WE PASSED THROUGH the front room to gather our jackets and hats—the fire, only embers now, the only light in the dark room. At the door, Ciaran helped me into my coat, his hand just brushing mine as I slipped my arms into the jacket. I caught a whiff of his cologne and had the urge to stop exactly there, pull his arms around me and lean my head back on his broad shoulder. Just the right height for me, even in my heeled boots, I thought. But as quickly as the thought came, he moved away, snatching a down black jacket and wool hat that fit neatly over his head.
“Sorry if I look like a cat burglar.” He grinned and raised his eyebrows. “I promise I’m harmless.”
This man was anything but harmless.
I put on my hat, cringing in anticipation of his teasing. “Don’t laugh. Henry said I looked like Anastasia.”
He smiled and tugged my hat over my ears, brushing my skin with his thumbs. “He’s right. You look like a beautiful princess.”
I swallowed and turned toward the door.
Outside, the stars were bright and sparkling, the moon peeking between the bare branches of an elm. I stopped just outside the door, waiting for him to join me. The thermometer hanging by the light to the left of the door read seventeen degrees.
He must have noticed my gaze because he commented that the temperature had dropped ten degrees since he’d arrived earlier. “Always happens when the cloud cover moves away.”
I shivered, and looked up to the sky. “My God.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“The stars.”
“They never get dimmer, no matter how old I get,” he said. “I find that remarkable.”
We began to walk along the shoveled walkway toward the guesthouse. My breath came out in clouds, illuminated in the light from the lampposts that peppered the driveway. We were about halfway when one foot slipped. I let out a squeal. As quickly as I began to slip, Ciaran reached out and steadied me, his hands tight around my waist. I instinctively wrapped my arms around his neck.
“You all right?” He spoke into my ear, husky, his breath warm against my skin. “You’re shaking.”
“I fell last week.”
“Fell?”
“On the ice outside my office. The same day I got canned. An embarrassing trip to the hospital in the ambulance and everything.”
“Hell, that’s about as crappy a day as I can think of.” He tucked a lock of hair stuck to the warm skin of my cheek, back into my hat. “I can’t think of another woman worthy of this hat and coat.” His eyes moved about my face, like a person memorizing a set of numbers.
I almost laughed, despite the fact that I was enormously pleased. “Is that one of your lines you use on the little actresses they film you with?”
He rolled his eyes. “You saw the photos.”
“Nice abs, I have to say.”
He threw back his head, laughing, the sound echoing in the quiet night. “That might be the first nice thing you’ve said to me.” His face turned serious as he touched the tip of his gloved finger to my nose. “You’re getting cold. Come along. I won’t let you fall.” He took one of my arms and tucked it firmly against his side. “Hold on, now.” We headed across the icy path once again. It was truly slick, and I was hopeless in my high heels. Several times I started to slip but he righted me quickly. Neither of us spoke until we reached the doorway of the guesthouse, where we paused under the light that hung over the front door.
“See? All safe.” He threw open the door and ushered me inside.
I could not feel my feet, a result of my unsuitable boots and the frigid temperatures. He strode to the gas fireplace and flipped the switch. The fire sputtered to life as I turned on a lamp. Then, shrugging out of his jacket, he plopped into the armchair closest to the fire and started unlacing his boots.
“What’re you doing?” I asked. Prickles of alarm ran up my arms.
He grinned. “Don’t worry, purely innocent. I came over on the snow mobile and have to take it home, so I’m going to warm up my feet a little before I go, if it’s okay with you?”
“Sure. Fine.” I avoided his gaze, making a fuss of shrugging out of my jacket.
“I blame you, of course.”
“For what?” I asked.
“This is the best evening I’ve had in longer than I can remember, and I lost track of time.” He stood in his stocking feet now. Dark blue and thick, over nicely shaped feet.
“More fun than Hope Manning in a bikini?” I sounded like a woman with jealous stalker tendencies.
