He lifted his hand to her hair, still sleek in its twist, different from the shade she'd had when he knew her, but beautiful just the same. A strand had fallen loose, chestnut brown and curled. He touched it, ran his finger across the single lock. Time melted away as he leaned into the familiar crook of her neck. The craving for her ran so damn deep it lived inside his bones.
He inhaled her, that honey scent, a new smell that in an instant marked her.
"Shan," he whispered, rough and gravelly, filled with so much want for her, which had built over the years, grown higher, spread further, formed roots. Inhabited him. He was desperate to have her in his arms again, to smother her in kisses that erased all the years.
"Brent," she whispered, his name sounding like sugar on her tongue.
He buried his face in her neck, layering kisses on her soft skin. "Where have you been?" he asked, though it was entirely rhetorical. She hadn't been with him. He hadn't been with her. That was the answer.
"Where were you?" she countered softly.
He lifted his face and looked her in the eyes as he brushed the back of his fingers along her cheek. "Thinking of you," he said.
He didn't know how he'd gone from breaking two glasses to finding her falling into his arms. But that was where they were. He cupped her cheeks in his hands. "You're so fucking beautiful," he rasped out, and then he crushed her mouth. He consumed her lips. He kissed her hard, and greedily, and the world around him turned black and small. It faded into a speck of nothingness because there was room for nothing else in his world but her. Nothing but the utter perfection of Shannon Paige-Prince wrapped around him where she belonged.
No time had passed.
No years had flown by.
No regrets had dug deep inside him.
They kissed like it was a first time, and a last time, and like it was all time. They kissed like two people who wanted to climb into each other's skin, to smash into the other person. There were no doubts. No questions. She had to feel everything he felt. She had to want a second chance, too.
This was not only a kiss. It was crashing back into orbit. It was gravity reinstated. In the press of her lips, in the slide of her tongue, in the gasps she made, they hurtled back in time. All mistakes were erased in this moment.
He dropped a hand to her lower back, yanking her close. Kissing was not enough. Lips would only get them so far. He had to feel her, touch her, taste her. She was his, and even though they were kissing in front of the entire city, he was all alone with her.
///
He couldn't get close enough to her. She pressed into him, a full body collision, grinding against him. He groaned as he reclaimed her mouth, his entire body consumed with a lust so powerful he didn't know how he'd make it out of the bar and back to his house, to a room, to her place, wherever, anywhere, without fucking her along the way.
As she rubbed her body against him, he could feel the heat between her legs. It fried his brain and short-circuited his skull. The desire to touch her enveloped him. He wanted to watch her undress, to stare at that to-die-for body that he'd missed so terribly, to roam his eyes over her curves as she lowered herself onto him and rode him the way she liked.
Hell, the way she fused her body against his told him all he needed to know. She wanted the same things.
He kissed a line along her jaw to her ear as she breathed hard. "Come home with me tonight," he said, skimming his hand along the outside of her thigh.
Her hand connected with his cheek, and his head snapped to the side.
His head rang. His skin burned from the sharpness-the unexpected sting from the slap that came out of nowhere.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" she asked, pulling away.
"What the fuck is wrong with me?" he repeated, shock reverberating in his bones. He opened his mouth to say more, but no words came.
She leaned in close and whispered, "Let me give you a tip, Brent. When you haven't seen a woman in ten years, maybe say you're sorry for breaking her heart before you try to fuck her again."
Frustration seared his nervous system. "Fuck," he said in a low hiss. "I'm sorry, Shan."
She narrowed her eyes and shot him an icy stare. "That would have been a lot more believable if it didn't require a prompt."
Without skipping a beat, he gave it right back to her, firing off a retort. "How was I supposed to say it when your mouth was on mine? Tell me that, Shan. Tell me that," he said, jutting out his chin, waiting for her answer.
She grabbed her silver scarf from the chair and glared at him as she brandished it. "Next time you want to see me you'll need a better excuse than sitting on my scarf."
