by Gina Wilkins
“Please, call me Steve,” he said with an attractive smile.
“I’d like to hear what you think of Dallas so far. Why don’t you tell me about it while we dance?”
Heather, Kelly thought wryly, had never been bothered by shyness.
Steve Carter certainly didn’t seem to mind Heather’s directness. “I would be delighted.”
Heather promptly towed him away.
Brynn made a sound of exasperation. “What just happened here? Shane, I was trying to introduce Steve to Kelly.”
“Sorry,” he said casually. “I didn’t know Heather was going to abduct him.”
Kelly, of course, didn’t believe him for a moment. But apparently Brynn and Joe did, which was all that mattered to her.
“What did Michael tell you?” she asked Shane, remembering the excuse he had used to interrupt them.
“Oh. Right. He’s buying into the air-charter service he works for. He’s going to be a full partner in the business and they’re planning to expand.”
“That is good news. When did it happen?”
“The plans were finalized earlier this week. He said he hasn’t mentioned it before because he didn’t want to jinx it.”
“Michael’s superstitious,” Kelly explained to Brynn and Joe.
Brynn lifted her eyebrows. “A superstitious pilot?”
Shane nodded. “You wouldn’t believe all the rituals he goes through in the course of an ordinary day.”
“Obsessive-compulsive?” Joe asked thoughtfully.
“Probably, but not so badly that it interferes with his job or mental health, so he doesn’t see any need to change now. He just calls himself ‘superstitious’ and goes on.” Shane turned then to Kelly. “Have you had an opportunity to dance yet?”
She shook her head. “No, but...”
“They’re playing some slow songs now. Want to give it a try?”
“Why don’t you, Kelly?” Brynn urged. “You used to love to dance.”
“Oh, I don’t...”
“It’s great exercise,” Joe agreed, smiling at her. “It’ll be good for you, as long as you don’t overexert yourself.”
“There you go, Kelly. Your surgeon has ordered you to dance with me,” Shane said cheerfully. “You have no excuse now.”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay, I’m outvoted. But don’t be surprised if I fall flat on my face.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll catch you if you do,” he assured her.
She gave him a wry look. “Why doesn’t that reassure me?”
Laughing, Brynn gave her a teasing shove. “Go dance with Shane. And if he gets rowdy, we’ll tell Uncle Jared and he’ll be grounded.”
Shane’s laugh was a bit hollow, but Brynn didn’t seem to notice. With a swallow, Kelly allowed Shane to take her arm and lead her through the crowd toward the dance floor.
Shane had just taken her into his arms when he muttered, “I really don’t like this.”
“Dancing?” she asked in surprise.
“No. Pretending.”
“Shane, you promised.”
“And I’ve been keeping my promise, haven’t I? No one suspects a thing. But do you have any idea how hard it was for me to keep my mouth shut while Brynn practically threw you at that doctor?”
She focused on his bow tie. “She was just introducing us. He doesn’t know many single people here yet.”
Shane’s hand tightened at her waist. “He can just make his own friends.”
“Heather didn’t waste any time. You didn’t put her up to that, did you?”
“I didn’t have to. She heard the words single doctor and went into action.”
“Which you knew she would do.”
“I hoped she would,” he amended.
She looked up at him through her lashes. “If it makes you feel any better, I wasn’t interested in him.”
“Good.”
He started to pull her closer. Kelly held back. “Dance like a cousin,” she ordered.
Shane sighed deeply, but obligingly loosened his grip. Not that it mattered how circumspectly they danced, she mused. She still tingled all over just from being in his arms. She only hoped no one else could tell—including Shane, who needed no encouragement at the moment.
After another dance and another hour of conversation, Shane turned to Kelly as they stood talking to a few of their friends. “I’ve had about all the fun I can take. If you’d like a ride home, I can take you now.”
“You’re welcome to ride home with us if you’d like to stay a little longer, Kelly,” Brynn offered.
She smiled and shook her head. “Actually, I am a little tired. I think I’ll take Shane up on his offer. You’re sure you don’t mind, Shane?”
He shrugged. “I’m going practically right past your apartment. It’s no trouble.”
Joe chuckled. “You sound as if you’re going to slow down in front of her building and tell her to jump.”
Shane laughed. “Maybe I’ll come to a complete stop, if she asks me nicely.”
Kelly made a face at him, but said only, “I just have to get my coat and I’ll be ready.”
There was no question, of course, that Shane would accompany her inside when they arrived at her apartment. She didn’t bother to ask and he didn’t wait for an invitation. He simply followed her in, closing the door behind him. He waited until she turned on a lamp and the Christmas tree lights. And then he pulled her into his arms without giving her a chance to resist.
Not that she would have resisted, she thought as she lifted her face to his.
He held her so tightly, he almost squeezed the air out of her. And then he kissed her until her head buzzed from lack of oxygen. She didn’t complain. Right now, she needed Shane more than she needed her next breath.
When he finally lifted his head, she sagged against him, drawing in a long, unsteady breath. “Wow,” she said after a moment.
