Her face quickly lost its earlier frigidness as her embarrassment seared through her at the sudden memory of his brother’s hands all over her when he’d tried to pry her from that chute. “N-nothing!”
Great! She was back to stuttering. Now West watched her with more interest.
She gulped, doing her best to distract her mind from his brother’s strong fingers. “I was asking Cole about decorating the place, and he told me that someone else beat us to it first.”
West glanced back at the road, his jaw tightening. “What Liv decides to do… ornotdoesn’t affect how I live my life. If I wanted to get married in that gross old barn, I would, but…”
“Tropical paradise,” she whispered.
“Yeah,” he muttered.
He’d mentioned that before. Maybe she should listen to what he really wanted, instead of going off on her own excited ideas. She had a tendency to do that.
He kneaded his forehead, looking pained. “I reallyneedto get out of here. Let’s just get this week over with and fly out as soon as we can.”
She straightened as she began to realize what he was saying. “Where will we go?”
“Anywhere.”
She smiled brightly. Yes! This was the reckless and thrilling side of West that she liked. “Some place tropical?” she hazarded.
Both of his hands went back to the steering wheel and tightened. He parked next to Cole’s truck. His brother was long gone. That oversized pumpkin sat on the porch dripping with rain and mud. Cole would be in the shower by now. Eva should catch one, too, but turning, her breath caught at West’s probing gaze. Her hands loosened against the jacket he’d given her.
“You don’t look half bad… as a drowned rat,” he said.
Amusement flooded through her at his compliment, along with a happy, tingling sensation that he’d finally noticed her, because even though his words were casual, the way he watched her was certainly not. He looked riveted.
“Oh really?” she asked playfully. “You like my makeup washed off and my hair stringing all over my face?”
“Yeah.” His fingers slid through that wet hair, sending tremors all over her that were far superior to what the cold had caused. “You’re beautiful no matter what you do.” He almost sounded resentful of the fact, but that was before he leaned into her.
She felt his lips brush against hers.
His unexpected touch shot her brain all over the place so that she couldn’t think too much about his tone… or care. Wow. Yeah. Anyone could say what they wanted about West’s dark moods, but the man could kiss!
When he put his mind to it, he had a way of making every part of her feel attractive and exciting. His lips were both demanding and gentle and left her feeling all soft and gooey like a warm and happy marshmallow as they trailed from her mouth to her cheek and back to her mouth where he completely captured her in a kiss so filled with the essence of West’s turbulent soul that it made her practically swoon from the joy of being with him.
He captured her heart again and again with his Slade charm.
West drew back from her.
She scrambled to collect her thoughts from her misfiring brain, but he didn’t give her enough time. His breath caressed her cheek seconds before he placed another lingering kiss against her lips.
Rockets of giddiness exploded through her. Forget being chilled. He’d heated her up in seconds.
The guy was a microwave!
The doubts torturing her nights as she wondered how much he truly loved her had evaporated. His hands tightened over her as he brought her closer against him, like she actually belonged to him. He lifted her off her seat as easily as Cole had rescued her from that tube.
And West is never finding out about that!
Either way, the Slade strength always surprised her. Her knee ran into the console as West conveyed exactly how much passion he felt for her, in a way that he hadn’t been able to do with his words for the past few days… weeks.
“I don’t know about you,” she said between their kisses, “but how about we set sail for this islandtoday?”
He laughed, sounding almost at peace with the idea.
Was he?