Into the Fire (28 page)

Somehow Murphy knew, pulling her up and damn near carrying her as, once again, they began to run.

D
ALTON
, C
ALIFORNIA

Izzy crouched close to Eden as they hid in the brush that surrounded Hannah’s little house in the big woods, waiting for the approaching car that—hopefully—contained both Hannah and Murphy.

“This feels kind of like hide-and-seek,” she whispered. “For grown-ups.”

He laughed. Or he would have, if she hadn’t added, “Whoops,” and then kept herself from losing her balance with a hand high on his thigh.

A hand she then kept there.

Not that Izzy didn’t want her to touch him. In fact, he wanted her to touch him a little too much.

Especially when she looked at him the way she was right now, with heat in her deep brown eyes.

Although to be honest, that
I know you want to do me
smile he’d seen Eden deliver to Dave Malkoff just a few minutes ago had thrown him a little. It didn’t seem to fit with everything he’d learned about her over the past few days.

Or maybe it did. She was surprisingly insecure. Despite the ring she wore on her finger, despite the fact that he introduced her to everyone as “my fiancée,” despite all of Izzy’s reassurances that he wasn’t going to run away, she was afraid that he was going to ditch her in a Krispy Kreme.

It all boiled down to his refusal to bring sex into the equation.

And the really stupid thing? He was starting to think it might be a good idea to calm Eden down a bit by throwing her a boner. If she really believed that sex would guarantee his sticking around, then maybe he should just let the girl give him a BJ. Just a little one. What harm would it do?

It would be a tough job, but he’d endure it. For her sake.

Right.

“So what’s with you hitting on Dave?” he asked, because why the fuck not ask it.

It got her to remove the hand. She also adiosed the eye contact. “I wasn’t hitting on…anyone.”

“Then what was it?” Izzy said. “That look you gave him? An emotional game of chicken? Or some kind of power grab…?”

Eden was silent for a moment, but then she said, “I didn’t know you were there.”

What? Izzy laughed. “Like it would’ve been okay if I hadn’t’ve seen it?”

“Maybe you should just give me a list of rules—what I can and can’t do.” She was serious—and really worried.

“I’m just trying to understand,” Izzy said. “I’m not saying don’t do it. I just want to know why. Is it automatic? You’re occupying the same square footage as someone with a dick, so you crank up the sex without even thinking about it? Is it—”

“He disapproves,” Eden said hotly. “Of me. Okay? I was just giving him a reason to.”

So it was a
fuck you.
And
that
Izzy understood.

“There’s gonna be a lot of people out there who disapprove of you,” Izzy pointed out. “And of me, too—even after we get married. The fact that you’re so young is going to bring out the snark in people. We both better start thickening our skin toward it, starting now.”

She looked up at him apprehensively. “You still want to get married?”

He looked at her. “You honestly think I’d change my mind because you gave Dave a
look
?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t get you, at all.”

No doubt because he didn’t shove his dick in her mouth, first chance he got.

“You know, Dave’s a good guy,” Izzy said, trying to tease her out of the anxious place she’d dug herself into. “I know he comes across as a little uptight, but…You want to marry him instead of me, just say the word.”

She didn’t realize he was kidding at first, her head jerking up as she gazed at him wide-eyed. But then she laughed, albeit still a little nervously. “I don’t want to marry Dave. Don’t be a jerk.”

“Sorry,” he countered. “That’s going to be too big of a challenge.”

“No, it’s not.” She looked up at him and met his gaze, all of her attitude stripped away. All that was left was Eden, uncertain and a little scared. “I want to marry
you,
” she whispered.

Want to? It was more like
have to.
Still, it was nice to know that, to Eden, he was the lesser of most evils.

“I like you,” she said. “You’re funny and…sweet and…I really do like you.”

And Izzy couldn’t help it. Her mouth was right there, her full lips slightly parted. So he kissed her, and Lordy, she was delicious.

It was a kiss for the record books, tender and soft, just his lips against hers, the sweetness and warmth of her breath mingling with his, the very tip of her tongue shyly tasting him. Ah, God. He opened his mouth to her and that was a mistake, because it was as if he’d hit the switch for the green light on the jump deck. Shy no more, she sucked his tongue into her mouth, because this was what she thought he wanted, and damn, she went directly for his package, too, grabbing him through his cargo shorts, like he was some kind of bargain at a department store sale, that she had to hold on to with all of her might, or risk losing.

