Читать книгу Unexpected Legacy - Jacqueline Diamond - Страница 16
ОглавлениеKate checked herself in the mirror for the tenth time. She wore a plain khaki skirt and sleeveless halter top. She knew that it would be silly to try on another top, so she grabbed her purse and her phone, then glanced down on impulse at Garrett’s last texts.
He’d said he wanted to talk and tell her about the “bimbo,” but just thinking about the way he’d defended her made Kate’s blood boil. Worse was that every time she went back a little further, to his kisses, little bubbles of remembrance shot through her system. She didn’t want the bubbles. Or the tingles. Or any of the gut-churning jealousy she felt when she thought about him and Cassandra Clarks.
She hadn’t slept a wink last night; she could still feel his touch on her traitorously sensitive skin. Now, Beth and Molly were waiting in her living room for him to pick them up, and Kate was grateful for the buffer they would provide.
Coward. That’s why you asked them to come over.
Yes, yes, so fine, she was a coward. She just didn’t trust herself to be alone with him. She feared she’d either do something sexual, which she had to put a stop to, or say some other cruel things that she didn’t mean. She regretted getting so defensive when he’d started apologizing. Garrett was actually the most unselfish man she knew. He’d always thought ahead to how he would protect her if something unexpected happened. But the last thing Kate had wanted was to add to his burdens when it came to her. She hadn’t ever imagined they’d end up naked and entangled. But he’d been there. So available. So sexy, tan and bare-chested. How could she resist? And the bastard had broken remorselessly through her walls, all in his stupid attempt to bend her to his will and liking!
But then he’d pretended to be hurt by her accusation, and accused her of being a tease. The reminder made her frown. She’d never considered that she was. Did she tease him? She’d tried to make him jealous for years, but she’d never known it had even had an effect.
Maybe it had more than he’d let on.
“Landon thinks he’s going to do it,” Beth was telling Molly.
“Do what?” Kate asked as she came back into the living room.
Molly turned to her with a sad, moping face. “Marry Cassandra Clarks. Jules told me yesterday. I just didn’t know how to bring it up.”
Kate’s stomach clenched.
“It’s got something to do with acquiring Clarks Communications,” Beth said, shaking her head. “Kate, I’m sorry.”
Once again, Kate felt the painful stab of jealousy inside her. “All the more reason I should leave,” she whispered.
“You’d let the man you love marry another woman?” Beth asked uncertainly.
“If he wants her, yes. And I don’t love him. I might have had a crush, but I’m over that. I’m in love with the idea of Florida now.”
“Kate, I think it’s hard for him to let himself want something, with what happened to your father, but I’ve always seen that he’s got it bad for you,” Beth said.
“No. I had it bad for him. And now I’ve promised myself to forget him. I should find a man with no baggage who actually makes me feel loved, Beth.”
Both women quietly watched her pace to the window and then back.
“So there’s nothing going on between the two of you? The boys say he’s distracted. And so are you,” Beth insisted.
Her best friend’s eyes twinkled all of a sudden, and Kate wanted to groan when she saw Molly’s mischievous smile also appear. Did they suspect Kate had totally gone sex-crazed at Garrett’s place several days ago?
“There’s nothing going on. We’re...normal. Friends.” Who slipped up once, she mentally added. Through the window, she watched his silver Audi pull over to the curb. Little bugs tickled the insides of her stomach. “He’s here.”
“I guess I’ll just slide into the back with Molly,” Beth offered as they went outside, and Kate locked up behind her.
She hated how her heart pounded when she walked up to the shiny silver car. Garrett stood holding the door open, his eyes sweet and liquid chocolate as he smiled. “Hi, Katie.”
Her bones went mushy every time he called her Katie. “Hey, Garrett.” His broad shoulder brushed hers as she got in, and her pulse sped with his nearness as he bent to kiss her on the cheek.
Oh, God, please don’t be nice today, she thought miserably.
