10 Ways to Steal Your Lover (5 page)

 
      
More silence, then suddenly he heard a
sigh of relief. “Thank God, we were so worried when the two of you disappeared
before the wedding even started. I mean, first Craig left after that bizarre
apology and when I went to check on Delilah she was gone. No one could find you
either. It was like everyone went completely out of their minds. So I was really
hoping she was with you, but after what my mother said she did, well, she could
have been anywhere. I told them you were probably chasing her to save her from
herself. Is that what happened, Kane? You were saving her?”

 
      
He was going to regret asking this, he
knew it. “Your mother did something?”

 
      
The dinner he’d stood in for Craig had
been to introduce Delilah’s new husband to her entire extended family, so he
was already wincing at the possibilities. As straight-laced and well, all right,
uptight, as Dinah MacGavin was, her mother was irreverent and slightly off her
cracker. A cantankerous hippy who seemed to take a certain sick pleasure in
driving her daughter up the wall, Rainbow Layne had planted herself at his side
and kept the night interesting with an on-going run down on which relatives
needed her homemade herbal supplements and which ones made her need narcotics.
Suddenly, the blacked out hours made scary sense.

 
      
Dinah sighed. “She thought Delilah was
freaking out from the pressure of the wedding. Said I was pushing her too
hard.”

 
      
She was. He’d seen that himself in the
week leading up to the big day.

 
      
“So Rainbow slipped her a mickey.”

 
      
“A—” The empty champagne glass he remembered.
But that memory was of the empty glass in his hand. Not Delilah’s.

 
      
“A mickey of what, exactly?”

 
      
Dinah made a sound of distress. “One of
her concoctions, but she specifically mentioned peyote. I remember that. She
thought it would relax Delilah, it never occurred to her Del would run out of
the church in a psychedelic haze before the ceremony.”

 
      
Before. That was the second time she’d
said it, too. He felt one of the knots in his bely loosen at that. He was just
getting used to being a woman-stealer. He didn’t think he could handle being an
bigamist adulterer on top of it.

 
      
“It’s such a relief to know she was safe
with you all this time.” The relieved laugh didn’t do much to put Kane back at
ease. Normally, he’d be feeling guilty right about now, but guilt seemed a
concept very far from this bizarre situation. “God knows what trouble she could
have gotten into.”

 
      
And God was the only one.

 
      
“She’s safe now,” he assured, his mind
wandering back to the bathroom. Safe and sound. Probably in the shower. Warm
and sudsy. And all his…

 
      
“Um, Kane?” Dinah’s laugh turned nervous
and unsure. “I thought I heard the strangest thing earlier. I could have sworn
you said Delilah was yours now. Isn’t that funny?”

 
      
Hmm, maybe Del should give her mother a
little more credit for her mind reading skills.

 
      
“Yes, ma’am.”

 
      
“Oh.” He heard her take in a breath, as
if she were going to say something, then she seemed to realize how he meant his
answer. “Oh!”

 
      
“I have to go now, Mrs. McGavin. I’ll
have Del call you back soon.”

 
      
“But, but, but—” was the last he heard as
he clicked the phone shut. He tossed it down on the bed and looked toward the
open doorway of the bathroom.

 
      
Just as he’d thought. This was his
chance. Probably his only chance to be with her and for the first time since
they’d met, he had the advantage over Craig in their weird little love
triangle. He could put away the guilt and deal with it later, just as he’d put
away his desire and his dreams all these years. It was finally time to let them
show. He’d already stolen the bride and he couldn’t undo it.

 
      
Time now to steal himself a wife.

 
      
When Delilah first came into the
bathroom, she’d had the delusion that it would simply be a room where she could
grab a shower, brush her teeth and possibly tame her hair. But really, who
could have expected one room could be paradise, particularly inside of a hotel?

 
      
But it was.

 
      
First things first, there were trees in
here. Not plants. Trees. At least ten, placed artfully all over the room. She
had no idea what kind they were—fat little mini-palms?—but their long fronds
fanned out in several directions, growing from white pots that came to
mid-thigh. Overhead, brilliant blue sky and morning sunlight filed the room. A
glass ceiling slanted from high above, all the way to the floor ahead of her.
And what a floor. White marble covered the ground in two directions. To one
side, a bar of double brass sinks awaited, dark gray towels hanging from brass
rings and a huge mirror glinted back at her. To the other side, a shower big
enough for an elephant, but without any kind of spigot she could see. If it
weren’t for the glass door, she’d have thought it was a linen cubby of some
kind.

 
      
But straight ahead was what stole her
attention.

 
      
She took a few steps closer, unable to
believe what she was seeing.

 
      
First was the broad fireplace, it’s white
marble the same as the floor, dividing the room as cleanly as a bar, wide
enough for Kane to lay in if he wanted, weathered gray Stetson, beat-up boots
and al. Double-sided, apparently, because she could see through its glass doors
front and back to the blue sky beyond it. The floor, on either side of it
seemed to just drop off, several feet from the glass wall.

 
      
When she reached the side of the
fireplace, her eyes widened so much they stung.

