The Undead Pool (The Hollows #12)(108)
Author: Kim Harrison

Breath harsh, I realized it was over. I could hardly move. I didn’t want to. He was warm on me, and it was the most content I’d been in a long, long time. I cracked open an eyelid to find my hair in my face. Trent was propped up over me, a masculine shadow through my curls.

I opened the other eye. Now I could see him, the sweat a sheen on his muscles, the lines of him all the way down to where we were still joined.

Oh. My. God. What had we done?

Trent grunted, jerking as I tensed under him. “Ow. Rachel?” he said, his calm voice flowing through me. “You can panic in a minute, but please don’t move just yet.” He winced. “Please?” I exhaled, embarrassment a brief flash.

I could still taste him on my lips. My heart thudded in my chest. I had just had sex with Trent. Really good sex. I sent my eyes over him, beginning to relax as I looked at the lines of his muscles. Well, of course it had been good sex. We’d both been thinking about it for almost two years. Arm lethargic, I raised it to touch his skin. His expression shifted, and he lost his pinched expression.

“That’s better,” he said, smiling as he leaned down to give me a tender kiss.

Not caring what happened next, I tilted my head up to return it. I was exhausted, but my mind was whirling. I didn’t know what to think. The mystics were somnolent, quiet at last.

“Stop thinking,” Trent demanded, his lips lightly touching me with his words. “Can this couch hold two?”

“Um . . .” He began to move, and I reached up to grab him, holding us together as he eased down to lie beside me. Slowly he lost his wince. I still hadn’t let go yet.

“Yes, it can,” he said in relief, finding a comfortable position to wait it out. He was smiling at me, inches away, and I suddenly felt shy. “Hi,” he said, tucking a strand of hair back.

“Sorry about that,” I said, eyes on the red mark I’d put in his shoulder. “It’s been a while. Um, the better it is, the longer it might take.” But he knew that. I was babbling.

“There’s a compliment in there, I think.” He was arranging my hair, delighting in it. “I see what you’re thinking, and nothing is going to change unless you want it to.”

But I was looking at his eyes, and I could tell that he wanted things to change. A quick stab of panic knifed through me, and I sat up, pinned between the couch and him.

“Ow!” Trent exclaimed as he pulled from me. “Rachel, we need to work on this timing thing.”

Pressing back into the cushions, I dragged the afghan to cover myself. There was a horse looking in the window at us. “How can you say that?” I prompted, scooting an inch farther away from him, but seeing as he was between me and the floor, it didn’t make much difference. “Nothing is going to change. You know that’s wishful thinking. We just had sex, and I’m not going to say it was a mistake and pretend it didn’t happen!”

Trent sat up, elbows on his knees as he collected himself. “That’s not what I meant. And I’d hate to think you thought it was a mistake.” He wedged his shoes off, then his pants. Leaning across the space between us, he put a hand on my neck, drawing me in to give me a reassuring kiss. “Everything will be fine.”

I began to realize that Trent was sort of an all-or-nothing kind of man, and I apparently had slipped into the all category. I think he had touched me more—loosened up on his iron-clad calm distance—in the last five minutes than he had the entire last year. My slight headache began to dissipate. This . . . might work out. I needed to be touched, and he needed to touch someone.

“Sure,” I said, more glum than angry. “Easy for you to say. You’ve got a big fence around your house. I’ve got news crews two streets off.”

His hand trailing from me raised goose bumps. “And pixies pulling their transmission plugs,” he said, head tilted to me. “God, you’re beautiful. How could I have been so stupid? Thank you for waiting for me to smarten up.”

I hesitated, my hand atop his as he touched my cheek. I thought about camp. Perhaps the seeds of understanding had been planted there.

He leaned into me, our heads touching. “You weren’t the only one who was scared,” he said, his lips inches from mine. “I don’t like easy, but this might be the toughest sell I’m ever going to have to make.” He pulled back, the determination I remembered slipping back behind his eyes. “Because I’m never going to let you go, Rachel. I don’t care how much you push me away because you’re scared. I’ll just hold you until you get over it.”

I put my arms around him and breathed him in. It was what I wanted. But he was right: we were going to have to fight for it. “What are we going to do?”

He sighed, the sound of relief in him a clear indication that he had heard the depth of my commitment. We were going to do this. It was going to happen. The only question was how much collateral damage we were going to leave behind. “Take it one day at a time,” he said, making it sound easy.

We parted, the first hints of unease shifting about me as reality pushed out the glow he’d filled me with. I’d just lost a steady paycheck, because I couldn’t work for him anymore. Damn it, I was going to be doing his security for free. “And today?” I asked, fiddling with the tassels on the afghan.

He turned, looking as collected and together as if he were in a three-piece suit. Jeez, how did he do that? “Today, I am stuck in the Hollows without my cell phone. Fortunately Jenks has a box of clothes.”

I nodded. “In my closet. Top shelf. Help yourself.” But he knew that already. He stood, and I looked up at him, trying to be polite but not doing very well. He was a beautiful, beautiful man. A smile crossed my face at the memory of what his skin felt like. It was all I could do not to touch him right now—now that I could.

Trent scooped up his pants and turned. Smiling, he extended a hand to help me up. I sort of fell into him, and tingles sparkled where we touched as he kissed me lightly, rekindling my passion, promising that it wasn’t a onetime affair. “We will find a way to fix this without the demons,” he said, and my current trouble came crashing back. “We just have to break it down to its smallest component and work from there. You want the shower first?”

My hold on his fingers tightened and I pulled him to the hall. “It’s not as big as yours, but it can still hold two.” I couldn’t bear the thought of not being with him right now. I was afraid if we parted, even for a moment, that I’d wake up to find it was a dream.