What the hell was he thinking, getting involved with a woman when he was weeks—if not days—away from walking out on any sort of life they might share?
They sure couldn't share much of anything from a couple thousand miles apart. He'd been shooting as straight as he knew how when he'd told her that a long-distance relationship was a no-go.
He'd been talking from experience with that one. He'd long since quit entertaining such a possibility, having learned his lesson, having accepted the truth about letting what he loved out of his sight.
If he were staying in
Houston
, he'd be making sure she saw into his future, saw what he wanted to do with his life, saw how he was coming to want her to be a part—
"You're not asleep."
"
Hmmph
." He wondered how well she read minds. "If you were asleep, your breathing wouldn't be so obvious."
"If I'm breathing hard, it's your fault," he said with more of a growl than he'd intended.
She sighed, turned and curled into his body. "I love your sleepy voice."
His heart jolted. God, she was amazing. "Didn't you just accuse me of not sleeping?"
"That doesn't mean your vocal cords are as wide-awake as the rest of you." Her hand slid to the center of his chest, where she plucked lightly at his hair.
"I'm not wide-awake. Just not quite asleep."
"What time is it?"
"Four-thirty."
She yawned. "Have you slept at all?"
"For a while," he lied. He'd been afraid to drift off, not wanting to miss the reality of holding her close even for the few hours of rest he needed.
She stirred enough to prop herself up on an elbow. Her hand stirred as well, slipping around to his far side, then up his ribs to his armpit. "You have to be up soon for your flight, don't you?"
"Yeah," he grumbled.
She gave a quiet
tsk-tsk
. "That doesn't sound like the gung ho Doug Storey I know."
He heard the disappointment in her tone as clearly as her words. "That's because it's the lazy-ass Doug Storey you don't know."
She paused in her exploration of his underarm and his triceps. "So, introduce me to him."
"I don't think so."
She pinched him softly right above his elbow, then rubbed her finger in a soothing circle over the spot. "I do think so. I'm terribly nosy. And I'm dying to know everything about you that you're dying not to share."
Why?
he
wanted to ask.
So we can compare dysfunctions?
Though he doubted she had any, unless being too nice and wholesome counted. Then again, he'd experienced a fairly huge range of her unwholesome abilities…
"
Yeowch
,"
he yelped when she pinched him again and this time didn't bother to soothe. "That hurt."
"Answer my question."
"What question?"
"Why aren't you in contact with your family?"
"I don't remember you asking me that just now."
"I asked the other day."
"I'm pretty damn sure I answered the other day."
"A lame answer
. '
They have their life, I have mine.' I want something better."
"Then take your hand south about twenty-four inches."
She growled, tugged at the hair in his armpit. "You are such a guy."
"I should hope so."
"Well, stop it for a minute. See if you can't get in touch with your feminine side and talk to me for a while here before you have to leave."
"Miss me already, do you?"
"Actually, yes. More than you can imagine."
His heart thudded; his stomach rolled end over end like a dropped football. "Then I can think of a much better way to spend our time than talking."
Her hand had drifted down his side, over his rib cage to his hip. But then she stopped her exploration, far short of where he would've halted her had he been in charge. And so he rolled away from her and pressed his penis into the cup of her hand.
She chuckled as she cuddled close to his back and took him into her hand. She rubbed her palm in circles over his sensitive, swelling head. He hardened and let out a long sigh of tortured relief.
"Time to come clean, buddy."
"You need to work on your threats, darlin'. Not a lot of meat to that one."
"Speaking of meat…" She let him go, moving her hand up his belly and threading her fingers into the hair that grew between his navel and his cock.
He thought about stroking himself; it wasn't as if he was a stranger to taking care of his own business. But he really liked the way she touched him, and so he reached for her hand instead.
With their joined fingers wrapped around his shaft, he prepared to sing like a sissy.
"What do you want to know?"
When she wedged her knee between his thighs from behind him, he lifted his top leg enough for her to settle her leg between his.
It was as if she was trying to climb completely into his skin, and the closeness he felt with her then scared him more than telling her the story of his life.
"Everything. What do you want me to know?"
That was easy. "No more than you do."
"Uh-uh. Nope. Not part of the deal."
If he could talk her into turning over and spreading her legs, they wouldn't have time to talk. He liked the concept, liked it a lot. But not quite as much as he liked what she was doing with her hand.
"Okay then," he said. "I was twenty inches long and nine pounds, ten ounces at birth."
She reached down and lightly cupped his balls. "You don't have to go back that far."
"All right." He'd pay her hard cash to never stop what she was doing. "Though you should feel free to go back as far as you want."
For only a moment she hesitated, then wedged her knee closer to his groin, lifting his upper leg in the process and exposing his back door.
"Is that what you had in mind?" she asked as she slipped her hand between his legs from behind, fondling his tight balls from this new and intimate angle.
"That'll do," he said, though his voice came out strained and his cock surged toward his belly as her wrist
snugged
up between the cheeks of his ass.
What a place to have one woman's hand while he talked about another. "I was supposed to marry the girl next door. Literally."
"Literally marry her? Or she was literally the girl next door?"
So far Kinsey hadn't pulled away, and he took that as a positive sign. "Both. We grew up together. Kindergarten through high school graduation."