She could handle fighting with him. But this?
The thought of him marrying anyone, touching anyone like he’d touched her, tortured her.
He settled behind the steering wheel. She watched his hands on the gearshift as they sped off, and her core warmed and boiled hot as she remembered the ways he’d caressed her. Every part of her body wanted to do it again except her mind, where warning bells were ringing at full volume.
She couldn’t let it happen again.
He was talking marriage to another woman.
She was only too glad she wouldn’t be here to watch it.
* * *
After forty-five minutes at the dress shop, Garrett could now totally understand his brothers’ amused grins from only hours ago.
He’d never gone to a dress fitting before.
Torture.
He sat on a chair outside a line of dressing rooms and watched as the ladies came out to stand before a huge mirror, where a busy little woman picked and poked and stabbed the material until she’d shaped it to her liking.
He’d been doing fine, answering emails on his iPhone, until Kate came out and took his breath away.
He watched her hop onto the platform and model the dress, exposing her slim, creamy ankles as she discussed the length with the short, busy-bee shop attendant. He felt as if a grenade had just exploded in his chest. His blood heated as he remembered the hell of watching her grow up, grow breasts, wear her hair longer, develop those curves. He’d seen her in her prom dress, in a barely there black bikini that hugged her silken curves in all the right places and made Garrett hurt in all the wrong ones.
He’d seen her naked in his bed...writhing in his arms....
And once he got her back there, he never wanted to see her dressed again.
He wanted to touch her, hold her.
He wanted to hear her breathe next to him at night. He just knew if she slept at his side, the mere feel of her would make all his nightmares vanish.
He suddenly saw, clearly, how he’d be complete and whole with her. How he’d feel worthy and needed in a way he had never, ever felt before. But at the same time, he’d be vulnerable. Because, holy God, he needed this woman so much.
He saw her eyes go bright when the girls came over, squealing in delight.
“That blue looks so good on you,” Molly gushed.
“Oh, your date is going to be so thrilled!”
Garrett cocked a brow as he pushed himself off the chair and came over, listening to her ask if they were sure.
He stood next to her and caught her gaze in the mirror. “Date?”
She spun around to face him and her lips trembled in a smile. “I don’t know. We won’t be catering so I’ll have some time to spare.”
“Exactly. Flirt around with a man. Have a little fun,” Molly said from nearby. Garrett couldn’t miss the mischievous glint in Molly’s eyes as she surveyed Garrett for a reaction.
He gave her none.
“Do we want this fitted...?” The saleslady maneuvered Kate’s skirt, and Garrett watched in rapture as the woman tucked the fabric around her waist to enhance Kate’s luscious curves even more.
He studied her breasts, how lush they were, tightly constrained by the corsetlike bodice. His mouth watered and his hands ached. He was in hell and heaven at the same time, and it was the most puzzling feeling he’d ever experienced.
Kate stared at his reflection, her blue eyes shining in concern and somehow pleading for a compliment. “Do you like it?”
They both stared at one another, and for that one moment, nothing mattered but her. She held his gaze, and he held hers. His world centered around this one woman he’d always tried not to want.
His eyes trailed along her body, taking her in, and he heard the soft, amusing sound of her breath catching. The gown was sapphire-colored, consisting of a tight corset top clinging to her body like second skin, then flaring into a wide skirt. He wanted to toss it up in the air and bury himself between her legs. Her arms were toned and slim, her breasts perky and tightly constricted, making him want to free them. Her glossy hair, too long and beautiful to keep restrained, hung down her shoulders.
She was gazing at him nervously, wetting her lips. “Garrett...do you like it?” she repeated.
He nodded while his body burned under his skin.
Smiling tremulously, she hopped off the platform and started toward the changing rooms, but within three steps, he caught her wrist and spun her around. As if shocked, she looked down at his fingers curled around her flesh, then watched him, wide-eyed, as he lifted her hand in his and kissed her knuckles, one by one. “Speaking of dates,” he whispered when he was done, “do you have one?”
