Bachelor Number Four (11 page)

“Yeah.”

“I’m not wearing sunglasses.”

He chuckled. The noise traveled through the phone lines, out the speaker, through her eardrum and directly to the pleasure center of her brain. Arden’s thighs spread open and she leaned back in the chair before closing them again. It took effort.

“Shane, I have to go.”

“Kids need you?”

“They’re staying with friends,” she said, and the words sounded too much like an invitation. “Goodbye.”

“Wait…please?”

The
please
did her in. She walked into the kitchen to grab a cloth for the spill on her rug. “Why
did
you call me?”

“Why’d you send me that message the first time?”

She had to think of just what to say, old habits holding her tongue. “I was just…back in town, and someone told me that they saw a sign for your company, and I thought… Well. I thought I’d check it out.”

She paused, then added, “I didn’t think you’d answer. At least, not the way you did.”

He was quiet so long she thought the connection had broken. When at last he spoke, his voice was even lower, the words so soft she had to strain to hear. “I’d heard you moved back to town. Your message surprised me. I answered you the way I figured you’d expect me to. And then when I saw you that night with that guy…”

She waited, but didn’t say anything, giving him the chance to speak.

He sighed. “I think about you all the time.”

Her breath hitched. “Sure you do.”

Another long pause convinced her he was just playing with her, until Shane said, “I always have, Arden. For a really long time.”

She frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just what I said.” Shane cleared his throat. “Look, I know I was sort of an ass with the head games in the past—”

“Not just sort of,” she told him, surprised at how bitter she sounded. “You messed with me like it was your
job
.”

“I was stupid.”

She sighed. All of it, everything, the times he’d stood her up or flirted with other women in front of her, bragging about how they slipped their phone numbers into his hands and left messages on his windshield—all of that had happened so long ago. And…hadn’t she done her share of poking and teasing, her share of half-truths designed to keep him on the edge? “Yes. You were. We both were, I guess. Or maybe just young.”

His laugh sounded rueful. “I told you I’d changed. I mean, at least I’m older. There’s that.”

“We’re both older.” She thought of the life she’d lived since leaving him. Her marriage. Her kids. Her business. An entire life she’d never imagined and wouldn’t change for anything.

“I mean it, Arden. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since that night. If you want to know the real truth, I haven’t stopped thinking about you for twelve years.”

She let out a slow, hissing breath, flashing back to the last time she’d seen him. Ugly words exchanged, emotions running high, feelings hurt on both sides. “If you want me to believe you’ve been waiting for me for twelve years…”

His laughter actually soothed her instead of insulting. “Um, not waiting, no. But I have thought about you a lot. I want to see you, Arden.”

“I thought you didn’t have time for dating.”

“I’ll make time.”

She sighed, wanting to believe him but not ready to put her heart on the line even if for the first time ever he’d given her a reason to believe he meant it. “Shane—”

“I want to make love to you again.”

The words slid like silk against her skin, and her back arched like he’d stroked her from shoulders to hips. Her nipples jutted against the thin, damp cotton. Her legs parted. She was instantly, completely, turned-on.

“Shane.” She’d meant to speak his name in protest, but it came out as a purr of longing. She hitched in a breath, trying, without luck, to keep her voice from trembling. “I know you think I’m just out for a quick fuck, but there’s got to be more for me. I thought I could be that way, but I can’t. There has to be more.”

“I want to give you more,” Shane said without hesitation. “Everything you want. Flowers. Walks in the park. All of it.”

This set her back so thoroughly she almost could not speak. “You don’t mean that.”

“I mean it.” He laughed, and she heard a note of vulnerability in his voice. “All of it. I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t sleep. I can’t concentrate at work. I just keep thinking about your smile and the way you sound when you laugh. I think about the way you taste and I can’t stop. I want you so bad I can’t think about or do anything else, and it’s driving me crazy.”

“I don’t know—”

He interrupted. “I know you have no reason to believe me. It’s not just sex. I mean, I want that, too, but it’s more than that.”

“A date?”

“More than one.”

She smiled and pressed the phone to her ear, her eyes closed. “This was easier when you were cyber-sexing me on the computer.”

