First and Only: Callaghan Brothers, Book 2 (12 page)

“What do you think you’re doing?“ she asked, crossing the room and snapping the laptop lid closed. The aroma of freshly washed, warm, moist Lexi hit him full on.  God help him.

“Checking your email.”  Ian was unrepentant, speaking in a tone that gave the impression he had every right to go through her personal things. 

He frowned, noticing the marks on her body.  Marks he had left in throes of passion.  Had he been that rough with her?  He hadn’t meant to be.  He reached up to touch one along the back of her shoulder, but she quickly moved away, stepping out of his reach.

Her eyes narrowed, all traces of whatever had spooked her gone.  “And you thought I would be okay with that
why
?”

He gave her a roguish grin, putting up his hands in a gesture of surrender.  “It’s your fault.  You left me out here all alone.  You were practically begging me to find something to keep myself busy.  I guess I could have followed you into the shower instead.  That certainly would have been more fun, though far less informative.”

An instant flush appeared above the towel, rising up the slim column of her neck and into her face.  Ian spotted the lovely coloring and felt himself harden even more.  She placed her notebook on the other side of the room and opened her suitcase, searching for something to wear.  Ian frowned.  He liked seeing her in his shirt.  He unbuttoned the one he was wearing and held it out to her.

“He certainly sends you a lot of email.”

“Who?” she asked, eyeing his shirt as if she just might take it.  He really liked the way she was glancing at his chest, too, and the way it seemed to drive the thought of any other man out of her mind.

“
Aidan
.”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but Aidan is my .... boss.”

Ian shrugged, as if the information meant nothing to him, but her hesitation bothered him.  A lot.  Of course by now he knew everything there was to know about Aidan Harrison, including the fact that he didn’t want him anywhere near Lexi again.  Ever. 

Ian wasn’t quite sure how he was going to swing that one, considering that she was the head chef of Harrison’s most successful restaurant chain, but he would figure out something.  So far he had fearlessness and resourcefulness going for him.  Why not a little cleverness as well?

Lexi stared hard into the small closet.  “You went through my stuff?” she said in disbelief.

Ian shrugged again, his eyes mischievous.  He’d deliberately left things in different positions, wondering if she would notice.  She did.  “I was bored.” 

She was sexy when she was riled.  Her chest heaved, her eyes glowed, and her perfect skin turned the most beautiful shade of peachy pink.  Her eyes went from him to the Salienne Dulcette erotic romance novel on the bed next to him and she scowled. 
Beautiful
.

“So why won’t you sleep with him?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your
boss
, Aidan.  Why won’t you sleep with him? Is he ugly or something?  Old?  Great big warts and age spots?  Maybe he has a tiny little - ” Ian held up his thumb and index finger about an inch apart from each other.

* * *

“F
or your information, Aidan is young, gorgeous and incredibly sexy.  Not to mention extremely wealthy and brilliant.”  Which was all true, but it didn’t matter, not to her. 
Because Aidan was not Ian
.  But Ian didn’t have to know that.  “And what makes you think I’m
not
sleeping with him?”

Ian flashed a smile, showing nearly every one of his perfect white teeth.  “Because if you
were
sleeping with him, he wouldn’t dare let you out of his sight and anywhere near the likes of someone like
me
.  He’d be here right now, pleasuring you, ravaging your perfect body over and over again until you were too exhausted to even scream his name.”

Her breath caught, just a little.  Warm, moist heat pooled between her thighs.  Her breasts grew instantly full and heavy, aching for his hands to cradle them.  Then Ian was behind her, sending exciting little shudders up and down her spine. 

“At least that’s what I’d be doing,” he added softly, releasing her hair from the towel, gently pulling the damp strands through his fingers.  “If I was sleeping with you.”

His fingers skimmed the tops of her shoulders, feathering down her arms.  Despite the warmth of the room goose bumps began forming along her skin.  She shuddered, her nipples growing harder, nerves firing from the tips of her toes to the base of her skull.  Even the slight rasp of the terry towel had her practically moaning with need.  How did he do that?  How did he render her totally helpless with a few whispered words and a gentle caress?

