[Kate's Boys 04] - Travis's Appeal Read online

  The shrug was casual. Travis saw no point in mentioning his parents, especially in light of how happy his father was with Kate.

  “With all three of my brothers married—and happy—it’s a little hard not to believe in the institution, but I do know that maintaining a marriage is a lot of damn hard work.”

  “Anything that’s worth having and keeping usually is.”

  They were silent for a few minutes. He slanted a glance at her as he took another right turn.

  “How do you feel about marriage?” he heard himself asking.

  “I don’t feel anything at all about it.” After breaking up with Kevin, she deliberately banked down all her emotions, refusing to revisit a place where she’d been vulnerable. “I’m too busy to give it the time it deserves,” she continued evasively.

  That was called learning from her mistakes, she added silently. Because when she was engaged to Kevin, she thought about little else. Until Kevin shattered the dream—and along with it, her.

  Travis pulled up to the Tudor-style house in the middle of the block. The house that she now shared with her father. He turned off the ignition, but rather than open the door and get out, he faced her, mildly amused and more than a little intrigued.

  Moonlight became her. Shimmering along her skin, it made her look like an earthbound goddess.

  What did a goddess’s kiss taste like?

  The thought seemed to materialize out of nowhere, but it caught his attention and he turned it over in his mind. Slowly.

  “Let’s see,” he said, his eyes skimming along the contours of her face, “we’ve discussed kids and marriage, all before we’ve even kissed.” Was it his imagination, or did his throat tighten just a wee bit as he made his observation?

  All the butterflies in Shana’s stomach flared to life but she summoned her courage. “There’s an easy solution for that,” she told him, then congratulated herself that her voice didn’t crack or tremble.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  “Yes, ‘oh.’”

  And then, before she lost her nerve, Shana leaned over into his space. Framing his face with her long, delicate fingers, she pressed her lips against his. The moment she did, something happened. Every fiber of her being came to life.

  She froze in place even as she felt things inside her heating. Shana’s heart rate accelerated as Travis deepened the kiss. Control slipped away from her. She’d started this, but he was definitely finishing it. And, quite possibly, her.

  Just like that, she went from being the initiator, the leader, to the follower. There was no strength within her to resist, no strength to keep from melting almost completely.

  She belonged to the moment.

  To him.

  He tasted of something dark and compelling. She wanted more.

  A small moan escaped her lips as she continued to slant them over his. Things went on inside of her that she hadn’t expected to feel ever again. Had specifically forbidden herself ever to feel again.

  Yet here she was, feeling. Being a pawn in a game she no longer controlled.

  Fun, remember? You’re just having fun, nothing else. Because if it was something beyond that, something more, she didn’t know what would be left this time when it ended. Because, inevitably, it would end. No man could understand that her father, the man to whom she owed so much, had to come first right now. The male ego wouldn’t allow that.

  Despite the mental pep talk, Shana felt her heart racing in her chest by the time Travis drew his lips away. Trying to collect herself, she watched a smile curve the corners of his mouth.

  “Well, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way,” he quipped, letting his voice trail off. His eyes looked deeply into hers. There was mischief in them, he thought. She caught his soul at that moment.

  Only one way could she regain control here, and that was to initiate action. “Wait,” she murmured seductively, “I don’t think it’s quite out of the way yet,” she told him.

  “Whatever you say,” he murmured, taking her back into his arms.

  The second time around was even better than the first. His head began to spin as if he’d had consumed his alcohol too quickly. She tasted of all things sweet and intoxicating. Travis struggled not to push it further, the way everything within him begged him. It felt as if every nerve ending he possessed had gone on high alert.

  He took a long breath, released it slowly, as if steadying himself. And then he smiled. “I’d better get you home,” he told her. He didn’t know how much longer he could trust himself.

  “Yours?” she asked, her voice low, like amber liquid sliding along the sides of a brandy glass.

  The sound of her voice made his very skin tingle. Damn, but she had some effect on him. This was decidedly a first.

  “That is up to you,” he told her evenly, his voice a low rumble, his eyes pinning her in place.

  She’d expected something else. To be coerced, convinced. Swept away. Disappointment whispered through her system. “You don’t care one way or another?”

  “Oh, I care,” he assured her. “I care very much. And it’s definitely ‘one way,’ and not ‘the other.’ But the choice isn’t mine,” he pointed out gently. “It belongs to you.”

  Was he being chivalrous, or thinking ahead to avoid the blame when this turned sour? “You don’t want any responsibility in this?”

  He started to wonder about the men who had been in her life. Had they scarred her? Made her distrust her feelings? Not lived up to her expectations?

  And how would she feel if she knew that he was privy to a secret that would set her life on its ear? A secret he wasn’t free to share with her, even though he encouraged the man she thought was her father to tell her?

  He pushed those thoughts to the side, focusing only on the moment. The breathtaking, soul-stirring moment.

  “I don’t want you to feel pressured or rushed,” he confided.

