Thank goodness a patient had given her an excuse for leaving the party early. Shay stopped at the full-length mirror and sighed. Faded jeans and a Sex and the City T-shirt hardly seemed the right attire for an office visit, but she didn’t have time for a trip home.
Shoving her purse over her shoulder, she headed for the doorway, remembering the night she and her friend Anna—a doctor who worked in her building—had gone to the Sex and the City movie for a girl’s night out. Shay had often seen Caleb as her “Mr. Big,” the kind of guy you want but never really have. But then, shockingly, during the movie the heroine, Carrie, had gotten her man—and married Big.
Shay had been happy, sad, confused…irrationally bothered by the loss of her Big/Caleb comparison, which had been oddly comforting but no longer existed.
Shay shoved aside her movie reverie as she entered the kitchen and found Caleb, Kent, her father and several other males sitting at the table, the poker game in full swing. The instant her gaze landed on Caleb, her breath lodged in her throat. Fortunately, she was quiet enough to go unnoticed, which allotted her a second to compose herself. That was, until she noticed who was sitting next to her father. With cards in her hand.
“Mom?” Shay asked in surprise. “What’s going on? You don’t gamble.”
“Hey, sweetie,” Sharon said, setting her cards face-down and then smacking Bob’s hand when he tried to look at them. She smiled at Shay. “Someone has to keep him from losing all our money before Italy.” She held up a wineglass. “Have some wine. It’s excellent.”
The kiss, her mother gambling—had she fallen asleep and woken up in another dimension? Suddenly aware of the warm blanket of Caleb’s attention, Shay said, “Can’t. I have to go to the office and meet a patient.”
“On a Saturday night?” Caleb asked, forcing her to acknowledge him.
“Dressed like that,” Kent added, eying her ripped-style jeans.
Irritably, Shay defended herself. “It’s all I have with me.”
“What in the world is such an emergency that you have to meet the client now?” her father grumbled.
Shay leaned on the island counter. “This client—” she intentionally left out the name for privacy reasons “—lost his wife three years ago in a mugging. The sudden trauma of losing her has created an obsessive-compulsive disorder. Two months ago—”
“Obsessive-compulsive disorder?” Caleb interrupted, his brows dipping. “And you’re going to see him alone in a deserted office building? Is there, at least, a guard on duty?”
“It’s safe,” she answered evasively. “Besides, this client is a kitten. And a kitten who wouldn’t harm a mouse for that matter.”
“So was Jack the Ripper,” Caleb said cynically. “Until they found out he wasn’t.” He pushed to his feet. “I’m going with you.”
“Hey,” Kent said, knocking on the table to get Caleb’s attention. “We need you in the game.”
“You mean you need my money,” Caleb corrected, shoving his chair back into place.
“Can’t have one without the other,” Kent pointed out, but Caleb wasn’t paying him any mind. He had his sights on Shay, and he closed the distance between them with a loose-legged swagger.
“Kent White,” Sharon scolded, “how about some concern for your sister?” Her gaze shifted to Caleb, her voice softening. “Thank you, Caleb, for looking out for Shay. I worry about her. It’s comforting to know you’re here for her while we’re away.”
Feeling the heaviness of Caleb’s keen inspection, Shay squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation of what would follow, silently willing her mother not to issue the oh-so-familiar “she needs a man” line. Not to Caleb, not with Caleb involved. But true to form, her mother added, “She needs a man in her life.”
“I don’t need a man in my life, Mom,” she said, her eyes snapping open to find all six-feet-plus of Caleb towering over her. He arched a brow, amusement in his eyes.
Her mother continued to mean well and make things worse. “I just want you to have a man to take care of you, Shay.”
Mortified despite having anticipated such a remark, Shay looked away from Caleb. “You take women back twenty years every time you make that statement, Mom.”
Several remarks from the males around the table followed, and Sharon banished them all with a wave of her hand. Except for Kent, of course, who waited for silence and said, “If you’d prefer a woman, sis, we are an open-minded family.”