“I’ve been wanting to do that all evening,” he growled. “Do you know how tempted I was to kiss you on the dance floor?”
“Shane...”
“Don’t frown at me like that. I didn’t kiss you, did I? I did exactly what you wanted, behaved just like your older brother or favorite cousin. But I didn’t like seeing you in this great dress and only being able to tell you that you looked ‘nice.’ And I hated having Brynn try to fix up you with some clown right in front of me.”
Every word he said only added to her anxiety. She could only imagine how everyone would have acted if Shane had followed through on his impulses at the dance. If he had kissed her on the dance floor, acted possessive in front of the new doctor in town, their friends would have been stunned, and gossip would have flown. By tomorrow, the news would have made its way through two large families—the Walkers and the D’Alessandros. Everyone would be speculating about what was happening between Shane and Kelly. They would want to know how long this had been going on, where it was headed. How long it would last.
And then, if—when, most likely, she amended pessimistically—it ended, everyone would wonder what to say to her. Should they mention Shane to her, or would that be too painful? Should they invite her to intimate family gatherings at which Shane would be present, or would that be too awkward? It was exactly what was happening with Cameron and Amber now, she reflected sadly. Eventually, one of them would find the situation too uncomfortable and would simply drift away. It had already started to happen, really. Amber never would have missed a glittering holiday party before she and Cameron had tried dating.
Shane sighed. “Whatever you’re thinking, I don’t like it.”
“I’m just not ready to be the subject of family gossip,” she said apologetically. “There’s too much else going on right now. School. The holidays. My father.”
He nodded somberly. “I’ll play along. For now. I don’t want to complicate your life, Kelly. I only want to be an important part of it.”
She lifted a hand to his cheek, tracing the firm line of his jaw with her fingertips.
“You already are.”
He kissed her again, this kiss so tender, so sweet, so filled with emotion that her chest ached. She could no longer deny to herself that she loved Shane—had probably been in love with him since he’d walked into her hospital room, introduced himself as a longtime acquaintance of her surgeon’s and asked if she needed a friend in her new hometown.
“I can tell you now,” Shane murmured, cupping her face in his hands, “that you were the most beautiful woman in the room tonight. I can tell you that I nearly fell flat on my face when I saw you standing under the chandeliers in your sexy red dress with those glittering stars in your hair and even brighter stars in your eyes. I can say that I wanted you so badly my hands started to shake—and that I want you every bit as badly now.”
Once again, Shane had taken her breath away, this time with nothing more than his words. Her throat too tight to allow her to speak, she could only gaze up at him with her heart in her eyes. He wrapped his arms around her, lifting her high onto her toes as he kissed her again, this time with a passion that emptied her mind of everything but him.
“Are you going to send me away tonight?” he muttered between kisses.
She knew exactly how far her willpower extended—and it wasn’t that far. “No,” she whispered, trembling with terror and anticipation.
“More than anything else in the world, I want to stay. But I need to know this is what you want.”
She wished he would just stop talking and take action. It was so much easier to simply follow his lead. But Shane demanded that she take an active—not a passive—role. He would not stay unless she asked him to. Did he know how hard it was for her to ask?
Of course he did.
He waited patiently. Implacably. His arms remained around her, his gaze held hers, but he made no other effort to persuade her. She found herself growing irritated with him. “Do you want to stay or not?”
“That wasn’t the question,” he reminded her gently. “I’ve already said I want to stay. What I need to know is whether you want me to.”
“I said I wouldn’t send you away.”
He still wasn’t satisfied. “Ask me to stay, Kelly.”
It would serve him right, she thought, if she asked him to leave instead. But she didn’t want him to go. She’d spent the entire evening pretending, disguising her feelings. She couldn’t do so now. “Please stay,” she said quietly.
The relief in his eyes told her just how badly he had needed to hear those words.
The stem intensity left his expression, to be replaced by a broad grin that was pure Shane. He swung her around, completely off her feet, lifting her high against his chest. She was forced to throw her arms around his neck for balance—and then she left them there because she wanted to.
“You’re going to throw out your back,” she warned him, her feet dangling over his arm, her red dress tangled around her thighs.
“No way,” he assured her, nuzzling her neck. “You’re as light as a feather.”
“Big, strong cowboy,” she teased, ruffling his uncharacteristically neat hair. “Even if you do look like a city boy in this tux.”
“I could get out of this penguin suit in less than three minutes.”
She swallowed, her fingers tightening reflexively on his shoulders as her mind filled with startling pictures. “Er...could you?”
“With the proper incentive, of course.”
“And that would be?”
He nipped at her bare right shoulder, nudging her spaghetti straps out of the way. “You.”
For a moment, her voice was frozen in her throat. When she had agreed to explore a deeper relationship with Shane, she hadn’t been able to think beyond a first date. A few kisses. She’d known that kisses wouldn’t be enough for long. But now that the moment of decision was actually here, her first impulse was to run. Her second was to stay and take what she wanted.
Making her choice, she pressed her lips to his.
