Zane had kept his distance and Denise had chattered about everything under the sun. Nobody else had said a single thing about her being there with Zach. But everybody had watched them.
It was almost like they were seeing things she wasn’t.
He’s spent more than half of his life doing exactly what you wanted him to do, Abby.
A warm pair of arms came around her waist and she closed her eyes, sinking back against the warmth of Zach’s body. Part of her wanted to turn to him, curl her arms around him, and just get lost in him so she didn’t have to think.
But her mind just wasn’t going to shut up right now.
“What was Sebastian talking about, Zach?” she asked. She’d tried to get the answer out of him earlier but he’d brushed it off. She wasn’t about to let him do it this time.
She felt his chest rise and fall against her back, felt the warmth of his breath stirring her hair. One hand smoothed down and curved over her hip. “Abby, Seb doesn’t even know what he’s talking about half the time. How should I know?” he murmured. He rubbed his lips over her neck and that felt so good, sending small little shivers down her spine. “Right now, he’s so fixed on the idea of dragging me back here, I don’t think he can see straight, much less think straight. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d heard some of those stupid Bachelor rumors and thought maybe he’d see if he couldn’t work it from his end.”
“So you have no idea what he meant when he said I made you leave California.”
His hands curled around her waist. “Abigale . . . I’m pretty damn certain you were in Tucson for months before I saw the ad for the shop. You aren’t the one who told me to buy it. You aren’t the one who put the idea in my head of opening my own place.”
Some of the tension eased out of her and she managed to breathe a little easier.
“Is that what’s been bothering you?” he asked.
Licking her lips, she shrugged. “Some. Although I couldn’t figure out what the hell he was ranting about. I . . .”
* * *
Zach turned her around.
In the dim light of the room, her dark eyes were almost black. As he reached up and slid his hands into her hair, he said softly, “I’m in a hotel room, alone with a beautiful woman. You know the last thing I really want to talk about is my baby brother and his hard head, right?”
He dislodged the pins in her hair and watched as the curls went tumbling down her back. Then, as she opened her mouth, probably to keep talking about the disaster that had happened earlier, he cradled her skull in his hands and rubbed his thumbs along her scalp.
Her lids dropped down. “That feels good.”
“I’ve been wanting to take your hair down all damned day.” He eased his way around to the base of her skull, worked there for a minute, and then nudged her back against the wall. She went, smiling a little at him as he reached for the wide black belt that nipped her dress in at the waist.
“Zach . . . are you trying to distract me?”
“No. I am distracting you,” he said, shooting her a look. “I don’t see why we have to keep talking about Sebastian. He thinks he knows what my life should be about and I think he needs to go pull his head out of his ass. There’s nothing else to keep talking about.”
“Hmm.” She reached up and curled her hands around his wrists. “So he’s got his head up his ass. And that’s it?”
“Yes.” Leaning in, crowding her body against the wall, he took her mouth, quick and hard. “Now . . . can we stop talking? It’s been like three days since I had you naked.”
She smiled against his lips. “Wow. Three whole days? However did you stand it?”
“By fantasizing about what I’d do with you once I had you naked in a hotel room.” He twisted his hands out of her grip and reached for the buttons that held her dress closed. It was a cute little retro piece, a soft pale green that made her skin glow. It was pretty, sexy in a subtle, quiet way and all damned day, he’d thought about either unbuttoning all those buttons and fucking her while she still