Surprise and excitement flickered in her gaze, and his smile widened as he watched her struggle for a reply. He should probably ask Cassandra out on a date, start playing up appearances, but the hope he saw in Kate’s pretty eyes... He wanted to kiss her eyelids, and track her jaw with his tongue. Then go to the shell of her ear, where he would whisper all sort of things to her, naughty and nice. He wanted to have what his brothers had; he wanted all of that, with Kate.
This talk of marriages of convenience and business mergers...
Did any of it matter to him? If he didn’t have Kate?
He didn’t deserve her, but he was damned ready to work to get her. He wanted to stop punishing himself, stop blaming himself for people dying, and just dream of all that life and love he felt when he looked at Kate.
“I...” She hesitated, then shook her head, her cheeks coloring pink. “It’s best I go on my own.”
She quickly pried her hand free and disappeared behind a velvet curtain to change once more.
* * *
Garrett Gage asking her out on a date?
No. Not a date. Garrett Gage asking her out to the wedding.
And he hadn’t really asked her. He seemed to be checking whether she already knew whom she’d go with, which was different.
Still. In her heart, her gut, in the way he’d looked at her...oooh, how it had felt when he’d asked her that question.
Kate was still reeling at the possibilities as they dropped off Beth and Molly and then rode in silence back to her place. Rain caught up with them by the time he pulled over in front of her one-story house. The drops were so big, they made huge splattering sounds on the windshield and the top of the car.
“Oh, no,” Kate groaned.
Garrett reached into the backseat and grabbed his suit jacket. “Remember this? Something like this has saved your pretty head from getting wet before.”
The memories surfaced, and when his teeth flashed wide in a white smile, there was no future in Florida, no painful past, only Garrett and his coat, and the rain outside.
He grabbed the door handle. “All right, Kate, here we go.”
Heart pounding with emotion as she remembered other times he’d saved her just like this, she watched him sprint around the car and jerk the door open, holding his jacket over both their heads as he pulled her up against his side and onto the sidewalk. As her flats began getting soaked, she pressed close to his massive chest and suddenly his arm slid around her waist, his eyes glinting. “Ready? On three.”
She nodded breathlessly, a gasp already poised in her throat.
“One, two, three!”
They ran for cover to the door, the fresh puddles at their feet splashing at each step as they both burst out laughing. Kate knew this wouldn’t have happened if her catering van hadn’t been parked in the middle of her driveway, but rain in Texas was truly rare and she hadn’t expected it at all.
Once at the door, she struggled to fit the key into the doorknob, and she could hear Garrett breathing at her back as he hunched his shoulders over her, the jacket covering them both.
“Katie, be any slower, and we could just shampoo here already.”
“I’m getting it!” she cried, laughing at her own awkwardness as the angle of the rain managed to get them both wet from the sides. The door clicked open at last, and she hurried inside, turning to see him standing just outside the door, getting wetter by the second. She couldn’t bear to leave him there like that, so she motioned him inside and slammed the door after him. His white shirt clung damply to his back and right side.
She squeezed a couple of raindrops out of the tips of her hair as Garrett shook his jacket in the air and hooked it on the coat stand. When Kate kicked off her shoes, their shoulders touched, and she realized Garrett smelled of fresh rain.
She couldn’t miss the way his broad chest jerked and stretched his white dress shirt with each breath. And she knew her nipples were poking into her dampened blouse; she caught his dazzlingly sexy white smile as he stared down at her. “Someone looks wet,” he said laughingly.
“You should see yourself.”
“I’m perfectly aware that I’m wet.”
“Take your shirt off, and I’ll dry it for you. I’d do the same for your jacket, but I assume it’s dry-clean?”
“So is the damn shirt.”
