Breaking Hearts (18 page)

Simon laughed. “Sure, Kelly. Bail on us when it’s time to lift the ten-ton couch.”

Kelly smiled at him. “You sound like a big baby in front of your girlfriend.” She pinched his cheeks as he continued to grumble, then raised her hands in surrender. “But, hey, whatever.” Pulling me by the wrist, she tugged me into her room and pushed the door shut. Gatlin popped his head out of the closet.

“Okay, we need details.” She stood with her hands on her hips, a curious glimmer twinkling in her eyes.

“Details?” My innocence wasn’t hard to fake, since I had no clue what she was talking about.

“Yeah. We have a little bet going on.”

“Bet?” I could hardly manage a single word with the scent of Simon’s cologne still fogging my brain.

“Have you and Simon…?” Her head bobbed from side to side.

“Sealed the deal?” Gatlin supplied.

My mouth dropped open.

“Hey, sister,” he continued. “You wanna be in the group, you dish. It’s our rule. We even have a call tree.” He drew imaginary branches in the air. “And if you haven’t, Kelly wins dinner at Hood tonight. If you have, I win something to be determined at a later date.”

I raised my eyebrows at Kelly.

“I get three vetoes plus final say over his prize.”

Who the hell were these people? We didn’t have a kiss and tell kind of friendship. Thankfully, or Kelly would know a lot more about a drunken mistake I’d made with Gatlin.

I shot him a glare, and he flopped on his stomach onto the bed with his hands tented under his chin.

“Aren’t you supposed to be moving furniture with Simon and Keaton?”

He shrugged and buffed his nails on his shirt.

“So, I tell you, you tell Jocelyn. Who shares with the rest of the town?” They didn’t need details of my love life, besides there were none to give.

“I do. It’s the bonus of owning the gossip hub of Storybook Lake.” Gatlin fluffed imaginary hair like an old movie diva.

“Thought you went straight.”

He sighed and threw an arm around Kelly. “Old habits.” As a single unit, they looked up at me and waited. “So? Have you?”

In the absence of my best high school friend who’d run off to Texas and only took my calls periodically, I had no one to discuss my romantic issues with. They were all I had, and I needed to talk for a while. I shook my head.

Kelly gasped in shock. “Why the hell not?”

“I’m still married.”

“Not dead.” Gatlin clucked his tongue. “Listen, girl, he is Simon Hunter, hero of all men, fantasy of all women, and he might be content hanging in there for now while he plays the hero to your damsel, but if you don’t give it up soon, he will either A: explode or B: find someone else.” He twisted his shoulder in another diva move. “Seen it happen.”

“There’s too much going on right now for it to be a good idea.” I cocked my head to one side, picturing his hands, those lips, his eyes, the thousand wonders hidden by his clothes.

Before I could expand, a knock sounded at the door, and Gatlin winked at me as Simon walked in. “I just got called into work.” He frowned and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “Maybe you could stay with Kelly and Gatlin tonight. I have to go up to Chicago. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”

“I’ll be fine at Mom and Dad’s.”

“I have a date tonight, but Gatlin could stay with you.”

Gatlin frowned. “A date?”

She rolled her eyes. “For the article.”

I considered the last time I spent the night with him. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him or myself, but people in this town talked. A lot. I didn’t need more drama in my life. I’d once waded into Gatlin infested water. Coming out unscathed had been lucky, but I didn’t see a reason to take another chance if I didn’t have to. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure something out.”

Simon took my hand in his and pulled me close to plant a kiss on my lips. What he surely meant to be a quick good-bye kiss, morphed into a prelude to porn. “I’ll try to see you tonight.” His whisper warmed me from the inside out at the moment I’d finally resumed regular temperature from the earlier car ride.

“Okay.” My voice squeaked out of my throat.

It took a full minute for my heart to slow and my breathing to resume a semi-normal rate.

When Kelly and her thousands of belongings were shoved into Gatlin’s rooftop apartment, he packed a bag to stay at my mom and dad’s with me. Packing actually meant grousing over her evening’s plans while he shoved enough clothes for a week’s trip into a bag. For ten solid minutes, he wondered aloud when she’d made these mystery plans and what had tripped her switch about this guy so much she would skirt out on spending time girl chatting with us. He must have missed the part where she’d said this date was for work, but I had no intention on interrupting his rant to inform him. Someone needed to tell her how he felt--and soon--before Gatlin expired from her lack of attention. Since Kelly and I weren’t close, I filed the idea away to share with Simon when he returned.

