With a Stetson and a Smile & The Bridesmaid’s Bet

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  As for him—well, Brett guessed he was the villain of the piece.

  Francesca moved first. “Carlo!” She planted her hands on her hips, and her dark eyes flashed fire in her brother’s direction. “How dare you!”

  He sputtered a bit, but what Carlo didn’t dare was protest as Francesca grabbed Brett by the arm and dragged him out the kitchen’s back door.

  “Hey, hey!” Brett tried halting her momentum, but she sent him a quelling look and just tightened her grip on him. Well, he figured he owed her the first apology and so let her lead him in the direction of her apartment, the full skirt of her tropical print dress billowing behind her.

  In seconds he was in her small kitchen beside a table the size of a TV dinner. She forced him to sit on a straight-backed chair with a no-nonsense shove against his shoulder. Before he could blink she—splat!—slapped a bag of frozen peas against his aching jaw.

  “Oof!” He couldn’t stifle an involuntary wince as he held the bag there.

  All the starch went out of her. “Oh!” Her shoulders drooped and she dropped into the chair beside his. “I’m sorry. I’m so mad at Carlo that I was taking it out on you.”

  The frozen peas crunched against each other as he spoke. “Listen Francesca, I should be the one to apologize.”

  Her eyes widened in surprise. “No—”

  “Yes. It’s natural for your brothers to want to protect you.” He didn’t add that he felt the impulse in spades himself. “I shouldn’t have put you in an, uh, uncomfortable position.”

  Color flagged her golden cheekbones. “Wait a minute—”

  “I’m just saying that you shouldn’t be mad at Carlo. And I hope you’ll accept my apology for, well, compromising you in your father’s kitchen.”

  “Hold it!” That fire had returned to her eyes and it looked hot enough to make instant green pea casserole.

  “Are you telling me that you’re sorry for kissing me?”

  “Well, uh, yeah.”

  She slapped her palms against the tabletop. “Well that just about does it.” Her full upper lip curled in disgust. “I can’t even get getting-caught right!”

  Get getting-caught right? “Francesca?”

  She ignored him, instead rising from her chair to pace away from him. “Other women are caught kissing when they’re fourteen. It finally happens to me and you ruin it!”

  He’d ruined it? Brett moved the frozen peas to his forehead thinking the cold might clear his confusion. Nope, no help. “I ruined it, you said?”

  She continued striding away from him. “Of course you did!”

  “Uh, Francesca?”

  She reached the sink and spun around, breathing so hard he found he couldn’t look away from the smooth skin of her cleavage, rising at dangerous levels over the top of her dress. She glowered at him. “What?”

  He tossed the peas on the table. “When we were…‘caught,’ exactly what did I do wrong?”

  “The fist in the face aside—” she crossed her arms over her chest, pushing up her breasts more fateful inches “—I’d think you’d be embarrassed, still aroused maybe, but not apologetic!”

  As if she could see he utterly lacked a clue, she frowned and blew out a long breath of frustrated air. “Brett, for the first time in my entire life I was doing something womanly and a little bit…wild and you’ve taken the glory out of it!”

  What did that make? Five or six hundred times she’d poleaxed him today? The low-cut dress and every breath she took in the sexy thing, that whopper of a kiss, this whole “glory” business.

  He shook his head. “Francesca, what am I going to do with you?”

  She pursed her lips as if deciding how to respond. Then she said, “I kind of hoped we were doing it.” Pink color flooded her face. “Before Carlo came in, I mean.”

  Well, hell. A woman dressed like an exotic, tropical temptation. The recent memory of the best-tasting kisses of his life.

  He was a marshmallow when it came to Francesca.

  She must have seen it on his face, because she crossed the kitchen floor in two speedy heartbeats. One forefinger trailed gently over his jaw. “Let me kiss it?”

  He pulled her onto his lap.

  Fragrant and small, she nestled easily against his chest and looped her arms around his neck. Then she smiled at him.

