by Jess Dee
“Not yet? What what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Her voice was as breathless as his own.
“We need to talk. You and I. Soon.” He couldn’t keep the truth from her much longer. She needed to know why he left her in the first place, why he hadn’t offered her the explanation she‘d deserved. he’d destroy all three of them if he kept up the pretense. “Soon, my sweet,” he promised. First he needed to ascertain Steve’s feelings for Pen. He needed to make absolutely certain that by claiming Katie he would not destroy his friend’s future happiness. Soon.
Then he turned around and stumbled out of the kitchen.
Fuck it. If she could go to her room and close the goddamn door and come out flushed he could too!
SEVEN
She could do this. She could so do this. She. Could. Do. This. It was just a show and dinner. That was all. It was irrelevant that Steve couldn’t make it.
She was an adult. A mature, engaged woman, and she could cope with a Saturday evening alone with Tyler.
True, when Steve was around conversation ran more smoothly.
True, she felt more comfortable and more confident when he was there. That did not mean she couldn’t spend a few hours alone with an old friend.
Oh please. Who was she fooling? Certainly not herself. Tyler wasn’t an old friend. He was an old lover she’d never gotten over. An old lover, who, if she didn’t watch herself very, very carefully, was likely to become a new lover.
No. She already had a lover, and she would not betray him for a man who’d deserted her.
She walked into the bar where they’d arranged to meet, but when she saw him sitting alone at a table, a drink in his hand, dressed in chinos and a trendy striped shirt and looking completely hot, all her previous determination dissolved. How could she spend an entire evening alone with him without wanting him? Without touching him?
She cursed the emergency that forced Steve to work on a weekend night. Damn it all, now more than ever she needed him at her side.
Needed his strength and reassurance.
Tyler hadn’t spotted her yet, and she took a moment to study him undetected.
He’d changed in the last two years. Matured. At thirty-two, he was all man, and his very presence commanded attention. Women turned to take a second look, to openly admire him. Men seemed to stand a little straighter when they spoke to him. A young waitress hovered nearby, wiping his spotless table and offering him another drink.
He smiled distractedly at her, and she increased her efforts to clean his table.
If she were the waitress she’d also fall over herself to please him.
If he turned the full wattage of his smile on the girl, she wouldn’t stand a chance.
He didn’t. His eyes wandered, scanning the room. Looking for something.
Someone. She should signal to him. Should announce her presence.
Instead, she stood stock-still, watching, waiting, for the moment he saw her. Her heart beat a little faster, the anticipation of meeting his gaze suddenly unbearable.
He was beautiful. The way his brown hair curled behind his ear. The way his dark eyes always seemed to see straight through her defenses.
The way his lips, his full, sensuous lips, moved when he spoke, all combined to make him quite lethal. Yep, one look from him, and she was history.
His gaze settled on her and his mouth curved into a half smile. A sexy, knowing half smile, that mocked her bravado. He knew her thoughts. Knew she still desired him as much as she had the day they’d met. And the day they’d first made love. And the day they’d said goodbye.
Tyler didn’t move. He simply sat where he was, watching her. She didn’t move either, couldn’t. If she took a step now, it would be to hurl herself at him.
To cover his mouth with hers, to drink from his lips and to accept the inevitability of their reunion.
Had anyone walked across the path of their gazes, they would have rebounded off the tangible tension that locked them together. The look in his eyes was hot, insatiable, and he made no effort to hide it.
The pulse in her neck beat harder and faster. Her breath came in shallow, sharp blasts. She briefly questioned her decision to wear the black cocktail dress. It didn’t cover nearly enough of her legs, and the plunging neckline revealed altogether too much cleavage, but she could hardly worry about her clothes now. She’d worn the dress for Steve.
Hadn’t she?
Tyler lifted his drink, tipped the glass in her direction, then downed the last drop. He stood, dropped a couple of bills on the table, slung a blazer over his shoulder and walked over to her. If they were in a movie, she thought, he wouldn’t have said a word. He’d merely have stopped an inch away from her, lowered his head to hers and kissed her.
But this wasn’t a movie. This was real life, and women who were engaged to be married did not get swept off their feet by ex-lovers.
“Tyler,” she greeted him when he was about a meter away.
“Katie.” He nodded as he closed the gap. “You look beautiful.”
If his gaze had been hot before, it burned now.
“Thank you.” Her voice was throaty, and she didn’t like it. I’m so sorry. This was supposed to be an evening with all three of us, but Steve had an emergency at the practice. He can’t make it.”
“I know.” The heat in his eyes did not lose one bit of its intensity.
“I just spoke to him.” He paused, and smiled. “Looks like it’s just you and me.”
She’d have answered, but his smile knocked the oxygen from her lungs.
“You ready to go, or would you prefer a drink first?”
“Go,” she said, and then attempted to string a sentence together.
It shouldn’t be too difficult. One thing she and Ty never had trouble with was talking. “The show’s starting soon. We don’t want to miss the beginning.”
Darn, it was hard forming words. Ty’s hair was damp, and he smelled of soap and aftershave and man. Concentrating became difficult when every time she inhaled she breathed in his scent.
