Fortune's Valentine Bride

by Marie Ferrarella

  As she spoke, she shrugged off the shawl she had wrapped around her shoulders. The weather outside, blessedly, was unseasonably warm right now, but she was still a bit chilly in this dress that Wendy had insisted in no uncertain terms that she wear. Marcos had let her off right at the door, but that was still enough time for the evening breeze to find her and weave itself around her naked back.

  She had to admit that the look in Blake’s eyes did go a long way in heating her up again.

  Katie leaned forward over the table. “Blake?” she prodded when he remained silent.

  An uneasiness began to spread through her. Oh, who was she kidding? She was playing dress-up in fancy clothes that no more fit her personality than a leopard-skin bikini. He probably looked that way because he was trying not to laugh. She felt a blush creeping up her neck.

  “Say something,” she begged, unable to endure the silence much longer.

  Blake leaned back in his chair as if he had been punched in the gut and was only now able to react. “Wow.”

  That wasn’t the something she was expecting to hear. “Excuse me?”

  “Wow,” Blake repeated, unable to tear his eyes away from her. Half words were flashing in and out of his head like Fourth of July fireworks. “You look—wow,” was all he could manage.

  The silver tongue he had developed over the years was nothing more than a lead weight in his mouth right now as words continued to completely elude him. All he could think was that she was absolutely gorgeous.

  How could he have missed that?

  He’d seen her practically every day for the past two years, had known her since she was a gangly kid, playing dress-up with Wendy and staging sleepovers. When had all this happened?

  He felt like Rip van Winkle, waking up to a whole brand-new world.

  “Thank you,” Katie murmured uncertainly. Still feeling self-conscious and not knowing what to do with her hands, when she saw a goblet of wine next to her plate, she gratefully reached for it.

  Blake momentarily came to. “Oh, I told the waiter it was all right to pour the wine,” he said, and then gave a small, self-deprecating laugh. “I don’t even know if you drink wine,” he admitted. By the time he finished his sentence, she had already raised the goblet to her lips and drank deeply, emptying half the contents. “I guess you do.” He smiled to himself and then raised his goblet. “To surprises,” he said just before he sampled his own wine.

  Feeling oddly loose and at ease now, Katie asked, “Did you order dinner, too?”

  “No,” he answered quickly, then explained, “I didn’t order anything else because I wasn’t sure what you’d like to eat.”

  He usually had far less trouble talking, he upbraided himself. Even with strangers. Why was he tripping on his tongue now, with Katie of all people? She was just like another sister to him. He realized that he was watching the way her chest moved as she breathed—well, maybe not quite like a sister, he amended.

  “Marcos tells me that everything on the menu is excellent,” he added awkwardly.

  “So I hear,” she replied just before she took another long sip of wine from her glass.

  She found, to her delight, that her nerves were no longer jumping around quite so much and that an easy, happy calm had begun to descend over her. This was much better, she thought.

  Opening the menu, she scanned the two sides, then turned a page. While she was deciding, the waiter, on his way to another table with a full bottle of wine, paused over her goblet, a silent query in his manner.

  Ordinarily, she didn’t drink at all, but what the heck? she thought, stifling an unexpected giggle that rose to her lips. This was Valentine’s Day, wasn’t it? And most likely, her first and last dinner with Blake before he became part of the duo of Blake and Brittany, or, more likely, Brittany and Blake. Either way, he was going to be forbidden fruit to her.

  “Yes, please,” she said in response to the waiter’s silent question, moving her goblet closer to him. The waiter filled her goblet, then automatically did the same with Blake’s.

  It was then that Blake realized he must have emptied his own goblet without even being aware of it. He was apparently that mesmerized by this new version of Katie—or had she just been downplaying what she looked like all these years?

  He really didn’t know.

  He was staring and that was rude, he scolded himself.

  Forcing himself to relax, he said, “You know, I really want to thank you for putting up with all this.” Katie raised her eyes to his, a surprised expression on her face. That made two of them, he thought. He hadn’t realized he was going to phrase his thanks just that way until the words were out of his mouth. He needed to rephrase that.

  “I mean…” His voice trailed off as he searched for the right words.

  The search came up empty. His mind was just not functioning tonight, he realized in no small frustration. It wasn’t functioning, he knew, because completely alien thoughts kept insisting on getting in the way. Alien thoughts such as wondering if that one time he’d kissed Katie and she had brought his world to its knees had been a fluke.

  There was, of course, only one way to find out, but he wasn’t all that sure she would welcome being kissed by him again. After all, she had just spent all this time helping him with his campaign to land the woman of his dreams. Having him kiss her might make her angry....

  He blinked, looking hard at Katie. Was Brittany really the woman of his dreams, or was he just caught up in this whole thing because he felt she was an opportunity he’d lost? Was it the whole “you want what you can’t have” syndrome, or—?

  Or what? he demanded the next moment, his thoughts growing progressively fuzzier and utterly unfocused. What was focused was all centered around Katie.

