SHELBY RAN OUT the door the moment she spotted Callen’s truck pull up in front of her house. As she ran, she looked for any bruises she was certain would be there.
There wasn’t a mark on him.
Well, no injuries, anyway. But she could see the dark emotion in his eyes. Emotion that didn’t mesh with the perky pink wrapped presents he had tucked under his arm.
“Ginger called and said you and your brothers had all left the police station together,” she blurted out. “Are you okay? Are your brothers okay?”
“We’re fine.” He looped his free arm around her shoulders, snuggling her against him, and he brushed a kiss on the top of her head. “Ginger told you, huh?”
“Well, Ginger and three others who called to say they’d seen all of the Laramie brothers driving eastbound in a cruiser.”
The corner of his mouth lifted, but she couldn’t tell if that was from the dry humor of the fast-speeding gossip train or if there truly was something to smile about.
“According to reports, departure times varied,” she added, hoping to test the reason for the smile. “But the general consensus was that somebody was about to be on the receiving end of a butt-whipping. Was there a butt-whipping?” she asked when he didn’t say anything.
He still didn’t answer until they were inside. “I punched Avis a couple of times.” Without looking at her, he closed the door, set the packages on the coffee table and took off his coat.
“You wanted to punch him more than just a couple of times.” Shelby sighed. “You wanted to hurt him, bad. And he would have deserved it, too, but you held back because hurting him wouldn’t have changed the past.”
Callen pulled her back into the crook of his arm and gave her another kiss on the head. “And that’s why I wanted to come and see you.”
Like his half smile, that was a little bit cryptic, but just the fact he was here was enough for now. “Are your brothers okay?”
“Yeah.” While he stood there holding her, he stayed quiet a moment. “Judd’s scary as shit—you know that?”
Now she smiled because there was some humor in his tone. “Yes, indeed. Judd puts the hard in hard-ass. But he’s a good cop, so I’m guessing he didn’t throw any punches.”
“No. But he took one...for the Laramie team, I guess you could say. He baited Avis, and Avis slugged him. That and the attempted extortion will be enough to make Avis go back to his rat hole.”
Good. None of them needed a thug like that around. “I figured he’d try to press charges against me.”
Another long pause. “No.” He lifted her hand, softly cursed at the bruised knuckles and gently kissed them. “I’m so sorry, Shelby.”
“Hey, you shouldn’t be apologizing. It’s not your fault that a-hole showed up.” She caught onto his face, turned his head to make eye contact. “And just know if you need another a-hole beaten up, then I’m your woman.”
Oh, there it was. The real-deal smile. But it didn’t last. He groaned. “What about the Millhouse family? Are they running for the hills after what they must have seen and heard from the Avis mess?”
“Not running,” she assured him. And she was about 95 percent sure that was true. They had looked a little shaken, though, but that could have been because of the sugar overload from Rosy’s cookies. “Lucy and Mateo are going to visit them tomorrow, and then the Millhouses will be at the wedding. I think it’d be nice if all sides made a decision about the placement by Christmas.”
Nice but it would also be somewhat of a miracle since that was only three days away. And that was a reminder that the wedding was only the day after tomorrow.
She tipped her head to the presents he’d brought in. “Gifts for Rosy and Buck?” she asked.
“Uh, no. They’re actually Christmas presents for you. I didn’t know the person who wrapped them would use pink paper.”
Well, now. That lifted away any trace of a dark mood. “You didn’t have to get me anything.” But what fun that he had. “Can I open them now, or should I wait until Christmas?”
The moment she included that “wait until Christmas” part, Shelby knew she’d screwed up. Because it was a reminder that Callen might not even be around on Christmas Day.
“Whenever you want,” he said. “They’re nothing big. Just tokens.”
“Even so, there are two, so two tokens make a near gift. Not bad for December 22. I’ll open them now.” Shelby sank down on the sofa, picked up one of the boxes and shook it. “You probably don’t know this about me, but I’m somewhat of an expert when it comes to gift rattling. This sounds like a book to me. Or maybe a small life raft.”
She tore into the paper as he sat next to her and took out the gift. It was indeed a book. Cooking for Dummies.
“Say, isn’t that the cookbook that’s been in Ted’s for the past twenty years?” she asked. “The one that sat next to the nunchucks and the body piercing kit?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “I bought the contents of the entire shelf.” He held up his index finger. “But before you get your hopes up, I gave the body piercing kit to Nico. He had his heart set on it.” He handed her the other gift. “But here are the nunchucks.”
“Awww.” She stretched that out a bit, opened the package and yep—nunchucks. “You are so good to me.”
“Anything for the woman who kicks ass as well as you do.” He kissed her, not on the head this time but on the mouth. It was a lingering one that Shelby knew could lead to other things.
Like straight to the bed.
First, though, she wanted to do something. “I have a gift for you, too.” She leaped off the sofa and hurried to the still-to-be-fully-decorated tree, and she took out his present that she’d put underneath.
She’d surprised him. Shelby saw that right away. Maybe made him a little uneasy, too, that this might be something more than just a token.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I didn’t get you an engagement ring or anything else that comes with strings attached.” She put the gift on his lap. “And note that I used real Christmas paper.”
“Nice.” He ran his hand over the green sparkly wrap and the gold bow. Unlike her, he took his time opening it, and then gave her a puzzled look when he took the gift from the box. “It’s a rearview mirror.”
