A slow smile played at her lips. “I like that.”
“Of course, I’m not sure where I belong yet either. Maybe we can take some time and figure that out together.”
Her smile grew. “I like that even more.”
Everything in him relaxed, and once again, he reached for Brooke’s hand. “I had planned on going back to DC for a little while. I have a place there, but…I don’t want to have a place there anymore. I’m tired of simply having a spot to keep my things. I want a home to go to every night and someone there waiting for me.” He squeezed her hand. “Will you make a home with me?”
And now her smile was positively dazzling. “Yes. I want to make a home with you too.”
“Would it be wrong to ask your mother to stay a little bit longer with Howard—maybe an extra week?—so we can have some time to ourselves?”
“I think that’s a great idea! Would we stay here in Vegas or go someplace else?”
“Wherever you want to go. We could be spontaneous again,” he suggested. “I think it worked well for us the last time.”
“I totally agree.”
They finished their dinner and worked together to put their trays out in the hallway before locking the door and facing each other. Owen reached up and gently caressed her cheek. “You are so beautiful.”
She blushed at his compliment and placed a hand over his, pressing his palm to her skin. “I was afraid you wouldn’t want me here,” she confessed quietly.
Owen shook his head. “Never. You never have to be afraid of that.” Then he took her by the hand and led her across the room to the windows. He slowly closed the curtains and then led her over to the bed.
And then he was kissing her. Her face cupped in his hands, Owen was unable to wait another minute to touch her. Brooke sighed and melted against him, and he waited for her to wrap her arms around him.
But she didn’t.
And then she broke the kiss and took a step back. He was just about to question her—ask what she was doing—but he saw the sexy grin on her face. First she peeled her shirt up and over her head and tossed it aside. Then she shimmied out of her skirt. The light blue scraps of silk and lace she wore matched her eyes. He swallowed hard and went to reach for her again, but she stepped out of his grasp.
“Just one more minute,” she said huskily as she walked across the room.
The view of her from behind was almost as spectacular as from the front. He was momentarily confused about where she was going, and then the main lights in the room went off. A lamp next to the bed was still lit, so he knew she’d be okay.
Brooke turned and walked back toward him, and when they were toe to toe, she reached up, raked her hands through his hair, and pulled him down for another deep, wet kiss. He loved kissing her almost as much as he loved touching her; right then, his hands wanted in on the action and immediately cupped her bottom, pulling her snugly against him.
He lost track of time again—something that was becoming fairly common when she was near—and he was just about to make the move to lower her to the bed when she broke the kiss.
“Lay down,” she whispered to him.
Owen discovered he liked it when she took control. Wordlessly, he complied. Positioning himself in the middle of the bed against the pillows, he watched as she gave him a mischievous look.
Then she peeled off her bra.
Yes.
Her panties went next.
Even better.
Then she stood there for a moment and let him look his fill. Owen slowly rolled onto his side, feeling himself trembling with need for her. Her name came out as a plea, but she didn’t move right away.
Gracefully, she leaned forward and kissed him. It went from light and sweet to deep and wet in the blink of an eye, and Owen growled with impatience. He wanted her. Needed her. He reached out and placed a hand on her hip, gently guiding her toward him, and he thought he had succeeded when Brooke placed a knee on the bed.
She pulled away again, and he was almost ready to cry.
She was torturing him. Teasing him. And he was on the verge of begging.
Opening his eyes, he looked at her and saw she had her hand on the bedside lamp. Was it still too dark in here? Was she hoping for a setting to make it brighter? He was about to roll over and offer to turn on the other lamp when she did something that completely surprised him.
She turned out the light.
And that was completely all right with him because he was pretty sure they created enough fireworks to light up the entire night sky.
* * *
Two days later, Owen looked at the group of people and smiled. Everyone was talking and asking questions, and for the first time in his life, he felt like the most confident one in the crowd.
And that was saying something.
It was just after two in the afternoon, and Brooke was leading his group in a painting session. While she was explaining about colors and techniques, several of his students were trying to explain to her why the layers in the canyon were colored the way that they were. And rather than getting flustered by their disruptive comments—as he certainly would have—she went with the flow and managed to turn them back toward looking at the colors on their palettes.
It was an amazing gift that she had.
Even Owen was standing with a canvas in front of him and a variety of colors of paint on his palette. Not that he was comfortable with painting, but Brooke had put so much work into learning about his work and about the meteor shower they were going to witness tonight that he thought it was only fair that he tried to learn about her work.
He had a feeling he was going to embarrass himself way more than she ever could, but that was all right with him. Owen knew that no matter what he managed to put down on the canvas, she was going to be encouraging and praise him in one way or another.
That took a lot of the pressure off.
