After You (Sapphire Falls After Hours)

Excerpt

Copyright © Erin Nicholas

“Really? You thought you’d be here for six weeks and we wouldn’t talk?”

For fuck’s sake. This was the first time they’d seen each other in three years.

She gave a little shrug. “I was planning on laying low, sticking around here, not really stirring anything up.”

Now it was his turn to lift his eyebrows. “Not stirring anything up? Seriously?” Hell, the thought of her being back in town had had him stirred up for almost a month now.

“I know we would have talked about Grandma and her surgery and stuff, but yeah, I guess I was thinking maybe it wouldn’t have to…get personal.”

A hot knife of disbelief, anger, and oh fuck that went through Kyle so fast that he had to suck in a quick breath. She didn’t want to get personal? Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. Everything about this felt personal. And he was going to make sure she felt the same damned way.

“The last time I saw you, you were soapy and wet in my shower. And I took you from behind before I had to get to the hospital. Then you went back to Seattle and broke things off with almost no explanation. And now, three fucking years later, you think you’re just going to stay here for six weeks and things won’t get personal?”

He couldn’t believe how difficult it was to hold himself still and keep his body language casual for any onlookers. He wanted to shout, he wanted to shake her, he wanted to punch a fist into Alice’s car hood. And Kyle never got worked up like this. He felt like his whole body was vibrating.

Hannah was also holding herself tightly, her arms crossed, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes wide.

Kyle was also having trouble fighting against the visual memories of everything he’d just reminded Hannah of. He could picture the way the soap bubbles had clung to her breasts, he could taste the intoxicating combination of soap and Hannah on his tongue, he could smell the shampoo and the sweet scent of her arousal mingling. His body was reacting to it all too. His blood was pumping from anger and red-hot desire.

“I can’t believe you just said that,” she finally managed.

“Yeah, well, there’s more where that came from.” There were years of memories like that. And not just the naked ones. Memories of them on the porch swing talking about the future, family dinners where it had felt like their families were already meshed into one unit, even simple things like him learning to braid her hair. Intimate, sweet moments. Blow-his-mind hot moments. Moments full of laughter and family and love.

Dammit, she’d loved him. He would put everything he had on that. It had been real. There was no way in hell he was going to let her stick around here for six weeks and not think about all of those things.

Alice wanted to remind Hannah of all of these things in an attempt to keep her around. Kyle knew that wasn’t going to happen. But he wanted to remind Hannah of all of these things because it was wrong for her to have forgotten or to pretend they hadn’t happened. And he wanted leaving here this time to be the hardest thing she’d ever done.

“So this is what this visit is going to be like?” Hannah asked. She was breathing faster than she was before.

He nodded as more of his plan came together in his mind. “Yeah, this is what this visit is going to be like.” Definitely.

“Then I’ll absolutely be avoiding you,” she decided. She started to move around him.

Kyle stepped in front of her. He didn’t touch her, but he wasn’t letting her go that easily. “Good luck with that,” he said. “This is Sapphire Falls.”

“You’re going to harass me?”

He lifted a shoulder. “I wouldn’t call it that.”

“What would you call it?”

He gave her a slow smile. “I’d call it a seduction, Hannah.”