Treasure Me (One Night with Sole Regret Book 10) Page 8

  “Sorry I missed that,” he said, chuckling as he imagined her leaping into the air. “You didn’t get stung, did you?”

  “No, but I was traumatized just the same.”

  “So what do you like besides pianos and baking and being a general pain in your father’s ass?”

  She laughed, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “There’s more to life than that?”

  “Just a bit.”

  “I like you,” she said.

  He had the sudden urge to kiss her, but couldn’t bring himself to do it with dozens of pictures of Sara all staring at him. “And what else?” he asked, standing up straight when he realized he’d been leaning in to steal the kiss.

  “Being tied with my legs wide open and your mouth reminding my pussy what it was made for.”

  He felt a flush creep up his cheeks, but wasn’t sure if it was due to embarrassment or undeniable arousal. Why had he insisted on coming here first? If they’d started at Dawn’s place, he could already be giving her pussy another reminder. Maybe even two by now.

  “What else?” he asked, hoping she’d change the subject and at the same time wishing she’d demand he take her home and then directly to her bed.

  “I also like the scent of lilacs. Exploring foreign villages. The sound of rain against the roof. The tastes of cinnamon and vanilla. What do you like, Kelly?”

  “The taste of you.”

  She bit her lip, her gaze heated as it searched his bare chest before settling on his eyes. “I’m willing when you’re able.”

  Was he able? He caught sight of Sara’s bright blue eyes in a nearby photo and decided not quite yet. The true test of letting her go would be fucking Dawn in the bed he’d once shared with Sara, and he wasn’t sure if he’d take that step this weekend or in the future or ever. But he could fuck Dawn in her own bed, and he would even allow himself to enjoy it.

  “We’ll go back to your place soon.” He nodded toward Sara’s collection of figurines. “Sara also had a thing for dolphins.”

  Dawn’s sigh made him squeeze his eyes shut. He sorely hated to disappoint her and wondered how many times she’d put up with disappointment before she told him to get lost.

  “Did you buy all of these dolphins for her?” There were at least fifty of them in the collection, ranging from a tiny silver earring to a large crystal sculpture.

  “Just a few.”

  Dawn listened carefully as he told her about each piece he’d bought, where he’d gotten it, how Sara had reacted to it. He had no idea how the poor woman could stomach his dull, one-sided conversation, but she took it in like an eager student trying to memorize information for a midterm. Dawn couldn’t possibly give a fig about how happy Sara had been on their first Christmas together when she’d opened the jewelry box shaped like a dolphin and found an engagement ring inside. In fact, he was pretty sure Dawn wanted to fling the pretty box with the mother of pearl inlay out the nearest window. That was what he would want to do if he were in her position, but she merely smiled at him.

  “Very romantic of you,” she said. “I figured you were more the grand gesture type.”

  “Is that what you’re expecting when a man proposes to you?” Not that he was planning on proposing any time soon, but her answer would reveal a lot about her, and he might need that information at a much later date.

  “I’ll probably be the one to do the proposing,” she said. “I’m not a patient woman.”

  He snorted. “You’re infinitely patient, Dawn. I don’t know how you can stomach listening to all my stories about Sara.”

  “I want to understand her so I can understand you better.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re worth getting to know, and that makes her worth getting to know.”

  She pointed at the wooden sculpture of a dolphin in the center of the top shelf. The teak had gathered dust, so it lacked the usual shine that accented the dark and light grain of the wood to perfection.

  “What’s the story behind that one?”

  “Her father gave her that when she graduated from high school.” He grinned. “Well, that and a car.”

  “My father bought me a car when I graduated as well.”

  “Was it a Prius?”

  She flushed from the roots of her lovely red hair to the hint of cleavage at the open neck of her button-down shirt. He wondered if she also flushed in the places he couldn’t see.

  “Uh, no. A Mercedes.”

  He laughed. “I should have known.”

