by Julie Miller
As she carried their plates to the sink and helped T load the dishwasher, she had to admit the truth. She’d gone and done the stupidest thing of her life with the squarest, nicest, smartest, most protective man she’d ever known.
Maybe Lucy Belle’s guidance had opened her eyes to the possibility of having feelings for him. She’d known there was something different about T from the start.
He’d been skeptical about her talent, but he hadn’t been afraid.
He’d argued with her, but he hadn’t put her down.
He’d kissed her, and he hadn’t run away.
She had.
Ho, boy.
Lucy Belle would have listened to her fears about getting hurt, given her a hug and told her to try again. “Don’t you be the one to give up on people, Kelsey.” She could hear her grandmother’s twangy Ozark accent in her head, and almost smell the sweetly pungent aroma of the corncob pipe she used to smoke out on the porch on summer evenings. “And I don’t want to ever hear you givin’ up on yourself and what makes you happy.”
So what made her happy?
Her work?
Her dog?
Helping others?
T?
“Deep thought alert.” Kelsey had to blink her way back to the moment to see T standing right in front of her, crouching down a few inches to put him at eye level. “What’s put a frown between those pretty brown eyes?”
She almost raised her fingers to ease the earnest concern from his quizzical expression. But she realized she wasn’t wearing her gloves so she curled her fingers into her palms, resisting the urge. “I guess I’m making New Year’s resolutions.”
“And?” His sharp eyes hadn’t missed the subtle withdrawal of her hand. He stood up straight but made no comment. “What did you resolve?”
Kelsey propped her hip against a stool beside the center island counter. “I’m going to take some of Grandma Lucy Belle’s advice. I want to spend more time on the things that are important to me.”
“Which are?”
She treated herself to touching his jacket. The sensations were vague and brief as she smoothed the nubby wool lapel. “I didn’t get to the details yet. You interrupted me.”
“My apologies.” He checked his watch and caught a quick breath, energized like an adolescent again. “Just a few minutes till midnight.”
He dashed out of the kitchen and Kelsey stood and turned in his wake. “What are you doing?”
He dashed back in with their coats, holding hers open for her to slip inside. “Hurry. We don’t want to miss the countdown and the fireworks.”
Kelsey barely pulled her gloves on before T ushered her out the arched French doors that led into the back yard. With their coats flying open in the brisk wind, he caught her hand and led her off the patio, knee-deep into the snow. Holding on with both hands, she followed in his footsteps as he crunched a path to the highest point in the yard.
“Right here.” He stopped beside a dormant oak tree, its branches hanging with snow instead of leaves. He released her hands and gestured all around them. “Best view in the house.”
Coldest view, too.
But Kelsey huddled inside her coat, not minding the chill or the promise of more snow as much as she expected. T’s enthusiastic energy seemed to warm the air around them and seep into her.
The moist, cloudy sky hung low in the night, reflecting the glow of the city. Nonetheless, she could see some distance in nearly every direction while the high brick fence afforded them privacy from their closest neighbors. Kelsey grinned. The lights down on the Plaza sparkled with holiday intensity. But those million-plus lights couldn’t match the boyish exuberance of T. Merle Banning. A grown man, checking his watch, counting down the time, stomping out a circle of snow with his flat, black shoes as they waited for the new year to begin.
What a wonderful antidote to gloomy thoughts, guilty second-guessing and fears about unsolved murders.
By the time church bells started tolling midnight in the distance, Kelsey was caught up in his silly, private celebration. Her heart pumped faster with anticipation, and her wind-whipped cheeks and nose were tingling with more than the cold.
Lucy Belle wanted her to do what made her happy? How about giving back some of the fun T was sharing with her?
He looked up into the frosty black sky, waiting for the fireworks. Kelsey squatted down.
T counted the chimes out loud. “…ten, eleven, twelve.”
Splat!
Kelsey nailed him square in the back with the first snowball she’d thrown since…well, hell. It might be the very first snowball she’d ever thrown.
