Just Between Friends (O'Rourke Family 4) by Julianna Morris Page B

eyes.
    Truthfully, he didn’t quite understand why she was so unhappy. Their marriage represented an inconvenience for the next year, but it wasn’t the end of the world. And it had been her idea in the first place.
    “I never meant to make things hard for you,” she whispered. “It’s just a little overwhelming, everything the way it was today, and y-your family being so nice and Kane and Beth’s baby coming. And before, when I talked to m-my dad, he said he would have liked to walk me down the aisle. I didn’t expect him to feel like that.” She hiccuped.
    Women were incomprehensible.
    “Your father said he wanted to be here?”
    “Uh-huh. I didn’t think he’d care about it. I really didn’t.” There was a confused note to Kate’s words, which wasn’t any wonder. Her father had hardly been present for the important moments in her life. He’d hardly been present in her life, period.
    Dylan sighed and leaned down to kiss Kate’s forehead. Yet somehow it was her mouth he caught beneath his lips.
    A Freudian slip.
    An enticing, gut-wrenching slip.
    He tasted the salty flavor of tears and found himself deepening the kiss, searching for the sweetness he knew lay below the unhappiness. After a stunned second Kate’s arms moved around his waist and neck, and she arched against him.
    He groaned, his senses filled with her. She was invigorating, like the tang of evergreen on the breeze, nothing like his usual bed-partners, with their aggressive, bold demands and determination to be responsiblefor their own sexual fulfillment. He’d applauded that aspect of women’s lib, but maybe there was a lot to recommend sharing something…mutual.
    Without thinking, Dylan twisted until they were lying on the bed, Kate beneath him. The silky dress she was wearing caught on his rough fingers, but she didn’t protest, even when he cupped her breast.
    He thrust his tongue deep inside her mouth, forgetting everything but the exploding heat, low in his gut.
    “Mmm.”
    Kate moaned.
    Except for dreams about Dylan, she’d never felt anything like the heat streaming through her blood, the tingles sparking deep in her core. She ought to push him away, but she’d waited too long to be held by the man she loved.
    So many dreams, waiting to be realized…
    Yet all at once she squirmed, realizing this was nothing like her dreams. The tense, grabby sensation in her lower abdomen almost hurt, she felt so empty, so needy.
    Dylan’s thumb rubbed across her nipple, rough and gentle at the same time. She’d changed from her wedding dress into a silk caftan back at Pegeen O’Rourke’s house, and the thin, slippery fabric seemed to intensify the hard strength of his touch.
    It was like being swept under a tidal wave. Part of her was alarmed, but the part that had waited so long to be held by the man she loved simply let go. Yet enough of her brain was still operating to start rationalizing.
    She shouldn’t say anything, because it would remind him he was kissing Katydid, not some anonymous woman.
    No.
    She wasn’t anonymous, she wanted him to love her, with all his heart and soul.
    Still, she’d waited forever to be kissed like this by Dylan. She should just enjoy the moment and let fate take its own path. Unless it would make things more difficult, instead of better, when it came to him falling in love with her.
    Dylan, Kate’s mind whispered, trying to decide.
    He gathered the skirt of her caftan, dragging it up her thigh, and the conflicting mental arguments vanished. Even his skill at shimmying the dress upward didn’t distract her, she wanted to be naked even more than she wanted to think about the women he’d held in the past.
    He paused at her hip, his finger tracing the narrow band of her silk panties. The grabby sensation below her tummy became impossibly worse, particularly when he massaged the exact spot with his knowing hand.
    Her spirits rose, hope welling up in her. Surely this meant that Dylan cared, he seemed so