“You must have been very angry with me by then. I hadn’t called. I couldn’t write. As far as you knew, I was some faithless asshole who’d kept none of my promises, and I was getting off without a single consequence while you paid for all our…”
She got the impression he considered and rejected the word “mistakes.”
“…for everything.” His eyes locked on hers. “I wouldn’t have blamed you for speaking up, baby girl. I deserved everything your father had in mind. Why didn’t you?”
“I told you why,” she shot back, knowing she sounded defensive. “Ultimately everything that happened was my own fault. I brought it on myself by screwing up with the birth control. I compounded the screwup by falling for a guy who was leaving for boot camp as soon as he graduated. You weren’t sticking around. I went into it with my eyes wide open.”
He shook his head, rejecting her explanation. “I’d promised you I’d contact you, and I didn’t. Couldn’t, as it turned out, but you didn’t know that. And still, you didn’t speak up. Why?”
What the hell had her father done to her furnace? Why was it so hot in here? Needing air, and space, she started to push back from the table, but Shane caught the chair legs and held her in place. “Why didn’t you tell him, Sinclair?”
“Shane, so help me God, I’m going to slap you again if you don’t back off.”
“Do it. I’ll take any punishment you dish out, but I’m not backing off until you answer my question. Why. Didn’t. You. Tell. Him.”
Hot words scalded the back of her throat, burned there until she had to let them out. “Because I loved you, you bastard.”
He cupped a hand to the back of her head and drew her down until her forehead rested against his. His warm, whiskey-laced breath flowed over her lips like some rare vintage. “I loved you, too, Sinclair. I loved you like I’d never loved anyone or anything in my whole pathetic life, and I wanted you so badly I never gave much consideration to the risks. Hell no, you didn’t bring it on yourself. I was the adult—”
“Oh, please.” She straightened. “You’re a whopping year-and-a-half older than me, and the whole birthday seduction was my idea.”
“I was eighteen. I had no right accepting that present from you.”
“Did you honestly give our ages a thought at the time?”
“No, but that’s on me, too. I should have. Add it to the shit-ton of things I should have done differently. If I hadn’t been busy righteously fucking up my first attempt at adulthood, I would have been able to call you like I promised. I would have been there for you. It wouldn’t have been your problem, it would have been our problem.” He kissed her softly. “I’m sorry I let you down. I won’t do it again.”
The sincerity in his words shook her. She resorted to cynicism to combat the weakness. “Careful what you take on there, Shane. There’s no need to pull the future into this. We’ve settled the past. Take that victory. It’s a big one, because I’ve been angry with you for a decade. You weren’t around to stick up for yourself, which made you my perfect personal scapegoat. Everything I didn’t want to own, I shoved onto you. Ending up ashamed and afraid in an Amsterdam hospital? Shane’s fault. Having to gain back my parents’ respect? Shane’s fault. Unsure my father would ever look at me the same again? Shane’s fault.”
He reached out a long arm and pulled the chair at the head of the table over. Then he sat, facing her, so they were knee-to-knee. “He loves you.”
Leave it to him to laser in on the deepest wound. “Yes. He does. But I scared him. Disappointed him. Shook his view of me, and of himself. My mom had to spell it out for me, because I couldn’t see past his anger, but she told me…” Damn. A lump lodged behind her vocal cords. She swallowed, but it stuck there. Her voice quavered from the effort of getting around it. “She told me he felt like a failure as a father.”
“Sinclair—”
“No.” She shook her head. “She wasn’t being mean, she was explaining. My father considered protecting his girls one of his most important jobs. He did it in little ways, like putting training wheels on our bikes, or looking under our beds when he tucked us in at night to make sure there were no monsters, but also in big ways. He taught us to react if we felt threatened, and how to throw a punch without breaking our hands. He taught us to drive.”
“You need a refresher course.”
