Infamous (26 page)

“It just didn’t look that sturdy to me,” A.J. said.

“And I really can’t believe that you actually remembered seeing that there were other trailers that—”

“I can also name every U.S. President,” A.J. cut her off, “and list batting averages for dozens of Major League baseball players, starting in the early 1900s. But the periodic table? Forget about it.”

Alison laughed as she led him up onto her porch, as they both shook off the excess rain. But then she stopped. “Ah, crap. My handbag. It’s back in the trailer.” She could see he wasn’t quite following, so she added, “My key. It’s in my bag.” She closed her eyes and groaned. “The landlord made a point to tell me not to get locked out—he’s out of town.”

“Did you leave any windows open?” A.J. asked, as Jamie gave him a nod and an, “I’ll check.”

But Alison shook her head. “It hasn’t been open-window weather since I got here. Plus I double-checked them, you know, after the snake got in? Just in case.”

“Maybe Hugh still has a key,” A.J. suggested.

“Nope,” Alison said, looking at the brand-new piece of glass that had been installed in her door just that morning. “He gave it back to me. It’s in my purse. At the bottom of my trailer. Probably crushed beneath a four-hundred-pound filing cabinet.” She smiled at A.J. “Which, to focus on the bright side, is not also crushing you or me. Which is a definite bonus.” She took a deep breath. “The way I see it, we have two options. We break the window—again. Or … you could, maybe, invite me to stay, you know, with you tonight?”

“Uh-oh, kid,” Jamie said, returned from his waltz around the perimeter of the house. “Back away. Fast. While you still can.”

Alison tried not to cringe as her words came out sounding much more tentative than they had before she’d said them, back when they were still rolling around inside of her head,
in brilliant-idea format.
Ooh, I have a good idea. We could go to your place
. Somehow it hadn’t come out quite like that.

She’d meant to sound worldly and experienced, flirtatiously matter-of-fact—like it was no big thing to suggest she spend the night with A.J. in his motel room.

But her slightly stammered, extremely pathetic-sounding inviting-of-herself into his room and his bed had clearly surprised him. In fact, he looked as if he weren’t sure what to do first: run away or run away really fast.

Instead, he laughed. Well, okay, it was more of a voiced exhale of surprise. And then he said, “Um …” Which was what he always said when he was trying to figure out what to say.

“Wow, I’m sorry,” she interjected quickly. “I seem to be hurtling forward on the too-much-too-soon bus. I’m just, you know, even more smitten than ever, after seeing you go all alpha male on everyone’s ass. You know,
Get out of the trailer now, sir
, and, um …”

Now she was doing it, too.
Um
 …

But now his laughter sounded far more real as he said, “Me, too. I mean,
you
were … really great, too. You
were
 … But I’m not … It’s not …” He looked as embarrassed as she felt, and he started over. “There
is
a plan B. I looked at the door when I put the plywood up and the lock’s pretty …” He took his sodden wallet from his back pocket, pulled out his credit card and, as Alison watched, he used it to jimmy the lock. The door popped open.

“Wow, that was easy,” Alison said. “That’s … a little scary. Hello, Mr. Burglar, come on in.”

“Always use the night lock,” he told her, tapping the chain. “Whenever you’re inside.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Thanks.” And wasn’t
this
awkward. “I’m sorry that I said, you know, what I said. I’m usually not so desperately pushy. I must have storm madness.”

A.J. laughed at that, which was good. She liked making him laugh.

“Well, maybe,” he said. “Storm madness … Could be, but, I wasn’t … Um. See, I’m not staying at the motel. That’s what
I was trying to tell you. If I were, I would’ve …” He cleared his throat. “I would’ve invited you. In out of the rain. But I’m kind of looking at overnighting it in my truck, so …”

“You’re not at the …?” She looked at him. In his
truck
 …? “Don’t you even have a trailer?”

“No,” he said. “They ran out. I’m, um …” He nodded, gesturing out toward the soggy night as if that meant something. And then it did mean something because he added, “I’ve been camping. Just outside of town.”

