Chapter Twelve #2
She pressed her lips together, then said the thing she hadn’t been sure she would. “The view from the balcony upstairs is even better.”
She held her breath, and for a moment it felt as though he did too. He met her gaze and held it without a word.
She gave him the slightest nod and reached for his hand. Her heart was pounding as she tugged lightly on it. For one absurd second, fear flickered through her—what if she’d read this wrong? What if he didn’t want to come with her?
Then he stepped away from the railing and followed her inside, and the fear disappeared so completely she almost laughed. What replaced it was pure anticipation.
She kept hold of his hand as she led him through the house, toward the stairs, and every step of the way she was acutely aware of him behind her.
Not because he said anything—of course he didn't—but somehow every step seemed to carry a question with it.
Halfway up the stairs she glanced back at him and seeing him watching her almost stopped her.
It wasn't that she'd changed her mind—quite the opposite. It was the look in his eyes that made her heart pound harder. There was nothing casual in that look, but there was no assumption in it either. He was following because she'd asked him to, and somehow that made her want him there even more.
“Are you still coming?” she asked.
One eyebrow rose. “You trying to get rid of me already?”
“No.” She smiled and tugged on his hand. “Just checking.”
His fingers tightened around hers. “Then keep going.”
Oh my goodness. She turned before he could see the effect those three perfectly ordinary words had on her and carried on up the stairs.
Her bedroom looked different when they walked into it together, and that was ridiculous.
Nothing had changed since she'd shown him around this afternoon.
Her suitcase still sat near the wardrobe, half unpacked.
The balcony doors were closed now, the curtains still open to the darkness beyond.
And the bed… The bed was exactly where it had been.
It was still only a bed, and she just wished that her heart would take note of that. Because right now…
Blane stopped just inside the door, and she swallowed as she turned to face him. For a moment, neither of them moved.
“Well,” she said.
His mouth twitched.
“Don't!”
“Didn't say anything.”
“You didn't need to. I'm well aware that well wasn't one of my more dazzling conversation openings.”
“Thought you did a pretty good job downstairs of getting us started on this conversation.”
The warmth in his eyes made her smile. “I did rather talk my way up to it, didn't I?”
“Worked for me.”
She laughed, and just like that, some of the nerves loosened their grip.
She went to him, and this time she kissed him first, and there was something delicious about that, too.
About rising up onto her toes and curling her arms around his shoulders because she wanted to and feeling his hands settle at her waist in response.
He didn't direct her, didn't decide a thing for her, didn't try to lead at all. He was only following. And for some reason, that distinction mattered. She had no idea why it mattered so much, only that it did.
He kissed her slowly at first, as though there was no hurry now that they were here.
Bea had expected the opposite. She'd thought that the moment they reached the bedroom, all the restraint they'd been congratulating themselves on would disappear.
Some of it had—there was certainly nothing restrained about the way her body responded when his hand moved over her back, or the way she pressed closer when he kissed her neck.
As for Blane, it seemed his Wranglers were doing a good job of restraining the hardness pressing against her.
But he wasn't rushing, and neither was she.
And that might have been the most surprising thing of all.
She'd imagined this moment. Of course she had—though she'd deny it under oath, if anyone other than herself ever asked.
But in those imaginings, there had always been nerves, there'd been an awkwardness.
Because even in imagination—or fantasy, if you wanted to call it that, and she probably should—the reality of getting naked with a new man, when she hadn't been naked with any new man for the better part of forty years, was uncomfortable, to say the least.
There was some of that now, of course there was. But mostly, there was Blane, and she was starting to relax into Blane being Blane, and her being comfortable with him. At least she was comfortable with him until he reached for the hem of her top. She caught his hand without meaning to.
He stopped immediately. He didn’t freeze, didn’t withdraw, he simply stopped and looked at her.
And for one horrible second, Bea wanted to laugh at herself.
She was the one who’d brought him upstairs.
She was the one who’d kissed him, who’d all but announced that the better view was available only by way of her bedroom, and now apparently, she was going to develop a sudden attachment to her clothes.
“I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for.”