Lexi fought for self-control as her traitorous body wanted nothing except to melt into him.  “Ian,” she moaned, hating the desperation she heard in her voice.  The stark, raw hunger that consumed her whenever he touched her, spoke to her, looked at her. 

Everyone said it had been a crush.  Puppy love.  But she knew better.  Ian Callaghan was the only man she would ever want; the only man she would ever love.  Her feelings had only grown stronger with time and distance, to the point where they were terrifying.  There was nothing she would not do for him if he asked it of her.  She could never tell him no.

Had Ian felt the same, it would have been a match made in and blessed by Heaven itself.  Two people so desperately in love could be nothing less, the stuff of ageless legends.

Lexi had been drawn to Ian from the very first time she’d seen him.  Over time, she began to realize that what she was feeling was not an infatuation, not a silly crush.  It was so much stronger, so much deeper than anything she’d ever felt before.  So much so that she had never been able to give herself to another.  The only man she had ever wanted, ever needed, was seducing her with his voice, his touch, his very presence.  And therein lay the problem. 

Unbidden, Kayla’s voice echoed in her head. 
But then again, I got what you really wanted, didn’t I?
 
See princess?  He still wants me.
 

Visions began slamming into her, one after the other as Kayla’s words repeated over and over in a vicious loop:  Ian beside Kayla in front of the casket.  By her side in the church. At the cemetery.  Kayla’s arms wrapped around him as he practically carried her out of the wake. 

In each one, Ian was exactly where a man should be for a woman he cared about at a time like that. 

None of the others had been so supportive. 

Only Ian.

And that entire day, Ian had said not one word to her.  He had gone out of his way to avoid her, in fact. 

Oh, she’d seen him glancing over at her occasionally.  Surely it had been quite a shock when he realized who she was.  She couldn’t blame him for being angry, for pretending not to know her under the circumstances.  It was a sleazy move on her part, and she sure as hell would have been upset had their places been reversed.  But that didn’t explain why he was here now, running the pads of his sinfully skilled fingers up and down her arms and giving her chills while a fire burned inside her. 

The way he touched her, with so much tenderness and passion, had her doubting herself.  Had he not been at Kayla’s side all that day, Lexi might actually believe Ian felt something for her.  But he had been.  She had seen it herself.  Even Kieran had confirmed that they were still together when she’d asked.  And ten years was a long time.  There were plenty of marriages that didn’t last that long.

But God, she loved him so much it hurt.  Ian wanted her - that much she could tell easily from the shaft of pure steel pressing into her back.  But was it enough?  Could she be his secret mistress, the one he came to under cloak of darkness to fulfill her fantasies, only to have him leave again in the morning to return to another?  A crushing band tightened around her chest making it difficult to breathe, because part of her screamed
Yes!
 

Yet another part of her, the part that had taken her to Benton and saw her through her day to day existence, simply said,
No
.  Not in the desperate, clawing voice of the other, but calmly, objectively. 

And she knew which voice she should be listening to.

“Is that how you are with Kayla then?”  Somehow the words made it past the closure in her throat, even as her heart reached up to pull them back down.

Ian’s hands stilled.  She felt him tense, felt the power accumulating around him, like an encroaching darkness.

“No.”  The word was clipped.  Sharp.  Like a falling axe.

She moved out of his arms, and it was one of the hardest things she had ever done.

Ian ran his hand through his hair, leaving some parts sticking out at odd angles.  The look on his face was pained.  “Lexi, you need to understand –“

She broke him off immediately.  “Don’t worry, Ian.  I won’t tell on you.”  Her voice was strangely hollow and removed, speaking from her mind and not from her heart.  It sounded as wrong as it felt.

“Though it is strangely tempting.  I imagine it would drive Kayla over the edge to know that you slept with
me
, of all people.”

His pained expression gave way to disbelief.  “Is that why you ...?” he began, shaking his head.  “Revenge?  You thought you’d hurt her, like she hurt you?” 

“Of course not,” she snapped, insulted that he would even think her capable of such a thing.  “How could I possibly know you two would still be together after ten years?” 

Ian winced.  Lexi hated saying anything that hurt him, but sometimes the truth was painful.  She tried to soften the blow a little.  “What happened between us had absolutely nothing to do with her.”

“And what exactly happened between us, Lexi?” he asked quietly. “Please,” he coaxed.  “Explain it to me.”

