Small-Town Cinderella (The Pirelli Brothers) (11 page)

“Then I’d say we should find someplace a little more private than the middle of a restaurant.”

“Someplace like a hotel room?”

The key for the room he’d checked into earlier was burning a hole in his pocket. All he had to do was take Debbie’s hand in his and lead her to the bank of mirrored elevator doors across the restaurant. But there was something he had to do first. Something he knew full well might ruin everything.

Sucking in a deep breath, he said, “Debbie, there’s something I have to tell you. The night of Darcy’s bachelorette party, I overheard your conversation with the girls.”

* * *

As a kid, Debbie had fallen off her bike once and had the wind knocked out of her. She felt the same way—dizzy, panicked and unable to breathe—as Drew’s words reached across the table and sucker punched her. “You heard me.... So this was all some kind of joke, then? Give poor, lonely Debbie a quick thrill, right?”

“No! No.” Reaching out, Drew grasped hold of her arm when she would have otherwise jumped up and run from the booth. His grip was firm enough to let her know he didn’t want her to leave yet not so tight that she’d have any trouble breaking away. But it was the warmth of his skin against hers rather than any amount of force that kept her seated. “It’s not like that.”

“Then tell me how it is, Drew. Tell me how you took something I said in confidence to my
friends—
” she stressed the word, making it clear she no longer considered him one of that group “—and used it to play me.”

“I wasn’t playing,” he muttered.

“Then what were you thinking? No, let me guess. This was all some misguided effort to save me from myself, right?” Because even as angry as she was, Debbie couldn’t believe Drew would do anything purposefully cruel or hurtful. He wasn’t that kind of man, and even though he hadn’t been acting like himself lately, she still knew that to be true.

“You heard me say that I was looking for adventure and excitement—” her face heated at the thought of what else he’d overheard “—and you thought to yourself that couldn’t possibly be good for me. Good girls are supposed to sit at home and wait for some nice boy to come calling, right? So you thought you’d step in and play superhero.”

Drew’s jaw tightened, but she could read the truth he was trying to hide in his dark gaze. And it hurt. So much that she felt the sting of tears at the back of her eyes. Biting down on the inside of her cheek, she willed the emotion away.

“Dammit, Debbie, will you just listen for a minute?” His shoulders rose on a deep breath as if he was struggling for calm, though why he even thought he had a right to be upset was worlds beyond her. “When I overheard you talking with Sophia and the other girls, I have to admit, I didn’t like the idea of you going out and finding some stranger. The whole idea seemed—”

“Desperate?” she supplied, hopefully with enough sarcasm to mask the fact that she’d thought so herself a time or two.

“Dangerous,” he argued. “The thought of you and some stranger bugged the hell out of me. And then the more I thought about it, the more the idea of you and any guy—didn’t matter if it was a stranger or someone you’d known for years—started to bug me just as much.”

“You’re trying to tell me you were jealous,” she scoffed.

“I’m trying to tell you that if any guy was going to sweep you off your feet, I wanted it to be me.”

“So why not just ask me out? Why this whole ruse?”

“Because you didn’t want just some everyday, average local guy to ask you out for dinner and a movie. You said so yourself.”

“You really expect me to believe after all these years of
not
asking me out, all it took was overhearing that one conversation to make you suddenly realize how much you wanted to go out with me? Forgive me if I find that hard to believe.” Almost as hard to believe as the jealousy undercutting his voice earlier when he spoke about the affair she’d thought she wanted to have with her tall, dark, handsome stranger.

“It wasn’t just what you said. It was the way you said it.”

“How? With a drunken slur?”

“You weren’t drunk,” Drew responded flatly. “Listening to you, I could hear the anticipation in your voice, a longing for excitement.”

Her cheeks heated as her mind scrambled to think back to what else she might have said when she thought she’d been alone with her friends. “It was girl talk at a bachelorette party, Drew. Not something to take seriously and
not
something you were meant to hear.”

“But I did,” he argued. “And it was enough to make me realize how much excitement and mystery has been missing from my own life. Is it really so hard to believe that you’re not the only one looking for something more than small-town life?”