“Enough,” Bob chided. “I don’t want anyone rushing my baby girl to the altar. She has two brothers. You and Caleb. She doesn’t need a husband until she is darn good and ready for one.”
Shay bit her bottom lip, tension rolling through her at the brotherly reference to Caleb. “On that note,” Shay said, “I should take off. I don’t want to be late.”
Kent turned off the attitude. “You need to learn to say ‘no,’ Shay.” He’d often told her she worked too hard and never lived life. It wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have right now. The whole “need a man” one had been enough. “Hurry and get back here.”
Shay pretended they were still jesting. “No,” she said. “See? I’m practicing on you. No poker for me.”
A conversation about how and when to get her parents to the airport the next day followed. Both Kent and Shay lived in central Austin, near their parents, but the airport was a good forty-minute drive south. Since Kent was traveling out of town on business as well, it made sense for him to drive their parents to the airport. And though her parents pointed out that Caleb lived forty-five minutes in the opposite direction of the airport, at the Hotzone facility, he insisted, he, like Shay, would be at the house before they left, to see them off.
Ready to depart, Shay glared at her father. “Don’t let Kent keep you up all night. You have a big day tomorrow.”
“I’ll go to bed,” he said. “I’m not gambling on no sleep and risk missing the alarm and a fancy vacation with your mother.”
“Then we better get to playing,” Kent said, pointing to the cards irritably and then at Caleb. “You hurry your butt back here lickety-split. We have some serious poker to play and not much time.”
“No can do,” Caleb said. “I’m all Shay’s until bedtime. And I have a sunrise jump in the morning.”
His words repeated in her mind. All Shay’s. Until bedtime! Shay gulped as discreetly as she could manage. Though the words were innocent enough to the rest of the group, they packed a solid punch to her.
This was hardly headed toward that talk-from-a-distance conversation she’d planned, and Shay’s mind raced for a way out. Turning to him, she said, “This really isn’t necessary, Caleb.”
His jaw set. “It’s necessary.”
Shay knew how uncompromising Caleb was when he made up his mind. He’d made up his mind. “Fine,” she said. “Let’s go.”
With no time to spare anyway, she heaved a sigh, murmured a goodbye and turned on her heels. She rushed to the door, Caleb close behind, so close he was at the door, pulling it open before she could. She didn’t look at him. She darted to the high wooden porch, humidity thick and restricting, her focus on the sky.
The half-full moon hung low in the horizon, the sky a swirl of blue, gray, orange and yellow. But it was all a haze in her midst. She was actually nervous. With Caleb. It was crazy, and the unsettling sensation sent her rushing down the stairs in flight.
Her car was just to the right of the front door. Caleb’s truck was to the left. She had to pause, had to tell him where they were going.
“I’ll follow you, so we don’t have to come back here and risk getting pulled into the poker game,” he said, sparing her the need to figure out what to say.
She dared a look at him. “You don’t—”
“I do,” he said, his jaw set the way it had been in the kitchen. Strong. Determined. Two words that often defined Caleb.
Shay tugged her keys from her purse. “Stubborn,” she added out loud. Another word that often defined Caleb. “You’ve al
ways been stubborn.”
“Determined,” he corrected, a slight lift to his mouth.
Shay turned away, afraid he’d notice she was looking at his lips. His full, sexy lips. Why did she keep looking at his lips? Because he kissed you, Shay, and you want him to kiss you again.
Shay paused at the side of her silver BMW and unlocked the door. The car had been a splurge the year before when her stockbroker fiancé had broken up with her. He’d said she wanted to love him but didn’t. After a few weeks of introspection, she’d known he was right. He’d been more buddy than lover. Comfortable. Safe. And not Caleb, though she barely allowed herself to think such a thing.
Nevertheless, the engagement had ended and Shay had bought herself a replacement for love and happiness—the car. Because she’d worked hard and she could survive—all by herself.
