“So, you’re saying you staged the whole thing to get a small donation from him? Why didn’t you just ask him for one?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Cessy’s red-painted unnaturally plump lips were turned up in the same smug grin as when Kane had impulsively told them all he was going to be her date for the gala. The hairs along the nape of Julia’s neck bristled, but the older socialite continued. “Besides, who said his donation was small? The new Sugar Falls Fire Department is going to have a steam room, a sauna and a state-of-the-art dispatch center thanks to us and Mr. Chatterson’s charitable spirit.”
How could he possibly have managed that? Perhaps he wasn’t as poor as she’d initially thought. Nor was the Sugar Falls Fire Department, if its sponsors were installing saunas in the building. Before she could think about this new revelation further, the man in question strode back into the ballroom.
“So, what did Charlie want?” Freckles asked him once the server dropped off another round of drinks.
Kane looked at Julia, then at the guests seated near their table. “Nothing that needs to be talked about here.”
She was surprised that her normally nosy aunt and Cessy Walker, who made no secret of their vast wealth of town gossip, didn’t follow up with more questions. Julia couldn’t help but feel this was more than some social nuance she couldn’t understand. But were they purposely keeping something from her?
Jonesy and Scooter Deets, the older cowboys Julia recognized from the café, were making their way over to the table when, out of nowhere, a boy who couldn’t have been more than eighteen walked by their table and blinded them with the flash of his camera phone before scurrying toward the lobby.
“Damn,” Kane said, then ran his fingers through hair that had started off the evening perfectly combed. He turned away from the table and took a few steps before pausing and returning to Julia’s side. “You ready to get out of here?”
It was almost as though he was going to leave without her and then remembered he needed to give her a ride home. Something was wrong, and her stomach twisted in both disappointment and confusion. They’d been having such a great night up until now, and suddenly Kane was on edge. Her voice wobbled slightly when she said, “I guess so.”
Kane grabbed her hand, and she tried to keep up with his long-legged strides as he steered them between tables and guests making their way to the dance floor. They passed Chief Wilcox so quickly, Julia was forced to turn back and give her a little wave goodbye. She saw Cessy in the center of the room, talking to Chief Cooper and pointing their way, but before she could ask Kane to slow down, she stumbled behind him.
He must have felt her slip, because he stopped only long enough to ask her if she was okay.
“Yes, but the skirt of my dress is too tight for me to take big steps, so I can’t really keep up with you.”
She couldn’t be positive over the sound of the music, but she was pretty sure he’d made a growling sound in his throat before hauling her up against him again. By the time they made it to the resort’s lobby, he had slowed his pace, but his face was set in stone-cold fury.
Julia’s father had had a temper, and even though she wasn’t good at reading men, she knew when to avoid someone angry. But she wasn’t afraid of Kane. Despite the confusion twisting through her rib cage, she knew he wasn’t angry with her, and she had a feeling that he shouldn’t be alone right now.
She realized she’d left her wrap back at the table the moment they walked outside and the frigid mountain air hit her bare arms. Yet before they even made it to the valet stand, Kane had shrugged out of his tuxedo jacket and settled it over her shoulders.
Instead of waiting for the truck to be brought around, Kane grabbed his keys from the parking attendant and held Julia tightly against him as they crunched their way across the freshly fallen snow on the parking lot. Actually, they walked so far, they were no longer in the main parking lot, but in an empty area behind the service entrance.
Thanks to Julia’s open-toed shoes, her feet were damp and almost numb by the time Kane opened the passenger-side door for her. She waited for him to start the engine before she asked, “Do you want to talk about what happened in there?”
Kane’s head was resting against the leather headrest, his eyes staring out the windshield as his wipers cleared off crescent shapes in the snow. “No.”
“Do you want to be left alone?” It would be embarrassing and awkward for Julia to go back inside the lodge to find another ride, but she understood his need for solitude even when she didn’t understand why he was upset.
“Yes, I want to be left alone, but I don’t want to be alone. If that makes any sense.”
“It makes perfect sense.” Actually, none of this made any sense to Julia, but her heart was aching for whatever had caused the man this much pain. Since she didn’t know how to fix it, the least she could do for him was stay by his side. What did normal people do in times like this? “Do you want to go somewhere and get a drink?”
“The last thing I need right now is a drink,” Kane said.
“What do you need? I want to—” But before she could get the words out, his mouth silenced her.
* * *
Kane was lost. Right here in the annex parking lot behind the Snow Creek Lodge, he was absolutely lost. The second Julia had opened her lips to him, he’d been a complete goner. He curved his hand around her neck, pulling her face closer to his. She’d asked him what he needed and this was it.
He needed her. He needed to forget that he was once Legend Chatterson, and he needed to forget that Charlie, his agent, was still bugging him with assistant pitching coach offers and an insistence that he return to baseball. He needed to forget that he couldn’t hide from his former life forever.