Was it so impossible to believe? Or did she just want to believe it so much?

“Debbie—”

“I need a minute,” she said as she slipped away from his touch and out of the booth.

Drew nodded and didn’t try to stop her, but she read the disappointment in his gaze. He didn’t think she’d be back, and as she made her escape to the restrooms, she wasn’t entirely sure he was wrong. The lit sign above the exit beckoned, and she imagined herself escaping through the door and pretending this whole night had never happened.

Instead, though, she found the ladies’ room and slipped inside. She’d told Drew she needed a minute, and she felt she at least owed him those sixty seconds to think about what he’d said. As she gazed into her reflection above the granite vanity, every instinct was still urging her to leave.

“You’re a lucky lady, you know,” a tall brunette said as she washed her hands in the sink next to Debbie.

“Excuse me?” She was hardly in the mood to engage in small talk, but the odd opening line captured her attention.

“Your boyfriend,” the other woman explained. “I bumped into him at the bar earlier. I should have realized right away a guy that gorgeous had to be taken. He could barely pull his gaze away from watching the door and waiting for you to arrive.” Her assessing glance traveled from Debbie’s head to her toes. “You make a good-looking couple.”

The woman slipped out of the restroom before Debbie had a chance to respond, but her words had already painted a picture in her mind. An image of Drew waiting for her, of him planning this night, and everything else he’d done in the past few weeks. Watching out for her at the meet and greet, showing up for karaoke night, kissing her when she looked her worst and gazing at her as if she looked her best. Did it really make a difference what had inspired Drew to arrange a night like tonight? All that really mattered was that she wanted to be with him and he wanted to be with her....

Or at least he
had
wanted to be with her. Walking back into the restaurant, she saw the booth was now empty. Had Drew left, thinking she’d changed her mind about coming back? The few bites of the cheesecake they’d shared settled like a rock in her gut. Had she blown this one chance?

But no, he wouldn’t just leave. Not without making sure she was okay and likely following her back home. The gentleman in him went far too deep for him to walk out.

“Miss?”

Debbie started as their waiter appeared at her side. “Yes?”

“Your date asked me to give you this.”

“Thank you.” Unfolding a piece of paper, she expected to find a note. Instead the paper was folded like an envelope around a key card with a room number written inside.

No words were really necessary, were they? Drew had already stated his case. Now the choice was up to her.

And wasn’t that all she’d ever really wanted? A chance to live her own life? But from the moment her mother was diagnosed with cancer, Debbie’s future had been cast in stone—or shaped in a copper mold. She’d made a success out of following in her mother’s footsteps, yet it had always been out of necessity and never by choice. But now Drew was giving her that choice. This next step was entirely up to her.

Did she really want to look back on tonight as something that might have been?

Denial rose up inside her, swift and sure, propelling her feet toward the elevator. No way was she letting this opportunity slip through her fingers. And no way was she going to miss this chance to get her hands on Drew. The ride up to the fifth floor seemed to take forever.

Debbie rushed toward the room, walking as fast as she could in her high heels. Her knuckles had barely rapped against the door when it was yanked open from the inside. Moments earlier, Drew had been impeccably dressed. His pale blue dress shirt had been properly buttoned and tucked into slate-gray slacks. Now the tails hung down over his lean hips, the sleeves were pushed back to his elbows and the top buttons were undone, giving her a glimpse of the muscled chest beneath. His hair was mussed from running his fingers through it, bringing out a hint of the normally tamed curl.

The man she’d shared dessert with, who’d eaten from her fork and looked at her as if he was imagining licking the creamy cheesecake right off her, the man who normally looked so calm, so cool, so sexy was nowhere to be seen.

She liked this man even better. The relief washing over his features erased her lingering doubts. Tonight mattered to him. Almost as much as it mattered to her. “Can I come in?”

