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When Bailey opened her eyes, it was the middle of the night, and there was a strong man wrapped around her. Sound asleep and snoring softly.
She brushed her fingers across his cheek, feeling the slight stubble that was there. It had been a long time since she laid this close to a man. She could feel his warmth surrounding her—just like the arms he had around her.
She hadn’t intended this when she’d asked him to hold her. But Bailey didn’t care.
It felt right.
Exactly where she was.
Green eyes opened. The moon was shining right through the window. His eyes widened. Then he smiled. “Hey.”
“It’s two a.m.”
“Everything seems peaceful at two a.m. Most of the time. You been awake long?”
She shook her head. She didn’t want to talk. She wanted him to hold her. “Just a few minutes.”
Bailey sat up, pulling the comforter up around her. “Is it raining again?”
“I don’t think so. I...do you want me to go to the other room? Let you sleep alone?”
Bailey stared at him for a long moment. The last thing she wanted was to be alone tonight. She shook her head.
“No. I don’t want you to go anywhere.” It might be the biggest mistake of her life, but Bailey leaned forward and pressed her lips against his.
She felt his surprise in the way he stiffened. But he didn’t pull away until she did. “Honey, I’m not exactly at my strongest at two a.m. If you don’t want me to slip this T-shirt off of you and show you just how much you mean to me, you’d better get clear across the bed. Across the room. Across the county. I...don’t have much willpower right now.”
“I don’t want you to. And I’m not going anywhere.”
“Bailey, honey...”
“Are you afraid?”
“You’d better believe it. Afraid of what you do to me.” His hands tightened on her and before Bailey could blink he rolled her beneath him. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
“More sure than I’ve been in a long, long time. We’ll figure everything else out tomorrow.”
Bailey wrapped her arms around his neck and held him.
***
Clay knew what they were doing was about to change everything, but he didn't give a damn. Not any longer. Bailey was pale, tired, bruised, but she was right there in front of him. His for the night, at least. They were going to camp at his place while his chief deputy ran things for a while.
"Bailey." He practically breathed her name. "Tonight, I..."
"It's just tonight. When things around here are normal again, we’ll decide what happens next.”
He didn't know if she was asking a question. Or telling him what she wanted. All Clay could do was nod, then reach for her.
It might just be the next eight hours he would have her, but he was going to take what he could get.
He was tired of living half a life. Of having nothing but the damned job. It was there when he woke each day, when he went to bed at night. There wasn't much else in between.
Except that the job had brought him her. Without it, Clay wouldn't be where he was in that moment.
He slipped one hand to her cheek. She tilted it into his palm. The heat of her nearly seared him. Soft blond hair, freed from the confines of the braid she'd had it in earlier, slid across his skin. Bailey smelled like the shampoo he’d always used. The shirt draping her narrow shoulders was his.
It was his guest bed they were in.
But that wasn’t what he wanted. Not for the first time.
He wanted her in his bed.
Clay threw back the blanket. “Not here.”
“What?”
“Not here. I want you in my room. The way I’ve always imagined.”
“Always?”
“Well, for the last thirteen months. Since you walked into my office that day.”
“It seems like a lifetime ago.” Her fingers were combing through his hair. Clay just carried her down his hallway toward his bed.
Where she belonged.
If he had his way, she’d sleep there every night.
For the rest of their lives.
Just how he felt for her threatened to bring him to his knees right there on the old hardwood floor he’d been meaning to repair and varnish.
He just hadn’t had much of a reason to worry about make the house look pretty. He kept it clean. It kept him dry.
It was a fair trade-off. Now he wondered what Bailey thought about it. If she’d want to stay there. With him.
He wouldn’t be able to breathe without this woman.
And he’d barely even kissed her yet.
Clay fixed that by lowering her to his bed and following her down, after grabbing what he’d need to protect her from the bedside drawer.
His lips were pressed to hers before she was fully on the mattress.
Clay slipped his hands beneath the shirt he’d loaned her and felt her soft, soft skin for the first time.
***
It felt right. Being with him. Bailey didn’t stop to think, to put what she felt into words. Not now.
Instead her own hands went to the waistband of his shirt and she pulled—until she had the cotton free of his shoulders and winging toward the corner of his room.
Clay laughed. A low, wicked sound that went straight through her.
Her T-shirt went over her head, and Bailey’s breath caught.
His hand slipped up, and he cupped her through the sports bra she still wore.
Her eyes stared into his. “Clay.”
He breathed her name in response. “So many nights I’ve dreamed of you right here. With me.”
“I didn’t have a clue. I thought you hated me.”
His fingers trailed over the scars. She’d always have those reminders of what had happened to her.
So would any man she allowed to see them. Clay’s fingers traced the worst one softly.
Her hand covered his. “I don’t want to think about then. Not tonight.”
“No. Neither do I. I just want to think about you.”
Bailey smiled. In that instant, she’d heard the fire in his words. Felt it in how his hand had spread over her stomach. And rose. His fingers toyed with the bottom band of her bra.
And then it was being lifted over her head.
Bailey gasped when one of those hot hands covered her flesh for the first time.
Within moments, they were both wrapped around each other, and all the pain and fear that had been between them was being erased.
Until it just wasn’t there any longer.
When she’d caught her breath again, Bailey pressed against his chest and brushed a kiss against his heart.
He held her until she drifted off to sleep in his arms. Again.