“Oh, yeah?” When he whirled around, retribution lined the grim set of his expression, but laughter sparkled in his eyes.
“T…” She raised her hands in placating surrender and slowly backed up.
He rolled a snowball in his hands and slowly advanced. “Now don’t start something if you don’t want me to finish it.”
Kelsey’s intuition tried to read a double meaning into that succinct statement. But when he cocked his arm, symbolism and deeper interpretations vanished. The game was on. “T!”
Scrambling for cover, Kelsey ducked behind the tree. T’s snowball glanced off her arm, leaving a circle of white in the middle of one big, black check. She scooped up another handful of snow and packed it tight, circling around the trunk to keep T on the other side. His hands were behind his back, his coat hanging nonchalantly open, and he was whistling.
“I don’t trust you for a minute,” she warned.
“You shouldn’t.” He smiled. “Not in this.”
She hurled the snowball. T ducked. And while hers sailed harmlessly past and plopped into a snowbank, he lobbed one behind his back that hit her in the middle of the chest.
“Aagh!” she cried, plucking her sweater away from her breasts as the freezing moisture instantly soaked in. “Cold. Cold.”
“All’s fair in love and war,” he taunted.
“That is such a cliché.” She charged down the hill toward him, scooping up an armful of snow and hurling it into the air above his head so that it cascaded down. She laughed as the flakes glistened in his hair and sank beneath his collar. “Take that.”
Now he was the one squirming with melting snow against his skin. Kelsey dug into the snowbank beside the patio fence to gather ammunition and pummel him while he regrouped. Though she was laughing so hard, she ended up tossing golf-ball size clumps of snow that did little damage.
When she saw his arm go back, Kelsey ran, trudging up to her knees and pushing with her hands to get back to that tree and shelter. T pursued, tossing a barrage at her backside. One stung her tush.
“Ow!” She grabbed her bottom and spun around. She was breathing hard from laughter and exertion. “Don’t throw so hard. I’m a girl.”
“You certainly are.” Was that a wink?
She backed up, blinking the moisture from her lashes to keep him in view as he advanced. Fireworks brightened the sky overhead, with rockets and whistles and colorful blossoms of falling light. Kelsey dove behind the tree, filling the inside of her coat with snow. But she came up with a handful, packed it tight. And when he tossed his, so did she.
One strikeout-worthy pitch hit T full in the chest.
In a fast-forward clip of images, she saw him startle, jerk his chin back in surprise, laugh another taunt and come down on his right leg. The leg buckled, slid out from under him and suddenly he was tumbling down the slope toward the fence.
“T!” Kelsey’s buoyant mood vanished in a heartbeat, to be replaced by breath-catching fear. She scuttled down the hill behind him. “T!”
He thumped to a stop against the fence, and the bank of snow spilled down around his shoulders and chest. “Damn, damn, damn!”
He was hurt!
“T!” Kelsey sank to her knees in the snow and pushed against his chest as he tried to sit up, urging him to lie still while she probed his knee and inspected the rest of him for injur
y. “Are you okay? We should have been more careful.”
“Gotcha.”
Just like that, he folded his arms around her and rolled over, snugging her body beneath his in the snow. The cold bed acted as a cocoon now, melting and molding around her body as his long, strong frame covered her from breast to toe. He inhaled deep, steadying breaths that thrust his hard chest against hers as she, too, caught her breath. His eyes glinted wickedly above her. One hand cradled her head, the other made itself at home on the curve of her hip.
Kelsey swatted his chest, knocking loose snow that sprayed her bare face and neck. “I thought you were hurt.”
“Easy, easy.” She twisted once but froze at the grimace that crinkled his face. “I did jar the knee a bit. With the cold temps, it’ll take me a minute or two to work out the kinks.”
“Can I help?”
“Believe me, sweetheart, I’m feeling better and better all the time.” The pain in his eyes lessened as something hot flared and took hold in its place.
