THE WARM BREEZE snuck up under Jan’s skirt like fingers, tickling her bare thighs, an unfamiliar and wonderfully sexy sensation.
She liked it.
She liked Mick’s arm around her waist too.
Not that he meant anything by it. He was simply keeping hold of her, not easy to do at ten o’clock on Duvall Street. People streamed along the sidewalks in both directions at once, jostling and stumbling, detouring in and out of bars so jammed they overflowed onto patios and balconies.
It was insane, more crowded and rowdy than St. Paddy’s Day in South Boston. Not usually Jan’s kind of scene. But tonight she kept moving, enjoying the guys checking her out for the first time in her life. They traveled in pairs and in packs, making eye contact, grinning suggestively, even wolf-whistling.
Had Mick noticed the attention she was getting? Probably not, with so many pretty girls to look at instead, batting their eyes at him, brushing against him accidentally on purpose.
She glanced up at him. Surprisingly, he was ignoring the girls, eyeing the guys instead. And the look on his face said, Fuck with me and die.
She elbowed him, and he dropped his narrow gaze to her. “What?”
“You okay?” she asked.
“Fan-freaking-tastic.” He went back to threat-assessing the crowd.
She stopped walking and swung around to face him. The current tossed them together in a chest bump, then sucked them apart. He leaped after her, wrapping her up in both arms.
“This place is a fucking zoo,” he snarled. Pinning her to his side, he shouldered through the worst of it until he could push her up against the wall of the nearest bar.
Beside her, people poured in and out through the wide-open doors, and music spilled into the street, adding to the din.
Bracing his hands on the wall on either side of her head, Mick caged her with his body, taking the bumps so she wouldn’t have to. “What’s the problem?” he wanted to know. “Why’d you stop?”
She touched her wrist to his forehead. No fever, but his eyes burned too bright. “Are you sick?” she asked.
“I’m sick of fighting this mob.”
“Mr. Cranky. Do you want to go back to the room?”
“Hell yeah.” His smile broke out like sunshine. “Let’s go.”
“I meant you. I’ll stick around. Maybe get a drink.”
Storm clouds gathered again, dark and forbidding. “Fine.” He gritted it. “You want a drink, we’ll get a drink.”
Muscling back into traffic, he propelled her along as he cased each bar, finally settling on one that seemed merely crowded instead of crammed to the rafters.
“It’s a fucking fire hazard,” he snapped out as they battled through the door. Hooking her hand in the back of his belt, he blasted her with a no-bullshit glare. “Do not let go.” And he headed for the bar, wedging his shoulder between bodies, dragging her along in his wake.
She trailed him until a hand caught her arm. A frat boy with a Yankees hat and a buzz cut. “Hey, babe. Nice hair.”
He reached out to touch it, and just like that Mick was up in his face. “She’s with me.”
“No prob, man.” The guy raised his hands and moved away.
She turned on Mick. “Why’d you do that?”
“Jesus, Jan. That guy’s after one thing.”
“So am I.”
“No, you’re not. Not really.” He drove all ten fingers through his hair. “Think about it, Jan. A lot of these guys are still in college. They’re young and stupid and selfish. They can’t give you the experience you want.”
Honestly, she’d been thinking the same thing herself. Besides young, stupid, and selfish, most of them were really drunk too. She’d made out with drunk guys before, and it hadn’t been much fun.
She bit her lip. Wavered.
Then Mick leaned in close, his scruff scraping her cheek, his breath warm on her ear. She let herself inhale just a tiny whiff of his Mick-scent . . .
And he said three words. “Walking. Dead. Marathon.”
She pulled back and stared at him. “Right now? No way. Why didn’t you tell me?”
He shrugged. “You had your heart set on this.”
She followed his glance around the crammed room. Men and women alike churned around the floor, shit-faced and horny. A cheer went up as two drunks hoisted a blonde onto the bar. She started twerking; guys started whistling.
Jan turned back to Mick. He lifted one brow. A half smile played on his lips.
Drunks and twerkers, or Mick and zombies?
She jerked a thumb at the door.
BACK IN THEIR room, Mick second-guessed his strategy. The Walking Dead marathon had seemed like an inspiration back in that bar full of drunks.
But now reality hit him: they’d have to lie in bed to watch it.