“God, I hate the tabloids.” He stretched his legs out, looking into the fire.
I needed to get off this subject before I embarrassed myself. Sitting across from him, I tried to think of what to say. I wanted desperately to take off my boots but didn’t want to admit how badly my feet hurt. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. I’m just teasing you.” I wasn’t just teasing him, of course, and my tight voice betrayed the truth.
“Hope Manning’s a good friend of mine, that’s all.” He sounded resigned and fatigued, like he was tired of telling the same story over and over.
“Do all your friends sit on your lap in their bikinis?” This time my teasing tone came through. Back on track. Ciaran and Bliss, buddies, almost siblings, exchanging jabs.
“Of course. Don’t yours?” Deadpan, then a wink.
I laughed. “I certainly do not have any bikini-wearing friends who sit on my lap, no.”
“Hope and I go way back.”
“I don’t have any friends from high school who sit on my lap, either.”
He smiled, looking at me. “Would you like to hear the truth?”
I acted like I didn’t care with a shrug of my shoulders. “Like I said, your love life is really none of my business.”
“Hope and I are good friends. We share some things from when we were kids that bonded us for life. Kind of like siblings, actually.”
I didn’t say anything, thinking again of the photographs, which seemed decidedly un-sibling like.
He continued. “She recently met a man she wanted me to meet. If you’ve followed her much, you know she doesn’t always have the best taste in men, and we made a pact last year that I’d meet anyone she got serious with.”
I nodded, reluctant to tell him what a fan I was of Hope Manning and that I followed her career closely. “After the sex tape with D. Dog or whatever his name is.”
Ciaran laughed. “If you mean T. Katz, then yes. She didn’t even know he took that. Just using her for publicity. I’ve never wanted to hurt a person more than I did him. So, yeah, I agreed to be more a part of her life after that. The paparazzi started filming us together and now apparently we’re a couple.”
“So that part’s made up?”
“Exactly.”
I sat with this for a minute. Were they truly just friends? Why did this make me feel like dancing? Never mind, I thought. Stay focused on his story.
“Anyway, I was a guest on the latest boyfriend’s yacht. A music producer, very successful but way too old for Hope.” The house creaked. Ciaran tugged at the toe of one of his socks.
“And?”
“Couldn’t stand him the minute I met him. My gut instinct was substantiated a day or two later when Hope found him having sex with one of the kitchen helpers, who is sixteen if she’s a day.”
“Underage? Really?”
Ciaran looked green for a moment. “Makes me feel sick. Anyway, we’re out in the middle of the Mediterranean, making it impossible to get to shore for a few hours. On our way back, Hope drank an entire bottle of champagne, maybe more. I found her drunk, where she rambled out the whole story to me, then cried on my shoulder.”
“On your lap?”
“She passed out and I was in the process of scooping her up and taking her inside when those photos were taken. That must be some kind of lens
, because we were still a ways from shore.”
“Maybe pictures aren’t worth a thousand words, after all?”
He smiled but his eyes were sad. “Exactly.”
“Does it bother you that everyone has the wrong impression of your relationship?”
“I learned a long time ago not to care what people think.” He leaned back, looking into the fire. “As a matter of fact, my notoriety actually helps in my charity work. Everyone wants to come meet me after they hear of my reputation.”
“Well, we have that in common then. I don’t care what people think either.” I sank further into the cushions of the couch, unzipping my boots. “My feet are numb. I’m never wearing these again.”
He smiled, watching me. “Too bad. You look hot in them.”
“That was the idea, but I’m starting to see the flaw in my plan.” I placed my boots neatly by the couch and then pulled a foot into my lap like I’d seen him do and rubbed it with my hands. Before I knew what was happening, he’d scooted from his chair and knelt on the floor near me. “Can I look?” He held up his hands and wriggled his fingers. “All very brotherly, of course.”
“I guess.”
