Be My Temptation (Temptation #2) (8 page)

The next morning, Kate heard her doorbell ring. She opened her front door to a find an iPad, with a video playing on its screen. She bent closer and saw Brock’s friend Chris listing all the reasons why he thought Kate should give Brock a second chance. He talked about how long he had known Brock and what a good person he was. A moment later, Angie’s husband, Mike, was reciting almost the same message. The video cut to Tyler, who sounded sincere as he said the only person he could imagine Brock being with was someone as classy as Kate, and that anyone who could get Brock to wear women’s perfume for a week was someone Tyler had to respect. Linda, Brock’s sister, talked about what a great family man Brock was. Even his parents chimed in to say they missed her.

Kate was near tears by the time Brock came on the screen. He looked tired, but he smiled into the camera as he spoke directly to her. “I reserved a table at Henri’s for tomorrow night at six. I’ll be there, waiting for you. If there is any chance you can forgive me, meet me there. Don’t decide right now, Kate. Go inside. Open my other presents. They are proof that I mean it when I say I love you. There has never been anyone else for me, Kate, and there never will be.”

Kate stopped the video and took the iPad inside. She moved Brock’s gifts from her hallway into her living room and sat down beside them on the floor. She took a deep breath, reached for one of the boxes, and held it on her lap for a moment.
If I open this, I’m opening my heart to the possibility of Brock again. I’m giving him a chance to hurt me again.

What am I so afraid of?

That he’ll treat me the way Wayne did?

Wayne never cared enough about me to do anything as crazy as pretend to be a naughty elf. Brock is not Wayne. I have to stop comparing the two.

Brock says his proof is in these presents.

Please let him love me the way he says he does. Please don’t let me be wrong twice.

Kate tore the paper off the first present and smiled at the simplicity of its contents. It was just a small pocket calendar with a puppy decorating the cover. Unthreatening. Sweet. She opened the calendar to the first page and read the message he had written there. “When you decide you’re ready to see me, please check the calendar for dates when I’ll be available.” She flipped through the pages and saw that he had highlighted every evening and every weekend. On each day he had written the same word: “Available.”

Corny. Cute.

Kate reached for the next package. Wedged between two pieces of cardboard was an old, tattered piece of construction paper. Kate took it out and held it up, and tears started running down her cheeks. It was a drawing she had made of the two of them back when, as children, they had spent the summer together while his father had worked on her mother’s house. She’d drawn them holding hands and smiling and had written:

Keep this so you won’t forget me. Your friend, Kate.

And he had kept it, for about twenty years. Kate laughed as she wiped away her tears. What man holds onto a crayon picture for twenty years?

Brock.

The next package contained a framed photo of her with him and his family at Christmas. She was beaming up at him, hugging him as they all posed while Aunt Stella repeatedly tried to figure out how to take a photo with a phone. She’d gotten confused so many times that by the time this particular photo had been taken, everyone in the picture was laughing. Even Brock’s father, who had a hand up in the air as he called out instructions to Stella. On the back of the frame, Brock had written, “This is where you belong. With us. Please, don’t leave me here with them.” Kate chuckled.

She ripped the wrapping off the next gift and was intrigued by it. He’d given her a Kindle. She read the note attached to it twice. “Where do I want to go with you? Everywhere. Anywhere. Look over the travel books I’ve downloaded. Pick a place, and that’s where I’ll take you. I don’t care where we are, as long as we’re together.”

There was a time when she would have dismissed Brock’s notes as just words that meant nothing more than a desire to change her mind. However, those words, when sent along with the other gifts, rang true to her. He wasn’t showboating for her. He really would go anywhere with her.

The next box held a gift certificate for dance classes and a note that read, “Because you love to dance, and I don’t think you let yourself do it enough.”

As for the last box, if her heart hadn’t already melted completely, its contents would have done it. In fact, had it been the only gift he’d given her, it would have been enough. It was a written apology from the man she’d dated in high school, the one with the sweaty hands who had chased her around town and earned her the nickname Untouchable Kate. He said he had no real excuse for his behavior back then outside of being young and stupid. He explained he was married with a daughter now, and he finally understood how wrong he had been. He said Brock had demanded he write the letter, but he should have written it a long time ago.

Brock had hunted down the man who had humiliated her in high school and had gotten Kate the apology she’d never dared demand for herself. There was no denying anymore that Brock loved her.

