by Lori Wilde
His thrusts quickened. She egged him on with hot little gasps and soft, hungry moans.
Tension mounted.
Shane drove into her. Forceful now, demanding. His early gentleness evaporated in the face of urgent need.
Fearing she was going to slip, she tightened her legs around his waist. He cupped her buttocks in his hand, spearing her hard, banging into her until she was shaking all over.
The inside of her thighs rode his hips. He was pounding her, driving as hard as the pelting rain, his penis a searing sword of pleasure so intense it almost hurt.
“That’s right,” she cried. “Make me come.”
She could feel his legs quivering, knew he was on the verge of climax. Oh God, it was gonna be big.
They exploded.
Shattering into pieces. Blasting apart. The orgasm tore through them simultaneously. She felt it ripple through her womb. Felt the hot shot of his heat flood through her.
In that quivering second in time, everything changed forever.
Chapter 11
Tish. Tish?” Shane’s voice tore her from the past. “Where did you go?”
“Huh?’ She blinked and found herself back on the porch at the Benedict ranch, staring deeply into her ex-husband’s eyes.
The sizzle was still there. Deadly as ever. Tish gulped. The chemistry might linger, but she’d accepted the fact that Shane no longer belonged to her. The expression in his eyes was just the caress of a memory and the passion that had once defined them. But they’d gone beyond that.
They had, she realized with a start, grown up.
They could feel this passion and not act on it. She could let the sensation of want and need wash over her and then move on. She liked the cleanness of what was left behind. She’d never thought she could find physical restraint appealing, but there it was.
“You zoned out on me.”
“Did I? I’m sorry. What were you saying?” she asked in a rush, praying her heated memories didn’t show on her face.
“I’m proud of you,” Shane said.
“What?”
“You’re one tough cookie.”
“Since when did you admire toughness in a woman?”
He looked bewildered by the question. “I’ve always admired your toughness.”
“Ya coulda fooled me. I thought my toughness was the thing that broke us.”
He didn’t say anything else, just pressed his lips together, reached over with his scarred hand, and flipped open the photo album. He was so close she could smell the scent of his soap, feel his body heat. The memory of their lovemaking on the Galveston ferry was burned into her brain for eternity.
Their gazes were welded. The sound of the autumn breeze sweeping through the oak trees filled the silence between them, the wind whispering as it rustled and danced around tree branches burdened with acorns.
They both knew what had really broken them. The tension rose, curling around him and around her, ensnaring them in the hurts of the past. She dropped her gaze, stared at his hand. Shane caught her staring. She longed to bring his damaged hand to her mouth, press her lips to his scars, healing him with her kisses. But of course she could not, did not.
Hurriedly, she shifted her gaze from his hand to the book between them. There was a picture of five-year-old Shane, cocking that lopsided grin that would later become a ladykiller. He had a bottom tooth missing and his eyes were sparkling mischief. He was sitting on a back porch stoop, a black and white spotted puppy in his arms, licking his chin.
“This is definitely going into the Our Love Story video.” Tish peeled back the plastic covering and slipped the photograph from the album. “Along with a quote about what little boys are made of.”
“I never really liked that picture,” Shane muttered.
“Why not? It’s adorable.”
“My ears stick out like cup handles.”
“All little boys’ ears stick out like cup handles. Elysee is going to love it.”
“Find another picture,” he said gruffly.
Something Shane had once told her occurred to Tish out of the blue. “The cup-handle ears aren’t the reason you don’t like that picture, is it?”
“Huh?”
“That’s your dog Bandit.”
He nodded.
“You told me you saw Bandit get hit by a car and it hurt you so much you refused to get another dog. Remember when I wanted to get a collie?”
“Yeah.”
“You lost Bandit not long after that picture was taken, am I right?”
Shane made a noise of surprise that she’d guessed. “It was the same day.”
She studied him and the look in his eyes made her glance away before she started tearing up. She couldn’t very well tarnish her reputation for toughness. Tish slipped the photograph of Shane and Bandit back between the plastic and quickly flipped the page.
Next was a snapshot of Shane and his sister with their parents on an amusement park ride. Shane looked to be eight or nine, his sister, Amy, about four or five. All of them were waving for the camera—a happy nuclear family on vacation. Tish felt jealous.
“How’s Amy?” she asked, battling back her feelings.
“Finishing her graduate degree in journalism at Columbia this year. She’s had a great job offer from the New York Times, although she’s still weighing her options. She has a serious boyfriend. Everyone’s expecting an engagement announcement from them soon.”
“How are Charlotte and Ben?” Tish asked, referring to his parents.
“Dad retired this fall and they’ve taken off on that around-the-world cruise they’ve been dreaming of for years.”
“That’s wonderful,” she said and meant it. She’d always adored Shane’s mom, and while she’d been a little scared of his stern Vietnam veteran dad, she respected and admired Ben Tremont.
“How’s Dixie Ann?” he asked.
“What can I say? She’s Dixie Ann.”
“Married? Dating?”
“In between men right now.”
“Where’s she living?” Shane propped his long, lean legs up on the porch railing.
“San Diego.”
