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He slowly traced the same path upward again. This time, his fingers feathered under her lacy bra, barely touching her nipples. Both beaded, and a shaft of desire pierced Kate, shaking her.
She needed more. She wanted more. Her heart beat so swiftly and loudly she was sure he could hear it. She scraped her fingernails lightly down his chest, tangling them in the hair that was there. The dark stuff was tingling against her fingers. He moaned, the sound rumbling up from his chest. He leaned back against his desk, bracing himself on his elbows.
“I’m all yours, Kate,” he said.
His muscles jumped under the touch of her fingers as she traced the line down the center of his body. She circled his nipple but didn’t touch it, following the fine dusting of hair that narrowed and disappeared into the waistband of his pants.
He pushed the cups of her bra off her breasts. It hung open around them. He pulled her closer until the tips of her breasts brushed his chest.
“Kate.” He said her name and she quivered. This was what she’d always wanted from Lance. And now it was hers. He was hers.
His erection nudged her center and she clenched her vagina, wishing he was inside her. She shifted around, trying to feel the tip of his penis against her mound, but it was impossible with her skirt on. Her skirt was hiked up but it wasn’t enough.
He kissed his way down her neck and bit lightly at her nape. She shuddered, clutching at his shoulders, grinding her body harder against him.
He found the zipper on the side of her skirt. It loosened as he pushed his hands under the fabric. His big hands slipped into her panties, cupping her butt and urging her to ride him, guiding her motions against his hard-on. He bent his head and his tongue stroked her nipple, and then he suckled her.
Everything in her body tightened. She grabbed Lance’s shoulders, rubbing harder and faster against his erection as her climax washed over her. She collapsed against his chest. He held her close. Having Lance act out her fantasy, having him be the man who fulfilled her sexually was more than she’d expected. She wrapped her arms around him, resting her head on his chest and listening to the beat of his heart.
This was more than just a fantasy. This was love—real love—and she didn’t know what she’d do if this didn’t last.
Lance had never seen anything more beautiful than the passion in Kate. She was more than he’d ever imagined she could be. Her makeover had shown him the woman she was, but the last week he’d helped her realize the woman she could be.
She was exquisitely built. He knew she had body issues, but he loved the imperfection of her. It was what made her a real woman and not some airbrushed ideal that he’d never be able to touch. She was so soft and feminine that she brought out all of his protective instincts, making him want to shield her from the world.
He pushed the straps of her open bra down her arms. Her breasts were full and her skin flushed from her orgasm. Slowly, he caressed her torso, almost afraid to believe that Kate was his.
Her nipples were tight little buds beckoning his mouth. He loved her breasts and couldn’t get enough of them.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice pitched low and a slight blush covering her cheeks and neck.
“For what?”
“Coming without you,” she said.
There was something very fragile about Kate and no matter how much headway he made with helping her to realize how much he wanted her, she still was unsure of herself. He pulled her more fully into his arms, cradling her to his chest. She closed her eyes and buried her face in his neck. Each exhalation went through him. He wanted her.
He was so hard and hot for her that he might come in his pants. But he was going to wait for her signal. That was the point of this entire dinner that he’d planned. He wanted some time alone, away from his place, where he could let her have the lead in their relationship.
He felt the minute touches of her tongue against his neck, and his cock hardened. Her hand slid down his chest, opening his belt, unfastening the button at his waistband and then lowering his zipper.
Her hand slid inside his boxers, up and down his length. He tightened his hands on her back. He glanced down his body and saw her small hand burrowed into his pants, saw her working him with such tender care he had to grit his teeth not to end it all right then. But he wanted to be inside her the next time one of them climaxed.
Glancing down, he saw her smiling up at him. He stepped away and laid down the cashmere blanket he’d brought in earlier, urging her over to it. She took a step and her loosened skirt fell off, pooling at her feet. She was left in just her skimpy lace panties and a pair of heels.
