Page 52 of Fire and Rain
In the distance, she heard an approaching car engine. Someone was probably coming home from their duty shift.
She sipped her drink, her mind fixed on Sean, her body still aroused from their dance.
Headlights through rain. A familiar vehicle.
Sean pulled into her driveway, climbed out, and walked through the rain to the foot of her stairs, stopping when he saw her. “Eden?”
“Sean.”
“Please tell me what’s going on.” Rain soaked his hair, ran in rivulets down his skin, desolation on his face. “I know you miss Justin. I miss him, too. You’re probably lonely as hell, especially at night. You miss having him in your life and in your bed. I get it. I really do. But I can’t fill that gap. He was my best friend.”
Eden’s temper flared, making her splutter. “You… you think I’m just trying to fill the empty space Justin left behind?”
Sean came no closer but stood in the rain. “I don’t blame you. You loved him so much, and youshouldhave had a lifetime together. If I’d done my job right—”
“What happenedwasn’tyour fault.”
Sean changed the subject. “You’re still grieving for him, and it’s hard. I understand. Either way, I can’t be a substitute for the man you love. One day, you’d regret it.”
And then she understood.
He didn’t believe her feelings for him were real. He thought her attraction to him was just some strange phase of mourning, nothing more than a widow’s loneliness.
Men could besodumb.
“Is it hard to believe that I could come to care for you when you’ve been here for us every day since his death?”
He took one step toward the porch and then another. “Eden, it’s too soon. You can’t really mean that.”
“What makes you think you know more about my feelings than I do?” She spelled it out for him. “I took you fishing so we could have time alone together, but you refused to kiss me then. I thought you weren’t interested. I didn’t plan any of that tonight. It just happened. But I don’t regret it because now I know the truth.”
“What’s that?” He took another step toward her.
“You want me, too.”
He shook his head. “Justin was my best friend.”
That wasn’t a denial.
“He was my husband, the man I loved. I’ll never forget him. But my heart is strong enough to love and honor the man he was and care for you at the same time.”
Sean walked up the steps in slow, deliberate strides to stand before her, soaking wet, his chest rising and falling with shaky breaths, his gaze locked with hers.
She’d never seen him like this—on the edge, vulnerable, at a breaking point. She touched a finger to his cheek, caught a rivulet of rainwater. “You’re drenched.”
“I know.” He cupped her cheek with his other hand, traced her lower lip with his thumb, the heat in his eyes making her shiver. “Damn it, Eden.”
Then he lowered his lips to hers.
ChapterEleven
Even as hislips brushed over hers, Sean told himself he wasn’t going to kiss her. Hewasn’tgoing to kiss her. He wasnot…
Ah, hell.
He gave in to the thrumming in his chest, slid his fingers into her hair, and claimed her mouth, tasting rum and sugar. She whimpered then gasped when their bodies met, and some part of Sean remembered that he was soaking wet. He was probably getting her wet, too, and making her cold. And still, he didn’t stop.
She slipped her arms behind his neck, melted against him, her breasts pressing against his ribcage, her body warm.Hunger he’d tried so hard to ignore hit his bloodstream, his cock going hard, straining against his fly. He traced the curve of her lower lip with his tongue, nipped it, sucked it into his mouth, wanting to devour her.