He tugged off my socks. “Your feet are blue. We need to get you some decent boots.”
I didn’t answer, trying hard not to make any embarrassing noises of pleasure as he began to rub one foot and then the other with his warm hands. In a few minutes, feeling had returned to both feet, along with awakening several other parts of my body. I took in a long, silent breath, trying to control my thoughts, as I imagined his fingers finding their way up my legs. I shifted, tapping his shoulder with my fingertips. “It’s good now. Thank you.”
He rose and sat on the other end of the couch. The fire gave the room an orange glow and cast shadows under his eyes. “So, if we’re to be siblings now, you have to let me show you around this weekend. We could go down to Sun Valley. Do you ski?”
There was nothing sisterly about the way I felt about this man. I shook my head no to the question regarding skiing.
“There are a couple of fun bars and restaurants in Hailey. Maybe we could go Friday night. The day after Thanksgiving’s always a blast.”
“I don’t really hang out at bars.”
He grinned. “That’s because you never have any fun. Remember you’re supposed to be having fun?”
“Right. I forgot.” I smiled, feeling warm and happy at the prospect of spending an evening with Ciaran, despite my better judgment.
Patting his chest with his hand, he raised one eyebrow. “You are beautiful, especially when you smile like that. I think you need to smile more often. I’m going to take it upon myself to get you to smile more than you frown. That begins with letting me plan some fun. Deal?”
“Sure,” I mumbled, standing and wishing I had something to do, something to fetch, and thought to offer him a drink. “Do you want another drink? I saw wine in the fridge earlier.”
“Maybe some water before I head out?”
“Sure.”
He followed me over to the kitchen area as I yanked open the refrigerator, remembering some bottles of water and appreciating once again the fully stocked kitchen. The person who had arranged for my stay needed to move in with me permanently and save me from the fate of endless takeout food. With that thought, I felt Ciaran behind me. I knew from his scent that he was close. I held my breath. If he moved another inch toward me, our bodies would touch. “I’ll let you choose—either bubbles or regular.” I moved aside so he might grab the water, feeling as if I was now barreling down tumultuous river rapids after a storm with the way my body felt magnetized to his. If we touched, it would be all over. I knew this, even then, on that first night.
Instead of leaning down to choose a drink, he shut the refrigerator door and inched closer to me. I instinctively backed up, my gaze on the left side belt loop of his jeans, until the counter stopped me. A knob on a drawer jabbed into the spot just above my tailbone. “Did you change your mind about the water?” I looked up into his eyes. They seemed almost black in the dim light and somber, all hint of the teasing way he’d looked at me all night having vanished. Every nerve ending up and down my body tingled.
With his knuckles, he brushed my left cheek. “You don’t think you’re beautiful? Why?”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” I tried my confident, smirking smile and cold tone that had become a savior when flirtatious men in the workplace made inappropriate comments. Usually it came easily and shut down a man’s advances in less than a second, conveying an assurance that I thought myself too good for them. In my experience, men were cowardly creatures and despite bravado, deeply insecure. A confident woman made them want to run home to their mothers. However, tonight it did not work. My smile trembled instead of smirked, and my speech turned bashful instead of cold.
“I do, though. Most women have no idea of their true beauty,” he said.
I knew this was true, thus the need for makeovers to reveal how stunning they could be under all the dowdy self-doubt. But instead of going into all that, I simply said, “I just know all the tricks. What to wear, how to fix my hair, etc.”
“That’s the outside packaging. It’s the inside you can’t fake. That’s where a woman is either beautiful or not.” The vein that ran down his forehead pulsated as he took in a deep breath. I breathed in as well, shallow, trying to hide that it felt like it might be my last. We stood that way for a moment, my heart beating fast and the air dense and warm like another layer of clothing.