“Then at least let me hang it.” Without thinking, her hands flew up to start unbuttoning him, and by the time she started to undo the last button, she realized that he’d gone utterly still. His eyes had darkened completely, and emotion clogged Kate’s throat as their love-making vividly came back to her mind.
“Katie, if you don’t want this—stop me...stop me now....”
He seemed to notice that something had made her hands fall still, for he angled his head downward and peered mischievously into her eyes. “Just say you want me naked and I’ll take it all off.”
“You’re so easy,” she scoffed, but she dropped her hands when she realized the danger, and his shirt fell open to reveal his beautiful tan abs. She shouldn’t be talking to him. She shouldn’t even want to, need to, be close to him. She could have almost kicked herself when she asked, “Do you want some dinner?”
He didn’t hesitate, even when the tension between them as palpable.
He followed her through the living room. “I don’t want to put you to work.“
“It’s not work to me. I’ll cook us something easy. I hate eating alone and miss Molly terribly,” she said.
But was that really why she’d asked him to dinner? Or was it because she knew that as soon as she left San Antonio, she would never be able to enjoy his company like this again?
“I’m sorry, Kate.”
For a moment, she didn’t know what he was sorry about. He’s sorry about you missing Molly, Kate. Get your head in the game. “But she’s so happy,” she finally answered. She smiled as she eased into the adjoining kitchen, quietly slipping on an apron.
“Aren’t you a cute one,” Garrett murmured.
His gaze was so openly admiring that Kate’s stomach squeezed. She grabbed a knife and gestured dramatically with it. “Flattery will get you equal portions, so don’t waste your breath.”
“I’m not wasting it. I’m holding it.”
Ignoring the butterflies in her stomach, Kate rummaged through the fridge and pulled out her almond flour, eggs, milk and a bunch of vegetables. She set the veggies on a cutting board and transferred them to the kitchen island. “Help me with these while I work on the dough?”
“Of course. Just tell me what to do.”
“Cut the mushrooms, red peppers, onions and zucchini into small but pretty slices.”
“I can do small, but I don’t guarantee pretty.” His lips curled upward as he grasped the knife that she offered and his fingers closed warmly over hers.
Shivers of delight shot from the place he touched, and she couldn’t suppress the shudder that ran down her limbs. “They’re not going to a beauty pageant. Just small will do,” she whispered, impulsively pressing in behind him and leaning to watch as she showed him how. She shifted her hands so that he held the knife, and she held him, and then she slowly guided him to cut in the size she wanted.
Garrett stood utterly still and compliant, letting her guide him, and suddenly her nipples pressed painfully into his hard back as she realized how intimately her arms were going around his narrow waist.
“What are we making?”
She swallowed when he turned slightly and glanced directly at her. His voice was smooth and calm, but when she spoke, Kate’s wasn’t. “Vegetable goat-cheese pizza.”
He turned back to watch her cut a slice of pepper. “Kate, you’re going to kill me.”
“Why? I thought you liked it?”
“Exactly. My mouth is watering.”
Her cheeks flamed up as she thought of his mouth, and she instantly released him and went back to her spot to prepare the dough. Moments later, she lifted her head when the rhythmical sounds of Garrett’s chopping stopped. He was watching her massage the dough. A lock of his dark hair fell over one eye. Her legs weakened at the sexy look, and her heart grew wings in her chest. Garrett looked incredibly beautiful in her kitchen. As beautiful as he did in bed with her.
She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it when her cheeks burned at the memory. She really shouldn’t have slept with him. Now she couldn’t even look at him without becoming hyperaware of the electricity between them.
A smile slowly formed on his lips as if he could read her thoughts. Then he turned his attention back to his chopping, his profile hard and square, but the expression on his face also thoughtful. Kate swallowed and mixed her dough, then slammed her fists into it and rolled it a couple of more times.
“Bring the veggies once they’re cut so you can help me arrange them.”
