10 Ways to Steal Your Lover (4 page)

 
      
Unfortunately, between her mother’s
perfectionism and her father’s disapproval, there hadn’t been much room for her
heart to get a word in edgewise. Every now and then, though, she threw caution
to the wind…

 
      
And look where that’s gotten you, The
Colonel’s voice pointed out dryly. Bare ass nekkid in a closet with a cowboy
who may or may not have married you on your wedding day to someone else. At
best, you’re a cheater. At worst, you’re a bigamist. God made caution for a
reason, Delilah. Maybe you ought to think about that before you make yourself a
bigger bed than you can lie in.

 
      
Not just any cowboy, either. God wasn’t
kind enough to teach his lessons with strangers. No, he gave her Kane Wilkensen
to learn her lesson with. Someone she would have to see over and over again for
the rest of her married life. Assuming Craig a) still wanted to speak to either
of them after this and b) still wanted to marry her. She couldn’t blame him if
he didn’t.

 
      
Would it make her a heartless bitch if
she’d feel a strange kind of relief if he didn’t?

 
      
Craig was a good man. A great man, actually.
Handsome, mostly considerate, well-mannered and funny. Other women would smack
her over the head to get to him and Delilah knew it. But he’d never once looked
at her with his heart in his eyes the way Kane was doing right now.

 
      
The answering twang in her own heart was
the last thing she expected in response to that openness, but there it was.
Like a groundswell that filed her from her feet to her head, emotions spiraled
up that she couldn’t quite name. But the urge to say the words she’d had so
much trouble saying to Craig was suddenly so strong, they were all but spilling
off her lips without a thought or a qualm.

 
      
Luckily, she didn’t have to catch herself
from something she was going to regret—she’d regret it, right?—because they
both jumped as the silence rent beneath the obnoxious tune of a cell phone.

 
      
Her cell phone.

 
      
“Oh, my God, it’s my Mother!” She jumped
up, yanking the sheet with her, barely catching herself from turning to look
back when he groaned miserably. Not a good idea to look at him naked again. Her
cheeks flushed and stung at the memory of him imprinted on her body. And he
looked almost as good as he felt.

 
      
“You set “The Macarena” as the ringtone
for your Mom?”

 
      
Still trying to get the sheet around
herself as she searched the floor of the hotel room—no, suite, she realized
when the open bedroom door far across from the closet led to a living room of
some kind—without any luck. “It’s so I can blame the song for why I wince when
it rings.”

 
      
“That’s…sweet.”

 
      
Delilah jumped half out of her skin when
Kane’s voice was suddenly a warm tone just behind her ear. She spun, gasping,
only to find him zipping up his pants.

 
      
Tuxedo pants. God, the tuxedo from her
wedding. She just kept herself from smacking her forehead as hard as she could.

 
      
He smiled, those pretty eyes of his fixed
on her face. “Found ‘em on the floor. Since you said you wouldn’t be able to
think—”

 
      
“Gotcha.” Boy, did she. For better or
worse, apparently. “Do you see—”

 
      
He looked around, suddenly striding to
the foot of the bed where the blankets and a mass of white fabric puddled
together on the floor. The pink metal edge of her phone just barely visible to
her now that he’d reached for it, he made quick work of getting it to her. Not really
sure if she was relieved, Delilah took the device and slid her thumb over the
smooth surface to accept the cal. “Mom?”

 
      
“Oh, thank God, you finally answered!”
Dinah McGavin’s relief settled like a rock in Delilah’s bely. “I’ve been calling
you all night! Are you okay, where are you?”

 
      
“Uh…” Delilah looked around the room, but
there were no blatant signs that told her the hotel name. The only clue she had
was the bags in the closet, but she couldn’t be sure they came from the hotel
she was in.

 
      
She looked to Kane, but he was busy at
the nightstand next to the huge bed. Her eyes caught on the broad expanse of
his back, the way the black slacks cloaked those lean hips and somehow made his
long legs seem even longer. Her eyes traced the smooth indent of his spine, her
lips curling at how much she wanted to press them to the small of his back.
Golden skin, sun kissed and tempting, and all that delicious muscle...had she
kissed it all last night? It was a secret fantasy of hers, one she didn’t even
like to admit to herself usually. But on the nights when she was alone, when
her body ached and she had nothing but her own hand to satisfy her, it was
never Craig whose body she envisioned tangled with hers. The last few years, it
was a shadowy man who fit every guilty pleasure she’d had in a lover. Someone tall,
lean but somehow still powerful. A man whose scruffy jaw tickled her skin as he
kissed her throat, suckled her breasts, feasted on her sex. Hands that were
roughened by work but gentle in touch. Someone aggressive, but never
frightening. Overwhelming, but putty in her hands.

 
      
That mystery mental lover finally came
into clear focus.

 
      
He turned right then, catching her
ogling. At first, the corner of his mouth lifted in a masculine grin that had
her heartbeat skipping. But after a second, he seemed to realize she was
looking at him for more reasons than his fabulous ass. His expression fell into
the serious lines she knew best and he turned for her, letting her look at him.

