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  “Mmm,” he said, urging her to squeeze more.

  His hands rode up from her thighs to her waist, then he gently, almost imperceptibly, pulled her to the edge of her seat. His eyes were level with her breasts, which couldn’t be satisfied by a purple vibrator. Nope. They’d been long denied and now her nipples were at attention, begging for her to give in to this raging desire that was suddenly burning her up. There was a man close enough to satisfy all her needs.

  Her breaths grew short and she squeezed his shoulder muscles again. There were two directions this moment could go. One, she could get control of herself and pull away. Or two, with enough justification, she could talk herself into more touching. Lots more touching.

  She waited for Troy’s next words. There was a lot riding on those next words.

  One of his hands moved from her waist up just slightly, lingering below her breasts. His gaze went to hers, asking permission. No words.

  She closed her eyes, feeling her lips part for him. Her body burned for him. Then his hand cupped one breast through her shirt and a moan escaped her. Who needed words when body language said so, so much?

  That was all the justification she needed to let this moment ride.

  Chapter 8

  Troy studied Allison’s face, all flushed, eyes closed, lips parted. It was enough to make his lower half extremely uncomfortable. He trailed a hand up from her waist under the hem of her shirt, touching her satin-soft skin. Everything she wasn’t saying was crystal clear in her actions. Or reactions to his touch. He lifted her shirt slowly, eyes planted on her, ready to stop if she asked him to.

  His gaze flicked down. She was wearing a conservative white bra with just a touch of lace lining the cup. The bra squeezed her breasts together, making cleavage that he wanted to bury his head in.

  Lifting a finger, he traced the deep line her cleavage made. Allison moaned softly, her eyelids fluttering shut. She was so reactive, which told him she was like dry brush during fire season. The conditions were right. Explosive even. He could ignite her so easily, which was tempting. He loved to please a woman as much as the next guy. And his cock was more than ready to shoot Allison to the moon and back. His cock wasn’t getting any action tonight, though. He’d struggled with self-control as a kid, but he had a great deal of it now. He didn’t have sex with women he knew would have regrets as soon as the orgasm was over. That’s where emotions got twisted and hearts got broken. Not his style, not anymore. Allison needed an orgasm like she needed her next breath, though, and he didn’t mind helping her achieve it.

  He unhooked her bra and her breasts spilled out. He reached out and took both in his hands, squeezing her just like he’d done her charley horse a few minutes earlier.

  “Mmm,” she moaned, her eyes still closed. Her back arched, as she pressed her chest closer to him.

  So fucking reactive. He loved it.

  He pulled a breast into his mouth, flicking his tongue against her swollen nipple. Her hands were still on his shoulders, clutching him like he was a ride at the amusement park. He sucked and played with her, while she held on tighter. Her skin was as pure as water. Moving to the other breast, she vibrated in his hands. She needed this, needed him.

  “Please,” she finally whispered. “Please.”

  He wasn’t fooled. This wasn’t Allison’s usual, rigid, self-controlled self talking. He’d flipped a switch and turned on a different side of her. A side he guessed she didn’t show a lot of people. He could easily see that she valued being in control of herself. Liked order. And that was fine. But he liked this side of her. A lot.

  “Let’s go to the bedroom,” he said, although he had no intention of taking off his own clothing.

  She nodded, eyes finally opening. Then she stood and pulled him down the hall with her. In the bedroom, he tugged at her skirt, making it fall down around her ankles, then looked at her for a long moment, soaking her in. Her pale white skin, subtle curves, soft breasts swollen from his mouth on her a few moments earlier.

  He swallowed thickly. He wanted her. No denying it. He gently led her to lie back on the bed. She looked up at him with eyes that told him she was ready and willing to do just about anything. She was a consenting adult and she wanted sex. Now.

  She sat up and reached for the zipper of his pants.

  “Slow down, baby,” he breathed, really wanting to give in to his desire. He wanted her, too. Nearly as much as he did his next breath. “I don’t want to do anything you’ll regret.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll think about that later. Right now, I want this. I need this.”

