by Megan Crane
“I’m going to need a lot more therapy before I can talk about what happens in my mother’s house, ever, and especially what happened in my mother’s house tonight.” Devyn tilted her head, pressing her cheek even further into his palm. Her skin was flushed, warm, and satiny, and holy hell, she made him ache. “I don’t suppose you became a therapist while you were wandering around Nashville, homeless and hopeful?”
“Darlin’, it’s your lucky day.”
Her back was to the bar, which meant that Vaughn could drop his hands to grip it and cage her there between his arms. And everything about that was better. Except for the fact he wasn’t touching her anymore. Still, it had its own kind of magic.
She had to tilt her head back to look up at him. Vaughn allowed himself to move in much, much closer than he’d ever been to her before. And then reveled in the fire that kicked up between them, like a lit match. “As it happens, I know a whole hell of a lot about country music, which is the same thing as therapy, more or less. Just add a little whiskey and you’re cured.”
“Already added.”
“Then you’re already one ingredient closer to fine. All you need now is a cheating, no-good man, and maybe a pair of cowboy boots.”
“I like cowboy boots. Cheating, no-good men, however, are overrated.”
“Maybe. I think you might be overlooking their charms.”
“What’s charming about a cheater?”
“Not the cheating, obviously. But we’re talking country songs. That means the cheater in question has probably talked his way back in more than once. There’s only one way that’s going to happen, realistically.” Vaughn leaned down a bit closer, tempting himself and not sure how he resisted when all he wanted was to put his mouth right there in the crook of her neck where she smelled soft and a little like sugar and her pulse was going wild. “He’s got to be really good in bed.”
There was no way she could miss the extra kick of Tennessee in his voice just then. The scant amount of space between them felt thick and sweet like molasses, and Vaughn thought he would gladly hand over every award he’d ever won, every hit single he’d ever made, just for the chance to taste Devyn’s lush little mouth.
Just once. Before he died from wondering what she’d taste like. How she’d feel. What noises she might make.
Especially when she smiled at him, the kind of heat he’d never imagined he’d see on her face kindling there in that blue gaze of hers and making him...want.
Everything. He wanted everything.
“Is this a confession or are you bragging to me? Or both?” She wrinkled up her nose. “I’m not the audience for either, just to be clear.”
“No, ma’am. I’m not a cheater.”
“Which is obviously something a cheater would say, you must realize.”
She was grinning at him and he was a little lost in it. Because however bright that smile of hers had been from across the bar, it was a blinding, shattering thing this close, and he couldn’t get enough of it. Of her.
“I don’t believe in it,” he told her, as if he was confiding in her. As if this was information she needed to have, here and now. “If you want someone else so badly, break up with the one you already have. Problem solved.”
“In my experience—”
“As Chicago’s easiest?”
Devyn’s grin widened and it made something in his chest flip over. “Yes. In my vast experience, people—and by people, I mean men—who think it’s so easy to break up here and there and everywhere, never tend to get too deep into relationships in the first place.”
“Either way,” Vaughn murmured, drifting a little further into her space. “No cheating.”
“I’m delighted you told me all this about you, Vaughn. I had no idea. The next time a pack of girls surrounds me, demanding to know details about the man who almost became my stepbrother—and for all I know, still might—I’ll be certain to pass this along.”
He liked the flirty way she said that, and the way she tilted her chin while she spoke. He liked the way she propped one elbow on the bar and swayed a little bit closer to him. He liked that when her elbow slid into his arm, she didn’t move it away.
He liked pretty much everything about Devyn, in fact.
“Number one, I am never going to be your stepbrother,” he told her, low and serious despite the curve he couldn’t seem to iron out of his own mouth. “You can count on that. Number two, what packs of girls ever surrounded you to ask questions about me? And I don’t need an answer to that, because number three, don’t you think it’s time you and I did something about this thing that’s been going on with us all this time?”
That sat between them, wild and desperate and very nearly humming, stealing all the air from the hotel bar around them. From the whole wild west.
From the world.
He could see it when Devyn pulled in a breath as if the air between them was too hot. She lifted one hand and started counting off on her fingers.
“One, my mother could have eloped with your father by now, with neither one of us the wiser, and you know it. Two, you know perfectly well that packs of girls used to follow you around, screaming out your name when they drove by the house. Many of them were my friends. Don’t be so conceited.”
But the way she smiled when she said that, she had to know that she made his head swell all on her own. Right then and there.
“Don’t leave me hanging, darlin’,” he said in a low voice, completely unable to keep the fire from taking him over. Of course, he didn’t really try.
“And number three,” she said, very softly, but as far as Vaughn was concerned, there was no other sound on the whole of the earth, “I don’t think I believe in things.”
“Whether you believe in it or not, it’s there.”
“There was no thing,” Devyn said. Something flashed in her gaze then, and her mouth went mulish, and Vaughn found all of that fascinating. And in no way less hot. “We were slapped together by our parents, nothing more. There might be all kinds of bad feelings that kick up around something like that, sure. But it’s not a thing.”