  She took a deep breath, like someone who was about to plunge off a high cliff. “So this would be my decision entirely?”

  He crossed his fingers mentally, afraid to breathe. “Yes.”

  She raised her eyes to his, stirring something deep in his gut. “And if I asked for your input?”

  God, but she was driving him crazy. It was all he could do not to pull her into his arms, not to kiss her over and over again until there was no room for thought, only action.

  But he, like his brothers, had been raised to afford women the utmost amount of respect, to put the woman’s needs and wishes high above his own.

  Still, he owed her the truth if that was what she was asking for. “Oh, lady,” he whispered, gently brushing a curl from her temple, “I think you know what my input would be.”

  She leaned closer to him again and he thought she was going to brush her lips against his one more time. Instead, she whispered, “Tell me.”

  The soft stir of her breath seduced him, creating havoc.

  “I want to take you home and make love with you all night long, or until we’re both too exhausted to breathe, whichever comes first.”

  She took a deep breath and for a moment, he thought that common sense would prevail. She was going to tell him that he should just drop her off here.

  But she surprised him by saying, “Take me to your apartment.”

  His heart pounded in his ears. “You’re sure?”

  She pressed her lips together, her eyes watching his lips. She forced herself to think of nothing but this moment. And the ones that were to hopefully follow this night. “I’m sure.”

  Travis didn’t remember turning the ignition back on, didn’t remember driving the car to his place.

  But he must have because, somehow, they got there. In record time.

  Chapter 10

  I t was all that Shana could do to keep her hand still. She was trembling inside when Travis opened the passenger door for her and helped her out of his car.

  Her fingers were icy.

  Travis looked into Shana’s ey
es. There were things going on that he couldn’t quite get a handle on.

  She was afraid, he realized.

  Of him?

  That was absurd. No one was afraid of him. He didn’t have that dangerous edge that he sometimes found himself envying when he saw it in other men.

  Was she afraid of herself?

  That probably made more sense. He knew firsthand that it could be unsettling to discover yourself a prisoner of desires and emotions. Right now, he was experiencing a little of that himself.

  He wanted her. Very, very much. But as much as he did, he didn’t want fear to be part of the equation.

  His hand tightened on hers and he gave it a warm, assuring squeeze. When she raised her eyes to his quizzically, he said, “Maybe I’d better take you back home.”

  Shana’s eyes widened with confusion. “Why?”

  He smiled and gently touched her face. This was costing him. A lot. But she had to be here for the right reasons. “Because you have the same look in your eyes as a kid who’s about to be inoculated—trying to be brave but pretty much scared out of their mind.”

  Shana squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I’m not afraid,” she protested, her voice still breathless.

  The expression on his face told her he didn’t believe her. “Then why do you sound as if you can’t catch your breath?” he asked.

  Was he really this noble? If so, that made him one in a million. For just a moment, she rethought her newly adopted “no strings” policy. No, it was better that way. Removed so that even though passion could find her, pain couldn’t.

  “Maybe it’s because you’ve stolen it away,” she finally said.

  He was about to say something about being very flattered, but the words never reached his lips. She reached them first, pressing her soft mouth against his.

  The woman packed quite a wallop. Her kiss seemed to channel all of the wild, unnamed feelings that could rise up between a man and a woman, swirling around like the beginnings of a tornado funnel.

  Her breath might not have been stolen away, but damn, his certainly was. Right along with everything else that ordinarily made him a clear-thinking, logical man. In less time than it took for him to blink, Travis found himself reduced to a mass of desires and passions, of wants and needs.

  Heat began to radiate from him, mingling with hers until it all but threatened a meltdown, right here, standing beneath his covered parking space. For all the world to witness.

  Someone driving by honked their horn, presumably at them.

  With almost superhuman effort, Travis forced himself to draw back, even though all he wanted to do was continue on this path. He wasn’t about to put on a show for the immediate public like some hormonal adolescent—even though that was exactly the way he felt right now.

  “I guess maybe you don’t want to go home,” he said softly, trying to catch not just his breath but his mind, which had fogged up like a medicine cabinet mirror during a prolonged shower.

  She could feel her heart slamming against her rib cage.

  More, an inner voice begged. More.

  “No,” she whispered, “I don’t.”

  His smile burrowed its way under her skin, creating havoc. Where was even a shred of control? she wondered. What was happening here?

  “Then I suggest we get out of the parking lot before I lose the ability to resist you,” he told her.

  Shana felt her mouth curving. He made it sound as if she was the one in control of the situation. They both knew she wasn’t. At this point, she had no idea who, or even what, was in control.

  Pressing her lips together, she nodded. The inside of her mouth felt incredibly dry as she murmured “Okay.”

  The apartment complex was composed of two-and three-storied buildings, all less than two years old. There was a freshness about them, even at night. Travis’s apartment was on the ground floor, less than thirty feet away from the covered parking space where they were standing.

  It felt more like fifty miles.