The oddest mix of chill and heat consumed her. There was something about a man’s weight—T’s weight—pressing into the cradle of her hips that felt intimate, erotic. Right. Her lips burned beneath his hungry gaze and the tips of her breasts tingled with the need to be touched. A honey-sweet pressure gathered between her legs and drizzled its warmth throughout her body.
Should she feel this? Should she want this?
She searched his face for the sincerity and reassurance she needed. And with a resolute sigh, she dared to offer some of her own in return.
“T.” Was that drowsy, wanton sigh her own?
Frosty crystals clung to her cheek, but he brushed them away. “Happy New Year, Kels.”
As he lowered his head, her arms twined around his neck. “Happy New Year, T.”
She parted her lips to welcome his kiss, and moved against his mouth to claim her own.
His hands moved along her body as his lips and tongue slid against hers. His cold, wet gloves framed her face, skimmed a breast and squeezed it through her sweater. Kelsey moaned at the instant tendrils of desire flooding to the spot and shifted, begging him to tease the other with the same white-hot torture. He reached down to drag up the hem of her sweater and blouse and dipped his hand inside. Cold leather cupped her through the silk of her camisole and lace of her bra, wetting the material against her skin and erasing the initial chill with his eager exploration.
Her legs parted ever so slightly, inviting his warmth into the very heart of her. T moaned in his throat and she trailed her fingertips across the vibrating sound. He adjusted his hips, grinding against her. Through the layers separating them, the evidence of his response pressed into her thigh, thrilling her, making her long to have him even closer.
And all the while they kissed. The sensations she glimpsed in her mind were as drugging and erotic as the touches themselves. T had been thinking about her. Like this. Wanting her in ways that no other man, not even her fiancé, ever had. It was heady and humbling. Doubts were forgotten. Fears didn’t exist. There was only passion, need, this man—and her fledgling trust.
Kelsey knew it wasn’t just body heat thawing the snow. It was something more fiery, more potent blooming inside her.
T’s lips, following a trickle of melting snow, scudded across her jaw and along her arching neck. Coming up for air, she inhaled the scents of wet wool and body heat. As his lips burned a path against her throat, she skimmed her hands across his shoulders and arms, squeezing the hard biceps and triceps that locked him into place above her. First from laughter, now from passion, Kelsey could barely catch her breath. “Is it too corny to say I see fireworks when you kiss me?”
With a mighty sigh, T lifted his mouth. His eyes looked as hooded and heavy as her own felt. But with a game smile he tilted his head and glanced up at the sparkles of purple and gold bursting against the backdrop of clouds above them. “They really light up the sky, don’t they?”
He was so logical, so literal, so sweet. Kelsey palmed the back of his head and pulled his mouth down to hers. She’d never known she had a seductive bone in her body. But she couldn’t resist. “What sky?”
T gladly did as the lady bid and kissed her again. He slipped his tongue inside and did the things to her mouth he wanted to do to the rest of her body. Her skin was icy to the touch, but she was pure fire underneath. She was hot, and hot for him, and he was beginning to think his untimely tumble into the snow was actually a very good thing.
Hearing her laughter had eased his guilt over letting Watkins get to her. Seeing her play had touched his heart. Feeling her body open beneath his, and make demands he was more than willing to meet, practically sent him over the edge.
He’d never laughed like this, let loose like this—he’d certainly never kissed like this—with Ginny. Not even in his most private fantasies. His classic, Scandinavian ideal seemed far removed from this vulnerable, earthy, sexy, heart-on-her-sleeve woman he held in his arms right now. His feelings for Ginny had been a safe, unrealistic dream.
Everything about Kelsey Ryan felt real.
From her intoxicating scent to her lush body and busy mouth.
And he desperately needed something real to hold on to. To accept him, to want him—as he was—battle scarred and bookish, the product of a shame-filled past. A man who’d had to prove himself to his classmates, his colleagues, the world.
Kelsey made him feel as if none of that mattered. That she wanted him as is. As if he didn’t have to prove a damn thing except that he wanted her.
