Tempting The Texan

“No,” she whispered.

So he did and the first touch of his lips to hers set that slow burn free and turned it into a wildfire deep within her body. She remembered that fire so well. She welcomed the flames, though she knew she shouldn’t. Irina was helpless to stop herself. Kellan had always had this effect on her and seven years hadn’t changed a thing.

His hands came down onto her shoulders and pulled her toward him. She kept her mouth on his as her arms snaked around his waist. The feel of him pressed against her made her body ache. An aching, molten heat settled in her core and left her hungry for so much more than a kiss.

His tongue swept into her mouth and tangled with hers. She tightened her hold on him, and met him stroke for stroke, need for need. The kiss awakened her from a years-long sleep and the awakening was almost painful. Her body hummed with anticipation. Her mind clouded over with too many sensations rising and falling to make sense of any of them. Her breath caught in her chest as she gave herself up to the wonder of the fire even while a small voice within shouted at her to be careful. To step back. To remember that though his touch was magical, he wasn’t staying this time, either.

And that thought was finally enough to penetrate the fog in her brain. To push past what he made her feel long enough that she could remind herself that only pain waited for her if she let this go on.

Irina pulled back, shaking her head as much to convince herself as him. She took a deep breath to steady herself and met his gaze, no matter what it cost her to look into those blue eyes again. “We shouldn’t have done that.”

He scrubbed one hand across his face, then the back of his neck. His breath came hard and fast so she knew he’d been as affected as she had been. Small comfort, she supposed.

Nodding, he said, “Right. Mistake.” His gaze locked on hers, he added, “A good one.”

Her stomach jumped. “No, it wasn’t.”

“Liar.”

Her heart jittered.

“Fine. It felt good. But then, chemistry was never our problem,” she said, remembering. God, how she remembered what happened when they were together.

“No. It wasn’t.” He stepped back from her as if he didn’t quite trust himself not to reach for her again.

And Irina didn’t know if she was sad about that or grateful.

“I couldn’t stay back then, Irina,” he was saying. “There were too many memories in Royal. Too much pain.”

She knew that. He’d lost his wife a year before he and Irina got together. So he’d come to her, a widower with a broken heart and a shattered soul, and for a very short while, they’d healed each other.

“So you left and shared the pain.”

His head snapped up and his gaze fixed on hers. “That wasn’t my intention.”

“And yet it’s what you did.”

Clearly irritated, he pushed one hand through his hair. “I didn’t come here tonight to argue with you.”

“No,” she said. “You came here to spy on Miranda.”

“I want answers,” he countered.

“Get them another way.”

A muscle in his jaw ticked. “I hope Miranda appreciates how you’re defending her.”

“I’m not doing this for her,” Irina said. “Or not just for her. I’m doing this mainly for your father. Buck wrote his will. It laid out his wishes. Kellan, you don’t get to disregard them simply because you don’t like them.”

“Man, I hope Buck appreciated the tiger he had defending him.”

A small smile curved her mouth briefly. “He did.”

Nodding, Kellan studied her for a long minute. “I’m not going to let this go.”

“I didn’t think you would,” she said. “But you should. And, Kellan, you should know that Buck loved you. Loved all of you.”

“Please.” He snorted dismissively and waved one hand at her as if erasing her words entirely.

“He did.”

“And he proved that by leaving our family legacy to a woman he chose to not stay married to?”

“I don’t know why he did that,” Irina admitted. “But I always trusted Buck.”

“There’s the difference between us, then,” Kellan said softly, his gaze locked with hers. “I never trusted my father. And I won’t start now.”

“So you’re not going back to Nashville?” She had hoped that after the funeral and the reading of the will that Kellan would once again leave Royal.

“Not a chance,” he promised. “I’m not going anywhere until this whole situation is settled.” He turned on his heel and headed for the front door. He paused only briefly to look back at her. When their eyes met, he said, “You haven’t seen the last of me, Irina.”

That sounded like a promise, too, and she hated that she was pleased by it.

“How’d the big spy operation go?”

Kellan glanced over his shoulder at his younger brother as Vaughn walked into the great room and dropped onto the closest sofa. Since Vaughn lived in Dallas now, he was staying at their mother’s friend Dixie’s ranch, Magnolia Acres. Since Kellan was in Royal for a while, though, Vaughn was dropping in and out. It was good to spend real time with his brother and sister instead of the quick visits he usually made. The only time Kellan stayed at his ranch himself was when he came back to Royal to see his brother and sister. Now he was rethinking the whole drop-in-anytime thing.

Scowling, Kellan said, “As well as you said it would.”

Vaughn laughed shortly. “It was a crappy plan, Kel. Face it. Storm Dad’s house, snoop through Miranda’s stuff?”

Kellan stalked to the wet bar in the corner of the room. Bending down, he opened the fridge and grabbed a beer. “You want one?”

“Hell yes.”

Kellan crossed the room again, handed a beer to his brother and then took a seat opposite him. “I never got to go through her things. Irina was there and stopped me.”

Vaughn’s eyebrows lifted. “Interesting,” he mused. “I didn’t know anyone could stop you once you had your decision made.”

Kellan took a swig of beer and avoided looking at Vaughn. His brother was entirely too perceptive. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Uh-huh. So, how’s Irina?”

Now he did fire a hard look at his brother. “She’s fine.”

“Better than fine, if you ask me,” Vaughn said with a small smile. “We both saw her at the service, and gotta say, she’s still hot.”

“Hot?”