Chapter Eleven
She must have taken Shane by surprise, because he froze for a moment, his mouth going still beneath hers. He recovered quickly, his arms tightening around her. And suddenly he was the one taking the initiative as his tongue plunged into her mouth to claim her. He was still kissing her when he carried her across the room and into her bedroom, where he lowered her to the bed and proved that he could, indeed, shed the tuxedo in less than three minutes.
He got rid of her simple little red dress in even less time. He smiled when he saw what she’d worn beneath it.
“For me?” he murmured, touching an almost-reverent fingertip to the frivolous red lace bustier.
Had she known when she’d dressed that Shane would be seeing the seductive undergarments? “Yes,” she answered.
His smile deepened. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Why was she lying there smiling back at him? Why wasn’t she more nervous? Why wasn’t she trying to talk herself out of this? Why wasn’t she reminding herself of all the possible repercussions, all the things that would probably go wrong?
Instead, she opened her arms to him. “Come here, cowboy.”
He chuckled. “I love it when you talk dirty.”
“Just shut up and kiss me.”
He did much more than kiss her. He savored her. He mesmerized her. He transported her. He kissed her lips, her eyelids, her earlobes. He tasted her throat, her breasts, the soft skin below her navel. He touched the scars on her legs and then kissed them, too, to prove that they didn’t bother him.
Kelly insisted on having her turn. She knew Shane so very well. Knew the way his coffee-brown hair fell over his forehead. The way his blue eyes crinkled when he smiled. The way his dimples appeared and then vanished with a capriciousness that had always fascinated her.
But now she learned even more about him. How his work-honed muscles felt as they rippled beneath her palms. The way his flat stomach contracted when she trailed her fingertips across it. She learned how it felt to rest her cheek against his chest, to have her nose tickled by the light dusting of hair there. She learned how to make him smile. How to make him gasp. And how to make him moan.
Lying on her back beneath him, she gazed up at him in wonder. He was the Shane she knew—but he was different somehow. His face was so achingly familiar to her, and yet he wore an expression that was so excitingly new.
She loved everything about him—everything she had come to know during the past year and a half, and everything she had discovered in the past half hour. She was deeply, desperately in love with Shane Walker, and while she wasn’t yet ready to tell him, she was more than ready to show him.
She wrapped herself around him when he lowered himself to her.
Kelly learned then that she hadn’t been the only one to predict this outcome to the evening. Shane was fully prepared to protect her from any unplanned consequences to their lovemaking. She appreciated his foresight, and the brisk, matter-of-fact way he took care of it
She rose to welcome him when he joined them with one deep, smooth thrust. She gasped, quivered and then moved eagerly with him. The explosion came swiftly, rocking through her, curling her toes, forcing a cry from her throat. He held her, murmured her name, waited until she’d wrung every ripple of pleasure from the experience before giving in to his own need. He stiffened and gasped her name. Holding him closely, she thought how right her name sounded on his lips—and knew she would never forget this moment of pure joy.
No matter what happened next between them.
They didn’t sleep. Kelly was too overwhelmed by their lovemaking, and Shane must have been, too. He couldn’t seem to stop touching her, kissing her, looking at her.
“Are you tired of hearing me tell you how beautiful you are?” he murmured, stroking a hair away from her cheek.
She smiled. “How could any woman get tired of hearing that?”
He kissed the end of her nose. “You’re beautiful.”
“Thank you,” she replied with a p
rimness that made him chuckle.
“I’m really glad I brought you home tonight.”
She gave him an exaggeratedly suspicious look. “Are you sure you didn’t sabotage my car battery?”
He laughed. “I didn’t. But if I’d thought of it...”
She pinched his ribs, making him squirm and laugh again.
When he was still, she rested her head on his bare shoulder and sighed lightly. He stroked her arm. “Are you tired?”
“A little,” she admitted. “But not sleepy, really.”
“Me, either. I feel damned good, actually.”
She smiled, spreading her fingers over his chest. She could feel his heart beating beneath her hand. The steady thumping soothed her, and she drifted for a time, savoring the feeling of lying in his arms.
She broke the comfortable silence eventually. “I’ve decided what to do about my father.”
“Have you?”
She nodded against him. “I’m going to see him, I think. I’ll call your uncle Monday and have him set up a meeting.”
“What made you decide?”
“Something you said,” she admitted. “About how you needed to see your mother again as an adult, just to satisfy your own curiosity.”
“Don’t forget that my reunion with my mother wasn’t a particularly happy one.”
“I know. And I’m not expecting much from this meeting with my father. But you were right, I think. I need to ask him why he abandoned me the way he did.”
“You probably won’t like his answer.”
“I’m sure I won’t. I can’t imagine any justification for what he did. But I guess I need to ask.”
Shane nodded. “Trust me, I understand completely.”
“I knew you would. That’s why I wanted to tell you what I decided.”
“Are you going to have anyone with you when you meet with him? Or would you rather see him alone?”
“Alone, I think.”
“Let me know if you change your mind.”
“I will.” She fell silent for a moment, then added, “I’m still really angry with him.”