Once and Again. Brenda Harlen

everyone.”

      He eyed the bottle in her hand. “Where’d you get that?”

      “The bartender.”

      “You’re underage, Jess.”

      “If my best friend’s old enough to get married, surely I’m entitled to have a drink at her wedding.”

      “A drink, maybe,” he agreed, deftly removing the bottle from her grasp. “Not a dozen.”

      She pouted. “Go away, Nick.”

      He studied her for a long moment, his gaze dark and inscrutable. “I should,” he said at last.

      “Then do it. You certainly didn’t have any trouble ignoring me earlier tonight.”

      “What are you talking about?”

      “I’m talking about the fact that you danced with almost every woman at the reception tonight—except me.”

      His gaze shifted guiltily. “I think that’s a slight exaggeration.”

      She shook her head. She knew, because she hadn’t been able to tear her eyes off of him all night, hadn’t stopped hoping he would turn to her, take her in his arms. Just a dance—that was all she’d wanted. An innocent memory to lock away in her heart and take with her when she was gone.

      But he’d denied her that. And now he was refusing to even acknowledge the slight.

      “Every one except Barb Kenner, who was attached at the hip to her new fiancé, your Aunt Helen, who can barely walk because of her arthritis, and me.”

      “It wasn’t a deliberate oversight.”

      “Wasn’t it?”

      He scrubbed a hand through his hair and sighed. “Hell, I don’t know, Jess. Maybe it was.”

      She felt the sting of tears at the back of her eyes and cursed the fact that Nick had always been painfully honest with her.

      “Do you want the truth?” he asked.

      She swallowed, not sure if her bruised heart could survive another beating tonight. “Maybe not.”

      “Coward.”

      She lifted her chin so that she could glare at him.

      He chuckled. “You’re so predictable.”

      “And you’re such an ass.”

      Nick took a step closer, traced a finger along the top of her dress, over the swell of her breasts. She sucked in a breath as her skin heated, burned, in response to his touch. The last traces of amusement in his eyes faded, gave way to something deeper. Something that both thrilled and terrified her.

      “The truth is—” he dropped his hand away, took a careful step back “—from the moment I saw you standing at the back of the church in this dress, all I could think about was how much I wanted to get you out of it.”

      “How—” She needed to take a breath, because the way he was looking at her—as he’d never looked at her before—had sucked all of the air from her lungs. “That doesn’t explain why you didn’t want to dance with me.”

      “I didn’t want to dance with anyone else,” he said. “But I knew that if I touched you, if I held you in my arms, I wouldn’t be able to let you go.”

      “Oh.”

      His lips curved into a wry smile. “Yeah.”

      She moistened her suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue, saw that the subconscious action had his gaze zeroing in on her mouth. Her heart hammered in her chest. “Dance with me now, Nick.”

      He shook his head. “Have you heard anything I’ve said?”

      “Every word.”

      She breached the distance he’d deliberately put between them, flattened her hands against his chest. She could feel the beat of his heart, as strong and fast as her own, beneath her palms, and it emboldened her.

      “Dance with me,” she said again.

      As if of their own volition, his arms came around her, drew her nearer. Even as her mind warned that she was playing a dangerous game, her body melted against his. She closed her eyes, her mind spinning, her heart singing, as she swayed in the darkness of the night with him to the music of gurgling water and chirping crickets.

      His hands skimmed up her back, and down again. The slow seduction of his touch made her yearn, tremble. She shifted closer, and felt the press of something hard against her belly. This evidence of his arousal didn’t surprise her as much as the answering, aching heat that pulsed deep inside her.

      He dipped his head and pressed his lips to her throat. She sighed his name as the heat of desire escalated to burning need. His tongue stroked over her collarbone, fleeting, teasing caresses. Her hands gripped his shoulders tighter as the world seemed to tilt crazily beneath her.

      Then, finally, he kissed her.

      The brush of his mouth against hers was softly persuasive, but Jess didn’t need any persuading. She’d wanted this, wanted him for so long. She slid her arms around his neck, let her fingers sift through the silky hair at the nape of his neck. Her lips parted willingly when he deepened the kiss, her tongue eagerly meeting and mating with his.

      She didn’t know how long the kiss lasted. Minutes? Hours? Days? There was no time or place, just an endless spiral of pleasure. And, when he finally drew back, an aching sense of disappointment that it hadn’t lasted nearly long enough.

      He exhaled an unsteady breath and leaned his forehead against hers. “You need to tell me to stop, Jessica.”

      “Why?”

      “Because I don’t have enough willpower to walk away on my own.”

      She loved him for wanting to make sure it was her choice. Then again, she’d always loved Nick. And loving him meant there was only one choice to make.

      She met his gaze evenly, spoke clearly. “I don’t want you to walk away.”

      He kissed her again, then lowered her onto the soft grass under the stars.

      Chapter Four

      “I wondered if you’d find your way out here while you were home.”

      Jessica glanced up to see Nick standing at the edge of the trees, the fringes of her dream. It was an oddly discomfiting sensation—this blurring of past and present. She blinked away the bittersweet reminiscence and accepted the harshness of reality.

      “This is private property,” she reminded him.

      “Uh-huh.” Despite his easy agreement, he came toward her.

      “Which means you’re trespassing.”

      He sat down beside her. “Actually you are.”

      Her brow furrowed. “I thought this was part of your parents’ land.”

      “It was. After my mom died, we subdivided the property. The dividing line runs somewhere through the trees behind us.”

      “Who owns this part now?”

      He smiled. “I do.”

      “Oh.” She hugged her knees closer to her chest. “Do you want me to leave?”

      “No.” He paused a moment before saying, “I haven’t been out here in years. And I didn’t know what made me come out here tonight—until I saw you.”

      Uncertain how to respond to his revelation, she said nothing.

      “What brought you out here, Jess?”

      There were so many possible answers to that question. She decided the simplest was probably the best. “The stars.”

      “You