He didn’t answer, but soon, he brought over the cutting board. He set it on the counter, and as Kate began to arrange all the little pieces on the flattened pizza crust, his hands gripped her waist from behind. Her breath was knocked out of her when his fingers squeezed her and his lips brushed against her ear.
“Why’d you sleep with me, Kate?” he murmured.
Heat arrowed from her ear straight to her toes, and she stiffened against the dissolving sensation in her bones.
He didn’t sound angry. He sounded confused, but patient, much as he did when he wanted to get to the bottom of something.
He surprised her by pressing into her body, trapping her between the counter and himself. Kate had nowhere to go, her spine arching up against his chest as she closed her eyes and tried to still her racing heartbeat.
His voice sounded in her ear as his fingers started a trail up her rib cage. “Did you feel pity for me because I was sick—?”
“No.” She could barely utter the word.
“Then why?”
His breath was warm, and damp, and it made her shiver. “It was a mistake. We weren’t thinking clearly.” Trying to gather her wits, she nervously turned in the cage of his arms, gripped the tray and slid the pizza into the oven, forcing him to step back as she bent forward.
When she shut the door and turned, Garrett had stepped back and merely stood watching her. His snowy-white dress shirt was still parted at the middle, and her saliva glands went crazy at the sight of his bare chest, his flat, hard abs and his belly button.
“Maybe it was a mistake, Kate, one I’ve spent all my life avoiding. But what if it isn’t a mistake?”
Her blood started heating in her veins as she remembered the delicious way he’d moved in her. Kissed her. Gripped her.
She knew they had to talk about this, no matter how much she wished they would pretend nothing had gone on that day. And now that he’d brought up the topic, she could barely think straight. The look in his eyes was beyond intimate. It was downright proprietary, and she almost drowned in the darkness of those eyes that haunted her dreams. With an inhuman effort, she made her way around the kitchen island, putting some distance between them.
His voice stopped her as he followed her around.
“Kate. Answer me. What if it wasn’t a mistake?”
Her breath caught in disbelief, and suddenly, she did a one-eighty to face him. “You just want to keep me here, Garrett. You’d do anything to win—that’s how you are. And you want to keep me from going to Florida.”
“You know me better than that, Freckles.”
“I know you’re the most stubborn man I know.”
He lifted one lone eyebrow. “And you aren’t stubborn? You’re stubborn and proud, Katie. The combo makes for a very difficult lady.”
She shook her head but couldn’t help smiling. Then she signaled at his damp shirt; it was still driving her crazy how it stuck damply to his beautiful brown nipples. It was about as sexy as him being naked or, strangely, even more so. “Are you taking that shirt off? I can still dry it for you.”
He whipped it off, and it gave her something to do as she hooked it on a high kitchen cabinet close to the oven heat. “So that’s how you get men naked,” he roughly teased.
“Of course. I make it rain, then I strip them.” She smoothed her hands down the sleeves to unwrinkle them.
“What do you do after you strip them?”
She stopped fussing over his shirt and realized he was coming closer. His smile was overtly sexual, his dark eyes glimmering in liquid mischief. “Do you kiss them?”
“Maybe,” she said and slid past him to go back around the kitchen island. There was something very predatory in his eyes, and she began backing away more quickly as her heart kicked wildly in her rib cage.
“Do you caress them with those hands of yours? Look up at them with those pretty eyes?”
She blinked for a moment, then burst out laughing. “What do you mean? These are the only eyes I have. Which others should I use?”
“It’s the look in those eyes I refer to. Do you use that doe look on them, too? The one that makes me want to chase you?”
When she laughingly shook her head and backed away farther, he charged and she squealed and sped around the kitchen island, managing two rounds until he caught her and spun her around, both their smiles a mile long. His grin faded before she could even bask in the beauty of it, and his expression fell deathly somber. “I want to kiss you very badly,” he whispered, bending his head, his chest heaving.