“Woman, I wish you could see yourself right now. You’d never doubt your sex appeal again.”
She smiled up at him. “It’s you,” she said. He leaned down, capturing her mouth with his as he shoved his pants further down his legs and then brought them both down on the blanket, settling down on top of her. She opened her legs and he positioned himself between her thighs.
The humid warmth of her center scorched his already aroused flesh. He thrust against her without thought. Damn, she felt good.
He wanted to enter her totally naked. But they’d had a birth control discussion and she didn’t take the pill so that meant he had to keep wearing condoms.
“Can you reach my pants, honey?”
She stretched her arm to grab them. She fished the condom out of his pocket and handed it to him.
He pushed away from her for a minute, rising up on his knees. He glanced over at her and saw she was watching him. Her eyes were on his erection and that made him swell even more. He put the condom on one-handed and turned back to her.
“Hurry, Lance. I need you.”
It was the first time she’d asked him to come to her and he couldn’t resist. She opened her arms and her legs, inviting him into her body and he went. He lowered himself over her and rubbed his erection against her mound. He shifted his entire body against hers, caressing her.
She reached between his legs and fondled his sac, cupping him in her hands, and he shuddered. “Don’t do that, honey, or I won’t last.”
She smiled up at him. “Really?”
He wanted to hug her close at the look of wonder on her face. Kate was a joy as a lover because she enjoyed the hell out of him and his body and their lovemaking. “Hell, yes.”
He shifted and lifted her thighs, wrapping her legs around his waist. Her hands fluttered between them and their eyes met.
He held her hips steady and entered her slowly. He thrust deeply until he was fully seated. Her eyes widened with each inch he gave her. She clutched at his hips, holding him to her, eyes half-closed and head tipped back.
He leaned down and caught one of her nipples in his teeth, scraping very gently. She started to tighten around him, her hips moving faster, demanding more. But he kept the pace slow, steady, wanting her to come again before he did.
He suckled her nipple and rotated his hips to catch her pleasure point with each thrust, and he felt her hands in his hair as she threw her head back and her climax ripped through her.
He started to thrust faster. He leaned back on his haunches and tipped her hips up to give him deeper access to her body. Her hips were still clenching around his when he felt that tightening at the base of his spine seconds before his body erupted into hers. He pounded into her two, three more times, then collapsed against her. Careful to keep his weight from crushing her, he rolled to his side, taking her with him.
He kept his head at her breast and smoothed his hands down her back. He wanted to just lie here with her in his arms for the rest of the night, but a knock on his office door had them scrambling to their feet.
Kate was horrified that someone was at the door and she and Lance were naked.
“Shh. I’ve got this. Go stand in the corner and get dressed.”
“I can’t believe I did this and now we got caught! My mom always said that if I behaved poorly, God would catch me out.”
Lance wanted to laugh but knew better. It was just that his mom had said the same thing once. It seemed something all mothers said. And he’d done enough “naughty” things in the course of his life to know that this wasn’t God’s hand.
“Lance, you in there?” Stan asked.
“Be right there,” he said. He pulled his pants up and fastened them.
He found his shirt and put it on. He wasn’t about to embarrass Kate by answering the door half-dressed. She was fumbling with her clothes and he wanted—no needed—to get her back into his arms.
“What do you need, Stan?”
“Sorry, sir, but there is a Mr. Martin from the arson investigation here to see you. He’s not on the list for the building so we couldn’t let him in, and you weren’t answering your phone, but you were still in the building according to your logs—”
“Not a problem, Stan. Tell Mr. Martin to have a seat and I’ll be down to get him in a few minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
He closed the door on Stan and turned back to find Kate completely dressed. Her arms were wrapped around her waist and she watched him with those wide eyes of hers. Only right now they seemed wounded and scared.
“Can we postpone our dinner?”
“Yes,” she said. “I need to clean up in the washroom and then—”
He stopped her with a finger over her lips. “Why don’t you go home, honey? I’ll stop by when this is over.”
