“Suspenders -
fabric or leather straps worn over the shoulders to hold up
trousers
.”
Frankie
His eyes were green.
The same exact green they were before. The same green that matched the rolling hills of Scotland.
I didn’t know what it was going to be like the first time I saw him in his body, but it was better than I thought it would be. Seeing a body on a hanger was nothing compared to seeing it alive and breathing in front of me.
“Are you okay?” he asked, concern darkening the eyes I was so glad hadn’t changed.
“Yeah.”
My answer must not have been very convincing because in three great steps he was standing before me, gripping my shoulders and bending down so we were eye to eye. “Are you really okay? Did he hurt you?”
I shook my head. “No. I—” I lost my train of thought. “You’re taller.”
The corner of his mouth pulled up and he stepped away. “I’ll give you one minute to get used to this new body.”
“Only one?”
He grinned.
“What’s with the khakis?” I laughed as my eyes perused his body.
He scowled. “I didn’t dress myself today.”
I watched as he glanced down at his body, like he was just seeing it for the first time, and make a face. Then he yanked the sweater vest up over his head and tossed it onto the floor.
Holy hot suspenders.
I never ever in a million years would have dreamed that I would ever think a guy in suspenders was attractive.
Apparently, Olly was attractive in anything he wore.
They were pulled taut across his wide shoulders and hugged his body all the way down the sides of his chest until they stopped at the waistband of his pants, which encircled a narrow, trim waist. I couldn’t look away. I wanted to slide my hands beneath them, starting at that waist, and move up his solid chest until my hands wrapped around his neck and buried in his blond hair.
“I’ll find a pair of jeans later,” he muttered. I suppressed a smile.
“What about you?” I asked seriously. “Are you okay? What happened?”
He blew out a breath and sat down on the couch, leaning back against it lazily. “It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time for you.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Come here.”
I really had no clue how he could be so calm after everything that happened. My heart was still pounding just a little bit too fast. Of course when he looked at me like that it didn’t help.
As I stood there and tried to figure him out, he crooked a finger at me and curled it toward him as if I were on a string and he could pull me closer. Maybe I was because my body obeyed the command of his finger and I found myself directly in front of him.
He moved swiftly, taking me by the waist and pulling me down onto his lap. I wrapped my legs around him, my feet sandwiched between the softness of the sofa and the solidness of his back. He rested his hands between us, his fingers playing idly with the hem of my T-shirt—
his
T-shirt.
“Whatcha got there?” he said. His voice was deep and slightly raspy. It wasn’t the smooth-talking voice he used to have. Shivers raced up my back.
“You left it on my bed.”
“You thought I left you.”
I bit my lip, looking down at his hands. “You kind of did.”
“Was it easy for you?” he asked. “Leaving my house, thinking you might not see me again?”
I glanced up. I didn’t really want to answer. It felt like he was asking me to bare my soul to him—to tell him my most secret feelings. I wasn’t sure I could trust him with those things.
He seemed to perceive my reluctance to reply, so he said, “Is that why you took my shirt? Because it made it a little less harder to leave?”
“I took your Ferrari, too. I left it at the airport.”
He smiled. It was a crooked smile and he had a dimple in his chin. I wanted to reach out and touch it. So I did.
“I didn’t like that car anyway. So pretentious.” He caught the fingers that were tracing his dimple and pressed a kiss to the palm of my hand. “What if I told you it was just as hard for me to leave as it was for you?”
“I didn’t say it was hard.”
“You didn’t have to.”
I felt like an ice cube outside on a hot summer day… slowly melting…
“There’s something I need to know,” he said, taking a fistful of my shirt and towing me closer.
“What?” I have no idea if he even heard the word because it sounded like a sigh.
His lips didn’t just touch me; they didn’t just brush against mine… They captured me. I couldn’t even be considered their hostage because even if he pulled back and offered freedom, I would have stayed. I would have begged for more.