And yeah, okay, it wasn’t as if he hated it. In fact, he really, really didn’t hate it.

Last person who’d grabbed his dick—not including himself, which he did kinda regularly—was Silverman, whose intention had been merely to save Izzy’s ass by pulling him into an extracting helo, in northern Afghanistan.

Of course Silverman couldn’t just let it go—figuratively, that is. Literally, he let it go pretty damn fast once Izzy was securely on board. Of course, then he had to discuss what had happened, telling everyone that he’d grabbed Izzy by the “handle.”

It wasn’t the first time it had happened and it wasn’t going to be the last. The hard-on was standard equipment for just about all of them while getting shot at by the Taliban, and the way Izzy looked at it was that it was nice it was useful for a change.

But the main point was, Izzy couldn’t remember the last time he’d had sex. Real, full-penetration, rock-his-socks intercourse. God knows he’d gotten it on with some frequency over the past few years, but the women he’d “dated” all blended together in one homogenous, generic blur.

The most memorable, stand-out, take-notice event had been that hand job Eden had given him on his couch all those months ago. The one where he’d shot right in his boxers.

Kinda like he was on the verge of doing right now.

Izzy grabbed her wrist and took back his tongue and…Whoa.

Her basketball-taut abdomen was pressed against him, and…

It rippled again.

Eden was breathing as hard as he was, and she definitely misunderstood what he wanted, because she was ready to plant her face in his lap.

He stopped her, his hand on her stomach where, again, he felt her baby move.

“That’s surreal,” he said. He’d never felt anything like that, and he was fascinated.

Yeah, he’d grown up with a pack of older brothers, some of whom knocked up their wives and/or girlfriends while Izzy was still in high school. There was always a lot of commotion and noise made over feeling the baby kick, but as a fifteen-year-old, no way was he going to lay hands on one of his sisters-in-law. Not even Martin’s wife Mandee, who’d worked for years as an exotic dancer, and used to sunbathe topless when she knew damn well she and Izzy were home alone.

Maybe
especially
not Mandee, who, come to think of it, was probably one of the reasons Izzy found pregnant women so unbelievably hot.

Eden meanwhile was fixated on his stopping her from giving him head. “Is it too weird?” she asked. “Is that what the problem is? Me being pregnant?”

“It’s pretty weird,” he agreed, as beneath his hand, Pinkie did the cha-cha. “Damn! What does this feel like on your end?”

She shook her head, refusing to be distracted. “I don’t get you.”

“Because I don’t believe that every kiss needs to lead to sex?” Izzy asked, “or because I’m squirrelly about getting sucked off not just while your brother could be in earshot, but while I’m supposed to be paying attention to an approaching car?”

Which he’d totally missed. It was now parked in front of the cabin, surrounded by Dave and Sophia and…everyone was out there, except Eden and himself. Terrific.

A tall woman got out from behind the wheel. She looked nothing like the pictures of Hannah that Dave had passed around. She was significantly older, with streaks of white in her long, dark hair. Ergo, it was safe to assume she was not Hannah.

“
You
kissed
me,
” Eden was saying, which as far as comebacks went, was kind of juvenile. Very eighteen-year-old, and quite beneath her.

“So what?” Izzy countered, which, yeah, was just as stupidly high school. Clearly, they brought out the best in each other. “I
kissed
you. I didn’t say,
Hey, Eden, yank my crank.
”

“You don’t find me attractive,” she accused, which made him laugh in her incredibly attractive face.

Tears bloomed in her eyes, which, of course, made him feel like a rat bastard.

“I don’t get why you kissed me,” she said, “if you didn’t want—”

“I kissed you,” he said, “because you said you liked me and it didn’t sound like it was your typical
fuck me
bullshit. You know, it could’ve been a moment. You say
I like you,
we kiss, we pull back, there’s a little eye contact, a little smile, maybe an honest connection. Which, okay, eventually leads—much farther down the road—to you smoking my pole as I try to lick you all over, which is something I
very
much want to experience, FYI.”

“So why wait?” she asked, her hand back on his thigh and traveling north, fast.

