Breathless Descent (Texas Hotzone 3)

She shook herself, appalled at how ridiculously capable of recalling his “whistle” she was, despite a full decade since he’d donned said red trunks. Or how easily she remembered the moment she’d pressed her lips to his, how firm and smooth and wonderful they’d been. And the way he’d let out a soft moan that had told her he’d hungered for the kiss as much as she had, even if he’d never have claimed it himself. It had been her turn to moan when his hand had slid to her back and molded her close.

And then, true to form, Kent had shown up. Caleb had bolted so fast you would have thought he’d been struck by lightning. He’d told her the kiss had been a mistake and left.

The next week, after an awkward family farewell, at least for the two of them, he’d been gone. The few times Caleb had made it home in those ten years, the tension between them, the attraction, had been uncomfortably evident. And now that he was home to stay, he was avoiding her. That meant avoiding her family, their family.

She straightened, realizing what she had to do. She couldn’t let this continue. My God, she was a therapist. She helped people deal with the fastballs of life and reveled in being good at it. She had to deal with her own issues. She and Caleb had to talk, to get whatever was between them out in the open, instead of hiding from it. The damage was done.

She reached for the knife to finish the icing and then pressed her hands to her parents’ green marble counter. Who was she kidding? Talking wasn’t going to solve anything. Talking wasn’t going to dissolve the combustible sexual tension between them. It seemed to Shay there was only one answer. Something drastic. Another kiss. Something she would never have considered if the circumstances hadn’t become so strained. Okay, the fantasy about the red trunks helped. But they both needed to know once and for all what was between them. Her plan: she was going to kiss Caleb again, and it was quite possible she wouldn’t even enjoy the kiss. Wouldn’t that be a relief?

***

THE HOTTEST WOMAN he’d ever seen in his life was poised on the diving board, in a red-and-white, polka-dot bikini. She was also his best friend’s twenty-eight-year-old “baby” sister. And considering said best friend was standing next to him, Caleb Martin tried not to drool. It wasn’t easy. Shay White had been winding him into a tight ball of lusty need for as long as he could remember.

In fact, if not for the way Shay had rattled his cage, and the secret—albeit ancient—history the two of them shared, Caleb might not have followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the Army. Shay had been the ink on the dotted line, the final nudge.

Caleb watched as she bounced on the board, as if intentionally drawing him under a spell where nothing else mattered. There was only the moment, and her on the diving board and in a bikini that, while certainly appropriate for her parents’ backyard anniversary party, showed enough skin to entice his imagination to fill in the blanks.

Another graceful bounce and her long, lithe body curved into a delicate arch. Caleb’s hungry eyes followed every last glimpse of skin, from fingertips to her shoulder-length blond hair, down to those gorgeous, fantasy-inspiring legs and all the way to her toes, as she slipped into the blue depths of her parents’ pool. His heart thundered in his chest. Shay damn near made the water boil. She damn sure made his blood boil. The woman was hotter than the late-July, Austin, Texas, sun beaming through clusters of smoky clouds.

“Always liked to be the center of attention, didn’t she?”

Caleb blinked, bringing Shay’s brother, Kent, back into focus, along with the twenty-five or so guests mingling in various poolside areas.

“Yes,” Caleb agreed, turning the iced bottle of beer cooling his hand to his lips and savoring the much-needed chill as liquid slid down his throat. “Shay was always the center of attention.” And Kent had no idea how true that statement really was for him.

“Caleb!” The warm, friendly voice of Sharon White spun Caleb on his heels and into her hug.

“Happy anniversary, Sharon,” he said. “Forty is something to be proud of.”

“Thank you, son,” she said, still hugging him, holding on to him, before leaning back to give him a thorough inspection. “And now that we’ve both retired from our teaching jobs, we plan to enjoy ourselves a bit.”

“You deserve it,” he said, thinking of how dedicated they both had been to their high school students. He’d been fifteen, Kent’s best friend, and one of Sharon’s students, when his mother—who’d been struggling to raise him alone—had died of a heart attack. Years before, Caleb’s father had been lost in a military operation overseas.