Romancing My Love (Love in Bloom: The Bradens) Contemporary Romance (4 page)

Pierce inched his fingers over and settled them on top of hers in the grass. She lifted her eyes to his. The air between them heated, but not with the burn of desire, with something more ethereal, something Pierce had never before experienced. It pulled at his chest and made the pit of his stomach clench tight. His protective urges returned, and he didn’t try to figure them out. He simply reached up and cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing the column of her neck. Her skin was soft and warm, and he felt her swallow against his thumb. He didn’t move to kiss her, though he wanted to more than he wanted his next breath. He just held her cheek, as if to say he was sorry she never knew her father and to let her know she wasn’t alone. When he opened his mouth to say just that, he was surprised by what came out.

“My father left a few days after I turned six.” Pierce withdrew his hand and looked away, trying to figure out why he was talking about his father, Buddy Walsh, whom he never spoke of.  Not with his siblings, not with his mother, and certainly not with a woman he’d known only a few hours. 

She leaned closer to him. “That must have been so hard. Do you ever see him?”

Pierce shook his head. “No, and I don’t have any interest in seeing him. He was a bast—” He drew in a deep breath. “He wasn’t a very nice man.” Buddy was a bastard and a thief, but Pierce wasn’t a man who publicly disparaged others. His mother, Catherine, had seen to that. Love came first in their house, but wrapped in that love, he and his siblings learned respect, manners, and valuable work ethics. His mother had set her feelings about their father aside, which as an adult, Pierce now knew must have taken tremendous willpower, especially since Buddy had run off with another woman.

“That’s what gets me about life. The people we love are taken away forever, and the ones we could live without still get to walk on this beautiful earth.”

Her words sent a chill down his spine. He was beginning to put the pieces of Rebecca’s life into place, and Pierce hoped his interpretation of what she was saying was wrong. “You mentioned caretaking.” He moved the fingers that had been covering hers in the grass to cover her whole hand. “Your mom?”

She looked down at their hands and drew in an uneven breath. “Yeah. My mom.”

“I’m sorry, Rebecca.” He lifted her chin with his index finger so he could see her eyes. He wanted her to know that his words weren’t empty, as they might have been to any other woman. When their eyes connected, the tether between them was as strong as a cable.

“I am really, truly sorry, Rebecca. I can’t pretend to know exactly what you’re feeling, but I’m close to my mom, and I can only imagine how devastating it would be to lose her.”

She drew her shoulders back, and he could practically see her stepping into the safety of the invisible iron cloak she hid behind. No wonder he saw flashes of vulnerability. That cloak must get too heavy to bear the burden full-time.

“Thanks, but I’m okay. It was hard, but you know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and all that.” She cleared her throat and looked away.

“Yeah, I know all about bootstraps. Either they’re made of leather and easy to pull, or they’re made of lead and they drag you down.”

A genuine smile crossed her lips, and the balls of her cheeks rose. “I do miss her, Pierce. I’m not trying to deny that. She was my best friend, and I know that doesn’t say much about me, but…” She shrugged. “She really was.”

“I think that speaks volumes about both of you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, a twenty-seven-year old with no life.” Her face grew serious again. “That’s not really true. I had a life. It was different from most people’s lives, but it was a good life.”

He could barely keep up with the undercurrent of emotional torment she experienced, and damn did he want to.

“We were close. My mom wasn’t just a really good mother, but she was a good person, and we had fun together before she got sick. We used to take walks a lot, and when I was little, she’d wake me in the middle of the night to watch a movie together, or we’d stay up past bedtime cooking or baking.”

“It sounds like she loved you very much.”

“Oh yes. Without a doubt. Sometimes I feel guilty about that. She never dated, and she never even went out with friends. She gave up her entire life for me, at least until I got my own apartment near the university. But then I moved back in three years ago when she was diagnosed with lung cancer. I treasure the time I had with her. It’s like she knew she was going to…you know…be taken away early. And one day I’ll pay her back for all she did. She always wanted to go back to Punta Allen, where she spent time as a little girl. I’m going to save enough money to bring her ashes back and spread them there.” She looked out over the park and sighed.