“Nice place. You visit her much?”
“Not much. You know my relationship with Dixie Ann. I bet your parents were thrilled when you told them you and Elysee were getting married. I know your dad shares Nathan Benedict’s politics.”
“I haven’t told them yet.”
Tish’s eyes flew to his face and her heart gave a strange little bump. Why didn’t they know about his engagement to Elysee? He and his parents had always been close. She figured they would be the first people he would tell. “Hmm.”
“Hmm, what?”
“Hmm, nothing.”
“Don’t read anything into it.”
“What? I didn’t say anything.”
“You said hmm.”
“That’s a sound, not a word.”
“It’s hard getting through on those ship-to-shore calls,” he said defensively. “I phoned them after I got out of the hospital, to let them know I was doing okay and staying at the ranch to recuperate, but that was before—”
“You asked Elysee to marry you,” she interrupted.
He ran his good hand through his hair, ruffling the damp locks, and angled her an exasperated look. “Yeah.”
“Are you just going to let Charlotte and Ben read about your engagement in the papers?”
“No, no.” He shook his head. “Of course not. I’ll call them before the engagement party next weekend.”
“So this photo is okay to use?” She tapped the picture of Shane and his family.
“Sure.”
“Oh… I forgot all about this picture.” She pointed to the photograph below it. “I absolutely love how adorable you look in it.”
It was a snapshot she’d taken of Shane not long after they’d started dating. He was lounging in the middle of her bed in his underwear, his back propped against the headboard, hands cradling the back
of his head, elbows jutting outward, looking like a thoroughly bad boy.
A trickle of sweat slid down the back of her neck in spite of the balmy temperature. Her pulse quickened, as it always had when she was near him. She felt a rush of sexual awareness so potent she had to bite down on her bottom lip. Thank God they weren’t alone on this ranch. If they had been, Tish didn’t know if she could have stopped herself from kissing him.
She heard his breathing speed up. Bravely, she tilted her head and peeked over at him. He was staring at her intently, at the bead of sweat that had tracked from her neck and was now sliding slowly toward her cleavage.
“Remember,” he murmured, his breath fanning coolly against her skin, “what you were wearing when you took this picture?”
She caught the wicked gleam in his eyes.
His gaze held hers captive.
“What?” she breathed.
“Absolutely nothing.”
She could not look away. Not that she wanted to. His finger crept up to touch a curl at her shoulder.
“You looked glorious, with all that red hair tumbling over your bare skin.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“Not that long ago.”
“So much has happened since then.” She inhaled. His hand was still at her shoulder. “Too much.”
Quickly, Tish thumbed the next page, and what she saw made the breath catch in her lungs. She’d forgotten about this picture. Hadn’t looked at the album in over two years.
It was a Polaroid of her and Shane on their honeymoon at Galveston Island. They were coming out of the Gulf of Mexico, soaking wet, Tish riding on Shane’s shoulders. The afternoon sun was glinting off their sun-burnished skins; his hands were locked around her ankles to keep her from falling off. But there was no need, for she was perfectly balanced on the broad platform of his shoulders. They were laughing with their eyes shut and water rolling down their faces. They looked like they were in perfect harmony. Sharing one mind. One thought.
Yin and Yang.
Whole.
A beachgoer had snapped the photograph of that perfect moment in time. The man had told them he’d been so captivated by their unity, their pure joy, that he’d taken the picture because special moments like that didn’t happen often. After they’d come ashore and dried off, he handed them the Polaroid and walked away. Leaving them with a visual of one precious second in time.
They did look happy. Poor lovestruck fools. They had no idea what they were in for.
A knot formed in Tish’s throat. “We were happy once, weren’t we?”
“Yeah,” Shane said. “But that was before…”
His words trailed off, and the name neither one of them had the courage to say lay in the air between them.
As she stared at the photograph, the earth tilted and it felt as if she were being catapulted into outer space, flung far from sense and reason. Her loss was now a physical thing in her hands. Something she could touch and see. A thousand flashes of memory formed in her head. Formed and coalesced, melded and changed, jumbled and shifted. His kisses, their bodies, the taste of cake, the fizz of champagne.
Everything burned bright and clear and oh so painful—Tish’s dreams, her hopes, her regrets.
Shane didn’t move.
She could hear him breathing huskily beside her and she knew he felt it, too. This loss, this hurt she’d been trying so hard to bury for two long years. She started to flip the page, to run from those naïve newlyweds, but Shane’s hand, raw and pink with scars, anchored the corner.
Tish couldn’t turn the page. Not without his permission. Not without wrestling the book from him. How long was he going to make her sit here looking at her biggest failure, her greatest mistake?
No, no, not a mistake. Marrying Shane had never been the mistake.
“Tish.” He spoke her name softly, but the sound was sharp, intense.
She couldn’t look at him.
Instead, she turned her head, peered at a cow scratching her polled head against a fencepost. Brought her arms up, crossed them over her chest, futilely thinking the gesture would protect her. That it would hold in all these feelings she didn’t want to feel.
What the hell am I doing here?