Still, he’d have faced worse to get her away from that scene. Christ, when that fucked-up frat boy started pawing her . . .
Pulling a cold one from the fridge, he rolled it across his forehead. He knew all too well what that guy had in mind. He’d had it in his own mind often enough.
Jan came out of the bathroom. “Your turn,” she said.
Without thinking, he looked over at her.
Cotton boxers and a short cotton T-shirt.
She shouldn’t look sexy in them. But she did.
She peeled the blanket off the bed. “It’s too hot for this, don’t you think?”
He managed to grunt. He was hot all right. Sweating.
She folded it at the foot of the bed, and—finally—slid her slender legs under the sheet. “Can I have this side? I always have to pee during the night, and I don’t want to crawl over you while you’re sleeping.”
“Yeah, sure.” Like it was no big deal. Like the thought of her crawling over him didn’t have his dick knocking at his zipper, begging to come out and play.
Swamped with lust and despair, he sucked on his beer and helplessly side-eyed the action on the bed.
She shook back her hair so it shimmered in the lamplight. Reached for the remote, so her white T-shirt rode up over her ribs. Twisted around to stack pillows, so one creamy cheek popped halfway out of her boxers . . .
He peeled his eyes away, slowly, like unsticking tape from a package.
Then he drained his bottle and reached into the fridge for another.
“Hand me one?” she said.
He brought it to her. She’d finally stopped wriggling, thank God. Now she sat back against the pillows, sheet folded primly across her lap, scrolling through the channels.
Eyes on the TV, she took the beer without looking, and for a moment her warm hand clamped his palm to the cold bottle. The contrast was insanely erotic.
Blissfully unaware of his agony, she found the channel. “They’re already into season three,” she announced. “The Governor.”
She shot him a smile, then swigged her beer. The bottle dripped sweat on her chest. His gaze followed the drips, their slow rolls down white cotton. This close up, her T-shirt was nearly transparent.
“I need a shower,” he mumbled, and disappeared into the bathroom.
Caging himself in the tiny shower stall, he quickly took matters into his own soapy hand, and for ten humming seconds let himself fantasize about the lovely girl in his bed, palming the breasts clearly visible through her tee, sucking the pink nipples that jutted against the fabric.
Then he shoved Jan ruthlessly out of the picture, pressed his forehead to the wall and spread the twerker out on the bar, forcing his brain to focus on her—only her—while he savagely finished himself off.
All of which should have bought him at least an hour of peace. But no. The instant he was done with the twerker, she vaporized.
Jan and her transparent T-shirt filled his mind’s eye again.
He toweled his head hard enough to leave his scalp tingling, then confronted the mirror. You can do this. Just lay there. Think about puppies and kittens, and don’t touch her. Don’t even look at her. And do not—he leveled his no-prisoners stare—under any circumstances, fall asleep.
Bad enough if Jan discovered he was a pig who couldn’t lie in bed without panting for her. But if she learned he was a pussy who couldn’t close his eyes without falling into a screaming nightmare?
Well, that he couldn’t live with.
Stiffening his spine, he summed up the game plan: No looking. No sleeping. Puppies and kittens.
He made it to the fridge without looking, got a beer, and stood staring blindly at the TV.
Now to get into bed. Unfortunately, it was jammed against the wall. He’d have to crawl up from the bottom, keeping to his side, which should be easy since Jan took up, like, eighteen inches at most . . .
A pillow hit him in the back of the head.
“Mick, I won’t bite.” She grinned when he glowered. “I know it’s weird, but come on, it’s me.”
Which was the whole problem in a nutshell.
Still, on some level, she was right. It was her, his best and oldest friend. Sure, they’d never shared a bed before, but they’d shared practically everything else. They knew how to hang out. They’d been doing it for decades. In fact, having Jan around had made a girlfriend superfluous. Except for sex, she was all the company he needed.
Falling back on old habits, he pointed his bottle at her. “Snore, and I’m shoving you on the floor.”
She put her nose in the air. “I don’t snore.”
“We’ll see. You’ve been warned.” Crawling up beside her, he stacked his pillows, leaned back against them, and made himself focus on the screen.
See? It’s no different than any other night. Zombies and beer. We could just as well be on my couch.
A walker took it in the eye. Blood spurted, gore oozed. “I wish we had pizza,” Jan said, predictably.