After a two minute ride and another fifteen minute pout, Gatlin trimmed my hair and touched up my roots. Then we settled in with pizza delivery and an action flick, sating his appetite for action and my penchant for hot actors.

After the movie, and almost twenty minutes of listening to Gatlin snore on the sofa, I climbed the stairs to bed. Around three-thirty, I got my first hang-up call. Another occurred at four-ten, and the last one before I shut off my phone came a few minutes later. How the hell did this maniac keep getting my number and bypassing the block I’d had the phone company put on my account?

Forgetting my guest on the sofa, I stomped down the stairs to fling cabinet doors open in search of my favorite coffee mug. I screamed as though the scary guy from
Hellraiser
tapped me on the shoulder instead of Gatlin.

“Good morning to you too.”

“Sorry. You scared me.” My heart danced the-Simon in my chest.

“What are you doing up at this God forsaken hour?”

I jerked my phone out of my bathrobe pocket and waved it around in the air, glancing at the butcher knife in the block on the counter. “My stupid husband keeps calling me and hanging up.”

He shoved the knives out of reach. “Whoa, girl. No carving the cell.” We waited side by side as the coffee brewed in Mom’s antiquated coffee maker. “Wanna go horseback riding today, or does fun violate one of Simon’s rules for safety?”

I chuckled. “Yeah. We can take the horses out.” Rules, shmules.

“I’ll go get changed.” He raced out of the kitchen and I smiled. I would have to break it to him we needed to wait for daylight, but his excitement had him bouncing up the steps before I ever managed a syllable. Not a full ten minutes later, he bounded downstairs and proceeded to huff, puff, and pout when I said we needed to eat breakfast first. Spending time with Gatlin reminded me of hanging out with a little kid who’d eaten a few too many sugar cubes with his energy drink.

“Don’t forget your mace.” He slammed out the door as soon as the sun peeked over the horizon.

I saddled the horses while Gatlin released the others into the pasture. We rode for about four hours until he started complaining his “man parts” were suffering to the point of never being usable again. When he claimed women of the world would be cheated of knowing what a caring lover he’d become, we turned back.

Brown uniformed personnel huddled in the driveway as we rode up unnoticed. Police lights swirled atop the vehicles behind them. Simon walked onto the patio with Luke. He kicked at the concrete with a booted foot as Luke patted his shoulder. I took off at a full gallop and stopped at the fence line. After I tethered her reins to a post, I climbed over the wooden slats to meet Simon and Luke.

Luke turned to his assembled troops as I tapped Simon on the shoulder.

“I thought you were missing.” Simon squeezed most of the air from my lungs, then kissed the rest of it away.

Gatlin arrived a moment later and chuckled. “Good Lord. They’re away from each other one night and they celebrate like Christmas morning the next day.”

I smirked over my shoulder. “He thought we were missing.”

“I tried to call you this morning. Your phone went straight to voice mail.” He hadn’t stopped shaking since he first pulled me against him.

Gatlin, however, laughed until tears streamed down his cheeks. “You called the entire police force out here because we went horseback riding?” He gasped for breath, holding his stomach.

It took more than an hour for the police and emergency personnel to leave, and another hour to get Gatlin to go, but finally, we were alone. As ridiculous as I found some of Simon’s safety precautions, it occurred to me how wide open Gatlin and I had been all morning. What if the person taking my pictures for Sean decided to shoot me with something other than a camera? Or worse, what if Gatlin got hurt because of all this mess?
How would I live with the guilt
?

As Simon showered the smoke smell off his body and hair, I paced the perimeter of the living room, trying to figure out what to do. I couldn’t stay. It put everyone at risk. He came back into the room at the same moment I plopped in my mother’s favorite chair, tears streaking down my cheeks.

He squatted in front of me and put a hand on each of my knees. “Hey. Wanna talk about it?”

