He pushed at her hands. “I’ll do it.”
“I can do it!”
He caught her eyes and said low, “Elle.”
She stared at him then huffed out a sigh, “All right, you do it.”
Then she whipped her leg out, he reared back to miss being hit by her flying foot, and she held it out for him to take off her sandal.
He straightened and took the back of her heel in one hand, the fingers of his other working the strap.
But his eyes were on her.
He should have focused on her shoe.
He watched as she yanked out her ponytail holder and tossed it on the nightstand amongst a tidy display of pumps and jars and a stack of leather-bound journals.
Then she mussed her hair, the heavy, blonde locks flying everywhere.
It was an extraordinary show and Prentice felt his body instantly and pleasurably tighten in response.
Christ, he had to get out of there.
He unfastened the strap and slid her shoe off, dropping it to the floor.
She immediately lifted her other foot to him while using both hands to lift her hair up at the nape of her neck then she plopped back onto the bed, throwing her arms wide. Her long hair splayed on the bed around her and his mind took that opportunity to consider what Isabella, and her hair, would look like, and feel like, if she was underneath him.
Naked underneath him.
His mind moved swiftly away from that delightful mental image, his gaze moved away from the equally delightful vision of Isabella on her back on the bed, his hand curved around her heel and he went for the other strap.
“Annie’s so happy,” she whispered wistfully and at her words Prentice’s eyes sliced back to her. Her gaze was as wistful as her tone and it was on him. “All these years. I never thought I’d see it, Pren.”
This time, his gut tightened.
No one called him Pren but Elle. His mother hadn’t allowed his name to be shortened when he was a lad and Prentice just stuck.
But he (and his mother) let Isabella call him Pren.
And she hadn’t called him Pren since their last night together.
In a flash, the memory came from somewhere deep and it was as clear as if it happened only yesterday.
They were in his car when he brought her back to Fergus’s after dinner and drinks. It was late, it was dark, she was across the seat, her back to his thighs, her arms around his neck, his hands in her shirt and they were kissing.
He’d never made love to her. They’d done almost everything else but she’d been a virgin and he’d decided, if she’d lasted twenty years, she could last until he had a ring on her finger.
She hadn’t decided that. Isabella made it clear she was ready to give herself to him when he was ready to take her.
But Prentice had thought at the time that he could wait until he gave her his name as his gift to bear the rest of her life and only then would she give him her virginity as hers.
The next day she was going to the airport to get her father and spending the day with him. The night after that, she was going to make dinner for Prentice and her father.
They never made it that far. Prentice had received the summons from Carver Austin to appear at Fergus’s the morning after he arrived.
He had no idea that would be the last time he would hold her in his arms. If he had, at the time, he wouldn’t have taken her back to Fergus’s.
He would have driven her to the ends of the earth.