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“I told you about my past experiences with passion, Iris,” she said, remembering the couple of times she had slept with guys and the disappointment she’d felt afterward. She hadn’t heard the bells and whistles, nor had she felt any earthquakes like Iris had claimed she would.
“That’s why you owe it to yourself to try things out one more time. I bet Mr. Ten will deliver.”
At that moment Pam saw Dillon’s car pull into her yard. Moments later she watched him get out. Today he was wearing a pair of khakis and a dark green shirt. And just like yesterday and the day before, he looked handsome and utterly sexy.
Her gaze scanned over his body and, as if he knew she was staring out the window, he turned and looked directly toward her. She immediately felt heat suffuse her body at the same time blood gushed through her veins. Yes, there was no doubt in her mind that if given the chance he could deliver.
“Pam?”
“Yes?”
“When will you be seeing him again?”
Pam licked her lips as she continued to stare. Dillon hadn’t moved. He was still standing in that same spot gazing through the window. He couldn’t see her, although she could see him. Yet it was as if he knew she was there, knew he was holding her attention. She wondered if he had any clue about the thoughts flowing through her mind at that particular moment. If he did, he would probably jump back into the car and hightail it off her property.
“Pam?”
“I see him now, Iris. Through the kitchen window. He just drove up and has gotten out the car.”
“Then the ball is now in your court, Pam. And you owe it to yourself to play it.”
* * *
Dillon leaned back against his car as he stared into what he knew was Pam’s secret window. Somehow he knew she was there, looking at him, with the same intensity with which he was looking at her.
Ramsey’s words of last night rang in his ears, and the thought of wanting her made his breathing quicken and his guts clench. If she knew what he was thinking she probably wouldn’t let him within a foot of her, and definitely not inside her house.
He had soaked in the bathtub in his hotel room last night with his eyes closed and thought about her. He had gone to bed thinking about her. And he had awakened that morning thinking about her. A woman who belonged to another man.
Not yet though, as Ramsey had pointed out to him last night.
He would be out of line to make a pass at her, so he wouldn’t. But he intended to do everything to incite her to make a pass at him...if she was interested. If she wasn’t, then he knew he would have to control his urges. But if she was interested, then those urges would be set free.
There was a chance that he was reading too much into the looks they had exchanged across the dinner table last night, or the heat that he’d felt. But there was only one way to find out. If she decided to indulge in this thing he felt between them, then that meant her relationship with Fletcher wasn’t as tight as it needed to be.
Deciding he couldn’t stay outside and stare into the window for the rest of the day, he drew in a deep breath before shifting his eyes away to move toward her front door. He took his time walking up the steps and by the time he lifted his hand to knock, the door had opened and she stood there.
His guts clenched harder as he lowered his hand to his side. She looked as beautiful as usual, but today she was wearing her hair differently. It appeared fluffed up and it billowed around her shoulders like she had used one of those curling irons on it.
His gaze moved from her head to her eyes and saw her watching him as intently as he was watching her. He then moved his gaze lower to her lips. They were the same lips he had dreamed about last night. Many times.
Then his eyes followed the hand that she nervously ran down her throat to the V of her knit top. He couldn’t help but notice how her breasts swelled in perfect formation against the blouse.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said, snagging his attention as his gaze shifted back to her face. Captured her eyes.
“I know,” he said in a voice that sounded husky to his own ears.
He didn’t think he needed to explain. For some reason he sensed that she fully understood. “Am I allowed in today?” he asked as a smile touched his lips. She had yet to move from in front of the door.
She blinked as if she’d just realized that fact. “Oops. Sorry about that. Yes, please come in,” she said before stepping aside.
He strolled past her, took a whiff of her scent and felt his entire body respond. Instantly. Why was the sexual chemistry between them stronger today than yesterday? More potent. Today, they seemed to be on instinct, with little or no control.
When she closed the door behind her and leaned back against it, she eyed him warily. He didn’t say anything for a while. “And how are you doing today, Pam?”
“I’m doing fine,” she said, in what sounded like a strained voice. “What about you?”
“I’m doing okay,” he said. No need to tell her about his restless night, in which he had dreamed endlessly of her and all the things he wouldn’t mind doing to her.
“I guess you’re eager to get back to reading that journal.”
He chuckled. He was eager all right, but that journal wasn’t what was driving his eagerness. “Sort of.”
Again he wasn’t entirely sure just what was going on between them. What had happened since yesterday to make them so sexually charged that the very air they were breathing sizzled. He pulled in a deep breath, both feeling it and fighting it.
