each other and started making plans to put all that wasted energy to good use.
Two
Tara heard the doorbell ring the minute she opened the oven to take out another batch of cookies. “Stone, can you get that for me, please?” she called out to one of the men busy setting up the card table in her dining room.
“Sure thing,” Stone said, making his way to Tara’s front door.
Opening the door, Stone lifted a brow when he saw Thorn standing on the other side. “I thought you told Tara that you’d changed your mind about tonight,” he said, stepping aside to let his brother enter.
“And I changed it back,” Thorn said curtly, meeting Stone’s curious gaze. “Why are you the one opening the door instead of Tara?”
Stone smiled. It was hard getting used to Thorn’s jealous streak; especially since it was a streak Thorn wasn’t even aware he had. “Because she’s busy in the kitchen. Come on. You can help get the card table set up in the dining room.”
“And didn’t you tell me the card game started at seventy-thirty instead of nine?” Thorn asked meeting his brother’s gaze.
Keeping a straight face, Stone said. “I don’t think so. You must have misunderstood me.”
The moment Thorn walked into the kitchen, Tara turned away from the sink and met his gaze. Surprise flared in her eyes and increased the rhythm of her heart. She swallowed deeply and looked at him for a moment then said. “I thought you weren’t coming back.”
Thorn leaned against a kitchen counter and stared at her. It was apparent seeing him again had rattled her. The way she was pulling in a ragged breath as well as the nervous way she was gripping the dish towel were telling signs. “I changed my mind,” he said, not taking his gaze from hers, beginning to feel galvanized by the multitude of sensations coursing through him.
Now that he had decided that he would no longer avoid her, he immediately realized what was happening between them and wondered if she realized it, too. He inwardly smiled, feeling that she did. She broke eye contact with him and quickly looked down at the kitchen floor, but it hadn’t been quick enough. He had seen the blush coloring her cheeks as well as the contemplative look in her eyes.
“There’s a lot of money to be won here tonight and I decided that I may as well be the one to win it,” he added.
Stone rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Are you going to help set up the table or are you going to stay in here and engage in wishful thinking?”
Thorn turned to his brother and frowned slightly. “Since you want to be such a smart-mouth, Stone, I’m going to make sure your money is the first that I win, just to send you home broke.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Stone said.
Thorn’s gaze then moved back to Tara with a force he knew she felt. He could feel her response all the way across the room. Satisfied with her reaction, he followed Stone out of the kitchen.
As soon as Thorn and Stone left the room, Tara leaned back against the kitchen counter feeling breathless, and wondered if Stone had picked up on the silent byplay that had passed between her and Thorn. Staring at him while he had stared at her had almost been too much for her fast-beating heart. The intensity of his gaze had been like a physical contact and she hadn’t quite yet recovered from it.
But she would.
Ever since Derrick, she had instituted a policy of not letting any man get too close. She had male friends and she hadn’t stopped dating altogether, but, as soon as one showed interest beyond friendship she hadn’t hesitated to show him the door. She’d been aware from the first that Thorn was dangerous. Even though her intense attraction to him had set off all kinds of warning signs, she had felt pretty safe and in control of the situation.
Until their kiss a few months back.
Now she didn’t feel safe and wasn’t sure she was in control of anything. The man was temptation at its finest and sin at its worse. There was something about him that was nothing short of addictive. She had no plans to get hooked on him and knew what she needed to do, but more importantly, she also knew what she needed not to do; she couldn’t let Thorn Westmoreland think she was interested in him.
Curious, yes. Interested, no.
Well, that was partly true. She was interested in him for Mrs. Chadwick’s calendar, but Tara was determined not to let her interest go any further than that.
Where is she?
Thorn glanced around the room once again and wondered where Tara had gone. After they had gotten things set up in her dining room, she had shown them her refrigerator filled with beer, and the sandwiches and cookies she had placed on the kitchen counter. Since then he had seen her only once, and that was when she had come into the room to tell them she had also made coffee.
That had been almost two hours ago.
He couldn’t help but think about what had transpired between them in her kitchen, even in Stone’s presence, although he felt certain his brother hadn’t had a clue as to what had been going on. Stone had a tendency sometimes to overlook the obvious. And the obvious in this case was the fact that just being in the same room with Tara made him hot and aroused. Judging from her reaction to him, she’d also been affected. Since it seemed they were on the same wave length, he saw no reason to fight the attraction any longer.
He wanted her, plain and simple.
First he wanted to start off kissing her, to reacquaint himself with her mouth until he knew it just as well as he knew his own. Then he wanted to get to know her body real well. He had always admired it from a distance, but now he wanted to really get into it, literally. He’d had nearly two years to reconcile himself to the reality that Tara Matthews was not just a bump-and-grind kind of woman. He hadn’t needed to get up close and personal with her to realize that fact. He could easily tell that she was the kind of woman who could stimulate everything male about him, and fate had given him the opportunity to discover what it was about her that made his senses reel and heated up his blood. The relationship he wanted to share with her would be different than the one he had shared with any woman, including Patrice. This time his heart would not be involved, only certain body parts.
“Are you in this game or not, Thorn?”
Dare’s question captured his attention and judging from his brother’s smile, Dare found Thorn’s lack of concentration amusing. Dare, the oldest brother at thirty-seven, was sheriff of College Park, a suburb of Atlanta, and didn’t miss much. “Yes, I’m in the game,” Thorn stated with annoyance, studying the cards he held in his hand once more.
“Just thought I’d ask, since you’ve lost a whole lot of money tonight.”
Dare’s words made him suddenly realized that he had lost a lot of money, three hundred dollars, to Stone who was looking at him with a downright silly grin on his face.
“It seems Thorn’s mind is on other things tonight,” Stone said chuckling. “You know what they say—you snooze, you lose—and you’ve been snoozing a lot tonight, bro.”
Thorn leaned back in his chair and glared at his brother. “Don’t get too attached to my money. I’ll recoup my losses