  He cleared his throat. “So you think you can make it better?”

  Her smile went from womanly to wicked. “I know I can,” she said.

  That’s when he stopped thinking. His heart slammed against his chest, his lungs struggled for oxygen, and he pretty much figured he needed Francesca to save him.

  Her mouth began the rescue mission.

  As promised, she touched the injured part of his face first, but it wasn’t the kind of twinge he expected when she flattened her tongue against his jawline. His thighs and groin tightened, and she rocked against his lap just as her lips found their way to his.

  Like earlier in the kitchen, he let her control the kiss. Not because he wanted her to lead, but because he was afraid he might frighten her if he did. Her tongue experimented again, teasing the corners of his mouth, washing across his bottom lip.

  He groaned when she tickled the seam between his lips, and he opened for her, but she ran away from a deeper kiss, moving her mouth to plant baby kisses up his other jawline in the direction of his ear.

  She whispered to him, her breath sending waves of heat rolling across his skin. “Thank you, Brett,” she said.

  Thanks for the burning pleasure she gave him? His arms were circling her slender waist, and he didn’t allow himself to explore her any further. “Francesca…”

  “Shh.” She placed two fingers over his mouth.

  “Don’t say anything. Don’t think anything. I need the experience.”

  He groaned again. Like a kitten flexing her claws, she wanted to see how deep she could dig. What kind of pleasure she could have.

  She wanted experience, and she wanted it with him. If he didn’t give in, who would she go to?

  Don’t think. The words echoed, and Brett couldn’t resist drawing one of Francesca’s fingers—still so conveniently placed against his lips—into his mouth.

  She gasped. He saw her stiffen and then her eyes closed when he rubbed his tongue along the sensitive inner skin between her fingers. A flush brightened her cheeks, and he watched it deepen as he sucked, holding her small finger against the roof of his mouth with his tongue.

  He took one of his arms from around her waist. He circled her wrist and drew her finger from his mouth. Her eyes opened, and he watched them closely as he directed her wet fingertip to her own skin, letting it paint a damp line on her fragile collarbone.

  Her pupils dilated, and chills chased one another down her neck and into the low-cut bodice of her dress.

  Brett could hear his own harsh breathing and he stilled, making an effort to slow down.

  “Brett?” she whispered. Not a shred of doubt colored her voice, only the sweet demand of desire.

  He smoothed his palm over her hair. “Francesca.”

  She frowned a little bit. “Kiss me some more, Brett.”

  He smiled. “I haven’t kissed you at all.”

  Her frown deepened. “Well, whatever you call it, I want some more.”

  God, she made him laugh. “That sounds like an order.”

  “It is.”

  He laughed again. His tomboy princess. “Your wish is my command,” he said, and then he brushed back the hair from her face and kissed her nose, her cheeks and then finally explored the dainty curl of one ear.

  Her nails dug into his upper arms as he nipped on her earlobe, and the little pain mirrored the good ache in his groin. Beneath her hips he shifted a little in the chair, and she wiggled, too, until his arousal settled into the warm notch of her thighs.

  He groaned.

  Her eyelashes flew open. “Am I too heavy?”

  He didn’t want her going anywhere, so he ran a fingertip down the
slope of her shoulder as distraction. “Not a chance,” he said, and then his finger met the skinny strap of her dress and the strap slid off her shoulder.

  They both froze.

  Then Brett lifted his other hand to surf the line of her opposite shoulder. He flicked the strap there and it dropped down, too. Above the bodice of her dress the roundness of Francesca’s breasts rose and fell with even quicker breaths.

  “Kiss me, Brett,” she demanded.

  With a hand cupping each bare shoulder he did, and her mouth softened immediately, opening for him. He thrust inside, turned on so damn bad now with her bare skin against his palms, with her fragrance rising around him like a soft cloud of arousal.

  She moaned when he lifted his mouth, and then again when he slid kiss after kiss against the skin of her neck.

