Once You're Mine

by Barbara Freethy

  One thing was clear: she'd never, ever expected to have his attention the way she had it now.

  It was exhilarating and terrifying and made her feel off balance in ways that had nothing to do with any danger that might be lurking in the shadows. Right now, it felt like the most dangerous person was sitting in the car next to her.

  "You're taking a long time to answer," Dylan said, shooting her a speculative look.

  "You weren't completely terrible back then. But you're being nicer now. You've definitely matured in a positive way."

  "Happy to hear that," he said dryly.

  She fell silent for a few moments as he navigated through the city traffic. She glanced at the side view mirror, hoping that no one was following them.

  "Don't worry, I've been watching," Dylan told her. "No one has stayed behind us for long."

  "That's good."

  He stopped at a light. "So, you're not interested in Paul, are you?"

  She was surprised by the question. Why would Dylan care if she was interested in Paul?

  Unless… Her pulse sped up, but she really didn't want to let herself go there.

  She should tell him she found Paul handsome and appealing, but she'd never been a good liar. "No. He's attractive, but he talks way too much about himself. And I think a lot of his stories are bullshit."

  Dylan laughed. "Not many women see through his stories so quickly."

  "That surprises me."

  "He does like to talk himself up, but he's not a bad guy," Dylan said. "I've known him a long time. He's been a good friend."

  "Do you want me to be interested in him?" she asked. "You're selling him pretty hard."

  "No," he said shortly. "I mean, I don't care what you do. I was just curious."

  Despite his denial, she thought he cared a lot more than he was saying, and that made her nerves jangle again.

  A few minutes later, he parked down the block from her apartment. As they got out of his car and walked down the street, she found herself sticking close to him, appreciating his solid, powerful male body next to hers. She could take care of herself, and she was used to being on her own, but at this moment, she wasn't going to complain about his presence.

  They didn't see anyone on the street or in the building and made it up to her apartment without incident, but she still breathed a little easier once they were inside.

  "Do you want something to drink? I have decaf coffee."

  "No, I'm stuffed from your mother's buffet dinner."

  "She did go all out. I think she wanted to show Monica's parents that her portion of the wedding events was first-rate."

  "Well, she succeeded. Do you have that photo album?"

  "I'll get it."

  She went into her bedroom and grabbed the old album out of her bookcase and took it back to the living room. Dylan was sitting on the couch, flipping through the channels on her TV. He paused on the Giant's game.

  "Who's winning?" she asked.

  "Looks like they're up five-nothing in the top of the ninth." He quickly turned off the television.

  "You can watch it if you want."

  "I just wanted to check the score. They've got it under control."

  "The team is so much better now than it used to be."

  "You'll have to go to a game now that you're back."

  "That would be fun. I haven't been to a ballgame in years. I hear there's a new stadium."

  "Yeah, it's great. You know, your brother has season tickets."

  "I didn't know that, but I'm not surprised. He's had a love affair with baseball for as long as I can remember. I'm surprised Monica talked him into getting married during the season."

  Dylan grinned. "That surprised me, too, but I'm sure he would have put his foot down if she'd tried to schedule too close to the play-offs."

  "My dad loved baseball, too. He wasn't around for a lot of our activities, but he always tried to make Scott's baseball games." She opened the photo album, noting the yellowed edges of the pages. "I can't remember when I last looked at this."

  "Not when you were moving?"

  "No. I got the job offer and I had to pack up really quickly. No time for any trips down memory lane." The first few photos were of her as a baby, and she skipped ahead to the year right before her father died. She paused on a page of photos from her eleventh birthday. "This was taken at the beach, and that's my dad."

  Dylan moved closer to her, and her whole body tingled. She could feel his warm breath on her neck, and it was more than a little distracting.

  "You look like him," Dylan said.

  "The hair and the eyes," she agreed, trying to forget about Dylan so she could concentrate on her dad's features.

  This picture was a little grainy, so she flipped through a few more pages until she found another photo of him with her brother at a Giants game. "Just as we were saying," she said, feeling a wave of sadness. The picture reminded her of how close her brother and her dad had been.

  "So what do you think?" Dylan asked. "Does he look like the man you followed, the picture of Neil Hawkins on the ID I found?"

  Did he?

  She stared hard at the picture. "I wish I still had that ID to compare the two. I feel like there are similarities, but the man I was following was a lot older." Her heart pounded against her chest as the impossible idea flitting around her head began to take root.

  "Would he be the same age as your dad if your father had lived?" Dylan asked, obviously reading her mind.

  Her head came up quickly, her gaze meeting his. "What are you saying? My father is dead. He was cremated. We had a funeral. He's buried in a cemetery off Skyline." She slammed the photo album shut and jumped to her feet. "I can't believe you're even suggesting that he could still be alive. That's cruel, Dylan."

  He slowly stood up and met her gaze head on. "It was in your head, Tori. I just brought it out."

  "It was not in my head," she lied.

  "Yes it was, and it is a crazy idea. That's why I wanted to get it out in the open so you could see it for what it is—impossible."

  She stared back at him, shocked he'd read her so well.