“Camping.” She looked at the deluge coming down on the other side of the tiny porch roof. But forget about the rain. This was just one night. He’d been camping, in this relentless, oven-hot heat …?

A.J. smiled ruefully. “I can say with certainty that with the wind that we had, my tent’s in the next county.”

“At least,” Alison said. “If not New Mexico. Not just your tent, but all your stuff. And if it didn’t get blown away, it’s soaked.”

“It’s all right. I’ve slept in my truck plenty of times before,” A.J. said just as Alison said, “If you want, you could sleep on my couch.”

“Not that I make a habit of it,” A.J. added, just as Alison also added, “Unless I’ve made it too awkward and weird for you to be able to accept any invitation at all.”

“It’s not awkward and weird,” he said. “It’s … incredibly tempting. I just … I don’t want to mess this up.”

She nodded, but she knew that
he
knew she didn’t really understand.

And she just wasn’t ready to say good night. It was true, she’d made jokes about being crushed by that file cabinet, but … They
could
have been crushed by that file cabinet. People died when heavy things fell on them.

And then there was the bit with the trailer that, from the force of the wind, went up on two wheels. As she’d watched from the truck, A.J. had gone inside
after
it did that dance routine.

And yeah, he’d briefly explained—before he went dashing
off to save more lives—that some girl who was inside was too short to get a suitcase down from a closet shelf, and he realized that he wasn’t going to get her to leave without it.

For several long, horrifying seconds, Alison had sat there in A.J.’s truck, certain that she was about to watch him get crushed.

Which had sucked—far more, even, than inviting herself to his nonexistent motel room and being shot down for a variety of reasons, the least of which was the fact that he didn’t
have
a motel room.

And now he was just standing there, looking at her as if she wasn’t completely bedraggled, with her wet hair slicked back from her face. As if she didn’t look half-drowned and extremely worse for wear.

“Come here,” he said, and he reached for her, as if he could read her mind, as if he knew that she needed at least a
little
bit of human contact, and yeah, who was she kidding? What she needed was a whole
lot
of A.J. Gallagher.

If that was really his name. But her inner snark was shouted down by the rest of her, who was beyond eager to let him pull her into his arms and hold her close, even as she clung to him.

How he managed to smell so good, despite everything he’d just been through, she couldn’t figure out. So she just held on to him, with her head against his shoulder, her eyes closed.

He was touching her hair, gently stroking it, as if it weren’t a mess of sodden string and knots.

Alison may have lifted her head first. She wasn’t sure. But she knew she didn’t lift her mouth to kiss him. At least she hoped she didn’t. But then she didn’t care about the stupid details behind
who
had done what first, because it was clear that they’d
both
moved. Both she and A.J. had moved, right at the same moment, to look into each other’s eyes. And then they’d both moved again.

And now A.J. was kissing her the same way she was kissing him—fiercely, passionately, as if there were nothing in the world he’d rather be doing.

And the gentle, tender embrace instantly changed, too. She was now plastered against him, and he was trying to pull her closer as he all but staked a claim inside of her mouth.

Not that she was complaining. It was exhilarating to be kissed like that, with that much ferocious hunger.

Apparently, she wasn’t the only one on the too-much-too-soon bus. Despite everything he’d said, he’d just jumped aboard, solidly planting himself beside her.

And maybe it wasn’t too much, too soon, if they both wanted this as badly as they both seemed to want it.

Although it was certainly true that, when it came to relationships, her MO in the past involved boatloads of miscommunication, misunderstanding, and general all around poor judgment.

She kept kissing A.J. as she pulled him with her into the house, or maybe he pushed her inside with him. Either way, they moved into her kitchen, and she kicked the door shut behind them.

Which was when he pulled back. “Alison,” he breathed.

She could see, in his eyes, an echo of everything she was feeling, everything she wanted. And he, too, wanted it all—right here, right now.

And, absolutely, she could feel the poor judgment kicking in, because she knew—she
knew
—that at this moment in time, after the hellish night they’d both just had, she should be solicitous. She should offer him a chance to shower. She should check his back and shoulders—see just how much he was lying about that
feels like a mild sunburn
thing. At the very least, she should offer him something to drink along with a chance to think through and discuss the fact that two minutes ago he’d specifically said that he didn’t want to mess this up.