"What was her name?"
Why
was that
what women always wanted to know? "Doesn't matter. It's long over and done."
"It's a girl thing. I just want to know."
The way Kinsey was playing with him, moving her hand to squeeze the base of his shaft, he'd be lucky to remember his own name, much less Gwen's.
He snorted, and grimaced at his recollection. "Gwen. Her name was Gwen." Might as well tell the entire truth. "Her name is Gwen. Gwen Storey."
And with that, Kinsey stopped feeling him up.
She paused, and he counted the seconds until her decision—one, two, three—a decision that had her pulling her hand from between his legs and rolling away.
He didn't want her to go, not this way, so he rolled in her direction, trapping her legs by throwing one of his across the top of her thighs.
She stared at him, her eyes wide and blinking as she digested his news. "What do you mean, Gwen Storey?"
"Just what I said. Gwen Storey."
"You're divorced?"
Funny. Even he hadn't thought that would be Kinsey's reaction. "Would it matter?"
"No. Not really. But why keep it a secret?"
"It's not a secret. I'm not divorced and, no," he hurried to add, "I'm not married, either. Gwen is my sister-in-law."
After another never-ending, heart-stopping moment he spent waiting to breathe, Kinsey waved both hands,
then
scooted up in bed, bracing herself on her elbows, her face inches from his. "Wait. Just wait. Could you maybe start this at the beginning? Skipping over the details of your birth."
He looked away from her face to the blanket she'd pulled up to cover her breasts. "In that case the beginning would've been when I was five. That was the year her family moved in next door. Gwen and I were inseparable from then until we graduated."
Kinsey seemed to let that settle before she went on to ask, "College? Is that when you split up?"
"I can't say when we split up." He toyed with the blanket's edge, avoiding her probing gaze. "Gwen stayed in
Abilene
and got her associates degree locally. I came home from
Houston
the Christmas of my third year at U of H to find her engaged to my brother, Adam."
"How could she be engaged to both of you?"
Doug shook his head. "She and I were never officially engaged. I didn't think we needed to be."
"And you were wrong."
She didn't stop him when he pulled the blanket down enough to bare one of her gumdrop nipples. "Apparently so."
He leaned down and sucked her into his mouth. He didn't want to talk. He wanted to bury himself in her body and forget everything but the sex.
He especially wanted to forget one of the most stupid mistakes he'd ever made. It was over and done with, as he'd said to Kinsey, and this trip down memory lane was interfering with his need to get laid.
"That's it?" she asked, though she didn't push him away. "That's all?"
He opened his mouth but spoke against her skin as he answered, "You want more?"
"Yes, I want more."
"Insatiable wench," he said, and climbed on top.
She pressed her hand to his chest. "Not that more. More of the story."
"Why doesn't that come as a surprise?" he asked, and collapsed to the side.
"Well, there has to be more than that. How did she end up with your brother?"
He shrugged. "He was there. I wasn't."
"But after all those years?"
"What can I
say.
Absence does not make the heart grow fonder."
"And no one said a word to you?"
"There's a reason I say that my family have their lives and I have mine."
She shook her head, rolling it back and forth on the pillow. "This isn't right."
"Kinsey, this is just the way it is. And it's history."
"It's not history if it still keeps you and your family apart."
He levered himself up onto one elbow so he could look down into her face. He didn't want to chase her away, but he'd be damned if he let her dig into and reopen wounds that had long been healed. "It's going to keep you and me apart if you don't drop it."
"Fine," she said, before she clamped her mouth shut and rolled over and away to go back to sleep.
Ah, well. Hers wasn't the first cold shoulder he'd slept with, he mused ruefully, plopping onto his back. No doubt there'd be more. And, besides. He needed to get up and shower in a minute, anyway…
"Doug?"
God, but her voice sounded so tiny and so faraway. "Yeah?"
"I'm sorry for prying. Your business is none of mine."
He sucked in a huge
breath,
let it out slowly to prevent himself from saying things he didn't need to say. Things about his feelings for her, the clawing need for stability he'd never thought a woman would help him to find.
When he had a better grip and the moment had passed, he allowed himself a private smile.
And then he smacked her on the ass. "Apology accepted."
"Apology retracted. If hitting me is going to be your response."
"Hitting you? That was a love pat, darlin'."
"Then it's a good thing our relationship is all about sex if that's your idea of love."
The thought of loving Kinsey made his heart hitch. "If our relationship is all about sex, then it's not much of a relationship at all."
She turned over then and faced him, mirroring his pose with her head pillowed on one ann. "What makes you say that?"
He raised a brow. "The fact that there's no sex going on that I can see."
"That's right. You told me you like to watch." His heart hitched again, followed by his belly and his balls. "You have something you want to show me?"
"I might."
"I'm all-eyes over here."
She leaned across his body, pressing her bare breasts to his chest as she turned on the lamp at his bedside.
When she cuddled back down and faced him, he knew he was going to have a hell of a time walking away and leaving this woman alone in his bed.
As sleepy and sexy as her expression was, he saw how much she wanted him, how ready she was to give up anything he asked, how she couldn't keep her feelings for him from her eyes even if she tried.