Kate Hoffmann - Kellan

“Now that you have me naked, what are you going to do with me?”

She gazed up into his eyes, a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. Then she grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the front door. The moment she opened the door, a huge gust blew icy-cold rain into the cottage. “It’s freezing out there,” he said. “And raining.”

“I’m used to cold and wet,” she said. Gelsey slipped out of her shirt. “Come on. Let’s go commune with nature.”

“Humans are not made for this kind of weather,” he said, motioning down to the erection that had grown so quickly the moment he’d kissed her.

Gelsey reached down and smoothed her hand along the length of his shaft, her touch warm on his already chilly flesh. “It will heighten the experience,” she murmured. Kellan reluctantly surrendered. There was obviously something in Gelsey that was fed by pushing the boundaries and taking risks. But how far would it go?

“All right.”

“You first,” she said.

With a shout, Kellan ran outside, his bare feet skidding on the brick walk. When he was nearly to the gate, he turned around to find Gelsey watching him from the doorway. The feeble light from the cabin outlined her nakedness so perfectly that he felt the breath slowly leave his body.

“Aren’t you coming?” he shouted, the rain stinging his skin.

“No! It’s freezing out there.”

Kellan ran back to the door and stepped inside, pulling her along with him. “I didn’t want to go out there in the first place!”

“I know,” she said. “But I wanted to see how far you’d go for desire. Now I know.”

“This was a test?” he asked.

She slowly slid down along his body until her hands rested on his waist. He watched as she drew her tongue along the length of his shaft, the warmth causing a rush of desire to race through him. The feel of her mouth on his cold body was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. Every nerve in his body was alive, his skin prickled with goose bumps and shivers skittering down his spine.

Kellan closed his eyes and leaned back against the door, losing himself in the feel of her mouth surrounding him, drawing him in deep and then drifting away. And when it was too much to take anymore, he pulled her to her feet and spanned her waist with his hands.

In one smooth motion, Kellan picked her up and wrapped her legs around his hips, pressing her against the door until he was positioned at the damp spot between her thighs. Slowly, he entered her, inch by inch until he was buried deep within her warmth.

“You were right,” he murmured, his mouth pressed against the curve of her shoulder. “It does heighten the senses.”

He drove deep and then withdrew and Gelsey gasped. “Now you can take me to bed,” she whispered.

“I think I’m fine right here.”

KELLAN LEFT EARLY in the morning, after he and Gelsey shared a quick breakfast together. He’d promised to help Riley with some painting at the cottage that he and Nan had just purchased in Ballykirk. Riley had hoped to have the place ready by the end of December, just in time to move in after their New Year’s Eve wedding. Before leaving, he extracted a sleepy promise from Gelsey that she’d meet him for lunch at the pub.

Though Gelsey curled back up under the covers, she wasn’t able to sleep. Her mind was spinning with all the possibilities that life now offered. She’d start a new job next week. She was excited at the prospect, but she was also a bit scared. She’d never held a job before. Would she actually know what to do, how to behave? What if people didn’t like her? Worse yet, what if someone recognized her?

With a curse, Gelsey sat up in bed and pushed her tangled hair out of her eyes. How hard could it be to sell face creams and body lotions? But obviously Maeve didn’t sell much from her shop. What if she too turned out to be a sales failure?

The first thing she needed to do was find something appropriate to wear. She couldn’t go to her first day of work wearing Jordan’s and Nan’s hand-me-downs. She’d just have to make a quick trip back to Winterhill. Looking around the bedroom, Gelsey searched for something to write on.

She found Kellan’s sketch pad on the floor next to the bed and flipped through it for a clean sheet of paper. The pencil that he’d been using last night wasn’t on the floor or on the top of the nightstand. Gelsey rolled onto her stomach and pulled open the bottom drawer.

She pushed aside a rusty old tin box and searched the drawer. Then she opened the box, hoping there might be a pencil inside. Gelsey’s breath caught in her throat as she recognized the objects in it. “Oh, my,” she murmured, pulling out a length of braided yarn.

In a single moment, she was taken back to that day, running through the meadow with Kellan chasing her, the old biscuit tin clutched in his hand. Time seemed to stand still as she pulled each item out of the box and examined it. These were all her magic talismans, bits and pieces of life that she’d kept for the powerful memories they held.

The day he’d chased her hadn’t been the first day she’d seen him. She’d watched him from behind the rocks before, fascinated by his quiet confidence and beautiful face. He’d been her first crush, the very first boy she’d ever wanted to kiss and she’d done just that.

Gelsey smiled at the memory. She’d buried the tin just for him, hoping that he’d find it and touch something that she held dear. It was such a silly idea from a silly young girl, but now Gelsey had to wonder if the magic she believed in back then had actually worked.

She pulled out a shell and held it up to her ear, listening for the sound of the sea. If she could only go back to that time in her life, back before everything had turned upside down. Where had she gone wrong? Had there been a single event that had put her on the path she’d taken?

Her parents’ divorce hadn’t helped, but plenty of children survived that. Was it the endless supply of money? Had she faced her fears and insecurities rather than trying to hide them beneath a party-girl veneer, perhaps she’d have more to show for herself at age twenty-seven.

Gelsey groaned, tipping her head back and closing her eyes. All that time lost. All that money spent. And she still felt like a seabird buffeted by the wind and unable to find a place to land. What if things didn’t work out in Ballykirk? What if this was just another disaster in a long line of disasters?

And how would Kellan feel about her once he found out who she really was? There’d been so many men, so many silly choices-and all of them captured in the tabloids. And the money. How could she ever justify it? It made her look so vacuous and incredibly careless.

And then there was the “incident.” How would she explain that to him? She’d tried to put it out of her mind, but if things didn’t go her way, she might have to spend some time in jail. Gelsey closed her eyes. How could she have been so incredibly stupid? So wrapped up in her silly little world that she’d done something with real and awful consequences.

Perhaps she’d just have to wait to tell him until it didn’t matter, until he loved her so much that nothing she said would drive him away. And if it never got to that point, he’d walk away, none the wiser, and she’d be able to keep her awful secret.

As Gelsey looked through her childhood treasures, she heard a car pull up outside the cottage. She jumped off the bed and peered through the slit in the curtains to see Kellan striding up the garden walk. With a soft curse, she quickly restored the tin to its spot in the bedside table.

“Gels? Are you up?”

With another curse, she quickly pulled a T-shirt over her head and then stood beside the bed, carefully arranging the covers. Kellan walked in. “Hi,” she said. “Just making the bed.”