  “I shouldn’t have accepted it, but it was so lovely.” She sighed as if enraptured.

  “Why shouldn’t you accept his gifts? Your father has the means to give you nice things. You shouldn’t feel guilty about taking them.”

  “I suppose not, but he isn’t the type who gives gifts without expectations. He uses them to pressure me into doing his bidding. He said that if I didn’t go to the University of Pennsylvania and major in business, he wasn’t going to pay my tuition and would take the car away.”

  “So how did you end up at Curtis?”

  She laughed. “That’s simple. I was good enough and it was free. Everyone who gets in automatically gets a full scholarship, so it didn’t matter that Daddy wasn’t paying my tuition. I earned it myself.”

  “And the car?”

  “He let me keep it when I wiped out on some girl’s bike and he got a call from the hospital.”

  “Did you wipe out on purpose?”

  She laughed and shook her head. “Now wouldn’t that have been fabulous if I had? But no. I’m sort of all legs, and my brain can’t seem to keep them coordinated.”

  He had noticed how long and sexy her legs were, but had witnessed no signs of clumsiness. “I would never have guessed. When you walked in those heels of yours at the bar in New Orleans, I was the one tripping over myself.”

  “Walking in heels took years of practice to perfect. I’m still working on the riding a bike thing.”

  As far as he was concerned, walking in heels suited her far better than riding a bike, but then he was partial to those long legs of hers. Dawn held his gaze for a moment and then turned toward the case overflowing with Sara’s books. Damn if the back of her looked as spectacular as the front.

  “Are these all hers?”

  Kellen pulled his appreciative gaze from the curve of Dawn’s ass and turned it to the batch of books that had never interested him in the slightest. “Yes. She insisted on keeping up with her major even after she graduated.”

  “So what did she do? As a career? Something with animals?” Dawn scanned the titles on multicolored book spines. “Or the environment?”

  “She’d just started working for some PhD at UT doing research on the long-term effects of the Gulf oil spill on crabs or oysters or something when I found that lump in her breast.”

  Dawn’s head swiveled in his direction. Her eyes were wide with surprise. “You found the lump?”

  “We used to joke around that if I’d been less of a gentleman and felt her up sooner, I might have saved her life.”

  Dawn’s brow crumpled. “That’s an awful responsibility to place on yourself.”

  It was. He hadn’t really ever thought of it that way. And Sara had been so distraught about her diagnosis that she probably hadn’t considered how it had made Kellen feel to think he might have saved her if he’d been more diligent.

  “Do you mind if I ask about her illness?” Dawn asked. “I know you don’t like to dwell on it, and I won’t blame you if you don’t want to discuss it, but I’m curious.”

  “You can ask,” he said. “I don’t have to answer.”

  “How long did she suffer?”

  He bit his lip, a huge lump forming in his throat. That had been the worst of it. Sara had suffered, and though she’d fought to live, she’d lost her battle, so the suffering had been for nothing.

  “I . . .” He swallowed. He’d lost his ability to speak.

  “Forget I asked,” Dawn said, squeezing his ha
nd. “What else happy can you tell me about her?”

  Kellen was already getting tired of talking about Sara. He turned and bumped his shin on a chair next to the bookshelf, trying not to dwell on the memory of pulling the thing out of someone’s roadside trash heap at Sara’s insistence, stuffing it into the trunk of his Firebird, and later helping her reupholster the hideous burnt-orange monstrosity. It wasn’t even a comfortable chair, but it was a recycled chair, so Sara had loved it.

  “Let’s go for a walk on the beach before it gets dark,” he said as he stepped around the chair.

  “It won’t get dark for hours,” Dawn said with a smile.

  “I’m expecting I’ll need an exceptionally long walk to clear my head. Don’t you like to walk on the beach?”

  “I love to, but I want to ask something of you first, and I won’t take no for answer.”

  He loved the spark of mischief in her eyes almost as much as the challenge she presented.

  “What?”

  “Kiss me.”