But despite the fire pushing his body to the limits of its control, his knee was soaking up the cold and damp. He didn’t want to risk the wrong achy body part short-circuiting this intensely personal celebration before it reached its hopeful conclusion.
With a surge of sheer will, T tore his mouth from hers and rolled to the side, letting fresh contact with the snow temper his libido. He sat up and awkwardly lurched to his feet, grabbing Kelsey’s hand and pulling her up. He winced his way past the twinge in his knee and tucked her to his side.
“Help me inside.”
He took the first limping step and felt her push herself into place beneath his arm and brace a hand at his stomach and back, fully prepared to take his weight.
“You are in pain.”
Oh, yeah. But what a delicious kind of pain it was.
He hugged her close and kissed her temple. “My knee isn’t what’s killing me, sweetheart. But somehow, even with all the heat we’re generating, I don’t think we want to finish this out here. And unless you have any objections, I intend to finish it.”
A lovely flush expanded the color of her chapped cheeks. With a graceful nod, she reached up and touched his jaw, angling his face to grant him full view of eyes as open and honest as the delicate fawn they reminded him of. “I have no objections.”
T lowered his mouth and thanked her with a kiss. When her hand tightened around his neck and she went up on tiptoe to deepen the kiss, he nearly lost it again.
Suddenly, it was a race against time to get inside. They limped through the snow and across the patio. Once in the kitchen, he pushed her up against the door and stole a kiss as he locked it behind her. Then his hands were on her shoulders, peeling off her coat while she tugged at his.
He took her by the hand and led her through the house, up the stairs to his old room, stripping wet things along the way, snatching kisses and making contact whenever they could. They left their coats in the kitchen, his jacket in the foyer. Buttons were popping and shoes and boots were left behind.
Her blouse followed her sweater at the top of the stairs, and as his palms skidded against raw, warm silk, he sighed in frustration against her mouth. “How many layers do you have on, woman?”
“I’m always cold,” was the excuse she offered, but he couldn’t tell that she was anything but sizzling to the touch. She pulled her hands from beneath his shirt and reached for the hem of the camisole herself. “But I trust you’ll keep me warm?”
If things got any hotter, there was going to be a serious explosion.
“I’ll do my best,” he promised. He cupped the bounty of her lace-covered breasts as she lifted the camisole off over her head.
She sank back against the wall and groaned in pleasure and he followed, squeezing the feminine mounds and teasing the hard nipples with his thumbs. He buried his face in the valley between and pressed his lips to the soft swelling above each lacy rim. Then her hands came down to frame his head and guide him exactly where he wanted to go.
He closed his mouth over one of the pebbly tips and licked her through the lace. She bucked beneath him and cried out his name. “I don’t think I can… We better…”
Dropping his hands to the nip of her waist, he pulled her into the bedroom with him. “I’ll hurry if you will.”
By the time he’d set his gun and badge safely on the nightstand, grabbed a condom and shed his clothes, Kelsey had already climbed into bed beneath the comforter.
With her gloves on.
T frowned as he slipped in beside her. “What’s this?”
He palmed her butt and pulled her against him, relieved to discover the rest of her satiny skin was as naked as the day she was born. And though his body fired in shameless response, he held himself still until she answered.
A skittish look in her eyes had her talking to his chin and kneading her fingers in the center of his chest. “I don’t want to spoil this. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable if…something happens.”
Something fiercely protective and possessively male coursed through him from his heart on out. He nudged her chin up to look into her eyes and gently massaged his thumb across her swollen bottom lip. “I don’t want you to ever think you can’t touch me. That you have to hold something back because you think I’m going to freak out, or you think you’re going to read something you shouldn’t. I’ll react however I react. Honestly. It won’t be a judgment or a condemnation. I might be surprised. I might be curious. I might be turned on.” He stilled his thumb against the tender softness. “But give me a chance to react to the real you. Always be yourself. Be real with me. Please.”