“Was your mom from Mexico?” Pierce owned a resort in Tulum, which was very close to Punta Allen, a small fishing village with fewer than five hundred residents.

“No. My grandmother was, though. She gave birth to my mother here in the United States, and she and my mother visited Punta Allen several times when my mother was young. She never went as an adult, but she talked about it all the time.”

It made him sad to think that her mother died without realizing her dream, and he was impressed with Rebecca’s determination to bring her mother’s ashes to Punta Allen.

“I don’t mean to bum you out. I’m sorry,” she said. “I never talk about her, and listen to me. Did you slip truth serum into that wine?”

Pierce sat up and took her hand in his. “You aren’t bumming me out. Truth serum would explain why I talked about my father, too. I never talk about him, either.”

“Well, let’s see. Two control freaks, each revealing their secrets to the other.” Their eyes met, and her voice quieted. “Sounds like we’re either going to—”

He slid his hand to the back of her neck, silencing her with his impulsive move as they stared into each other’s eyes.

She whispered, “End up in a horror flick where you belt out a sinister laugh or—”

Pierce moved closer, her lips parted, a breath away from his. There was so much he wanted to say, to ask, like how the hell she touched the most intimate, hidden places in his heart in just a few hours, but he couldn’t find his voice. He was too busy restraining himself from taking her in an impassioned kiss. His lips grazed over hers on the way to her cheek, where he pressed a soft kiss.

When he drew back, her eyes fluttered open.

“No sinister laugh,” he whispered.

She fisted her hands in his shirt and sealed her lips over his. Her kiss was everything he thought it would be and more. She met each lap of his tongue with her own. Good Lord, she tasted of sweet wine and strength, despite all she’d been through, and he wanted more of her.
So much more
. Pierce was no stranger to hiding from emotions in the safety of a woman’s arms, but his heart and mind were struggling against his desires, joining forces for the first time in his life and forcing him to tear his lips from hers, refusing to allow him to hide from the emotions swelling within him.

What the hell?

He wanted more of Rebecca; he wanted to touch her full breasts, to run his tongue along her lower lip, and to taste every inch of her sweet skin. He didn’t want to draw back and take her hand in his again, and yet that’s exactly what he did.

She licked her lips and he nearly went back for more.

“Sorry. I’m sorry.” She tried to pull her hand from his, but he held on tight.

“Rebecca, I’m the one who should apologize. I’m sorry.” Jesus, he was so
not
sorry, but goddamn conflicted.

“No. You kissed my cheek, and I…” She covered her face with her hand. “I’m really not like that. I haven’t been with a guy in years. I’m just…” She drew in a deep breath.

“Years?”
Did she mean weeks, maybe?

“My life hasn’t really been conducive to a romantic relationship. Hell, Pierce.” She yanked her hand from his. “I have no excuse. I can’t even say I’m an emotional wreck, because I’m not. Yes, I lost my mom six weeks ago, but after three years, we both knew it was coming. I just…I don’t know. You were looking insanely handsome and listening to every word I said like you really wanted to hear them, and…Ugh. I should go.”

“Insanely handsome?” he joked, in an effort to lighten the mood.

She shook her head. “Like you don’t know that? Please don’t play coy with me. I don’t have a high threshold for bullshit.”

“Okay, fine. I’m as insanely handsome as you are wickedly, exotically, lovely. How about we both write it off to a nice kiss?” The last thing he wanted to do was irritate her. She was just beginning to open up to him, and he hoped she’d continue.

She rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to go over the top. Bullshit limits, remember?”

“Okay, scratch the
nice
kiss, and make it
scorching-hot
kiss.”

She laughed. “That’s better.”

“Come on.” Pierce pulled her to her feet. “Let’s walk off our desires before you take advantage of me again.”