  Her hands moved across his back and she pulled impatiently at his shirt. But she tasted too good to abandon, so he kept kissing her neck and shoulders until she pulled his knit shirt free from his jeans and pushed it upward.

  Her palms burned him wherever she touched—so, so good—and he pulled away just for the instant it took to throw off his shirt. Now she found his mouth and her hands explored his chest, teasing him with a light, wondering touch.

  His blood burned, his groin tightened rock hard, and as she ran her little hands up his skin, his fingers found the back zipper of her dress. The rasp as he drew it down didn’t register over the syncopated hoarseness of their breaths.

  He curled his fingers into the neckline then thrust his tongue into Francesca’s mouth just as he jerked the dress to her waist. With one more quick movement the naked, hot skin of her breasts met his chest.

  “Brett.”

  He barely heard the sweet exclamation over the exhilarated scream of every nerve ending in his body. Francesca’s breasts were round and swollen, and the hard nubs of her nipples pressed into him like the very best kind of torture.

  He twisted his torso so they grazed each other’s skin.

  “Brett.”

  Francesca’s eyes were secret-dark, the pupils dilated with desire. He pulled back, eager to hold the fullness of her breasts in his hand, to taste the hard nipples. She watched him, her face completely trusting.

  So trusting.

  Damn, damn, damn trusting.

  Wasn’t this the very thing he was supposed to be protecting her from?

  Closing his eyes and gritting his teeth, Brett made himself draw up her bodice. Made himself zip the damned enticing dress. Made himself lift her off his lap with only one more sweet, gentle kiss to her lips.

  Made himself promise he’d never touch her like that again.

  FRANCESCA FOUND herself thrust into the chair beside Brett’s, still gasping for breath, her skin still tingling from his touch. Her dress was rezipped too, so she just blinked dizzily at him as he felt around for his shirt on the floor beneath him. He pulled it on, and a little sigh escaped her.

  She thought he heard the sound, but he didn’t look at her. Instead, he scrubbed his face with his hands and raked his fingers through his dark blond hair.

  It had felt smooth and springy between her fingers. She sighed again.

  His blue eyes cut her way. “Francesca…” He scrubbed his face again and inhaled a deep breath.

  She watched his chest slowly rise and fall. It had been hard and hot beneath her hands and like…nothing she could describe when he’d rubbed it against her breasts. She allowed herself just one more sigh.

  He groaned. “Francesca. You’re not making this easy for me.”

  Well, good. It wasn’t easy for her to come down from a desire high, either. Especially when it wasn’t her idea.

  Brett took another deep breath. “Okay. I’m going to say this and then get out of here. Francesca, I am very, very sor—”

  “No!” She threw him a murderous look. “Don’t you dare say that word.”

  “Francesca—”

  “Don’t.” She shook her head for emphasis. “Or I’ll put my fingers in my ears and hum ‘The Star Spangled Banner.”’ If he tried apologizing again her ego would shrivel to the size of a raisin. She didn’t need that right now, not when she was still reeling from a passion she didn’t even realize she had inside her.

  She jumped up from her seat. “Let me make us some coffee instead.”

  Now he sighed. “If you’re not going to let me talk, I should really be leaving.”

  “Talk? Who said we couldn’t talk?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You’re not going to hum or anything?”

  She made her most serious face. “No humming, I promise. But I always reserve the right to break into song.”

  He laughed, and for the first time since they’d stopped kissing she saw him relax.

  Good. She crossed to her small pantry to search for the coffee filters. The last thing she wanted—after an apology, that is—was for him to be tense around her. Not when she really did want to sing and then shriek and then Snoopy-dance with joy.

  Brett had kissed her and touched her and gone up in the same flames she had.

  A woman who had doubted her ability to attract men—a woman who had dreamed about attracting this man since she was twelve years old—could only be ecstatic about that.

  Scooping coffee grounds with a hand that still tremored, Francesca acknowledged that Brett might not be as thrilled as she. Most likely the last woman in his arms had been the beautiful love of his life, Patricia.