For a few hours, they all worked on their artwork, but as soon as the sun started to shift and changed their lighting, Brooke encouraged everyone to start cleaning up. Owen moved along with his students, and when he was almost done, he searched for Brooke and found her over by the campfire, setting up preparations for dinner. They had made arrangements for food to be delivered, and she was talking with the food vendor and setting up enough seating for everyone.
Yeah, she was a definite blessing to this trip.
And his life.
And as soon as this trip was over, he was anxious for their life together to begin.
* * *
Brooke couldn’t help but be excited. The energy of the group had transformed since they’d finished eating, and everyone was getting their gear together to find an optimum spot to view the meteor shower. She couldn’t understand quite why they were looking for a specific spot—they were in this big, open space. To her, it was all premium space.
And she was going to be watching it all with Owen.
It didn’t get better than that.
As the sky darkened and everyone was milling around and talking, it would have been easy to feel like an outcast—after all, she didn’t know even one-tenth of what these people knew about the cosmos. However, she didn’t. Besides having the opportunity to interact with everyone one-on-one earlier while they’d been painting and eating, she found it didn’t matter if they were scientists and she was an artist. They were all people who were here to observe one of the greatest shows in the sky.
It made them all equal in her book.
She was looking up at the sky to see if she noticed anything on her own without anyone pointing it out when she felt Owen move in close behind her, his arms going around her waist. Brooke immediately rested her body against his and smiled.
“I haven’t missed anything yet, have I?” she asked quietly.
Behind her, Owen chuckled. “Nope. No activity in the sky yet. You’re safe.”
She laughed softly. “I was just giving myself this inner pep talk about how it didn’t matter if I didn’t know as much as everyone here, but at the same time, I’m excited about what we’re going to see. This is my first meteor shower.”
“Sometimes they are spectacular. If the conditions are just right and the sky is clear, you can witness a phenomenal show.”
“The sky looks pretty clear to me,” she observed. “Does that mean…?”
He shrugged. “There are no guarantees, but we’re going to be up all night watching, so I’m sure we’ll see at least some.”
That took a little of the wind out of her sails. “So it’s not an ongoing event?”
“Unfortunately no. Sometimes it can be as few as three per hour, but it can go as high as sixty for this particular event.”
“That’s quite the range.”
Owen nodded. “We go by the zenithal hourly rate—it standardizes the shower rate to optimum observing conditions. Think of it as an accurate scale for how many meteors we can expect to see. It’s not foolproof, but it’s a pretty good standard to follow. The shower rates are usually corrected for fully dark skies, and the meteor radiant point has been artificially located at the zenith, directly overhead. The actual rate of meteors seen by most observers, however, is normally a little bit lower.”
“Which means nothing can accurately predict how many we’ll see, but it’s like a guideline.” She looked over her shoulder at him and noted the smile on his face. “What? What are you smiling about?”
“Normally when I start spouting scientific facts like this to my family, they don’t comment on it or they try to change the subject.”
“Why would I change the subject? I brought it up.”
He placed a kiss on her temple. “I like how you engage in the geek talk.”
That had her laughing out loud, and she immediately turned in his arms. “Geek talk?”
Chuckling, he pulled her closer. “It just came to me.”
This was something she’d noticed over the past few weeks with him—he was more relaxed and more comfortable with just being himself.
“I love you,” she said softly.
Owen looked at her, brows furrowed for a moment. “Because of the geek talk?”
Brooke shook her head. “No. I love you because of all that you are.”
“Even with the geek talk?” he teased.
“That’s just a perk.” On her tiptoes, she gave him a quick kiss. “Okay, where are we going to position ourselves? Have you picked out our spot yet?”
“Is it wrong that I’d rather be in our tent than out here?”
That pleased her. Her sexy, quiet scientist would rather be with her than observing one of the biggest meteor events of the year. How cool was that?
“Maybe we can sneak off a bit later. What are the ideal viewing times?”
“The peak time is actually right before dawn. So we’ll all stay up as late as we want, catch a couple of hours of sleep, and then get up around 4 a.m. and watch some more.”
“Is everyone doing that?”
Owen shrugged. “It’s a matter of personal preference. Most people want to stay up all night and watch it all—which is what I should be doing.”
“But…?”
He hugged her close again. “But that was before I had a reason to hide out in my tent for a couple of hours.”
Swatting playfully at him, she casually stepped out of his embrace. “The last thing I want to be is a bad influence on the teacher.”
“Ugh…I’m not the teacher. I’m just the one facilitating—”
“Oh, stop. You’re the teacher, and everyone’s waiting for you to lead them and talk to them about this cosmic phenomenon.”
“I wouldn’t call it a phenomenon—”
“Owen!”
“What?” he asked, choosing to ignore her exasperation.
“Go lead!”
“Come with me?” He held out his hand to her, and of course she took it. Hand in hand, they rejoined the group, and soon all eyes were on Owen as he began to talk about the history of the Eta Aquarid showers.
* * *
“It’s beautiful.”
“No. You’re beautiful.”