Everything drained out of her then.  All of the fight, all of the anger, leaving nothing but a soul-deep ache in its place.  What was she fighting for anyway?  She was in town for what, a few days?  Kayla lived here, and had both a past and a present with Ian.  How could she hope to compete with that?

“Fulfillment of a young, foolish girl’s fantasy,” she said, suddenly sounding very weary as she sat down on the edge of the bed.  “I’m sorry, Ian.  I should have told you who I was before...”  The words trailed off, unnecessary.

“Why didn’t you?” he asked, repeating the same question he’d asked only that morning.  Had it really only been this morning?  It felt like half of a lifetime had passed between then and now. 

“Because I ...”  She drew in a shaky breath, unable to look at him, feeling more ashamed by the moment.  She couldn’t answer him, not truthfully, because to do so would be to bare her soul, to open a hole into her heart so big it would suck whatever little remained of her down into it. 

“I’m so sorry.”  She whispered the words, trying valiantly not to cry and embarrass herself further.  She was failing miserably.  Huge crystalline drops trailed down her face onto her lap, absorbing immediately into the towel, but not before he’d seen them.  Her shoulders were hunched in, her arms wrapped around herself as if she could protect herself. 

Ian took a step toward her, but she held up her hand.  If he came near her, touched her, she would tell him the truth.  All of it.  And she needed to retain some shred of dignity, no matter how thin of a thread it might be.  “You should go.”

“
Please
.”  She begged, her voice thick with tears.

Lexi kept her gaze downward, knowing that if she looked at him she wouldn’t be able to remain strong.  After several long moments, he picked up his shirt and walked quietly to the door.

“You’re wrong, Lexi,” he said quietly.  “Me and Kayla, it’s not what you think.  It’s just... not.”

Then he opened the door and was gone, and Lexi gave in to the tears.

I
t had not been a good day.  After Ian left, Lexi cried alone in her room until there were simply no more tears left, falling into an exhausted sleep sometime right before dawn.  Then Aidan called, worried that she hadn’t responded to his emails or texts.  Hearing her voice, he had known immediately that something was wrong, and she’d spent the next hour trying to convince him not to drop everything and fly up in his private plane.   

Jack had come for her in the late morning.  The concern was evident in his eyes as he insisted on taking her out to lunch, commenting that she looked too tired, too pale.  It was true enough.  The drama of returning to Pine Ridge was definitely taking its toll, though she had only herself to blame.  She had learned a long time ago that life wasn’t so much about what happened to you as how you dealt with it. 

Yes, Ian had pursued her, but she could have said no and refused to sleep with him.  Hell, she’d had no problem turning away everyone else.

And yes, Kayla had made things unpleasant for her, but what was new about that?  Kayla had spent nearly every moment of their childhood together doing that, and she’d learned to deal with it.  To this day she had no idea why Kayla despised her as much as she did, but things didn’t always make sense, did they?   

It just proved that the move to Georgia had been the best thing that could have happened to her.  Thankfully, her father had realized that even when she hadn’t been able to see it.  Lexi had grown up, grown stronger, made something of herself, but Kayla hadn’t changed at all.  She was still the petty, vain, insecure girl she’d been ten years ago, and in a way, Lexi couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. 

The trip back to her grandmother’s house?  Well, that had just been poor judgment on her part.

Even with an unsettled stomach from forcing down a meal she didn’t want, the short trip had been pleasant enough.  She’d forgotten how much she loved the mountains – all the cool, clean air.  The deep greens and turquoises against a crystal blue sky.  The smell of damp earth and pine needles mixing with honeysuckle and mimosa and mountain laurel.  No matter how far she travelled, no matter how long she stayed away, this would always feel like home to her.

That nice, cozy feeling hadn’t lasted long, though.  The moment the house came into view so did several vehicles.  Jack had conveniently neglected to mention that the others had come earlier.  Jake and Taryn were there, holding hands as they appeared along the side of the house.  Judging by the flushed look on Taryn’s face and Jake’s mussed hair, Lexi guessed they’d found a little magic of their own.  Shane and Sean were on the roof, checking out the view, and Lexi was amazed the thing was able to hold their combined weight in its current state.