I wiped my eyes and looked up at him. I’d loved Simon and been loved by Simon for a lot of my adult life. Now that it almost worked out for us to be together, I had no choice but to leave him. “Not really.” I couldn’t let him go until I told him the truth about Kieran and as soon as I told him how I’d lied, we would be nothing more than two people who fought over custody or support.

He watched me for a minute as I took a few deep breaths to pull myself together. “Are you trying to leave me?”

I couldn’t speak as he pulled me close.

“Don’t go, Dani.” He tilted my face up. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

I couldn’t stop the tears, and he kissed me gently.

“I would die first.”

“You don’t know everything.” I needed to tell him and he’d just given me the perfect opportunity.

“There is only one thing I need to know.” He kissed me again. “I love you.” In the next second, our kissing turned into frantic unbuttoning, desperate touching, and frenzied unzipping. I couldn’t wait any longer. Being a better person would have to wait until later. Much later.

After A few intense moments, he turned out of the kiss. “Dani, I don’t want our first time to be like this.”

It took a second before his words sank in. “It isn’t our first time.” I yanked him toward me and reclaimed his lips.

He turned away again. “It is for me.”

I took a deep breath and blew it out before stepping away from him and clapping my hands together. “I have to talk to you first.”

“No. No more words, Dani. No more talking about leaving or reasons we shouldn’t be together. We are meant to be, and nothing is going to change that. Not now, not ever. There are no words as important as this minute.” He tilted his head and held out a hand. “Let me love you.”

Gulp
.

“Let me explore all the places I have been dreaming about touching.”

Every cell in my body caught fire.

He crooked his finger. “Come here.”

Hunger and need laced his words, but his eyes, vulnerable and wanting, asked me in the sweetest way. I closed the distance, and he rewarded me with a soft, almost chaste kiss.

His lips grazed over mine, then honed in for a more thorough examination. As the kiss deepened, our tongues involved in an intricate dance, my bones melted. Short gasps of air choked from my lungs as I struggled for control of my body. Nothing existed for me more than his touch, than his body pressed against mine.

I tightened my hold. The pure pleasure, the anticipation, the longing and desperation surging through me, inspired a gasp. My back arched and our gazes met, primal and hot.

He smiled and lowered his head, taking a hardened nipple between his teeth through my shirt. A whimper escaped along with all control as he lavished one, then turned his head to devour the other. His stubbled cheek created a perfect friction against my sensitized skin where my shirt gaped open. I clasped my fingers in his hair. Need thundered in my heart, intense, heightening every sensation.

“Simon.”

He swung me into his arms, carried me to my room, and deposited me gently on the mattress, his eyes trailing up my body burning the skin, trapping me in a wave of desire. As he stretched out next to me, he ran the back of his hand over the throbbing center of my desire through my shorts. Damn the clothes. I sat up, yanked them off, then tossed them to the side. There could be nothing slow. Not now.

As I reached for him, he moved away. “No, no, no.” I slid a hand down his boxers, this time persistent, wanting to feel the weight of him, needing to know his level of excitement matched mine.

“Oh, so you want”--he inhaled sharply--“to play?”

I nodded. “Please, Simon.” Kissing anywhere I could reach, I bent toward his hand, to his fingers sliding in and out, craving more in, less out. Fever burned through me as I rocked more insistently, the flames inside causing an ache, a desperation for more.

His thumb circled slow. I cried out, whimpering, begging for the release I needed with every fiber of my being. My pleasure spiked, building into a crescendo of feeling, out of control. I pushed against his fingers, every touch as devastating as perfect.

“Dani, you’re so…”

We had so much to talk about, so much to get straightened out. Insecurities didn’t come close to summing up my sudden turmoil. Sheer terror overtook the pleasure, and my entire body stiffened under his touch. “I can’t, Simon, this is… I just can’t.”

He stopped. “Don’t shut me out, Dani. If you’re not ready for this, it’s okay, but you have to tell me what you want.” He ran a finger down my stomach, but his gaze never left mine.

I blinked against an onslaught of tears threatening to spill over.

“We can stop. I’ll hold you. It’s enough for me.”

“I have waited so long for this moment. I don’t want to let it go.”

“I don’t know what to do here. I’ll do anything you ask, but I need you to tell me.”