Still, the way he’d handled things with her before pretty much sealed the deal on any replay of what they had that day on the beach. Not that he blamed her. He’d never called. Time had just slipped away as he’d buried himself in the launch of his restaurant. He’d had to give that his all. Putting everything he had, time, energy, the possibility of relationships, into the dream his mother instilled in him before she’d passed—died. And Vin knew then that he didn’t need the distraction a woman like Lily Perry could bring. Besides, it wasn’t as if she called him either, and though that thought was sobering, Vin had to infer from that that his not calling was no big loss to her. The way she’d come on to him that day and night under the docks, well, she just didn’t seem the type to wait for a formal invitation when it came to going after something or someone she wanted.
Even with that fact, here he was. When Simon invited him to the wedding and requested his empanadas, Vin—like a silly schoolboy instead of a full-grown man—thought . . . maybe. His mind went to the docks, and her eyes and those luscious lips that he’d never quite forgotten, and for a moment he thought there could be a chance for, he didn’t know what . . . just, something.
Vin forcibly pushed the ridiculous feeling of maybe aside as he took Lily in his arms and tried to look at the situation objectively. This was no big deal, he told himself. She was just a pretty woman he was dancing with at a friend’s wedding. Hell, that in itself made the situation pretty extraordinary. Vin didn’t dance. Just like he didn’t waste time on silly thoughts of maybe. That was something he hadn’t done in longer than he could remember. Maybe was for dreamers, and he liked to spend his time now firmly planted in reality and absolutes. The only dream he dared believe in, thanks to his mother, was his restaurant, Canela and at least with that he had some bit of control over it.
But as the music took on a sexy strain, and Vin got his first real feel of Lily Perry in longer than he’d care to remember, his arms and his betraying heart couldn’t deny the perfection of the moment. The woman was lush. No petite flower, despite her pretty name, Lily was tall and, for lack of a better word, sturdy. Vin almost pulled a face as the odd word entered his thoughts and he tripped over her feet.
“Ouch!”
“I’m sorry,” he stammered out. Shit. So much for his cool factor. He needed to focus. But looking into her big brown eyes, eyes that were at the same time cunning and still innocent, and getting a glimpse of the direct challenge in them made him want to kiss her until her sooty lashes fluttered and those eyes rolled back in her head.
Why was she so perfect? So put together and so damned cultured? She was from here. And not the fancy part of here either. She was a town girl, but the way she carried herself you would think she lived in one of the high-priced estates a few exits down the highway. The ones where the residents didn’t fight bumper-to-bumper traffic on the weekends but had helicopters fly them in from the city. Vin remembered she was that way at their first meeting too, out on the beach. Not as loose and carefree as her sisters but so carefully buttoned up and tamed that it was as if she was looking down on everyone even when she was supposedly just relaxing. She gave him the shock of his life when she followed him under the dock and gave him a memory that to this day still made his most erotic dreams pale in comparison, and all they did was make out. Make out! What grown-ass man ever said those words?
“Are we going to just stand here, or should I take the lead?”
Vin blinked and mentally kicked himself. What the hell, man? Get it together. There’d be no fluttering or anything close to it if he stood there like an idiot all night. Vin attempted a shuffle and sway, then proceeded to step on Lily’s crystal-clad foot again.
“Do you mind? I kind of need these feet for walking tomorrow.” Her tone was cool and detached and let him know he was failing monumentally with his attempt at impressing her.
“Shit! I’m sorry. I’m better in the kitchen than I am on the dance floor. Hell, I’m better at so many other things than dancing.”
She looked up at him with a definite spark in her eyes. “Other things?” she drawled out. “I remember.”
Vin chuckled. Her flirtation caught him off guard. He’d almost forgotten how quick she could be, but that’s what he’d liked about her.
“Maybe I’m talking about your cooking. Not that I’ve ever tasted it.” Her gaze narrowed. “I remember Simon saying something about your having a stand on the beach. You still working there?”
