Sitting at opposite sides of the table, they lifted still-steaming slices to their mouths, strings of melted cheese trailing behind, thick sauce dripping over their fingers. It wasn’t a gourmet meal, and their surroundings were far from elegant, but it suited Kyle much more than any fancy restaurant. The pizza was good, but he suspected it was more the company that made this meal so enjoyable.
And that realization made him grumpy all over again. Molly didn’t seem to notice. She appeared to be having a great time, chattering like a magpie, watching the movie—and licking pizza sauce off her fingers in an unselfconsciously sexy manner that made Kyle almost choke on a pepperoni slice.
He’d noticed something slightly different in Molly’s manner toward him since he’d returned from his shower. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was—but her smiles seemed brighter and her voice breezier, more familiar in some way. She seemed to be almost studiedly casual with him, as if they’d spent many evenings sharing pizza and soft drinks in motel rooms.
Perhaps this was her way of ignoring the inherent awkwardness of the situation, he mused. By treating him like an old pal, she didn’t have to acknowledge even to herself that she was in any way uncomfortable with him.
Sounded like a good plan. One he should probably utilize himself. The problem was, not only did he find it impossible to feel like a brother to her, he found it increasingly annoying when she treated him like one.
There was only one slice of pizza left when both of them were too full to eat another bite. Carrying the rest of her cola with her, Molly hopped to the bed and settled back into the nest she’d made for herself earlier. She motioned toward the empty bed with one hand. “Might as well make yourself comfortable.”
He looked from her to the empty bed, then cleared his throat. “I think I’ll go on into my own room. I packed a book I’ve been wanting to start.”
“You can bring it in here. I won’t disturb you while you read.”
She seemed reluctant to be left alone, but he shook his head, anyway. “Just knock on the wall if you need me for anything during the night,” he said, moving toward the connecting door. He tried not to think of all the things he would like her to need him for in the night.
“C’mon, Kyle, there’s no need for you to go. We can hang out together for a few hours—watch the movie, maybe play some cards. I’ve got a deck in my bag.”
Her chatty, no-one-could-doubt-that-we’re-just-buddies attitude was beginning to get on his nerves. Sure, it was the safest strategy—but she was starting to carry it too far.
“I doubt that your brother or your parents would like us spending this much time together in a motel room.”
She made a sound that came very close to being a “pshaw.” “Don’t be silly. Daddy and Shane wouldn’t care. After all, you’re—”
If she called him “family” one more time, he was liable to do something incredibly stupid. Like shut her up with his own mouth…
The kiss lasted quite a while. Molly looked stunned when he finally straightened. She didn’t try to detain him again when he stalked through the door, closing it sharply behind him.
He cursed himself colorfully and creatively as he threw himself on one of the beds, his entire body aching from the drive and throbbing with a desire he shouldn’t be feeling. He most definitely should not have done that. Kissing Molly ranked way up in the top five dumbest things he had ever done—no matter how good it had felt.
Maybe now, at least, she would stop trying to treat him like a long-lost brother. A damned platonic friend. Maybe now she would understand that he wasn’t the nice guy she had made him out to be in her imagination. He’d been trying without success to make her understand that ever since she had shown up so trustingly at his door.
He’d tried snapping at her, snarling at her, rebuffing every attempt she made to reach out to him. Nothing had gotten through—but maybe now she no longer thought of him as “safe.”
What would eat at him for the rest of the night—and probably for quite some time afterward—was the knowledge that Molly had made no effort to push him away when he had kissed her. That she had, in fact, kissed him back. And there had been nothing in the least sisterly about the way her lips had moved beneath his.
Chapter Seven
Molly didn’t sleep much that night. When she did manage to doze, her dreams were restless and unsettling, leaving her tired and tense by the time daybreak finally arrived.
She showered, then wrapped herself in a robe and hopped to her suitcase to find something to wear. She wasn’t sure she could tuck her jeans inside the splint and still strap it tightly enough to support her ankle during the long drive ahead, so she donned the hot-pink-trimmed gray pants again, pairing them with a clean white long-sleeve pullover. She braided her still-damp hair, applied enough makeup to hide the ravages of the sleepless night, then settled into a chair, waiting for Kyle to let her know when he was ready to leave.
Kyle. Just the thought of his name made her lips start to tingle like crazy again.
She still couldn’t believe he had kissed her. He had simply loomed over her without warning, grabbed her chin in his hand and crushed his mouth down on hers before she could finish whatever it was she had been saying at the time. Her world had tilted on its axis—and she had a strong feeling that it would never go back to the way it had been before.
No one had ever made her feel like that with just a kiss before. And what worried her most was the fear that no one else ever would.
She had been waiting for almost twenty-four years to find a man she couldn’t turn into an honorary brother. And wasn’t it ironic that the first man who fit that description would most certainly be leaving on the first plane out of T
exas?
She didn’t delude herself for a moment that Kyle was falling for her. That there was any chance he would stay in her life, rather than drop her off at the ranch and run back to his secluded cabin. He had his friends, the McDooleys, and they seemed to provide all the companionship he wanted or needed. Maybe he would be amenable to the occasional sexual liaison—he wasn’t a monk, after all—but nothing more. And certainly not with her.
Which meant it was up to her to protect herself from getting hurt. Plan A hadn’t worked out. No matter how hard she tried, she wasn’t going to be able to turn Kyle into a brother figure.
So it was time for Plan B. Carefully maintained distance. Polite, but detached. Completely uninvolved in his life. No more personal questions, no more friendly touches, no more pressuring him to share his feelings with her. If she occasionally noticed how pretty his eyes were, or how broad his shoulders, or how tight his… Well, if she happened to notice any of his physical attributes, she would simply appreciate the view and remind herself that Kyle was only another guy who was in her life for just a brief stay.