Kate went to the kitchen and retrieved the last present she’d received from Mr. Elf. She opened the box and cocked her head to one side as she read the product name. Mini nipple suckers? They were tiny, pink rubber thimbles. There was no note. There didn’t have to be. Had she opened it the day she’d received it, she would have texted Mr. Elf for instructions on how to use them. Instead, she read the description on the box. Use with lube during foreplay to make nipples more sensitive.

She placed the gift from Mr. Elf on top of the gifts from Brock. With Brock, she could have a sweet, caring partner during the day and a naughty, adventurous lover at night.

This isn’t about Brock as much as it’s about me. I have to believe that he could love me.

Me.

Untouchable Kate.

The outcast. The trophy wife.

I could have what Angie has—a man I love who loves me back just as much—if I believe.
Kate looked at the nipple suckers and smiled.
Even at his worst, Brock had still been the best thing that had ever happened to her. Who would believe such a conservative-looking man could have so much kinkiness in him?

Kate grabbed her phone. She’d just realized she had a problem. “Angie, I’m going to dinner tomorrow night with Brock. What do I wear?”

The next night, dressed in a sexy new red dress, Kate sat nervously at a table in one of the most expensive restaurants in town. Brock had said he would be waiting there for her, but although a table had been reserved under his name, he was nowhere to be seen.

Had he changed his mind?

Should I have called to tell him I was coming?

She fiddled nervously with the small box she had brought with her. In it was the photo she’d found of her and Brock as children. Although it didn’t compare to the gifts he’d given her, she wanted to show him she’d also kept memories of him.

The waiter refilled her glass of water, and Kate thanked him. She caught a woman at a nearby table looking over at her sympathetically, probably wondering, just as Kate was, if she had been stood up on Valentine’s Day. Kate met her eyes briefly, then looked away.

Love is a leap of faith, and I’m jumping in with both feet. Brock loves me. He’ll be here. And if he doesn’t come, it won’t shake my love for him or my belief that he loves me. He may have been held up at work. He may have thought I wouldn’t come and stayed home.

Our relationship is so much more than one event, one secret. I see that now, and I’m ready to tell him that.

Kate checked her phone. No messages.

As she looked around the room, she realized how much being with Brock had changed her. Before him, she would have been mortified by the way people were staring at her. Now she found she didn’t care. Let them look. They don’t know me. They don’t know how wonderful Brock is. What they think of me no longer matters.

Thank you, Mr. Elf, for that confidence.

And Brock . . . sensitive, loving Brock . . . thank you for loving me no matter how many times I pushed you away. I’m sorry I was so stubborn. I’ll make it up to you.

Just show up.

Please.

A low chatter spread through the restaurant. Kate looked up from the table and saw Brock, dressed in a ridiculously large set of white feathered angel wings and a jaw-droppingly small white loincloth. The maître d’ was blocking his entrance, but Brock met her eyes over the man’s shoulder and winked at her. He said something to the man, gave him what must have been a substantial tip, and walked around him.

The restaurant fell silent. Brock was a good-looking man in regular clothing, but dressed as he was, he was H-O-T hot. His wide muscular shoulders were accentuated by the heavenly wings. His perfect abs and toned legs belonged on a gladiator. And that loincloth . . . it hid just enough to be decent, but was small enough that Kate wondered if every woman in the restaurant was thinking the same thing she was:
Holy hell, I want to tear that off with my teeth and then lick him from one end to the other.

A few of the men mocked him as he walked by, but he didn’t acknowledge them. He never took his eyes off Kate as he walked up to the table where she sat.

A man at the next table said, “Can you believe that guy? What a joke.”

The woman across from him slapped his arm and said, “Shut up. That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen.”

Brock stood in front of Kate, those wild white wings boldly flanking him on either side. “Kate Hale, I love you.”

Kate looked around and blushed. “You’re a little crazy, you know that? Nothing embarrasses you, does it?”

He stood and pulled her up into his arms. “Let them look. You’re the only one here who matters to me. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you. No amount of time I wouldn’t wait for you. Say you forgive me.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, really?” a man asked loudly.

A woman near him said just as loudly, “If you don’t want him, I’ll take him.”

“Hey, you’re with me,” another man said.

“Exactly,” the woman snapped. “When have you ever done anything like that for me?”

