Page 40 of Stone
“Family, purpose, do some good in the world that didn’t involve guns.”
“And you ended up in Mystery Lake?”
He heard the smile in her voice, and he returned it. “Dulcie’s bike got a flat tire. We stopped to fix it and decided to stay. There’s a therapist a lot of us worked with over the years, and she suggested we reach out to the network we’re now a part of. She knew all our backgrounds and thought that helping people out of abusive relationships might be the purpose we were looking for. It felt right, and so we sank our roots there.”
“And now you have your family and your purpose. Along with a few successful businesses,” she said, her voice tinged with both pride and a little awe.
He inclined his head. “Family—the right family—can be a powerful thing.”
Her eyes searched his, then she nodded. “It can,” she agreed before looking away.
Sliding a hand around her waist, he held her. “You were dealt a shitty hand, too.”
She tipped her head. “Not compared to you.”
“It’s not a competition,” he replied, slipping his fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck. “We both deserved better.”
She hesitated, then nodded. “We did.”
They stared at each other for several heartbeats. And the longer he stood there, tracing the line of her jaw, the curve of her cheek, and the softness of her lips, the more he wanted her. The more he wanted the goodness that lay between them.
Her lips ticked up a fraction. “If we stand here any longer, I’m going to kiss you, Simon McLean.”
“No, you’re not,” he replied. “Because I’m going to kiss you,” he replied before lowering his head. She melted into him as the kiss, both gentle and confident, intensified. He inhaled her scent, memorizing the feel of her lips against his, the way her hip curved under his hand, and the brush of her breasts against his body. Her palms rested on his chest, their warmth searing his skin through his cotton shirt.
Tilting her head, he deepened their connection, sweeping his tongue against hers. They tangled and dueled and retreated and tasted and learned each other. Her fingers curled into his shirt as she leaned into him, and his blood raced south—well, what little hadn’t been there already. And now that he knew her scent and her taste and the sound of her need, he suspected he’d be walking around half hard most of the time.
A block away, a car backfired, the sound ricocheting through the room. Startled and already on edge, he swiftly pulled away. Juliana tensed as well, but he tightened his hold on her, reassuring her she had nothing to worry about.
“A car,” he said.
Her eyes took a moment to focus, and he savored the dazed look on her face before she nodded and relaxed again. There was no way she could miss his arousal pressed against her belly, but she didn’t move away.
“What now?” she asked.
His mind went in a hundred different directions. No, that was a lie. It went in one specific direction—one that had them both naked in the king-size bed upstairs. But the first time they were together wouldn’t be in this house. He—they—wouldn’t be surrounded by the memories of his gritty past. One look into her eyes told him she felt the same.
“Now we get some sleep,” he said, lowering his hand and wrapping it around hers. “In the morning, we’ll assess the situation, maybe touch base with Anna, then head back to Mystery Lake.”
“We need to figure out how to get evidence on the triad,” she said with a nod. “We can’t do much without evidence.”
“Anna will work on it, too,” he said, leading her to the stairs that would take them to the bedrooms. There were now three, but even with options, he had no intention of sleeping apart. Not after the kiss, not after his confession, not after the day they’d had. He wanted the assurance that she was safe. With him. And if that meant sleeping beside her, his arms wrapped around her, then that was a slice of heaven he’d happily steal.
21
Juliana woke as she often did, with nary a heartbeat between sleep and full awareness. It served her well on the mornings she slept late, but usually, she wished she could linger in that place between a little longer than a nanosecond.
Not this time, though. Despite being fully awake, she didn’t move. Something was off.
Opening her eyes, the room looked exactly as it had when she’d fallen asleep with Simon’s arm wrapped around her from behind. The pale gray of the area rug covered the dark wood floor. Her jeans and bra—because no way in hell was she sleeping in that—sat folded on the mid-century chair tucked into the corner. The sliding door to the closet, closed.
Only Simon’s arm no longer rested in the dip of her waist and their hands were no longer tucked against her chest.
And an odd—though soft and familiar—glow filled the room.
Rolling onto her back, her gaze fell on Simon. Sitting up in bed with the sheets pooled at his waist, the dim light of his phone illuminated his impressive—and delicious—chest. She took a moment to admire the muscles—the defined planes and lines—as she remembered the heat of his body enveloping her whenhe’d pulled her toward him. The man was a blast furnace. Which would come in handy in a few months when the snow arrived.
That thought hovered in her mind. Not so much the thought itself, but the image it conjured. And the ease with which she conjured it. She’d never let her mind wander to the future with other men—not since she’d been eighteen and discovered that Randall Covington had “scraped the barrel”—his exact words—in dating her just to get close to her uncle. It hadn’t helped that two years later, Kalen Jacobs had walked away from her for the exact opposite reason—his parting words spat out in disgust, asking how she expected him to stay involved with someone related to Wesley Morgan. His departure had stung, but in her heart of hearts, she couldn’t argue his point. The policies her uncle supported were abhorrent, resulting in families being torn apart, disproportionate incarcerations, bankruptcies, and even deaths. She couldn’t fathom why the people of North Carolina continued to elect him. Then again, she had her suspicions that not everything was aboveboard when it came to his campaigns.