 
      
The drop off tuned out to be steps. Wide
steps, textured marble, leading down into a…pool, really. In someone’s
over-luxuriant mind, though, this was a bathtub.

 
      
She was reminded of the bathing chambers
of kings in the stories she’d read of Arabia or Rome and Greece. People for
whom water was as sensual and valuable as gold. They’d bathe in pools like
this, their many attendants surrounding them and seeing to their every possible
need.

 
      
Immediately, her mind went to Kane in the
next room. How would he attend her needs in a bath like this?

 
      
Heat flooded her face, the sensual stroke
of thought shooting to her belly, down to her sex. A throb of wanting had her
pressing her thighs tight together. That kiss of his had already made her wet,
almost embarrassingly so. Maybe the kiss was to blame for how easily she could
envision them together in this bath, her back pressed to the cool glass while
he surged into her, water splashing against their bodies. Or would he lead her
to the water’s edge, laying her on the marble while he held her thighs open and
feasted on her, that direct green gaze watching her the entire time, making
sure she was enjoying every single lick? Or would he lead her to the steps
where she now stood, guiding her to her knees so that she could do the
attending?

 
      
She backed away from the edge, pushing
the temptation of it to the other side of her mind. Right now she had to get
cleaned up and start thinking about what they were supposed to do now. Sex with
Kane was not something she should be considering. Not sober sex, anyway. She
could forgive herself for cheating while she had no idea what she was doing,
but that excuse wouldn’t hold water in the bright light of day.

 
      
It barely held any for her enthusiastic
response to Kane’s lovemaking when she woke up.

 
      
Care to explain that kiss you dropped on
him two minutes ago?

 
      
Nope. Not at all, Colonel. Not to
herself, not to Craig. Especially not when every thought of him right now felt
so distant and that niggling sense that she’d forgotten something important
pulsed like oil light she couldn’t turn off.

 
      
She trudged to the shower door, dragging
her sheet behind her like the Queen of the Nile. Dropping it, she forced some
practical thoughts into her head. She stepped inside the cavernous shower, only
startling a little when the recessed lights above turned on automatically. She
looked around for some kind of control, but all she found was some kind of
electronic interface in the middle of the back wall. Several bubbled buttons
awaited her, but hell if she could figure them out. Nothing simply said “On”.
Starting with “Temp”, she set the small screen to a safe eighty-five degrees,
but that didn’t turn anything on. Grumbling, she hit “Rain”. Water immediately
began falling from the ceiling. She shrieked, scaring herself, as her hair
quickly matted down over her face.

 
      
“Of course. Because if you worked right,
all this might just be a dream. Can’t have that.” She glared at the console,
wondering briefly how much it might hurt to punch it until it fell out of the wall.

 
      
A muscled arm suddenly reached over her
shoulder, pushing another button she couldn’t see through her hair while she
screamed and flapped her arms before slamming her back to the smooth wall.

 
      
Kane stood there, his firm mouth curved
into an indulgent smile. “You okay there, Rocky?”

 
      
“What are you doing in here?” she
snapped, trying desperately to cover her breasts and privates while trying to
get her hair out of her face at the same time. Neither action seemed to be
working, leaving her with most of her hair plastered across her cheeks and in
her eyes, getting pelted with enough water to flush out the gutters in front of
Craig’s house.

 
      
“Taking a shower.” He was, too. The
button he’d pushed had turned the water from a downpour to multiple streams
from every side spraying thick streams toward his chest and back. As if it were
nothing unusual to bathe in front of her, he reached for the complimentary soap
in a recessed shelf. An assortment of sponges sat in a basket and he plucked
one out without so much as a bat of his eyes. Next thing she knew, a fresh
clean scent filed the air and he was rubbing suds over his wide chest.

 
      
He turned his back to her—I am not
looking at his ass, dammit!—and dunked his head into the streams, using his
hands to slick the dark gold strands back from his face. Like she wasn’t there
at all.

 
      
“You couldn’t wait until I finished?”

 
      
“We’re married now.” As if that meant
anything.

 
      
“You don’t know that,” she replied
sulkily, still holding her breasts uncomfortably. Or maybe it was her crossed
legs that were uncomfortable.

 
      
“I know you’re not married to Craig.”

 
      
She frowned, the tickling sensation in
her mind of a memory trying to push itself to the surface again. Sitting in the
bride’s room at the church, looking in the mirror and seeing Craig’s reflection
behind her. His tie undone, looking at her with almost pained sadness…

 
      
“Your mother said we left before the
ceremony.”

 
      
“You talked to my Mom?” The memory
slipped away, ephemeral and impossible to re-grasp in the wake of his words.
She loved Dinah but having the rancher who thought they were married talking to
the woman who thought marriage to a banker was the perfect fate for her
daughter was not a conversation she wanted to happen.

 
      
“You must have dropped the phone when you
were kissing me.”

 
      
Oh, he just had to put it that way. “You
kissed me first.”

 
      
He turned, water dripping off his face,
the hard angles of his face unsoftened without his hair to cloud his intensity.
“I did a hell of a lot more than that.”