Fortune's Greatest Risk (The Fortunes 0f Texas: Rambling Rose Book 4)

by Marie Ferrarella

  “To the continuing success of all your projects,” she said, raising her glass in a toast. “You are all to be commended. You and your brothers have brought fresh life to this sleepy little town.” She smiled warmly at him over the rim of her partially filled glass. “Thank you for all you’ve done.”

  “It was Callum’s doing, really,” Dillon told her quite honestly just before taking a sip of wine. He put his glass down. “He’s the one with the vision,” he said. “I just came along for the ride.”

  “You’re being incredibly modest,” she told him. “Don’t forget, I saw what the spa building looked like before you worked your magic on it, transforming it into an absolute work of art in comparison.” It was, she thought with pride, the first thing that new clients commented on.

  “I’d hardly call it magic,” Dillon protested uncomfortably.

  “Maybe you wouldn’t, but I would,” she told him. Hailey moved closer to him without being aware of it. “You managed to take an ordinary, lackluster building and transform it into a work of art that offers its clients hope—not to mention a variety of classes to help get them achieve their goals and get into shape.

  “Which reminds me,” she said, her enthusiasm for her subject growing by leaps and bounds as she talked, “I’ve decided to add a couple of new classes to the roster. One of the classes focuses entirely on yoga and the other is a beauty treatment oriented for every inch of your body. Well, not your body,” she corrected, her eyes traveling over him. “Your body’s definitely firm enough.” Realizing that she had gotten carried away, she cleared her throat. “So, what do you think?”

  He didn’t want to tell her what he was really thinking. That way only led to trouble. So instead, he played it safe and said, “I think that the term spa typically leads people to think that they’re going to be lying around and getting massages and toning treatments.”

  “Oh, we still offer that, too,” she assured him. “But the massages aren’t nearly as exciting to the clients as the other things we’re putting together. We’re approaching wellness from all different angles.” She smiled like a proud parent showing off her brand new baby. Hailey’s eyes sparkled as she asked Dillon, “So what do you think?”

  It wasn’t up to him to approve or disapprove, but he liked her asking his opinion he thought, taking one last sip of wine, then setting down his empty glass on the coffee table. “You’re the manager, not me,” he told Hailey. “I’m just the guy who designed the building and oversaw the work.”

  “Oh, I think you did a little more than just that,” she assured him. “Tell me, is your modesty a congenital thing, or is it something that you grew into gradually?”

  “I was raised to think that bragging was wrong.”

  “And I appreciate that,” she told him. “But there is a difference between bragging and accepting your due. Don’t get me wrong,” she added quickly, “I find your modesty charming and very sweet,” she told him truthfully. “I just want you to know how good you really are, that’s all.

  “Sometimes,” she continued, “with everything that’s going on, simple things—like words of appreciation—tend to get lost and I thought you needed to hear it, at least once in a while.”

  Humor curved his mouth. He couldn’t help thinking again how this woman was something else. “You did, did you?”

  “I did,” Hailey replied in all seriousness.

  By this point, egged on by her enthusiasm, there was very little space left between the two of them. So little that there was only enough room to fit in a piece of paper between their bodies. A very thin piece of paper at that.

  “Well then, allow me to thank you,” he said, completely mesmerized by her lips with every movement they made.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Her words came out in a low sultry whisper that in any other situation might have been referred to as the beginning of a siren’s song.

  Dillon would have liked to have blamed it on the wine, but he had only had a couple of sips. And even if he had downed the whole glass and then the rest of what was in the bottle after that, wine wasn’t nearly as potent or intoxicating as the woman sitting so close to him.

  One moment he was allowing himself to be mesmerized by watching her lips move as she spoke, the very next moment he was kissing those same lips, leaving himself utterly open and vulnerable to their magic.

  The last two times he had given in and kissed Hailey, he had somehow managed to be smart enough to anchor his thoughts to something, so that he could stop himself before he got too swept away.

  But this time, there was no anchor to keep him from being pulled in. This time he knew he was lost the second his lips came in contact with hers. Because doing this, making love with Hailey, had been on his mind ever since he had helped her find that frog figurine at Mariana’s flea market.

  Ever since he’d caught himself wanting to be a frog kissed by a princess.

  Almost immediately, he could all but hear his mind frantically crying out, Mayday! But even as it did, he sensed that it was already too late.

  He knew that he didn’t have a prayer of being able to bail out. At this particular time and place, he was a goner. And, heaven help him, a part of him reveled in that.

  Just like that, a sense of urgency filled him. He wanted to make love with this woman before his better instincts made a reappearance and prevailed upon his sense of decency, his desire to do the right thing by everyone, including Hailey.

  Maybe most of all by Hailey.

  That meant walking away from her. But heaven help him, he didn’t want to.

  As Dillon’s adrenaline rushed through his veins, making him feel like a man who was attempting to skydive without a parachute, he could feel her lips curving against his.

  She was smiling.