  His gaze flicked to her mouth, lips parted. He couldn’t resist. He wanted to taste more of her. He dipped and pressed his mouth to hers, hot and wet. Her arms pulled him down over her, her tongue met his hungrily. Troy couldn’t help pressing his groin into her. Those little whimpers she made every time he rocked into her made him painfully hard.

  “Have sex with me, Troy,” she invited, pulling away. “I want to know how you got that nickname, Bullet.”

  He laughed lightly. Instead of doing what she asked, he turned to the bedside table and pulled open the drawer. The purple vibrator buzzed to life in his hand. He brought it to her leg and let it rest against her calf for a moment, then he slowly ran it up the inside of her thigh.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, but she didn’t move to stop him. Good. Because he’d always been curious to see what women saw in these things. They were smaller than the average man-piece. Allison’s bedside toy looked more like a vibrating toothbrush. He trailed the vibrator toward the crease where her legs met her hips, allowing his thoughts to go to how often she did this to herself. A woman wound as tightly as Allison probably necessitated a release like this on a daily basis.

  She moaned and arched as he traced the vibrator between her legs. A moan came from deep within his throat, too. He’d never been so turned on as he was in this moment, watching her react when he wasn’t even touching her. He slipped the vibrator inside her panties, held it against her, then slid it inside her. He slid it back and forth, finding a natural rhythm, building Allison up to the release she so desperately needed, but without the hangover of regret in the morning. Sure, she might be embarrassed that he’d seen her in this private moment. That’d be all, though.

  She tried to take control of the vibrator, but he pulled it away. “I’m controlling it tonight. All you have to do is lie there and enjoy the ride.”

  —

  Allison ignored the thoughts banging on the door of her mind, telling her to stop this craziness. Allowing Troy to touch her the way he was doing was…so not like her.

  Her orgasm rode up through her, making her arch, her eyes squeezed closed. That wave of perfect nothingness crashed over her body, clearing her mind of everything except the pleasure.

  Everything except the pleasure.

  She started to return to her body and her mind took control again. She cracked her eyes open to see Troy staring at her intently, his own face flushed. His eyes dark. “Oh, my God. We shouldn’t have—” She snapped her legs closed and scooted up on the bed, pulling the bedsheet to cover her breasts.

  “Relax,” he said. “It wasn’t sex. Just an advanced version of foreplay.” A small grin curved his mouth.

  His mouth that had been on her breasts. And it’d felt so good. He’d felt so good. She swallowed, pushing those memories aside.

  “Foreplay implies there’ll be after play,” she said, lifting her chin just slightly. Not that it felt right telling him no when a few minutes earlier she’d been practically begging him to have sex with her.

  Troy shrugged. “I’m not implying anything.”

  Allison looked around the room, searching for her shirt and bra, then she remembered how he’d removed them in the kitchen.

  Troy stood up and started to walk out of the bedroom.

  “Hey,” she called, stopping him in his tracks.

  He turned and lifted his brows. “Yeah?”

  �
��Thank you.”

  He winked. “I don’t usually get thanked after pleasing a woman.”

  Allison rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Not for that.” Although that had been quite the turn-on. “I wanted you to…you know, have sex with me. I gave you permission.” Hell, she would’ve given him anything in that moment to have him keep on touching her. She couldn’t stop herself. Over a year of nothing except a little man-made tool had left her deficient. “Thanks for, um, not having sex with me.”

  His brows lowered. “I don’t think I’ve ever been thanked for not giving a woman sex, either.” He nodded, then used the pad of his thumb to seemingly turn off the grin spread wide across his face. A more serious look replaced his playful one. “You needed a release, but you didn’t need me. I know the difference.”

  “You could’ve just gone home. I’m fully capable of…”

  Troy shook his head. “I’m one of the good guys, okay? But I’m no saint. If a woman begs me to help her out, I’m gonna help her out.”