“I’m going up to the attic now,” he said in a low voice, just loud enough for her to hear. “You probably have a lot to do, so forget that I’m here.”
She smiled in a way that sent blood rushing all through him. “I doubt I’ll be able to do that.”
“Do what?” he asked.
She held his gaze. “Forget that you’re here.”
He wanted to ask why, but decided not to do so. She was the one who was engaged. If any boundaries were going to be crossed, she would have to be the one to take the first step over. “You can try,” he suggested.
“And if I can’t?” she asked in a somewhat shaky tone.
Holding her gaze, he breathed in and pulled more sexually charged air into his lungs. He felt it stirring in his chest and flowing in his extremities, causing the lower part of him to harden. Throb. He even felt a sheen of sweat form on his brow, which compelled him to say, “Then you know where I am.”
Without saying anything else, he turned and headed slowly up the stairs to the attic.
* * *
Pam leaned against the door and watched as Dillon disappeared up the stairs before releasing the breath she’d been holding. She was too shaken to think straight, and too tempted to follow him up those stairs to move away from the door.
She glanced down at the ring on her finger, the ring Fletcher had placed there. Instead of feeling guilt, she felt desperation as Iris’s words rang loud in her ears. “Then the ball is now in your court, Pam. And you owe it to yourself to play it.”
If only Iris knew just how much she wanted to play it. Maybe her best friend did know, which was why she’d said what she had. Iris did know love and she understood passion. She had been happy with Garlan and when Garlan had been taken away from her so suddenly and unexpectedly, Iris’s life had nearly fallen apart.
She had been there for Iris, to encourage her to go on with life, and now Iris was there for her, encouraging her to do something for herself before it was too late. Before she legally became Mrs. Fletcher Mallard.
But still, she needed to pull herself together and wondered why she would even consider following her impulses with a man she’d met only three days ago. What was there about Dillon that drew her to him, made her feel things she’d never felt before? Made her desire things she’d never before wanted?
Something you’d tried twice and left you disappointed.
Why did she think with him it would be different? Why did a part deep inside of her know that it would? It might be the way he looked at her, the heated intensity she felt from his gaze, the desire she saw even without him speaking a single word.
Those were the things that were urging her to move away from the door and propelling her to walk up the stairs, one step at a time.
* * *
Dillon stared at the words written in the journal, his eyes feeling the strain of seeing the words but not comprehending them. He had read the same sentence three times, but his mind was not on what Jay Novak had written close to a century ago. Instead his mind was on the woman he had left downstairs.
Why did some things have to be so complicated? Why had the Novaks’ homestead been the first place on his list in his quest to find the key to his heritage as the eldest son of the Denver Westmorelands? And why was he lusting after a woman who another man had already claimed?
Dillon closed the journal and rubbed his hand down his face. Fletcher Mallard was a successful businessman and probably a prime catch for any woman in these parts. Evidently there was something about the man Pam had found to her liking.
And there was evidently something about him that she’d also found lacking.
No matter how things appeared, and regardless of the fact he’d only known her for three days, he refused to believe, or even consider the possibility that Pamela Novak was the type of woman who could love one man and mess around with another. So he could only come to the conclusion that she was not in love with Fletcher. Then why was she marrying him, Dillon wondered.
Wealth? Prestige? Security?
It hadn’t been hard to figure out that Tammi had only been interested in him because he had made the pros, and the thought of being the wife of a professional basketball player had stroked her fancy. When he had given it all up, had walked away to handle his family’s business, he’d known she assumed it was only short term, although he’d always told her differently. When she couldn’t get him to walk away from family obligations, she had left.
Dillon’s thoughts were interrupted by the soft sound of footsteps approaching. He felt a quick tightness in his stomach. His entire being tensed in anticipation, knowing it could be only one person. He could no longer sit, so he stood and had placed the journal aside by the time Pam crossed the threshold.
His heart began beating wildly in his chest and his body automatically hardened at the sight of her standing there. She had come to him. He hadn’t been certain that she would, but she had.
His gaze scanned her body. He had meant to tell her earlier that he thought the outfit she was wearing, a white blouse and a dark blue skirt, looked good on her. It had been the first time he’d seen her legs and they were definitely a beautiful pair.
“Looks like it might rain later,” she said. She strolled over to the window to glance out. While she looked out the window, he was looking at her. The sun was still shining so he wondered how she figured it might rain later. If anything, he figured it might snow. Like Denver, Gamble had its sunny days and cold nights, especially this time of the year. But at the moment he didn’t care about either. The only thing on his mind right now was Pam.
