joked about being engaged, he’d attributed it to her crazy sense of humour, but deep down she’d known it hadn’t been real. They were two crazy kids in love, him fresh out of SEAL training, her fresh off the plane from Sydney. Vegas had been a hoot, hooking up with the fun-loving SEAL even more so, and it had seemed natural to move in with him back in LA.
But life wasn’t just about fun and they’d both had places to go, careers to pursue and they’d done the right thing in splitting up.
Hadn’t they?
Kate closed the door behind them, determined to make their catch-up short and sweet. Either that or succumb to a sudden hankering for a fix of seal and it sure didn’t involve going to the zoo to get it.
‘Look, I know this must seem crazy to you, me bidding and all. But I just wanted to catch up. Basically, I’ve no intention of holding you to this odd-jobs stuff. I’ll happily donate the money to the orphanage and we can call it quits, okay?’
He remained silent, a speculative gleam in his blue eyes with the barest glimmer of a smile playing about his sexy mouth.
Disconcerted by his silence and the look in his eyes, she rushed on. ‘It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Guess I just got curious, wondering what you’ve been up to. Six years is a long time.’
Could she sound any more pathetic?
Standing this close to Ty, having that intense blue stare focussed solely on her, was short-circuiting her brain. Not to mention the nerve-endings firing through her body.
‘It is a long time.’
His cool tone was at odds with the banked heat simmering in his eyes and she shivered despite the warmth of the room.
‘So a quick catch-up before cutting you loose isn’t so bad, right?’
She forced a fake laugh, expecting him to join in and agree.
‘No.’
Typical Ty: short, sharp, to the point and the opposite of what she expected him to say or do.
‘What?’
‘I said no.’
‘No, you don’t want to catch up or no, you don’t want to be cut loose?’
Oh-oh, why did her voice have to do that, go all soft and low and husky? As if she were baiting him? Tempting him?
It was his fault. Less than a few minutes in his company after six years and she’d fallen into flirt mode automatically.
He shook his head, a slight frown appearing between his brows, accentuating the age lines that fanned from the corners of his eyes. Though little could detract from his good looks Ty looked older, weary, as if he’d fought a thousand battles.
‘I don’t want a quick catch-up.’
‘Oh.’
She couldn’t stand this. He was confusing the heck out of her just as he’d always done by keeping his emotions under tight control while burning her up with those ‘come get me’ eyes.
‘I want a long one. I want to hear everything you’ve been doing. Everything.’
His eyes darkened to the colour of her favourite stone, a deep blue sapphire, and the comparison disconcerted her. She didn’t want to compare him to anything as precious as her grandma’s heirloom ring.
‘It’s been way too long, Katie.’
His smooth, steady tone did little to placate her as she tried to ignore the way her heart thumped when he said her name in that familiar way.
‘Uh-huh,’ she said, wishing she could think of something witty to say rather than standing here captured in the intensity of his stare, wondering if he knew the effect he was having on her after all this time.
‘So what do you want to do?’
Fling myself at you?
Tear your clothes off?
Have my way with you?
She had to think of something sensible to say, something to break the tension.
‘What do you want to do?’
Rather pathetic but at least she’d put the onus firmly back on him. Let him make the decision. She couldn’t think straight and control her impulse to jump him at the same time.
‘This.’
His husky tone sent a shiver of anticipation skittering down her spine and before she knew what was happening he had tugged on the steel links binding them, hard.
She fell against his body, the wind knocked out of her, reaching for him to steady her as his head descended, blocking out the harsh glare from the mass of light bulbs around the mirrored walls.
Oh, wow…
His lips crushed hers, frantic, hungry, but oh-so-sweet. Her mouth burned beneath his as his kiss demanded and she gave without thought, without reason.
Pure, blind need shot through her body as she responded to him on some kind of instinctive level.
This can’t be happening, flickered through her mind as his tongue nudged her mouth open, urgent, exploring, begging her to match him for pleasure. Not again.
Her stomach dropped away as his commanding kiss deepened, logic fleeing as his tongue ran along her bottom lip, driving her crazy with longing.
She’d missed this, missed him more than she’d realised, and as his teeth followed where his tongue had been, nibbling and nipping with precision, she realised the strange whimpering sounds filling the air were coming from her.
‘Ty.’ She whispered his name, lost in waves of electrifying sensation as her body trembled under his expert touch, currents of desire shooting every-which-way.
No other man had ever made her feel this way. Only Ty.
And it had been six, long years.
She strained against him, encountering hard evidence of how much he wanted her. Her eyes flew open and she turned her face away, staring at their reflected embrace in the mirrored walls. Reality sank in as she watched him rain kisses up her throat and she pushed him away, barely able to tear her gaze away from the mirrors. He followed her stare, a lazy smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
‘We still look good together, huh?’
His words roused her from the sensual fog that had enveloped them as reality crashed in.
What was she thinking, responding to him like this?
She was a big girl now, not some love-starved, naïve tourist who’d landed in a new country and ended up staying.
‘Dream on,’ she muttered, hating how she’d melted into a mushy marshmallow under his hot kiss, hating that he was right even more.
They did look good together. Too good. A picture she’d believed in six years ago before realising it was a mirage and mentally ripping it in half.
He chuckled, tracing a finger from her cheek to her jaw-line with torturous patience.
‘Maybe I was out of line with that kiss but I think you wanted it as much as I did.’
Damn him for knowing her almost better than she knew herself.
‘I’m tired. I responded without thinking.’
Yeah, and she practically melted into a heap at the feet of the nearest sexy guy whenever she was exhausted—which happened to be often considering the office hours she kept. As if.
He grinned. ‘Great response. Maybe this catch-up was meant to be? Maybe your subconscious prompted you to buy me because you still want me? Maybe—’
‘You’re full of it,’ she said, mortified by how easily he could read her, by how that one kiss had resurrected a whole host of sensual