She shook her head. “I think I need to be alone tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to reflect on this. That sounds silly, doesn’t it?”
“Not really.”
“Good. Because I want to make sense of this. Changing my image is one thing, but changing my core values… that’s something different.”
“Making love with the man you are dating isn’t a change in your values.”
“Yes, it is, Lance. I wouldn’t be in this situation with any other man.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re the one I love,” she said, and turned on her heel to walk away.
“Wait a minute, Kate.”
She stopped, but didn’t turn back. He wanted to say the hell with Martin and just keep her here until they finished this discussion.
But the refinery was his top priority right now. He was torn. For the first time since he’d taken over Brody Oil and Gas, a woman was coming between him and his responsibilities.
“Not now, Lance.”
“You love me?”
“Yes,” she said. “And I have to decide if I still want to have an affair with my boss. Because when Stan knocked on that door, all the love I felt for you was embarrassing and I don’t want that.”
“You shouldn’t be embarrassed. Stan doesn’t know you were in here or what we were doing,” Lance said.
“But I do. And I’m the one who will bare the shame of it. I don’t want to feel ashamed of anything between us. I hadn’t before but then all of a sudden…”
Lance understood. He realized that he needed to make this relationship between them more permanent. But he couldn’t until he broke things off with Lexi. He’d hoped to do that face to face, but a phone call might have to do it.
He pulled her back into his arms and refused to let her go. “Kate, I’m not hiding you or ashamed of you.”
“I know that, Lance. But I have been hiding. I know half the office has always guessed that I was in love with you and now… well, now it seems like you just noticed me since I’m… sexy.”
He was proud of her for thinking she was sexy. It was a complete turn around for her.
“Well, you are sexy. But that’s not what this is about. Listen, I have to wrap things up with Lexi. Then you and I can—”
“What do you mean you have to wrap things up with her?” Kate asked.
“I haven’t had a chance to talk to her yet. It’s not a big deal.”
“Are you still engaged?” Kate asked.
“Not to my way of thinking,” Lance said.
Kate pulled away and put her hands on her hips. “To anyone’s way of thinking… are you engaged?”
Lance looked down at her. This night was certainly not going his way. But he hadn’t lied to Kate from the beginning and he wasn’t about to start now.
“Yes, I am still engaged.”
Her lip quivered and her face lost all color. “I can’t believe this. I’m an idiot.”
She turned on her heel and he stopped her once again. “You aren’t. I meant everything I said to you.”
“Really? Because the only way for that to be true is for me to be your mistress. Is that what you had in mind for us?”
“No,” he said.
Lance’s phone started ringing and he knew he had to answer it. Damn it. “This is not over, Kate.”
“Yes, Lance, it is.”
Nine
Kate looked down at the speedometer and realized she was driving way too fast. Anger had gotten the better of her, and she could still feel the flush of shame on her cheeks. She forced herself to slow down.
A part of her sort of understood where Lance was coming from. She got that he might be waiting to talk to Lexi in person to break their engagement. And if he felt for her even a tenth of what she did for him, then the emotions and the attraction would have been hard to resist, engaged or not.
But the main thing that was bothering her was her own reactions. She’d forgotten who she was. Her new clothes and hair and make-up had made her feel like she was a different person.
And it was only as she’d been standing in the corner of Lance’s office, trying to quickly get back into her clothes, that she’d realized she was making a mistake.
Love shouldn’t feel like this, she thought as she turned into the garage of her town house. She parked her car and went inside.
Love should be something to be celebrated and shared. And for so long she was used to her love for Lance being her dirty little secret. It hadn’t occurred to her that she’d allowed that to become the rule for their relationship. She’d been used to hiding it and had allowed herself to be hidden.
The last week had been wonderful but she realized tonight that she wanted more.
She looked at the bracelet he’d given her. She knew that he didn’t think less of her than he did before. But she had no idea what he really wanted from her. Did he just want to continue their affair until it ran its course?
