My Man Pendleton (28 page)

Game's over,
Kit told herself.
Call
for a time-out. Now.

But instead of shoving him off, as reason commanded, she found herself hooking her arms loosely around his waist, splaying her hands open tentatively over his back. And instead of vaulting off of her to flee, as she had been sure Pendleton would, he nestled more snugly, more intimately against her. For a moment, Kit felt as if she had fallen into the deep end of a swimming pool and couldn't quite touch bottom. Then, oh-so-slowly, he began to dip his head toward hers, and she found that she couldn't quite break the surface to catch her breath, either.

His kiss was quite extraordinary. One minute, he was hovering over her, staring at her face, her eyes, her mouth, and the next, he was consuming her. There was a fierceness and demand in his kiss that went beyond passion, beyond hunger, beyond need. He kissed her as if he drew sustenance from her, as if she were essential to his very survival. So what could she do, but kiss him back in exactly the same way?

When she did, he went limp atop her, uttering a soft sound of surrender. He crowded his body into hers, tangled his fingers in her hair, curved his hand into her hip. She gasped at the quickness and intensity of his possession, and he took advantage of the opportunity to taste her more deeply still. He mated his tongue with hers before sucking it into his own mouth, then he slanted his head for a more thorough invasion. The hand at her hip tugged her shirt free from her jeans, and his fingers danced along the bare skin beneath. Unable to stop herself, Kit drove her own hands under his sweater, gasping at the heat and strength she encountered there.

The warm flesh of his back came alive under her touch, the muscles bunching and writhing beneath her fingertips. She opened her hands wider, to propel him closer, heedless of the fact that they were already as close as two people could be. In response, he groaned and broke away from her lips, then he dragged his open mouth along her jaw and neck, tasting the hollow at the base of her throat before skimming his lips over her collarbone.

Kit scooted one hand higher as the other scooted lower, and she cupped his taut buttocks through the faded fabric of his jeans. A shudder of heat rocked her, pooling in her belly and between her legs, staggering her heart rate, blinding her to anything but the feel of Pendleton as he touched her
everywhere.
His hand skipped briefly over her breast, then, restless, he smoothed his palm down over her ribs, lingering at her waist, her hip, her thigh, where he finally curled his fingers over the denim covering her legs. Instinctively, she hooked her calf over his, fearful that he would be coming to his senses any time now, and would try to pull away.

But he didn't pull away.

Instead he rolled onto his back, tugging Kit along for the ride until she was sprawled over him. With their positions reversed, she tunneled the fingers of one hand through the silk of his hair, and curled the others around his nape. Pendleton raked his rough jaw along the sensitive skin of her throat before fastening his mouth to hers once again. She felt his hands running down the length of her backside, from her shoulders to her back to her bottom to her thighs, before they retraced the journey in a more leisurely fashion. Then he roped his arms around her waist and held her fast against him, so that he could wreak havoc on her mouth some more.

More.
That was all Kit wanted after that. More of his mouth, more of his hands, more of his touch, more of the man. Somehow, suddenly, she simply could not get enough of him. There was an emptiness inside her she'd never noticed before—or perhaps she had noticed and had simply refused to acknowledge. And now it was as if the only thing that would fill it, the only thing that would satisfy it, the only thing that would make it whole again, was Pendleton. So, with touch instead of words, she demanded more. And more was what he gave her.

All the while, a fire blazed hot and wild inside her, like nothing she had ever felt before. Where had this come from? she wondered vaguely. This fever, this longing, this unquenchable need? No experience in her life had prepared her for what Pendleton made her feel. Whatever paltry emotion she had thought she felt for Michael was little more than a shadow of what she felt now. Michael had been nothing. And Pendleton…

Pendleton was
everything.

The sudden realization of that shocked Kit to her very core, rousing what little coherent thought she had left. Her response to Pendleton came from every single cell, every single feeling, every single thought she claimed as a part of herself. And that totality of her response terrified her. Terrified her enough to make her pull away from him. Immediately. Completely.

When she jerked her mouth from his, it was only to find that she was clinging to him as desperately as he was holding her, and for one panicked second, she honestly didn't think she would be able to let him go. But somewhere, she found the power, the resolution, the strength to release him. Unfortunately, he didn't seem as willing to release her. When she tried to push herself away from him, he only tightened his hold on her, evidently as determined to keep her close as she was to escape.

"Don't," he said softly, his voice a bare rasp of sound in the otherwise silent room. "Don't go. Please, Kit."

She swallowed hard, knowing better than to try to put voice to the muddled jumble of her thoughts. So she only shook her head slowly, silently, adamantly. And with one final burst of intention, she tried again to break free.

And this time, damn him, Pendleton let her go.

Chapter 13

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F
aith Ivory was stuffing the last of her Temperance League homework into her briefcase and anticipating a nice long weekend snowed in at her apartment when she heard a man's voice in the outer office. And not just any man's voice. Holt McClellan's voice. Wonderful. Just what she needed. She'd been that close to making a clean break of it.

