Abby sighed. “Sometimes it’s amazing men and women can even communicate.”
They walked in silence toward the car. Once they reached it, he shot a look back at Zane. He was on the phone, calling for a cab, most likely. Zach felt a stab of guilt punch through him and he looked back at Abby. He’d have to fix the thing with him and Zane, he knew. Eying his wife, he asked, “How mad are you at me?”
She lifted a cool brow. “When are you going to apologize?”
“I’ll talk to Z tomorrow.”
“And Keelie?”
He looked away. “That, too.” And that would be the harder one. He knew how to handle it when he messed up with his brothers. He did it all the time. But how did he handle that one? A few months ago, he might have known. But now . . .
“Believe it or not, slugger, she’s still the same woman she was before it happened.”
He slid his gaze back to Abby.
She smiled and got into the car.
He joined her, starting the engine.
She reached over, her fingers ghosting over the back of his neck. He leaned into the light touch, relaxed a little as she toyed with his hair. “She’s a little smarter, maybe,” Abby said, a smile edging into her voice.
“Yeah?” He shot her a look and the glint in her eyes warned him.
“Yeah.” She tugged her hand back and fastened her seat belt. “After all, she figured out real fast that you’re soooooo not right for her.”
“Of course I’m not.” He shoved the car into reverse, about as uncomfortable as he’d be if his mother had shown up and started discussing things like . . . birthing rooms and sex education. “I’m your guy. I’ve always been yours.”
Abby caught his hand after he’d swung the car around and pulled out of the parking lot. “Well, there is that. But that’s not the exactly what I’m getting at. You’re mine . . . yeah. But aside from that . . . you’re all wrong. For her.”
Zach glanced at her.
Abby settled back in her seat with a faint smile on her face. “I think it’s time you get something through your head . . . you’re all wrong for her. But I think Zane’s completely right.”
He opened his mouth.
She shook her head. “Deal with it, baby.”
Chapter Seven
The door opened so fast, Keelie suspected he’d been watching for her.
He didn’t say anything, just stood back to let her enter, although she hesitated, shifting on her feet in the hallway. “Don’t you . . .” She cleared her throat. “Don’t you want to get your stuff?”
“Later.” He reached out, hooked his hand in the front of her jeans and tugged.
Her breath hitched at the possessiveness of the gesture.
And her heart ached at the storm in his eyes, the glint of anger.
He pushed the door shut once she was inside, but instead of them retreating into the depths of the loft, he blocked her in, arms braced over her head as he studied her face.
“Why did you take off?” he asked, the question blunt.
He was angry.
Do you blame him? You’re a basket case and you just showed that facet of your personality in all its glory.
Shoving that insidious little whisper down inside herself, she forced herself to meet his eyes, and she responded in the same tone he’d used. “It’s pretty clear I was causing a problem between you and Zach. I decided to remove the problem.”
“If you wanted to remove the problem, you should have told Zach to haul his ass out of there,” Zane bit off.
“I can’t tell your brother to get the hell out.” She crossed her arms over her chest.
“Why not?” Zane leaned in closer, so close she felt lost in the blue green of his eyes. “I’ve heard you tell him that before. You and I were out on a date. He decided to act like a spoiled brat—and for the record, Zach often is a spoiled brat—so why not call him on it?”
“He’s . . .” She stopped, closed her mouth, shifting her weight as she fought to explain. The problem was, she couldn’t really explain why she’d felt so lost, so out of place earlier. “He’s family,” she finally said. “We were just . . .”
Zane’s hands came up and his thumb pressed to her lower lip. “Don’t,” he said quietly, a thread of steel underlying the words. His voice was velvet, but the warning was there all the same. “Don’t say it. We weren’t just anything. I’ve been trying to get to this for too long, Keelie. Don’t go writing it off. Unless it just doesn’t matter to you.”
He leaned in, pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to her neck.
She shivered, felt the heat of it race all the way to the soles of her feet. She thought she just might melt inside her sturdy leather boots. Melt away into nothing, except Zane’s hands were holding her upright, keeping her chained to the world.
His mouth brushed hers now and then he murmured against her lips, “Does it matter?”
She blinked, dazed, as he lifted his head.
“What?” she whispered as he continued to stand there, obviously waiting for an answer.
A hot smile that turned his face into a decadent, devilish delight curved his lips. “When you look at me like that, it makes me want to forget any rules I’ve ever set for myself,” he mused, stroking his thumb across her lip once more.
Keelie closed her mouth around it.
He groaned.
Then he tugged his hand away, pulling her up against him. “Does it matter? Does this matter? Us?”
“Zane . . .”
She bit her lip, uncertain how to even answer that. He seemed to . . . or he acted like he’d had feelings for a while, but how did she process that? Trust it? Accept it? Just a couple of dates—and well, yeah, that blissful, mind-numbing experience at the wedding. But she was still trying to get her brain around just being attracted to him.
“I’m not asking you to run away to Vegas,” he teased, running his lips along her cheekbone. “I just want to know if this matters.”