  Allison’s spine straightened. “I didn’t beg.”

  “All right, ba—” He stopped himself and gave her a wink. Then he pulled on the doorknob and closed the door behind him, leaving Allison alone in her bedroom to dress. She smacked a hand to her forehead and leaned over her knees on the bed. What the hell had she just done? She tried to muster up some regret. She should one hundred percent totally regret what had just happened. Except she didn’t. Not really. More so, she wanted more of what just happened. Crazy.

  She pulled a top out of her dresser, ran a brush through her hair, and returned to her living room. She glanced around, looking for Troy who had apparently gone. His truck wasn’t in her driveway anymore. He’d penned instructions for how to create a code and turn on the alarm system before leaving her. Alone. She should be glad about this. She preferred to be alone. She preferred to orgasm alone.

  The orgasm Troy had given her had been so much better than her usual, though. Her gaze caught on the dinner plates still on the table and her clothes still scattered on the floor. Dinner and sex—kind of. Those almost made her believe she was in a real relationship. Troy had even disappeared as soon as it was over, which was a hallmark of her past relationships.

  She collected the dirty dishes and carried them to the sink. Then she retreated to her bed because her bones felt like butter after what Troy had done to her. What she’d begged him to do.

  Have sex with me, Troy.

  Okay, so she’d lost a little of her control. She would just make sure that didn’t happen again. She didn’t plan on seeing Troy before the Christmas Eve party, and there’d be no chance of alone time with her family smothering them. She and Troy would keep their hands to themselves and then they’d be done.

  Yep. Done. Finished. Finite.

  —

  Troy needed a cold shower and a cold beer.

  He walked into his fixer-upper, trying not to notice the torn vinyl in his kitchen floor as he walked past it toward the back of the house. This house would keep his hands busy for a long time to come. Not tonight, though. After a full day of work and then going to Allison’s, he was beat. He doubted he’d get much sleep after what had just happened, though.

  Stripping down, he stepped into a stream of cold water beating down from the showerhead.

  What had just happened?

  Allison had been like a switch and he’d turned her on in a way that intrigued the hell out of him and made him want to do it again. And again. He lifted his face to the water, eyes closed, mind on Allison. He’d gone to her town house to help her out, and he’d done so by installing the alarm system. He’d helped her with a much needed release, too. And then he’d left. He’d had to. He knew that if she came walking out of that bedroom with those flushed cheeks and sex hair, he’d be tempted to see if she reacted so easily to him a second time.

  Troy turned off the water, grabbed a towel, and dried himself off. Then he wrapped it around his waist and walked into his bedroom to grab a T-shirt and boxers for the night. The house was quiet, but his brain was chattering with noise. It’d always been that way. He got worked up and needed to settle himself down. As a child, that had meant running around and driving his parents batty until he finally collapsed somewhere and fell asleep. His mom would carry over a blanket and lay it on top of him wherever he’d end up, tucking him in for the night. As a teen, he’d learned more self-control. He exercised and used his hands constantly, draining all that extraneous energy, funneling it into something productive. He loved to be productive. Of course, back then, like any teen, he’d struggled with rebellious behaviors. He’d lacked impulse control. The military had helped him get a handle on that.

  Troy sat on the couch and thought about Allison again. What he’d done tonight might be considered a bit impulsive, even for him. His phone rang and his mother’s name popped up on screen. Mom’s timing always sucked. Who wanted to talk to their mother when their mind was in the gutter and they still had a hard-on? He took a breath, cleared his head—or tried to, at least—and answered.

  “Hey, Mom. How are you?”

  “Oh, I’m good. Just checking on you,” she said. It was late, but his mother had always been a night owl like himself.

  “I’m staying busy.” Which was true.

  “Too busy to come home for Christmas?” she asked, a hopeful note rising in her voice.

  Was she really going to continue to make him reject her invitation? This was torture for both of them.