Drew stepped aside and opened the door wide. Glancing around the room, she noticed the burgundy-and-gold comforter was folded at the foot of the bed and the sheets were already turned down invitingly. Her pulse picked up its pace even as she saw the unopened bottle of champagne on ice. Her eyebrows rose as she looked back at Drew. “Pretty confident that I’d show up, weren’t you?”

“Not at all,” he said with a completely self-deprecating laugh. “I was hopeful that you would come and figured if you didn’t, that bottle of champagne would keep me company tonight.” He sobered as he crossed the room to stand in front of her. He ran his palms down her bare arms until he reached her hands and linked their fingers together. “If you’re not sure about this, we can go back downstairs for dinner. We can share that champagne and then I can follow you home.”

“Still trying to play the white knight, Drew?”

“It’s getting harder,” he confessed, and then winced at the unintended double meaning to his words.

“Then let me make it easier for you and remind you that I don’t need rescuing. You don’t need to save me from myself. I’m old enough to know what I want...and I want you.”

Reaching up, she twined her arms around his neck and kissed him. For Debbie, it was like no time had passed between this moment of being in his arms and the last. One kiss, and she was ready for more. One touch, and she couldn’t get enough.

She tasted the sweetness of raspberry and the sexiness that was pure Drew. He held her body tight to his own, leaving no doubt to how much he wanted her...wanted this. The heat pulsing through her left her weak, and when his kisses found the column of her throat, her head fell back. And when his lips traced the skin above the bodice of her dress, her bones melted like heated sugar.

He found the tab of the zipper and he made the slow slide that much more seductive by tracing his fingertips along every inch of skin he exposed. Goose bumps stood at attention, and her breasts tightened with need. She felt only a moment’s hesitation as the dress fell to the floor, leaving her with nothing but her black strapless bra and matching panties. But every doubt she ever had about her hips being too round, her stomach too soft, her breasts too big was burned away by the heat of Drew’s touch.

Suddenly everything that had always seemed too much or not enough was just right. A perfect fit, and Drew the perfect man...

“You are so beautiful,” he breathed, and Debbie believed him. It was impossible not to when the words were spoken against her skin in a rough whisper and the hands that stripped away the last of her clothes were not quite steady.

Lifting her up in his arms like he had that night in the parking lot, he laid her down in the middle of the bed. He followed her down, but only after he’d tossed aside his own clothes, revealing a body made lean and strong by hard work—broad shoulders, muscular arms, rock-hard abs and long, powerful legs. A lock of his hair had fallen over his forehead and desire darkened his eyes to the deepest, richest chocolate.

He swallowed her gasp with his kiss at the first unrestrained contact of his body, so hard and hot above hers. She arched into his every touch—from her throat to her breast to her belly and her thighs.

It was at the same time too much and never enough, and when the rising, building pleasure broke over her, scattering pieces of her heart and soul, she knew she would never be the same.

* * *

Debbie woke in the middle of the night. She didn’t need to check the clock to know sunrise was still hours away. Working at the bakery had set her internal alarm clock to a ridiculously early hour, but after so many years, she was used to it.

What she wasn’t at all accustomed to was waking up in a man’s arms.
Drew’s
arms. He held her from behind, his body curving perfectly around hers as if the two of them were made for each other, as if they were meant to be together....

No! That was not what tonight was about. They’d agreed!
Both
of them! This was to be a fling and nothing more. And now, after one night, for her to start thinking about forever—

No! No, this wasn’t happening. She wasn’t falling for Drew when he’d made his own feelings more than clear.

Nah, that’s just Debbie.

In high school, they’d been friends, yet in her young, foolish heart, she’d longed to be his girlfriend. Now they were lovers, and she wanted to believe making love was the same as falling in love when she was old enough to know better.

She had to get a grip on her emotions, and that wasn’t about to happen while she was still wrapped in the oh-so-tempting warmth and strength of Drew’s arms. She carefully pushed the covers away with one hand and tried to slip out from beneath the heavy weight of his forearm at her waist. His muscles automatically tightened, trying even in sleep to keep her close, and Debbie felt her willpower—if not her heart—fracture the tiniest bit.