“Good answer.”
“It’s all I’ve got.”
I reached out and took his hand, twining our fingers together. “You’ve said that before, and the next day my fridge was full of food, so I’m not complaining.”
Billy stared at our joined hands. For a heart-stopping moment I wondered if he’d pull away, but he didn’t. He squeezed my fingers tight and raised our hands to knock my knuckles against his forehead.
His were cut and bloodied, and my heart couldn’t cope. He’d done the right thing for the right reasons, and he was still the one who’d got hurt.
I pulled him close, released his hand, and wrapped my arms around him. He fit against me like we’d been cut from the same mould, his sharp edges against my broader frame. It was so perfect, I couldn’t cope with that either. I shivered and buried my face in his neck, breathing him in, as if his scent could ground me.
It couldn’t. At least, not in the way I was asking it to. One lungful made my heart race. Two sent heat to my groin.
I started to back up, but Billy growled and held me tighter.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Run away. I love that you want me. It makes me feel safe.”
“Safe?”
“Yeah.” It was Billy’s turn to shiver. “Don’t take it away from me because you’re scared of it.”
“I’m not scared of it.”
“Liar.”
I didn’t want to argue with him. I wanted to kiss him and throw him over my shoulder as if he wasn’t barely a few inches shorter than me. I wanted to carry him upstairs.
I wanted everything.
Billy pulled back enough to look at me. He gripped my chin, and his gaze pierced holes in what little armour I had left. “I want to go upstairs with you and not go to sleep, but before I ask you to fuck me, will you tell me what you did with the dog?”
“What dog?”
“Gus.”
“Saying my name like that isn’t going make me answer that question.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“Promise?”
I gave in to the urge to kiss him, a sweet brush of lips that ignited the moment our mouths met. He stumbled back from the force of it, and I pressed him against the wall, kissing him until the need for air forced me to stop.
Breathless, I pressed my forehead to his, brain spinning, but with little conscious thought. I’d tried a hundred times to forget how my body craved him, but it was as impossible as forgetting how my heart cried out for him too, and he remained, as he had all the years since our first kiss, unforgotten. If that was even a word. Maybe I’d ask him later, when I could think straight.
He’d know.
He always did.
I found his hand again, and tangled my fingers with his. “Jessie’s safe, I promise. Don’t ask me any more than that. Just ask me to fuck you before I lose my goddamn mind.”