Deep in thought, Shay reached for the door handle when suddenly Caleb’s hand was there. She’d not heard him approach, or maybe he’d been by her side the whole time. Electricity shot up her arm, and Shay reacted, yanking her arm back.
If he noticed her rapid withdrawal, Caleb didn’t react. He opened the door and waved her forward. A gentleman. Nerves subsided ever so slightly as a memory of Caleb repeating his father’s words on many occasions skirted through her mind. “Soldiers are men of honor. They know good manners. Until you piss them off. Then they have none, so—”
“Don’t piss me off,” he finished for her with a grin. “That was my father. He didn’t say a lot, but when he did, he was a straight shooter every time.”
“Kind of like you,” she said appreciatively. “A nice change from Kent’s loud mouth. But I guess that’s why he does so well in sales. He’s always talking.”
They both smiled, and the charge in the air thickened into silence. Shay contemplated about ten things she could say to him, but as she raced through ways to turn them into sentences, nothing cohesive came to mind. Nothing overly coherent, for that matter. There was just her, Caleb and a kiss in the pantry.
“I know,” he said, as if one of the ten things had come out of her mouth when it had not. “We’ll talk. Let’s take care of your patient first.”
Silent understanding settled between them, and she nodded, but nerves fluttered in her chest again. Their game of tug-of-war had worked until now—one saying yes while the other said no. But Shay was really hungering for yes. If they were alone together, she feared she’d be weak, that she’d forget the potential fallout of an intimate connection between them. She’d most definitely kiss him again. And again. And, oh, yes, again.
Shay hurried into the car before she kissed him then.
6
CALEB FOLLOWED Shay to her office building, a white brick structure in the trendy Arboretum area of northwest Austin, surrounded by weeping willows and rows of perfectly manicured bushes. And as if all the privacy the greenery provided wasn’t enough of a safety concern, Shay had ignored the parking lot and headed into a garage beneath the building. Pulling his truck to a halt beside her car, Caleb took one look at the dark, vacant parking garage and shoved open his door with a mumbled curse. He stalked toward Shay as she exited her car.
“This is what you call safe?” he demanded. “What this is…is a perfect setup for someone to attack you. You could scream, and no one would hear you.”
“Good,” she said, slamming her door shut. “What were you thinking, kissing me like that in Mom and Dad’s pantry? What if someone would have seen us?” He was a few inches away, and she shoved at his chest. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”
He gently snatched her hand. “Kiss you or kiss you in the pantry?”
Bypassing a direct answer, she continued her rant—and damn, he’d missed her rants. “You can’t just decide to kiss me when you want to kiss me, after ten years of making me feel like crap for kissing you in the first place.”
“I’d like to think kissing me made you feel something other than ‘like crap.’ And for the record, I only did what you suggested. You said you kept thinking we should kiss again and get rid of temptation. And I decided that all the thinking and not doing was what always got us in trouble.” He tugged her closer, slid an arm around her waist. “And you didn’t kiss me ten years ago. We kissed each other.”
“I started it,” she said, swallowing against the raspy tone he noted in her voice.
“And I wanted it,” he promised her.
“But you never would have kissed me on your own.”
“Never is a long time for two people who want each other the way we want each other. We would have ended up here eventually, Shay, even without that first kiss.” His hand slid up her back, and he pressed her closer. He lowered his head, slowly bringing his mouth near hers. “There was enough electricity jumping off us today at that party to light up Texas. I spent every second after Kent interrupted us thinking about the forbidden kiss that would have happened had he not shown up. If we don’t do something about what’s between us, someone is going to notice—if they haven’t already.”
“We did do something about it,” she said, her breath warm on his lips. “We kissed and it solved nothing.”
“One kiss isn’t a lot of comfort after ten years of anticipation,” he said, his lips close to hers. He could almost taste her now. “Maybe we need to kiss again.”
