As I’m making my way up the stairs, I spot the broken ceramic from my coffee mug mixed in with broad streaks of blood. I look down at my feet with a frown, seeing the blood smeared along the side of them. Stepping around the pieces, I make sure that Huck doesn’t step in it either as we make our way into the house. I hurry up the steps, relieved to see that Stella is still asleep in her bed. She sleeps on her stomach, with her little butt sticking up in the air and Phant shoved under her face. Huck moves across the room, sniffing at Stella for a minute before he comes back to me, basically herding me out of the room.
I’m halfway down the stairs when the front door slams open and Owen storms into the house. “Tristan!” he yells, and I can’t stop the wince, certain the noise is going to wake up Stella. “Tristan!” he calls again, eyes frantic as they look around the small entryway. Huck gives a quick bark, and then Owen is heading in my direction. It only takes him three steps to make it up to where I’m still standing on the stairs, and the next thing I know, his hands have wrapped around my upper arms, and I am yanked against his body, and his mouth is pressed hotly against mine.
Chapter Seven
Tristan
He takes over, his hands shoved into my hair on either side of my head, pulling me toward him as his lips devour mine. I feel like I’m some sort of freaking buffet and Owen hasn’t had a meal in months. His tongue licks over my lips causing me to gasp and giving him the opportunity he needs to invade. He shifts us, so my back is pressed against the wall, and his entire front is pressed against mine. My hands slide up his side, running over the taut skin that I had admired just minutes ago.
I am willingly, and delightfully, consumed by him. For a few moments I cannot think—it all drops away. The damage to my car that has him over here in the first place, the bullshit with Gloria from this morning, the overwhelming need to prove to her, and everyone else, that I am enough for my little girl. Everything melts away and it is just the two of us, in this moment. I let my eyes slide closed, reveling in the wanton feel of his lips against mine, the feminine power that rolls through me at the desperation that is conveyed with every swipe of his tongue against mine.
The knowledge that he couldn’t wait any longer, that something about me had pushed him to this moment, to this kiss, is headier than anything that could he could say or do to show he wants me.
Just as quickly as it started, the kiss is over, and Owen is pulling his head back to meet my gaze. “Mo chuisle, you scared the shit out of me.” His voice is gravelly, weighed down by the same heat and desire I feel swirling inside of me.
I frown. “What does that mean? I heard Monroe say it the other day.”
He ignores my question completely, much to my frustration. “I came outside, and you were gone, and there was a trail of blood from the driveway and into the house. Where are you hurt?”
“I cut my feet on my broken coffee mug. Owen,” I wait until his gaze meets mine, “what the hell are we doing?”
He pulls completely away. “My deputy will be here in a few minutes to document the scene and take your statement.”
“The only statement I have is that I found my car ruined,” I mutter. “And that you won’t fucking answer my question.”
He just ignores my snotty little comment. “Is Stella still asleep?” Almost as if she’d timed it, I hear her little feet hit the floor, and seconds later her bedroom door is thrown open, and Stella comes hopping down the stairs.
Her denim-blue eyes light up at the site of Huck, who had gotten bored with Owen and me, and moved over to sit next to the door. Once again, the dog practically starts vibrating when he spots Stella. His excitement is almost tangible. As is hers for him.
“My Huck!” She hops right past me without even a good morning and wraps her tiny arms around the dog. At this point, I don’t think just any dog I get her is going to measure up to the magical Huck.
Owen reaches over to brush a loose strand of hair behind my ear, and I turn my head back toward him, knowing Stella is in good hands with Huck. “Let’s go sit down so I can look at your feet.”
“I’ll take care of my feet.” Because they’re probably dirty and gross and I don’t want him to see them that way.
He nudges me along. “Go sit down, Tristan. Do you have a first aid kit anywhere?”
“In the cabinet next to the stove.” I sink into a chair at the table. “But I’m taking care of my own feet, Owen.”
He doesn’t listen. He comes back into the room with the small first aid kit in one hand, and a wet washcloth in the other. He settles into the chair next to mine and pulls one of my feet into his lap. His fingers are warm against the skin of my foot as he wipes at them with a wet washcloth to clean the blood off. “This is going to hurt,” he murmurs before running an alcohol wipe against the bottom of my foot. Hissing, I try to take my foot back, but he grabs it in both hands, raising it slightly at the same time he bends down and starts blowing on the skin, trying to help ease the pain.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
The heat of his breath shoots straight up my foot and to my clit, and it’s all I can do not to yank my foot away and just jump him. Right here in my kitchen where I can still hear the sound of my daughter chattering away to his dog. As it is, my foot jerks and his hands tighten on my skin.
“Shh.” He pulls my foot back into his lap. “It should stop hurting in a second.”
The problem is that it’s not only my foot that’s hurting anymore. He brushes his thumb over the arch of my foot before lifting it off of his lap then grabbing my other foot and repeating the entire process all over again. This time, when he blows on the arch of my foot, I’m a little more prepared.
That isn’t to say that the heat of his breath on the sensitive skin of my foot doesn’t send waves of pleasure skimming through me like a wave of water crashing over the sand.
Once the skin has dried, he wraps gauze around each of my feet, taking special care to make sure they are fully covered before he sets them both back down on his lap.
I open my mouth ready to ask, again, what in the hell it is the two of us are dancing around, but the sound of a car door slamming outside stops me. Owen leans back in his chair, his hand squeezing my foot gently. “That’s probably Patrick.” He pushes to his feet and makes his way out the front door. I suck in a deep breath of air just as I hear him say, “Dad? What are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t sleep and was in the office this morning chatting with Betty when you called in. Thought I’d come to give you a hand with this one.”
I shove a hand through my hair, dislodging half of the strands from the knot I’d put them in that morning. As I’m yanking out the hair tie, I take a quick inventory of what I’d worn to bed. Navy-colored pants with large, white polka dots on them, better than the butter yellow ones with the smiling ice cream cones, I suppose, and a gray tank top that is, thankfully, stain-free. Unfortunately, I hadn’t put a bra on.
Oh, my God, what had I been thinking? Storming over to Owen’s house and pounding on his door with no bra on? I’ve had a child; my boobs aren’t exactly bouncy and perky anymore. I can’t meet Owen’s father for the first time while I’m not wearing a bra!