He wore a white button shirt loose over a pair of black pants, and the turned-back cuffs revealed his strong wrists and forearms, dusted with dark hair. He was so appealing, so sexy and attractive, she felt herself warm and melt inside.
Heart aching, she picked up her wine and sipped what was left.
“Would you like to order a drink?” The waiter appeared at their table.
Shane glanced at Keara. “Sure. I’ll have what she’s having, and she’ll have another.”
Oookay. She shook her head at his bossiness. Guess they were staying a while.
“I didn’t think I’d get to say goodbye to you,” she said. “I haven’t seen you all week.”
“I know. You could’ve called me.”
She blinked. Yes, she could have. But she’d gotten so used to him just showing up every day, when he hadn’t she’d interpreted that as him not being interested anymore. “I didn’t think you wanted to hear from me.”
He inclined his head. “I didn’t, actually.”
“Oh.” She bent her head, stinging inside from his rejection. But what did she expect?
“I figured it’d be easier if we didn’t see each other again. That’s why I said no to Maeve’s dinner invitation. But then…” He looked away from her, gazing across the restaurant. “I couldn’t do it. I had to see you one more time.”
Her mouth felt full and soft, her eyes prickling. It was hard to breathe, her chest felt so tight. She emptied the rest of the wine into her mouth.
She didn’t know what to say.
“Keara.” She looked up at him, his gorgeous blue eyes sad and full of shadows. “I don’t want you to go.”
Her heart cracked and splintered, slowly, agonizingly, filling her chest with painful shards. She gazed back at him, and blinked back tears. “Shane…”
“Never mind. When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow morning. I’ve rented a car to drive back to LA. I’ll get a new car there. I start work on Monday.”
“That’s going to be okay?”
She hesitated. “I don’t know. But…I have to do it.” She pleaded for understanding with her eyes. “I have to, Shane.” She wanted to say more, but the words clogged up in her throat.
He gave a jerky nod and sat back as the waiter set their glasses of Sauvignon Blanc in front of them. He picked up his glass. “I know. I understand.”
“Shane.” There was so much she wanted to say to him, to tell him…but she knew she couldn’t. Things were complicated enough. It was better just to leave without things getting all messy.
“Maeve’s going to go to the doctor next week,” she said, her voice annoyingly shaky and low. She told him about the money Maeve had forgotten. “I wish I could be here to go with her.”
Shane’s mouth tightened. “Yeah. That’d be nice. But I’ll take care of her.”
She nodded. “I know you will. And I’ll be in touch with her. I promise you I will. But I know she has good friends looking out for her.” And she did. She trusted Shane and knew without a speck of doubt he could be counted on to do just that. That’s the kind of man he was.
He lifted his chin, sipped his wine.
They watched each other, and the restaurant around them faded into a blur, the noise muted to a murmur, Shane’s face crystal clear in her vision. Emotion swelled inside her, rising into her throat, and her face felt tight and hot. She ached but she didn’t know exactly for what. She wanted…but she wasn’t sure what. She only knew she wanted something, so much, that she could have cried from it. And she had to blink back the tears that gathered.
Shane reached across the table and took her hand in his. The warm strength of his touch sent ripples of need through her. She needed him.
“Come home with me,” he said, his thumb stroking over the pulse in her wrist that fluttered there, eyes blazing blue.
There was only one answer. Right or wrong, she didn’t know. Maybe it was right and wrong. “Yes.”
Shane wasn’t sure if he could walk with the massive hard-on pressing against his zipper. Luckily he’d worn his shirt untucked. He stood, tossed some bills on the table to cover their glasses of wine, then put a hand out to Keara. When she set her hand in his, creamy soft and small, he felt the tremors in it and something swelled inside his chest. Pausing beside the table, right there in the middle of the restaurant, he tugged her hand so she took a step closer to him, then lifted her fingers to his mouth and pressed a kiss to them. His gaze met and held hers and the glossy green of her eyes and the sharp intake of her breath told him her emotions were as turbulent as his.
He led the way out of the restaurant, still holding her hand, and she tripped along beside him in a pair of high-heeled sandals he’d never seen. Come to think of it, she was dressed like he’d never seen her in the weeks she’d been in Kilkenny—a strapless black dress hugged her curves from breasts to knees, and the silky bare skin of her shoulders begged him to touch.
“Is this a new dress?” he murmured as they waited for the valet to bring his car around, allowing himself to drag a fingertip over one shoulder.
She blinked up at him. “Dress? Oh. No.” She looked down at herself. “I don’t know why I brought this with me. But Maeve said we should dress up for our last dinner.”
“Love the shoes.” He looked at her slender calves and the sexy shoes. Pretty scarlet toenails peeped below barely there straps over her insteps.
“Thank you.” Her voice, too, was throaty. Sexy. His insides tightened.
The drive back to his place was smolderingly silent. When they walked into his house, memories of the first time they’d had sex right there on his stairs flashed and burned. And when their eyes met, he knew she was remembering too. A peachy flush crept up her cheeks, making her so adorably pretty he had to reach out and touch her cheek with his fingertips. His thumb stroked over her jaw, then her bottom lip, which parted from the top, and a fierce tenderness expanded inside him.
With a long, aching groan, he drew her against him, tipped her face up with both hands and kissed her mouth. She arched against him, and need for her slammed into him. His arms slid around her, one hand tangling in her hair, one skimming down her back to her butt, where he pressed her tight into him.
Their ragged moans mingled as they shared a kiss that tasted of raw joy and hungry ardor, mouths moving, tongues sliding. Keara’s fingers glided into his hair, her nails scraped his scalp and spears of need stabbed into him.
He never wanted to let her go. He didn’t want her to leave, but the idea of begging her to stay, of opening himself up like that, making himself so dangerously vulnerable, horrified him. He couldn’t do it. He could implore her with his body, with his mouth, with his hands. He could appeal to the emotion he knew raged in her too. But he couldn’t say the words.
He bent and hooked his arm beneath her legs, swinging her up against him. She choked out a gasp and grabbed on to his shoulders and he loved it, loved the feeling of her hands gripping him so needily.
He carried her upstairs. “This time we make it to the bed,” he promised her. She tucked her head against him, and he admired the sleek curves of her legs dangling, the skirt of her dress hitched up well above her knees.
He set her down to sit on the bed then dropped to the carpet beside her. He picked up one foot and slid the strap behind her heel off, then slipped the shoe off. Her foot felt delicate in his hands and he kissed her instep, then her ankle. She shivered and her fingers curled into fists at her sides.
He removed the other sandal, skated his palms up over silky calves, and rose onto his knees. Darkness and quiet enfolded them, the only sound he could hear the thudding of his heart. His hands slid up higher, beneath the dress, over her thighs, until he touched the edge of her panties.