Out Of The Blue

Too long to possibly guess how to handle this.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “I don’t mind going downstairs.”

“I’m positive.” She flashed him a shaky smile, and moved over to her dresser. With a smile still pasted on her face, she lit a match and held it to the first of three candles she had there. “I mean we’re both adults, right?” She lit the second candle, then shot him another smile. “There’s no reason we can’t both— Ouch!” She dropped the now burned-out match and brought her fingers to her mouth. “It’s nothing,” she said before he could move toward her. “Do you like candles, Zach?”

Zach figured he must have missed something in his exhaustion, because he definitely hadn’t followed her train of thought from the bed to candles. But there was no missing her nervousness. He lifted her chin with his fingers, planning on gently telling her to relax, that he would take the couch, and she the bed, and they could both get some desperately needed sleep.

But at the feel of her soft skin, the strangest thing happened. Something close to an electric current jolted him, only it wasn’t painful. No, it was much worse than that, it was...nice. Warm.

Which made it very dangerous.

He wasn’t looking for nice and warm. He wasn’t looking for a woman to stare up at him as Hannah was, with wonder and awareness.

Hell, all he’d been looking for was a bed. Okay, and maybe a woman, but someone else, someone...temporary. Hannah wasn’t a temporary woman, she was his sister’s friend, a woman who would always be around in some form or another because of that. That didn’t equal temporary, not in his book.