He placed his hand on the small of her back, steering her out of the bar. A small, casual gesture, yet her skin prickled beneath his touch, sending waves of longing radiating through her.
He should have moved his hand away, but he didn’t. She should have stepped away from him, but she didn’t. Instead, she slowed her pace infinitesimally, prolonging the sweet moments of contact.
It wasn’t until they took their seats that he removed his hand. Her back felt instantly cold.
Needing to distract herself from Tyler’s intoxicating touch, she asked about his work. “Do you think you can get involved with this company? Would the resort be a viable investment?” Well, who would have thought it? She could make intelligent conversation.
Tyler twisted his lips. “Truthfully? Yeah, it probably would be viable, and profitable too. But you know what? I hate this place and everything it stands for. I hate the fact that it’s a hideous blemish in a beautiful suburb, and I hate the idea of investing in a company that makes its money from gambling. The idea just doesn’t sit right with me.
“I thought you didn’t mind playing a little,” Katie said. See? She could handle this. She could chat with her old friend.
“I don’t. But last night I sat in the casino for a long time, just observing, and I didn’t like what I saw. I never would have imagined it, but I think I’d have an ethical problem profiting from another person’s loss.”
Katie experienced a little ethical problem of her own. She desperately wanted to touch Tyler. To lean into him and kiss him, but she couldn’t. She belonged with someone else. You going to recommend against investing with them?
“I’m going to do a lot more research first, but my instincts are telling me not to do this deal. Besides, if we did invest, we’d have to sink the entire fund into one business, and that is just a little too risky for my comfort.”
Tyler moved his head close to hers while they chatted. Each time he spoke his
voice reverberated through her ear, sending tiny chills racing down her spine.
Katie almost squirmed in her seat, trying to fight the sensations unfurling in her belly. She couldn’t help it. She shivered.
“You cold?” His mouth was by her ear. His breath stirred the hair on her neck.
“A little,” she lied. Again, her voice sounded throatier than she would have liked.
“Want my jacket?” he asked.
“No! Thank you.” The last thing she needed was to be wrapped in his warmth, and in his scent, while he sat mere inches from her.
He trailed his fingers down her arm. “You sure? You have goose bumps.”
His weightless caress tripled them. “It’s from the air con. I’ll be fine in a minute.”
The lights dimmed. “Let me know if you’re not. I’ll warm you up.”
The curtains opened. The show began. It took Katie all of the first half and most of the second to realize she had absolutely no idea what the show was about. She couldn’t focus worth a damn. Her full concentration, her total awareness, centered on the man on her left.
For the seven hundredth time she shifted in her seat.
For the seven hundredth time Tyler leaned in and murmured, “Everything okay?”
“Fine,” she muttered back, yet again. Nothing was fine. Absolutely nothing.
Not with Tyler so close she could touch him, yet so inaccessible he might as well still be in London.
“Katie?” His voice was so soft, if she hadn’t felt the whisper as a feathery stroke on her cheek, she would have doubted she’d heard it at all.
“Yes?”
Again, the feather-light tickle. “There’s something you should know.:
She froze then, incapable of movement.
“I never forgot a single minute.” He turned his head, his mouth a hairsbreadth away from her ear. “Not one single minute.” With his teeth, he nuzzled her earlobe. “How could I? You were the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Right there, in the middle of the packed-to-capacity theater, she dissolved.
Melted into a puddle of molten lava on her chair.
He must have been aware of her resistance flowing away. “Look at me, Katie,” he whispered.
She did.
“You never forgot either, did you?” How could he speak so softly, yet hold her attention so completely?
“Did you?” he asked again.
Forget? Being with Tyler? Not in a million lifetimes. She simply shook her head.
His lips touched hers. For a second. For one sweet, sweet second.
Then they were gone.
Tyler sat back in his seat, leaving her paralyzed. Perplexed. It wasn’t enough. One tiny, diminutive kiss could never be enough. She wanted more.
Wanted the world. When it came to Tyler she wanted nothing less than everything.
A slow burn began in her stomach. She yearned for his touch, for the feel of his mouth on hers, his hands on her skin. The flame intensified. A thousandfold. Voracious hunger swamped her desire like she’d never known.
A minute later his lips were at her ear again. “I can’t concentrate, Katie. The only thing I can think about is how badly I want to touch you.”
She began to shake. Longing and lust blended together, blurring reality.
There was no theater. There were no people. It was only herself and Tyler.
Only the two of them, in a world of possibility. A world of unspent passion.
She was on fire. Hunger and need throbbed through her. She had to be filled by him, completed by him.
He hummed low in his throat. “I want to make love to you again, Katie.”
“Tyler,” she whispered urgently, grabbing his hand.
His movements were liquid. He leaned forward to bring his face to hers. “Yes, Katie?”
“Do it.”
She had no clear recollection of leaving the theater. No knowledge of how she got in the elevator leading up to the hotel rooms. All she knew was that when she and Tyler were safely ensconced in the first car free of other people, she was finally, finally, back in his arms.