Mick’s shoulders eased. He scrunched down, got comfortable. The episode played out, and they watched another. Had another beer. Talked at the TV. Analyzed Rick and the gang like they were based on Shakespeare instead of a comic book.
And they laughed. The best night of his week so far.
Then he glanced over just as she lifted her arms to sweep back her hair. Her T-shirt went taut, her nipples stood out against it, and desire roared back to life, closing his throat in the middle of a sentence.
She lowered her arms, but it was too late. Testosterone flooded his veins. His cocked hardened and throbbed.
She glanced over, her mouth forming words, but he couldn’t make them out over the rushing of blood in his ears.
This was why he was no good for her. She was Snow White, and he was all seven fucking dwarves, looking for action every fucking day of the week.
What he needed was a girlfriend as oversexed as him, but it was a lost cause. He’d found a few women who could keep up, but none he wanted to spend time with long-term.
He always ditched them to go and hang out with Jan.
Jan, who’d never shown the least bit of interest. Oh, she liked hanging out with him because they shared a history and a comfort level that made it easy, nonthreatening. Like hanging out with a brother.
Which was just as well, he reminded himself, coming full circle back to Snow White. She was way too fragile for a guy like him. He had all the experience she lacked, and then some. And his huge appetite would scare the hell right out of her.
He knew it, accepted it. Usually, took it in stride.
But Jesus, her nipples.
He crawled down the bed and closed himself in the bathroom again.
Another shower would be too weird, so he bit down on a towel while he did the deed.
JAN SMOOTHED THE sheet over her lap. This was going to be weirder than she thought.
It was one thing to flop with Mick on his couch as Rick and the gang hacked their way through a herd. It was quite another to lie in bed together.
Even zombies couldn’t make it seem normal.
Mick came out of the bathroom and grabbed two beers from the fridge. “Thanks,” she said as he swapped a cold one for her empty.
He flashed a quick smile, then crawled up on the bed and made himself comfy, one long leg stretched out, the other bent at the knee. His beer rested on his abs, as flat as a table. The tanned fingers he curled around the bottle were nicked with white scars.
Jan stole a look at his face from the corner of her eye. A mistake, because in the lamplight’s glow he was even more McGorgeous than usual.
His lashes looked longer, his lips fuller, his jaw more defined. And his hair, disordered from his shower, cried out for her fingers to comb it back from his brow.
The situation was so not conducive to a good night’s sleep.
Yet Mick seemed annoyingly unaffected. He was Mr. Relaxed, while she kept popping a sweat.
Lifting her hair off her neck, she fanned herself with it. “Are you hot?” she asked.
“So they tell me.”
“Har har. I mean should I turn on the AC?”
“Up to you. I’m good either way.”
She turned it on, a low hum.
Season four began. The room cooled, and she slid down under the sheet. “Are you cold?” she asked. “I can turn it off.”
“Whatever.”
Why was he being so difficult?
She punched her pillows. “I might fall asleep.”
“Go ahead.”
“Can I turn off the light?”
“If you want to.”
Grrr.
She left it on. “Are you getting under the sheet?”
“Eventually.” He sipped his beer, eyes on the TV.
“This mattress is pretty comfortable.” She jounced her hips.
He sipped his beer.
Jerk. Why was he unfazed, while she had ants in her pants?
“So, do you think they’ll be happy?”
“Who?”
She rolled her eyes. “Cody and Julie, who else?”
“Why wouldn’t they be?”
“He’s a doctor, and Julie hates doctors.”
He dropped his gaze to her, finally. “They’re in love. That should take care of it.”
“You think love conquers all?”
“It should conquer stupid shit like what somebody does for a paycheck.”
His eyes were so blue, she could get lost in them.
She focused on the ceiling instead. “My mother wants me to marry a doctor. Or a lawyer, or an accountant. Someone who doesn’t put his life on the line.”
“Makes sense,” he said. “She doesn’t want you to grieve like she did.” He turned back to the TV. Sipped his beer. “You feel the same way about it?”
Good question. Her mother had drilled it into her head for so long, she hadn’t considered other options.
But then, she hadn’t considered a bikini either.
What if the field was wide-open and she could marry anyone, no matter what he did for a paycheck? She thought about it.
“Depends on the guy,” she said at last. “If I love him, I’ll want him to do what makes him happy. If it turns out I can’t live with whatever that is, well, that’ll be my problem.”