Without her heels, she couldn’t have been more than five four or five five. He held her hips—Jesus, they felt good. He’d been dying to touch them since they’d met. Most curvy women worried about their body image, but she didn’t primp or suck in her stomach the way he’d noticed other women did. She didn’t fiddle with her blouse or do any of the other things that signaled insecurity. Rebecca seemed to pay no mind to her curves, and that confidence made her sexy as hell. He was tempted to lower his mouth to the crook of her neck, enjoy one little taste to make her insides crave him. Instead, he folded her into his arms. Her body stiffened, and he held her tighter. His mind flew back thirty years, to the days after his father left. In an effort to comfort his younger brothers, Ross, Jake, and Wes, he’d held them close, and they’d fought against his embrace as Rebecca was doing now, but somehow, Pierce had known even then that they needed to know they were loved despite being abandoned by their asshole father. His mother was still pregnant with Luke at the time, and Emily had been only about a year old, too young to understand the magnitude of what was going on. They’d had only one another in the days after their father left. He couldn’t count the times he’d woken up and found his brothers sleeping on his bedroom floor, as if they wanted to make sure he wasn’t leaving, too. There was safety in numbers.

Rebecca didn’t seem to have anyone, and the thought that she’d gone through losing her mother alone made him warm to her even more than it had when he’d seen the hint of vulnerability the night they’d met. She was tough as nails, but now he was beginning to understand where her underlying vulnerability came from.

After another full minute, maybe two, he felt the tension in Rebecca’s arms ease, and he felt her hands touch his back. Despite the way she’d gone rigid in his arms, it felt natural to press a kiss to the top of her head. When his lips touched her hair, he hoped like hell she didn’t bolt.

AT FIRST REBECCA wanted to push away from Pierce’s embrace. It was too intimate; she’d already let him in too much. But he held her so tightly, and he felt so safe and smelled so good, that she allowed herself a minute of enjoying the feel of being wrapped in his arms.
Okay, just two
.

When they’d met the other night, she thought that with his good looks and his pressuring her to have a drink with him, he was going to be self-centered and easy to walk away from. Boy, had she been wrong. She’d never met a man who listened so intently or could restrain his desires so well. She felt his arousal against her, but he didn’t push her for more—and when they’d kissed…God, when they’d kissed, he was the one who’d pulled away.

Pierce smiled, and it pulled her from her thoughts. “You must be starved. I’ll cook you dinner. I’m a wicked good cook, believe it or not,” Pierce said.

Her body went rigid again. Cook her dinner? At his place?
No. No, no, no
. She’d already been unable to keep from slapping her lips on to his and nearly swallowing him whole. She honestly hadn’t kissed a man in years. Not since her mother’s diagnosis turned terminal. She stepped back and drank him in one last time. He wore his thick, shiny dark hair brushed back, away from his face, but when she was groping him, a few strands had fallen forward, giving him a younger, less edgy look. How could a man look one minute like he walked out of
GQ
and, with a few wayward strands of hair, then look like he belonged on the front of a rugged outdoorsy magazine?

That was totally unfair.

And totally made her knees weak.

The idea of going back to her car sucked, but as much as landing in his bed, beneath his magnificent body, with those bedroom eyes looking down at her and his powerful thighs pressed against hers—
Stop it!

No.

“Well?” he asked, and she realized she was spacing out. He picked up her heels from the grass and went down on one knee. She pressed her fingers to his shoulders as he placed a hand on her calf, sending a shiver up her thighs. He slid her foot into her shoe, and then he gently set that foot down and ran his hand back down her calf as he lifted her other foot. How was he turning her inside out by simply putting on her heels? His other hand grazed the back of her knee. Rebecca imagined him doing all sorts of dirty things while kneeling before her. She had no idea that putting on heels could feel so erotic, and she couldn’t help but wonder…If he could make this feel so good, what would it feel like to be beneath all that power, that confidence, that sexual prowess?