  Why hadn’t he noticed that her eyes were like warm chocolate before? He had a weakness for warm chocolate. And cream. Her skin reminded him of cream.

  Did it taste like cream?

  What the hell was going on with him?

  Why was he looking at her like that? Katie wondered. As though he wanted to be with her, when this dinner was supposedly to thank her for the big help she’d been to him these past few weeks? Right, she was helping the man she loved win the heart of another woman—a woman who was never going to care about Blake the way that she could. The way she did.

  Katie opened her mouth to say just that, but then stopped.

  What did it matter?

  Blake loved Brittany. He wanted Brittany and he was going to go after Brittany no matter what she said or did. Hell, she could stand on top of this table and proclaim her feelings for Blake at the top of her lungs and it would make no difference—except maybe to get him to run out of the restaurant as fast as he could.

  She might as well just enjoy this meal—when had she ordered it? she wondered, looking at her plate. And when had she almost finished it?

  She couldn’t remember.

  Couldn’t remember finishing her glass of wine, either, she realized. Was it just one, or had she had a second? She tried to think and remember—and then decided that it wasn’t worth the effort. And it didn’t matter, she told herself again. She wasn’t driving.

  Smiling to herself, content with the moment, Katie played with the stem of her goblet, moving it back and forth between her fingertips. She was simply enjoying the warm, rosy feeling that was spreading through her.

  With effort, she tried to concentrate on what Blake was saying. It wouldn’t do to have him think that she was ignoring him.

  “Excuse me?” she said, hoping he’d repeat what he’d just said, because somehow his words had all vanished without registering.

  How was that possible?

  “I said I’m worried about Jordana,” he repeated. He’d had occasion to talk to Jordana at the hos
pital when she came to see the baby and he came away with the feeling that something was definitely wrong with his older sister. “I tried talking to her at the hospital, but she seemed preoccupied—and a little off,” he admitted. There didn’t seem to be a better way to phrase that.

  Katie nodded, then thought that maybe he wanted her to say something in response. She grasped at the first thing she could remember and hoped it made sense. Hoped that she made sense. Because right now, her brain felt like a bowl of cold spaghetti.

  “Maybe it’s because of the tornado.” She paused, then thought that maybe that didn’t make sense all by itself, so she continued. “Maybe coming so close to death made her take another look at her life.”

  There, that sounded better, Katie congratulated herself.

  Blake rolled her words over in his head, then nodded. “Maybe.”

  Her mouth curved. Yea! She’d said the right thing. And then another thought danced through her head. Maybe if she said, “Kiss me,” he would. The thought had just popped into her head out of nowhere, but when it did, she liked it. Liked it a lot.

  She drew her shoulders back, about to make the suggestion when he cut her off.

  “Well, I’d better take you home,” he said out of the blue.

  Surprised, she felt disoriented for a second. They had been eating just a minute ago. Why did he want to leave? Was it something she’d said? She tried to think—and couldn’t.

  “Oh. Okay,” she murmured, trying to pull her shawl from the back of the chair. She was unsuccessful. It was stuck.

  Rising to his feet, Blake moved behind her to help her with her shawl. It was then that he got a really good look at her back—as well as the lack of material at that portion of the dress. He felt his stomach do a few involuntary flips, then tighten really, really hard.

  The effects of the wine he’d had at dinner had long since dissipated, but this made him think that perhaps they weren’t completely gone after all. Either that or he was getting intoxicated in a whole new way that he never had before.

  With the bill taken care of, despite his brother-in-law’s protests—how could this be a “thank you for all you’ve done” dinner for Katie if Marcos was the one who paid for it?—Blake took her arm and gently guided Katie through the maze of tables and to the front door.

  Pushing the heavy mahogany door open, they walked out and were immediately met by an evening breeze that was far chillier than it had been earlier.

  As if instinctively, Katie huddled against him, which in turn caused all sorts of havoc in the pit of his stomach again—as well as parts beyond.

  That was when he realized that the effects from the wine really had completely dissipated, but the effects from Katie were definitely intensifying. There was no getting away from it. She was a beautiful woman and he was attracted to her.

  But he couldn’t act on that attraction, or even explore it. It wouldn’t be fair to her, or Brittany. Right?

  It was an argument that had no winning side, he realized.

  Instead, Blake focused on getting Katie back to Wendy’s house and himself back to Scott’s. The first part of that was easy enough.

  But then, that was where things began to suddenly stall.

  At the front door, Katie turned and looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes just before she turned the key in the lock.

  “Why don’t you come in for a little while?” she suggested.

  He was debating the pros and cons of that when he suddenly found himself being playfully pulled across the threshold and into the semidark house.

  Marcos, he knew, was still at the restaurant. That meant that his sister was home by herself.

  “Maybe I can look in on Wendy,” he agreed, even as he was doing his best not to think how damn sexy Katie looked in that black dress.

  The winter-white shawl had managed to dip down, exposing her nude back. More than anything, he wanted to run his hand along her skin....

