Mallory Rush - [Outlawsand Heroes 02] by Dead or Alive

gentle fingertips push back her hair, his warm breath beside her ear.
    "Might I hold you?" She shook her head and pulled slightly away. "Why not?" Noble asked.
    "Be-because I'm afraid I'll come apart if you do."
    "Would that be so bad?"
    "Oh yes, bad." Chancing a glance at him, she was rocked by the soul-deep compassion in his gaze. She felt herself teeter on the verge of throwing herself into his arms, begging him to make it all go away, to render her numb to everything except for the magic of his touch.
    "Very bad," she reiterated with more force.
    "I don't understand."
    "It's really simple, Noble. I'm a lot like Humpty-Dumpty. I had a great fall, and I've done my best to put myself back together again, but some pieces are missing. So it's really important for me to protect myself from anyone or anything that might jar what I've managed to keep intact."
    "But if you would let me, I would like to help you find those missing pieces so you might be whole again."
    Lori considered his offer. She needed some help and Lord knew her counseling sessions and grief group hadn't gotten her over the hurdle she continued to straddle—on better days.
    Thinking aloud, she said, "it's strange, but I actually do feel better since I told you about it—again. I don't talk about my real feelings to anyone, not in the last couple of years anyway. Not even to my parents or my friends. Hell, I don't even talk to myself about them anymore, my feelings just keep me awake, when I'd sell my soul for a good night's sleep. And here we are, not really knowing each other, while I spill my guts all over the place like you're the best friend I've got."
    "Nothing would make me happier than for that to be true." Noble tapped his lips, those marvelous lips that tugged at the corners and made her smile slightly too. "I feel a bond with you as well, Lori, one which defies logic and time. I pray that we shall always be the best of friends. Friends... and more."
    He looked as though he wanted to say more than he was actually saying. Or maybe it was just her, projecting onto him all the contradictions that defined her life and never got resolved. When would she get beyond the past and get on with her future? And yet, in the short time Noble had been with her, she had taken some great strides forward.
    Did she dare take another? A small but significant step that would alter their already unique relationship. Perhaps it was that uniqueness that was imbuing her with the courage to take the risk of listening to her heart, not her head.
    "I'd like you to do something, Noble. Something I haven't let another man do in a very long time." Reaching for the bedside lamp, she switched it off. "Hold me? And more."
    "How much more?" he murmured, taking her into his arms.
    "I don't know yet." How solid, how natural and good she felt in his easy embrace. "For now, I just want you to hold me until I go to sleep." She rubbed her cheek against the coarse stubble of his. "This feels right."
    "It is right."
    Even as he said it Noble knew it was not right at all. Something terrible was between them, something he could not ignore. Neither could he ignore her fleet kisses to his cheek, as they shifted downward on the bed. He pulled the covers over them then urged her head to his chest.
    Lori nuzzled against him, stroked her palm over his heart. It beat too quickly, too heavily. For her. Hold her, she'd asked. And hold her he would, forever and beyond if she would but let him. But just as he had stolen back his gold, he was stealing these precious moments now. This Noble knew.
    Her husband stood between them—more surely than the fabric separating their bodies as her knee slid between his.
    Noble's breath caught while her own became even and deep. In sleep she sought a natural fit, Lori's covered thigh wedged against his groin, pressed like a secret promise against the strain of his arousal.
    It was a sweet torture Noble endured, listening to her breathe, smelling her apple-scented hair,