  “Every five steps up the beach,” he promised, walking backward toward the door and urging her forward by the hand he still held. “And every three steps back.”

  “Okay, but that’s not my request.”

  She was so wonderful to him, so caring and understanding and patient—how could he refuse her anything?

  “Kiss me right here. In Sara’s living room.”

  He could refuse her after all. “No.”

  She tugged her hand free of his and turned back to the room. He’d almost had her to the door. Almost.

  “Then tell me more about her,” she said. “Is this her furniture? I wouldn’t think it was your taste, but maybe I’m wrong.”

  “It’s hers,” he said.

  “Did you get rid of anything that belonged to her? If I go upstairs will her clothes be in the closet? Her slippers by the bed? Her toothbrush near the sink?”

  How could Dawn know that? Did she know he still had a coffee cup—Sara’s lipstick on the edge—that he refused to wash?

  He rested his hands on his hips and stared her down. “What’s your point?”

  “You aren’t ever going to move on at this rate,” she said. “Let’s go get some boxes, clear out all her stuff, and donate it to a charity. I think she’d like that idea.”

  “You don’t know her.” Kellen crossed his arms over his chest and set his jaw in a harsh line. “I’m not getting rid of her belongings. They’re all I have left of her.”

  “You’re wrong. You have memories of her. Lots of good memories. You just shared many of them with me.”

  “They’re fading already,” he said. “Seeing her things reminds me of them.”

  Dawn lifted a hand to touch him, but he stepped back. She closed her hand into a fist and pressed it over her heart.

  “She wouldn’t want this for you, Kelly. Not if she truly loved you. She would want you to be happy. She would want you to kiss a sexy redhead when she asks you to.”

  Dawn struck what he assumed she thought was a sexy pose and gave him a heated look. He snorted on a laugh.

  “Sara was the most jealous woman I’ve ever met. The truth is, I never found it difficult to maintain friendships while dating women before her, but she insisted I spend all my free time with her and if I didn’t, she’d call to check up on me. She was convinced that I’d find someone new.”

  “So not all of your memories with Sara are happy,” Dawn said.

  “Of course not, but the happy ones are the only ones I want to remember.”

  Dawn shook her head. “There is no way I can ever measure up to her, to all happiness all the time. Don’t you get that?”

  “This isn’t about you.”

  “It is about me. Not all of it, clearly, but part of it is about me. I really want to be with you, Kelly, but damned if you aren’t making it impossible for me.”

  “Then maybe this isn’t going to work out.”

  “Do you even want it to work out?”

  “I do, Dawn. More than anything.”

  “Prove it.”

  “How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

  “Kiss me.”

  It was a simple request, really, though it felt like a monumental task. But maybe, just maybe . . .

  He crushed her against him, a hand fisting in her hair—for what, to punish her for pushing him where he knew he needed to go?—and ground his mouth against hers. The lust that slammed into his groin and heated his blood was no surprise, but the emotion that clogged his throat and tried to choke him caught him off guard. Pressure built behind his eyes, forcing up tears so rapidly that they fell before he could shove them back behind the wall he’d built as their dam long ago.

  A sob ripped from him, breaking against Dawn’s soft lips, pulling her under with him as her tears mingled with his.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered between tender kisses. “It’s okay, Kelly.”

  It didn’t feel okay; for chrissakes, he was shaking all over and showing his weakness to the one person he wanted to see him as strong. Dawn had broken him. Was she happy now? He’d been holding it together for so long—so long—and with one stupid kiss, she’d completely shattered him. But she felt so good—so good—in his arms, her softness against his chest, her encouraging whispers in his ear, her sweet scent surrounding him. She was his strength, his salvation. And he feared he was still in love with another woman when the one he wanted to love, the one he needed to love, was right there in his arms.

