Falling Into Drew (10 page)

“She did.”

Kate felt the chill in his voice and dropped the subject. Drew’s reaction to a casual mention of his mother and the “don’t leave me” he’d mumbled in his sleep were further indicators that there were parts of his life that troubled him. Would he ever be willing to make those things public or trust her enough to share them? Writing a book with him would be a challenge, but she didn’t have time to get into a discussion now. It was late and she still had a job to get to.

She hurried toward the bedroom to dress, but before she was halfway there Drew came up behind her and curved his arms around her waist. He kissed her neck and whispered an apology. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you, but you’re going to discover that I have a sore spot about certain things…certain people that are off limits. My mother is one of those. I’m sorry.”

He was smart enough to understand that his family would be fair game in a book about his life, so instead of pursuing it, she told him, “Don’t worry about it. We all have things that we prefer not to talk about.”

“You, Kate? It sounds like you’ve got a great family and to me it looks like you’ve got it pretty much together.”

“Yeah, well…looks can be deceiving.”

He turned her around to face him. His brows lowered and a crease appeared between them as he studied her until she shifted her eyes away. He leaned his forehead against hers. “I guess we have a lot to learn about each other.”

“I guess,” she said, “but that’s not going to happen unless I get to the office and set up a time for Charles and me to meet with my boss to discuss your proposal.” She pulled tailored black pants and a white sweater from the closet and dressed quickly while they talked. Drew leaned against the wall, arms folded across his bare chest watching her as she applied mascara, blush and a pale pink lip gloss, then pulled her hair into a ponytail. She slid gold hoop earrings through her pierced ears, checked that everything she needed was in her large handbag, grabbed her coat, and headed for the door. “Stay as long as you want, just close the door behind you when you leave. It locks automatically.”

Her hand was on the doorknob when Drew said, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Kate looked at herself. Her coat was buttoned, she was wearing shoes and her bag and gloves were in her hand. She seemed to have everything she needed. “What did I forget?”

She turned her head to look at him and immediately realized she shouldn’t have. He stood with one broad shoulder leaning against the wall. The low slung, unbuttoned jeans he’d worn at breakfast were all that covered his body. His feet were bare and it was obvious that there was no underwear beneath the denim. Her eyes traveled up his body to his face and he tapped one finger against his lips. “You forgot this.”

“I thought you don’t like to kiss women who wear lipstick. You just watched me put on lip gloss.”

He was across the room in an instant, his hands on each side of her face. “I’ll make an exception in your case,” he murmured as his lips met hers in the kind of kiss guaranteed to keep him on her mind all day.

Chapter 13

“We’re actually on our way to Ireland! I can’t believe it,” Kate said with wonder after she and Drew were dropped off at Kennedy Airport’s bustling international terminal. As their limo pulled away, Drew easily lifted his worn leather duffel with one hand and slung it over his shoulder, then grabbed Kate’s bag.

He looked at her and asked, “Happy?” although her smile and the way her eyes sparkled made the answer obvious.

“I am, very. This is work, but it definitely doesn’t feel like it,” she said as they walked toward the first class check in line. “I wasn’t sure that Charles could convince the editorial board that I was the right person to be your co-author. I’m still shocked that they authorized this trip.”

“He’s a master negotiator. They would have been idiots to turn down the only demand I made. It always comes down to money.”

They checked their bags and breezed through security with only a slight delay when the person checking tickets and passports spotted Drew’s name and spent a few minutes telling him he was a fan and what an honor it was to meet him.

Once they’d retrieved their carry-ons and were headed to the first class passenger lounge near their gate, Kate said, “You’re a good man, Drew O’Connor. You made that man’s day.”

He shrugged. “There’s no reason not to be polite. I only get pissed off when someone grabs me or shoves a camera in my face or talks to me when I’m in a public restroom. That’s when I’m tempted to tell them to fuck off.”

“You’re kidding,” she said, laughing. “People actually talk to you while you pee?”

“It happens,” he said. “They think that they know me because they’ve seen me on TV or in a magazine and then they’re surprised that I don’t act like I know them, that I don’t treat them like a friend. It’s weird, but it comes with the job.”

“You thought of skiing as a job?”

“I worked hard at it, I was expected to perform and I was paid. Isn’t that the definition of a job?”

“Yes, but…”

“Don’t get me wrong. I fucking love to ski, but there were times…well, even when something’s a passion, there are days when your body aches or you’re exhausted and you’d rather kick back. But I’m a competitor, so I always went to work and I always did my best.”