Then, with one hand, he moved the collar of my sweater an inch south, and with the other traced my collarbone using his index finger. “We don’t see much of a woman’s bones, even though we know they’re there, supporting their amazing structure. Think of that—how perfectly the human body is designed—what a miracle it is. And the collarbone, how it protrudes just enough so it’s this beautiful hint of what holds a woman together. So delicate, yet strong, like the women they support. Like the woman you are.” He traced the left side collarbone, stopping for a brief second to rest his finger in the hollow of my neck before moving up to my ear, where my hoop earring dangled. “Your skin tells me you haven’t spent much time in the sun.” His voice, husky, was only a notch above a whisper.
“One of the benefits of working all the time, I guess.” Had I said this out loud or only in my mind? I couldn’t be sure. Either way, he didn’t seem to notice.
He moved his hands to the sides of my face, stroking just below my mouth with his thumbs. “I’ve wanted to kiss this sassy mouth since the moment I saw you.”
“Sassy?” I whispered.
“And strangely vulnerable all at once.”
“I know you say this to all your women.”
“You need to learn when to be quiet and let a man take the lead. You know, like a dance?”
“I don’t dance for that very reason. I always try to lead.”
“The key is surrendering.”
“Surrendering? To a man? No.”
He chuckled. “How about to the right man, and it doesn’t have to be all the time—just in certain situations. It might yield good results.”
“Are we still talking about dancing?” Given my breathless, wanton voice, I didn’t even recognize myself. What was happening? Flirting with a man I’d met a few hours ago? A man who would soon be in my family? Again, that sliding feeling came, that feeling like I could not control anything. Chaos.
“If I don’t kiss you, I may perish right here on the spot.”
I laughed. “Perish?”
“Too dramatic?”
“A lit—.” He stifled my answer with his mouth as his arms went around my waist. The kiss was delicate at first, with his lips parting mine. No tongue, just our lips fitting together. After a moment, he began to explore, ever so slightly with the tip of his tongue. My arms went around
his neck, pressing my breasts against his chest. He let out a soft moan and his kiss turned hard. He pushed into my thighs with his own, our muscles tense. We kissed for what seemed like days, with the room receding to nothing until it was a space where only he and I existed, like two hothouse flowers in a glass container. I could not get enough of the taste of him, and he seemed to feel the same, for the second I thought we might stop to catch a breath, we picked up again.
Finally, breathless, hot, and damp, I said against his mouth. “What’re we doing?”
He withdrew slightly, looking into my face, his cheeks flaming red. “That was the best kiss of my life, that’s what we’re doing.”
Despite myself, I whispered, “Like magic.”
“Magic. Exactly.”
“You should go.”
“Yes, I should go,” he said.
“Before this goes any further.”
“Yes, before this goes any further.”
We kissed again at the counter, then again by the fire before he put his boots on, and again at the door as he slipped into his jacket and hat. Finally, breathless, I pushed him out into the frigid night, listening with my forehead pressed against the door as his boots crunched in the icy snow on the steps. The room went cold without him. I imagined that the warm air had followed him out the door, allowing an arctic wind to invade. Shivering, I went to the window and watched Ciaran’s shape that seemed a shadow make its way over to the big house and did not turn away until the lights in the yard went dark. And in that inky night with a billion stars above, the time between us began to feel like a dream, like I’d somehow conjured him from the recesses of my heart as dark as the scene before me. Had I stumbled from a dream to this window that felt icy against my fingertips? I touched my lips. They felt bruised, almost bloody, but hungry still for more. More Ciaran. I closed my eyes for a moment, remembering the ways his hands had caressed my body, how he’d whispered, how clearly I’d felt his desire. It was real. Ciaran Lanigan had kissed me, and in those moments I’d changed. The porous nature of my skin had betrayed me, had allowed this man in and made me alive and confused and more frightened than I’d ever been. I stood for a long time at the window, wondering, fretting about the future and my newly softened heart—peering into the darkness as if answers might appear like matches struck at midnight on the darkest day of the year.
Blue Moon (Blue Mountain Book 2) Page 13