She laughed at his snide comment on her driving skills, despite the emotion clogging her throat. “He thought he’d done a pretty good job with all the protective dad stuff, until his sixteen-year-old daughter landed in a hospital, recovering from a miscarriage. He hadn’t protected me from that. I hadn’t let him.”
“He felt helpless,” Shane said quietly.
“He did. And by refusing to give him a name, I was compounding his helplessness. I wasn’t letting him slay the dragon. It caused a rift. A big one.”
“You bridged it?”
She swallowed hard. “We did. Eventually. I earned his trust again, not just as a daughter, but as a person. Plus, I got older, and less in need of protection. He wasn’t on the hook for my safety and well-being anymore.”
“Yeah. That’s why he comes over to change your furnace filter, and you go to dinner every Sunday.”
“Little gestures,” she conceded, but his observation made her smile. His lips curved, too, lifting a degree higher on one side than the other in a sardonic, and ridiculously sexy, grin.
Then those lips straightened, and his gaze roamed her face before settling on her eyes with a steadfast resolve. “I’m going to earn your trust back, Sinclair.”
…
Thick black lashes curtained Sinclair’s eyes, but her lips tightened briefly in a fleeting frown. “There you go, talking in the future again.” She leaned forward in her chair, resting her elbow on his shoulder as she brought her face closer to his. “We don’t have a good track record for getting the future to play out the way we want. I prefer to concentrate on the here and now. Take this opportunity to work the leftover chemistry out of our systems.”
Then her lips moved over his, warm and persuasive. Distracting, but no so much so he didn’t recognize her effort to hijack the conversation and steer it away from plans… trust…anything that required her to rely on him. He wasn’t going to let her do it. And she didn’t really want him to, or he wouldn’t be sitting here. She wouldn’t have let him into the place she considered her fortress and sanctuary if all she sought was a clear conscience and a closure fuck. No, sir. This was a test. One he needed to pass…his thoughts drifted south as her hand slid purposefully up his inseam…or die trying.
Since passing meant demonstrating there was more between them than leftover chemistry, he caught those wayward fingers before they reached their destination. Being denied surprised her enough to have her abandoning the kiss and leveling an exasperated look at him. Oh, yeah, she wasn’t accustomed to anyone putting on the brakes. He lifted her hand to his mouth, and bit the side of her thumb. “I’m not that easy. You can’t just pour me a drink and grab my dick.”
Her dark brows shot up. “Since when?”
“Since now. My dick. My rules. Show me around first.”
Her brows came down, low enough to carve a little notch of consternation between them. “Another tour? I just downed three shots, Shane. I can’t drive anywhere.”
“Show me around here,” he clarified then stood and pulled her to her feet. On his own, he crossed to the opposite end of the big, open room, where a drafting table and swiveling stool positioned beneath a skylight set off her studio space. Framed sketches of rings, necklaces, and other adornments decorated the walls, and he found himself appreciating the contrast of sparkling sophistication against the unpretentious backdrop of knotted boards. The contradiction offered a perfect reflection of the woman herself. Because she remained by the table, looking at him like he was full of shit, he added, “Come on. Let’s see this woodpile you’re so attached to.”
She stared at him a second longer, trying to
figure his game. Finally, she shrugged and crossed to him. “As I mentioned before, it’s a work in progress.”
And it was, but by the time she’d shown him around the main level, with its high ceilings and open layout, he could see the work she’d already done and visualize the end product. Her running commentary about walls becoming windows, original hand-hewn ceiling beams, and reclaimed floors helped. Admittedly, he wasn’t a hearth-and-home kind of guy—he didn’t, technically, have either—but by the time she finished showing him around the main floor, he could understand what she saw in hers. Standing for over a century and a half gave scarred boards and worn stone an honest integrity a newer build simply couldn’t capture, but those walls also whispered with potential.
“When I get my permits,” she said and gestured toward an old-fashioned spiral staircase fanning up to what had once been the hayloft, “I’ll expand the upper level.”