  Chapter Six

  Dawn hated that Kelly looked so embarrassed as he pulled away and wiped away his tears with both hands. He couldn’t even bring himself to look at her as he pulled in a deep breath and then tore open the front door and rushed out to stand on the deck. Eyes closed, he tilted his face toward the sun and basked in its warm, golden rays.

  She wondered if they could recover from this—this line they’d crossed. That she’d crossed. She hadn’t expected him to actually break down, but was glad he had. Not because she enjoyed watching him suffer, but because he needed to fall apart—really fall apart—before he could start to put himself back together. And if her persistence to push him forward ultimately tore them apart, she knew she’d mourn what could have been, but maybe he’d finally be able to move on with some other lucky woman. Not that she was giving up on him. She’d never met a man who could love as deeply as this man loved, be as committed as this man committed himself, and she’d be a fool to let him get away. She just hoped that he could love her and be as committed to her as he had been—still was—to Sara.

  Dawn followed him outside. The wind caught the door and its slam made his body stiffen, but he turned. Maybe to see if she was still there. She was and always would be, if he’d let her.

  “Sorry about that,” he said, the breathless hitch in his voice twisting the ache in her chest. “I usually suffer my emotional breakdowns in private.”

  “You’ve cried over losing her before, haven’t you?” If he’d kept that all bottled up inside him for five years, it was a wonder he was still standing.

  His nod was barely perceptible. “Not while anyone was watching.”

  She grinned crookedly, hoping to loosen the tension between them, because it was unbearable after the fun, carefree day they’d spent together in the car. “I felt it more than watched it.”

  “Oh.” He raked a hand through his long hair, the shiny ebony strands catching the sunshine. “I didn’t squeeze you too tight, did I?”

  She shook her head. “You could never squeeze me too tight.”

  “Can we go?” He nodded toward the beach. “I could really use that walk.”

  “You want me to come with you?” Maybe that shouldn’t surprise her, but after witnessing his reaction to her pushing, she’d been certain he’d be shoving her away.

  “Only if you’ll hold my hand.”

  She bit her lip at the sudden rush of emotion that caught her off guard and left her breathless. “I’ll hold on tight,” she promised.r />
  His smile suggested he understood the subtext behind her promise. And again he didn’t shove her away. In fact, when he reached for her hand and took it in his, he tugged her to stand so close beside him that her bare arm touched his and that now familiar flutter of excitement set her trembling.

  “Thanks for being a pain in my ass,” he said.

  Her mouth dropped open in surprise, and then she laughed. “Any time.”

  The wooden steps from the deck to the ground were wide enough for two, but they had to separate as they scrambled over a weedy sand dune to get to the beach on the other side. A balmy breeze tossed her hair into a tangled mass and coated her bare skin with a light mist of briny water. The beach was mostly empty along this particular stretch of high-end homes, but in the distance people were flying colorful kites and relaxing in the sand. Kellen lifted Dawn over the icky row of black seaweed on the edge of the surf and set her down in ankle-deep waves. She found the action incredibly gallant.

  When she smiled up at him, he said, “I guess I should have asked if you like to walk the beach with the waves washing over your feet or—”

  She touched his lips with her fingertips to cut him off. “I like to walk the beach with you.”

  The where, the when, even the why didn’t matter. Just the who.

  This time when his mouth claimed hers, there was no turmoil behind the brush of his lips, only passion. He drew away much too quickly, took her hand, and started up the beach, the bath-warm waves lapping against their ankles and calves.

  They’d gone all of five steps when he turned to her, cupped her face in both hands, and kissed her. Her eyes drifted shut as his lips lingered, and then he drew away, tugging her into motion again. She’d scarcely gotten her legs to move properly when he stopped once more and kissed her again. Thinking this was the best beach walk she’d ever been on, she allowed her hands to drift to his bare back, curling into the hard muscle she found there to draw him closer. Before she’d had her fill, he drew away and resumed strolling. She opened her mouth to question what he was doing, but he kissed her again, and she decided they weren’t going to get much talking done on their walk and that was fine by her.