“I can do it over the phone, too, but I’d rather do it in person.”

“Shane—”

“If it makes you more comfortable to talk to me this way, I understand. You don’t have to see me.”

“It isn’t that I don’t want to see you. I just need some time to think about all of this.” Arden put her hand over her eyes. “Seeing you would complicate things.”

“Really?” She heard the smile in his voice. “I must be hard to resist. Hell, Arden, just talking to you right now, I’m hard.”

Damn him, he’d done it again. Given her a mental picture that sent lust racing through her veins. Shane, hard, her hand stroking him…

“Are you still there?” he asked.

“I’m here.”

“Are you pretending I’m there with you?”

“I have to go.”

“Are you pretending I’m touching you?”

“Shane, please—”

“I love it when say my name, Arden. Say it again.”

“Shane.”

“Am I touching you?”

She sounded like she had a mouth full of syrup, oozing languorous words. “Yes.”

She heard his intake of breath. “And I’m kissing you.”

“Yes.”

“I’m tasting you.”

She gave an incomprehensible noise of assent. Her legs parted and the cotton t-shirt slid up over her thighs to expose her naked sex beneath. The air was chilly on her damp curls. She shivered, the spasm sending tingles of pleasure through her entire body.

“I want to kiss you all over. I’m going to put my hands all over you.”

Her entire body tingled and sang. She could touch herself and send herself over the edge, but she thought listening to him talk about how he’d make love to her might just do the trick without any help from her.

“Do you want that?”

“Hmmm.”

“I want to hear you say it. Say yes, Shane, I want you to make love to me.”

Could she say it? Could she really? Could she not? “I want—”

“My name. I want to hear you say my name.”

“Shane, I want you to make love to me.”

The words came out of her like a dam breaking, taking with it the last of her reserves, the end of her shyness, the final vestiges of guilt. She did want it. She wanted him. The wanting was a fire, burning her from the inside out. She’d never wanted anything more, could never want anything as much as she wanted this again…

“Arden, will you do something for me?”

A smile tilted her mouth, making her lazy, languorous, sex-filled voice sound like she was laughing. “Yes.”

“I like that. You didn’t even ask what I wanted first.”

She laughed, tilting her head back. “What do you want?”

“I want you to stand up.”

She did without hesitation, though her legs had gone more than a little weak and standing on them was a dance of balance that had her clutching the chair back for help. “Standing.”

“I want you to go to your front door.”

Arden frowned. “What?”

“Do it. Please.”

This didn’t sound as sexy as she thought it was going to, but with a slow chuckle, she did anyway. “Okay. I’m standing at the door.”

“Put your hand on it.”

“My hand? Shane, what—”

“Do it.” The sexy growl was enough to make her shiver, in a good way, even as heat raced through her.

“I’m touching it.” The painted wood felt smooth and cool under her fingers.

“Now, say it again.”

She didn’t have to ask what. “Shane, I want you to make love to me. Please.”

“You’re sure?” Beneath the huskiness of arousal, she heard a hint of hesitation. “You’re absolutely sure this is what you want?”

Arden cradled the phone against her ear. There could be no turning back now. “I’m sure.”

“Is the door locked?”

“No.” She always made sure to lock it before she went to bed, but hadn’t yet done so. Her hand reached for the knob, the metal more than cool in her hand. Cold. Like ice on her heated skin.

It turned in her hand and she cried out in fear. The door opened. The phone dropped from her hand to thud on the wooden floorboards, and Arden stepped back, stumbling as the door swung open.

She might have fallen hard, hurt herself, had Shane not been there to catch her. In the next instant she was in his arms, her back against the slammed door. Her legs went around his waist. His hands cupped her ass as his mouth found hers.

He savaged her mouth, and she welcomed the sting of his kiss. He moved to her throat, nipping and biting in the way he knew would drive her wild. She cried out and his mouth covered hers again to muffle the scream she most definitely did not want the neighbors to hear.

“Say it again,” he ordered in her ear as he left her mouth.

She fumbled the words. He hitched her higher, pressed her center against his stomach and urged her to hook her ankles behind him. Up against the door, hard enough to make it rattle in the frame, he held her, while his eyes bored into hers.