Izzy caught her wrist again. “Because I want to be different from Jerry and Richie and old what’s-her-name’s brother, the statutory rapist, back when you were fourteen. Okay? Because I don’t know how else to show you that I respect you.”

Because—crazy as he was—he wanted her to fall in love with him.

She was silent then for several long moments. “Maybe you shouldn’t.” She met his eyes only briefly. “Respect me. No one else does.”

“Yeah, but you respect yourself,” Izzy pointed out. “That’s one of the things I liked about you, right from the start.”

“Yeah, right,” she scoffed. “Sitting in the Krispy Kreme all night long, waiting for my loser boyfriend to come back.”

“It took you a while,” Izzy agreed. “But you finally got it in gear and showed yourself the respect you deserved. You walked out, and you didn’t look back. That was huge. Just keep doing more of that.”

“Like marrying a total stranger for his health insurance?”

“People get married for a lot of different reasons,” Izzy pointed out. “Besides, we’re hardly strangers. We’re united by the powerful love we share for South Park.”

She laughed, but her smile faded far too quickly. “I feel like we’re characters in a Jane Austen movie, about to enter a marriage of convenience. I’m dooming you to a passionless existence. Which is stupid, because I could—”

“I’m pretty sure the main characters in most of Jane Austen’s
books
married for love,” Izzy said.

“Yeah, well, we’re the horrible secondary ones who are miserable. I’ll call you Mr. Zanella,” Eden decided.
“Mr. Zanella, shall I pour your tea since it appears that, once again, we are not going to have sex this year.”

Her British accent was pretty good—very Merchant Ivory, mixed with a little Winston Churchill.

“Look,” Izzy said, “I just want to…give us both some time.”

“Well, I’m ready,” Eden said, although it would have helped if she’d looked less as if she were bracing for a category five hurricane. “I’ll sign whatever prenup you want me to sign. If you’re sure that marrying me isn’t going to ruin your life, then let’s go to Vegas—today—and just do it.”

The sound of laughter from the driveway caught Izzy’s attention, and he realized that while he and Eden were talking, someone else had gotten out of the car. It was a woman, and her back was to him as she spoke to Lindsey and Jenk.

Oh, damn.

Izzy didn’t need to see her face to recognize Tracy Shapiro, the Troubleshooters receptionist. He’d know her from any angle, from any approach.

Because he remembered now. The last time he’d had real, full-penetration, rock-his-socks intercourse had been well over a year ago.

With gorgeous, grown-up Tracy Shapiro.

Who didn’t get his jokes or speak his language.

Izzy looked at Eden, who’d wrapped tape around the band of the atrocious diamond ring he’d given her so she could wear it proudly on her finger, for all the world to see. She’d followed his gaze out to the driveway and she looked at him now, questioningly. “Who’s
she
?”

“She’s no one,” he said.

Eden didn’t buy it. Her female sixth sense had been activated—accurately. “She must have a name.”

“Tracy,” he told her.

“She’s way out of your league.”

“Been there done that,” Izzy said.

Eden shot him a look. “You’re so full of crap.”

“Honestly?” Izzy said. “I’m not. Her ex, who wasn’t her ex at the time, cheated on her, so she came a’knockin’ on my door. Apparently there’s a sign tattooed on my forehead in invisible ink that only spurned young ladies can see.
Revenge Sex R Us.
”

Eden exhaled what might’ve been a laugh, or possibly disbelief. “Did you offer to marry her, too?”

“No,” Izzy admitted. “I most certainly did not. She kinda wanted a relationship and…That woulda sucked, on account of me knowing absolutely nothing about shoes or handbags.” He frowned. “I’m not sure who she slept with to get over
me.
Probably an entire battalion, because, well, damn. Once you go Zanella, everyone else pales in comparison. That’s another reason why I want to take it slow, you know, you and me. You should probably check with your doctor, get the whole sex-with-Zanella thing an official go-ahead.”

Eden was laughing in earnest now. “In other words, she dumped you,” she interpreted.

Izzy pushed her hair back behind her ear. “Seriously? It was pretty mutual. We didn’t have that love of South Park as a foundation. That and she must not have gotten the memo—you know, the one that said I was funny and sweet.”