She looked at Drew as if seeing him for the first time. “I never thought of it that way. I guess when you hear that someone travels all over the world to ski in fabulous places, it sounds like play.”

He raised her chin with one finger and gazed down at her, his eyes warm. “It can be, but not if you’re serious about the sport, although there’s no denying that I also had my share of good times, maybe more than I should have. I’m very aware that if I hadn’t achieved all of that no one would give a shit about reading about my life and I wouldn’t be here with you.”

She leaned her head into his hand and he caressed her cheek. “Drew,” she whispered. “As nice as this is, this isn’t a vacation. It’s work, and you need to bring the same focus that you brought to skiing to this project.”

“You know I will, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun doing it.” His arm came around her waist and when she raised her face and rolled her eyes at him, he kissed her.

“I’m trying to be serious, but you’re making it hard for me,” she said.

His eyes filled with heat. “Oh, sweetheart, it’s you that makes it hard — anytime, anywhere.”

“Drew!” Kate laughed. She tried to shove him away, but trying to move a conditioned athlete was like pushing against a block of concrete. Instead, he took one step closer.

“I want to fuck you right now,” he growled near her ear.

Kate tried to ignore the way her body responded to his words, but the tingle between her legs told her she felt the same. “I don’t think you want to find your naked backside on the pages of some tabloid, O’Connor, but maybe once we’re on the plane…” She glanced in the direction of his obvious hard on and added, “Maybe I can do something about that.”

His brows rose in surprise and his eyes twinkled with delight. “Promise?”

Before she could answer they were interrupted by the boarding announcement for their flight.

His palm rested on her lower back as they walked onto the plane. The flight attendant did a double take when she spotted Drew, a reaction Kate didn’t think she’d ever get used to. “Mr. O’Connor, welcome aboard. If there’s anything at all you need during the flight, or anything I can do to make you comfortable, please let me know.”

The young woman ogled Drew and completely ignored Kate until he brought her body against his side and kissed her temple. The woman’s eyes slid from Drew to Kate and then back again.

“My girlfriend and I will need a couple of blankets, but other than that we should be okay.” His words made the relationship clear and the woman’s hopeful expression vanished.

“Your girlfriend?” Kate hissed once they were seated. His use of that word thrilled her, although she already recognized that being this man’s girlfriend would require heaps of trust, not to mention a firm grip on her insecurities.

“Do you mind that I called you that? It got her to back off,” he said.

“It did.”

“But something’s wrong. Tell me.” He rested his hand on hers and began to play with her fingers.

“You surprised me. We only met a couple of weeks ago.”

“And yet that’s how I think of you.” He turned toward her so that their eyes met and then he slowly brought his mouth closer to hers. Before their lips met, however, the flight attendant offered them a pre-take off glass of Champagne. An impersonal professional mask had replaced the predatory look that she’d aimed at Drew earlier.

Kate picked up the delicate crystal flute and brought it to her mouth, but before she could take a sip Drew said, “Wait. Since we’re on our way to Ireland, we need a fitting toast.” He closed his eyes and scrunched up his face, thinking. “All the Gaelic ones that I know are either dirty or religious, so I’ll stick with old reliable
Sláinte
,
but add
go dté tu slán
.”

“What does it mean?”

“Health, of course, and safe journey. We’re starting a journey, aren’t we?”

“I suppose,” she said slowly and tilted her head to study him. “I get the feeling that you’re talking about more than this trip.”

“I am. It’s also a journey of discovery for both of us.”

“Hmm,” Kate murmured, nodding. “Is fluency in Gaelic one of the discoveries I’m making about you?”

Drew laughed. “I can speak a little and know how to pronounce most words, but fluent? Nah. Don’t forget that I spent my first eight years in Ireland and then summers until my eighteenth birthday. I have dual citizenship. Gran often spoke in the old tongue, so I picked up the language, but when you don’t use it…well, you know how that goes.”

They’d been so oblivious to anything around them that Kate was surprised to see sky outside the window beside her seat when she finally tore her eyes away from Drew.

A couple of hours later, he glanced at Kate. She recognized the hungry look on his face although they’d just finished eating dinner. The cabin lights had been dimmed so that passengers could get some sleep, so she slowly reclined her seat and spread the blankets over them. He leaned closer, but instead of kissing her, he ran a finger over her lips. “Mmm, bare, my favorite.”

“What’s your problem with lipstick?” Kate asked, softly.

