She narrows her eyes, studying me, all traces of crying gone.
“I still don’t know who to trust. Mom and Daddy said I did well today. Mom was horrified by the strange ‘accident’ you and Blaine had.”
I let out a grunt.
“And they don’t want me on any more campaign stops for a while.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Relieved.”
I would be, too. None of this is what she wants.
“But I have this big feeling of ‘now what?’ hanging over me.”
“So do I,” I tell her, voice low, body language clear.
Her face turns, looking out the window, but she steps into my body space again. I wrap my arms around her. She sinks into me. The heat of her skin makes her so soft. So yielding.
“I’ve missed you,” I say.
“I was a complete bitch to you earlier,” she says with a cold laugh. But she doesn’t move out of my arms.
“That’s fine. It turns me on.”
She smiles and shakes her head fast, like she can’t believe me. “Pervert.”
I just shrug.
We go silent. As seconds tick by, the stakes get higher. I did punch Blaine today. That was a tactical move motivated by pure revenge. I need to up my game. Planned attacks are one thing.
Impulse will get me killed.
Or worse.
Acting on impulse could get Lindsay harmed.
That is unacceptable.
I bury my nose in Lindsay’s hair and inhale.
The moonlight shimmers as she pulls the curtains closed. Without another word, she turns, reaches up, and presses the full length of her body against mine. Long and languid, like hot caramel being poured up my body, she seals the embrace with a kiss.
Not just any kiss.
Her lips open and her tongue insists on getting my full attention.
Which isn’t a problem.
At all.
We kiss, a slow, wet connection that makes my sweaty shirt soak into her. Lindsay doesn’t seem to care. Her fingers thread through the wet hair at the nape of my neck. Her little sounds of pleasure drive me further. Soon, my hands are on her breasts and she’s grabbing my shoulders, one hand riding down to my ass.
This escalated fast.
Thank God.
“What you did was so powerful,” she gasps against my mouth. Pulling back, her eyes blaze as we look at each other. “I haven’t felt that protected in -- ”
“In four years.”
“Yes.” She doesn’t look away. She doesn’t get mad. She doesn’t look uncertain.
Instead, she kisses me again.
“Plus,” she adds as she comes up for air, the electrical charge between us almost visible, “he didn’t see it coming. Those assholes are taunting me. They think they have all the control.” A calculating smile turns those red lips into something diabolical. “But they have no idea what’s coming.”
“If anything’s coming, I want it to be you, first. Then us, together,” I groan in her ear, blowing lightly until she shivers. I get serious. “If you’ll have me.”
“I’m ready. That’s why I asked you up here. More than ready,” she whispers. Shoulders back, body language clear, this is a more confident Lindsay. Punching Blaine turns out to have been a move that puts me at a strategic advantage. Not against the scarves.
But in terms of my heart.
Lindsay trusts me now.
Enough to let me into her body, at least.
“You’re in control,” I tell her, stripping out of my running shirt. She gasps at my naked chest, flattening her palm against my pecs, sliding down.
“Sorry for the sweat,” I apologize.
“Don’t. It’s hot.” She reaches down and bites one of my nipples lightly.
“Hot as in sexy?” I hiss into her ear, picking her up and covering her body with mine. “Or hot as in heat.”
“Both.”
“I like both.” She touches the ear she bit the other day, eyebrows knitting with regret.
“I want everything, Drew. Everything. Make me feel. You already make me want you.” A gentle kiss on my ear punctuates her words.
“I do?”
“God, yes, you do.”
“Lindsay, I don’t want you.”
She tenses.
“I crave you. I need you. You’re like a drug and I’m an addict. You’re an obsession that won’t stop looping through my mind. I wish all I felt was want. This would be so much easier. Every second I’m not touching you is like being tortured.”
“Then stop torturing yourself.” She shimmies out of her nightgown.
She is completely naked underneath. Not even panties.
“Oh.” I swallow, throat suddenly dry. My running shorts tent. She looks down at my erection.
“Take those off.”
“Are you sure?”
“Are you going to ask me that every step of the way?”
“What do you want, Lindsay?” I comply with her request. It’s the least I can do.
We’re naked before each other. But are we truly stripped bare?
Her shoulders rise and fall faster, breasts pert and perfect, her breath quickening as she takes me in and says, “I want you to shut up and make love to me, Drew. I want to claim what’s ours. I want what we lost four years ago.”