In Too Deep (45 page)

And so was she—dying to start
loving him for the rest of her life. “The answer’s yes.”

While the ensuing clamoring of
celebration exploded around them, West leaped to his feet and
hauled her into his arms, spinning her around, and dipping his head
to brush his lips across hers. Bubbles fizzed along her nerves—the
good kind of ecstatically happy bubbles—leaving her giddy, and not
from the spinning.

“
Is that the best you can do,
West?” Ford hollered.

“
Hell, no,” West replied. “But I’m
not giving you lot any more of a peep show.”

“
Too right. Everybody except these
two out of my kitchen, now!” Bill slapped West’s back, winking at
Piper over his shoulder. “Since it’s not every day my son begs a
woman to marry him and she agrees, drinks on the house!”

Once the noisy crowd had
dispersed, cheered no doubt by the idea of free booze, West kissed
her again. This time his lips weren’t quick and gentle. This time
they demanded and took, demonstrating just how much pleasure they
could give each other over the next fifty-something
years.

“
The rings,” Piper said, when she
regained her equilibrium enough to feel the corner of the box
digging into her hip. “Why did you buy me two rings?”

West slid his hands to her waist
and lifted her onto the countertop, moving to stand between her
legs and opening the box again so she could see them. He pointed to
the Claddagh ring. “I picked this up in Invercargill before I flew
up to find you.”

His finger traced over the black
velvet to the solitaire. “And this one I bought in Wellington.” He
hesitated, the intensity of his gaze snatching the breath from her
throat. “Nine years ago.”

“
You bought me an engagement
ring?” she squeaked.

“
As I said, I’ve loved you for
years—most of my life, come to think of it. I thought I’d done the
right thing by driving you away, but God, I missed you so much
after you left. I just wanted to take it all back and be with you.
Even if it meant moving to the city so you wouldn’t get bored and
leave me.” West shrugged, but the lines around his mouth deepened.
“So I sold my Suzuki, flew to Wellington, and bought you this. I
went to the Police College, and there you were, training on the
field with the other boys in blue.”

He removed the diamond solitaire.
“You looked so happy. Even being yelled at by the instructor while
you did endless push-ups, you looked happy. I decided I had no
right to threaten that happiness by forcing my way into your new
life, so I chickened out and went home again.”

“
I never saw you. No one ever told
me you’d come up.”

“
No one knew, except Bill. Dad
loaned me a thousand bucks to buy the ring, but he never said a
word about repaying it when I returned home without
you.”

“
So which ring do you want me to
wear?” She regarded the one in his fingers, which flashed sparks of
light on the stainless steel counters.

“
Which one do you want, past or
present?”

Piper snagged his shirt collar and
dragged his face to hers for another steam-coming-out-the-ears
kiss. When she pulled back, she wriggled the fingers of her left
hand under his nose. “I’m greedy, West. I want it all. Past,
present and future.”

“
That’s my girl.” He slipped the
diamond on her third finger and then the Claddagh ring. “I can’t
give you back the past, but my present and future are all
yours.”

West reeled her in for another
kiss, running his hands over her back and lifting her into his
arms. She fisted her hands in his hair and hooked her legs around
him. Cupping her butt in his large, warm hands, West headed inside
the pantry.

Piper nuzzled the line of stubble
around his jaw, ending at an earlobe, which she sucked between her
lips. His speed increased dramatically and the next moment six feet
of aroused male had her plastered to the closed pantry
door.

Squirming against him as he
lowered her to her feet, Piper hooked her fingers over the
waistband of his pants. “They say when a couple has been together
long enough they can almost read each other’s minds.”

“
So what am I thinking, Pipe?” He
let loose a grin that caused her girly-bits to sit up and
beg.

His smile widened as his fingers
traced the underside of her breasts before hauling her tee shirt
off and throwing it to the floor.

Breathing became difficult, she
needed mouth to mouth—stat! “You’re thinking you love
me.”

“
Yep. And?” Her bra flew through
the air and landed on the chest freezer.

“
You’re thinking you’re glad I
love you too and that I won’t make you wear a tuxedo on our wedding
day.”

Buttons pinged all over the pantry
floor as West ripped his shirt open and shrugged it off. Piper
launched herself on him, sealing naked skin to naked skin with a
low moan.

He squeezed her bottom. “Beyond
glad. And?”

“
There’s more?”

West backed her to the door again
and ground his arousal into her core.

“
Okay, you’re thinking the twenty
bucks you slipped Bill will buy us fifteen minutes before someone
comes looking—oh, God—” West’s tongue tasted her right nipple, his
fingers popping the stud on her jeans.