“I don’t think Elysee would be too keen on having this picture in her video,” she said. “In fact, I don’t know why I’m hanging on to it. Why don’t we destroy it together? A symbolic letting go so you can start your new life with Elysee fresh and free of me.”
“No!”
They both heard the sudden heat of the word as it exploded from his lips. What did it mean? His abrupt rejection of her suggestion to destroy their honeymoon photo?
Don’t read anything into this. Don’t get your hopes up. You’re only asking for more pain.
“Shane?”
Immediately, he backpedaled from the impact of that single reverberating “no.” He pulled away from her, let go of the page. “What I mean is, there’s already been enough destruction between us. There’s not going to be any harm in you keeping the photograph.”
“You know,” she said, “I think this was what Elysee wanted from us. To take a look at the past and let go of it. To realize that while we’ve had some good times, we weren’t necessarily good for each other.”
“We were good for each other,” he said gruffly.
She met his eyes. So then why did you leave? But she didn’t ask the question that was in her head. She knew the answer, but didn’t want to make him say it.
“Not good enough,” she said instead. “But you and Elysee, you guys are good together. She needs you and you need to be needed. That was something I just couldn’t give you.”
“Wouldn’t give me.”
“Couldn’t, wouldn’t, the end results were the same.”
“Tish.” He gave her that “you’ve-disappointed-me” look that used to send her heart sinking to her shoes. Whether it was true or not, she’d often felt like she fell short in his eyes.
“It’s okay, Shane, really. And I think Elysee Benedict is a very wise person. I like her. She’s great. I don’t know how she had the courage to hire me as her videographer, but this…” She toggled her index finger in the air between them. “She was right. This is clearing up a lot of old baggage between us.”
“Is it?”
“I think so.” She canted her head. “Don’t you?”
He surprised her by giving her one of his signature lopsided grins. “Yeah.”
“Everything’s going to be okay, isn’t it?”
He nodded.
“We can be friends.” She touched his wounded hand.
“Friends.” He repeated the word like he’d never heard it before, pushing it tentatively around on his tongue.
“Friends,” she echoed.
Her hopes lifted. Could they really be friends? The thought was enticing. To have him in her life in some small way would be a gift beyond measure.
Friends?
Shane watched her walk toward her car, the alien concept stomping around in his brain. His gaze landed on her swaying behind. Immediately guilt had him by the short hairs. Was it even possible that he and Tish could be friends, considering their sexual chemistry? And if they could, would it be fair to Elysee?
Anger fisted inside him. Anger at Elysee for bringing Tish here. Anger at Tish for trying to be his friend. Anger at himself for being so damned conflicted about what he wanted.
What was the matter with him? Ever since the accident he’d been acting like a pansy, letting circumstances push him around rather than taking action. The only purposeful thing he’d done since leaving the hospital was ask Elysee to marry him, and he’d been second-guessing that decision from the moment he’d made it. What had happened to the old Shane? The man who took a stand and never wavered from his course of action?
Shane stalked back inside the ranch house and headed for the gym. He knew of no other way to dissipate this mishmash of regret, anger, sadness, guilt, helplessness, and longing.
He ground his teeth, marched down the hallway, and pushed through the doorway into the gym.
“When you want to hit something, son, take it out on a punching bag,” his father had instructed him. “Whale away until your anger is gone.”
He strode to the box where they stowed the gym gear, pried it open, and rummaged around for a pair of boxing gloves. He put one glove on his bad hand, but then fumbled with the other glove, failing repeatedly to get it on.
In frustration, he slung the glove to the ground, and muttering a dark curse laid into the punching bag with his bare-knuckled left hand and his ineffective right hand.
He slammed into the heavy punching bag. Jarring pain shot up through his arm.
Again and again he punched, harder and harder, punishing himself, accepting the physical pain, inviting it in to gratefully crowd out his emotional turmoil.
His muscles bunched. Sweat slicked his brow. He grunted in ragged breaths.
Throughout his entire life, Shane had been all about self-control. His father had drilled it into his head. He was from a military family. A Tremont. He had a reputation, a code of honor to measure up to.
Even as a kid, he’d tried to do the right thing, to uphold his legacy. He could hear his father’s voice, the echo of platitudes in his head. “You make a decision, you stick with it. Doubt is weakness. Don’t ever show weakness. No second-guessing. It’s better to make a mistake and fail than to be a wishy-washy girl of a man.”
Whenever he thought back on his childhood, all he could remember craving was his father’s admiration and respect, two things not easily earned from Ben Tremont.
“Dad, watch me go off the diving board.”
“Don’t whine for my attention, boy, just jump.”
He’d stood at the end of the diving board, six years old and staring down into the swimming pool, unable to jump now that his father was watching.
Ben stood on the sideline, hands on his hips, scowl on his face. “Don’t be a pussy. Jump.”
His toes had curled over the end of the board. Paralyzed by his father’s expectations, he couldn’t do it.
In disgust, Ben had climbed up the ladder, grabbed him by the seat of his swim trunks, and threw him into the water. “Hesitate and you’re dead.”
Shane smacked the punching bag. The pain was strong, but his anger was stronger. Punch, punch, punch.