  “Not too busy,” he said. “But not coming home, either. You’re coming here, remember? We’re going to have Chinese food and visit with each another.”

  “That’s not Christmas, Troy Robert,” she objected, using his middle name, which apparently meant he was in trouble—just like old times. “You haven’t seen my Christmas tree. I spent hours putting it up. And David hung the lights outside.”

  Troy frowned.

  “Your brother misses you, too,” his mother said softly.

  “Yeah?” Troy asked, leaning back into the couch. “So why hasn’t he called me?” Troy knew the answer to that one. David was stubborn. As stubborn as he was. “I’ll make you a deal, Mom. You and David decorate a tree with a thousand tiny yellow ribbons to support the American troops. And to support me. Then I’ll come home.”

  His mother was quiet on the other line. Quiet because she knew as well as Troy that David would never do that. He still thought Troy was a fool for not staying and working the family’s many profitable businesses in Paradise Point.

  “So Chinese food tomorrow night, then?” he asked, forcing a carefree tone to his voice. “I’m buying.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll just take pictures of my tree and the outside of the house to show you,” she said, returning the carefree tone.

  “Sounds good, Mom. I can’t wait to see you.” He loved his mother with all his heart. His brothers, too—all of them. Even if his brother David was a dick.

  After hanging up the phone, Troy felt restless again. Unsettled. He recognized the feeling and knew he’d never get to sleep tonight if he didn’t work off his energy. So he put on his running shoes, despite the fact that he’d just showered, and started jogging down the street. He turned on the neighboring street, which just so happened to take him toward Allison’s place. Lots of the houses in Seaside were decorated for the holidays, he noticed as he pounded his energy back into the earth. Kind of hard to skip Christmas when it was everywhere you turned.

  He jogged toward the Stop sign at the end of Allison’s street, planning to turn around and head home once he came to it. Then his gaze caught on something suspicious at one of the homes. The policeman in him took notice. There were no cars in the driveway. No garage to hide the cars. The house was lit up with Christmas cheer on the lower floor. However, the lights were off on the upper floor. Except for the scattering glow of what appeared to be a flashlight.

  Troy stopped running. There was a burglar in the house and, shit, he didn’t have his cellphone on
him. He blew out a breath and looked at the Stop sign ahead, then back at the house. The burglar could be armed, so going in without a weapon and no backup was stupid. Plus, he didn’t have jurisdiction in Seaside. Shit.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Cursing, he jogged up the house’s empty driveway and circled around to the back door. He guessed that any burglar worth his salt would use the back entry to slink away. The front entry was too visible. Troy might not have a weapon, but he had the element of surprise in his favor. He waited.

  For ten minutes.

  Nothing happened. Either the burglar had pulled a Goldilocks and fallen asleep on the job, or the ass-wipe coward had gotten so confident after his successful burglaries that he’d actually exited the front. Troy cursed again and started running back to his house. He’d call the authorities once he got home and have them check the place out.

  Chapter 9

  Allison hummed as she breezed through the Veterans’ Center the next morning. The doors jingled behind her as she made her way to her office, and holiday music played over the speakers. Christmas was almost upon them and she was excited.

  “You’re in a good mood this morning,” Julie commented, walking up behind her. “What’s going on?”

  Allison shrugged, setting her things down on her desk, and spinning to meet her friend’s face. “I love the holidays, I guess. Everything is so bright and merry.”

  Julie nodded slowly. “Uh-huh. Okayyy.” She laughed, then turned serious. “Bright and merry until your entire Christmas lot gets stolen. Did you hear about the break-in last night?”

  Allison shook her head. “No. What happened?”

  “Right down the road from you. The Buckley home got robbed. Half of their Christmas presents were snatched while they were out shopping for more.”

  Allison gasped. “That’s awful.” Her good mood went crashing. Thank God Troy had installed an alarm at her place. That made her feel a lot safer as a single woman living alone. Troy had made her feel a lot of things last night.