Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
After finishing my teeth, I rinsed and spit into the sink, taking the hand towel Foster put in front of me. I dried my face, ruffled the towel over my wet hair, realizing it was somehow already towel-dried.
Foster finished his own teeth and herded me into the bedroom, yanking back the covers on my bed. “In.”
“You.”
The single word was all I had the energy for, but he understood it. He slipped between the sheets first and then yanked me in to lie half on top of him the only way we really fit in the bed together.
Pretty sure I was asleep before he even pulled the covers over us. The only thing I remembered was him saying something that sounded oddly like, “You’re as stubborn as your aunt Tilly.”
But that couldn’t have been right.
19
FOSTER
Tommy had been back for five days, and I still hadn’t gotten up the nerve to ask him about Stanford.
I was a total chickenshit, but to be fair, we’d also been busy with training exercises, including an all-day wildfire and missing-person rescue drill, a long search and rescue exercise, and an unexpected request to help provide additional support at an ultramarathon being run through the foothills on the far side of Slingshot.
When we weren’t working, Tommy spent as much time checking on his sister as possible. His entire family was in town to see Hazel, and even if he hadn’t wanted to visit with the patient, he would have been expected to spend time with his parents and extended family.
He’d invited me to join him a couple of times, but I’d declined with excuses. Chickie needed training, Trace needed help with something, or, in one case, I’d had bad chicken at dinner.
None of it was true—or not true enough to keep me from joining him. The real reason was self-preservation. My only chance at surviving this “fling” was to weld a damned cage around my heart and drive sharp spikes into every inch of the metal grating. Getting to know his family any better would be a colossal mistake, considering there was no future between us.
Which was why my heart rate shot up when Tommy’s eyes pierced me across the now empty table in the SERA dining hall and he said, “You’re not saying no tonight.”
I played dumb, scrambling to come up with another excuse to beg off a Marian family visit. “To…?”
He bounced his eyebrows. “Maybe I’ll tell you back at the cabin.”
Oh. The lascivious expression on his face made the tension in my shoulders release. Definitely not a family thing, then.
I leaned in closer and lowered my voice, even though no one was around to hear. “If it’s something that’ll take place at the cabin, you have to know I’m not saying no to you.”
Tommy’s grin jolted something low in my belly. “Then what are we waiting for?”
As soon as we stood up, Chickie scrambled to her feet and fell into a natural heel next to Tommy’s leg. The three of us made our way back to the cabin, the low evening sun still plenty bright and the breeze blowing away the heat of the day.
Halfway back to the cabin, I reached down to grab Chickie’s collar. A few nights before, I’d caught an elk nosing around our cabin, so I wanted to play it safe.
“Sorry, Chickpea,” I said when she gave me her big eyes. “Better safe than sorry.”
I kept walking for a couple of paces before I realized Tommy had stopped in his tracks to stare at me.
“What?” I asked, looking around to see what had made him stop.
The look on his face turned melty-sweet, the kind of tender affection that made me wonder what the hell had happened to suddenly make him look at me like that.
“What is it?” I asked again.
He shook his head and continued walking to the cabin without a word. I shook my head and followed. The minute we were in the cabin with the door closed, he shoved me against it and kissed me wildly. His tongue carried the taste of hot fudge from the sundae he’d had for dessert, and I licked into his mouth, seeking more of it.
When he finally pulled back, I asked dazedly, “What was that about?”
His hand was still clutching the front of my shirt. “Chickpea! You got a SAR puppy and named her after my hummus, just like I suggested.”
Shit. Since he hadn’t put it together in the last four weeks, I’d figured he’d forgotten that part of our Hawaii conversation.
“That’s not… no, I…” I blew out a breath and knocked his hand away from my shirt. “Fuck off,” I muttered, moving over to my bed to kick my shoes under the edge of it.
Tommy followed me and pressed himself against my back, wrapping his arms around my middle and splaying his hands across my stomach and chest. “Why can’t you admit it? It’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever—”