Summer Nights (Fool's Gold #8)

She gave herself over to the erotic dance of their kisses. She met him stroke for stroke, enjoying the fire that followed. She leaned in more, wanting to feel her br**sts against his chest. Between her thighs she was both hot and swollen. Ready.

Something hard bumped her from the side. She broke the kiss as she staggered to her left. When she turned, she saw Khatar glaring at both of them.

“Oops,” she said, patting the horse’s shoulder. “Was that uncomfortable to watch? Sorry. We should be more sensitive.”

“Horses don’t kiss,” Shane told her.

“All the more reason for us not to do that in front of him.” She leaned toward Khatar. “We’ll be more careful next time,” she promised in a whisper. “Don’t tell you-know-who.”

“I can hear you,” Shane told her, sounding more amused than exasperated.

She smiled at him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You’re crazy. You know that, right?”

“I’ve heard rumors.”

He shook his head, then put his arm around her. “Come on. I’ll take off his saddle and you can brush him. That will make him feel better.”

“You’re a very good horse parent.”

“Owner. I own him.”

“Don’t say that. You’ll hurt his feelings.”

“He already knows.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ANNABELLE’S GOOD MOOD lasted through the rest of the morning. Khatar enjoyed his grooming and she enjoyed talking to Shane. Now she headed home, prepared to shower and change, then go to the library for a few hours of paperwork. She wasn’t technically on the schedule, but sometimes she preferred to simply get work done on her own time.

She pulled into her driveway about two seconds before she saw the Mercedes parked on the street. Lewis, she thought, the lingering effects of Shane’s kiss deflating like a popped balloon.

She climbed out of her car and waited while Lewis got out of his.

She remembered when she’d first met him. How impressed she’d been by his intelligence and his worldliness. He’d traveled, met interesting people, knew obscure facts about countries she’d barely heard about. She’d loved how he’d been a writer—someone who could take an idea, thoughts, and turn them into a story that could make her laugh and cry and check under her bed to make sure no one was lurking there, waiting to kill her. She’d mistaken admiration for love. Probably because she hadn’t known what love should feel like.

They’d both been at fault, she thought sadly. Lewis had wanted to be adored and she’d wanted to be rescued. Neither of them had actually wanted the work of being married.

Now she watched Lewis approach. He was a handsome man, in a controlled, urban kind of way. He didn’t have Shane’s rough edges or muscles. He was the kind of man you went to an art museum with, whereas Shane…wasn’t.

“You should be hearing from your lawyer shortly,” he said when he was a few feet away.

“The divorce is final?”

He nodded.

“That’s good news.”

“Is it?”

She saw the sadness in his eyes. And the questions. Aware that her neighbors were attentive at best and nosy at worst, she led the way to her front door.

Once in her small living room, she motioned for him to take a seat. She settled across from him, in an oversize chair. She knew that good manners dictated that she offer him something to eat or drink, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to say the words. Encouraging Lewis didn’t seem like a good idea.

He studied her for a minute or so, then spoke. “This is what you want?”

She wasn’t sure if he was asking a question. “The divorce? Yes. It’s what I want.”

“Because you’re with Shane.”

With him? Not in the way Lewis meant. “There were unfixable problems in our marriage,” she said instead.

He leaned forward and laced his fingers together. His pale gaze settled on her face. “I miss you, Annabelle.”

“I’m sorry,” she said automatically.

“Are you? Do you think of me at all? Or have you completely moved on?”

Okay, the conversation had officially shifted to awkward. “We’ve been apart longer than we were together,” she began. “I’ve made a life for myself here. I’m happy.”

“I see. What if I said I’d changed? That I was willing to compromise?”

“I think that it’s for the best that we don’t revisit the past,” she said gently.

“You don’t believe me.”

“That you’ve changed?” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I think growing as a person is a good thing. But would it make me want to try again? No. I’m sorry.”

“We were good together,” he insisted. “Don’t you remember?”

What she remembered was never feeling enough for him. That his words could be cruel. “You wanted me to be like a china doll,” she said slowly. “Something to occupy you when you had time. Something to show off.”

“No, that’s not true. I might have been a little demanding, but as I said, I’m different now. I’ve learned how to be more of a partner. There must be things you miss.”