Tanner leaned back in his chair once again. The little she’d shared with him about her mother had touched him deeply. More than that, what he sensed had been left unspoken touched him even more deeply.
What she hadn’t spoken of was the deep loneliness of a neglected child, but he had heard it echoing in her voice. Her brown eyes had radiated pain despite the fact that she hadn’t spoken of any hurt.
And what amazed him more than anything was that for just a moment he’d wanted to stand up and pull her into his arms, somehow try to ease the ache he sensed inside of her.
“My dad was sort of quiet,” he said in answer to her question. “He worked long hours at the ranch and didn’t play as big a role in mine and Gina’s lives as my mother did, but he was a good man, who adored my mother and loved us.”
“They certainly must have done something right,” she said. “It isn’t every twenty-one-year-old young man who would step up to the plate and accept the responsibilities you did with Gina.”
He shrugged and took another sip of his Scotch. “There was never any question about stepping up to the plate,” he replied. “We had no other family, no aunts or uncles who could take in Gina, and I certainly wasn’t going to see her in foster care. The minute I got the call about my parents’ deaths, I packed up my bags and returned home immediately.”
“Returned home?”
He nodded. “I was in Lawrence at the time, in my junior year at Kansas University.” He grinned at her. “Don’t look at me that way,” he said. “I know that you’re thinking it’s important to me that Gina finish her schooling because I’m somehow living my youth vicariously through her.”
She smiled, flashing her enchanting dimple. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
“But it isn’t true.” He stopped talking as the waitress appeared to take away their salad plates and serve them their entrees.
He continued once they were alone again. “I’m not living my youth vicariously through Gina, because I don’t feel like I lost any of my youth. I don’t feel like I sacrificed anything by leaving school and taking care of her and the ranch.” He shrugged. “College had been my parents’ idea. I’d always wanted just to work at the ranch.”
“Then why can’t you accept that Gina might be satisfied working as a salesclerk?”
“I can accept that,” he replied as he picked up his fork and knife in preparation for cutting the thick, juicy steak on his plate. “But if she finishes college and has her degree, she has something else to fall back on later if she changes her mind about sales.” He smiled. “But I thought we’d decided we weren’t going to talk about Gina this evening.”
“You’re absolutely right,” she agreed.
For the next few minutes they focused on their meal, talking about how wonderful everything tasted. “Do you cook?” he asked.
She grinned, and again he was struck by her prettiness and tried to keep his gaze away from the teasing neckline of her dress that offered him a view of the swell of her creamy breasts.
“I’ll bet you think I’m going to say no,” she said, her eyes sparkling like chunks of topaz. “I’ll bet you think I do nothing but buy junk-and convenience-food. But the truth is that I started cooking at a very early age and discovered I loved it. I just don’t have the time to cook or bake much these days.” She cut off a piece of her chicken cordon bleu. “What about you? Are you a good cook?”
“I know more dishes made with macaroni and cheese than anyone on this earth,” he replied.
She laughed, the melodic sound shooting warmth through him. “I take it from that comment that cooking is not your strong suit.”
“No.” He gazed at her intently. “But there are other things I consider myself to be very good at. Would you like to find out what they are?”
He was rewarded by the slight reddening of her cheeks. “Why, Mr. Rothman, are you attempting to flirt with me?”
“Maybe,” he replied, delighting in the deepening color of her blush. He recognized that he’d been on a slow simmer from the moment she’d opened the door of her apartment.
He couldn’t help but notice that the candle glow loved her features. It illuminated her beautiful eyes and warmed her touchable skin, heightening his simmer to something more intense.
“Why would you want to flirt with me?” she asked, averting her gaze from his.
“Why wouldn’t I?” She looked at him and he once again leaned forward and reached out and lightly stroked the back of her hand. “You’re a very attractive woman, and I’m a normal, healthy man who finds you very desirable.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she exclaimed and quickly pulled her hand from his. “You don’t really know me. I’m not even sure you like me.” Her voice was slightly breathless, letting him know she wasn’t immune to his touch.
“What does that have to do with wanting you?” He laughed at her look of outrage. “Just kidding,” he replied. He picked up his fork once again, still gazing at her. “You’re right, I don’t know you very well. But I never said I didn’t like you.”
“Well, there’s no point in you flirting with me,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t have meaningless affairs, and you’ll be returning soon to Foxrun.” She looked at him, a touch of defiance in her beautiful eyes. “And although I don’t know you very well, I’m not at all sure that I like you.”
Tanner laughed, surprised at the burst of energy her words provoked in him. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had challenged him. “Then, we’ll just have to see if I can change that.”
“Don’t count on it,” she said dryly.
He grinned at her. “So, tell me about all your old boyfriends.”
“Don’t be silly. One of the first rules women learn is that when you’re with one man, you don’t talk about other men,” she exclaimed.
“Really. And who teaches that rule?”
“It’s in the rule book all women are handed at birth.”
He laughed and for the next few minutes they spoke about people they had dated in the past. Tanner told her about the girl he’d dated in college, a young woman named Sally whom he’d thought he’d eventually marry.