She made a dinging sound as if he’d got a question right on a game show, but she caught onto his hand when he reached to pull back the strip of green paper she’d used to cover the actual mirror.
“I know I’m always bringing up that mirror-gate incident where you didn’t look back at me,” Shelby explained. “So, I thought you’d want to know what you missed seeing.”
She let go of his hand so he could peel back the paper, and she got the exact reaction she wanted.
He laughed when he saw the picture of herself that she had inserted there. It was one she’d got Lucy to take of Shelby grinning and waving.
“There’s another layer,” she instructed.
Callen peeled off the smiling shot to reveal one of Shelby in an exaggerated sob. She had even fisted her hands as if rubbing them against her eyes. Copious amounts of mascara ran down her cheeks.
“I wanted to give you a sense of the full range of my emotions,” she said. “And that’s why there’s a third and final layer. But to see that one, you first have to close your eyes. Really close them,” she emphasized.
Just in case he cheated, Shelby took the rearview mirror from him and hurried to the back of the sofa. She stripped down, tossing her clothing aside as quietly as she could until she was wearing only her birthday suit.
“Keep your eyes closed,” she reminded him, and she put the mirror back in his hand, positioning it so that she and her nakedness would be the reflection he’d see. “Okay, eyes open,” she said when she had the pose right.
She immediately saw a problem with what she’d thought would be a laugh-out-loud, sexy gift. She couldn’t see his expression. Only his eyes as they met hers in the mirror and then his gaze as it tracked down her body. He had to shift the mirror some to take her in.
“Very nice,” he concluded.
Callen turned, lightning fast, and he caught onto her, pulling her across the back of the sofa and onto him. There was laughter, all right, followed by a scorcher of a kiss.
“This is much better than the gifts I gave you,” he drawled.
“Then you’ll have to make up for it.” And she scorched him with a kiss of her own.
* * *
MAYBE IT WAS because of the raw energy and emotion he’d brought to her doorstep, but Callen decided to try to smooth some of that away.
Of course, Shelby had already smoothed a whole bunch with that incredible gift. One that’d made him laugh while it also reminded him that he’d just plain sucked with that old goodbye—or rather the lack of a goodbye. That meant he needed to do better next time—He pushed the notion of “next time” aside. That wasn’t going to help what he had in mind here.
And what he had in mind was making love to her.
Yes, they’d had sex, and it’d been better than great, but there had always been that need gnawing away to make everything feel so urgent. So life and death. So now. He wanted to take that down a notch and build a slow but steady fire that would soothe them both.
Since she was already naked, Callen scooped her up, tossing her over his shoulder caveman style, and because slow and steady could still be fun, he gave her a light smack on the butt. Then gave it a little kiss because, after all, it was right there next to his mouth. She giggled, reached down and gave him a swat, too.
He eased her onto the bed and nearly lost his breath when he got a good look at her. “So much better than the view in the mirror,” he let her know.
Callen went to her, putting his knee on the bed between her legs, and he lowered himself to kiss her. Yes. Much better because now he could touch her. He took her mouth as slowly as he could manage, tasting and teasing while he slid his hand down her body.
No way was he going to just skip over her breasts since they were one of his favorite parts. Her breasts were small, almost delicate, which didn’t exactly mesh with her personality, so it was like finding an extra special hidden treasure. He kissed her there, too, and enjoyed the way her body bucked beneath him when he took her nipple into his mouth. He sampled and tasted there until she hit him on the back.
“Get naked,” she demanded.
Obviously, Shelby was starting to feel some of their usual urgency.
Callen did pull off his boots, and he unbuttoned his shirt, but he didn’t stop kissing her. Undressing just gave him different angles of her that he could reach with his mouth.
Her stomach. He kissed her there while he undid his belt.
Her hip. That was a nice spot for his tongue while he unzipped his jeans.
He went for the inside of her thigh when he shucked off his shirt. Since Shelby was making some sounds of pleasure, he lingered there while removing his jeans.
Getting out of his shorts required something special. He kept his mouth in the general area of her thigh. Then moved in. And in. Until he hoped he made the kiss very special. Judging from the way Shelby groaned out his name and pulled his hair, he had succeeded.
Callen would have kept on succeeding, if she hadn’t used the grip on his hair to pull him back up to her. “In me now,” she demanded.
So, even more urgency. It was there for Callen now, too. He was hard as stone and starting to throb. It didn’t help that she had hooked her legs around him and was trying to pull him into her.
“Condom,” he reminded her, and it was possibly the only thing he could have said to her that got her to release his hair and the leg grip she had on him.
He grabbed a condom from his wallet, and the second he got it on, Shelby latched on to him. Not on to his hair this time. But his dick.
It got his attention, and his own urgency went through the roof.
Thankfully, there was a fix for it. Him inside her. Just as she’d demanded. And she was clearly ready because he’d barely managed a couple of thrusts when her climax came. There was nothing delicate about it. She closed around him like a greedy fist, and all those muscles went to work. Squeezing and pulsing. Drawing right in.
Callen wasn’t sure how he managed to hang on, but he did. Still moving inside her, he waited until her eyes had cleared. Until their gazes were locked. Until he saw the pleasure glow around her, and only then did he let himself go.