Chapter Eighteen
“Where’d you find this furniture?” were the first words out of her mouth when he unlocked the door.
Since she’d accused him of not being good at multitasking when he had to drive and have an orgasm at the same time, he was intent on proving her wrong. He reminded her it was a fully furnished rental at the same time that he picked her up and let her feel how springy the hideous plaid couch was when he laid her down.
He also let her feel that his rebound time was excellent, and he wasn’t going to disappoint her by sitting out this round.
“Bedroom?” she asked as she kicked off her shoes.
“Upstairs.” He tugged off her shirt, dropping it somewhere on the ground. Who cared? Not him. Not Abbi, either. His shirt joined the detritus. Shoes, socks.
“I swear I can be a better host than this,” he said as she yanked off his belt.
“Hospitality just wastes time,” she said.
“I like the way you think.” He swept her up in his arms.
“I didn’t say treat me like a sack of potatoes,” she cried, but she was laughing, the kind of laugh that made her eyes crinkle and no noise come out, just her mouth open and her hiccupping gasps as he gripped her tighter and made a show of racing up the stairs.
“Walking is another waste of time. You. Bed. Now.”
Scott would have laughed at him for turning into a caveman when he talked about Abbi. They’d sit around the station and Scotty would be there ribbing him about finally meeting a girl who made him feel something inside.
“This one’s different,” Tyler would say. And Scotty would raise his whiskey, give Tyler a wink, and say, “They all are, aren’t they?”
Tyler wished, more than anything, that he could have this mock argument with his best friend and convince him that Abbi was different. That she was special. That he wasn’t going to let this one go.
“And when you leave and find that new job you said you wanted?” Scott, clear-eyed, too serious, sipping from his glass and awaiting Tyler’s answer.
But Tyler didn’t have a response planned out for that. The fantasy vanished just as quickly as it had come.
“Hey,” Abbi said as Tyler tossed her on the covers. “You okay there? You, like, went away for a second.”
He forced a grin. “Just thinking about you. And how you’re in my bed.”
She was sitting down and he straddled her, standing with his hips at eye level. Mouth level. At the perfect height for her hands to come and strip his pants down.
“I am indeed in your bed,” Abbi said, doing all those things he wanted.
He lay her back and took her out of those jeans that fit her like a dream, somehow slouchy and comfortable and showing her curves all at once. Showing off just how much there was to admire when he got them off.
“Hold that thought.” He went to the nightstand to grab a condom from the drawer. When he turned back she was completely naked and had propped herself on the pillows.
Oh, God.
She spread her legs. Dropped her hand to her curls. Locked eyes with him as she slipped a finger in.
He watched her fingers circle. Watched her thighs tense. His dick was rock hard and he stroked it slowly, not wanting to get ahead of her. Her eyes were fixated on his hand. His cock. He wanted to bury himself in her warmth and never stop.
Tyler had the feeling Abbi wanted him to do exactly that—take her and fuck her hard. But he knew by now that she went wild, truly wild, when he made her prove she wanted it. When she had to prove she wanted it from him.
He stopped stroking himself and knelt on the floor by the edge of the bed. Then he grabbed her by the hips, pulling her toward him. Her legs he let fall on either side of his shoulders, pushing up her knees so she was as open to him as she could be. He could have knelt there for hours, taking in the view. The curve of her skin against his sheets. The swell of her breasts. The need in her eyes as she lifted her head and gazed down.
She dropped her head back and tangled her fingers in his hair. “Please,” she whimpered as her hips arched up to him.
“Please what?”
“Lick me. Fuck me. Make me come.”
“One thing at a time, baby,” he said, making sure she saw his grin. Her nose wrinkled in frustration. God, he loved teasing her. Abbi acted like she was in control all the time, but when he licked along the sweet, wet slit between her thighs, she was his.
She came on his tongue, gripping his hair, her strong thighs clenched around him. And then she came again after he entered her, sliding her legs up, pushing so deep all he could do was close his eyes and let the sensations overcome him, the feel of her skin, the sounds of her breathing, the press of her hands, her hips, her thighs. The way she enveloped him.
He slid his cock out, pulled off the condom, and jacked himself all over her quivering stomach. He wanted to see the look in her eyes as he came. He wanted to see the desire there, the hunger for him.
She may have started this thing as a one-time deal, and he may have started off using her, too. He’d just wanted to get out of his head, get out of his life, forget himself in her body for a while.
But not now. He didn’t feel further away from himself when he was with her. He felt closer to something than he’d ever been before.
“You’re spending the night after we shower, right?” he said as he hovered over her, the evidence of his desire painted on her skin.
She didn’t move, and he wasn’t sure if that meant she’d gone frozen, that just making that assumption was giving away too much and now she was officially going to back away.
But when he looked down, she was smiling. “Where else do you think I want to go?”
…
Abbi woke up alone.
She thought for a second that Tyler had left, but then she heard heavy breathing coming from the living room—what the fuck? When she padded out wearing nothing but his T-shirt, she saw him doing pushups, pounding them out one after another in a blur.
She leaned against the doorframe. Was it possible to have an orgasm just by watching a man’s back muscles flex? She was about to find out.
Realizing he had an audience, Tyler looked up and dropped one knee down.