But when Sally learned that he was going to raise his sister, she’d suddenly lost interest in him. He also confessed that there had been few women after Sally, that raising Gina had been a full-time job.
“Other than the naked dancing men, there have been few men in my past,” she said, making him laugh.
“Why?” he asked when he’d sobered.
She shrugged, the movement giving him a tantalizing view of the curve of her breasts. “From the time I was fifteen years old, I was working two jobs, saving every dime for the day when I could open my own shop. Between school and work there was never enough time for dating.”
He realized Colette was a woman who had never been taken care of. From what she’d told him about her mother, about her life, she’d always had to take care of herself. He thought of her working two jobs at such a young age, and his desire for her was tempered with a soft tenderness.
“What about Mike?” he asked. “The guy who’s doing your carpentry work at the shop. Gina thinks there’s a possibility of something going on between you and him.”
She threw back her head and laughed. “Gina is at that age where she sees romance everywhere. Mike and I are just friends. He’s had the same girlfriend for as long as I’ve known him, and she just had his baby last month. He’s doing the work for me in exchange for store credit.”
Tanner was surprised at the relief that flooded through him. Why should he care whether Colette had a thing for the handsome carpenter working for her? It wasn’t as if Tanner intended to have a relationship with Colette.
They finished the meal discussing more banal topics—the weather, the tourist attractions in Kansas City, the latest tattoo craze that had swept the country.
“I thought about getting a tattoo once,” she shocked Tanner
by saying. “I was going to get a butterfly on my ankle.”
“What changed your mind?”
She daintily dabbed her napkin to her mouth, then returned it back to her lap. “Besides the fact that I’m really not into self-inflicted pain, I decided I didn’t want to spend the money.”
“Money is important to you,” he observed. He thought he knew what her answer would be. She was a cool, calculating businesswoman, and money had to be what drove her.
She took a sip of her water and cocked her head, her brow wrinkled in thought. “Yes and no,” she surprised him by saying. “Certainly money is important in that I want to be able to pay my rent and buy groceries and pay bills. But it’s all about more than money.”
She paused a moment and took another sip of her water, then smiled a sad little smile that touched Tanner’s heart. “I grew up listening to my mother tell me I’d probably never amount to anything. Whenever Lillian was unhappy with her own life, she said hurtful things to me. Instead of getting upset, I grew more determined to be successful, to get myself in a position where I never had to depend on or need anyone other than myself.”
“Needing others isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” Tanner protested, surprised to find himself disturbed by her words.
At that moment their waitress arrived to ask if either of them would care for dessert. “Not for me,” Colette said. “I couldn’t eat another bite.”
“Me, neither,” he agreed. The waitress slid his bill on the table, then departed. “Are you ready?” he asked.
Colette nodded and placed her napkin on the table. Tanner paid the bill, then together he and Colette left the restaurant.
As the driver took them back to her apartment building, Tanner found himself thinking about everything he had discovered about Colette over the meal.
She was softer than he’d initially believed. In talking a little bit about her mother and her past, she’d banished the picture he’d had of her as a cold, hard businesswoman without a heart.
Although she talked like a woman who was strong and independent, there had been moments when vulnerability had shone from her eyes, trembled slightly at her lips.
“Thank you, Tanner,” she said as the driver pulled up in front of her building. “It was a lovely dinner.”
He didn’t want the night to end. He wasn’t ready to part from her yet. They got out of the car, and he walked with her to the door. “It’s early still. Aren’t you going to invite me up for coffee?”
He saw indecision flicker in her eyes. “I don’t know….” She looked at her wristwatch.
“Just a quick cup,” he said. “I promise I won’t stay long.”
She hesitated another moment, then nodded her assent. “All right. A quick cup of coffee.”
And maybe a kiss or two, Tanner thought to himself as he followed her inside. He’d never met a woman whom he sensed needed to be kissed more than Colette Carson.
Chapter Seven
Colette had not wanted to invite him inside. But after the lovely meal they’d just shared, she couldn’t deny him a quick cup of coffee.
As they rode up in the elevator together, she again felt slightly overwhelmed by his nearness. She felt his gaze on her but kept her own focused on the elevator indicator that showed the floors they passed.
When the elevator stopped and the doors whooshed open, he placed his hand in the small of her back. She felt the heat of his casual touch through the material of her dress, burning through the thin silk slip and panty hose.
She breathed a sigh of relief when they reached her door and he dropped his hand from her back. She pulled out her keys and started to unlock the door.
“Allow me,” he said, and smoothly took the keys from her grasp.
“What a gentleman,” she said, trying to tease him to defuse the tension that bubbled inside of her.
“There are times it pays to be a gentleman, and times it pays to be a rascal.” His eyes sparked with a wicked glint that heightened the tension inside her.
A quick cup of coffee, she reminded herself. Just because she and Tanner would be alone in the apartment didn’t mean they were going to do anything other than chat a bit and drink coffee.
But there was that look in his eyes that made a shiver race up her spine. There was a hunger there that called on a hunger inside her.