“Garrett, no,” she murmured, struggling to pull free. She spun around and went to check on the pizza, her pulse throbbing in her temples as she pretended to be busy watching the cheese melt.
He came up behind her again and stroked a hand down her hair. “What if I asked you for what you wanted, and you told me exactly what it is that you want?”
“Florida.”
His stare almost bored holes into her profile, and through the corner of her eye, she noticed his jaw clamped, hard as granite. “Be real with me, Kate. For once in our lives, let’s stop playing games.”
She shook her head, feeling panicked and afraid of opening up to him. “Whatever it is, you can’t give it to me.”
“Just try me.”
Gnawing on her lower lip, she studied his face, his features carved fiercely in determination, as if he truly did care for her. Well...did he? Had he seen her like a woman all along and had she not noticed because she’d been too busy pretending she didn’t love him? She wanted him. All of him. A family of her own. She knew it was too much to want of him, to ask from him. Especially after what she’d heard.
“Everyone knows about you and...that heiress you’re planning a wedding with.”
His eyebrows lifted in mock interest. “Like it’s a fact now?”
Ignoring the dangerous purr in his voice, Kate put on an oven mitt, pulled the pizza out and set it on the stove top. “I can’t believe you’d marry for business.” She couldn’t look at him while saying that, so she occupied herself with preparing the food.
He was silent as she used her cutter to slice the pizza into perfect pieces.
Then he murmured, “I wasn’t going to marry at all. So why would it matter if I just used it as means to an end, if it’s what Cassandra’s asking for and it will all be over in six months anyway?”
“You’re better than that, Garrett,” she whispered.
“But not good enough for you,” he mumbled, watching her closely.
Her throat tightened on a reply that she just refused to give as she put a slice on a plate for him, and another on one for herself, staying quiet. What was the point? Flirting with him? Playing with fire? He never wanted to marry, he’d just said, and if he did, it was purely for business. She had to believe she deserved a family of her own. Especially since she’d had her own family torn apart when she was so young.
Quietly, she carried both plates to the kitchen island. He sat down on the stool beside her, then took a large bite, munching.
“Freckles, this is so good.” He shook his head and took another bite, making a groaning noise that made her remember...sex. With him.
“It is, isn’t it?” The sweet vegetable flavors combined with the toasted-almond flour and goat cheese melted in her mouth, but her insides melted more at the sounds he made. She squirmed on her stool and watched him get up to pour two glasses of water from the pitcher in the fridge.
He set hers down next to her plate, then continued eating. When he licked up a crumb from the corner of his lips, her heart raced in a strange mix of fear and anticipation. He’d asked if she wanted him to give chase...and suddenly she couldn’t imagine anything more exhilarating than being hunted, chased and claimed by him.
Shaking her head, she washed down her pizza with the water. She was surprised when he spoke again; he’d already finished his slice. Now his attention seemed fixed solely on her again.
He stroked a finger down her jaw.
“What about me?” he asked.
She frowned and set her half-eaten pizza down. “What do you mean, what about you?”
“You say you’d only marry for love. Do you feel nothing for me? If I go through with this marriage to Cassandra, how would you feel about it?”
The meal suddenly wasn’t sitting too well in her stomach. “If she’s what you want...”
“I’m very interested in something that she has, but I want to make it clear that I don’t want her.” There was no mistaking the steel in his voice as he set a hand on her thigh as if it belonged there. “What I want to know is if there’s even a chance that I can have what I most want on this earth.”
Her pulse skyrocketed when she saw the stark hunger in his gaze, a gaze that ping-ponged from her eyes to her mouth and made her pulse race erratically. But when he began to get close, she stood up for some reason. Garrett laughed darkly, quietly, as if to himself. Then he followed her up and began to back her into a corner with purpose, his eyes blazing.
“Where are you going, Kate?”
She quickened her steps, but he followed closely until she stopped when the back of her knees hit a wall.
He smiled delightedly. “You do want me to catch you, don’t you?”