“Um…I…” She couldn’t think clearly with him touching her like that. “Actually, I have to be…”
Oh God
. He slid his hand down her calf and then rose to his full height again. “Up early tomorrow to go to the gym, so I’d better take a rain check.”
Gym? Idiot. Fool.
I bet you could give me a great workout.

Stop it!

“A rain check?” He arched a brow.

Great. Now I’ve invited myself on another date with him. Okay, time to leave
. “Listen, I’ve got to go.”
Before I kiss you again
. “I’m sorry. I had a great time.”

He took her hand in his. “I’ll walk you back to your car. Is it parked at the Astral?”

You mean my temporary residence? Oh yeah, it’s there
. “Yes, in the garage.”

They walked back around the lake, and Rebecca struggled to ignore the way her body was reacting to him. Her stomach was fluttering like a schoolgirl, she was breathing like she was still kissing him, and between her legs certain parts that had been hibernating for three years were suddenly begging to have another bear in the den.

A Pierce bear
.

Good Lord, woman
.

She felt her cheeks flush and was glad it was dark so Pierce couldn’t see them pink up.

“What was it like caring for your mom? Was she at home with you?”

“Yeah. She was. She refused to go to the hospital at the end. She was always worried about—”
Finances, and leaving me with too much debt
. “She didn’t like to be away from home. And we couldn’t really afford to have full-time home health aides, so I took her to her treatments and appointments. That’s why I went from job to job. It turns out that most employers don’t like when you can’t show up for work because your mother had a really bad night, or she needed to go to an unexpected medical appointment. That’s why it’s taken me so long to finish my degree, but I don’t mind. It was really only the last two and a half years or so that things got really bad. But even near the end she’d say things like,
Mi dulce niña, this is nothing. A blip on your radar screen of life
, or,
When I get to heaven, I’m going to pull all the right strings so your life is amazing. Just you wait and see.
” Rebecca shook her head. “It’s funny. Sometimes I still spin around when something happens, and I want to share it with her. Then I remember she’s gone, and…” She stopped herself from saying more. She couldn’t believe she’d revealed so much already, but Pierce was so easy to talk to, so attentive and interested. She felt comfortable with him, but she didn’t need to break down in tears. She’d done that so often in the last six weeks that tonight had been a much-needed—deserved?—change.

They were nearing the casino parking lot and Rebecca slowed her pace, not wanting the night to end. Even if she’d still been living in her apartment, she wouldn’t have wanted it to end. She liked talking about her mother, but she never allowed herself to do it.

“You know, this is going to sound strange, but I don’t think that the people we love, the ones we’re really connected to in a spiritual sense, ever really leave us. I think they’re physically gone, but I can’t believe we aren’t still somehow connected.”

She looked up at this man who was slowly rocking her world off balance and wondered how he could know what she felt, and was too afraid to fully believe?

“I feel her around me all the time,” she admitted.

He nodded, as if he understood. “My aunt Adriana died more than thirty years ago, and her husband, my uncle Hal, the one who lives in Weston, swears she’s still around.”

“I know it sounds crazy, but I do believe that some loves are so strong that nothing could ever sever the connection. So who knows? Their lives might have been so deeply rooted to each other that she is still around him.” There was much more to Pierce than met the eye. He was certainly more than a businessman looking for a good time. He was too interested, too open, to be just that.

“It doesn’t sound crazy to me at all, and my uncle would attest to just how sane that belief is.” Pierce looked up at the garage. “What floor is your car on?”

“The fifth.” She wanted to keep talking, and she liked that he held her hand. When they stepped into the elevator, he pulled her in front of him and placed his hands on her hips again, and she liked that a hell of a lot more than hand-holding.

“Go out with me tomorrow night, Rebecca.” It wasn’t a question, and it wasn’t a command. He obviously knew how to take control without overstepping the invisible gray line that could make him come across as arrogant.

Everything about him had her body humming with anticipation. “I have to pick up my paycheck tomorrow night, but I’d like to go out afterward.”