Yeah, “when,” not “if.” Clearly, she refused to contemplate any other outcome.
“Right now, there’s only my bedroom, and a small bathroom. Anyway”—she faced him and did a little flourish with her hands—“that’s it. The grand tour.”
“You’re not going to show me your bedroom?”
Her expression turned guarded, which gave him his answer before she responded. She really wasn’t planning to let him see the inner sanctum—where she slept, and dreamed. Predictable, considering she didn’t trust him, but even so, disappointment put a dull ache in his chest.
“No man who calls my home a woodpile gets to see my bedroom.”
“That’s awfully strict.” He stepped closer.
Her chin lifted. “My bedroom, my rules.”
He moved closer, backing her up until the heels of her boots hit the first stair. Then he lowered his mouth to her ear. “Has any man seen your bedroom?”
“That’s none of your business.”
So, no. His pulse kicked up. “What’s the matter? You got something up there you don’t want me to see? Were you maybe thinking of me this morning, and left your bed a wreck and a personal item on your nightstand?”
“Get over yourself,” she tossed back, but she said it on a laugh, so he pressed forward, forcing her up a stair.
“Show me your bedroom.”
“I’m not that easy.”
For the first time in…ever, challenging her wasn’t going to work. Fine. He could switch tactics. He kissed the corner of her mouth. “What if I apologized for the woodpile comment?”
Her eyelids drifted down, and her fingers curled into his belt loop. “I’d accept your apology, but my bedroom’s still not on the tour.”
He kissed the opposite corner and then raised his head. “What if I said I was wrong the other night, when I suggested you should take a buyout?”
Her eyelids flew open, and she stared up at him. “Really?”
“Yeah, really. You were right. You can’t go a mile down the road and find the exact same thing you have here. A buyout won’t work. This is too unique.”
She tipped her head to the side, and her lips twisted into a half smile. “Nice to hear, but ultimately irrelevant. You don’t make the decisions. You point out the risks and offer solutions.” The smile disappeared, and she set her jaw. “It’s on me to convince the city planning commission to grant my permit, and deny theirs.”
She’d summed up the situation perfectly. This was her problem to handle, but the look on her face reminded him too much of a girl outside a gym, about to take on a guy twice her size who didn’t give a damn what she wanted. The impulsive part of him he no longer let handle executive functions wrested control of his prefrontal cortex. His hand curved around the nape of her neck and brought her face close to his. His mouth was running before he could shut it down. “I’ll figure a way to work it out.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“It’s my job to find solutions, and I’m going to find one for you.” Fuck if he knew how, but now that the words were out, he realized he meant them.
“But…I thought you favored the simplest option?”
“I said the simplest option usually wins the day. Governments especially tend to like the most economic solutions, but simple economics don’t make something right. You bought the barn as a home, not an investment, and you shouldn’t have to sacrifice your home because it’s suddenly inconvenient for others. I’ll come up with a solution. I promise.”
“How…?”
“Just trust me,” he repeated. Her lips parted on another question—one he probably couldn’t answer—so he ended the conversation by commandeering her upper lip with his teeth. At her sigh of surrender, he dragged her up and into his arms, palming her ass through her jeans as she wrapped her legs around his waist. He carried her upstairs, but stopped on the landing outside the half-open door.
“Show me your bedroom, Sinclair.” His voice held a note he didn’t recognize. Desperation. He needed some gesture from her. Some privilege. Even a small one.
Teeth scoured the line of his jaw, and then her cool voice filled his ear.
“Only if you let me grab your dick.”
A man who didn’t know her as well might interpret the retort as a sexy joke, but he knew her well. It was her way of establishing limits. Specifically, limiting the things bonding them together to sex. She was trying to set the terms.
Sorry, baby girl. No deal.