His kiss almost stopped her heart. And when it finally began to beat again, when she finally realized she’d pass out if she didn’t force air into her lungs and blood into her arteries, it was to an unsteady, uneven rhythm.
He didn’t just kiss with his mouth, he kissed with his whole body, melding her against him, into him, making them one. As his tongue stole between her lips, scorching her mouth, she swore she saw stars.
She was wrapped in his arms, exactly where she wanted to be.
Exactly where she belonged.
For the second time that evening, he placed his hand on her lower back. This time though, there was nothing subtle about his touch. He curved her hips into his, and her world stood still. He was hard. His erection pressed against her lower belly, burning through her dress.
The impact was electric. Her breasts tightened and sparks ignited between her legs. She moaned into his mouth.
He pulled his face away to stare at her. His eyes, though flecked with gold, were so dark they were bottomless pools of desire. He tried to speak, tried to say something, but couldn’t. Instead he took her mouth again in a kiss so carnal, so spicy, her knees threatened to give in.
When the lift opened to empty them on Tyler’s floor, he refused to break contact. He lifted her in his arms, carrying her effortlessly down the corridor.
Though her hands shook, she fiddled with the buttons of his shirt, starting at the top and making her way slowly down. With each button that popped open, she nuzzled into his chest, kissing the exposed flesh.
The flesh she’d loved so well. So thoroughly.
The third button revealed a nipple, small, and masculine, and hard.
She placed her lips around it and sucked gently.
“Katie,” he rasped.
He’d stopped walking and now stood beside a door.
“Is this your room?” Forget throaty. Her voice was almost nonexistent. God, she needed him so bad. Needed to fill the emptiness in her loins.
“Yes…” His voice broke as she ran her tongue over the hard nipple a second time.
“Open the door. Now. I need to feel you moving inside me.” Only Ty could give her what she needed. Only Tyler.
How he managed to rummage around in his pocket, remove his key card and get the door open, was beyond her but then most everything was beyond her at that moment. The only thing she could comprehend was her fierce need to consume Tyler Bonnard, whole.
Her body was made of liquid heat. When Tyler set her on her feet, inched the strap of her dress over her shoulder, exposing her breast, and took her nipple in his mouth, she swore she saw steam smoldering between her flesh and his lips.
The impact of his mouth on her nipple was dizzying. The world spun.
The sun dipped and rose. Her head dropped back, and she moaned. Only Tyler. He was the only man who ever made her feel like this.
And then her mobile phone rang. The sound shrill and invasive.
She froze.
“Ignore it,” Tyler growled as he grazed her breast with his teeth.
She couldn’t.
“It’ll stop in a minute.” He slipped the second strap over her shoulder, revealing her other breast. As his hot lips covered her nipple, she listened to the persistent trill of the phone.
Until it stopped.
She relaxed and brought her attention back to Tyler. Her breasts were cupped in his hands. His mouth was an inch away from hers.
“Sweet, sweet Katie. I never forgot you. Never forgot this.” His lids were hooded and his voice low. “I never for one minute stopped loving you.”
It was impossible to tell who kissed whom, but their mouths joined together again, and Katie’s toes curled from the pleasure his lips gave her.
Tyler still loved her.
“I am so sorry I left you, so sorry I caused you pain. It was the last thing I wanted. Ever.”
She ran her hand over his hip. Slid her fingers along the hard length of his cock. He jerked into her touch, filling her palm and moaned.
God, she held him again. Felt his excitement and his arousal. It matched the wet heat between her legs perfectly.
His pants were a restrictive barrier, a concrete wall between them, and she lowered her other hand to grasp the buckle of his belt. She needed to feel his naked flesh. Needed to feel the pulsing heat of his cock. Slowly, she slid the belt through the buckle and pushed it out of the way. She twisted his button through the hole and then eased the zip over his solid bulge.
So close. She shoved the flaps aside and touched the waistband of his undies.
Tyler hummed low in his throat.
She pushed at the elastic, felt the swollen tip of his penis under her fingertips and groaned into his mouth.
And then his phone rang.
And rang.
And rang.
She broke the kiss, pulling away as reality crashed in on their rapture.
“It’s Steve,” Tyler said unnecessarily. One minute before desire had darkened his eyes. Now guilt shadowed them.
Self-loathing filled her. She looked down at her naked chest.
“It’s Steve,” he said again and took a step away from her.
Her breasts heaved, wet and glistening from Tyler’s mouth. Her dress hung around the belt she’d cinched in at the waist. She swallowed hard as she realized what she’d done. “He’s trying to find us. He… he said if he finished at a reasonable hour he’d join us for a post-show drink.”
What kind of filthy worm was she, seducing her fiancé’s best friend?
Demanding he sleep with her. In that instant she despised herself, and she despised Tyler, for what they’d just done to the one man who under threat of death would never harm them. He was her rock, her support, her mate. Steve was the man she was soon to marry.
A wave of nausea nearly bowled her over. How could she? How could they?
She stared at Tyler. He breathed heavily and ran a tense hand over his clenched jaw. His eyes were clouded with desire, doubt and regret.
