Winter's Kiss

“Oh” was all she could manage, and even that was tough to get past the lump in her throat.

“Yeah. Oh.” He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket. “And with everything that happened, I forgot the reason I came looking for you in the first place.” He pulled out a long, narrow box tied with red and black ribbons—her school colors. “Here.” She took the box, stared at it for so long he laughed and nudged her hand. “Open it.”

She pulled off the ribbon and lifted the lid to reveal a gold elephant charm on a delicate chain.

“I know you like elephants,” he said, taking the necklace from the box, “and I read once that they’re a symbol of good luck so I thought you could wear it during your speech.” He reached around her, fastening the necklace behind her neck before gently lifting her hair from the chain.

She looked up at him, unsure of how they’d gotten so close, but not able to move back so much as an inch. He’d come to her rescue, wanted to be at her graduation and had told her she was beautiful. Plus, he’d remembered she liked elephants and he’d bought her a present. And he looked so unsure, as if he was worried she didn’t like it.

Daphne threw her arms around him and hugged him hard.

“Ouch,” he said with a chuckle when the pointy corner of her mortarboard jabbed his cheek.

“Sorry,” she said against his shoulder because it felt way too good being held against his solid body to even lift her head. Especially since he was hugging her back.

But after a few moments she knew she had to let go or things would be all sorts of awkward between them. She leaned back, meaning to smile at him, to thank him for, well...everything, but when she opened her mouth, nothing came out. He was close...like, really, really close. His hands were on her waist, her arms still wrapped around his neck, and their bodies pressed together.

Her smile slipped away. Their gazes locked. Held. For one heartbeat. Then two. His fingers tightened and she had to stop herself from not delving her own fingertips into the hair at the nape of his neck. She was afraid to move, afraid to do anything that would break this fragile moment. And that’s exactly what it was. A moment. A very real, very intense one between her and Oakes Bartasavich—a man eight years older than her, who was already out of high school, college and law school. A true grown-up with a job and his own apartment and his life all mapped out.

It was the best moment of her entire life.

Until he blinked and stepped back, his hands falling from her waist. He grinned but it looked strained, especially with his jaw being so tight. Sweat dotted his upper lip. She wanted to say something flirtatious, something adult-sounding, but what came out was “You won’t tell Zach, will you?”

He flinched, as if the sound of her brother’s name—of their brother’s name—was like a slap to the face. And she realized she’d just put Zach between them, between even the possibility of them.

Yes, her list of mistakes just kept on growing.

“About my dad, I mean,” she clarified, in case he thought she meant about their embrace—and that was how she’d think of it from this day forward. Not a simple hug between friendly acquaintances, but an embrace between a man and a woman. An almost woman, anyway. “You know, about him coming here and me, uh, emailing him. Which I won’t do anymore,” she added quickly.

Oakes grabbed the back of his neck and she had the feeling she was about to have a firsthand experience of what a lecture from him would be like: polite, no doubt. Calmly stated and oh, so very reasonable.

And really, her day had been crappy enough, thanks all the same. No need to add on to the pile.

“Look,” she said, stepping toward him, only to have him take a quick step back. And wasn’t that interesting? Not to mention quite encouraging. “I promise not to have anything else to do with my father, and I hope you can promise to keep what happened here today our little secret.”

His gaze flew to hers. “What happened here?”

“With Michael?” Oakes stared at her blankly. “Him coming here. You almost killing him. Any of this ringing a bell?”

He laughed. Not really a ha-ha-I’m-so-amused chuckle. More like a relieved, oh-thank-God-that’s-what-you-meant laugh. “Right. Yeah. I promise.”

He held out his hand—always the lawyer—and she shook it, let her palm linger against his for a moment longer than necessary, just to test this new, amazing reaction to him. She felt a definite spark from the contact.

Yep. Still there and very much real.

The headmaster appeared out of the double glass doors down the walkway and called Daphne’s name. She’d have to think about that spark and her reaction later. For now, she had a speech to deliver and a diploma to get.

