He grinned. “I never could hide anything from you.”
She hoped the reverse wasn’t true. Now that she’d done what she’d done, it would be even worse for Dallas to find out about Robert. He might get angry that she’d talked to his father on her own instead of giving him a chance to decide for himself, angry that she’d spend so much to get rid of him for only three weeks or just angry that his father was out of prison despite what Robert had done. “When is she coming home?”
“She’s on her way. But she won’t be staying. We’re going out to look at the lights.”
“The Christmas lights?” she asked in surprise.
He looked confused. “We wouldn’t be going out to look at the traffic lights.”
She ignored his sarcasm. “I’ve just never known you to pay much attention to holiday decorations.”
“I like them as much as most other guys,” he said, but she knew what he liked was Emery.
“Sure you do,” she said, and she and Cal started laughing.
As soon as Dallas saw Emery’s headlights, he went outside to meet her. He didn’t want her to come in. Then his brothers would hear her and realize she was home—and that she was going back out with him.
“Where have you been?” he asked when she turned off her engine and opened her car door. He was curious since she was so reluctant to go out in public.
“On a date, apparently.”
He hadn’t expected that response. She’d been out with someone else? There was nothing official between them, but it felt like someone had punched him in the gut. “With who?”
“Cain Brennan. Do you know him?”
He struggled not to reveal the jealousy that was burning through his veins, but his jaw suddenly felt too stiff to move properly. “Never heard of him.”
“He went to my high school.”
“So his parents are rich?”
“His mother owns a window covering business that’s been around for years and years. I think she’s somewhat of a busybody in town—at least that was the impression he gave me. His father’s a dentist and does quite well.”
They sounded like an ordinary family—the type of family he’d always envied, since his had been so screwed up. “How’d this...date come about? Did he hear you were in town and call you, or—”
“He came into the cookie store earlier. It was just supposed to be dinner with an old friend, but he sort of pulled a bait and switch on me.”
A spark of hope did battle with the negative emotions that seemed determined to strangle him. “A bait and switch?”
“He painted it as one thing but showed up with other ideas.”
She sounded so annoyed that Dallas suddenly felt better, good enough to joke it off. “At least you got a free meal.”
“No, I insisted on paying my half and left right after we ate, even though he was intent on getting me to go to the movies with him.”
“You didn’t want to go?”
“No. I didn’t want to be with him—I wanted to be with you.”
He let his eyes slide down, taking in her long eyelashes, the lips he’d kissed, the breasts he’d touched. “So is this a date?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just hope it ends with you inside me.”
“How about if we start that way?” He jerked his head toward his vehicle. “Let’s go.”
18
They didn’t speak as Dallas started the van and drove them out of town. The radio was playing, but Emery could still hear her heart pounding in her ears. Her mouth watered in anticipation of once again tasting him, and she looked forward to running her nose over his smooth, warm skin and smelling that unique and wonderful scent she associated with him.
As soon as he found a private spot in a grove of trees, he pulled off the highway, out of sight, and parked. He left the music playing as they got in back, where there was a bed, and yanked anxiously at each other’s clothes, trying to get them off as fast as possible.
It didn’t take long, but when Emery felt Dallas’s bare chest come against hers, she couldn’t wait for him to get even closer.
They were kissing so deeply they were breathless within minutes. “Nobody kisses as good as you do,” she told him when he pulled away to run his mouth down her neck. She didn’t say so, but nobody felt as good as he did, either. Her hands moved along the muscles that rippled across his back as he lifted her and twisted so that she was beneath him.
“Keep talking like that and this won’t last long.” He was joking, but the ragged edge to his voice lent truth to those words, and she found his level of arousal as intoxicating as everything else about him. How was it that while her life was in the midst of a complete meltdown, she was having the best sex she’d ever experienced?
“I’m just glad you decided to come home for Christmas,” she whispered as she outlined his ear with her tongue.
“So am I,” he told her gruffly, eagerly, and brought her knees up as he pushed inside her.
When it was over, Dallas dropped onto the mattress beside Emery. The way they’d made love was far more intense than it had been before, but Emery didn’t care to examine the reason.
“That was amazing,” he said.
She had to agree. For whatever reason, they were perfect sex partners. She’d never felt such raw desire for anyone else and was a little rattled by it. What was happening to her? She seemed to be a completely different person than she’d been before—a far more reckless and passionate person—and that frightened her. Where would it all end? And would she be able to get back to the woman she’d been before?
“Sorry. I would’ve waited until after I’d shown