And was she willing to keep working for him—and sleeping with him?
That was the problem with being a modern woman, she thought. The lines in these situations were blurred. And she didn’t know which way to turn.
She turned the air-conditioner down and walked through the house to the shower. She washed, wishing she could wipe away the memories of Lance’s body inside of hers, of that closeness that they’d had together for too short a time.
She put on a sundress and walked through her home. She’d decorated it with antiques that she and her mom had found in Canton up near Dallas, and with photos of her family. But there was nothing that was really hers in it, much like the new clothing had been window dressing for a person she wanted to be. This house was what she’d always imagined a city girl would have.
But she’d never made that city girl’s life her own. Now she wanted to. No, she needed to if she had even the slightest hope of surviving this love she had for Lance.
She didn’t know the depth of her love for him before this month. Now she loved the way he smiled at her when no one else could see them. She loved the way he went out of his way to surprise her and she loved the way he made her feel like she was it—the only woman in the world that he wanted to see and spend time with.
And that kind of love… well, it wasn’t going to go away. So she had to figure this out. Could she continue her affair with him while he was still engaged?
There was a knock on her door an hour later and she knew who it was without even looking through the peephole.
She unlocked the door and opened it, but stood in the doorway. “Lance.”
“Can I come in?”
She tipped her head to the side, considering it. He’d been to her place once before but never as her lover. All of their trysts—what an old-fashioned word, she thought—had taken place at Lance’s.
She decided to let him in. Obviously they needed to talk. “Sure. Is everything okay with the investigation?”
“Yes. Mr. Martin was getting some restless employees at the fire scene one he needed me to keep them clear.”
She led the way into her living room and heard him close the front door behind him. She sat down in the Kennedy rocker that had been her grandmother’s and took a sip of lemonade.
“Can I get you a drink?”
“A beer would be great,” Lance said. She noticed he had the picnic basket in his hands. “Have you eaten?”
“No, I haven’t,” she said.
“I’ll set this up while you go get my beer. I am starved. It has been a really long day.”
“Yes, it has,” Kate said. Sleeping with the boss took a lot out of her. She didn’t like the way that sounded—even to herself. She found a Coors Light in the fridge and brought it out to Lance. He smiled at her as he took it.
He took a long draw from the bottle, then set it on the coaster on the coffee table.
The food he’d put out was a cold pasta and chicken salad. It was exactly the kind of dinner she liked on a hot July night and she didn’t kid herself that Lance hadn’t planned it that way.
He was a man who noticed things.
“Thanks for dinner,” she said, as she sat down beside him on the couch and picked up her fork.
Kate steered the conversation to work and to Mitch, who was due back from DC by the end of the week. She did her level best to make sure that they didn’t have a chance to talk about her confession of love.
But then they finished their meal and Lance leaned back against the couch, stretching his long arms along the back of it. “So you love me?”
Lance had thought of nothing else during his drive over to her place. No woman had ever told him she loved him. And that included his fiancée and his mother. He wasn’t a man who went out searching for the softer things in life. He took what he wanted and let the devil take the rest.
But he wanted Kate’s love.
Now that she’d said she loved him, he wanted to hear her say it again. And he wanted to take her and have her say it while he was buried hilt deep in her sexy little body.
“I… yes, I do love you, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to just let you walk all over me.”
“I didn’t think for a moment that it did. Actually I have no idea what it means.”
“What are you saying?”
“Just that love isn’t something I’ve had a lot of experience with.”
“Well, you’re the only guy I’ve ever loved so I guess neither of us knows much about this,” she said.
But Kate knew love better than Lance did. He knew she’d come from the kind of family that people liked to complain about but was filled with love.
“And I’m not sure that’s a good thing,” Kate said.
“Why not?”
“Because love shouldn’t be one-sided. It’s not healthy.”