She caught his wrist in her hand. With her heart racing like a mad thing in her chest, she looked up at him. “If it didn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Okay, then.” He backed away from her.
Every inch of her mourned the loss, but she managed not to whimper as he held out a hand.
“Should we get your stuff?” she asked.
“Later.”
“But . . .” She licked her lips. “The cameras and stuff. I saw how you were eying that one bag. Like it held diamonds or gold.”
“Hmmm.” He slit his eyes, then nodded. “Good point. Let’s go get them. But then you’re coming back up.”
It was a question that really wasn’t.
Smiling, she reached up, touched his cheek. “I’ll come back up. We never really did finish our date anyway.”
* * *
It only took one trip. He trusted Keelie with his precious camera equipment—it was the only option, because if he didn’t, he could see her insisting on hauling both suitcases out and lugging them up to the loft. And that thought scraped raw.
Now, after tucking his camera equipment along the top of the long, wide console table, he went to ask Keelie if she was still hungry—she hadn’t eaten much of anything—but he turned at the same time she moved and he ended up with his arms full of soft, slim woman.
Her eyes flew up, met his.
The scent of her flooded him.
A groan rolled out of him and mingled with the soft, shaky sigh escaping her.
“Ah . . .” She licked her lips, shot him a smile. “Sorry.”
“I’m not.” He tangled his hand in her hair, tugged.
She went still as he slowly, oh so slowly, lowered his mouth to hers.
That kiss at the airport had been sweet, way too sweet, and ever since then, he’d been dying for more.
Although, to be honest, he’d been dying for more even before he’d ever kissed her.
She met him halfway, one hand curling in his shirt, the other dropping to his waist.
Using his hold on her hair, he tugged her head back, feasted lazily on her mouth, even as he reminded himself to take it slow. Take it easy.
Tugging her lower lip with his teeth, he lifted his head, watched as her pupils spiked, swelled. “You’ll drive me crazy at some point,” he murmured.
“Like you’re not doing the same to me.” She licked her lips when he lifted his head, but she didn’t look away.
Instead, she held his gaze as she reached up, trailed her hand across his chest. Then, she did look away, but somehow, as her focus sharpened and intensified, it made his blood start to pulse and pump harder. She slid one finger across his chest, as though tracing something through his shirt.
“I kinda want to see that tattoo again,” she said, darting a look up at him.
“Ah . . .” Fire seemed to sizzle through his brain, spread out until it was licking through his veins, his synapses, everything inside him, burning him from the inside out.
All from a couple of words, and that look in her eyes and the slow, lazy stroke of her hand down his chest. As it stroked lower, he caught her wrist.
“You realize this is playing with fire, right?” he murmured, rubbing his lips against hers. “Touching me makes me forget what I’m doing, where I am . . . who I am.”
The smile that bloomed on her mouth was pure and lush sex, a promise, in and of itself, although there was something almost shy about it. The combination was enough to drive him to his knees and he remembered those whispered words . . .
The last time I had a quick fuck, the last time I had what could even be called casual sex was . . . It was . . . well. Never.
“I really don’t mind that at all.” She tugged her hand free, and he slowly let go, watching her. She continued on that slow, lazy path down his chest and he could feel the bunch and jump of his muscles under every touch, feel his cock pulse in tandem with his heart, and he wondered just how much of this he could handle without either turning caveman or just losing it in his jeans like a teenager.
She caught the hem of his shirt and he held still as she dragged it up.
His glasses got caught in the material and he scowled, untangling them before sliding them back on. A faint blush settled on her cheeks and he lifted a brow. “I’m not missing this.”
“Missing what?”
“Any chance to look at you.” He trailed his fingers along the neckline of her shirt, eying the faint flush visible through the designs of her tattoos. “I’ve always wondered . . . when you blush . . . just how low does it go?”
Her breath caught and he lowered his hand, relaxing against the stool, curling his hands around it so he didn’t grab her.
“You wonder weird things, Zane,” she murmured.
“No. I wonder the kind of things a guy wonders about a woman he really, really wants.”
* * *
He was going to turn her into mush if he kept this up. Determined to distract him, she laid her hands on his chest. Against her right hand, she felt the hard bump bump bump of his heart.
The light burned overhead and she sighed in satisfaction as she gave into the urge to study the tattoo at her leisure, the feathers, the wings as they swept up and curled over the canvas that was Zane’s body. The owl’s face, done in such detail. “He must have had one hell of an image to use when he did this,” she murmured.
“A picture,” Zane said, his voice a little rough.
She slid him a look.
His lashes lay low over his eyes. Her fingers flexed and she felt his chest rise raggedly under her touch.
Slowly, she lowered her gaze, stared at her hands. Her left one lay over his nipple. Her own were puckered into hard, aching points and she wanted, needed to feel something other than the silk of her bra rubbing against them.
Slowly, she stroked her thumb over the flat, brown circle of his nipple, listened to the ragged rasp of his breath.
“Hmmm . . .” Slipping him a look, she did the same on the other side.
“Damn it, Keelie.”
