She shook off her darkening mood. Enjoy the moment, Jane. Tomorrow is another day.
Gabe added several bills to the cash others had dropped into a shallow basket as a talented group of tumblers flipped and twirled in time to the soaring classical music pouring from a boombox. Next, a swarthy puppeteer made them laugh at the antics of the miniature Frenchman seducing a pretty maid from the end of his strings.
They wandered aimlessly, window shopping, stopping to enjoy other street performances. When Gabe took her hand in his, she didn’t protest. Tonight was a moment out of time. Reality would intrude soon enough.
They walked for hours, stopping here and there to appreciate the view, but mostly they talked. She spoke of her childhood, carefully editing out any mention of the Whitmore name. She told him of her little girl dream of becoming a veterinarian—until she discovered she’d have to put sick and injured animals down. She replaced Shae’s name with her own, laughing as she relayed some of the more outrageous trouble she and her mischievous friend, Jane, had gotten into as kids.
He talked of spending his childhood on a busy ranch outside of Dallas, of how the hard work and open range were Godsends after his father’s death when he was twelve. He admitted to missing the lifestyle desperately when he first left for college, and though he claimed his sharp longing for that simple life had faded over the years, his eyes dimmed with helpless acceptance when he lamented at how little time he found to spend at the ranch these days. He offered only a single sentence about his mother, who’d apparently left while he was a toddler.
His green eyes lit with satisfied pleasure as he talked of buying his first plane and of the day his company climbed out of the red into the black. Mostly, he spoke of his grandmother, a woman he clearly loved, and how she’d kept him on the straight and narrow when he would have veered off.
It was late when he finally stopped, using the grip on her hand to pull her out of the way of a laughing group of young people passing by. “This is my hotel.”
“Oh.” Loathe to see the evening end, she stared up at the six-story structure. “Oh, well, then.” Like all good things, their moment in time was over.
“Shae—”
“I had a nice time.” After the pleasure of the last few hours, her friend’s name on his lips was a cold slap of reality. She spoke over him, meeting his gaze and wishing she could burn the image into her brain. “Thanks for walking with me.”
He lifted her hand to toy with her fingers. “I know I’m rushing things, but…I don’t want the evening to end.”
Her heart fluttered wildly. “Neither do I.”
He dropped his forehead to rest against hers. “Then come up with me.”
Tempted more than she’d ever been in her life, she chewed on her lip.
He straightened. “If you want to leave, at any time, I won’t stop you.”
She shouldn’t, couldn’t. Could she?
What was she thinking? Her life might be a series of calamities, most of them of her own making, but she didn’t sleep with men within hours of meeting them. That type of thing simply wasn’t smart. Much worse, it wasn’t safe. But God…the undisguised desire in his eyes was enough to make her break out in a sweat—or tears.
“I’m healthy.” He spoke as if reading her mind. “I always practice safe sex, without exception.”
Her slightly hysterical hiccup of laughter sounded like a sob. His shoulders drooped and he sighed. Disappointment clear in his sober gaze, he squeezed her fingers, turning her hand over and brushing a soft kiss to the bare skin of her wrist below the cuff of her light jacket. The damp warmth of his breath sent tingles of heat up her arm.
He released her, stepped back, and opened the lobby door to his hotel. “Promise me you’ll take a cab this time.”
She nodded.
Like a curtain drawing an end to a particularly haunting scene, he disappeared inside.
A crushing sense of loss weighed on her while her mind flashed images like closing credits: The tauntingly sexy cowboy in his bio photograph. The controlling businessman negotiating a deal. The grinning little boy presenting her a steaming chocolate.
She grabbed for the closing door. Tonight was a fantasy. No thinking required. She might be making a colossal mistake, Calamity Jane at her worst, but there was nowhere else she wanted to be at the moment than in Gabe Sutton’s arms.
Chapter Three
Less than five minutes later, Jane found herself sandwiched between Gabe’s big body and the inside of his hotel room door. If this was madness, she gladly joined the ranks of the insane. Outerwear flew willy-nilly. Mouths fused and bodies pressed tightly together; they ravished one another. Arching into him, she giggled internally at the mental description.
She wasn’t sexually ignorant, but the frantic mating described in romance novels had always been fantasy as far as she was concerned. Sex was warm and physically enjoyable, but, ultimately, never came close to so many authors’ wildly fictional imaginings.