“Okay.” He indulged himself and reached over to tuck a piece of her shiny, soft hair behind one ear. And he didn’t point out that he could feel her shiver when he did it. It felt a little too much like gloating. “If you say so. I felt exactly the same way about you as I did about your little sister. If that’s what you want to believe.”
It clearly was not what she wanted to believe. She scowled at him. “I’m just saying there’s no reason to pretend that there’s anything between us because our parents have a history. I don’t believe in things or fate or any of that nonsense. We’re just two people who are basically strangers meeting each other in a bar. The end.”
“If that’s what you need to tell yourself, Devyn, go right ahead.”
“I’m telling myself that because it’s true.” Her voice was a little too fierce, and there was that darkness in her gaze again, and somehow Vaughn didn’t think this was about the two of them. Or not entirely. “We barely knew each other when we lived in the same house. It’s not as if we were friends. It’s not as if we sat around playing get to know you games while our parents decided not to get married. And I can’t say I thought much about you one way or the other in the past ten years. I think I learned more about Barry Beefcake, aka Mitchell the engineer, than I know about you.”
“You know I’m not a cheater. Barry Beefcake could go either way.”
“I know you said you weren’t a cheater, which isn’t the same thing. Barry—Mitchell—didn’t feel the need to make proclamations.”
“Because he was too busy grabbing your face.”
“You did that too.”
“The thing about your engineer is that he doesn’t make you ache, Devyn,” Vaughn said, all drawl and need. His fingers moved from that place behind her ear to settle at the crook of her neck. Because that pulse of hers was still driving him wild.
Especially when it jolted right there beneath his
fingers.
“That’s one more thing you don’t know anything about, one way or the other.”
Vaughn grinned. “But I sure would like to find out how that ache tastes.”
Another jolt. And something more complicated in the air between them, as if her arousal had a scent. Or maybe his did.
“We can’t do this,” she said, but her voice had gone husky. Close enough to insubstantial that she might as well have declared her surrender. Vaughn had to tamp down the roar of triumph that nearly rolled right out of him, like he was some kind of caveman. “Everybody would freak out.”
“Who is everybody? And are any of them here?”
“They’d find out. They always do.”
“Oh yeah? Do you sleep with all your stepbrothers?”
The smile she gave him then was cocky. And gorgeous. And hit him like a barrel of moonshine. “Only if they’re in Chicago.”
Vaughn could have lifted his head, looked around, made sure there was no one they knew in any corner of a hotel bar in Jackson, Wyoming. But the truth was, he didn’t care if her entire extended family was lined up against the nearest wall.
All he could see was Devyn.
“You don’t believe in things,” he said when he could speak, “but I do. And there’s been this thing bothering me since we were kids. What do you taste like? How can it be I don’t know?”
“Because there was an age factor,” she said dryly. “And also, I hated you.”
“About that, darlin’,” Vaughn murmured, tipping her chin up with his fingers and dropping his head. “I don’t think you did.”
Then he indulged a very, very old need, and settled his mouth on hers.
He was aware they were in public, so he held himself in check. And it was a hell of a lot harder than he thought it should have been. He concentrated on the heat. The sweetness.
And then, when he could feel her tremble, he tipped his head to a better angle, and found his way inside.
And everything got much too hot. Much too good. Slick and wild and intense.
She tasted like whiskey. And Devyn.
He wanted to get rip-roaring drunk on both.
When he pulled away—practically killing himself in the process, because he didn’t want to let go—her hands were braced against his chest as if she was holding on for dear life, she was breathing nice and heavy, and he was pretty sure the mountains all around them weren’t even half as hard as he was.
“See?” She was breathless and he loved it. “If you turn something into a thing, it’s always disappointing.”
“Right. Disappointed. That’s exactly what I am.”
“Don’t worry.” Though her eyes were a little bit glassy, they were bright with mischief. “I won’t tell my friends how terrible you are at kissing. It would break their hearts.”
“I have a much better idea,” he said, completely incapable of straightening or moving away from her. “Why don’t you teach me?”
“Teach you?”
“You can’t get good at something if you don’t practice, Devyn. And who better to tutor me than someone who is practically family?”
She laughed, making a face at the same time. “Is that too far? I feel like any second here, we’re going to go too far and cross that line and there’s no coming back from that...”
“I’m not kidding. My room is right upstairs. All I need is a little bit of studying, and I’m sure I can get it right. Want to see?”
He stepped back, ignoring how that felt like a gut punch, and pulled the coat she’d peeled off from the stool where she’d draped it. Then he offered her his hand.
And spent what felt like seventeen lifetimes waiting to see if she would take it.
She looked at his hand. Then she lifted her gaze to his face.
“This is a very bad idea. You know that.”
Vaughn concentrated on the fact that she didn’t say no. “That’s what everybody says about great ideas before they put them into action. But once they do, look at that. They’re called geniuses.”
“Not only is it a bad idea, I feel at least eighty-five percent certain that I’m going to bitterly regret it when I wake up tomorrow morning.”