Yes, he was already kissing her. Already pushing through the door of her whitewashed bedroom. And yes, his hands were already under her shirt, bracketing her ribs and closing in on the lush weight of her breasts, but that wasn’t any kind of surrender on his part. His plan involved making her need him—on more than just a temporary, physical level—but a resourceful man used any means at his disposal. Satisfying her physical needs was a means, and he intended to satisfy her until she couldn’t think straight. He simply had to do it while enforcing one hard stop. He’d never been inside her without anything less than her absolute and total trust, and he refused to start now.
Details filtered in as he crossed the room—filmy white curtains covering dormer windows, the cushion of a rug beneath his feet, and…he stopped dead in his tracks. “Holy shit.”
She actually blushed a little. “What? Just because I live in a barn, I can’t appreciate a little luxury where I sleep?”
Centered under a soaring, multi-paned skylight sat a big, upholstered sleigh bed. It dominated the space, dove-gray velvet head and footboards gracefully rolled outward, practically inviting him to put them to use.
Impractical and romantic, just like the woman who spent her nights cradled in it. She owned up to her impractical side easily enough, but she tended to keep the romantic side under wraps. Or did she? Unjustifiably proprietary instincts had him asking questions he had no right to ask, and might not be prepared to hear the answers to.
“No other man has been in this room with you? In that bed with you?”
“You’re the first,” she admitted, breathing into his ear. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
Oh, it went to his head, and a few other places. He rubbed his lips against hers and sat himself down on the edge of the bed so she straddled his lap. She deepened the kiss. Need and trust—the move felt a little like both. He’d take it. He gripped her hips and shifted her more tightly onto his lap. “I appreciate your honesty, Sinclair. Let’s aim for some more. What we have here isn’t leftover chemistry. Every single thing that’s happened between us since I got back is new. You’re not a sixteen-year-old with a wild streak and no sense of her own power. I’m not an impulsive fuckup skating through life by the seat of my pants.”
He kissed her hard, to seal those words in her mind, before continuing. “I’m not that guy anymore. I’m going to prove it to you.”
Slender arms wrapped around his neck. She tilted her head and angled her lips toward his mouth. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except this moment right now. No past. No future. Just this.” It seemed she had her own points to prove, bec
ause she punctuated the assertion with a slow, sliding kiss.
He’d spent most of his adult life subscribed to the same theory, but it had never held true when it came to her, and it still didn’t. Ten years had changed a lot for him, but not that. She mattered. What she thought of him mattered. There’d been a time when she’d thought enough of him to risk more than her body, and invest more than the moment directly in front of her. He’d had her trust, shared her dreams, and she’d shared his. Having her in his arms now without the rest of it felt like holding only half of her. He wanted all. He didn’t have a fucking clue how he was going to get it, but he’d spent the last decade becoming a master at devising plans—complex, airtight plans that could hold up to any contingency—so he would damn well come up with a plan for her. For them.
And while he might not know every step he needed to take yet, he knew the first one. Give her what she wanted, right here and now. He understood the underlying reason for her need, even if she didn’t, and it had nothing to do with leftover chemistry. Confession might be good for the soul, but it was hell on the emotions, and wading through years of hurt and disappointment left her desperate to wash the ugly residue away in a flood of pure, fundamentally cleansing pleasure. She needed relief, and she wanted it from him.
Providing it, while not crossing the boundary he’d drawn for himself, might well kill him, but some missions were worth the risk. He broke the kiss and dragged her poncho over her head. It landed in a heap on the rug, and he pulled in a breath. She sat there in a snug white top suspended by thin straps that looked like they’d snap with one good tug. The nearly sheer cotton did little to hide the swells of her breasts, or the tight, gravity-defying points inspiring his cock to gravity-defying feats of its own. Between the night at the Lookout and their driveway adventures, his mouth and hands had appreciated the enhancements Mother Nature had bestowed to her body, but now his throat dried in anticipation of finally being able to look his fill.
Emergency Attraction (Love Emergency) Page 11