tomorrow. You should sleep.” He scooped her into his arms before she had a chance to protest.
Ana wasn’t used to surrendering to her tears, and yet with A.J., she allowed them to freely fall. And they kept coming as her arms circled his neck.
“Thank you,” she whispered when he carried her up the stairs, his powerful body holding her like she weighed nothing. She brought her face closer to his chest, nuzzling against him once he’d sat on her bed, holding her on his lap. “I, um.”
“Shhh,” he said when she lifted her head. “You don’t need to say anything. Relax.”
She didn’t normally relax. No, she panic-cleaned. And now? Could panic-orgasm be a thing? She really was thinking like A.J. now.
“I’ll wait to go until you’re asleep.”
But this was a place she never wanted to leave.
In his arms.
And maybe being protected wasn’t such a bad thing if it was A.J. doing the protecting?
Chapter Twenty-One
A.J. waited until Ana had fallen asleep to leave her room. He’d have preferred to stay and hold her, but he begrudgingly had to call the team and check for updates.
He’d failed to mention to his team that, in a roundabout way, he’d dropped the news on Ana that her unit chief Gray was on his team’s side. Of course, A.J. had only discovered that tidbit when he’d spoken to Harper and Natasha by way of split-screen while Ana had taken her post-pond-orgasm shower. Natasha had been resistant to tell his team Gray’s identity as the colleague on her new task force, but with Chris and A.J. both trying to throw Gray’s name into the guilty hat, she’d been forced to speak up.
When Harper had informed him she’d had enough of his yawning and insisted he get some sleep, he hadn’t objected.
He felt bad taking rack time when his team was working, but within a minute of lying down on the bed in a guest room after removing his shorts and shirt, he’d passed out cold.
“She’s a hot one.” The familiar voice came out of nowhere, shocking him awake. “Smart. Funny.”
“Huh?” A.J. turned his head to the side trying to determine where the voice was coming from, not to mention why the hell he was lying on a hard surface. Hadn’t he just gone to sleep? In a bed?
He pushed up on his forearms after finding himself flat on his belly on the porch out back, shifted to a sitting position, and came face-to-face with Marcus, who was sitting in one of Grant’s rocking chairs.
A.J. blinked and slapped his cheeks twice. Am I dreaming, or is this real? He stood and peered down at his body, finding himself in only his boxer briefs.
“Oh, and the back-and-forth between you two is the thing of romance novels,” Marcus went on, ignoring A.J.’s confused stare.
“Whaaaaat? Did you read one of Savanna’s novels?” He smiled, deciding to stay in this dream if his buddy was going to pay him a visit. “You did, didn’t you?”
“No, I read a couple before I met her.” Marcus flicked a hand in the air. “How do you think I won over a woman like Savanna? Learned from the pages of a novel how to woo a woman.”
“Am I dreaming?”
“You tell me.” Marcus shot him his signature smile and braced the chair arms, closing his eyes as he continued to rock. “That bump you got on your head Saturday wasn’t that bad, but how many times have I told you over the years, you gotta stop being an idiot and see a doc every once in a while. You get banged up too often.”
A.J. scrubbed his hands up and down his face and tried to get a grip, to determine if he was sleep walking, or still back in the guest room sound asleep and dreaming. “My head is fine.”
“You always say that. Stubborn.” Marcus shook his head, eyes remaining shut. “At least you don’t sleep commando.”
A.J. rolled his eyes, forgetting for a moment this wasn’t real. Marcus was buried in Birmingham thirty minutes away from there. He wasn’t on Grant’s back porch right now. And A.J. probably wasn’t either.
“So, let’s talk about this FBI hottie. Why’d it take you so long to reach out to her? You scared she might bite?”
“I wasn’t scared,” A.J. protested, folding his arms across his chest and pouting like a kid in trouble.
He had so much he wanted to say to Marcus. So much to apologize for. A.J. should have been at his side the day he died. If he