  "Now that we've gotten that out of the way, you can move on," he continued.

  She wanted to move on. Because if Hawkins had killed Robert Walker, then the man was a murderer, and her father would never kill anyone. "You're right. I need to move past the resemblance, which is doubtful anyway."

  "I usually am right," he said. "It's good you finally see that."

  She let out a breath as his words eased the tension in her body. "I think once we get past the wedding, my emotions won't be so all over the place. I'll be able to think more clearly, be more objective."

  "I'll believe that when I see it. The girl I remember always had a lot of drama going on."

  "Are you ever going to see me as anything but that drama-filled, awkward, pushy, thirteen-year-old who annoyed you?"

  Something shifted in his gaze, and he hesitated a speck too long. Her nerves tightened. "Forget I asked."

  He took a step forward, and she had to fight the urge to step back. This was Dylan. He wasn't going to do anything.

  He wasn't going to kiss her—was he?

  Her palms started to sweat, and her breath grew shallow as his gaze raked her face, settling on her mouth.

  "What are you doing?" she whispered.

  "Hell if I know," he said. "But I can tell you one thing."

  "What's that?"

  "I'm not seeing you like that girl right now."

  "No?"

  "No. Do you know how beautiful you are, Tori?"

  His question stole the breath from her chest. "You think I'm pretty?" The idea seemed completely impossible.

  "God, yes." His light-blue eyes sparkled with what looked like desire. "I want to kiss you."

  "What's stopping you?" she asked breathlessly.

  "You're Scott's sister."

  "So what?"

  "So, we don't hit on each other's siblings."


  "Don't use him as an excuse, Dylan. This isn't about him, and you know it. It's about us—you and me."

  His lips tightened. "I wish it were that simple, Tori."

  "It is that simple." Realizing he was about to choose his loyalty to Scott over the electricity crackling between them, she put her hands on his face and impulsively took the kiss she'd wanted for over a decade.

  His lips were warm, and they parted in surprise under hers. He jerked, and she thought he might pull away, but suddenly he was kissing her back, taking control of her mouth, sliding his tongue between her lips, making one of her longtime fantasies come true. His kiss was everything and more than she'd ever imagined.

  But it was over far too quickly.

  He pulled back and ran a hand through his hair. "You do not make things easy."

  She didn't know what that meant, but she had a feeling it wasn't a compliment.

  "I can't do this, Tori," he said, regret in his gaze.

  "Why not? I saw you once make out with a girl you'd met thirty seconds earlier."

  "She wasn't…you."

  She swallowed a knot in her throat, not exactly sure what that meant, either. "You're not taking advantage of me. I'm a grown woman."

  He shook his head. "I have to go."

  "Dylan—"

  "Lock the door behind me."

  He was gone before she could say another word.

  She walked over to the door and turned the deadbolt, then she leaned against it and put a hand to her still tingling lips.

  Maybe she'd crossed a line by kissing him, but…she smiled to herself. It had totally been worth it. That man could definitely kiss.

  Unfortunately, now that she'd had a taste, she wanted more, and it didn't look like that was going to happen any time soon.

  Eight

  He'd thought about Tori all night and most of the morning. Not even a five-mile run had taken her image out of his head or the taste of her mouth off his tongue. He didn't know how she'd gotten under his skin so fast. One minute, she was just a childhood friend and the next minute, she was the most desirable woman he'd had in his arms in a long time.

  As he drove toward the church where he was going to have to see her again at Scott's wedding, he relived their kiss one more time and firmly reminded himself that it couldn't happen again.

  Kissing her had been a bad idea on a lot of levels, some of which had to do with his long-term friendship with Scott, but not all. He hadn't had a great track record with women, and he wasn't good at relationships. He was good at having fun, and Tori and he could have a lot of fun, but she'd want more, and he wasn't good at more.

  Annoyed with himself and with her for kissing him when he'd had every intention of walking out of her apartment without touching her, he pulled into a parking spot in the church parking lot and shut off the engine.

  Taking a deep breath, he grabbed his suit coat from the backseat, shrugged it on and headed toward the church. Today was not about Tori or about him; it was Scott's day.

  He found his friend standing to the side of the church with Paul. Scott looked remarkably calmer than he had the last few weeks.

  "How's it going?" he asked.

  "Great," Scott said. "You're cutting it close."

  "Sorry." He couldn't admit that he'd been stalling so he'd have even less of a chance to see Tori before the wedding, which was stupid, since they were going to be together for the next several hours. And, really, what the hell was wrong with him? He could be in the same room with her.

  "It's fine. You're here now, and I am not going to stress about anything else."

  "Looks like a big crowd," he said, waving toward the stream of people heading into the church.

  "Monica has a lot of relatives and friends. My side will not be as crowded as hers."

  "Does that bother you?"

  "Not even a little bit," he said with a laugh. "I don't care about any of this. This is all for Monica. I wouldn't have cared where we got married or who was there to watch us. But it's important to her to have a big day, so it's important to me. I want to make her happy."

  "I'm sure you will. You have a good track record for accomplishing anything you set your mind on."