“No, I know. I just…” She blew out a breath. “It’s been a very long time since anyone new saw this body without any clothes on.”
His expression changed. She couldn’t read it. It wasn’t amusement, nor was it the kind of pity she half feared.
His gaze moved over her face. “Same body I’ve been wanting to get my hands on since London.”
She stared at him. “That was almost smooth.”
“Don’t tell Cash.”
She laughed, and the knot inside her loosened. This time she reached for the hem herself, and he let her.
There was something unexpectedly wonderful about that, too.
She wasn’t being undressed as though she were an object somebody had finally been granted access to.
Instead, she was taking part in it, pulling her own top over her head while he watched.
Then, she unfastened the buttons of his shirt one by one and discovered, with considerable satisfaction, the way this enormous, intimidating man was affected by her doing it.
His breathing changed when she spread her hands over his bare chest. Well. That was interesting—so interesting that she did it again.
His eyes narrowed. “You enjoying yourself?”
“Immensely.”
“Figured.”
She smiled as she ran her fingertips over him, learning what had until now been hidden beneath the shirts and jackets and all that granite-cliff stillness.
He was warm, incredibly solid, and scarred in places she wanted to ask about someday, though not now.
Now, she wanted to know what made his breath catch.
What made those eyes close for half a second.
What made the control she’d come to associate so completely with Blane Wilder slip.
The answer, delightfully, seemed to be her.
And then she was the one standing there in her bra while his hands settled at her waist, and some of her courage deserted her again.
He noticed. Of course he did. “Bea.”
“I know, I know. I’m being ridiculous.”
“Didn’t say that.”
“No, but—”
“You’re beautiful.”
She stopped. He said it so simply that she couldn’t dismiss it as flattery. Blane didn’t flatter. She’d learned that much already. “You don’t have to—”
“I know.” His thumb moved once over her side. “I want to.”
That silenced her. She let him kiss her again, and after that the remaining clothes became less of an event. Hers, then his, all dropped and were pushed aside between kisses until there was nothing left to hide behind.
And there she was, two years away from being sixty years old, utterly naked in a bedroom in Crete with a naked man she’d barely known four days.
Her chattering mind registered that there ought to be something alarming about that.
Instead, when she looked at him, the only words her mind could find were, Oh my.
Apparently, some things were every bit as impressive without Wranglers.
He caught her looking, and one eyebrow rose.
“Don’t.”
“Didn’t say anything.”
“No, but your eyebrow did.”
His mouth twitched.
She laughed and closed the distance between them again.
Even then, there was a little awkwardness, a slight, lingering self-consciousness, but mostly there was Blane—his mouth, his hands, and the warmth of bare skin against bare skin.
She quickly learned the little breath he let out when she touched him in a way he liked.
She was smiling when he lifted his head.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
His eyes narrowed slightly.
She laughed. “Honestly. At least, nothing bad; I’m enjoying myself.”
“Good.”
“That’s all you’ve got?”
“What else do you want?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps some indication that you are, too.”
His gaze moved over her face. “Bea.”
There it was again. Her name as an entire sentence.
“Yes, all right. Silly question.”
“Very.”
She slapped his chest, but he caught her hand before she could pull it away, and something changed. Not in his expression—if anything, he grew stiller as he held her hand against his chest and looked down at her.
“You sure?”
For a second, she didn’t understand why the words hit her the way they did. It was a simple question. And yet she couldn’t remember Simon ever asking it. Not about this. Perhaps at the very beginning, when they were young. Surely he must have, but she couldn’t remember.
The strange thing was that Simon had asked her opinion on thousands of things over the years. Did she want Italian or French for dinner? Did she like the blue tie or the gray? Did she think they should go to Scotland for Christmas or stay home?
But the big things had somehow been different. Not forced, he’d never forced things. But somehow things had always been settled before she knew it. By the time she understood there had been a decision to make, the decision had generally already been made.
Blane’s thumb moved once over the back of her hand. “Bea?”
She looked up at him. He wasn’t asking because he doubted her; he was asking because the answer belonged to her.
“Yes.”
His gaze stayed on hers.