She stormed off, but when she was a few feet away, he called out, "It's called a wrap. Don't forget that. It's a wrap."
She stopped in her tracks. He swore red clouds billowed off her, and as she clenched her fists, he was willing to bet she was fighting every urge to give him the finger.
She resumed her pace.
As he watched her walk away, this time he was pissed off too. The woman wouldn't cut him a fucking break. She'd avoided his phone calls those first few days. She'd ignored every attempt he'd made to contact her. And now, she was kissing him back, then getting pissed at him for wanting her.
What the hell?
He used to think he understood her. He used to think he was the only one for her.
But she gave new meaning to the word whiplash.
CHAPTER SIX
She was one of two women in the gym, and the only one wearing heels.
"You can't behave that way."
The directive came from her brother Michael, who was in the middle of a workout.
He hoisted the barbell high above his chest with a measured exhale. A few feet over, a beefy guy in a muscle tank grunted as he raised his weights then dropped them in a loud clang on the floor. With pinpoint precision, Michael lowered the bar to his chest, inch by inch, then pushed up again. "You need to keep that temper of yours in check," he continued in a controlled breath.
"I know," Shannon said in a tiny voice, her head lowered, her hair falling in a curtain around her face. She'd unclipped her French twist on the drive home, gunning the gas and blasting pop music to drown out her thoughts as she sped along the highway, putting distance between Brent and herself.
But really, the space she needed was between her own untamed anger and the person she wanted to be. A person who should be in control of her emotions, of her feelings, and of her matchstick temper. She wasn't in control, so as soon as she'd pulled off the highway near her home, she'd spotted the sign for the gym where Michael went and turned in.
Ever disciplined, Michael was exactly where he usually was at ten-thirty at night-lifting weights, after having logged an hour on the cardio machine. Michael owned a security conglomerate and ran it with their brother Ryan. Michael arrived at the office at eight every morning after his five-mile run¸ worked a full day, then headed to the gym nearly every night for a second workout. Call him a workaholic. Call him an athlete. Call him a machine. He was all of that, and he was also the moral compass of their foursome.
///
The eldest of the siblings, he'd been their rock, and their leader.
He lowered the weight once more, then raised it for a final rep before placing it on the rack of the bench press. Sitting up, he draped a strong arm around her.
She crinkled her nose. "Eww," she said, pushing his sweaty arm away from her dress.
He grabbed her head and rubbed his knuckles against her skull, his light blue eyes twinkling. When he stopped laughing, he tugged her close. "So what are you going to do tomorrow?"
He was like a teacher, reinforcing the lesson.
"Apologize," she grumbled.
He punched her arm lightly. "C'mon. Say it with spirit."
She affixed a too-bright smile. "Apologize," she said with forced pep. "Even though he's the one who should be apologizing."
Michael nodded, his eyes darkening momentarily. He was no fan of Brent. "You'll get no disagreement from me on that point, but this isn't about him. It's about you." He pointed at her as he spoke in that gentle but authoritative tone he had. His older brother tone. "Who you want to be. How you want to behave."
"And who I don't want to become," she muttered.
He shot her a small smile. "I'm not worried about that in the least. But you can't give in to anger. Though, trust me, I'd like to with that fucker," he said. Michael had helped Brent with his proposal. He'd asked their grandmother for her wedding band to be used in the engagement ring.
"He's not that bad," she said, and that was the understatement of the night. Brent wasn't that bad. He was that good. Kissing him was like melting from head to toe, like being dipped in pleasure and coated in a fine dust of hot shivery tingles. He ignited her completely, lust and desire sweeping up and down her skin from his touch.
Not that she'd say any of that to her brother. Maybe to her girlfriend Ally, but Michael didn't need to know that Brent Nichols still turned her on like no man ever had. Besides, the purpose of the night's pit stop wasn't to conduct a post-mortem on being kissed unexpectedly above the Vegas skyline. It was because her brother always knew what to do and how to handle sticky situations, like her having hit a man.