  During the walk to his apartment, he found he needed time to pull himself together, as he silently marveled at how quickly this statuesque woman with the radiant smile could disarm him. How quickly she’d reduced him down to his most primal level.

  Unlocking the door, Travis reached inside and turned on the light for her as she entered.

  There were newspapers, a few of the standard magazines devoted to the state of the economy, and folders scattered about both on his small kitchen table and the slightly scarred dark marble coffee table in his living room.

  He thought about straightening the piles, then decided it was too late for that. “I wasn’t expecting company,” he confessed, closing the door again.

  Trying to regain use of her knees again, Shana looked around. His apartment had just the right amount of clutter, she caught herself thinking. Judging by its state, there hadn’t been a woman here for a while. The thought pleased her.

  As did the realization that he hadn’t planned on seducing her when he picked her up tonight. If he had, his apartment would have been neater. First impressions and all that.

  The smile on her lips seemed to come of its own accord.

  This was all spontaneous. Which was the way she wanted it. Spontaneous meant being free. Meant that there were no ties, which was, she kept silently insisting, the way she wanted it. If there were no expectations, there could be no sense of disappointment, no hurt feelings or the sharp, stabbing sensation of being let down in the future. No having your heart trampled by someone you trusted to put your feelings above his own—or at the very least, on an equal footing.

  Shana turned toward him. He was watching her reaction, she realized. Her smile deepened. “It’s a nice apartment.”

  As if coming to, Travis cleared away a stack of folders that had been on the sofa, placing them next to other piles on the coffee table.

  Nodding toward the sofa, he asked, “Would you like to sit down?”

  I’d like you to kiss me. Now. Before I lose my nerve. Before I can think this through to the end and run out the door.

  Rather than say anything, Shana moved her head from side to side, her eyes never leaving his face.

  Travis felt his pulse speed up. When she didn’t say anything further, he went with his instincts, foregoing the role of the host and banking down the sense of uneasiness that wove through him. Uneasiness over the fact something more was going on than he was currently aware of.

  As a rule, Travis didn’t believe in casual sex without some kind of feelings involved. And with feelings came the need to have everything honest and above board.

  But this time, the uneasiness came because he wasn’t being honest. He was privy to a secret. A secret he was bound by law and, more importantly, by ethics to keep from her. It wasn’t his secret to tell.

  But it was hers to know and if, no, when, she realized that he knew and had kept it from her, their connection would be forever tarnished.

  He knew in his pounding heart that he should call a halt to this. That it wasn’t right, in a strange way, taking advantage of her. But damn, when she looked at him like that, with her mouth so close to his and her body so warm and willing, it was hard to focus on doing the right thing.

  All he could think of was making love with her. Slowly and with feeling. For hours on end. He felt the need down to the very bone.

  “Shana,” he began, not really knowing a single word of what he was going to say after that.

  Which made no difference because he never got to say more.

  The look in her eyes pulled him in. Something inside of her seemed to be calling out to him.

  And then he was kissing her.

  Kissing her as if his very soul hung in the balance.

  From the moment he surrendered to the feeling that had all but a stranglehold on him, Travis knew he was hers. Hers the way he’d vowed to be for a very long time, if not forever. He wasn’t a strong believer in the “many-fish-in-the-sea” philosophy. That reduced wom
en—and love—to the point where one was practically interchangeable for another, one was as good as another. He had never believed that.

  Instead, he’d believed that finding the right woman was a very difficult task and even when you thought you’d succeeded, most likely you hadn’t.

  But it was getting harder for him to think, hard to do anything but go with these sensations that were all but burnt into him. The more he kissed her, the more he wanted to kiss her. The more he touched her, his hands brushing against her face, her throat, her shoulders, the more he absolutely needed to touch her. It was either that, or cease to be.

  Shana’s breath kept hitching in her throat, becoming almost a solid entity and impossible to purge from her lungs. It happened each time she felt Travis’s hands pass over her body.

  He touched her almost reverently, as if she would break at any moment. Her flesh all but burned as her desire to have his hands pass over it increased. Shana desperately wanted him to touch her without fabric getting in the way.

  She arched into his fingers, into his palms, even as her mouth was sealed to his.

  With her blood surging in her veins, her hands began quick work of yanking his jacket from his arms, feeding it to the floor. No sooner was that barrier out of the way than she began tugging at his shirt, fumbling at the buttons, desperately pushing the material from his shoulders.

  Her fingers touched strong, rigid muscles along his arms. The hardness she discovered excited her, fueling the fire that had sprung up in her chest. In the very center of her core. A shiver danced down her spine even before she felt him remove her blouse. His movements were as slow and deliberate as hers had been fast and erratic.

  Shana froze, absorbing every touch, every brush of his fingertips.

  There was no way for her to bite back the moan that escaped from her lips as his hands cupped her bare breasts.

  It was just the beginning.

  Breathing hard, she threw back her head. His lips trailed along her throat, creating a new wealth of sensations within her that peaked and spiraled as they drew her further into a hot, burning ecstasy that winked in and out of her body.