“Maybe for the long term.” The spark in her eyes dimmed, her soft smile faded, and she let her gaze drift to his chest. “But right now I have no doubt I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
She pushed up on her toes and kissed his throat. Fire streaked along his skin, and his cock jumped and swelled. He stroked a hand over her hair, framed her head, and pulled her mouth off his skin. Time for a little dose of reality.
“And what about tomorrow?” He met her eyes directly. “Your sister will still disapprove, to say nothing of what Phoebe will think if she finds out. And I’ll still be a struggling ex-con, almost a decade older than you. It might feel good now, but reality is reality, Avery, and that’s not going to look very appealing in the morning.”
“I’ve seen you in the morning,” she quipped back, “and I promise you, it’s extremely appealing.” She grew serious, and her eyes did that smolder thing that made him ravenous. “And tomorrow, I’ll still see the man I see right now. The same man I met two months ago on the tour of this hellhole.”
She slid her hands up his chest and wound her fingers around his wrists. “I don’t see the man you see when you look in the mirror, with all the flaws of the past staring back at you, Trace. I see the competent contractor who works twice as hard as anyone I’ve ever met, while doing twice the job, and all for next to nothing just for the possibility of getting future work from others. I see the man who constantly has his client’s best interests at heart, a man who can admit when he’s made a mistake and who can apologize for something that’s only half his fault. I see a man twisting himself inside out to take care of his sick father and trying to make ends meet.”
Trace was slipping again. His chest ached. His body throbbed. And his eyes kept falling to her mouth the way a drunk’s clung to a bottle of whiskey. Avery promised him the same blissful relief, the same heavenly escape. If he could just figure out a way to indulge and not wake up with a hangover that continued to gnaw away at him until his next sip.
“You’re amazing.” He heard his words, realized he’d spoken the thought, and continued. “After everything you’ve been through, I don’t know how you could see the good in any man, let alone a man like me.”
She shook her head. “You can’t appreciate the good without experiencing the bad. And even though I only have one man for comparison, I spent all my time with very chatty wives of other soldiers. I knew exactly what I was missing in my marriage—emotionally and physically. Which makes me qualified to tell you, Mr. Hutton, that you are way the hell above average, just as you are.”
Trace was speechless. Emotions overpowered logic again, and he couldn’t stop himself from pulling her to him for just a taste of heaven. Her lips were as warm and welcoming as they always were. Her mouth open and hot, her tongue aggressive, begging for him to respond the same way.
And just like a drunk, one taste, and Trace fell headfirst into the bottle. He slanted his mouth over hers and tasted her. Licked her. Sucked her. And when she made that hungry kitten sound at the back of her throat, Trace wobbled on the edge of losing his mind and doing what he’d done their first night—throwing her onto the butcher block and fucking her until they were both a sweaty, juicy mess.
He broke the kiss and pressed his cheek to her forehead. Taking deep drags of air, he fought to clear his mind. The logical side tried its best, but its wheels spun in the mud with the same weak argument it always threw at him.
She’ll eventually hate you for continuing this dead-end fling. She’ll end up feeling used. She is exactly why you stick with casual hookups, because women like Avery don’t belong with men like you. There’s no way this will end well; you are what you are.
“I’m exhausted.” Avery’s words pulled him from the impossible dilemma, and Trace saw them for what they were—his escape hatch.
He leaned away and nodded. “Yeah. Really long day.” He forced his fingers to uncurl from her hair. “You should get some sleep.”
“Mmm-hmm.” She may have agreed, but not only didn’t she release him, she slid her hands under his T-shirt and stroked his belly and chest. “I’m so glad my bed was delivered earlier tonight.”
His gaze refocused on hers. “Bed?”
She nodded, smiling like a little imp. “For the apartment. As soon as those appliances come in—which should be any day now—I’ll be living here. Personally and professionally. And as hard as I work during the day, I decided I deserve a good bed for my nights.” She scraped her fingers through his hair and dragged her lower lip between her teeth. “Come check it out with me. Make sure it’s not too soft, not too hard . . . you know—”
“Just right,” he murmured, already following her as she pulled him toward the stairs by his T-shirt.
She beamed over her shoulder. “Exactly.”
But at the bottom of the steps, that logic caught up with him, and he grabbed the banister, using the physical anchor to stop himself. Her hand slipped from his shirt, and she stopped on the first stair, turning to face him with a curious frown.
“Really, Avery. Don’t you think it’s better to back off now rather than wait until we’re in even deeper and then have to cut it off cold turkey?”
Say yes. Say, “You’re right, Trace. Go home.”
But just the thought of those words coming out of her mouth cut him down the middle. He definitely had a bigger problem on his hands than he’d realized. He was fucking crazy about this woman.
Disappointment clouded her expression, but within seconds that sadness shifted to resignation. Her shoulders dropped. Her head tilted as if considering. “If that’s really the way you feel . . .”
She ascended the stairs backward. Her arms crossed and her fingers grabbed the hem of her tee, then pulled it off over her head, dropping it on the stairs.
Pink lace cupped her breasts, and Trace’s mouth watered as his gaze skimmed all the perfect curves from her shoulders down to her waist.
She backed up another stair and slid her hands down her body in an incredibly intimate way that made him think of touching her, of watching her touch herself. Then her fingers slipped into the waistband of her jeans and popped the button. The zipper’s rasp sounded loud in the dark.
“I’m not going to force you into my bed if you’re ready to move on.” She climbed another two steps. Shimmied her jeans over her hips and pushed them down her thighs.
“Avery . . .” Her name came out half plea, half breath, and it was all he could manage, caught between two impossible choices. He could walk away from the most beautiful, most generous, most amazing woman he’d ever met, one who’d somehow snuck into his heart and filled a space he hadn’t realized was vacant. Or he could stay with her, love her the way he wanted, the way she deserved, and hurt like a mother when it was over.
She toed off her shoes and stepped out of her jeans, leaving them in a puddle on the stairs as she took the last step to the landing in the prettiest matching bra and panties Trace had seen in a long time.