Chapter 6 #2
“Your key, ma’am.” Chloe was disoriented, out of time, out of space.
It took her a moment to connect the elements of the man at the front desk holding out a card.
When she simply stared at him—and it had been an effort to wrench her eyes away from Mike’s—he put the card down and slid it across to her, probably thinking she was mentally incapacitated. “For check-out?”
Chloe flushed. All these emotions, all of them strong, finding a long-lost brother who came with an extended family, including children, reacting so strongly to Mike—they were so outside her personal experience she was having problems coping.
“Thanks.” Mike pocketed the key with its holder.
“It’s in the Resort,” the clerk said helpfully. “Let me show you.” He whipped out a map and traced the route with his index finger.
“Got it.” Mike took her arm. “Come on honey, let’s get you packed up so we can go home.”
Honey. Home. Oh God.
Another gaggle of men stood between them and the walkway.
Super-sized, middle-aged men in sportswear, crossing their path obliquely.
Chloe stiffened a little but needn’t have bothered.
Again, without even being away of it, the men parted for her—for Mike, actually.
They would never even have noticed her. Mike navigated them through without any difficulties at all.
She was so unused to being looked after, to being protected. Such an unusual feeling – to relax totally while among people. She was usually on her guard against so many things.
The Del was huge and there was a lot of walking to be done.
It was pointless for Chloe to try to hurry—she’d only trip, perhaps fall.
Though falling wasn’t actually an option with Mike at her side.
He seemed to be hyper-aware of her, matching his steps to hers exactly.
He’d actually offered her his arm, as if they were at a Regency ball in Bath.
She took it, marveling at the warm, steely feel of him under her fingers.
It seemed to her that if he were anywhere near her, she could never fall down.
Such a delicious feeling. Chloe loved walking, but it didn’t love her back.
Most of the fifty bones she’d broken had reknit fairly well, but the fact was that she wasn’t entirely in control of her own body.
An orthopedic surgeon had once explained to her that she had lost millions of proprioceptors—tiny feedback devices in the body that help humans keep balance.
Walking involved intense attention to where she put her feet, to making sure she didn’t trip over things that others would automatically correct for.
Never with Mike by her side, though.
Down crowded corridors, over thick uneven brick walkways, over grassy swards, they made their way without incident. When they stopped at her door, Mike slotted the card key and opened it for her.
It was a lovely room, with a sea view she’d paid an extra $250 for. There had been no way of knowing what she’d find at RBK. She’d been determined that if seeking out her long-lost brother turned out badly, she’d at least have a pretty room that looked out over the ocean as a consolation.
“Nice room,” Mike said, strolling in, looking around.
“Yes, it is,” she agreed, delighted that it wasn’t going to have to console her. “It won’t take me but a minute to pack.”
“Take your time.” Those bright blue eyes fixed on her. “You weren’t planning on staying long.” It wasn’t a question.
“No. I, um. I booked for three nights, as I said. If—if it didn’t turn out well with Harry, at least I could look forward to doing some touristy things here in San Diego. When I left Boston, there was a foot of snow on the ground and sub-zero temperatures.”
“Well, you’re not going back to Boston for a while.
” Mike watched as she pulled open the one drawer into which she’d put her underwear, nightgown, two sweaters and a pair of lightweight wool slacks.
Not many things. “You’ll want to do some shopping.
Harry’ll be good for it. Hell, I’ll be good for it. ”
Chloe turned, nightgown in her hands, frowning.
“I’m not too sure I under—Oh!” She blinked in surprise.
“You mean Harry would pay for new clothes. Or you would.” She felt herself blushing.
“I could never accept that. And anyway, my parents left me a lot of money.” A ton of it, in fact.
The amount still astonished and, in a way, shamed her.
She didn’t deserve all that money. “As a matter of fact, that was one of the reasons I came here to find Harry. I wanted to offer him half of the value of the estate I inherited. It is only right. We’re siblings, he should have half. ”
Though nothing could ever compensate Harry for having been left behind, abandoned, at least she could try to make it up this way.