  And that perfume she was wearing—had she worn it all along, or was this something new? Whatever it was, it was causing him to be exceedingly aware of every move she made.

  It occurred to him that he had been relatively oblivious to the woman who, for the past two hours, had been occupying center stage in his thoughts. In his world.

  He walked up the stairs like a man caught up in a dream.

  He promised himself that once he started talking to Wendy, whatever it was that was wrong with him would pass. But when he came up to Wendy’s door, he found that it was closed. That meant that his sister was either asleep, or almost asleep. Either way, he was not about to disturb her.

  What he needed to do, he silently told himself, was to get a grip and to man up.

  Turning away from his sister’s door, he wound up brushing up against Katie, who was standing directly behind him—much too close for his comfort. It was time to take a stand.

  What Blake fully intended to do when he took hold of Katie’s shoulders was to gently move her back and then aside so that he could go back downstairs and leave. He’d had absolutely no intention of drawing Katie to him so that she was even closer than before.

  And he certainly hadn’t thought he was going to lower his head so that his lips could touch hers.

  And absolutely under no circumstances did he have any intention of kissing her.

  But she was and they did and he was.

  Moreover, he couldn’t stop, even when deep down inside of him, he knew that stopping was the right thing to do.

  Without knowing quite how, he swept Katie away from Wendy’s bedroom door and somehow wound up moving down the hallway to the guest bedroom that she was currently occupying.

  His lips never left hers during that whole time.

  And all he was really aware of was that the more he kissed Katie, the more he not just wanted to kiss her but needed to kiss her. And the more he desperately desired her.

  If this continued—

  No, it couldn’t continue.

  With effort, Blake pulled his head back, breaking the connection between them. He saw the bewildered look in her eyes and felt that it clearly mirrored what he was feeling inside at the moment. Not that he could afford to share that with her.

  “Katie,” he whispered, “we have to stop—”

  She wanted to shout: No, we don’t, but she settled on a single word: “Why?”

  The simple question completely threw him for a second.

  Why?

  Well, God knew he certainly didn’t want to stop. It was for her sake, not his own, that he had pulled away. Couldn’t she see that?

  “Because if we don’t,” he told her truthfully, choosing his words slowly, “I’m going to wind up making love to you.”

  She searched his face, still unable to see why he would stop cold like that, just when her body temperature had reached the boiling point.

  “And you don’t want to?” she guessed, her eyes intently on his.

  “Don’t want to?” he echoed incredulously. How could she possibly think that? He was struggling to make the supreme sacrifice and she thought he was just passing the time of day here? Was she just pretending to return his kisses with fervor? Didn’t she know what was going on inside of him? “It’s the only thing I do want right now.” he swore.

  Katie smiled at that. Smiled in such a way that he could literally feel her smile right down to his very toes. Moreover, it jarred him as if he’d just stood in the path of a kicking mule.

  The next moment, he heard her murmur, “Well, then?” just before she sealed her lips to his. Just before she sealed his fate.

  The matter was no longer in his hands. He was on board a runaway train, clinging to the side of it for all he was worth, as heat, passion and desire roared through his veins, clamorin
g for tribute.

  For fulfillment.

  Even as every fiber of his being seemed to all but shout out for her.

  The door to Katie’s bedroom stood open, a silent invitation to them.

  It didn’t go unheeded.

  They all but tumbled across the threshold and into her room. Blake was only vaguely aware of closing the door with his elbow. It was the only part of his body that wasn’t consumed with showing Katie just how very much he desired her. Even as she filled every inch of his senses, of his soul, he craved even more.

  The slinky, come-hither dress she had on fell to the floor after only a couple of tugs, leaving her clad in a black lacy thong and her strappy high heels, bathed in the heat of his desire.

  One pull and the thong was no more. With her arms wrapped around his neck, Katie stepped out of the shoes. Only his desire remained steadfast, clinging to her skin like the hazy moisture from a sauna.

  Yes, oh yes, her mind cried over and over again as she eagerly pulled at his clothing, tugging first his open jacket, then his shirt off his shoulders until they were both on the floor in a heap.

  She fumbled with the belt at his trim, hard waist, then with surer fingers coaxed away the fabric from his thighs until those garments, too, joined the rest of his clothing on the floor.

  His desire for her was clearly evident and every fiber in her being silently cheered as her anticipation mounted.

  His lips were hot on her skin, kissing her everywhere, making the fog in her spinning brain widen until it completely swallowed her up as she felt the thrust of his tongue along the most sensitive part of her.

  For her, there was nothing and no one, only Blake. Only this feeling that he had created within her, this feeling that was now exploding inside of her over and over again.

  She frantically wanted to race to a climax, but at the same time, she wanted to hold it back, hold it back and savor this because even in her revelry, even with the wine coloring everything, there was a small part of her that thought, that knew, that something this wondrous might never happen again.

  With all her heart, she wanted to freeze time, or, at the very least, make it progress in slow motion. So she reined herself in, lavishing kisses along his neck and chest the same way he had done to her. Reveling in the fact that his breathing had grown as labored as hers.