With painstaking slowness, as though to torture her, he raised his hand and set it on her hair, and it was as if she could feel his fingers tangling inside her, tangling around her heart. “Do you want to be with me again?” he rasped, using his fist in her hair to tip her head back.
Every instinct of self-preservation warned her against reaching out to him, giving him this power over her again, but there was no pulling away from him as his hand wound deeper into the fall of hair at her nape, his piercing onyx eyes drowning her in their depths.
“I’ve been inside you once—and it wasn’t enough. I wanted to wake up and look into your eyes and see you smile at me. I didn’t want you to leave. Not like that. Not like it was a mistake.”
Her breasts rose and fell with each strained breath. “It wasn’t a mistake to me. I loved every moment of it.”
“Then why don’t you put your arms around me now? Why don’t you touch me? Was I too rough?” His voice dropped even lower as he tightened his fist, his eyes holding a sexy, primal shine as he drank in her face. “Katie, I promise you that next time I’ll take it so much slower. I’ll kiss you from the tip of your toes to the top of your lovely head. I’ll move slowly inside you...”
He bent his head, tipped up her face with a crooked finger and kissed her parted lips. The gasps stealing out of her were impossible to hold back. He opened his mouth as though to breathe them into his body, drag them into his lungs.
“I’ll prepare you for me again. Prepare you for hours, Kate. Hours. I don’t regret it happened, Kate, only that I didn’t do it right.”
He grasped her hands and placed them on his shoulders, and Kate didn’t take them away. Her nails gouged into his skin as she pressed against him, her eyes drifting shut. “Please don’t do this.”
“How long will you hold out, Kate? If I do this...”
Expert fingers traced the tips of her sensitive breasts through her damp shirt, and Kate gasped as sensations stormed through her.
“Will you say no? If I do this...?”
He undid her halter top and let the fabric pool at her waist, and then eased one breast out of the material of her bra. He bent his head and kissed one straining nipple, laving it expertly with his tongue, priming it before he latched on and suckled her with his warm mouth.
Moisture pooled between her legs, red-hot desire rocking to her very core.
She clasped his head, thinking to pull him back, but instead she just clutched his silky hair as he turned his head and performed the same expert torture on the other puckered tip.
She struggled weakly, halfheartedly, until he pressed her arms down at her sides, their fingers linking in a tight grip as he took her mouth in a wild, stormy kiss. Her lips opened, allowing him entrance with a soft, welcoming moan, and she was undone by his taste. “Garrett.”
Not even thinking what she was doing, Kate clung to him and curled one leg around his hips, her skirt hiking up as she nestled his hardness between her open thighs.
He curled a hand around the back of her knee to keep her leg up, and he rocked his hips and pulled back to stare into her wide, sparkling eyes. He bent down to take her lips softly. “You want that, Katie? You want that from me?”
The feel of him, the reminder of what it felt like to have him, hot and hard, inside her, made her feverish.
She wanted to nod, to say yes, to tell him not to ask and just take her, but instead she wedged a hand between their burning bodies and palmed his erection. He hissed out a breath and nipped her earlobe, the closest thing to his mouth, then swept down to devour one aching nipple again.
She moaned feebly and began to pant. Arching her back, she pushed her breast up, as if craving a deeper kiss, so he opened wide around her flesh and sucked hard. “Garrett!” she cried.
A groan rumbled up in his chest as he seized her hands and pinned them over her head, trapping her as he looked at her with wild, hungry eyes.
“I want this so much.” He ducked his head and his lips brushed the tip of her breast, his hand tightening on her wrists.
She felt a new surge of dampness in her panties, her breasts weighing heavily with the need to be cupped by his palms. Kate couldn’t believe how many times she’d dreamed of this, wanted it. She moaned softly and arched her back in invitation once more.
“Garrett...” She pressed herself up to his mouth, and his lips returned to her nipple. Fire swept through her.