And ohhh, by the way? She also
needed CPR.

“
It was a fifty, for thirty
minutes.” His stare scorched her bare skin as he drew the denim
down her legs, stopping briefly to press a hot, wet kiss below her
belly button. “But baby, I’ll only need ten to have you screaming
my name and scandalizing the locals out front.”

He slid aside the scrap of her red
lace panties and put his mouth on her.

And as it turned out, West only
needed five.

###

Thank you for
reading
In Too Deep
! I hope you enjoyed diving into the Due South world. If you
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About The Author

Tracey Alvarez lives in
the Coolest Little Capital in the World (a.k.a Wellington, New
Zealand) where she’s yet to be buried under her to-be-read book
pile by Wellington’s infamous wind—her Kindle’s a lifesaver!
Married to a wonderfully supportive IT guy, she has two teens who
would love to be surgically linked to their electronic
devices.

Fuelled by copious
amounts of coffee, she’s the author of contemporary romantic
fiction set predominantly in New Zealand. Small-towns, close
communities, and families are a big part of the heart-warming
stories she writes. Oh, and hot, down-to-earth heroes—Kiwi men, in
other words.

When she’s not writing,
thinking about writing, or procrastinating about writing, Tracey
can be found reading sexy books of all romance genres, nibbling on
smuggled chocolate bars, or bribing her kids to take over the
housework.

Pinterest:
TraceyAlvarez

Twitter:
@TraceyAlvarezNZ
Goodreads:
www.goodreads.com

More From This Author

The Due South series focuses on family,
community, and of course, each book contains a scorching hot
romance.

Other books in the series
check out Tracey’s website:

Melting Into You (Due South
#2)

Melting Into You (Due South Book
2)

Big, sexy men who
don’t relate well to kids need not apply…

Kezia Murphy
plays her widow card well. When you don’t trust people not to let
you down, it’s easier to not get involved—and getting involved with
a man who makes her skin sizzle just by looking at him would
be
una
pazzia
—crazy! Four
years ago while Kezia’s daughter Zoe battled leukaemia, a tragic
accident stole her husband’s life. Starting over in the little town
of Oban where she’s adopted into the close knit community on
Stewart Island, Kezia and her daughter are all the family the other
needs. Except Zoe yearns for more.

New Zealand’s worst
candidate for instant fatherhood…

Ben doesn’t do gooey
emotional stuff. He doesn’t do cosy home and family. And he sure
isn’t the big teddy-bear Kezia Murphy, the woman he secretly
fantasises about, thinks he is. So when Jade, his surprise
eight-year-old daughter arrives on his doorstep, he’s a D-minus
student struggling to pass a crash-course in parenting.

They’ll either melt
or raze their lives to the ground…

When the sparks
of attraction between Kezia and Ben fan into an inferno, Ben
doesn’t know how much longer the layers of r
esistance around his heart can resist melting into the
gooey mess he fears. The more he fights it the harder it is to make
the choice that will destroy the family he now longs to
claim.

Excerpt of Melting Into You

Chapter One

Ben Harland slept late one
Saturday morning and dreamed.

Not an inspirational dream
or a combination of fleeting images jumbled into meaningless
nonsense, but a down and dirty, Technicolor extravaganza involving
Stewart Island’s seriously hot widow, Kezia Murphy. She smacked a
wooden ruler across his knuckles as he slid a hand up her
skirt.

“
Worth it, babe.” He
rolled onto his side, dragging his pillow with him.

In his head, Kezia’s
no-nonsense boss rapped on the classroom door shouting at Ben to
keep his hands and mouth off Oban’s prettiest teacher. Damn
busy-body, he hadn’t even tasted Kez, yet, and—

The rapping from his dream
merged with banging on his front door, accompanied by the repeated
bzzzzt of the doorbell. Ben groaned and opened his eyes, flinging
an elbow over his face at the sunlight streaming through his
bedroom windows.

Kezia. Off limits—since
lusting after her broke his personal decree: Don’t mess around with
local women and/or one of your sisters’ friends. Yet he couldn’t
get her out of his mind.

He flipped over to check
the alarm clock. Nearly eleven. Late, even by his standards. But
with no shark cage tours booked, he deserved to sleep
in.

The doorbell gave another
blast.

“
Coming,” he
hollered.

With a last longing squint
at his mattress, Ben rolled off his bed and shambled halfway across
the wooden floor before a chill whisked over his bare
skin.