íSA HAD TAKEN HARLOW OUT to dinner; she’d known no other adult in his life would bother—and he’d needed to talk, to release all his excitement about this summer, and honestly, to just be with an adult who cared enough to be interested in his life.
“Some people shouldn’t have kids,” she muttered as she shoved through the door of her apartment. It horrified her to think what would’ve happened to sweet, smart, sensitive Harlow if Jacqueline hadn’t married his father for a split second. Her poor brother would be stuck in the no-man’s-land between his mother’s and his father’s new families.
Both seemed to have forgotten the seventeen-year-old son they already had.
Expression dark, ísa kicked off her shoes, dumped her satchel on the kitchen counter, then collapsed onto the sofa. She was intellectually tired from the hunt to find the traitor, emotionally exhausted from worrying about Harlow, and angry at Sailor Bishop for enticing her with an impossible, beautiful dream.
Buzz.
ísa groaned at the loud sound. One of her neighbors probably had a guest who’d pressed the wrong apartment number.
“Apartment 7A,” she said after dragging herself to the intercom.
“Hello, Apartment 7A,” replied a male voice that could seduce her into breaking all her rules. “You gonna let me in?”
An ache in her chest, she cleared him to come up and was waiting with the door open when he exited the elevator. She wanted to run down the hall to him, held back because showing him that much of herself was beyond frightening, but she’d made a promise. And ísa Rain was no quitter.
She ran.
Dropping his duffel, Sailor grabbed her up into his arms and spun her around. “God, I missed you.” Rough heat in his touch, his arms almost crushingly tight.
ísa’s bruised heart expanded. “Me too,” she said, taking another risk, another chance.
Door shut and locked behind them a minute later, Sailor grabbed her hips and pulled her back against his chest. “First things first.” His mouth on her neck, his erection pressing so urgently against her that she shivered.
His scent was raw, all sweat and heat and man.
Turning in his arms, ísa sought his mouth with raw desperation.
He kissed her, lashing his tongue across hers as he walked her backward into her living room and tumbled her onto the armless sofa she could convert into a bed. She landed with a soft “oomph,” then watched as Sailor pulled off his boots.
“Shit, I got dirt on your carpet.”
“Like I care right now.”
He didn’t laugh as he tore off his socks before rising to pull off his T-shirt. The man was built like a female fantasy; it was unfair what he could do to her with just his body. Knowing that body had been sculpted by stubborn hard work just made it all the hotter. “I want to touch and kiss and taste.”
A motionless instant followed by a shake of his head… and an unsteady breath. “Nope.”
When he shoved up her dress and tugged down her panties until they hung off one ankle, she was more than ready to have him inside her.
Where she could hold him. Where he’d be hers first, before the world took its bite.
But that wasn’t Sailor’s intent: kneeling without warning, he hauled her over the end of the sofa and put his mouth on the most sensitive place on her body, the flesh there delicate petals.
ísa’s brain exploded into tiny pieces of honeyed pleasure.
Pulling her legs over his shoulders, Sailor shoved his hands under her rear to hold her in place while he lapped her up; ísa just gave in, riding the rippling waves until it felt as if she had no bones in her body and pleasure hazed her vision. By the time Sailor finally rose, stripped off the rest of his clothing and put on protection, she was liquid honey.
“Look at me, ísalind.”
ísa opened her eyes at his guttural growl. It was erotic beyond compare to have him slide into her while their eyes remained locked in stark intimacy. And yet ísa felt the biting edge of the loneliness that awaited. Somehow finding the strength to place her hands over his shoulders, she drew him closer. Eyes glittering, he lowered his body until his chest crushed her breasts… and then she watched as Sailor Bishop lost himself in her.
All the while trying not to feel the desperation in both their bodies as they fought to hold on to a dream that threatened to crumple under the weight of harsh reality.
37
Weasels, Rats, and Other Assorted Rodents
íSA ROSE TO THE SOUNDS of someone moving around. “Sailor?” she mumbled.
“Hey, spitfire.” Already dressed, he crouched down to kiss her. “I have to head out.” A big hand cupping her face. “I’m driving to the nursery this evening. I’ll get back too late to come over. Tomorrow?”
ísa nodded and, despite his urgings that she stay in bed, got up to kiss him goodbye at the door. As she watched him walk away, his duffel in one hand, her heart squeezed. It only got worse when he waved at her from the elevator.
She was madly, passionately, terribly in love with Sailor Bishop.
And no matter how hard he tried, he could only give her short moments of his time.
“Story of my life,” she whispered with a mocking smile aimed solely at herself. Because she was the one who’d put herself in this situation; she was the one who’d fallen for those demon-blue eyes; she was the one who’d traded in her dream to support his.
ísa had to laugh or she’d curl up in a ball and cry until her eyes looked like they were made of spaghetti sauce.
Since she was awake anyway, she decided to put in some work on the last hours of security footage. That it was Saturday mattered little; she wouldn’t stop until she’d hunted down the leaker. And if she needed to talk to Jacqueline, she knew exactly where to find her—the Crafty Corners HQ.
Her mother considered Saturdays a workday. Sundays too, though she was more subtle about that since even Oliver wasn’t tolerant enough to accept a spouse who worked seven days a week, sixteen hours a day. So she worked on her gadgets at home. Oliver seemed happy enough with that.
Twenty-five minutes into the security footage, ísa saw it. Frowning, she pulled up another file, cross-referenced. “Shit.”
Her phone rang right then, Sailor’s number flashing up. And her foolish heart went boom, boom. “Sailor? Is something the matter?”
“I scared off some guy who was taking pictures of the Fast Organic site when I arrived.” He sounded a touch breathless. “I chased him, but the slimy weasel had a head start and his car was already running. He jumped in and took off.”
“I don’t suppose he’s blond and looks like he should be in a toothpaste commercial?”
“I swear, his teeth glinted in the sunlight.”
Well, that was the nail in the coffin. “I know who it was. I don’t think my mother will be pleased.”
* * *
That was an understatement.
“ísalind,” Jacqueline said very precisely when ísa showed her the evidence of Trevor’s sneaking about, “never trust good-looking and charming men.”