She stroked her hands down lower, feeling the ridged planes of his torso, his ribs, his belly. Wow. He was—
His hands grabbed her waist and her sudden, startled cry was lost against his mouth. Her hips landed on the edge of the island, but she barely processed that, her hands automatically going to the sleekly muscled shelf of Zane’s shoulders. His tongue licked at her lips, demanding entrance, and she opened, unable to do anything else.
He moved in closer and she parted her legs, instinctively seeking to get nearer, but when she would have gripped him with her knees, he stopped her. “Don’t,” he rasped against her mouth. “I’m . . . shit. I’m already this close to losing it here.”
He lifted his head and her heart tripped, then started to race at the look in his eyes.
Nobody had ever looked at her like that.
It wasn’t just desire.
It was something deeper—it was . . . everything.
His hand came up, cradled her face, his thumb sweeping across her lower lip. “You’ll drive me nuts.”
“It’s only fair,” she said, forcing the words out, fear starting to whisper through her. It was an unfamiliar fear, though. The fear of actually believing in those promises she saw in his eyes.
“Yeah? How is that?” he murmured, his mouth pressed to her neck, unaware of the thoughts racing inside her.
“You’re driving me crazy, too. Fair is fair, right?”
He chuckled, the sound vibrating through him.
“Fair is fair, huh?”
She jolted at the feel of his hand on her waist. “If fair is fair, then maybe I can . . .”
* * *
Stop. Didn’t we just establish that we were going to go slow?
Zane knew that calm, rational voice was only trying to help.
He gave it a minute. Yes, we did establish that. But that was right up until she looked at me that way, kissed me that way. I’m human.
She slicked her tongue across her lips, her eyes wide, nervous, the brown one all but black, while the pupil of her blue eye was so large, only a thin rim of color showed.
“Fair is fair,” she murmured as he stroked his fingers along the satin of her skin.
A rough breath tore out of him and he paused, closing his eyes. “You . . .” He opened his eyes and then eased his hand higher, splayed wide on her back. “You certain? I don’t mind being unfair here for a while longer.”
“We can just take it as it goes, right?” Her gaze dropped to his mouth and then she tipped her head back.
A hundred questions, a thousand doubts burned in that gaze and Zane knew the wise thing to do would be to wait. Just wait.
But he spent too much of his life waiting.
And if she wasn’t ready to call it quits yet? He wasn’t going to be the one to do it. So he caught the hem of her shirt, a form-fitting black T, and started to drag it, higher and higher. She sat still as he tugged it over her head, and continued to sit there, even as it hung from his fist.
Zane felt poleaxed.
Elegant. Delicate. He’d expected her to be just that and he still wasn’t prepared for it. Her breath came in harsh, heavy little pants that had her breasts rising and falling against a bra that had been designed with one intent in mind—to drive a man insane. Made of rust-colored red satin that shimmered just a little, it was edged with black lace and her pale skin glowed against it. It was one of those taunting little bras that pushed the breasts up and together and his mouth was already watering.
Zane was familiar with the female form and all its nooks and crannies, all those delightful curves. He spent hours capturing all those wonderful curves and lines on camera, obsessed with just how to portray the perfection of a woman’s body—and he didn’t care if his model was a size zero or a size twenty, nor did he care if they were
a dewy-eyed nineteen-year-old looking to make a break or a forty-two-year-old divorcée who needed a better headshot for her website . . . and sometimes the divorcée was looking for more, a picture that would let her see she was still absolutely beautiful.
He loved women, but they no longer had the ability to lay him low.
Unless the woman was Keelie.
With that smart mouth and her distrustful eyes . . . and now he had her half-naked in front of him and his hands were shaking.
Dipping his head, he pressed his lips to the gentle swells of her breasts, where a knife pierced a rose. He traced the line of a petal with his tongue as her breath stuttered out of her. Her skin felt like silk under his fingertips as he trailed them along the edge of the bra and then higher, along the vivid, beautiful colors of the tattoos running along her collarbone and down her arms.
He’d thought about learning every single line of those tattoos. With his fingertips. With his eyes. With his mouth. Now he had every intention of making that a reality.
A harsh, high sound escaped her as he leaned in, rocked against her. That sound made his blood burn hotter, higher. Her knees came up and gripped his hips. One hand braced on the island next to her, he stared at her, watching as her eyes went glassy, color spilling into her cheeks.
So beautiful.
And so hot . . . She moved against him and he shuddered, biting back a groan. Catching her knees, he guided them back down. He still had to keep some level of control here.
Some.
Although even the thought was becoming laughable.
Letting his gaze roam over her, he studied that rose blooming along the side of her neck, the color a rich shade caught between red and purple. The bud hovered in that space just before it burst into bloom, like it was just waiting for the right moment. He leaned in and pressed his mouth to it, curving his hand along her hip to hold her still as she gasped.
Then he moved down along the rose’s vine.
There were butterflies worked into the design, but each of them seemed to hover, almost like they were afraid to take flight. He found each one, kissed each one. Eight in all. The vine led to another rose, this one just below her collarbone. There was an identical one on the opposite side and in the middle of the two roses, there was a heart . . . locked.
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