Vin nodded. “I own it, actually. Along with my mother.” He frowned. He wasn’t sure why he felt the need to be sure she knew that. What did it matter him owning what? And why add in his mother? She was gone. The thought never failing to bring a dull pain to his chest. “I’m sorry. What does it matter my owning the stand or not?” He forced a smile then. “Yes, I still have the stand and I open it seasonally, though I have another venture in the works now.”
Lily nodded. “That’s okay. You should be proud of your accomplishments.”
With her calm reassurance Vin felt his heart rate slowing to normal and felt literally and figuratively on better footing. For a few moments they were quiet and swaying as one on the dance floor. Vin fought not to get swept up and let his mind wander to anyplace further than the moment they were in. He knew it was safer that way. It was the way he’d been living. The way he’d survived the past year after losing his mother. He’d learned to live in the moment, focus on work, and enjoy the little pleasures of life as they came. To expect any more than that was naïve. Expecting or anticipating was a fool’s game. Tomorrow wasn’t promised, so he let that be, just as now with Lily in his arms he swayed and went the way the wind took him. Although strangely, it seemed to never take him that far from home.
The breeze picked up and sailed through the open doors of the balcony, where there were more guests mingling, filing into the hall of the VFW.
Vin watched as the few free tendrils of Lily’s upswept hair breezed across her face and against the length of her regal neck. She was lovely. Probably too lovely for him. Not to mention too much of a nice girl in that way that he knew deep down she’d be, despite all that talk he’d overheard between her and her grandmother about not wanting the whole settle-down, white-picket-fence life and the whole “come on let’s get hot and heavy under the docks” femme fatal character she played at with him. He knew the look, and she had it written all over her face. Well put together, accomplished, yes, she was all of that, but she was also Sophie’s older sister. And the fact was that the Perry women seemed to have been bitten by the marriage bug big-time. Despite his surprisingly putting down even deeper roots in town with his restaurant, that didn’t mean he wanted to settle down. Family life was not for him. Although he knew his stance was not the dream his late mother had for him, he also knew it was part of his survival right now.
Even so, the way her curves were fitting so nicely in his hands and lining up with his body in just the perfect way took him back to that amazing evening under the dock and had him wanting to line her up but good in the horizontal way. Made him for just a moment want to change his stance on all he thought he knew about himself and go back to that night and call her back even before she’d gotten home. It made him curse every wasted moment between now and then when he should have had her in his arms. They’d only gotten so far that night under the dock. Under the dock. How very high school of them both. Two grown adults. Not to mention the fact that they didn’t go all the way with having full on sex but both working each other to a state of complete satisfaction, so much so that he had a terrible habit of comparing many women since . . . to her. Vin supposed, though it was contrary to anything that made good sense, that was one of the reasons he’d never pursued her. She had the dangerous ability of instantly pulling him in. Making him want to be with her, be near her so much so that it was practically a need. And shit if that didn’t scare him. He told himself he never wanted to feel a need for someone, anyone. Not ever again.
Lily gave a short cough, a
nd when he brought his gaze up from her hips and back to those pretty eyes, they had lost any hint of playfulness. “Honestly, if you pulled me out here to just step on my feet and gawk at me without offering up any conversation, I can move on. It’s my sister’s wedding and I’m plenty busy. I have much better things to do than waste my time on the dance floor with you.”
The biting tone of her honey-dipped voice pulled Vin up short, and he frowned. Quickly snatched out of his momentary fantasy he was grateful for her sharpness; it bolstered his courage and told him he could handle her, that the distance she inserted made him stronger and let him know he could pursue her and come out just fine. “You call a dance at a wedding a waste of time?” he countered.
Lily cocked her head as she easily glided left and then right, dipping a little, leading him around the dance floor. Wait. When did that happen? Damn, the woman was bossy. “I call this dance a waste of time. I don’t engage in pursuits that don’t lead to anything. Time is too precious.”