Mike walked over to her, smiling. “You want to give Harry money? Good luck with that. As a matter of fact, I’ll bet you dinner at the Crown Room, right here at the Del, that he won’t accept a dime from you. Won’t even entertain the thought.”
“And what would I bet?”
His eyes held hers. The light off the ocean outside her window lit his blue eyes up until they were the color of the ocean itself. He smiled. “Dinner at the Del.”
“So…no matter who wins, we have dinner here?”
He stepped closer. “Yeah, that’s about the size of it.”
Though he wasn’t as tall as his oversized ‘brothers’, Mike Keillor was still quite taller than she was. She had to tilt her head back a little to keep looking into his eyes.
He was so close she could feel the heat he emanated. So close he filled her field of vision, blocking everything out but him.
“Shake on it,” he ordered.
Her hand lifted without any volition on her part, as if it were the hand itself that wanted to be held by his.
He gently grasped it in both hands, instead of the impersonal hand shake she’d been expecting.
His hands were as hot as a furnace. Slowly, watching her every second, he brought her hand to his mouth and—oh my God—kissed it.
Something inside her, something she’d never even suspected existed, pinged to life. Heat, excitement…desire. Her hand started shaking in his, utterly uncontrollable. She wasn’t in control of anything here—her hands, the expression on her face, her own desire.
It was like being on a raft without oars, tumbling down a raging river. All she could do was hang on. And she did.
Her fingers curled around his hand as he tugged, pulling her willingly closer to him.
Oh, everything about this was just so delicious.
Chloe wanted to remember this exact moment for ever.
The drapes open onto a delightful balcony overlooking a stretch of white beach and beyond, the endless Pacific, the sun shining off the waves so brightly it was as if the ocean were filled with silent fireworks.
There was a vague, happy rhythmic sound that was the waves in the distance, overlaid by a little girl’s laughter and the dull thwacking of a tennis ball somewhere. She could smell lemon polish, brine, some flowering plant outside the window…and Mike.
Every sense she had was heightened, her entire body turning into one huge receptor. Absolutely every sensation her body was receiving was delectable, particularly the desire.
Oh my. She’d read about it, endlessly. Listened to friends talk about it, thought about it, but never understood it.
Now she did. Now she could see why women dated and sometimes married completely inappropriate men, because if for even a fleeting moment it was possible to feel this, it was worth it.
Her entire body was warming up, fast. A wave of heat moving through her, warm and alive. She could barely breathe from the heat and excitement. She could feel every single muscle in her body, feel her heart thudding, all her extremities tingling.
Desire melted her insides, spread heat between her thighs.
When Mike pulled her so close her breasts met his chest, her vagina contracted.
A strong pulse, unmistakable. It had never happened to her before but she recognized it immediately.
Without any input from her head at all, her body was readying itself for him.
But what astonished her, excited her, delighted her was that extraordinary feeling of being alive, the life force pulsing through her, and she recognized how dead she’d felt most of her life. Somehow always at a remove from the living.
But not now. Now she was alive in every cell, connected to the earth, as human as they come. This was frightening, exhilarating stuff. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this didn’t come from her. She couldn’t make herself feel this way. She’d tried, but it had never worked.
It took Mike Keillor, watching her carefully out of those oh-so-blue eyes, potent and strong and so very very male. He was the reason she felt so incredibly alive.
The thought would have frightened her if she’d had even the minimal capacity for fright, but she didn’t. She felt alive, and strong, ready for anything. Able to move mountains. A force of nature.
Mike watched her carefully as he moved his head down, slowly, looking deeply into her eyes, trying to gauge her mood, whether she was going to object.
Was he kidding? Object? When she craved this kiss so much?
Everything about this was brand-new. An excitement so intense her breath was caught in her lungs, all that male power concentrated on her, when she was so used to being utterly invisible to men.
And the show-stopper. Her own desire. Something she’d never felt before, certainly not at this level of intensity. Everything in her was quivering with anticipation.
And then—it happened.
Mike lowered his head to her, his eyes watching hers, then dropping his eyes to her mouth, the gaze so powerful it was as if he touched her mouth with his fingers.
He brought his mouth to hers, briefly, and she felt electricity crackle, was surprised lightning didn’t flash.