Slowly he began to forget about all of that, because being with Julia was so mind-consuming he could think of nothing but touching her. He could deal with the consequences later, the rejection when she realized that he was some old washed-up has-been, completely out of her league. But right now, her hands were caressing his face, sliding down his neck and into his collar, and he thought that just maybe, for tonight, he could be with someone who didn’t know about his old life and all the mistakes he’d made.
Sure, it was unfair not to disclose his inadequacies to Julia before he took her right here in the front seat of his truck. But it was also unfair the way she’d slipped his tuxedo jacket off her shoulders and was pressing her satin-covered breasts against his white dress shirt as she used her tongue to claim his mouth.
“Jules,” he said, pulling back.
“Don’t apologize.”
“I’m not. I was going to say that if we don’t go somewhere else, I’m going to end up taking you right here.”
“In your truck?”
“Yes. In my truck. In the parking lot. With that dress pushed up around your waist.”
She was still plastered against him, the center armrest between their hips the only thing keeping him from making good on the threat he’d meant to shock her back into her senses.
But instead of looking shocked, she simply said, “Technically, we aren’t in the parking lot. And I’ve never had sex in a vehicle. Yet.”
She rose up to her knees and pressed in closer to him, her lips resuming their quick work of making him lose what was left of his mind.
* * *
How long had she wondered about the feel of his hair? Would the other parts of his body—the ones she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since that night she’d found him painting her bathroom without his shirt—feel this good?
She had to find out. Right now.
Julia slid her fingers down under the collar of his white dress shirt, making her way through the buttons, only to be dismayed by the soft fabric of his white T-shirt underneath.
If only she had a pair of sur
gical shears to speed up the process. Perhaps in her eagerness, though, she’d come on too strong, because he moved his hands up to cradle her face, but pulled just far enough back to look at her. The only light was from the dim glow of the dashboard, yet she saw that Kane had a question in his eyes. She prayed he wasn’t going to ask her if she’d lost all common sense. Clearly the answer to that was a resounding yes.
“Jules?”
“I love it when you call me that,” she said, hoping he wasn’t going to reject her for throwing herself at him.
He tilted his head to the side, his slightly swollen mouth grinning vaguely. “Why’s that?”
“It doesn’t sound so formal. I don’t want to be formal with you anymore, Kane.” She pushed forward to meet his lips, but after only seconds, he broke the kiss again.
“I don’t want to be formal with you, either, Jules.”
Her heart skipped a beat as a warm shiver spread through her. He groaned before shoving the center armrest up and pulling her onto his lap. If she’d thought his kisses had aroused her before, that was nothing compared to what his hands were doing to her. She felt the calluses on his work-roughened palms slip beneath the thin straps of her dress and gave a silent thanks that she’d forgone a bra since she didn’t own a strapless one.
When his hands pulled her breasts free of the satin material, Julia couldn’t remember what she was even giving thanks for. The coarseness of his fingertips couldn’t mask the tenderness of his strokes as he brought her nipples to rock-hard peaks.
His tongue followed a similar pattern within the confines of her mouth, and she was forced to pull the hem of her dress up to her thighs so she could straddle him. His fingers moved away, and she gave a slight whimper at his withdrawal and the way the cool air lingered in his place. Then she realized he’d only adjusted his touch so that he could slide the rest of her dress over her waist and then her head.
She was wearing nothing but lace panties and a blush, and though she’d had sex only a handful of times with the college professor she’d briefly dated, she didn’t want Kane to think she was a slow learner.
She reached for the hem of his T-shirt and lifted it off him, briefly breaking their joined lips. Kane paused and Julia, afraid he might get distracted or—worse—change his mind, grabbed his shoulders and pulled him toward her. Even if she hadn’t been eager to feel his bare skin against hers, she needed to prove that she could be somewhat competent at this despite her limited experience.
It certainly felt more natural than riding a bike.
He lifted her hips slightly and settled her firmly onto his lap. She gasped at the sensation of the ridge inside his tuxedo pants pressed against her most intimate parts, and she wished she could wrap her legs around him, drawing him in closer.
“Are you sure?” he asked, and she wanted to giggle and scream in frustration at the same time. She was almost nude, nearly exposed and completely loving this reversal of her usual inhibitions. She’d never been more unsure of anything in her life. But she’d also never been as alive as she was now. She was an academic intellectual—a conventional person who did things by the book. Julia liked only things that made sense. And to her quivering body, Kane Chatterson made perfect sense. Besides, Julia Fitzgerald didn’t quit. She wasn’t stopping now.
“Please,” she whispered.
He effortlessly lifted her and set her on the passenger seat facing him. Placing his fingers in the waistband of her panties, he worked the scrap of lace over her hips and down her legs. Then he ran his hand toward her left knee, pushed it up, leaned forward and kissed the sensitive flesh right above it. She would have clamped her thighs together if he hadn’t been between them, his hands firmly on her waist and holding her in place. She was about to ask him what he was doing, but then his tongue touched the center of her heat. Julia threw back her head, her eyes closed in raw pleasure.
