Dinner was delicious, as Kelli would have expected. There’d been a reason that Bon Temps had been one of the most popular restaurants on Oregon’s mid coast. Maureen Douchett was a genius when it came to elevating humble Cajun comfort food to something close to sublime.
And speaking of sublime . . .
The movie, which she’d seen more times than she could count, was as romantic as ever. Oodles more so with Cole sitting next to her. She sighed when Jimmy Stewart promised to rope the moon for Donna Reed.
“A bit impractical,” Cole, who was sitting next to her on the couch, his arm around her shoulder, said.
“It’s a metaphor.”
“I get that.” He pressed his lips against her hair—it had, with some help from Cole, come tumbling down sometime between when George’s brother, Harry, had fallen through that ice and when George and Mary started dancing, after George finally saw Mary for the amazing woman she was. “But I guess, with women, it’s the thought that counts.”
“Exactly.” She smiled up at him. “And maybe not as impossible as giving a woman Hawaii in a cupcake.”
He didn’t answer. At least not in words. But the slow, savoring way he pressed his lips to hers for their second kiss spoke volumes.
“Of course, it goes downhill from here,” he said, as he left her trembling and returned to eating popcorn.
“For a time,” she allowed, wondering if Cole would feel cheated, like George Bailey initially had, if he returned to Shelter Bay for good. “But it all works out in the end.”
“And good old Clarence gets his wings.” He held out a piece of buttered popcorn.
She thought about pointing out that she was perfectly capable of feeding herself. But although it was merely corn from a package, popped in a microwave with a bit of melted butter poured over it, she found the gesture, and the rich taste, which her own air-popped unbuttered corn could never equal, unreasonably seductive.
“You like happy endings,” he said while holding out another piece for her.
“Of course.” She closed her teeth around the fat white kernel. “Doesn’t everyone?”
He continued to feed her bites as George and Mary sang “Buffalo Gals.”
“I always knew you were a romantic.”
“Perhaps the world needs more romantics.”
“Roger that,” he agreed. He sniffed at her tumbled hair. “God, you smell fantastic.”
Then, before she could respond, he kissed her again, and as his tongue swirled up to taste the drops of melted butter on her lips, Kelli decided that she’d never be able to eat popcorn again without thinking of this night.
The rest of the movie went by in a blur as they shared popcorn and kisses and he drew her so close, nestling her under his arm, she could have sworn, by the time Zuzu announced that the bell on the tree ringing meant an angel had just gotten his wings, Kelli was on the verge of melting herself.
“Well,” he said, clicking the TV off. “All’s well that ends well.” As she put her hand in the one he held out to her, her heart did a slow, dizzying spin of anticipation.
After all these years of waiting, the night she’d dreamed of had finally arrived. Refusing to worry about whether the closeness they were experiencing would last beyond this stolen time together and what things would be like when they returned to town, as they walked to the master bedroom, hand in hand, Kelli decided she was going to stop worrying about the future and live in the moment.
She’d reached out to open the door when he tugged her back and turned her around.
“Put your arms around my neck.”
More than a little dazed by the roughness of his deep voice and the storm swirling in his dark eyes, Kelli could more easily fly to the moon on gossamer wings than refuse him.
“Better,” he said with a satisfied quirk of the lips.
He put his hands on her hips and moved closer, pressing her against the heavy wooden door. As their bodies touched, center to center, he brushed his mouth against hers. Touching, then retreating, touching again and ratcheting up the desire until she was practically clinging to him for support.
Kelli was not naive. Nor innocent. She’d been kissed before. She’d made love before. But never had every atom in her body been so focused on the havoc being done to her mouth. His tongue traced a line across the seam of her lips, encouraging them to open for him.
Which, seeming to have taken on a mind of their own, they did.
He nipped at her bottom lip, pulling it into his mouth, drawing a ragged moan from deep in her throat.
“Nice.” He murmured the words against her lips before slipping his tongue inside, in an impossibly slow possession that blurred her vision.
Heat was building in her core, spiraling outward, fingers of flame reaching through her blood, touching her all the way outward to the tips of her fingers and toes. And all the time his gaze stayed locked on hers, watching, measuring, discovering all her secrets. Learning her every weakness.
She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. Her mind had gone blank and she’d lost control of her senses.
And then, impossibly—although, with his body against hers, there was no hiding his arousal—he . . . backed away?
“Cole . . .” The words wouldn’t, couldn’t come.
Terrific. Now she’d gone mute as well as blind.
But not so blind she couldn’t see his slow smile.
“Say good night, Kels.”
Surely he wasn’t going to leave her? Not like this?
She was dazed, confused, but although he’d left her in a puddle of need, he’d not claimed her pride. She tried to regain some self-control.
She would not whimper. Nor beg.
Summoning up her inner warrior goddess, she lifted her chin even as her legs felt like water. “Good night, Cole.”
“Good night.” His eyes softened and gentled as he skimmed a fingertip over those lips he’d so expertly ravaged. “Sleep tight.” He opened the heavy door. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Morning,” she repeated. Then somehow, on unsteady legs, she made her way into the room and shut the door behind her. Leaning against it, she sank bonelessly to the floor, where she bent her legs, wrapped her arms around them, and lowered her head to her knees as she listened to Cole whistling “Buffalo Gals” as he strolled the few feet to his own bedroom.
• • •
It was much, much later, after finally falling asleep following hours of frustrated tossing and turning, that Kelli woke to an odd, unrecognizable sound coming from outside the cabin. Without turning on the light, she climbed out of bed, padded to the French doors, and pulled aside an edge of the curtain.
There, bathed in the spreading glow of a full moon, stood Cole. Despite what had to be freezing temperatures, he’d stripped down to a brown thermal underwear shirt and was wielding a huge red-handled ax, lifting it over his head, then bringing it down again and again as he split log after log, sending pieces of wood scattering in the snow all around him.
The shirt fit tightly enough that it took no imagination at all to envision tan flesh stretching over sinew and muscle, rippling as he attacked the wood.
Which was, hands down, the sexiest thing Kelli had ever seen.
She could have stood there forever. But, not wanting to get caught watching him, she forced herself away from the window and back to the too-lonely bed.