“Why would I? That guy is—”

“A dream come true, if you ask me. And she is one lucky woman.”

Kate pulled Brock down and murmured against his lips, “I am, you know. Very lucky. I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but yes, I forgive you. And I’m sorry for everything. I love you, Brock.”

“Excuse me, sir? You’re going to have to leave now,” the maître d’ said.

Brock kissed Kate softly on the lips and said, “That’s okay, because I think everything we want to do can’t be done here.”

Kate laughed. “You’ve got that right, Cupid.”

Hand in hand, they walked out of the restaurant, laughing with the same uninhibited joy they’d shared as children. Once out of the building, Brock kissed her soundly and swung her around. Kate felt lighter than air and happier than she could ever remember being.

When he stopped spinning, he hugged her to him and asked, “Did you know there is a hotel across the street?”

Kate laughed. “And you just happen to have a room reserved there?”

Brock laughed with her. “I thought it would be a shame to waste this outfit. If you’ve ever wanted to be with Cupid, here’s your chance.”

In the light of the moon, Brock looked very much like a gorgeous fallen angel. “Is he anything like an elf?”

Brock swung her up into his arms and walked across the street, not caring that cars slowed and honked as they passed. “He’s even better. You should see his arrow.”

Kate groaned at his joke, but that didn’t phase Brock in the least. He carried her through the foyer of the hotel and into one of the elevators as if it were the most normal thing to do. Some men would have been embarrassed by the way people stopped and stared at them. Others might have strutted around like peacocks, enjoying the attention.

Brock did neither. His attention was focused on her, and that made him even sexier. Kate couldn’t keep her hands off him. He was a dream come true—her dream.

Inside the elevator, Kate waved her purse. “I hope Cupid knows what to do with nipple suckers, because they look like fun.”

Brock’s eyes darkened, and Kate felt him harden against her side. “What Cupid doesn’t know, he enjoys figuring out.”

Just outside the hotel suite, Brock lowered Kate to her feet. “I meant every word I said in the restaurant. I love you, Kate. And if you let me, I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it to you.”

Kate took his face between both of her hands and said, “You don’t have to prove anything to me anymore, Brock. I believe you. And I’m so sorry it took me this long to figure that out.”

A serious expression crossed Brock’s face. He put a hand on the doorknob and said, “What you’re about to see is a little over the top. I know it. If you don’t like it, say so. But I wanted tonight to be special, and the guys helped me decorate the suite.”

Kate almost laughed at how concerned he looked. “What did you put in there?” He swung the door open. Kate stepped inside and fell even more in love with him. Everywhere she looked shouted Valentine’s Day. There were red flower petals leading to the bed. The bedspread was covered with hearts. Next to the bed was a heart-shaped swing suspended from some rigging. Champagne. Chocolate. Flowers. It was all there, and in such abundance that Kate turned and threw her arms around Brock’s neck and pulled him down for a wild kiss.

“You like it?” he asked.

“I love it,” she said between kisses. “And I love you. This is amazing.”

He plucked a feather from one of his wings and said, “It only gets better, Kate.” He ran the feather lightly down one side of her neck and across the swell of one breast. “Feathers aren’t just for flying, you know.”

Kate looked behind him and said, “I’m guessing that swing isn’t just for swinging, either.” Then she cleared her throat. “Brock, I didn’t mean what I said about vanilla sex being boring. It was beautiful. Just like how the other stuff we did wasn’t too much. I was angry with you and I wanted to hurt you. I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

He hugged her to his chest. “I deserved it. I never meant for my stint as Mr. Elf to go as far as it did. I was an idiot and thought I could use what we were doing in the texts to make you fall for me. It was stupid, and I should have told you the truth when we started dating. Let’s put all that behind us.” He leaned down and growled in her ear, “Except for having me wear women’s perfume. You owe me for that one.”

Kate smiled mischievously at him. “That was bad of me, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was. You’ll have to think of a way to make it up to me,” he said, and wiggled his eyebrows.

Kate whispered in his ear. “What do you want, Cupid?”

Brock looked seriously into her eyes. “You. Just you, Kate.”

Kate dropped her dress to the floor. “Nothing more specific than that?”

A grin spread across his face. “Well, now that you ask . . .” He swooped down, lifted her into his arms, and carried her off to the bedroom. He removed his loincloth but left the wings on, and gave Kate a feather-flying night to remember.