Vin took that as a cue and ever so slightly tightened his hold on the small of her back. His fingertips inched along her spine as he attempted to shift their direction and take the lead. But the quick shift and stiffening of her spine let him know she wouldn’t be giving in so easily. “That’s funny, I consider this a perfect way to spend what could be an otherwise dull afternoon,” he said.
The wind blew again, and she moved her hand from his shoulder, leaving him cold as she tucked her wayward hair behind the pretty shell of her ear. “If it’s so dull, then what are you doing here?” she countered, not letting his remark pass. He should have known she probably wouldn’t take too kindly to having her sister’s wedding described as dull.
Vin cleared his throat, silently cursing the nerves suddenly lodged there and hoping to cover them up. “Simon is a friend, and I promised him I’d come and bring some of my empanadas that he likes.”
She pulled up short then and stopped swaying, looking at him hard. “So you’re that friend. I should have connected the two.”
Vin felt his brows draw together. “I don’t know how I should take that. What does ‘that friend’ mean?”
Lily shrugged, her beautifully sloped shoulders rising and falling in dismissal as she picked up the dance again. She really was a natural leader. The way she had no problem taking control made Vin wonder what she’d be like in bed. Could she ever give up control, and would it even really matter? Somehow he doubted it. “It’s nothing. I helped my sister out with the menu and, for the life of me, couldn’t figure how your empanadas would fit in with our southern soul food theme, but for some reason Simon dug his heels in and insisted on them.”
Vin had no comment but instead shrugged himself. Simon wasn’t the first to dig his heels in when it came to his food, and he probably wouldn’t be the last. What could he say? His food was good and he’d make no apologies for that.
“What?” Lily asked, her eyes widening. “You don’t care to elaborate, just a shrug?”
“There’s nothing to elaborate. I’m flattered Simon enjoys them so much that he was willing to go to bat for me, but I didn’t mean to cause marital discourse, especially not before the happy couple tied the knot. I’ll have to find a way to make it up to Sophie.”
“Hmm.”
Vin paused in the dance, causing her to momentarily stop and hit his chest, the feeling stirring him to no end. He looked down at her while telling himself to check his schoolboy, hormone-ish feelings. “That’s not too ominous a sound.”
She shook her head. “It’s nothing.”
“Well, it was a whole lot of nothing.”
“It’s just that I’d not heard Simon or Sophie talk about you all that much. I assumed you weren’t that close.”
Vin paused. The music continued while he held her in his grasp and looked her in the eyes. “So are you saying you wondered about me?”
Lily frowned, her full top lip curling just a bit as she cast her gaze somewhere past his shoulder. “I’m not saying anything of the sort. Just making conversation and letting you know that neither your name nor your empanadas ever came up.” She shrugged. “That’s all.”
Now it was his turn to say, “Hmm.”
Lily looked up at him, her expression a definite twinge of annoyance with an edge of exasperation. Vin grinned when she frowned harder.
“I’m just surprised,” he said.
She looked him in the eye again. “What in the world for? Is your ego so big that you feel you’d be the cause for conversation over the course of this past year?”
Vin thought long and hard. He could feel the tension in her back as her spine went impossibly more rigid, but she looked so pretty as the anger bloomed in her mahogany cheeks; all he wanted to do was kiss her. “Of course not, it’s just that my empanadas are that good.”
She shook her head slightly and rolled her eyes, though at the same time there was the slightest hint of a quirk to the corner of her mouth. For the life of him, he wanted to bend down and kiss her just then. Whoever the fool was he’d overheard her talking to her grandmother about who didn’t show today was losing out . . . big-time.
Just then a waiter dropped a tray, the clang turning everyone’s head. Lily winced, then looked up at him. She gave him a half smile as she started to pull out of his grasp, but her eyes held what he thought was a twinge of regret. “Sorry, but I’ve got to go and put this fire out.”
