Warning Track (Callahan Family #1) - Carrie Aarons Page 0,51

your voice down.” I throw a smirk over my shoulder.

Pushing it open, the gate creeks slightly, and we slip inside. We’re greeted by darkness and silence.

Using our connected hands, I swing her gently into me, until she’s close enough that I can settle both of my hands on her hips.

“I wouldn’t be able to do this back at the hotel, or anywhere near the vicinity of it. And it’s been such a nice night, perfect actually. Flip-flops and all.” I grin, moving slowly so that our noses touch. “I don’t want to be one of those men who leaves you with indecision, wondering if I was going to kiss you or if I’m just being respectful. Because believe me, I want to do many things that aren’t respectful when it comes to you. At least here, I can do it in private.”

Before she can speak, I lean in, waiting for her to tilt up, giving me implied permission to kiss her. Colleen does, her eyelashes fluttering closed down onto her cheeks, and then I take her mouth.

The kiss is gentle and measured, with me holding back a lot of inner heat bubbling up from my balls and making my cock go rigid. But this is a first date kiss, not the passionate, forbidden kind in a closet. The breeze blows between the space our close-knit bodies create, and it feels like our lips mold together forever. I’m dizzy by the time I pull back, and Colleen can’t seem to be able to open her eyes.

“Let’s go get you that hotel key. Wouldn’t want you to be locked out all night.” I smirk, and a small smile forms on her thoroughly kissed lips.

Although, if she simply had to spend the night in my room, I would not complain.

23

Colleen

Whitney’s backyard has been transformed into a full-on circus.

No, seriously, she spared no expense for her youngest son’s third birthday party. There is an entire petting zoo over in one corner of her massive lawn, a clown doing magic tricks, two ponies with a female acrobat flipping between their backs, a row of carnival games and face-painting, and then the line of food trucks serving free food from funnel cakes to cheesy corn on a stick.

“Hi, buddy.” I bend to kiss and ruffle the top of Kyle’s hair. “Happy birthday!”

He holds up three stubby, sticky fingers to me. “I’m three today!”

“I know!” I exclaim, examining his fingers and figuring out he definitely has had too much cotton candy. “Did you get to ride a pony yet?”

His tiny head bops up and down. “And Mom says there is a camel coming later!”

My nephew, what I call him even though Whitney is my cousin, runs off and his mom walks up.

“He is never going to sleep tonight,” she says, shaking her head even though she’s smiling.

“He’s having the time of his life, let him. You doing okay? This is amazing.”

“And absolutely ridiculous, you can say it. Ian already has. But it’s wonderful and Kyle loves it, so I don’t even care. I’m okay. Glad I hired the food trucks so we didn’t have to lift a finger with food. That’s always the worst part.”

I nod like I understand, even though I don’t. There are dozens of parents and children here, some of them from the Callahan brood. My cousins have boys and girls abound, and I’ve spent time with a lot of babies, toddlers, and kids in my family. But I’m still not a natural around them. Sure, I’ve watched the boys for Whitney when she was in a jam once or twice, but I’ve never had that motherly instinct.

Probably because I barely have a mother of my own, and the role my father was supposed to take on when she left wasn’t even filled by a parent who possessed the gene of compassion.

My mother and father met when they were in college. Both rich kids, both the offspring of wealthy families at an Ivy League university. It was as much a marriage of status and convenience as it was a marriage for love, or at least that’s how my father told it. Yes, my father told me the story of how my parents never should have married when I was about thirteen, so that’s all you need to know about the kind of environment I grew up in.

She took off when I was about eight. After my childhood spent playing third wheel to my parent’s lavish vacations and explosive fights, followed by chilly months on