Fisting her flowing, flaming hair in his hands, he pulled her face back to look at him. “Tell me you want me.” He spoke in a dangerous tone as his hands slid downward to unzip her skirt.
“I want you,” she gasped.
He kissed her hard, blindingly, as he shoved the material down her hips, then slid her clinging halter top off, as well.
His lips softened on a groan as he cupped her sex in his big palm. His voice was but a breath in her ear, shaking her world like a cannon blast. “I want you, too. I can’t stop wanting you.”
He pressed the heel of his palm to the bundle of nerves hidden at her core, and she released a soft cry.
He dipped his hand into her panties, then watched her as he parted her folds with his fingers and pushed the middle one inside. Her hips rolled while her eyes searched his face and he pushed her arousal even higher.
“Does one feel good? Or would you rather have two?” he rasped.
He watched her expression dissolve as he added a second finger into her snug grip. A surge of moisture drenched his hand, and he bent his head and prodded a taut nipple with his tongue.
That’s when he heard voices out in the living room.
* * *
Kate snapped out of her daze and stiffened when she heard the front door slam shut. She practically flew away from Garrett, jumping as the voices became clear and the two figures appeared in the living room—which adjoined the kitchen.
“—so just be quiet and let me get it real qui...”
Molly and Julian froze in their tracks.
Molly’s eyes flared in mute shock as Kate struggled to right her bra and panties and used the vegetable chopping block to cover what she could. Julian’s eyes widened like saucers as he took in Garrett’s bare-chested state and Kate trying her damnedest to hide behind one miserable little cutting board.
“Okay, I’d rather not have seen that. What about you, Molls?” Julian smirked.
Molly blinked, her cheeks about as red as her hair, but Kate was sure she wasn’t nearly as red as Kate. “Seen what? I didn’t see anything. I think I’ll come visit with Kate another day.”
They shuffled backward through the living room, and even after the front door slammed shut behind them, Kate just couldn’t look at Garrett. Her face burned in embarrassment. They were panting, the sounds of their haggard breaths echoing in the silence. Slowly, he reached out, but she stepped back and shook her head.
“What is it you want from me, Garrett?” she asked brokenly.
His voice was low and textured with wanting. “I want you to stay in the city, Kate.”
“Is that all?”
“For now, yes.” His face tightened with emotion as he watched her slip back into her skirt, and his eyes flashed as he saw her reach for her discarded clothing. “Fine, no.”
“Then what?” Her arms shook as she shoved them back into the arm holes.
“I want you in bed with me.” His eyes raked down her body almost desperately, and she hated how easily her blood bubbled again when he grabbed her hands to stop her from dressing. “Please. Kate. Don’t.”
“So this is about sex,” she said. She pushed his hands away.
“You make it sound like that’s a bad thing. Katie, I know you want me, too. You were just trembling in my arms.”
“For how long do you want me in bed? A week? Two?” she dared, her heart twisting in her chest when she tried to recall if Garrett had ever really even been with anyone for that long. “What about Cassandra? Don’t you think she’d like to know about your little side plan here?”
His mouth dipped into an even deeper scowl than usual, then he restlessly raked his fingers through his hair. “Damn, Katie, I keep feeling like I’m falling short here. What the hell is it that you want from me?”
“You’re talking about marriage with another woman, Garrett! And you stand here telling me you fall short? You damned well do fall short! If I’d wanted an affair, I’d have it with someone other than you. I want a shot at having the family I’ve never had, that’s what I want!”
In the instant she spoke those last words, Kate wished she could take them back. It was as though she’d slapped him; Garrett suddenly looked like that young boy, that dark, tormented young boy, so forlorn after what had happened the night of the murders.
“Well, then you were right about one thing,” he said, a tinge of angry frustration in his voice. “I can definitely not give you back what you want.”
“Garrett, you misunderstood me—”
But he was gone, the bang of the door that followed his departure making her wince.