He kissed me like he’d never kissed me before. Slow. Soft. Gentle. He was so utterly and agonizingly slow, tilting his head one way and then the other. The friction of his lips meeting mine again and again filled every part of me with something warm and liquid, until I was so overfull with longing I couldn’t sit still.
My body started to move, a slow rocking motion in his lap, like we were lost at sea and our boat just followed the waves. Too soon, he pulled back gently, dropping a kiss to the tip of my nose before leaning his head against the back of the couch to stare at me with heavy-lidded eyes.
What did you say to someone when they kissed you so good you couldn’t even remember your own name?
Nothing. You said nothing.
You sat there and prayed they would kiss you again.
The side of his mouth curved upward and a lock of blond hair fell into his eye. “That answers that.”
“What?” I said, my voice sounding far away to my own ears.
“I wondered if you would still be attracted to this new body, to me.”
I pushed my fingers through the hair falling over his eye, gripping it on top of his head. “There’s something I need to know,” I told him.
He lifted one of his blond brows and stared at me.
I reached for the buttons on his shirt and began at his throat slowly unfastening them one by one. He watched me with his arms at his sides, not trying to help me. Not trying to stop me. Just watching. I left the ends of his shirt tucked into his pants and the suspenders where they were. My hands slipped inside the opening of his shirt, pushing it open wider, and I looked down.
Washboard abs.
I ran my fingertip down the center and they contracted, the separate muscles rippling at my touch.
“Well, that answers that,” I said, looking at him mischievously.
“What?”
“I like this body a lot better.”
He grinned, flashing his teeth. One of them had a tiny chip in the corner. “My other body had abs too.”
“True. And Charming was very hot,” I said, running my palm across his stomach. “But Oliver… he’s my guy.”
His eyes darkened to the color of thick moss that grew under a tree. “You know I didn’t leave you behind. I only went to protect you. I don’t want him near you.”
I didn’t bother to point out that it didn’t matter because the Reaper had me in his sights. I liked this conversation far too much to bring that up again. “I know that now.”
“Listen to me,” he said, moving quickly, speaking fiercely. He captured my head between his hands and sat up so he was staring directly into my eyes. “I’m going to get us out of this. Both of us. And when I do, you’re never going to have to worry about me leaving again.”
Yep. There I went. I melted completely into a puddle.
“Are you trying to charm me?” I said, though my voice was too watery to hold the sarcastic tone I meant to have.
“I don’t have to charm you,” he said.
“No?”
He released me and shook his head slowly. “No. Because you’ve already charmed me. Completely.”
“Ahhh, so the charmer has finally been charmed?”
“What can I say? You look good in my shirt.”
I pulled it up over my head and tossed it beside him. “What about when I’m not wearing your shirt?”
His hands were on my chest instantly, cupping it and massaging. It didn’t take him long to see the closure was in the front, and with a single movement of his hand, it burst open, spilling out everything I had for his waiting eyes to see.
“I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you,” he confided. I made a sound in the back of my throat and moved a little closer, inviting his touch.
But he didn’t touch me.
“Tell me, Frankie,” he demanded.
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me you’re mine. Tell me you didn’t bring my heart back from the dead only to make it die all over again.”
And there it was. My choice. But I’d already made it. I made it a long time ago. It just wasn’t until today that I admitted it to myself.
I pushed the hair in his eyes up and away from his face. I wanted him to see me clearly. I wanted him to know without a doubt he was who I chose.
“I’m yours,” I whispered.
I didn’t know what it said about me that I could love someone like him. That I could love a killer. The worst parts of him were really bad. But looking at him now, vulnerability shining from the depths of his eyes and the feeling of him beneath me, I knew—
I knew
without a doubt—that even his darkest parts could never compare to his best ones.
His kiss started on my lips but didn’t stay there very long. His mouth slid down my neck and across my collarbone where he nipped along the line of it, making me laugh. Finally, I got to do what I’d been imagining since he took off that ugly sweater. I slid both my hands beneath the suspenders, running my hands along the thick muscles in his chest, and then gently pushed them over his shoulders, sliding them all the way down his arms.