The elevator stopped on the fifth floor, and she wanted to reach over and push the Stop button so she could stay right there against him for a few minutes longer.
Hours. A few hours. Or maybe for the night
.

He didn’t move when the elevator doors opened, and when he spoke, his voice was serious. “What time are you picking it up?”

“I think he said he’ll be in around six.”

“I’ll pick you up at five forty-five and we can go together.” The elevator doors closed and began a slow descent toward the first floor again. The edge of his lips perked up and his eyes darkened.

“Okay,” she said in one long breath.

The elevator stopped on the first floor, and another couple joined them in the elevator. Rebecca tried to move to Pierce’s side, but he held her in place. He leaned forward and whispered, “Stay with me.”

His voice sent a shiver down her back, rooting her to the floor. He was a man with a dangerous edge. A man who was used to getting what he wanted. She could tell he had the power to slice a woman open with his voice and take every sweet piece of her he desired. His eyes were as dangerous as a wolf. His swollen desire against her hips said python
and
wolf. Hadn’t he said as much when he hadn’t disputed being a womanizer? Why, then, was she sensing that beneath that practiced, expert facade, lay a purebred, fluffy, loyal Labrador heart?

When they reached her car, Pierce leaned his hip casually against it and dragged his eyes down her body, causing another full-body shudder. Damn it to hell, and sleeping in her car, she couldn’t even pleasure herself to take the edge off of her newly awakened desires.

“Where could you possibly keep your keys?” he asked.

She turned her back, reached into her bra, and withdrew a single key. “Voila.”

His eyes darkened. “Makes me wonder where you keep your cell phone.”

“Secrets are a girl’s best friend.” She put the key in the lock and he moved behind her. Sensing his heat before his hands touched her hips, she closed her eyes. He brushed her hair from one shoulder, and his hot breath whispered across her skin.

“Where should I pick you up tomorrow?”

Shit
. What was she doing?
Oh, pick me up right here. In fact, just climb in my car now. I’ll have my way with you in the backseat and we’ll pretend we’re fifteen years old. Then I can realize you’re my biggest mistake—biggest, most delicious mistake—right before you realize the same thing
.

She turned to face him and—
Oh God
—that was worse. He was looking at her like he really liked her, not like she was a piece of ass, as she was trying to convince herself.

“Why don’t we meet here, in the lobby? You work here, and I have to be in the area anyway.”
Since I live here.

“I don’t mind picking you up at your place.” He touched her cheek. “I know you’re used to doing everything yourself, but it’s okay to let your date do a few things, like pick you up.”

Not for me it’s not
. “I know, but I have things to do, and my place is kind of a wreck right now.” That part was true. One glance inside her car and he’d see her stuff piled up on the floor in the backseat. God forbid he opened the trunk. Her whole life was in there. She’d sold her landlord the few pieces of furniture she and her mother had owned in order to pay the last of their utility bills.

He furrowed his brow. “Okay. You’re not married, are you? Because I don’t date married women.”

She laughed. “Definitely not married, and since it’s been a few years since I even kissed a man, I think if I were married, he’d have grounds for divorce.”

His smile gave away his relief. “Five forty-five, then? In the lobby.” He pressed his big hands to her cheeks, tilted her face up, and gazed into her eyes.

She’d never bought into the moment in movies when a woman gazed into a man’s eyes and fell into his arms, willing to do whatever he wanted, but there she was. And God help her, she’d go and do anything he wanted her to. It should be illegal to look at a woman like that. She craved his lips, his touch, his…

He kissed her forehead. “Thank you for a lovely night.” He pulled open the driver’s side door and waved a hand for her to climb in.

Please let my legs work. Please, please
.

She felt his hand on her back as she climbed into the driver’s seat and snagged a piece of paper. She scribbled down her number and handed it to him.

“Sleep well, Rebecca Rivera.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek.

She doubted she’d be doing any sleeping tonight. She had a big day tomorrow of getting her life a little more in order, and the way her heart was racing as she watched Pierce walk away, she wondered if she’d be able to function at all.