She leaned into him and then suddenly pulled back. “Stop. No.” Abruptly, she pushed away from him. “We need to talk. You said we’d talk, and I’m holding you to it. And not when I have a client about to show up. I have to be focused on my patient…not on kissing you, Caleb.”
“All right then,” he said softly, his fingers curling into his palms as he resisted the urge to reach for her again. Now that he had touched her, he wanted to touch her again. Just as he wanted to kiss her again, to tear away the barriers and her clothes, so there was only the passion. It had to be. It would be. “But it’s time we deal with this, Shay.”
Her eyes went wide. “Deal with this? Gee, Caleb. You really know how to steal a girl’s heart.” She paled instantly. “Not that I mean—” She flung her hands in the air. “We need to go upstairs before my patient arrives. You’ll scare the crap out of him, too.” She turned on her heels and stomped away.
Caleb ran a hand over his jaw, the light shadow of a new beard rough against his hand. He considered himself a fairly sensitive guy, the front man for missions that had required diplomacy, but it seemed, with Shay, he had a knack for opening his mouth and inserting his foot. Ah, well. Hell, at least that gave him an excuse to keep his mouth occupied in other ways.
With all the ways he might occupy said mouth on his mind, Caleb followed her, a man stalking his prey. Shay’s every move attracted his attention. Her every word interested him. Caleb had never felt this way for any other woman. He had every intention of showing Shay exactly how he intended to deal with this “thing” between them.
Shay had been right. Temptation and desire were making them crazy. Him crazy. And it had separated him from the family, forced him to distance himself for fear he would destroy his family bond, when that action itself had darn near done exactly that. That was the lightbulb that had set him into action. They had to put the temptation behind them. And no matter how many times he kissed her, it would simply not be enough to do the job.
SHAY PUNCHED the elevator button, waiting, all too aware of Caleb behind her. Close. Too close. Not close enough. She was all over the board when it came to him. She wanted him. She didn’t want him. She had thought the kiss was a good idea. Now it felt like a horrible idea.
The doors opened and she stepped inside, pushing the button for the fourth—and top—floor, and faced forward. Caleb stepped in beside her, taking up more space with his sexual energy than any one man should fill. They were alone, the steel doors closing them inside the tiny compartment. And damn him, he smelled good. And tasted good. And felt good. If she looked at him, if she saw the sizzling warm heat of his welcoming stare, she’d forget herself and kiss him. Again.
Memories of their hot and cold moments, as early as today, shuddered through Shay with a deep breath. Caleb could turn off the heat in a snap of his fingers and turn on the silence and withdrawal just as quickly. She knew this. She’d seen this. She even understood it.
True, he’d never before shifted back and forth in this extreme fashion, but he’d shifted plenty. He’d catch himself, check himself. Which meant, no matter how tempting, Shay could not allow anything more to happen between them tonight. Not if she wanted to be sure they could salvage their relationship when this night passed. If she were smart, she’d tell him she was seeing someone else. Tell him she was in love. Set him free. But considering she’d suggested the kiss to end temptation, she doubted she’d be convincing.
The minute the elevator dinged and the doors opened, Shay darted forward, reaching for her purse, which she didn’t have. “Oh, no,” she said, turning and running into Caleb. Her hands flattened on his chest, her breath lodged in her throat.
“Hello to you, too,” he said, his hands on her arms, his thighs—those muscles hugged by denim—touching hers.
Shay shoved out of his arms. “I forgot my keys and purse. Oh, God. And my cell phone, too. They’re in the car.”
He paused and then said, “It’s locked, isn’t it?”
She nodded, frustrated at herself for doing something so irresponsible. “And it’s your fault, Caleb. I was flustered over you. And now my client is going to be here and I can’t get into my off—”
He moving so quickly, she had no warning—just suddenly, his hands were framing her face, his lips brushing hers. A gentle, lingering caress, his warm breath mingling with hers, his tongue just barely slipping past her teeth.