“Concentrate on the fifteen percent that’s on board and better yet, promise yourself a better morning after. I recommend coffee and a hearty breakfast. Regret is so often nothing more than the need for a fluffy omelet, in my experience.”
“Nobody can know. Your father. My mother. Sydney.” She shook her head and shuddered a little. “They would all die.”
“They’ll be touched, deeply, that you gave up some of your Christmas holiday to help out a member of the almost-family in his time of need. Not everybody would sign up as a kissing tutor when they could go skiing instead. Or shopping. Or whatever it is people do with their free time in a resort town at this time of year.”
“Because that’s all we’ll be doing in your hotel room,” she said quietly, her gaze a little too direct. “Kissing.”
Vaughn stopped waiting for her to reach over and take his hand. He did the honors himself, threading his fingers through hers and relishing the way that spread the fire all throughout his body, like he was banking the coals.
“If all you want to do is sit in my room, drink some refreshing herbal tea, and tell me stories about what you’ve been doing for the past ten years, that’s fine,” he told her, and he didn’t smile, because he wanted her to hear him. Really hear him. “I’m not a random stranger in a bar, Devyn. I might not know you well, but I know you. There’s not a single thing that could happen between us that’s ever going to hurt you.”
For a moment, he thought she’d yank her hand away. Throw out something cutting or funny to put them back on the right foot and keep them comfortable in that mutual dislike they’d been hiding behind forever.
Whatever works, he thought.
But instead, Devyn smiled.
“Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you either,” she said. And then her smile turned a little wicked, and set him on fire all over again. “Unless, of course, you beg.”
Chapter Five
He didn’t let go of her hand.
That was the part Devyn couldn’t seem to get over as he led her through the crowded bar, across the lobby, and then into the gleaming steel elevator. He didn’t let go of her hand. It made everything that had happened at the bar—and was still happening right now—a little too real. Less defiant shots of whiskey and more...reality.
She’d spent too much time watching Vaughn’s hands back when. They were big and strong, yet surprisingly nimble, capable of coaxing the sweetest melodies out of any instrument he picked up. She’d pretended to be annoyed, of course. She’d complained that he was always making noise. And she had a perfect memory of sitting on the porch in that house in Huntsville while her glass of sweet tea sweated all over the tiled side table beside her and Vaughn sat on the steps, plucking out a tune on his old guitar that she could probably still hum if she had to.
That memory was troubling enough. But it was complicated by the fact that his hand fit hers a little too perfectly. As if they’d always been made to fit together the way they did now. She could feel intriguing calluses on his long, clever fingers and the heat of his palm. And she wanted to indulge herself. She wanted to hold his hands in hers and rub them all over her body—
But that was getting ahead of herself.
And she still wasn’t entirely sure she should do this thing she was doing.
She expected him to joke around in the elevator once the door slid shut behind them, but he didn’t.
Vaughn stood there, still holding her hand tight, his dark gaze fastened to the place their fingers were clasped together as if he found that joining as fascinating and breathtaking as she did.
And there was no pretending that this was a light thing. That this was airy or easy, the way Devyn had always imagined drunken hookups with mostly strange men in bars were supposed to be. Maybe the problem was that she wasn’t all that
drunk and he wasn’t all that strange. Or maybe it was that she wasn’t, in fact, at all easygoing in the way she’d implied. She didn’t sleep with men, strange or otherwise, unless she was in a committed relationship with them.
But this was her chance to be wildly, recklessly irresponsible like everyone else in her family. And she could think of nothing and no one she should avoid more than the man beside her, so that made him—this—perfect.
She could feel the intensity all around them as the elevator moved slowly and smoothly toward the top floor. As if one of her mother’s wild, uncontrollable storms was whipping through the both of them, inside and out.
Devyn had to straighten her knees to keep them from buckling beneath her.
And when the elevator stopped at the top floor and a bell rang to announce it, she couldn’t decide if it was relief or something else that surged through her. Because she felt it between her legs. In her breasts. As if even the elevator was working its own kind of seduction tonight.
But then they were walking down the hall, Vaughn’s usually impossibly long stride tailored to hers, she thought, because he stayed right there at her side.
He kept hold of her hand as he reached around to pull his room key card out of his back pocket. He tapped it to the door, the lock gave with a crack Devyn thought sounded like a cannon—or maybe that was her conscience—and then he finally dropped her hand so he could usher her inside.
She walked through the door aware of nothing but the sensation of his fingers there between her shoulder blades, but stopped once she was inside. And the door slid shut behind her, trapping them both in too much humming, electric darkness.
There was light from the outside down at the far end of the room, coming in from what looked like a security light through the window. It was just enough that she could see she was standing in a kind of sitting room.
This was when she had to say something, she knew. If she wanted to slow this down. If she wanted to talk about kissing or tutoring or any of the things that had seemed so bright and manageable down in that bar.
If she wanted to call the wild, reckless thing inside of her panic instead of anticipation, she needed to do it now.