He shrugged his shoulders and continued to run one finger around her lips until she sucked it into her mouth. When she swirled her tongue around it, he shivered. “I guess lipstick is like a spotlight. It draws attention to a woman’s mouth. Besides eating, that mouth is used for kissing, for sex, for what you’re doing now, which is torturing me. I don’t want other men to notice your lips because they’ll imagine them against various body parts. It’s selfish, but I want your lips all to myself.”

“I never thought of it that way, from a man’s perspective I mean.” She released his finger, but continued to watch his face as she slid her hand under the blanket to unbutton his jeans and slowly slide the zipper down. He was fully aroused when she grasped his erection and ran her thumb around the already-moist tip. Drew stifled a groan and shifted his hips so that he faced her, his back toward the aisle. Their heated gazes never wavered as Kate continued to stroke him until Drew’s breathing changed.

“I’m so close,” he panted.

She palmed the linen napkin she’d kept from the dinner service and held it in one hand while the other sped up. Drew squeezed his eyes shut and grimaced in an effort to stay silent as he came, his semen captured in the cloth napkin.

“Were you a Girl Scout?” he asked when his breathing returned to normal.

“No,” she said, smiling innocently. “I didn’t want to mess up their blanket or your clothes. The airsick bag was a possibility, but it would have crackled and just seemed...wrong.”

He shook his head. “You’re amazing.” He ran his tongue down her neck and his teeth tugged her ear lobe before he expelled a hot breath. “I want to bury myself in you, but I can’t, not here.”

Instead, he loosened the waist of her jeans and slid his hand inside until it met its target. She moaned quietly as his fingers began a magic dance. It didn’t take long for her hips to begin to move. She grabbed the front of his shirt to pull him closer as her orgasm left her trembling. “Nice, so nice,” she whispered.

Drew kissed her tenderly, and some emotion neither was ready to acknowledge passed between them. He smoothed a few stray hairs off her face and smiled. “Sleep baby, we have a lot to do when we land.”

CHAPTER 14

“It’s good that we don’t have to rely on me to do that,” Kate commented, impressed by how skillfully Drew worked their Mini-Cooper’s stick shift with his left hand as they made their way out of Shannon Airport. “I’ve driven on the wrong side of the road in England, but I never got used to the steering wheel on what should be the passenger’s side of the car. And a stick shift in the wrong hand? I wouldn’t dare! My brain doesn’t work that way.”

Drew grinned, pleasure evident on his face. “I learned to drive here when I was sixteen. Gran insisted on it so that I could chauffeur her and her friends around. When I got home and asked my father for the car keys he was…well, he didn’t like it.”

A dark cloud passed over his face, one Kate recognized whenever Drew mentioned his father, but she chose to let it go.  He obviously had more than the normal amount of issues every kid has with his parents. She doubted that he’d ever talk about those for the book, but since he brought it up…”

She looked at the passing scenery for a while, wondering if she should risk the ease between them. “That story about learning to drive here and your dad not giving you the keys back home is the kind of thing that young skiers who idolize you would love to know about you. We should include it in the book.”

Drew tightened his grip on the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white and his brows lowered into a scowl. “Can we not talk about the fucking book!”

“But Drew…”

He lowered the window and breathed in the cool, Irish morning air. “I’m sorry. This place has a lot of memories for me, so I need a few days to adjust to being here. Can we just be Drew and Kate for a while, not author and subject?”

“I knew this was going to be messy.” What had she gotten herself into? She proposed a compromise, “It’s Friday. Can we be tourists for the weekend and start work Monday?” She turned toward him and rested her hand on his knee. “All right?”

The hand he placed on hers was warm. “This is hard for me. I’ve told you there are things…”

She placed her fingers against his lips. “Shhh, not now. We’re on vacation, remember?” As he steered the car onto the motorway, she looked around, confused. “Where are we headed anyway? Galway is north of the airport, but that sign said we’re going south.”

“We’re sightseeing. There’s someplace I want to show you. I think you’ll like it. ”

An hour later, Drew slowed the car to a crawl as they drove through the village of Adare. The main street was lined with thatched roof, whitewashed cottages fronted by colorful flower gardens or low stone walls.

A delighted grin lit Kate’s face as her head swiveled from side to side, not wanting to miss anything. “Are you kidding? Are we in a fairy tale or at the Irish Disneyland?”

Drew threw his head back and laughed. “It looks like it, but I assure you that it’s a real place, with real people who wisely preserved the village’s character.” He expertly steered the small car into an equally small parking spot, then reached out the window to fold the side mirror against the car’s body.

