“I thought I’d lost you,” he said into her ear. “Oh, Christ, I thought I’d—”
“You saved me, you saved me—”
They were both talking a mile a minute, tripping over words, buzzing from the near miss. And then he was kissing her and she was kissing him back.
Except she stopped all that, pulling away. “I think you’re the one who’s bleeding.”
“Just scratches—”
“Oh, God, look at your arms—your hands!”
He was totally torn up, his exposed skin streaked with cuts from his having fought through the branches to get to her—and there were further contusions on his face and his neck.
“I don’t care,” he said. “You’re all I’m worried about.”
“Do you need a doctor?”
“Oh, please. The tree fell on you, remember?”
And that was when the lights went out.
Lizzie stilled for a moment … and then she started to laugh so hard that her eyes burned. It was just too much emotion about too many things for her to hold in—and before she knew it, Lane was laughing, too, the pair of them holding each other and letting out the ridiculous afterburn of everything from the problems with his family to the stress of the brunch … to that freak accident with her tree.
“Shower?” she said.
“I thought you would never ask.”
Ordinarily, she’d have fussed over the wet footprints across her living room and up the planks of the stairs, but not now: The memory of that weight landing on her car was a prioritizer and a half.
“I swear, I thought I hit your car,” she said as they came up to the second floor.
“It wouldn’t have mattered if you had.”
Ah, the joys of being a Bradford, she thought. “You have a backup Porsche, I’m sure.”
“Even if I didn’t, it wouldn’t have mattered as long as you’re okay.”
Squeezing together, they made it through the jambs of her bedroom and into her bath—and then, as she turned on the shower, he went for her clothes, unbuttoning things, releasing zippers, shedding her second skin’s worth of wet and cold and clingy.
Goosebumps tickled her arms and thighs, but that was more from the heat in his eyes than the chill in the air. And then Lane was taking off his own clothes, leaving them where they landed in a tangled mess with hers.
“Under the water,” she groaned as he nuzzled into her throat, kissing his way to her mouth.
He cursed as they stepped into the warm, gentle spray—and as the blood washed off, she was relieved. Just cuts on him, nothing serious …
And that was the last thought she had as his big hands traveled over her slick breasts, and his mouth came down hard on hers, and that familiar erotic urgency sprang to life between them.
I love you, she thought inside her head.
I love you all over again, Lane.
Sometime later, after the power came back on, and Lane had made love to his Lizzie twice in the shower and once more in her bed, after they had gone down and had the last of that frozen lasagna and most of the peach ice cream in her house, after they had returned upstairs and gotten into her bed again … all the problems of the day came back to him.
Fortunately, Lizzie was asleep and it was dark, so whatever expression he didn’t have the energy to hide was a non-starter.
Staring at her ceiling, his mind pulled a churn and burn over it all, and the next thing he knew, light was glowing at the edge of the horizon. A quick glance at Lizzie’s alarm clock and he was surprised to find that he’d blown the whole night.
Sliding out from under the sheets, he got to his feet and went into the bathroom. His clothes were unsalvageable; he picked them up off the floor and put them into her trash. The only thing he saved? His boxers.
Better than driving home buck-ass naked on the Lord’s day.
Back out in the bedroom, he went over to Lizzie. “I gotta go.”
She came awake on a jerk, and he soothed her until she put her head on the pillow again. “I’ve got a date with a beautiful woman that I can’t miss,” he said.
Lizzie smiled in a sleepy, fuzzy way that made him want to stare at her forever. “Tell her I said hello?”
“I will.” He kissed her on the mouth. “I’m bringing you dinner tonight, by the way.”
“Will it be frozen?”
“No, hotter’n’hell.”
The smile she gave him went right through to his blood, cranking him up even though there was no time to do anything about it.
“I lo—” Lane stopped himself, knowing she wasn’t going to like that good-bye. “I’ll see you at five o’clock tonight.”
“I’ll be here.”
He kissed her one more time and then strode for the door.
“Wait, what about your clothes?” she called out.
“They can’t arrest me. The naughty bits are covered up.”