Brooke snuggled closer to him as they pulled their sleeping bag around them. The sun was just starting to come up as the last meteor made its way across the sky. “That was amazing. Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For sharing it with me,” she said, her head resting on his shoulder. “I know I sort of dozed off in the middle of it all, but—”
“Not everyone can stay up all night. You got back up for the best part.”
“Mmm.”
“I think everyone’s going to be heading back to their hotels soon, and then we’re going to meet up tonight for dinner and to discuss what we saw and compare notes. I know I wouldn’t mind a couple of hours of sleep.”
“In a bed,” she said sleepily, followed by a loud yawn.
“As long as you’re there, I don’t care where we sleep.”
“Mmm.”
Sure enough, within an hour, everyone was packed up and driving back to their hotels. Brooke and Owen had chosen a nicer resort than most of the students, and while Owen had felt bad about it when they had made their initial reservations, right now he was glad for the privacy. He had talked to people all day yesterday and all through the night. Right now all he wanted was a little peace and quiet and to be able to hold Brooke in his arms while they slept.
Once they were back in their own room, neither said a word as they moved around closing the curtains, pulling down the blankets, and stripping off yesterday’s clothes. Once they were in the bed and under the blankets, they automatically curled toward one another and tangled their limbs together until they were pressed together from head to toe.
“This is nice,” she murmured.
“Mm-hmm.”
“Owen?”
“Yes?”
“We never decided where we were going to go once we’re done here.”
He lifted his head and looked down at her. The room was fairly dark, with only a sliver of light coming from behind the curtains. “You want to talk about this now? I thought you were tired.”
She shrugged. “I thought I was too, but now that we’re here, my mind is just sort of refusing to cooperate.”
Yawning, he shifted to get more comfortable. “And do you know where you want to go?”
“I do.”
He waited a minute and then asked with a hint of amusement, “Well?”
“Well…our last spontaneous trip brought us here, and we got to combine business and pleasure.”
“Right.”
“I think our next spontaneous trip shouldn’t include business at all. It should be all about having fun and doing stuff we wouldn’t normally do.”
“Okay.”
“Like…hiking or fishing or—”
“I grew up fishing all the time. We lived by the ocean.” He yawned again.
“I’m sorry… You’re exhausted. I, at least, got a nap last night. Go to sleep, and we’ll talk about this later.”
“It’s okay. It’s on your mind, so we should talk about it now,” he said, but his voice was soft and slurring just a bit.
Brooke turned and placed a kiss on his chest. “Sleep, my sexy scientist. And if we have to close our eyes and point to a spot on a map to decide where we’ll go, that’s fine too.”
Beside her, Owen murmured something, but she couldn’t understand it, and just before she gave in to sleep herself, she heard him say, “I love you.”
And she had the sweetest dreams after that.
* * *
“This wasn’t quite what I had in mind.”
“It wasn’t? Are you sure?”
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“Brooke—”
She smiled and scampered away, laughing the entire time. They had ended up back in North Carolina and were staying at Aidan and Zoe’s—although they were currently at Quinn and Anna’s to swim in their massive pool.
When they had woken up that afternoon three days ago, Brooke had said what she wanted most was to go back and meet his family all over again. It seemed like an odd request, but she had been so earnest about it that he readily agreed. He’d made the calls, and before he knew it, everyone was on board for another family get-together.
Riley and Savannah were coming in from London on their way back to LA, and Darcy even said she’d be coming home—mainly because she’d quit her job and lost the lease on her apartment and it seemed like a good time to come back to North Carolina for an extended stay.
No matter what the reason, Owen looked around the yard and knew that within a few hours, his entire family—all the people he loved—would be together.
Looking over his shoulder, he saw Brooke climbing from the pool and held in a groan. Good Lord, the woman was so damn sexy in her bikini. It was a shame they were around his family, or he’d—
“I know that look.”
Owen turned and saw Quinn swimming his way. “Excuse me?”
“That look. The way you were just eyeing Brooke. I know that expression well.”
“You were…?”
“No, doofus,” Quinn said with a laugh, splashing Owen in the face. “I mean, it’s the way I look at Anna when she’s walking around in a bikini. Hell, the first time I saw her in one, I almost swallowed my own tongue!”
“And that’s how I was just looking at Brooke?”
Quinn’s smile was big and goofy. “Hell yeah, you were! Good for you, Bro!”
The old Owen would have felt awkward having this conversation—or at the very least embarrassed. But now, he was too happy and too relaxed. “You’re right—good for me.”
“She’s awesome, Owen. Really. I’m glad the two of you worked things out.” Then he looked at his younger brother and nodded toward the bandage on his chest. “You know you’re not supposed to be swimming with that thing yet, right?”
Nodding, he said, “I know. That’s why I’ve got it covered and I’m staying in the shallow end.”
A Sky Full of Stars Page 30