  "I knew I would marry her the first day I met her. She's the right one for me," Scott said.

  "How did you know?" he found himself asking.

  "I just knew. It was like everything was suddenly easy. There weren't any games, no awkwardness. It felt right."

  "I wonder what that feels like," Paul drawled. "You know, Dylan?"

  "Can't say that I do," he said, although Scott's words had made him think about Tori, how easy it was to be with her. But that was because they'd known each other since they were kids. Wasn't it? He shook that question out of his head. "Are we doing photos before the ceremony?"

  "No, everything is afterwards," Scott said. "And there won't be a long photo session. It was the one thing I made Monica agree to. I hate when everyone is waiting an hour at the reception for the wedding party to arrive."

  "I agree," he said.

  "I'm going to have a word with Monica's dad," Scott said, walking away to speak to the older man.

  "Looks like it's you and me, Dylan, on the bachelor train," Paul said.

  "You still on that train after taking Ava home last night?" he asked with a grin.

  "She's a man-eater," Paul said with a laugh. "But honestly, all she did was talk about you. You may not have brought a date to the wedding, but I don't think you'll be lonely tonight—if you don't want to be."

  "I'm not interested in Ava—are you?" he asked, thinking he'd heard an odd note in Paul's voice.

  "No. She talks way too much for me. I need a woman who likes to listen." He paused. "Tori grew up really nice."

  "Yeah, I saw you hitting on her last night."

  "That was nothing. We were just having fun." Paul gave him a knowing look. "You're into Tori, aren't you?"

  "No."

  "Yes."

  "Definitely not," he said more forcefully.

  "Scott wouldn't like it," Paul said.

  "I'm very aware of that."

  "So is he the reason?" Paul asked.

  "There's no reason. She's a childhood friend."

  "Who is super-hot now. Maybe I should be hitting on her."

  "You just said you need a woman who likes to listen—that isn't Tori."

  Paul laughed. "You have it bad. Screw Scott. If you like Tori, go for it. You're both adults."

  "I'm not having this conversation," he said. "There's nothing going on."

  "Not yet," Paul said knowingly. "But we've got a long night and a lot of champagne ahead of us."

  He ignored that, seeing the wedding planner waving them over. "Game time," he said. "Let's get Scott married."

  As they entered the church, he saw the bridesmaids lining up in the vestibule. Ava gave him a flirty wave. He smiled back but followed the wedding planner to the side door. She told them to go down to the front of the church and form a line next to the minister.

  When they got there, Scott was waiting. Dylan took his place beside him as the crowd settled in for the ceremony.

  As his gaze swept the church, he saw Tori sitting in the front row with her stepfather and her mother. She looked gorgeous in a silky cream-colored dress with tiny straps that revealed her beautiful shoulders and the hint of some even prettier breasts. Her long, dark hair fell over her shoulders in a cloud of rich luxury, and her blue eyes sparkled back at him.

  All of his mental prep about staying away from her, keeping her in the little sister friend zone went out the window. He forcibly dragged his gaze away from her.

  He saw his parents sitting a few rows back on Scott's side of the aisle. His mom gave him a little wave. He tipped his head in acknowledgement, then turned his gaze toward the back of the church as the music began to play.

  The bridesmaids came down the aisle, one by one. Ava gave him another seductive look as she stood across from him. He gave her a brief nod,
thinking it was going to be a long evening trying to dodge her, especially once the champagne was poured.

  The music hushed, then changed to a different song as Monica made her way down to the altar on the arm of her father. She looked beautiful in white lace, but what really touched him was the love he saw in her eyes as she faced Scott. Monica was looking at his best friend like he was truly the only man in the world. Despite the large crowd gathered for the ceremony, it felt like they were in their own little world of mutual adoration, their vows and glances feeling intimate and honest and very, very confident that they would be happy forever.

  He wondered what it would feel like to be that sure, that certain that the person standing in front of you was the person you would spend the rest of your life with. He couldn't quite imagine it, which was odd. He'd seen solid marriages. His parents had been married for thirty-five years, his grandparents for more than sixty. He knew what that kind of love looked like, but it still felt like something out of his grasp. The one woman he had let himself get involved with had disappointed him on so many levels.

  But Jenny had been a long time ago. They'd been too young and too selfish, too ill-equipped to maneuver their way through problems and real life. He'd definitely shied away from committed relationships since then. Maybe it was time to take another risk…

  The crowd broke into applause as the minister proclaimed them Scott and Monica husband and wife. They walked down the aisle holding hands, and he found himself matched up with Ava as they walked down the aisle and out of the church.

  She kept a hand on his arm even when they'd cleared the building, but thankfully the photographer and wedding planner moved them to the side and started breaking up the wedding party and immediate family into photographic groups while the rest of the guests made their way to the reception.

  At some point, he found himself standing next to Tori as the photographer took a shot of the bride and groom and their respective parents.

  "You did good up there," she said with a tight smile. "You didn't even trip."

  "Was that your expectation?"

  She shrugged. "Just saying."

  An awkward silence fell between them.

  "Tori."