Page 37 of Restored By You

Her hands find the front of my shirt and she drags me down to meet her. The second her lips hit mine, I’m a fuckin’ goner. She kisses me firm at first, then soft as her fingers curl into the fabric on my chest. I stop thinking entirely.

My hand finds her jaw. The other finds her waist and hauls her flush against me, walking her backward off the doorstep and into the house without breaking contact. She gasps against my lips when her back meets the wall beside the door and I press into her letting her feel exactly what showing up here is doing to me.

“Rhett,” she breathes.

“Fuck, baby,” I groan against her mouth.

Her hands move. Up my chest, over my shoulders, fingernails scraping the back of my neck and threading into my hair, and the sound that comes out of me is feral. I growl, angling her head back to deepen the kiss—tasting her, learning her. Her lips part on a soft moan that travels straight to my already aching cock.

She tastes like cinnamon and coffee. Her hands are everywhere, restless and grabby in a way that tells me she’s been holding back as long as I have. I drag my mouth to her jaw, her neck, feel her pulse hammering under my lips.

“What are you doing here,” I murmur against her skin.

“I wanted to see you,” she manages, breathless.

I pull back just enough to gaze into those big brown eyes, soft and wanting. Her fingers smooth the front of my T-shirt where she’d fisted it, straightening the fabric with an almost-prim focus that makes me want to wreck her all over again. “Is this okay? Me being here.”

“I wouldn’t want you anywhere else.”

She smiles and I feel it like a hand around my heart. I lean in to kiss her again, slower this time, one hand braced against the wall above her head and the other trailing up from her waist along her ribcage, learning the shape of her—

“Oh, shit.”

At the sound of my brother’s shocked voice, we break apart.

Levi is standing at the end of the hallway with his half-eaten sandwich in one hand and a beer in the other, his expression is beyond pleased for a guy who just witnessed his brother pinning a woman against the front wall of their house.

“Howdy,” he says, grinning wide.

Shea makes a sound against my shoulder that might be a laugh or her soul leaving her body. I drop my forehead to the wall above her head and close my eyes. “Levi,” I say slowly.

“Rhett,” he replies. Then, to Shea, “Nice to see you again.”

“You, too,” she manages, her voice impressively composed for someone whose lipstick I just licked clean off.

A beat of silence.

Levi takes an enormous bite of his sandwich, chews, and points at the staircase to his left with one finger. “Anywho, I’m just gonna—” He gestures vaguely upward. “Finish this upstairs. Don’t mind me.” He turns and heads up the stairs.

A moment later and the sound of his door closing has me letting out a heavy breath. I peer down at Shea as she gazes up at me with worried eyes. And then she dissolves into laughter—real, helpless, face-against-my-chest laughter that shakes her whole body. I smile, chuckling as I wrap an arm around her, not wanting to let her go or for this momentum to end.

“Come on in,” I tease when she surfaces. She blushes as I step back, closing the front door fully. “Can I get you anything? Water, coffee?”

She shakes her head, still smiling, and steps past me into my house like she belongs there. And hell, maybe she does. She looks around, taking in the space. “This is nice,” she comments, glancing over her shoulder as I follow closely behind her. The urge to reach out and grab her becoming greater and greater by the second.

She has no idea the door she’s opened just now…

“Did you decorate this yourself?” she asks, drawing my attention away from her swaying hips and back to her gorgeous face.

“No,” I scoff. “My mom and sister did. Levi and I did the renovation, though.”

“You two live together?”

“For the last thirty-one years, yeah.” I chuckle.

She drifts toward the fireplace, running her fingers along the mantle. A row of framed photos sit there. “Big family,” she says softly.

“Six kids—five boys, one girl.” I lean against the doorframe between the hall and the living room, watching her. “Never a quiet moment.”