  Confused and curious, Dillon drew his head back to look at her. “What?”

  “Nothing. I’m just happy,” she told him simply. And then, placing a finger to his lips, she said, “No more talking.”

  She was right, he thought. No more talking. This wasn’t the time for that. If he talked, he might just wind up stopping what he was about to do and Lord help him, he didn’t want to. What he wanted to do was make love with this woman. He wanted to finish leaping out of the plane without that parachute, because even with everything that had been going on in his life—was going on in his life—he had never felt as exhilaratingly alive as he did at this very moment in time.

  Dillon found himself wanting to literally devour the moment. Devour her. And there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  * * *

  Hailey could feel her head start spinning again, but this time her head felt as if it were going so fast, she could barely catch her breath.

  She had come very close to giving up hope that Dillon would respond to her. Even today, there were times that she felt as if she was getting through to him, and other times she felt as if he was literally pulling away from her.

  For the life of her, Hailey couldn’t make sense out of his reluctance. They’d gotten along well, and when he kissed her those two other times, he hadn’t been just a man taking advantage of the moment or the situation. He was right there, totally committed. And he wanted her. Not just another conquest, not just a warm body for an interlude, but her.

  He wanted her.

  Which was why, each time he drew away, throwing up that force field between them, she couldn’t understand why he was doing it. Couldn’t understand why this sort of rejection was happening.

  But now, as they kissed over and over again with their bodies heating up, creating something between them that was theirs alone. The rest of the world just slipped away into an abyss.

  Hailey had her answer.

  He wanted her.

  And for her part, she was determined he wasn’t going to regret his choice.

  * * *

 
Dillon didn’t remember undressing her. Didn’t remember if she had undressed him or if he had shed his own clothing in a frenzied desire to get closer to her. All he knew was that his clothes were no longer on his body and she was nude on the sofa, like a spectacular goddess right in front of him, her body primed and ready to be worshiped.

  And he did.

  He worshiped her with his hands, with his eyes, with his lips that eagerly passed over every single inch of her, awed as if he had been allowed access to a shrine.

  Dillon couldn’t get enough of her.

  The more he kissed her, the more he wanted to kiss her. The more his blood heated within his body, demanding that he rush to avail himself of the final fulfillment.

  But if this was going to be their one and only time together—and he had made his peace with convincing himself that it would be just this one time—he was determined that it was going to be memorable. Not for him, because it was already that for him, but for her. He never wanted her to look back at this time and feel the sting of regret eating into her soul.

  So he made certain that he made love to her gently. He wanted Hailey to remember him as a kind lover. And most of all, he was determined to be a thorough lover.

  With that in mind, he brought her up to the point of ecstasy not just once but several times. When her body shivered beneath him, succumbing to a climax, Dillon was quick to start building toward the next one, delivering bone-melting strokes along her body with his lips and his tongue.

  With hot excitement rippling through his own body, he methodically moved down along hers, coaxing yet another explosion to reverberate throughout her moist, feverish body.

  Struggling mightily to catch her breath, she bracketed his shoulders with her hands. Then she tugged on them. When he looked up at her, she managed to get one word out in a hoarse whisper.

  “Together.”

  He understood.

  Seductively sliding his body up along hers, Dillon stopped moving only when he could look into her eyes.

  Again he caught her mouth, his lips slanting over hers time and again before he finally moved his knee urgently in between her legs. Silently, he got her to open for him.

  Then, weaving a necklace of lingering hot kisses along the top of her breasts and throat, Dillon moved up just a little higher until his eyes were on hers.

  And then, with one movement of his hips, he entered her and they became one palpitating unit, driven by one desire: to set the night on fire.

  His heart pounding in his chest, Dillon still managed to keep himself in check and move slowly at first.

  But as the tempo in his head increased, he began to move faster, and then faster still.

  Hailey found that she had somehow managed to feel the same rhythm that was driving him. It propelled her on. She was mimicking each of his movements, recreating them so that the need increased a little more each time she moved her hips against his.

  She could hardly contain herself.

  They raced one another to the very top of the highest peak before them and then, just for the tiniest of moments, they flew, wrapped up in ecstasy, reveling in the powerful feeling that had seized them, before they slowly began to descend, still joined, still one with the moment and each other.

  The euphoria of the afterglow lingered and they held onto one another—and it—for as long as they were able, each loath to surrender to reality and to the world that was waiting to claim them back.

  And when it was all over, Dillon lay there on the sofa, feeling her heart beating hard against his.

  Part of him was still floating, still wrapped in a delicious, impenetrable mist. But another part of him felt as if perhaps he needed to apologize for letting things go this far when he didn’t have the right to allow it to get this out of hand.

  Because in doing it, he had made silent promises that he was not at liberty to keep.

  He felt Hailey stirring beneath him as reality took on length and breadth. He could have sworn that the room had grown colder.

  “I’m sorry,” Dillon said, shifting in order to give Hailey as much space as he could on the sofa. It wasn’t much.

