something only D. B. gave to her. Like how he made her feel pretty. Pretty and young and sexy and ... in love.
That giddiness was love. She was in love with him. Closing her eyes, she rested her cheek against the strong, thudding beat of his heart. Behind her eyelids, tears stung. The affair would have to end soon, of course, because of her possible pregnancy and because of the past she'd never told him about. But not just yet. She needed a little more time, just a little, because she'd never been in love before. And since she didn't believe in second chances, she knew she'd never be in love again.
CHAPTER TEN
Dylan might have imagined that the note Kitty left him on the desk in the sheriff's office smelled faintly of roses, but there was no doubting that was the fragrance beckoning him through the open front door of The Burning Rose. Steeling himself against its lure, he stepped inside.
"Kitty," he called out.
Her voice drifted down the stairs. "Up here."
He hesitated. It was half an hour before the living-history district opened. While soon they'd be mobbed by the weekend visitors, now the brothel was quiet. He'd be alone with Kitty.
Since last Monday on that rock on the outskirts of town, he'd been keeping himself sane - and away from her - by remembering she was trouble. Trouble that had brought him back to Hot Water, where he was forced to play sheriff. Trouble that meant painful, twilight glimpses of Bram Bennett, who had once been his best friend. Trouble that brought him face-to-face with other old friends, coaches, and schoolteachers who couldn't wait to tell him they hoped he'd come home to stay.
But the note he'd found, saying "Aunt Cat asked me to invite you to dinner tomorrow night. I'll be there too," must be addressed. The invitation must be refused. Kitty tempted him too much.
He mounted the stairs slowly, trying not to think of all the men who had walked this way before him. But the wooden treads were worn in their centers and his boots slid into the depressions naturally, like a man slides into a woman. The morning air outside had been pleasant, but as he climbed the stairs of the brothel, the temperature spiked and the atmosphere thickened like breathless anticipation.
How many sex acts had been performed within these walls? Ghosts of copulations past seemed to swirl around him and the hairs on the back of his neck rose. He hesitated again.
Superstitious, horny fool. Scoffing at himself, he stepped on the top stair. The old wood groaned like a man in the final throes of orgasm and he almost leaped out of his skin.
"Is that you, Dylan?" Kitty's voice emerged from the first bedroom on the right. "Are you all right?"
No. He was haunted by the past, in more ways than one. And he was frustrated, both situationally and sexually, but damned if he was going to let Kitty know any of that. Instead of speaking, he grunted, then entered the bedroom.
She looked up. "Bad mood?"
Her instant read might have made his bad mood even blacker if he could have worked up any thought at the moment besides one. But with Kitty sitting on the crimson-colored bed in the crimson-colored room, the only thing on his mind was sin. Wicked sin. The dress she wore was the shade of raspberry sherbet, and like all her other costumes, it left her shoulders and the tops of her breasts bare. That wasn't what riveted him. He'd almost gotten used to seeing all that skin - liar, liar, pants on fire - but what snared his attention now was that she had her skirt lifted.
Above her knees.
Kitty sat on the edge of the bed with the front hem of her skirt pulled up as she worked on it with a needle. Her legs were modestly crossed and she was mending. Common, ordinary mending.
Yet, as Dylan stared at her legs, his pulse started a heavy chug-chug through his veins. Though he'd seen her wearing shorts, there was something about this view of her incredible legs, framed by the froth of ruffles in her lap, that made it seem forbidden. Nasty. Tasty.
"Did you want something?" Her gaze on him, she leaned down and bit off a hanging thread.
He wanted her to bite him. Bite him again. His hand rose to his throat and he rubbed his knuckles over the place she'd marked him on Monday. The signs of her teeth