Cheap, yellow satin spl
otched with crimson.
Her mother’s green eyes, normally glazed over by whatever drug was fueling her high, stared out, clear and hard.
A pillow sodden with blood, brains, and soiled dreams.
Water couldn’t wash away the images. Anders. Her mom. Sylvie’s own blood-speckled hands.
She slid down the shower wall, too weary to keep the despair at bay.
“Sylvie, you doing all right in there?” Tony’s voice pushed through the closed bathroom door.
Unable to form words over the lump blocking her throat, she let the water flow over her bowed head.
The water stuttered and stopped. Warm, thick cotton enveloped her and strong arms lifted her to her feet. Tony dried her skin and wrapped her in a terrycloth robe and then carried her to the living room and lowered her onto the couch.
He settled in next to her. “Tell me what you need, sweetheart. I can still take you to your dads’. Your sister’s and Drea’s planes won’t be landing until the morning.”
Sylvie shook her head. “Seeing my dads at the store was about all I could take. I need time to get my head together. Thanks again for staying with me. They would have kidnapped me for sure, otherwise.”
“I don’t blame them.” He turned her head away from him and combed through her wet hair with his fingers, gently untangling the knots. “You shouldn’t be alone right now.”
“I’m not.” She melted backward against his strong chest, his heat evaporating the chill clinging to her bones. “I have you with me.”
Tony tensed behind her and his fingers froze against scalp. “Sylvie—”
His hands fell away from her, leaving her damp hair clinging to her head. The cold returned with an inevitable vengeance and seared her with its brutal intensity. Tomorrow she could face all of the ugly. But tonight, she wanted to find hope somewhere in the mess the last few weeks had left behind. She needed Tony, and not just for tonight. Somewhere in the middle of everything, he’d become an anchor to a better version of herself, and she’d realized how much she’d been hiding herself away. What she’d thought was lust had turned into something far more important.
Afraid to see rejection in his eyes, she refused to turn around and instead focused on the fox lamp as her heart sank. “Can we pretend for just a little while that there’s nothing on the other side of the door? That nothing horrible happened today? That we’re just two people who want each other?”
There was a brief silence, and then he said, “No. Not after what I’ve done.”
He pushed off the couch, the movement knocking her off-kilter, and she spun around to regain her balance. And she saw his face.
Grooves of pain dented his forehead and his expression was a portrait of misery. The exposed, broken pieces inside him called out to her, melting her heart. He needed her touch as much as she needed his.
They needed each other.
She was on her feet in the next heartbeat, one hand wrapped partially around his bicep and the other pressed up to his chest. His heart’s mad beat thumped against her. “What you’ve done is you’ve saved my life. So much more than you realize. You saved me this afternoon…and I’m asking you to do it again tonight.” She shrugged off the robe, letting it pool at her feet. The way her nipples hardened had nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with the way Tony’s gaze ate up her nakedness. “Please, Tony. I need to feel something real and good. Please, help me do that.”
He mumbled something that could have been a prayer or a curse. It didn’t matter because the next second his lips were on hers.
Heat sizzled along her skin as his fingers traced across her bare hips. With a maddeningly light touch, they slid around and traveled up her spine as his lips moved to her jawline. The bristle of his five o’clock shadow scraped erotically over her earlobe. Her knees wobbled under the sensual onslaught of his powerful body against her.
“You’re going to hate me later.” He whispered the words against her bare, overheated skin.
She teased her fingers down his jeans zipper and slid them inside, wrapping around his steel-hard cock and pulling it out. “Never.”
I love you. The words were too fresh and new to say out loud, but she could show him. His dick jerked in response to her firm touch.
He groaned and nipped the vulnerable spot at the base of her throat. “You will.” He grasped her face and forced her to look at him. His brown eyes were dark with want, but something else lurked in their shadows. “And when you do, promise you’ll give me the chance to fix it.”
He waited until she gave him an uncertain nod, and then his mouth sealed to hers, stopping her suddenly uneasy thoughts, as well as any further conversation, and blasting her with an atomic bomb of sexual promise that decimated her ability to form coherent thoughts. Lust pooled deep inside her and seeped into every part of her yearning body. The last of her chill melted into a dampness between her legs that demanded attention. Now.
She hooked a leg around his calf, spilling him onto the couch. He landed on his butt with an oomph of surprise.
The man had way too many clothes on. She planted her hands on her hips and ordered, “T-shirt off.”