She glanced over at him and he realized he hadn’t responded to her earlier comment about the weather. “Yes, it just might rain,” he said quietly.
She nodded and turned back to the window. His throat had started to go dry, while at the same time liquid fire raced through his veins. At that moment he decided she had made the first move and now it was time to make his.
Helplessly and with an urgency he felt all the way to the bottom of his feet, he slowly crossed the room, knowing each step was taking him closer to the woman he wanted. When he came to a stop behind her, she turned and looked up at him.
He gazed down into her face thinking she looked uncertain and indecisive. “You give. I take. No regrets,” he said in a thick voice.
Dillon hoped she understood because he meant every word. She glanced down at the engagement ring on her hand and his gaze followed hers. And while he watched, she twisted the ring off her finger and then placed it on the windowsill.
Then she looked up, met his gaze and said in a soft, barely audible voice the exact same words he’d spoken to her. “You give. I take. No regrets.”
Her words touched an inner coil within him, made desire drum through his entire body at a pace that had him breathing in deeply.
He took another step toward her and heard himself groan low in his throat at the same moment he reached out and pulled her into his arms. And with a hunger that he felt all the way to his toes, he lowered his mouth as she parted her lips. The connection was explosive, and sensations rocked through him as his mouth greedily took hers, desire flooding him from all corners and settling in his body part right below his belt.
His hands tightened around her waist when she began to tremble in his arms, and she kissed him back in a way that made everything within him, every single molecule, feel new, revitalized and energized. He couldn’t recall the last time he had feasted on a woman’s mouth the way he was feasting on hers.
He didn’t want to take the time to pause to pull air into his lungs. He just wanted to keep kissing her, continue pressing against her middle to let her feel the hard, solid evidence of just what she was doing to him, how she was making him respond.
The kiss went on, seemed unending until the cell phone in his pants pocket sounded. Of all the times to get a damn signal, he thought, and for a moment he refused to release her mouth, needing to ply it over and over again with strokes of his tongue, although each flick inside her mouth was causing his muscles to contract in a way they had never contracted before.
He hoped the phone would stop ringing but when it didn’t, he reluctantly pulled his mouth away from hers, after he’d swept his tongue against her already moist lips.
The ringing had ceased by the time he snatched the phone from his pocket and saw the missed call was a text from Ramsey. He checked the message and it said one word. Bane. Dillon gritted his teeth, wondering what the hell his baby brother had gotten into now.
He glanced over at Pam and thought at that moment he really didn’t care, since Ramsey’s message had interrupted the most passionate kiss of his entire life. Never had a kiss left him with his senses spiraling out of control and his entire body feeling like it had been torched into flames.
He knew Pam had been as affected by the kiss as he had. She seemed to be trying to pull herself together. They had done more than just grasped the moment, they had taken total control of it in a way that had them both still scraping for breath.
He watched as she slowly moved away from him to return to the window. She gazed out and he couldn’t help wondering if she had reneged and now had regrets. He tensed, refusing to let her off his hook that easily. “Come to my hotel room tonight, Pam.”
She swirled around and met his gaze but before she could open her mouth to say a single word, he reached out, pulled her back into his arms and took control of her mouth all over again.
The last time, he had kissed her with a need. This time it was with desperation. He refused to let her incriminate herself in any way, and if kissing her was the way to keep it from happening, then so be it. He would stand here and ply her mouth with his kisses forever if that’s what he had to do.
A short while later, when he finally released her mouth, she looked somewhat dazed and her lips appeared slightly swollen. He lifted his hand and pushed her hair from her face, tempted beyond reason to sink his mouth onto hers again. Just the thought of doing so made his hand tremble. He hoped she knew this wasn’t the end. Just the beginning.
And to make sure of it, he repeated the words he’d said earlier. “Come to my hotel room tonight, Pam.”
Again she looked up and met his gaze. Her lashes fluttered just seconds before she replied, “No.”
But before his heart could drop to the floor, she added, “Mr. Davis, the owner of the hotel, knows me, so that won’t be a good idea. However, my drama school is only a few blocks away on Durand Street. Will you come there?”
He nodded quickly. “What time?”
“Eight,” she said almost in a whisper. “I have a class tonight and everyone should be gone by then.”
A moment of silence purred between them and then she searched his eyes. “So, will you come?”
A smile touched his lips and he reached out and stroked her cheek with the back of his hand, leaned closer to her and responded in a low, husky voice, “Sweetheart, nothing short of death is going to keep me away from you tonight.”
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