  She took his apology at face value. Dillon was just apologizing for crowding her on the sofa. Granted it wasn’t exactly the best place for this to have happened, she silently acknowledged, but even so, it had still been beyond wonderful.

  “That’s all right,” Hailey assured him. “The sofa wasn’t built for comfort, not when it comes to this sort of thing, anyway,” she allowed with a soft, gentle laugh. “But that’s why beds were invented,” she told him with a wink.

  The next moment, she was sitting up and then wiggling off the sofa to stand before him in what he could only describe as breathtaking magnificence.

  Taking Dillon’s hand, she drew him off the sofa, as well.

  “Why don’t we put my theory to the test?” Hailey suggested.

  He wasn’t following her. “Theory?”

  “About beds and sofas. If this was your place, we’d need a compass right about now to get to your bedroom, but my bedroom’s just down the hall,” she told him. Tugging on his hand, she led the way.

  It didn’t escape her attention that he paused to grab his slacks—and his cell phone—but she was feeling far too euphoric at the moment to let it bother her.

  After all, he seemed to pride himself for being perpetually on call. She accepted it as being part of who he was.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Feeling blissfully fulfilled, Hailey woke up the next morning with a smile on her face.

  Last night had been far and away the most wonderful night of her life. Dillon turned out to be everything she could have possibly asked for in a lover—and more. They wound up making love two more times last night. Each and every time they had, Dillon was even more of a considerate, generous lover than he had been the time before.

  The last time they made love, Hailey almost cried. She was that touched by him, that thrilled. Finally too spent to do anything but smile up at Dillon, she fell asleep curled up in his arms.

  When she opened her eyes this morning, she was surprised to find that sometime during what was left of the night, Dillon had pulled away from her. As she looked at him now, it was obvious that he had gone to sleep as far over on his side of the queen-sized bed as possible.

  It was probably just a sleeping habit of his, she told herself. Some people just needed space in order to fall asleep and they couldn’t do it if they felt confined or crowded.

  Don’t make a big deal out of it. Focus on the fact that Dillon made love with you three times, not that he seems to like to sleep unencumbered.

  She was close to convincing herself when her heart nearly stopped as Dillon’s eyes suddenly flew open. Her gentle, wonderful lover was looking at her as if she was some sort of invader. Or, at the very least, someone he would have rather not found lying next to him first thing in the morning.

  Don’t take it personally, Hailey. Maybe your Frog Prince isn’t a morning person.

  Determined to push past the painfully uneasy feeling that was beginning to form in the pit of her stomach, Hailey forced a smile to her lips as she looked at him.

  “So,” she asked softly, “how did you sleep?”

  “I slept okay.” His answer was short, abrupt, his voice distant.

  Hailey could have sworn she almost felt the walls of his fortress resurrecting themselves around Dillon right in front of her eyes. He was regretting what had happened, she thought. She could sense it.

  But she knew he had enjoyed himself, she silently insisted. Why was he doing this now? Why was he acting as if he didn’t care one way or another? Why wouldn’t he allow himself to open up to her?

  Her heart sank. What did she have to do to get through to him and get him to trust her?

  Well, crowding him wasn’t going to do it, she thought. Wit
h effort, she tried to get herself to back off.

  Momentarily at a loss as to how to move forward, Hailey said the first thing that came into her mind. When in doubt, offer food.

  “Would you like some breakfast, Dillon?” she asked. “I can—”

  “Would you mind if I showered first?” he asked, sitting up in bed and shifting away from her.

  She felt as if an arrow had pierced her heart. Did Dillon want to get the scent of her, of their lovemaking, off his body?

  Stop it. You’re going to make yourself crazy.

  Hailey deliberately forced another smile to her lips and said in as cheerful a voice as she could muster, “Sure, go ahead. The bathroom’s right over—”

  She didn’t get a chance to finish. Taking the blanket that was at the foot of her bed, Dillon secured it around his waist. With it draped over his body, he walked into the bathroom.

  Maybe he’d feel better once he’d showered, she consoled herself. The man who had made love to her last night couldn’t have just vanished without a trace. Not completely. Maybe he just needed a few minutes to himself so he could evaluate what he’d done, what had happened between them.

  Maybe—

  The sound of the running water in the shower was suddenly interrupted by the insistent beeping of a cell phone. Pulling herself together, Hailey looked around for her phone. Belatedly, she remembered that it was still in her purse. And she’d left her purse on the living room floor.

  The sound couldn’t have carried this far, she reasoned.

  But there it was again, that insistent beeping sound, demanding attention.

  Where—?

  And then she remembered. Dillon had brought his cell phone, along with his slacks, into her bedroom when they came in here last night.

  There it was again. The jarring noise scissored its way under her skin. It didn’t sound as if whoever was calling was about to give up.

  Given how early it was, she decided that Dillon was probably missing a call from one of his brothers. Knowing how dedicated he was to their projects, Hailey went looking for the cell.