He opened the door, then handed her back her keys. “After you,” he said.
She stepped inside, dropped her purse on one of the chairs, then motioned him toward the sofa. “Why don’t you just have a seat, and I’ll go make the coffee.”
She started to walk toward the kitchen but gasped in surprise as he grabbed her wrist and halted her forward motion.
“I’ve changed my mind about the coffee,” he said, not releasing his hold on her. With his fingers still encircling her wrist, he stepped closer to her.
Her mouth grew dry and her heart pounded so loudly she vaguely wondered if he could hear it. “Would you rather have iced tea?” she asked. “Or lemonade. I could make a pitcher of lemonade.” She was rambling but couldn’t seem to stop herself. “Of course, not everyone likes lemonade, but it’s nice and refreshing on a hot summer day.”
He smiled, that bold, sexy grin that made her knees grow weak and created a flutter in the pit of her stomach. “I don’t want coffee.” He dropped her hand and instead wrapped his arms around her waist. “I don’t want iced tea.” His voice was deep, his breath warm on her face, hinting of the Scotch he’d drunk earlier in the evening.
He stroked his hands up and down her back. “I don’t want lemonade,” he continued. His eyes were like the blue flames of a gas stove—hot and intense. “I just want you.”
“But you said you’d come in for coffee.” Her voice trembled. “A gentleman doesn’t enter a woman’s apartment under false pretenses.”
“I’m feeling more like a rascal than a gentleman.”
He gave her no time to protest or deny, but claimed her lips with his.
This was exactly what Colette had been afraid of. She had been unable to get the first kiss they had shared out of her head, and as he pulled her more tightly against him, she recognized she didn’t have the strength to deny him, or herself, the pleasure of this second kiss.
His mouth didn’t just kiss hers but rather took full possession. At first it was just a meeting of mouths, then his tongue swirled against hers, evoking in her a warmth that was delicious.
It wasn’t just the kiss that made her feel as if she’d swallowed a glowing sun. It was the pleasure of the evening they’d just shared.
She hadn’t wanted to like Tanner, she’d wanted to believe he was arrogant and dictatorial and had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. But he had just enough arrogance to be attractive, and she suspected he truly was a bit dictatorial but was driven by love and caring.
As his hands once again swept up and down her back, any thoughts of Tanner’s good qualities or bad qualities were lost beneath his sensual onslaught.
She felt as if she were drowning in his kiss, melting in his arms. She knew somewhere in the back of her mind that she should stop this madness. There was no future here.
But it was this thought that kept her in his arms. She knew there was no future with Tanner, that this could only be a momentary pleasure at best. So why not indulge herself?
She didn’t want a man in her life permanently. She had her life carefully mapped out before her, and nowhere did it include a man. But she just wanted this man for this moment in time.
“Colette…sweet Colette,” he said as he broke the kiss and his mouth trailed down the length of her neck. “Since I kissed you the other night, I’ve thought of nothing else but kissing you again.”
“I’ve thought about it a lot, too,” she admitted, breathless from the sensation of his lips on the sensitive skin of her throat. She tilted her head back slightly to give him better access to her neck.
“I’ve thought about other things besides kissing you,” he said, the confes
sion pulling a renewed burst of flames through her.
“So have I,” she replied.
She had no opportunity to say anything more as his mouth once again found hers, plying her lips with sweet heat that stole through her entire body.
He held her so close her breasts snuggled against his broad chest and her thighs were pressed against his.
His hands moved down and cupped her buttocks, the intimacy sending a shiver of white-hot desire through her.
She knew he wanted her…the evidence of that was apparent by their physical closeness. And she wanted him. She knew all the reasons why she shouldn’t…but she did.
Still kissing her, he maneuvered them closer to the sofa, and she could feel his heartbeat banging against her own. The knowledge that she stirred him enriched the desire that flowed through her.
He moved his hands, up, up, to the back of her dress where the zipper began. Colette held her breath as she heard the hiss of the zipper falling to just below her hips, felt the cool air that indicated the dress now gaped wide open in the back.
He broke the kiss as he slid the dress from her shoulders. She caught it at her breasts, unsure how far she wanted this moment to go.
However, as she gazed into his midnight-blue eyes, she saw not only a ravenous hunger, but also a sweet tenderness, a wealth of gentleness that filled up empty places she hadn’t known existed inside her.
Drawing a deep breath, she allowed the dress to fall to the floor, leaving her in her beige lace slip, her lacy white bra and her panty hose and panties. She stepped out of the pool of caramel-colored material, her heartbeat pounding so loudly in her ears she could hear nothing else.
She started for the sofa, then realized Gina could return home at any time and instead picked up her dress and walked on trembling legs to her bedroom door.
“Colette?” His voice held the sexual want that tingled in every nerve in her body.
She knew he was giving her an opportunity to change her mind, that the moment they crossed the threshold into her bedroom, there would be no turning back. But she didn’t want to turn back.
With hands that trembled as violently as her legs, she opened the door and stepped into her room, grateful she’d cleaned that day and the burgundy-and-green spread was neatly made over the double bed.
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