“Why did you do that?” Kate asked as she stood and stretched.

“You’ve seen how narrow our roads are and if the mirror is left sticking out, it can get knocked off by a passing car.”

“You said ‘our’ roads.”

“Ah, picky, picky. I sometimes forget that you work with words. When I’m here, suddenly I’m Irish again. Not American-Irish, just Irish.” He shrugged, almost as if he didn’t understand it himself.

“Then I’m very lucky to have a native show me around.” Kate smiled and kissed his cheek. Drew grinned with pleasure and wrapped his arm around her waist as they strolled through the village. Occasionally, someone would look at him as if they recognized their country’s only gold medal skier, but no one invaded their privacy or took his picture.

“I can see why you like it here,” Kate said quietly once they found a small café and ordered breakfast. “You seem much more relaxed.”

He leaned back in his chair. “It’s that obvious?”

“It is. For starters you walked down a street with your arm around me. In New York, you don’t even want to be seen with me.”

“Kate…I told you…” He reached across the table for her hand.

“I know. You don’t want the paparazzi to hassle me or start tabloid speculation about Drew’s latest conquest.”

“I’m just delaying the inevitable. You can’t imagine how invasive that kind of attention can be until it happens. Your life ceases to be your own. I’ve told you I want to protect you from that — both of us, actually — for as long as I can.”

“I can handle it.”

“I’m sure you can. What I don’t know is if I can.”

“Meaning?”

Without realizing it, his thumb went to his mouth and he gnawed on the nail.

“Now you’re tense. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“How do you know I’m tense?”

“It’s that thing you do with your thumb. Whenever you’re uncomfortable about something, it goes to your mouth.”

He immediately lowered his hand to the table and looked away from her, an embarrassed flush on his face. “I sucked my thumb for a long time as a child. It soothed me somehow. I guess the habit stayed with me.”

“Sometime we’re going to have to talk about your childhood,” she said, gently.

“It wasn’t pretty. I think I could tell you things I haven’t told another human being, but I’d want that conversation to be with Kate, my girlfriend, a woman I’m learning to trust, not Kate Porter, my co-author.”

Kate glowed and felt a flutter in her chest. This was the second time he’d called her his girlfriend and this time there was no one around to hear it but her. “We’ll sort that out when we need to. For now, let’s drop it and go back to just enjoying ourselves. Okay?”

“Good idea,” Drew agreed. Breakfast finished, he walked around the table and politely pulled out her chair.

“Such a gentleman,” she said, covering his hand with hers.

“I try,” he said, grinning, the earlier tension gone.

After a full day of wandering the village and climbing hills to explore the ruins of churches and monasteries, they drove to a majestic country estate that had been converted into a luxury hotel.

“Nice place. I hope they have a room for us,” Kate said.

“We have a reservation,” Drew answered, lifting their bags from the car before leaning toward her with a murmured promise. “Once we’re in our room I’m going to do all the things I’ve thought about since our foreplay on the flight over.”

They hurried toward the hotel’s entrance, but just before reaching it both of their phones vibrated. Drew looked at Kate and raised his dark brows, leaving the decision about reading the texts up to her.

A quick check showed that Kate’s message was from Liz. Drew’s was from Charles. “I bet they both wrote about the same thing,” he said.

“Maybe they eloped. They’ve been inseparable since that night in my apartment. We might as well see what’s so important before we go inside so we can do what you promised without wondering about what they want. Okay?”

Drew nodded and pulled up Charles’ message. Kate did the same. “Damn it to hell,” he shouted. He dropped their bags and stalked back toward the parking lot, muttering to himself. Kate watched him, her mouth open in shock. He pounded the roof of the car with his fist. “I knew this would happen!”

She followed him, afraid to read Liz’s message. “Tell me,” Kate said, clutching his shirt. “Has something happened to one of them?”

Drew was breathing hard and his eyes flashed as if he wanted to kill someone. “They’re fine. Give me a minute.”

Kate wrapped her arms around his waist and heard his heart pounding when she rested her head on his chest. His arms came around her and they stayed like that, holding each other, until he was ready to talk.

“Someone on our flight must have taken pictures of us and then sold them to some online gossip site. Now they’re all over the place. There are a few of us kissing in the airport and one of us asleep together on the plane. Charles included a link to the story which he said is pretty bad.”

