She started toward him, confidence making her eyes sparkle like her shimmery dress.
Two...
One!
With shouts of “Happy New Year” on the air, he scooped his wife into his arms and kissed her long and hard. The same way he would make love to her in his bed tonight.
In their bed tonight.
When they parted, her eyes glazed with lust as the gala’s guests warbled along to “Auld Lang Syne.”
His wife opened her mouth to join in, and her eyes never left his.
What he saw in their depths shook him to the core. Her aquamarine gaze revealed nothing short of adoration. Lust darkened her pupils, too, but beneath that there was more.
Much more than he’d anticipated.
She climbed to her toes, her warm breath brushing over his cheek. His balls tightened. He wanted this woman again already. When she whispered in his ear, he prayed that it’d be a request he could accommodate and not the three-word phrase she’d expect him to return.
But instead of that three-word bomb, she dropped a different one—one that sizzled his nerve endings and had him bolting for the door a nanosecond later. Three words shaped by the promise of her capable mouth.
“Take me home.”
“I’m falling in love with him and I have no idea what to do.” Stef barged into Penelope’s office, the words exiting her mouth before she could register what she was seeing.
“Oh my God!” She slapped her hand over her eyes.
“Get the hell out!” Zach shouted before taking the Lord’s name in vain in a more colorful way than she had. Unfortunately, the hand that covered her eyes had been the slightest bit delayed, so she’d gotten an eyeful of her brother’s naked rear.
“I had an appointment!” Stef yelled, hand still protecting her retinas as she backed from the office. She shut the door as Penelope laughed, apparently finding this very unfunny situation hilarious.
“I’m sorry, Stef!” Pen called out around another laugh. “I lost track of the time.”
Zach was still swearing. He also muttered something about how they needed to move farther away from his family, but Stefanie didn’t think he meant that part.
Pen soothed him with words Stef couldn’t make out, and when those words gave way to the telltale slurping sound of long kisses, Stef decided to help herself to something from the kitchen.
Conveniently, the kitchen was on the opposite side of the house, far away from her canoodling brother and sister-in-law.
More minutes than she would’ve liked to acknowledge later, her brother entered his kitchen, his nostrils flared and his hair a wreck. There was no sign of his always present “good ole boy” smile and dimple.
“I had an appointment,” Stef insisted before munching another potato chip.
“She did.” Penelope walked in behind Zach and pinched his butt. He spun around and kissed her, his smile and dimple returning.
Stef let out a wistful sigh.
“All right, all right. Let’s give Stef a break.” Pen patted his face and smiled.
“I have to go back to the office. See you tonight.” His murmur was low and, yes, seductive. Stef hadn’t missed that.
“As for you...” He turned to Stef, serious again. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear what you said when you barged in there. I can’t handle that right now.”
“You! I’m the one who got a look at your full moon while you were in a very tender position with your wife. All you had to hear was my feelings for Emmett.”
“No.”Zach put his hands out in front of him as if that could keep her from saying any more offending words. “I have to go.”
Once he was gone, she shook her head at Pen. “And you love him.”