“Do you? But we haven’t finished our dance. Can’t someone else do it? Don’t you get to take a break sometimes? Let loose and enjoy yourself a little bit?” Taking a chance, Vin pulled her in closer, bringing her body flush against his so they were chest to chest and thigh to thigh. Though she gave him a little resistance, she leaned in, and the chance he’d taken was worth it, because she felt like perfection and smelled equally as delicious. Like spring rain and honey. The urge to lean down and taste her on that spot between her neck and shoulder, where that tendril of hair curled so prettily, was almost overwhelming. But her mind was already elsewhere, and her body was soon to follow as responsibilities won out and she pulled away, looking up at him. “You’re a bit of a pain in the ass, Vincent Caro.”
“And you should take a little time and taste what I have to offer, Lily Perry.”
The beauty of her smile brightening her face, bringing a light shimmer to her pretty eyes as she eased out of his embrace was worth his quip. “I already did, remember?”
The words brought him both regret and longing. “How could I ever forget?”
* * *
Lily walked away from Vincent Caro slightly unsteady on her feet. She was hot and shaky but trying her best not to let it show. Thank goodness for the dropped tray, because if the tray hadn’t hit the floor she was sure she would have. That or be swept up in the arms of all that man like some sort of romance heroine. It was so unlike her, but damn it, being in such close proximity to him it was hard to keep her knees from weakening. Vincent Caro was a lot to take in all at once, and she had never considered herself shy when it came to men, despite Uncle Gene and what he thought he knew about her status.
She let out a long breath as she scanned the mini-desserts before they were due to go out. In addition to the traditional wedding cake Sophie wanted an assortment of mini-dessert bites, since she’d never been one for cake. Lily had tried her best to keep her usual thread of control as she did in every tense situation, but still she picked up an individual peach pie and brought it to her lips. She’d found it incredibly hard to hold on to her sense of control when it came to him, not to mention everything on him was hard and, well, solid. From his chest to his arms to his thighs. When he pulled her against him out on the dance floor, her mind raced back to their time on the beach. Wandering to that unforgettable moment, the one that kept her up more nights than she’d care to admit after their encounter was over, making her feel both mentally and physically weak. She finished the mini-pie and looked at the now clearly evident space it left on the platter. Shit, she thought as she wiped her
fingers on a napkin and then quickly rearranged the rest of the desserts to fill in the spot. She thought she was over Vin. Over searching for that swept-away feeling, but encountering him, being so close to him, had done nothing but stoke a merely dormant fire that was smoldering but nowhere near dead. She was afraid that if they’d gotten any closer on the dance floor she’d have scandalized the place and figured out just how hard he could be. How reckless she could be. A smile pulled at the corner of Lily’s mouth. Not that that would be a bad thing at all. Just it would be a little too much for her family to handle. Sexpot Lily was way off the idea of the image they had of her, so no use for her to go bursting bubbles now.
So what that Thomas had bailed on her and not come through with escorting her to this wedding. It was his loss. They weren’t mutually exclusive, and as it turns out had never been. Lily let out a slow breath. To think she had actually considered hooking up with Thomas this weekend. For old time’s sake and well, it had been a while since she’d considered being with anyone. A long while. No matter though. Even the thought of him now paled in comparison to the man Vin was. Besides, the real annoyance was over the time wasted with him and the fact that she had to endure the wedding and the constant scrutiny of her family alone. But she couldn’t come down on Thomas too hard. It wasn’t like there was any real attachment or commitment made between the two of them beyond being available for business deals and family functions. Sure, for a while she thought they were a thing. He hers and her his, but now there was clarity and she wasn’t tied to him. She wasn’t tied to anyone. He was a convenience for her just as she was for him. Hell, a suitable escort was not easy to find in her hometown. It was almost as hard as it was to find a safe, passible and most of all satisfactory screw.
To Me I Wed Page 3