  Certainly Francesca couldn’t compare to her.

  But if she let him back away right now she might never get another chance with him. It didn’t take years of experience to realize that the moment he began seeing her as a woman was no time to let him get away.

  SO, MOMENTS LATER, with two oversize blue-and-yellow ceramic cups between them, Francesca smiled at Brett brightly. “There,” she said. She took a sip of her milk-laced coffee, peeking at him over the brim. Time to talk. Get to know each other as adults. Work, books, movies. She’d even be willing to discuss sports teams if she had to.

  He wrapped his palms around his cup. “About what just happened…”

  Francesca almost choked on her coffee. As it was, she had to swallow quickly and set the cup down with a clatter onto the matching saucer. “What?”

  “We need to talk about it, Francesca.”

  “Oh, please.” Her face warmed. “Could we do without the recriminations?”

  Something passed over his face that looked like pain. “I don’t know.”

  “Look, Brett. It happened, okay? It was good…”

  His gorgeous mouth moved in a rueful grin. “So now let’s forget about it?”

  That wasn’t exactly what she had in mind. Next he’d say they should make sure it never happened again.

  He leaned forward. “Listen. I’m at a different place in my life, and—” He hesitated.

  Terrific. Here came the “it should never happen again” part. Probably followed by a whole bunch of stuff about the wonderful Patricia. Francesca’s heart twisted. She just couldn’t bear hearing it right now.

  She hopped up. “Speaking of different places in life. Wait’ll you see what I have.”

  Bless him for indulging her avoidance. She scurried to the living room bookshelf and retrieved a photo album. She’d made one for each brother and then herself last Christmas, after finally going through the shoeboxes full of family pictures that no one had bothered sorting in over twenty years.

  She laid the album on the table in front of Brett. “I think you show up more in the boys’ albums, but I just know there are some photos of you in here.”

  Leaning against the wall behind him, she let Brett turn the pages. As the youngest of five children, there were few baby pictures of her. “Pop said we all looked the same when we wore only diapers and dimples,” she told Brett, but he still got a chuckle over the one bare-behind-on-the-bearskin shot.

  But his laughter quieted when he came across a photograph of Francesca’s mother, Dina. Silently h
e traced the edges of the picture with one forefinger. Then he cleared his throat. “I remember her. Your mom.”

  From her position she could only see the side of Brett’s face, but his cheek creased with a small smile. “She baked great chocolate chip cookies and made the best spaghetti I’ve ever tasted. And…” He stopped.

  Francesca tried swallowing away the sticky lump in her throat. Her brothers and Pop rarely talked about their mom in front of her and she suspected it was because they didn’t want her to know what she’d missed. “And?” she prompted. “Spaghetti and cookies and what else?”

  “And your father was right. She was beautiful. Just like you.”

  Lucky she was leaning against the wall, or else she’d be a messy puddle at Brett’s feet. She swallowed again. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  He acted as if he didn’t hear her, going ahead to turn the pages of their childhood. He was present in a lot of the group shots: around the Milano Christmas tree, beside the grinning jack-o’-lanterns, in a baseball uniform on one of the many teams Pop had coached.

  He pointed to one particularly unflattering shot of Francesca. “You haven’t changed much.”

  She groaned. “Oh, yeah, that’s me all right. With a Band-Aid on each knee and a prematurely missing tooth.”

  “Joe knocked it out with an elbow.”

  “How’d you remember?”

  Brett shook his head. “Because I never heard anyone scream so loud in my life. Scared me to death. Your brothers scoured the grass for the tooth but I couldn’t move.”

  She remembered as if it was yesterday. She’d been about five years old, and while everybody else was looking for the tooth, Brett had mopped up the blood and her tears. “You held my hand all afternoon,” she said.

  “And the other one I clapped over my ears.” He gave her a self-deprecating grin.

  He didn’t want her to see him as a hero. But he’d been that for her when she was growing up. And somewhere between four and twelve she’d gone from hero worship to puppy love.