opened the door, Tag rushed out to wag and lean and wag some more. But Xander kept his eyes on Naomi, with the dark house behind her.
“I’m coming in.”
“Yeah.” She stepped back. “You’re coming in.”
When he did, she closed the door behind him, checked the lock.
“I worked out some things to say if the light was on.”
“Would you have gone home if it wasn’t?”
“I can want, you can want. But unless you open the door, I stay out. Until,” he corrected. “Until you open it.”
She believed that, realized she could trust that. He might overwhelm, but he’d never force.
“Confidence or patience?”
“It can be both.”
“I’d go to the wall telling myself I’m not impulsive. But I have this house, this dog, and I left the light on when I swore I wouldn’t.”
“You’re not impulsive.” He unstrapped the guitar case, set it
against the wall by the door. “You just know how to make a decision.”
“Maybe. All right, I’ve made a decision. This is just sex.”
He didn’t smile, just kept his gaze—patience, confidence—locked on hers. “No, it’s not. You know that, too. But I’m more than happy to start with that. Tell me what you want.”
“Tonight, I want you, and if that doesn’t—”
She broke off when he gave her a yank so her body met his. “I’m going to give you what you want.”
She let herself take. If this was a mistake, she’d regret it later. Now she’d take, she’d consume, she’d let herself gorge on what was offered.
Needy, she dragged at his jacket, fighting it off as the smell of leather surrounded her. As it fell to the floor, he backed her toward the steps, pulled her sweater over her head so fast and smooth it might have been air.
Tag’s tail batted against her legs.
“He thinks it’s a game,” she managed.
“He’ll get used to it.” Xander pressed her back against the wall on the stairs, turned her blood to lava—molten. “This is mine,” he said to the dog. “Settle down.”
Reaching back, Xander flicked open her bra, flicked the straps off her shoulders. “You really need to be naked.”
“Halfway there.”
Hands, big and rough, took her breasts, callused thumbs running over her nipples, stealing her breath while his mouth enslaved her.
He wanted her just like that, desperate, quivering, against the wall. Too quick, done too quick, he warned himself, and pulled her up the rest of the stairs.
The world spun, bursts of light through the dark—heat lightning—shocked sounds she barely realized came from her. She tore at his shirt—where was flesh, she needed his flesh. And when she found it she all but sank her teeth in.
They fell on the bed with streams of moonlight slanting like bars, with the unearthly whisper of wind over the water.
He smelled of leather and sweat—and of the wind over the water. He felt of hard muscle, roughened hands, and bore her down with his weight.
The panic wanted to come but couldn’t carve its way through the needs. Desperate to meet those needs, she found his belt, fought the buckle. And his mouth, rough as his hands, closed over her breast.
She arched up, shocked by the bolt of pleasure, the sheer strength of it. Before she could draw the next breath, his hand pressed between her legs.
When she came it was like falling into a hot pool. She couldn’t surface, couldn’t reach the cool and the air. He only took her deeper, yanking her jeans down her hips, using his hands on her.
Hot and wet, slick and smooth. Everything about her drove him mad. Her nails bit into him as she bowed up. In the dark her eyes were blind and dazed. Her heart, his heart, hammer blows as he fought to free himself.
He couldn’t have stopped if the world ended.
When at last he thrust into her, he thought it had.
For an instant it stopped—sound, breath, movement.
Then it all rushed back, a tidal wave that battered and swept and pounded beyond reason.
He lost himself in it, in her, gave himself to it, to her.
When it broke in him, she broke with him.
She lay limp, still, with her heart still raging. Her body felt bruised and used, and so utterly relaxed. Since no coherent thought would form, she let the attempt go.
If she just stayed like this, eyes closed, she wouldn’t have to think of what to do next.
Then he moved, rolling off her. She felt the bed dip with his weight. She sensed movement, more shifting.
“Back off, pal,” he muttered.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting my boots off. Nobody looks good with his pants around his ankles and his boots on. The dog has your bra if you want it.”
“What?”
She blinked her eyes open. In those slants of moonlight, she could see Xander sitting on the side of the bed, see the dog standing there, tail wagging, something hanging out of his mouth.
“That’s my bra?”
“Yeah. You want it back?”
“Yes, I want it back.” Now she rolled over, reached. Tag did his down-in-front, tail-up move. Wagged.
“He thinks you want to play.” To settle it, Xander rose—tall, built, naked—and plucked the stuffed cat out of the dog bed. “Trade you.”
Tag dropped the bra. Xander picked it up, tossed it on the bed.
“Is that a naked mermaid?”
Naomi glanced at the floor lamp. “Yes. It doesn’t go in here.”
“Why not?” And he did what any man would and stroked a hand over a bronze breast.
“It’s going in the room I’m doing for my uncles. They’ll love it.”
All so casual, Naomi thought. That was good. No intense pillow talk.
Then he turned, looked at her. Ridiculous to feel exposed now, she thought, after what they’d just done to each other. But she had to suppress the urge to cover herself.
“We’ll call that the fast and the furious.”
“The what?”
“I take it you’ve missed some movies.” He walked back over, obviously not bothered by being naked, and sat on the bed. “Still, it would’ve been faster and more furious without the dog. Being focused on the goal, I’d have banged you against the stairs, but he’d have been all over us. You do that, you tend to miss the finer details. Like how you look, right now, in blue moonlight.”
“I’m not complaining.”
“Glad to hear it.” He skimmed a finger over the little tattoo riding low on her left hip. “Like your tat. Lotus blossom, right?”
“Yeah.”
A symbol of hope, he thought, endurance, as it was beauty that grew out of mud.
“What kind of rocker are you?” she asked. “No tats.”
“Haven’t found anything I want that permanent.”
He cupped the back of her head, leaned in to kiss her—softly, a surprise.
“We’re going to slow things down some this time.”
“We are?”
He smiled, eased her back. “Definitely. I don’t want to miss those fine details this time around.”
Later, Naomi could attest he hadn’t missed a single one.
Fourteen
Xander woke with the dog staring at him from the side of the bed—nearly nose to nose. His cloudy brain registered Milo before he remembered his longtime companion was gone. Still, he handled the