She should at least suggest that maybe he wasn’t messing up anything. Maybe this was the beginning of something wonderful. Something special. Something amazing.

But instead, she kissed him again.

Instead, she pushed his jacket from his shoulders.

Instead, she took her own shirt and pulled it over her head, unfastened her bra and let it, too, fall on her kitchen floor.

*  *  *

Alison was intending to jump him, right here, right in her kitchen.

And A.J. couldn’t, for the life of him, think of anything he’d rather do than be jumped.

But he’d promised himself he’d be honest with her. He’d told himself he’d be the perfect gentleman tonight. He’d kiss her good night and he’d walk away.

And then tomorrow, after she got back from her scouting trip with Hugh, in the light of day, when A.J. wouldn’t come off quite so much as a scary psycho lunatic freak, he’d tell her about Jamie. And he’d try to prove that Jamie was real—prove it both to himself and to her.

Jamie, who’d popped away, thank God, as soon as Alison had taken off her shirt.

The ghost was a lot of things, but disrespectful of others’ privacy wasn’t one of ’em. And it was clear that Alison was immediately embarrassed—afraid that, once again, she’d gone too far.

Of course, instead of telling her that she had, indeed, gone just a
bit
too far, a bit too quickly, A.J. grabbed her by the hands and pulled her in to kiss her. And, of course, as long as he was kissing her, he figured he might as well run his hands across that silky smooth skin that was right there
—right
there. Her breasts were cool and soft and the hard truth was, he didn’t want her to put her shirt back on. In fact, he was pretty damn certain he wanted her to never wear a shirt ever again.

Only for him, though.

And then she was the one who pulled back, who stopped kissing him, and he realized he was in trouble, because Jamie was
gone
. Which meant there were no ridiculous versions of ancient show tunes to distract him from the gorgeous half-naked woman who’d already bared her breasts and was now in the process of peeling her soaking wet pants from an ass that was probably not perfect according to most of the world’s measurements, but sure as hell could have been in his own personalized dictionary next to the word
exquisite
.

She hopped on one foot as she kicked off her pants and
then there she was, wearing only a pair of silk panties and that smile that he loved.

And he knew what he had to do. He had to open his mouth and say,
Alison, wait
 …

But she kissed him again, her mouth so soft and sweet against his, and he kissed her back, harder, deeper, longer, his hands somehow finding their way back to her breasts, which were undeniably the closest thing to perfect he’d ever seen. But he wanted to see her like this tomorrow. And the day after that, too, so he made himself stop kissing her long enough to say, “Alison, I was hoping we could …”

Talk. He’d meant to say talk, except she’d reached down into his jeans, the back of her hand cool against his stomach, and—Jesus!—she took hold of him, her fingers wrapped around him.

And now she was smiling up at him, her delicious lower lip caught between her teeth as she stroked him, and there was no way in hell he was going to say anything to make her stop doing
that
.

And when he unfastened his belt buckle and yanked down his zipper—and yes, sue him, he did it himself, okay? Fumbling in his haste to give her more access—a shower of dust and dirt rained onto the kitchen floor. She laughed, but she didn’t let go. She just kissed him again and murmured, “We could both use a shower, huh?”

“Yeah,” he agreed, because a shower would both cool him off and slow him down. He could wrap her in a towel and hold her at arms’ length and say,
Baby, we should wait
 …

But he pulled one of her chairs out from the kitchen table, because he had to sit down to get his boots off. And he had to get his boots off, in order to get out of his jeans. And he had to get out of his jeans.

They were around his knees, and she didn’t make it easier on him even though she let him go so he could sit. Because as soon as he sat, she straddled his lap. Her breasts were right there, and—Hoh, God—she was now pressing the slip of silk that was between her legs against his now-raging erection.

And yes, they needed a shower. And yes, he wanted his
boots off. And yes, there were a whole list of important things he needed to say to this incredible woman, but nothing mattered more than getting inside of her, ASAP.