Just as she knew, if she didn’t get away from him soon, she was going to embarrass herself. She squeezed him and said, “I know. I missed you too.” Then she tried to ease back.
He let her, but he didn’t let go completely. She ended up sitting on the ground between his thighs, one of his hands on her waist. She sat as straight as she could, trying to keep from leaning against him. “Where did you spend the past year?” she asked, trying to make herself think about something other than the fact that he was so damn close.
“Here…there…everywhere. Spent some time in South Carolina, drove down the coast. Spent the past couple of months working in Mobile.” He shrugged.
“Doing what?”
“Nothing at first. Just driving. Had to keep moving around. Made it easier for a while. I took some money from my savings account and just used it for hotels, to eat on. When it was gone, I sold the Lexus and bought the cheapest car I could find and just did more driving around. Worked odd jobs—bartending, construction, whatever.”
“Did it help?”
He was silent for a while. When he answered, his voice was thoughtful, slow, as though he still wasn’t entirely sure of the answer. “I don’t know. Some, I think. I hid from it for a while. Hid from her dying. Did my damnedest not to think about her if I could, and when I started to think about her, I made myself stop. It made it easier.”
“You weren’t ready.” Shifting around, she knelt in front of him.
He lifted a hand and cupped her face.
The feel of him touching her almost had her shuddering and she just barely managed to throttle it down. But she couldn’t control everything, and when she spoke, her voice was low and raspy. That could be blamed on other things though. He didn’t have to know it was because she was dying for him, right? “Sometimes we’re just not ready to deal with things. The mind shields us until we are, gives us time. You just needed some time. It gets easier.”
“Yeah.” He slid his hand down, cupped it over the back of her neck. An unconscious gesture, she suspected, as he focused his dark amber gaze on Alyssa’s gravestone. “I’m going to love her for the rest of my life.”
Her heart broke. It was amazing that he didn’t hear the way it cracked inside her chest, amazing she didn’t drop lifeless to his feet as it shattered into thousands of useless pieces. “I know you will.”
His gaze came back to her then and her useless, shattered heart trembled at the look in his eyes. But it was just a fantasy. He couldn’t really be looking at her like that. Looking at her with something an awful lot like desire—and more.
Just a fantasy, she told herself as the sound of cars approaching broke the silence and ended the weird tension in the air. As one, they turned their heads, watched as a funeral procession turned off the main road into the cemetery. He stood and held out a hand. “I don’t really want to hang around here for this. Do you?”
She grimaced. “Not especially.” Tracking the line of cars with her eyes, she slid him a glance. “Are you parked there?”
“Yeah. Maybe we could get something to eat and you could bring me to get my car later.”
“I’m on my bike.” She glanced up at the sky, but to her surprise, the leaden gray clouds were clearing up and sun was starting to stream through.
Colby shrugged. “I don’t care.”
“I don’t have an extra helmet.”
“I don’t care.”
Bree opened her mouth to say something else. Then she glanced back at the funeral procession and the unending line of cars. Alyssa’s funeral had been like that, attended by so many people that the parking lots had overflowed. If they were going to leave, it needed to be soon.
Five minutes later, he mounted the bike behind her, rested his hands on her waist as she started it up. Already, cars were heading their way, coming around the back road toward the smaller parking lot. Bree whipped out of there before the first of the cars made it halfway down the lane.
Heat.
Shit, the heat of her was going to kill him. Even if guilt decided to rear its ugly head and make him suffer for what he was thinking, the heat would kill him before guilt had a chance.
The vibrations of the bike rumbled through him and he sat plastered against the long, slender line of her back. Involuntarily, his hands tightened on her waist and he had to consciously relax them. Worse, his body reacted to the nearness of hers and he knew there was no way in hell he could hide it.
Maybe she wouldn’t notice.