“I am, too.” She enjoyed the feel of his shoulder pressing against hers. And the way he smelled. And the way the fireworks kept lighting up his face.
He didn’t seem inclined to say any more, but he didn’t move away either, so they watched the fireworks and laughed at the kids, who were ooh-ing and aah-ing with exaggerated exuberance. They were all decked out with glowing neon bracelets and necklaces and they were as lively and vivid as a Vegas show.
After a while, Emma shifted her weight, trying to find a reasonably comfortable position on the hard ground. It wasn’t easy, until Sean pulled her close and she rested against his chest. It was very comfy…physically. Played hell on her senses, though, and she was surprised—and not in a good way—to find herself wishing Gram was with them on the blanket so Sean would have an excuse to wrap his arms around her and kiss the back of her neck.
She was starting to wish Sean had excuses to do a lot of things to her. Especially things he couldn’t do in front of Gram.
They were only halfway through the month and she’d spent so much time wondering what sex with Sean would be like, she was afraid some day soon he was going to touch her and she’d burst into spontaneous orgasm. The trip from the bathroom to the couch every night was the worst, requiring her full concentration. She didn’t trust her body not to hang a right and climb into bed with him.
“What are you thinking about now?” Sean whispered against her ear and she cursed under her breath. She really had to stop thinking about sex near him.
“I’m thinking about all those cakes and pies waiting at your aunt’s house,” she lied.
He chuckled, the sound almost masked by the fireworks. “I had no idea desserts had that effect on you. I’ll have to remember that.”
Rather than deal with the implied promise in those words and the husky, bedroom voice it was implied in, she turned her face away and ignored him. But she couldn’t ignore the aching need he’d brought back to the surface. I’ll have to remember that.
When the last loud and colorful bursts of the grand finale lit up the sky over the lake, the Kowalski family clapped and cheered, then started gathering their things. In just the short time they’d been on the quilts, it looked like the family had taken up residence, with drink bottles and snack wrappers and toys spread all over the place. Sean pushed himself to his feet and then held out his hands to her.
She hesitated to touch him, which was dumb. He was a gentleman, so of course he’d help her up. The fact she was still all shivery and freaked out on the inside from the kiss earlier was her problem, not his.
Once on her feet, she withdrew her hands as quickly as she could, then looked down at her grandmother’s hat and bag. “Gram wanted me to bring you over after the fireworks. To introduce you to Mr. Walker, I guess.”
“Does it bother you?”
“Introducing you?”
He shook his head and pulled her off the quilt because Terry was trying to fold them up. “That she watched the fireworks with him.”
The mature thing to do would be to scoff at the suggestion she was bothered by her grandmother having a friend, but she couldn’t quite pull it off. Not with him watching her so intently. “I don’t know. I didn’t see it coming, that’s for sure. Where did Mitch go?”
“Blonde. Over by the grandstand.”
She turned to look and saw Mitch talking to a pretty blonde woman in a skimpy yellow sundress. She had the kind of primped and polished look that implied she’d shown up alone solely for the purpose of finding a man to take her home. “He doesn’t waste any time.”
Sean snorted and she couldn’t tell if the look he gave his brother was annoyance with the ladies’ man routine or annoyance he wasn’t free to find his own sure thing in a skimpy sundress.
Before she could figure it out, Gram showed up with Russell Walker in tow and behind him a couple who looked younger than what her parents would have been, but not by much.
“Emma,” Gram said, “this is Russell’s daughter, Dani, and her husband Roger. This is my granddaughter, Emma, and her fiancé Sean.”
Emma smiled and shook hands, and then kept smiling as the introductions continued around her. Inside, though, her brain was going numb. Performance exhaustion, she told herself. It was tiring, all this pretending, and she wanted to go home and make Sean crash on the couch so she could curl up in her bed and sleep. But at least this night was almost over.
“If you’re not doing anything,” Mary said to Russell and the others, “you should come back with us and have dessert.”
Or maybe not.
Chapter Twelve
Sean was going to kill his cousins. Slowly. Painfully. And he’d kick the crap out of both of them first.