Her gaze skittered to the window, through which she briefly considered hurling herself, but she changed her mind when she realized what a mess that would make on all the pretty snow that had fallen since mid-afternoon. Nuts. These unexpected spring snowstorms were so inconvenient. She sighed heavily, snapped her briefcase shut, and sat down and waited for Holt's knock on her door.

She didn't have to wait long.

"Yes?" she called out halfheartedly in response to the three quick raps, almost identical to the ones that had jolted her out of her peaceful existence at her apartment.

With the creak of a binge, he filled her doorway. And as had happened on every other occasion when she'd found herself in the same room with him, her heart rate tripled. They hadn't parted well that night at Cherrywood almost a month ago. After the appearance of his sister and her
…
her
…

Well, Faith was still at a loss as to who exactly his sister's companion had been that night. Nor had she ever quite figured out just what that whole Me-Tarzan-You-Jane tableau had been about. All that had been important had been that she exit as gracefully—and as quickly—as possible, to avoid further embarrassing both the McClellan family and herself. So she had fled. In a taxi. After making it clear to Holt that she had no desire to see him again. Ever.

At least, she thought she had made herself clear. But now, here he stood, looking more handsome and overwhelming than ever, and all she could do was feel strangely glad to see him again.

"Faith," he greeted her.

"Holt," she replied, congratulating herself for maintaining such a steady tone of voice. "What are you doing out in this, weather? According to WFPK, we're supposed to have eight inches of snow by dark."

He chuckled morosely. "Yeah, and then it'll probably hit seventy degrees tomorrow and make a mess of things. These spring snowstorms can be so obnoxious."

Pushing aside the realization that she had just been thinking the same thing herself, she asked, "What can I do for you?"

"You can give me a second chance."

Well, gee, nothing like getting right to the heart of the matter, she thought. "Please come in," she invited him, seating herself behind her desk. "And close the door behind you."

He did as she requested, and as he shed his coat and sat down in the chair opposite her, it occurred to her that their positions were now reversed from that first encounter in his office. But where Holt's turf was some of the most expensive real estate in town, Faith's digs were decidedly more modest.

The Louisville Temperance League operated on a shoestring—a baby bootie shoestring at that—and could barely afford the aged, nondescript building where they had located two years ago. Faith's office was one of the larger ones in the suite, but even at that, was no more than one-quarter the size of Holt's. And where his had been bright with trendy pastels and furnished with expensively tailored pieces, hers was dark and cluttered with castoffs that even the most generous observer would be hard-pressed to call "antique."

She steepled her fingers on the scarred blotter atop her desk, then opened her mouth to say something along the lines of, "I never want to see you or your family again for as long as I live, now go away." But he held up a hand to stop her.

"I haven't been able to stop thinking about you for a month," he said without preamble.

Something warm and liquid oozed into her belly, but she refused to succumb to the warm, fuzzy way it made her feel. Really, she did. Honest. She did.

"And I owe you an apology for what happened that night at Cherrywood," he added.

Actually, that wasn't true. It wasn't up to Holt to apologize for a scene someone else had created, even if it was a member of his own family. Nor was he responsible for Faith's reaction to what had happened. How could he have known she would react the way she had that night?

But when Kit McClellan had entered the dining room so obviously intoxicated, Faith had become immediately uncomfortable. Not because of the potential embarrassment factor for Holt, but because of the very definite fear factor for herself. Kit's drunken state had reminded Faith far too much of the drunken state of another person whose memory was still far too fresh in her mind. Stephen Ivory. Even in death, he ruled her life.

"You don't owe me an apology," she said.

"Yes, I do."

"For what?"

He smiled sadly. "For subjecting you to my family before our relationship was fully cemented."

"You seem to be a few steps ahead of me. I wasn't aware that we had a relationship to cement."

"I beg to differ."

"And I beg your pardon."

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, hooking his fingers loosely together between his legs. And he met her gaze steadily, intently, unequivocally. But instead of addressing the matter of their alleged relationship, he returned to the subject of his apology instead.

"Faith, I'm sorry you had to witness the scene you witnessed that night," he said softly.

"So am I."

"I tied to explain it to you then, but you wouldn't let me. You were too busy bolting for the front door."

She laughed, the sound an anxious ripple of uncertainty. "The last thing I wanted to do was get caught up in what was obviously a private family matter."

Holt laughed, too, but his was a genuine sound of merriment. "Trust me, Faith, when I tell you that there was nothing private about what happened that night. Everyone who's ever met Kit knows what kind of behavior she's capable of indulging in."

"So then it's no secret to anyone in
Louisville
that your sister is a lush?"

Faith squeezed her eyes shut and covered them with her hands, appalled that she had said such a thing out loud. She waited to see what Holt would say in response to her inexcusable, unforgivable gaffe. But when she finally corralled the nerve to open her eyes again, she found him smiling at her.

"You thought Kit was drunk that night?" he asked, barely containing his laughter. "Really?"

Faith nodded, growing more and more miserable with every passing moment. "And I
…
I'm just not, um, comfortable around people who over-imbibe. In fact, anyone who shows signs of drunkenness tends to terrify me."