“If you left him, it would be his problem too.” He brought his gaze back to hers, dark and intense. “You’d break his heart.”
Suddenly, the room got warm again.
His gaze dropped to her lips. She swallowed. So did he, and the working of his throat held her spellbound.
Then he rolled up on one elbow, his weight dipping the mattress so his face was above hers. He looked down at her from hooded eyes, his cheek close enough to touch if she dared.
“You’re a heartbreaker,” he said, his voice softer than a whisper, “and you don’t even know it.”
AS JAN DISAPPEARED into the bathroom, red-faced, Mick rolled back onto his pillows and groaned at his own idiocy.
Shoot me now, before I make an even bigger ass of myself.
He rubbed the back of his neck, as tight as a spring. Damn it, this shouldn’t be so hard. He and Jan had dozed off together hundreds of times, on his couch or hers.
The only difference—and apparently it was a big one—was that one of them always got up and went home. That wouldn’t be happening tonight. His brain knew it, and his dick was all over it too.
He stared at the TV as minutes passed. Michonne lopped off some heads. Daryl crossbowed a walker.
Finally, Jan tiptoed from the bathroom, probably hoping he’d fallen asleep.
Not gonna happen.
He took a stab at normal. “Getcha another beer?” A question he’d asked her five thousand times since tenth grade.
“No, thanks.” She turned off the light without meeting his eyes. “I’m sleepy. G’night.” She rolled away from him onto her side.
Which lured him into breaking the no-looking rule again.
He shouldn’t do it. Guilt sat like an anvil on his chest. But it was worth suffocating to admire her silhouette in the TV’s flickering light. The dip of her waist. The mound of her hip.
Instinctively, he reached out to smooth his hand over those curves. To draw her against him so he could curl his body around her slender back, tuck her ass into his aching groin.
He made a fist instead and knocked it against his forehead.
No. Touching.
And no more looking either. She could probably feel his eyes burning holes in the sheet.
Tearing his gaze away, he turned off the tube and slid down on his back, welcoming the darkness. Darkness was good. He couldn’t see her, so he wouldn’t be tempted to look.
Meanwhile, puppies and kittens. So fuzzy, so soft—
The problem was, he could hear Jan’s breathing. It sounded as ragged as his own. But not for the same reason. Not because she wanted him the way he wanted her, with every cell, every sinew, every thought, every breath.
No, she was hyperventilating because he’d all but jumped her. She was probably terrified he’d try it again.
He should leave. Go out and walk the streets until dawn.
But ironically, if he made for the door, Jan would fret about him and blame herself for chasing him out. She’d tell herself she’d overreacted when, in fact, she was right to worry about the animal in her bed.
Christ, if she knew the state he was in, she’d really freak out. His overactive dick was hard as a wrecking bar. Again. He couldn’t help wrapping his hand around it. Not stroking. He hadn’t lost his mind completely.
Just holding on. Holding onto his sanity.
MICK WOULD TELL me if he was having a heart attack, wouldn’t he?
His breathing was ragged, and Jan would have sworn his heart pounded out loud.
Could it be anxiety? He’d been jumpy since the fire. He tried to pretend the whole episode was just another day at the office, but that was baloney. His best buddy in the department had given her the skinny. Mick escaped being crushed by seconds. Her blood had run cold at the thought.
Ironic that another collapsed ceiling had landed them in this bed tonight. And now her blood was running hot. Sizzling, in fact.
Damn it, she could’ve kept a cork in things if only Mick hadn’t slipped into seduction mode.
Oh, she knew he hadn’t really intended to seduce her. For him, it was a knee-jerk reaction to being prone with a woman.
But to her, it was devastating. When he’d gazed down at her with bedroom eyes, whispered words she’d never expected to hear, doors burst open that had long been nailed shut.
Her whole being had reacted, instantly and instinctively. Desire stormed through her body, soaking her. Love exploded in her heart, stealing her breath.
Now there was no pretending to herself that she was okay with “just friends.” The genie was out of the bottle, and she had to face up to her own bullshit. Face up to wanting more.
To wanting it all.
Not that she’d ever tell Mick. The poor guy really would have a heart attack.
But the sad truth—since she was all about the truth tonight—was that she’d never given any other guy a chance. There’d been no point. Who could measure up to Mick?