“Is that all? You made me think that something awful had happened. You’re a goddamn celebrity, Drew, and there are cell phones everywhere. You’re overreacting. Why are you so upset?”

He walked away, his head lowered and hands tucked in his pockets, until he whirled around to face her. “Why am I upset? I’m not ready for you to become the target for every nut job that admires me, that resents me, that has a grudge against me, or just wants to make money off of me. There will be speculation about our relationship that will hurt you and women from my past will happily add to it.” He gentled his voice. “You never asked to be famous and I told you that I wanted to protect you from all that. I didn’t.”

She couldn’t stand how miserable he looked. “Drew, you can’t beat yourself up over this. It’s not your fault.”

“It is. I should have left you alone, not gone forward with a book I don’t even want to do…but I wanted you. It was selfish and as soon as I realized how much I…” He raised his hands, palms upward in exasperation. “I should have walked away from you. Maybe I still should.”

Kate’s body stiffened and she glared at him, hands on her hips. “Andrew O’Connor! Are you forgetting that it was me who made the first move? Remember? When we were in the limo, after our non-date at that dive bar it was me that decided to spend the night. Come on, Drew. I’m strong and I can deal with this.”

“Oh, you can deal with this? Sure, like you did when you saw pictures of me with Inga? You were hurt because you and everyone else assumed I was fucking her. That kind of shit will happen again and again. I won’t be able to keep the sharks from speculating about us and dissecting your appearance, your job, everything about you, until they get bored and move on to some other poor bastard.”

“If you hate it so much, then why are you such a public person?”

“I’ve questioned that a lot recently, but I have multi-year contracts that require me to appear in ads and make public appearances. I’ve considered buying my way out of them, but I always honor my commitments. Charles knows that when these expire, that’s it for me. I don’t need the money and I certainly don’t need or want the attention any more.”

“Oh? And what do you think will happen when this book comes out?”`

He sighed. “That’s different. I’ve learned how to not let it get to me when it’s only about me. But when people I care about, people who never looked for fame, are suddenly targeted because of their connection to me, that makes me crazy.”

She grinned. “You’ve made that crystal clear.” She took his hand in both of hers, raised it to her lips and kissed each of his fingertips as she spoke softly. “But for now we’re in Ireland at a beautiful hotel and I want nothing more than to get naked with you. Do you think you can go along with that?”

He lowered his gaze to the ground and stayed that way for a few minutes until he suddenly lunged for her, a huge smile on his face. His hips, arousal evident, pressed against her abdomen. “Does that answer your question?”

Her rogue was back, Kate thought with relief. “It does answer my question and very impressively.”

Fingers entwined, they checked in and quickly found the suite he’d booked. A fire blazed in the hearth of the large sitting room and Kate stood warming her hands near the flames. Her eyes stayed on Drew as he carried their bags into a bedroom dominated by a huge, canopied, four-poster bed. He turned toward her and winked. “What do you want first? Food, a bath or…” he glanced at the bed then back at her, “me?”

She frowned and tapped her foot. “Hmm, that’s a difficult choice, O’Connor. I
am
hungry, but I told you I want you naked and I still do. Food can wait, although the smells coming from the dining room were heavenly. And after dinner we can do it all over again.”

“I’m starting to think that the day you fell into my arms at St. Patrick’s was the luckiest day of my life.”

“And mine was when you walked into my office because I thought I’d never see you again,” Kate murmured. She watched Drew’s eyes blaze as she slowly walked toward him intent on shedding her clothes, but he held his hand up like a traffic cop. “Wait!” he ordered and she paused in mid-step.

He sat at the edge of the bed and leaned back on his elbows, his eyes focused on her. “Slide your sweater over your head. Slowly.”

She tilted her head to the side and looked at him flirtatiously through lowered lashes, turned on by the way he’d taken control. She watched his reaction as she raised her arms to pull the sweater over her head. The movement bared a slice of her stomach when the skimpy tank top she wore beneath it shifted. Face flushed, she tossed the sweater to the floor and waited.

“I can see your nipples through that top.” Drew was breathing harder and his eyes devoured her. “Take it off,” he growled.

Again, Kate obeyed. She liked dominant Drew and whatever game he was playing.

“Keep your bra on and unzip your jeans.” She did as he asked very slowly. “Now turn around and bend over while you pull them down. I want to see your beautiful ass.”

The silky red thong she wore gave him the view that he’d wanted. Her narrow jeans imprisoned her ankles as she slowly bent forward and dark hair tumbled around her face. “Like what you see?”