“For the love of all that is holy, don’t stop,” Abbi said.
He grinned. “I can’t wait to make you say that in bed.”
“Let’s get practicing, then.” She turned, lifting the T-shirt of his she was wearing to give him a view she hoped he’d appreciate as she walked to the bedroom.
She was disappointed he’d stopped doing pushups, but she wasn’t disappointed with the speed with which he leaped up to follow her. A man she didn’t just want to fuck but wake up with? And talk to?
And hike with? Maybe even…go grocery shopping, out for breakfast, to Mackenzie’s with her friends?
A man she might be able to…trust?
No. She was moving too fast, too out of control. Too unlike her.
She didn’t even know if he felt the same way, if he was thinking anything beyond fitting in as much fun as possible before he said good-bye and moved on.
She needed to throw him down on the bed and have a good wake up session. Then coffee. Breakfast. At some point, she’d figure out what came next.
She walked around the bed to the nightstand where Tyler had gotten the condoms last night. She was reaching in search of the box when she noticed something. There was a picture frame in the drawer.
His? Or did it belong to whomever he was renting the place from? The furniture was certainly eclectic. Maybe there had been some weird-ass photo left on the nightstand and he’d tucked it in the drawer to get it out of sight.
But when she opened the drawer wider to see, it was clear the picture wasn’t from the house owner, or something random he’d shoved away without thinking.
The picture was of Tyler.
He was young—even younger than he already looked with that smooth skin of his—and his hair was freshly cropped close to his scalp. He was decked out in his firefighting gear, a kid dressed up for the big leagues. It was so fucking cute her heart tugged.
He was standing next to another guy, also baby-faced, short hair, the same goofy grin like the whole world was laid out at his feet. She could sense their closeness even through the picture. They could have been brothers, even twins, despite looking nothing alike.
“Who’s this hottie?” Abbi asked, showing the picture to Tyler. “And why’s this nice frame in a drawer?”
She expected some great story about the start of his firefighting training, the friends he’d made. For the first time, it occurred to her to wonder why he’d left for the summer when there must have been plenty going on in L.A. Why he wanted to move somewhere else next.
It was strange to feel close to him in some ways and yet have so many aspects of his life she hardly knew at all. And so many of her own secrets she never planned to tell.
She was thinking about how she could want that closeness and not want it at the same time. She wasn’t thinking at all about the look on Tyler’s face, until she realized he wasn’t speaking. He was just standing there, no longer a swelled up man with his muscles twitching and a hard line in his jaw but a boy again, the one in the photograph. Someone who believed in the world but was so very terrified of it.
“I’m sorry,” she said, faltering. “I shouldn’t have pried.”
That ought to make it clear where they stood. Nothing too personal. Nothing too heavy. She should have been glad about that.
Then he swallowed, and she remembered the first night in the bar, watching his Adam’s apple move and knowing she had to kiss him. She couldn’t pull away.
“That’s me and my best friend, Scotty, in one of our early days out of training,” he said.
Abbi smiled. “You guys are adorable. You look so young!”
She could do casual. See?
“Hard to believe, isn’t it? Scott and I met during training, and we were both taken under the wing of my supervisor, Aidan. We lived together, worked together. He was like family to me.”
“Was?” Abbi couldn’t help picking up on the tense.
And then suddenly things weren’t so casual anymore.
Tyler came around to the side of the bed and lifted the photograph from her hands. Gently he placed it back in the drawer where she’d found it. Then he slid the drawer shut.
“Was,” he repeated. “He died.”
“Tyler.” Her hands, now empty without the picture frame, flew to her mouth. “I’m so sorry. When?”
“June.”
He walked around to the other side of the bed. “I guess I shouldn’t keep it where the condoms are. I just…can’t stand to look at it. Can’t stand to get rid of it, either.”
Abbi’s heart hammered. Something hard and hot had risen in her throat.
“Tyler,” she said, then wished she had something more effective than that. “Do you mean this June?”
He nodded.
She sat on the bed. The condom, the morning she’d had in mind, were forgotten. She had no idea what to do. No idea what to say. She almost didn’t want him to tell her. It was too much, too serious, too far from the lies and the jokes where they’d started.
But how could she do that to him? She extended her arms, and somehow his huge frame fit just right with hers.
“That’s really, really recent,” she said.
“I know.”
“Is that why you came here for the summer?”
“I needed to get out of L.A.,” he said, and she sensed what it cost him to make this confession. That he’d been running from something. That he wasn’t okay.
“What happened?” she asked, unsure if she wanted to know. Hoping somehow it might make the knot in her stomach loosen. Knowing even as she asked the words that of course it wouldn’t. Tyler didn’t do things halfway. He wouldn’t have packed up his life and escaped California and planned some big career change if anything about this story were remotely okay.
She couldn’t be the keeper of his sorrows—not if it meant he’d expect her to share her own pains. But neither could she up and leave. When Tyler shifted, she let him draw her down to the bed, his body curled around her like a blanket. A strange thing, to feel this comfortable while also on edge. She had a feeling he’d chosen this position so he had something to hold on to. And so he didn’t have to look at her when the words came out.
“There was a fire,” he said. So simple. So matter of fact. But the shudder of his body against hers told her there was nothing simple about the memories Tyler kept locked in that drawer.