It was no coincidence that her only sexual experience came while Mick was away at Penn State and she was a day student at Boston College. After he moved home, she’d kept her evenings open, and he filled enough of them that she was never really lonely.
Sure, he spent lots of nights with other women. But it wasn’t like any of them were around for more than a few days, or maybe a week.
He always came back to her.
Because she was easy. Familiar. They had fun together, made no demands on each other. Even though he’d gotten an apartment around the corner from her mom’s house in Dorchester, the only strings that tied him to her were friendship, loyalty, and affection.
That was Mick in a nutshell, friendly, loyal, and affectionate. For years, Jan had taken that for granted. He’d kept the bullies at bay when she was a gawky preteen. Been her hall pass through high school. Given her a patina of cool when nobody would have noticed her otherwise.
Everyone in school had known that Mick had her back. And if they also knew she was simply his sidekick, that a guy like him would never want more from a girl like her, well, so what? She’d taken what she could get.
Until tonight, it had been enough. But not anymore.
Everything in her had shifted. Laying here beside him, she was completely attuned to him. His heartbeat pulsed in her veins. He shifted, and her DNA shifted with him, toward him—
Mick sat bolt upright, startling a gasp from her.
“Sorry,” he whispered. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I wasn’t asleep,” she whispered back. Her heart raced. She might never sleep again. “Are you okay?”
Silence. She knew he was tunneling fingers through his hair. Then, “Just a stomachache.”
Stomachache, ragged breathing. Anxiety for sure.
But he’d never ‘fess up to it. Mick could charge fearlessly into a burning building, but acknowledging weakness terrified him.
“I . . .” She swallowed hard. “I can rub your back.”
It wouldn’t be the first time. Last winter when the flu flattened him and he’d been too exhausted to sleep, she’d sat at his bedside and stroked his back until he drifted off.
Touching him then had been no big deal, with a force field of denial shimmering between them. But now that she’d accepted her feelings for him? Much harder.
Still, it was the least she could do. He was suffering. She couldn’t bear it.
So she waited. She could feel him thinking about it. Probably wondering if it would give her the wrong idea. She would have told him not to worry, but her throat had narrowed. A pipe cleaner might slide through the opening, but no words could get out.
Her breath backed up in her lungs. Tension hummed in the air.
Then, without a word, he lay down and rolled onto his stomach, gathering his pillow under his cheek.
IT MIGHT HELP if she touches me.
Mick knew it was a lie if ever he’d told himself one. It wouldn’t help one bit.
Honestly, though, how much could it hurt? He was already insane. And as long as he was lying on his stomach, he wouldn’t be able to see her, or reach for her. He’d have to make do with the touch of her hand.
Her hand. Feather light, satin soft. She skimmed it over his ribs, but his damn T-shirt was in the way.
Levering up on one arm, he peeled it over his head. If he was doing this—damn his black soul to hell—he might as well do it right.
Settling down again, he curled his arms around his pillow. His hard-on beat a guilty tattoo against the mattress.
He hated himself for taking advantage of her. But her hand. Oh God. It smoothed over the small of his back, skated softly up his spine, stroked over his shoulders.
Her fingertips scratched his neck lightly, threaded into his hair, kneading his scalp. Then down they glided, her palm flattening as it passed between his shoulder blades, the barest sweep of warm skin.
Her touch was silk, now skimming up his side like a scarf, tickling under his arm, then floating down again, dipping in at his waist, tracing the edge of his shorts.
Everything he loved about Jan he felt in her fingertips. She gave herself freely, loved him so purely.
Emotion clawed at his throat. He choked it down silently. Buried his face in the pillow.
“It’s okay, Mick, I’m here.” Her voice was as soft as her hand, as if she knew he was hanging on by a thread. “Relax,” she whispered as tension rippled through his shoulders.
And somehow he did. That was the miracle of Jan. She got through to him when no one else could, soothed him even when she was what ailed him.
She was everything he wanted and didn’t deserve. He’d nearly scared her away. He wouldn’t do that again. He’d be careful with her, so careful, and when daylight came, he’d pull his shit back together and push her away where she’d be safe from him.
But tonight he didn’t have the strength for that. Tonight all he could do was lay still and soak up her touch.
And somehow keep himself from falling asleep . . .