 
      
Craig would have asked her what was
wrong.

 
      
Craig would have told her she was
freaking him out and then Craig would have laughed it off and told her to talk
or go away.

 
      
But Kane stood there and let her listen
to the whispers of her heart she’d been forcing herself to ignore for a very
long time.

 
      
“It’s you,” she finally whispered, though
she knew he couldn’t possibly understand what she was talking about.

 
      
So why did he seem as if he did? How did
that deep green gaze of his get any more intense? Standing ten feet from him,
she felt that steady stare as if it were cutting right through her. She wasn’t
feeling fanciful and no one could tell her it was her imagination, either. The
man was waiting for her to come to a conclusion he already knew.

 
      
He said nothing, simply standing there
until she figured out what she was trying to say. Kane, who’d always managed to
make her laugh, even while he made her uncomfortable. Kane, who listened
whenever she had a story to tell, who never thought she was silly for her
simple hopes of home and family or her grander dreams of earning a master’s
degree. He’d even been the one who’d wiped her tears when Craig had canceled on
an important dinner with her family prior to the wedding, standing in with her
so well that her father had asked why she wasn’t marrying Kane instead.

 
      
He finally moved, walking those few feet
between them. Without hesitation, his hands slid around her waist, pulling her
flush against him. Her hand slid up his arm all by itself, grasping the hard
muscles there. The warmth that seemed a natural part of him spread into her.
Smoothly, his mouth found hers, gently grazing her lips before settling more
firmly. She moaned as he tasted her, coaxing her to open for him. When she did,
her eyelids fluttered shut and the whole world utterly disappeared.

 
      
This, this was what she’d been wanting,
needing for so long. The rightness of finding your place, knowing exactly where
you belonged by the feel, the fit, of it al.

 
      
But why did she have this connection with
Kane? And so effortlessly? Every other man she’d ever known had always felt
just that tiny bit wrong, until she’d convinced herself she was crazy waiting
for amazing when wonderful should be good enough. It wasn’t just lust. The
sensations filing her blood and her heart were richer than that. She could practically
hear the click of puzzle pieces snapping together whenever their gazes found
each other. When their lips met, their skin touched, it was something far more
powerful. Something that sang right through her, demanding she recognize it for
what it was.

 
      
Amazing.

 
      
He finally pulled away, not letting her
get further than a few inches, their hips still pressed tight, her gaze held
wiling captive by his. “It’s me,” he murmured. “And I’m telling you right now,
Delilah Anne McGavin, if I have my way, it’s going to stay me for the rest of
our lives. You’re mine now and I’m going to do everything in my power to prove
it to you.”

 
      
She heard a soft thump, her upheld
fingers going numb and tingling, but it barely registered as one thought
tightened everything in her body.

 
      
Yup, definitely in over my head.

 
      
Strangely, for the first time in her
life, that wasn’t at all frightening.

***

       
Cal
him greedy but Kane stole another soft kiss from Delilah’s lips. She seemed way
less stunned by his claim on her than he’d expected, but really, what the hell else
was he supposed to do when he caught her staring at him the way he’d always
wanted her to.
 

 
      
The way she did in his dreams.

 
      
As if she loved him.

 
      
She wasn’t there yet, he decided as she
stared up at him intently, but the spark was there. Not to the point that she’d
accept it, but she was close enough to give him a chance. A chance was all he
needed. With her fingertips fanned over his cheeks, she pulled him back to her,
stealing another, deeper kiss of her own.

 
      
Once his brain was completely scrambled,
she stepped back, a nearly drunken expression on her face. She stumbled a
little, backing up and catching her foot on her impromptu toga. “I’m just
gonna…go…check out the bathroom.”

 
      
He nodded, his teeth and his fists
clenching as he forced himself not to follow after her. Waiting until she
disappeared into the open doorway, he let himself sink down onto the foot of
the bed and stared down at his left hand.

 
      
Married.

 
      
To Delilah.

 
      
It was the best thing he’d ever done that
he couldn’t remember.

 
      
That part stung a little. A man should be
able to remember his wedding day.

 
      
Speaking of stinging… He looked at his
right hand, finally taking a look at the scuff marks on his knuckles, the
bruising there beneath them. He frowned, recognizing the patterns. If he didn’t
know better, he’d swear he punched the hell out of something. Couldn’t be,
though. He hadn’t been in a fight since he was a teenager.

 
      
While he looked down at the bruises, he finally
noticed the open phone on the floor. Gasping, he picked it up, hearing the shrill
voice of his brand-new mother-in-law long before he got it up to his ear.

 
      
“Delilah! You pick up this phone right
now! Do you hear me?”

 
      
He winced, wishing for a second that he
could pawn the call back onto Del, but that wouldn’t work. She was so nice and
relaxed in the bathroom. Her mother was a lovely woman but she had the singular
ability to twist Delilah into knots in five seconds flat.

 
      
“Mrs. McGavin?”

 
      
The litany stopped instantly. A few beats
passed before a much calmer voice came over the line. “Kane?”

 
      
“Yes, ma’am.”