It had been too long since she’d looked into his blue-green eyes, shadowed by black brows. Time had not dimmed her memory of how she looked reflected in his gaze.

She’d forgotten how much bigger he was. He engulfed her. Surrounded her. And even so, as light and small as she felt in his arms, this wasn’t going to work.

“Not like it is in the movies,” she whispered.

Shane laughed. “No.”

He let her slide through the circle of his arms to rest her feet on the floor. Arden linked her hand with his and led him toward the stairs. “Come with me.”

He paused in the doorway, his hand linked in hers making her stop, too. Arden looked back at him, a big man wreathed in shadows. A shaft of light from the hall window cut across his face, illuminating his eyes.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure, Shane.”

Then she was in his arms again, and he swept her up like a bridegroom carrying his bride across the threshold. The comparison twisted her stomach for a moment in memory of Jason, and she pushed it aside. Jason was gone. They had loved, married, had a life, but that had ended. He’d loved her too much to wish unhappiness for her.

A thought struck her. “Are
you
sure?”

The moment stretched out between them, as fragile as gossamer. She didn’t want to speak, lest she break the thread. If it had taken her a long time to admit this was what she wanted, she knew it had taken Shane even longer.

His kiss answered her as her put her feet on the ground. Softer this time, it caressed her mouth instead of plundering it. His hands came up to tangle in her hair, to tilt her head and pull her close to him.

“It’s all right,” Arden said, as much to soothe herself as him. “It’ll all be right.”

She took his hand again and led him toward her bed, where fresh, cool sheets welcomed them. She took him down on top of herself, thighs and arms spread to embrace him in the cradle of her body.

They kissed. Slow. Sensual. Mouths opened and closed, feeding their passion. They kissed like they had forever to do it, and she was happy to let him taste her as she tasted him.

Her hips lifted under him, moving against him in answer to her body’s call. He answered with a rolling thrust, pressing against her. She felt him, hot, long and hard in the confines of his jeans, and she shivered in anticipation of what it would be like to feel him inside her again.

Shane pulled back and stood to tug his t-shirt off over his head. For a moment he stood silhouetted in the light from outside, his chest and stomach tight with muscle and arms flexing with more of the same as he dropped the shirt to the floor. His hands went to his black leather belt. The silver buckle flashed as he snapped it open. Then the button-fly of his jeans came undone as though by magic, and he pushed the heavy denim over his strong thighs and kicked off the jeans. He wore dark boxer-briefs, the front tented. He slid his thumbs into the waistband, but didn’t pull them down.

Arden waited, breath caught in her throat, for him to reveal the rest of his body. She’d seen him naked before, those long-ago times, but like everything else about him, her memories had been shadowed and replaced by others. Seeing him now would be like seeing him for the first time.

He slid the soft cotton down, exposing himself to her hungry gaze. She swallowed hard at the sight. His belly hair led to a dark, thick patch. His cock rose from the nest of curls, framed by strong thighs.

She’d leaned up on her elbows to watch him undress, and though her oversized sleepshirt had ridden up to expose her thighs and give him a glimpse of her own dark curls, when she put her hands to the hem to lift it off entirely, she found she couldn’t do it. Time had been good to him. His body was better now than it had been even back then, taut and firm and unblemished by the years.

She, on the other hand…

“What’s wrong?” He slid onto the bed beside her, his erection warm on her thigh. Shane put his hand on her belly, over the shirt. “Arden?”

“I’m…I’ve…” She fumbled the words, not wanting to sound vain. “I don’t look the way I did twelve years ago, Shane.”

His palm made gentle circles on her belly. “I wouldn’t expect you to.”

She thought of stretch marks, love handles, breasts changed by nursing and gravity. “I haven’t been naked in front of anyone for a long time.”

He did not, thankfully, try to talk her out of her sudden shyness. He kissed her again, hand resting on the stomach she worried was too soft. He caressed her, moving his hand up and down the material of her shirt, passing it over her breasts until her nipples poked hard, like pebbles, through the cotton. His hand drifted lower while he still kissed her. He pulled up the hem and put his hand beneath, slid his fingers up the inside of her thighs, brushed them over her curls and rested his hand again on her belly.