She’d never had sex like this before. It was one thing to read about this kind of thing in books, but no written definition could ever tell her how intoxicating it would be to feel the stubble from Kane Chatterson’s strongly chiseled jaw rubbing against her most sensitive flesh. This was unlike any classroom she’d ever been in, and instead of taking notes, she was rocking her hips toward him. Silently begging for more.
“Not yet,” Kane said, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket. She heard the rustling of plastic packaging. Then Kane shoved off his pants, and Julia barely had time to register how perfectly shaped his body was before he moved his hands under her hips and slid inside her depths.
“Kane,” she said after only the third thrust. “I’m going to... I can’t wait...”
He withdrew, but only partially. “Do you want me to slow down?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know. I just want it to stay perfect like this.”
“Aw, honey, you’re perfect at everything you do.”
“But it feels so good. I don’t want it to be over yet.”
“Don’t worry.” He smiled, then pushed himself in deeper, causing her to moan. “It doesn’t ever have to be over.”
He caught her next gasp with his mouth. When he thrust inside her again, she cried out, anchoring herself to him as the waves of pleasure crashed over her body.
* * *
“I thought you said it didn’t have to be over?” Julia raised an eyebrow at Kane as he balanced himself between her trembling legs, trying to recover his breath. Despite the fact that he was usually so impatient and antsy, he’d never been one to rush sex. Yet the second he felt her release, he’d lost all control and hadn’t been able to stop his own.
“I meant that we could keep going.” His raspy voice sounded as though he’d made a hundred sprints around the bases. “Again. Later. After I recover a little.”
“But it’s never felt like that for me before.”
“It’s like warming up in the bull pen,” he explained, pushing several blond strands away from her flushed face. Normally he liked her cute, swinging ponytail, but after seeing all the loose hair surrounding her face when she was calling out his name, he liked it down so much more. “You have to throw a few pitches to loosen you up and get the nerves out so that when you take the mound, you’re ready to bring the heat.”
“Is that a baseball reference?”
“Yes?” He tucked his chin and wrinkled his brow, hoping she wasn’t offended. Did she think it was odd that he’d just compared sex to pitching? “I couldn’t think of a more passionate sport to relate it to.”
“I’ve never played many sports, but if what we did was just practice, I doubt I can handle a real game.”
He let out his breath, along with a small chuckle. “Trust me, Captain Fitzgerald, you’re more than ready for the big leagues.”
“I don’t know about that,” she said, then blushed when she couldn’t reach the discarded panties on the driver’s-side floorboard. He sat up and handed them to her, along with her dress.
“So, what do we do now?” she asked, not attempting to hide the fact that she was blatantly checking him out while he wiggled his way back into his slacks. The woman was too honest and too curious for her own good.
What he wanted to say was that now they did the whole thing all over again. But slower this time. Too bad he was afraid to make the suggestion and have her laugh in his face. “Why are you asking me?”
She looked at the torn wrapper on the floor after pulling the satin over her head. “I was under the impression you were a bit more experienced in this kind of thing.”
All it would take was one glance at the expiration date on that same wrapper to see that he’d been carrying the condom around for so long out of habit, he was just as out of experience as she was. They were lucky the stupid thing hadn’t ripped. Although he could imagine worse things than having a baby with Dr. Smarty-Pants.
Whoa. He rubbed at his entire
jawline. His brain was really getting ahead of itself with dangerous thoughts like that. He had no business thinking about any sort of future with her.
If he even wanted one. Oh God, he did. Maybe it was just the postcoital hormones talking, but he’d had sex with her only once and already he found himself thinking about a future with her. Yet the whole idea was impossible. Sooner or later, she’d figure it on her own, and all of this would come crashing down on him.
“What do you want to do now?” There, he’d put the ball back in her court. She bit her lip. “I’ve always been taught that practice makes perfect.”
Something stirred in his belly, and it wasn’t a lack of food. Was this what hope felt like?
“Given your opinions on failure, I bet you can’t stand not being perfect at something.” The corners of her mouth turned up, the same way they had when she’d been challenged to learn how to ride the tandem bike.
“I certainly like to get things right.”
“Well, if you keep looking at me like that, you’ll end up with a lot more practice than you’ve bargained for.”
She traced her fingers along the scar on his shoulder, and he had to close his eyes briefly to remind himself not to let his impulses get ahead of things again. Maybe she knew exactly who he was, after all. And exactly what she was getting herself into.
“I wouldn’t mind that,” she said simply.
“Here?” He sounded like an overeager batboy sitting in the dugout for the first time.
“Maybe not here, exactly.” She blushed again.
“We could go back to your place, but then we risk your neighbors seeing me parked in front of your house all night.”
“All night?” Instead of seeing doubt, he recognized the dare in her eyes.
“Only if you want to become an expert at it.”
“Do you have any neighbors you’re worried about seeing us?” she asked.
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