“Listen, Kate, I’m not about to promise you something I can’t deliver.” Losing Kate wasn’t something he was prepared to do. Having had her, he didn’t know if he’d ever be ready to let her walk out the door.
“I appreciate that, Lance. But I have to do what’s healthy for me, too. I just can’t keep loving a man who never puts me first.”
“That’s not fair. I’ve put you first.”
“Yes, but in the privacy of your office or your home,” Kate said quietly.
She was tired of being hidden from the world, which suited him fine—he got that. But he didn’t want Kate to think she could manipulate him into doing whatever she wanted. It was important to him that she let him take the lead in their relationship.
“What can I say?”
She bit her lip and then leaned forward so that her face was turned away from him and her arms rested on her knees.
“If I have to tell you, then I guess that means there isn’t anything to say.”
Lance wasn’t sure what she wanted. Hell, that was a lie, he knew exactly what she wanted. “I’m not going to say I love you, Kate. I just told you I have no experience with that emotion.”
“I don’t understand how you can say that. You have dated a lot of women.”
“None of them have loved me.”
“Well, your mother did and your father, too, right? And Mitch loves you.”
Lance shrugged. The devotion his brother and he had didn’t fit into the mold of what he’d call love. It was just a bond that had been forged in the fire of their upbringing. And there was little in the world that would change that. “I don’t know. What’s between Mitch and me isn’t like you saying you love me.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“Because I want you to love me. That feels right to me, Kate. A part of me thinks you belong to me. Right or wrong, that’s the way I feel.”
“Belong to you?” she asked.
He nodded. What would he do if she said to get out? Not just out of her house but out of her life? He’d just told her that she was his. And she was. That was as much as he could feel for a woman.
“I like the thought of being yours, Lance. But I’m confused.”
“I can appreciate that. What would it take to clear things up for you?”
“You are still engaged to Lexi,” Kate said.
“I’m ending that, Kate. I can’t marry another woman when I’m involved with you.”
Lance realized in that moment that he’d do whatever she asked if it was in his power. He needed everything in his relationship with Kate to be resolved. It was past time for him to figure out what he wanted as a man.
And everything kept pointing to Kate.
“I guess I need some time to think about that,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been loving you forever and maybe it’s time to figure out what that really means to me—and to you.”
Lance didn’t like the sound of that. But he wasn’t about to beg for her affection. He’d heard too many fights between his parents that had gone the same way.
“I’m not going to play games with you, Kate. If you want to be with me—if you love me—then I think you can put a little effort into being with me.”
Kate crossed her arms over her chest. She looked at him and he knew he’d said the wrong thing. “I’ve been loving you for a long time, Lance Brody, and you never even knew I was alive. So you do what you have to. I’m not playing games with you. I’m just standing up for myself. And I don’t like you trying to push me around.”
“I’m not pushing you around,” Lance said.
He should have guessed that her love wasn’t real. It was probably tied to the sexuality of their relationship and the fact that he was the first man to make her feel like a woman.
Kate shook her head. “I didn’t say you were doing anything wrong. I just need to think. And you need to end things with Lexi. I’m not going to stop loving you overnight, Lance.”
“Well, I’m not too sure about that. It seems like you have a checklist of things I need to do to win your love and once we check them all off you’ll be mine.” Lance stood up and walked to the front door. “I guess you haven’t changed as much as you’d like to think you have because you are still standing on the sidelines of life, waiting for it to happen to you.”
Kate watched Lance walk away and fought not to call him back. But he’d lied to her. He was still engaged to another woman and worst of all, he didn’t love her.
She closed the door and went back inside. She walked through the quietness of the living room, seeing the remains of their dinner.
She didn’t understand how a man could be so perfect that she’d fall in love with him, and yet so disappointing.
She didn’t know if it was just a sop for her heart or not, but she couldn’t force herself to believe that Lance didn’t care for her at least a little bit. Even if he didn’t call it love.
Her house phone rang and she checked the caller ID.