“I’d better go,” she said. “Thanks for everything. Especially the necklace. And for coming today. It means a lot.”

He smiled and her heart fluttered. “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

She kept her own smile easy and light, gave a little finger wave then turned and practically skipped toward the door. Her mother was wrong. Good guys weren’t too good to be true. And they didn’t come any better than Oakes Bartasavich. There’d been a very real, very heated and adult connection between her and Oakes. A shared moment where everything between them had changed.

A moment where she’d fallen in love with him.

CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_06f4239f-5f25-578a-80d5-45ab37f817c6)

Six years later

OAKES BARTASAVICH CONSIDERED himself a lucky man. He was healthy, had a large and close-knit family and had recently made partner at one of Houston’s most successful law firms—two years ahead of his original schedule.

And yet, despite all that good fortune, this was the first time he’d awakened at 3:00 a.m. to find a beautiful woman in a tight, short red dress on his porch, with a pair of sparkly silver high heels and matching purse in one hand.

Too bad. A man could get used to this.

Not this particular beautiful woman, he amended quickly. Another beautiful woman. One who was closer to his own age of thirty-one, whose ties to him and his family weren’t so complicated.

Definitely not Daphne Lynch, with her dark hair, blue eyes and curvy, voluptuous body. Daphne Lynch, the twenty-three-year-old half sister of Zach Castro, one of Oakes’s five half brothers.

Yeah. Complicated summed it up. And was the best possible definition of his family.

“Daphne,” he said, his voice rough from sleep. He cleared his throat. Wished he’d thought to change into jeans, maybe pulled on a shirt instead of rushing to the door in his bare feet and a pair of thin pajama pants. There was definitely a chill in the early December air. “What’s the matter? Are you hurt?”

“Nope. I’m just fine and dandy. I haven’t been mugged or in an accident. I’m not being chased by a crazed lunatic or running from the cops.” She patted his bare chest, her fingers cool against his skin, then lowered her voice conspiratorially. “I’m drunk.”

“Yes,” he said, taking in her flushed cheeks, glazed eyes and the way she was swaying, like a tree in the wind. “I can see that now.”

Would have seen it right away, he assured himself, if he hadn’t been so shocked by her presence. It was the dress’s fault. The neckline was too wide and low, showing ample amounts of golden skin and the rounded tops of her full breasts. It was too tight, the gathered material clinging to her waist and hugging her hips. And it was way too short, ending an inch above midthigh.

“Well?” she asked, her hand now pressed to his chest, her pinkie rubbing the spot just above his heart. His body liked her touch way too much.

Stepping back, he grabbed her wrist and tugged her hand away before she noticed how hard his heart was beating. “Well what, Daphne?”

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

Invite her in? As in inside his house? No. Better yet, make that hell no.

He was a smart man. A cautious one. Cautious enough to know that letting Daphne Lynch into his home at this late hour, in her current state, wearing that damn dress, would be the beginning of the end of his life as he knew it.

A life he liked just the way it was.

“Please, Oakes.” Her voice was low. Sexy. Inviting. The hairs at the nape of his neck stood on end. His fingers tightened on her slender wrist. She shifted closer, her knee brushing his leg, her scent clouding his brain.

For a second, a brief, terrifying moment in time, he forgot all the very valid, extremely reasonable reasons why he shouldn’t want her. All the problems that would arise should he give in to his baser instincts, the ones that had dogged him with increasing intensity over the past few years.

In that all-too-fleeting space of time, he allowed himself the luxury of imagining they were just two unattached adults with no crazy family connections. No shared siblings. No tangled ties to trip over. If he wasn’t a Bartasavich, if she had a different mother, if Zach hadn’t been born, Oakes could take what he wanted. Could finally bend his head, press his mouth against hers and see if the spark he’d been doing his best to deny for six years would sputter and fade. Or burst into flame.

Daphne shifted. And shifted again, her left hip, then her right. “I really, really have to pee.”