In the darkness of this bedroom and very late at night, she’d wondered if he spent sleepless nights like she had, thinking of him. If he was haunted by the kiss they’d shared before the press. And if he’d both been waiting for and wanting a new one. But it was insane!
Squirming, she pushed him away and gasped for air. He pulled back, and her chest heaved crazily, and her lips tingled with the sweet moisture of his mouth.
He cupped her face between both his hands and focused on her eyes with a heavy-lidded gaze. “I won’t apologize,” he said, a warning.
Dizzied, Beth had trouble pulling away, couldn’t seem to find her grounding. She found herself clinging to his collar with her fists. “Why? Why did you kiss me?”
There were no reporters now, no priest demanding he kiss the bride, no need to kiss her at all. She’d done the same to him that first night, but she’d been desperate. What about him?
He didn’t answer. Instead, he gently pried her cramped fingers from his shirt, set her arms at her sides with a brotherly pat, and smiled a devil’s smile from the door. “Good night, Bethany.”
He could still taste her.
It amused him. It annoyed him. It made him feel starved.
Across the room, Landon watched the blonde, blue-eyed vision in a cream wedding dress mingle among the well-dressed crowd and colorful blur of dancers.
They’d planned a small celebration—nothing too posh. Bethany had asked for simple and simple was what Bethany got.
Lush white casablancas populated his home today. They were accompanied by music, candles and a promising buffet. A buffet that couldn’t possibly satisfy Landon’s hunger. No, nothing could appease this hunger. This aching, growing void for more.
The tension between them had been building during the week. Like a fire stoked with their plotting, their glances, their smiles. Landon was known as a patient man, but his body didn’t listen to patience tonight.
He thrummed with desire. Had strained against his pants all through the ride to city hall. He’d watched her loose honeyed hair brush against her shoulders, her small, pert breasts rise and fall under her form-fitting dress.
It would have taken nothing to lean over and kiss her again. This time touch her, caress her soft skin, wrap his hands around her hair.
But she wasn’t ready. Last night she’d pushed him away. And Landon would wait. So she trusted him, respected him. Wanted him bad enough to come to him.
His wife…
The tantalizing thought made him groan low in his throat. Did she moan when she made love? Did the thought of being legally bound to him play with her libido the same way it did with his? He closed his eyes and exhaled a ragged breath, attempting to forget the way her mouth had tasted, of apples and pears.
With effort, he pushed away from the limestone column in the foyer and made his way back into the party, watching Kate and Bethany chat. Her dress molded to her slender body, and the sight drove him up the wall.
Bethany spotted him, said something to Kate, then both women, Kate with her tray which she seemed hard-pressed to set down, and Beth with a smile, began coming forward.
People circulated around the living room and the small dance floor, but the noise of them went distant, unimportant somehow.
Because Beth and Kate were coming over.
His pulse went haywire.
Someone slapped his back and stopped him in his tracks. “I noticed you haven’t kissed the bride,” Julian said.
Garrett was with him, and the three men stood watching the women wind their way across.
“And why is that?” This from Garrett. “Last time you celebrated this very wedding, you gave us all quite a viewing, Lan.”
Landon’s pulse jumped as it always did when Bethany stared at him with those big bright eyes. He lowered his voice so she couldn’t hear him. “It’s about time I kissed her in private.”
“I’m kinda put out you haven’t tasted my spinach rolls,” Kate said to Julian when they arrived, extending the tray.
But it was Garrett who instantly snatched one up, made an obliging sound and tasted it. Landon had seen Kate in ponytails—she was the closest to a little sister the Gages had—but it was Garrett who got five stars for sticking by her side when she grew breasts and a penchant for trouble. Poor Garrett.
“Well?” Kate prodded. “Good?”
Garrett said something, but Landon didn’t hear. He hungrily studied Bethany’s mouth. Her fragrance wafted into his lungs. Sweet and female, creating havoc with his insides. He didn’t know what it was about her. Something intrinsic in her, the sexual siren mixed with the fierceness of a mother cougar and the calm of an angel.