“Oh...” She pulled her mind away from the vision of his big hand on her white skin. The truth was, she hadn’t booked the plane tickets. First, it was because of the ball. Then, she’d told herself she kept forgetting. It would be awkward that her parents would expect her to know her next job posting when she saw them, and she kept putting off the meeting with HR. But the real reason she hadn’t ordered them yet was sitting with his legs taking up most of the floor space in her studio. “Well, I didn’t get around to booking my flight just yet.”
“Just yet?” he exclaimed. “Thanksgiving’s next week!”
She took a drink of her whisky. “Mm.”
“Is this because of your mom? Did you have a fight or something?”
“Lord, no,” she said at once. “One doesn’t ‘fight’ in my family. And one doesn’t stop talking to people just because one has a disagreement.” One does, however, hedge every time one’s mother asks what time the plane’s coming in, and chicken out every time one is about to tell her that one doesn’t plan on coming home.
She pointed to the pictures of her family on the bookshelves, and Kane got up to look at them. “That’s Adam and Jen.” Her brother looked exactly like her: thin and blond with blue eyes. Jen was his exact opposite, with dark brown skin and eyes, her hair cut close to her head, showing off incredible bone structure. The photo next to them showed that Ellen’s nephews had inherited it.
Next in line was the posed photograph her parents had had taken on their thirty-fifth anniversary. Her mother was sitting, her father behind her with his hand on her shoulder in the standard pose. Her smile would have made the Queen proud: small, polite, hardly moving her cheeks. Ellen’s father, on the other hand, had a big goofy grin on his face. He wasn’t even looking at the camera; he was looking down at his wife. Ellen had chosen that one out of the rejects; it was exactly their two personalities. “You have your dad’s smile,” Kane said.
“No, I don’t.” She stood up to look at it as well. “I have my mother’s.”
“No. This is how you smile when you’ve got that stick up your butt—” she punched his arm, which he seemed not to notice “—but this is really you.” He looked at her face. “You act like your mom, but you’re really like your dad.”
“I’m glad you think so. Dad seems to have a lot more fun in life than Mum; she spends her whole time worrying that her face’ll crack if she lets out an emotion.” Ellen took in a hard breath; she rarely acknowledged even to herself how cut off from her mother she felt.
“Maybe,” Kane said. “Maybe you could ask her about it.”
“You’re very funny. Have you met me?” She pointed to herself. “You know, English? Stiff upper lip? Children seen and not heard, old fruit? No emotions that can’t be pushed down with a bracing round of cricket and a cup of tea?”
“Okay, okay.” He held his hands up in surrender. “Anyway, I’m not sorry you haven’t decided if you’re going back yet. I wanted to ask if you’d come to my sister’s house for Thanksgiving.”
She was almost speechless. She knew the significance of inviting girlfriends to Thanksgiving. “Are you sure?” she blurted out.
“Yes. Please will you come to my snotty sister’s house for Thanksgiving, and help me deal with her? It’s a great offer, I know.” He said it flippantly, but he was looking very hard at the books.
“I’d love to come.”
“You sure?” he said, now turning back to her. “They’ll all be there, except Sam, of course.” She didn’t know why that was of course, but still, even three sisters and a husband sounded pretty intimidating, especially with the way he talked about Cat. She guessed that having asked her to come, he was giving her a chance to back out.
“I’m sure. Thank you for asking me.”
He grinned and kissed her. “Thank you for letting yourself in for my family.”
“Maybe I’ll take you to my family for Christmas.” Why had she said that? That was a terrible idea! She was leaving the country two months after that!
His grin was instant. “Does your mom make mince pies?”
Okay, she shouldn’t have said it, but now the pride of the Hunters was at stake. “Better than anything you’ll get here. With custard.”
“What the hell is custard?”
“It’s like gravy for mince pies... uh... sweet gravy, oh, never mind. I’ll make it for you.”
“You’re obsessed with gravy,” he said, snaking an arm around her.
“I’m not!” she said against his lips.
“Nothing but food, food, food,” he murmured. “One of the things I find most attractive about you.” He bit her lip gently.
Ellen couldn’t help but moan a little. Kane turned with her so her back was against the bookshelves and her front was pressed all the way along his. She breathed in jerky gasps at the feel of his hand at the base of her spine and pressed herself even harder into him. They kissed each other like they’d only just learned how to do it, which for Ellen was almost true. Kane made her want to crawl out of her skin and get into his, and it was scaring her and exciting her in just about equal proportions. You can trust him, she thought, and, oh help.
When her hand went to the back of his collar, he grabbed her wrist and lifted her arm above their heads, holding it against the shelf. “Not again. You know how bad that turns me on?” Ellen shuddered again, and her chest was curved into his now and Kane began to drop kisses down her neck and into the V of her over-size sweater, and she put her other hand in his hair, either to pull him off or keep him there, she wasn’t sure which, but she didn’t move it, and half of her prayed that the V would pull down a little farther, and half of her began to panic.
She could feel how much he wanted her, could feel the strength of his hand holding hers above her head; she could feel the speed of her heart rate and the flush on her skin, and the scratch of his stubble against her chest; and she could smell the whisky on his breath and hers, and that and her own drugged excitement sent her spiraling into full-blown terror.
Now she’d done it: she hadn’t said no soon enough, and he wasn’t going to want to stop. This was how things had started with Edward too; he’d been drinking and wanted more and when she didn’t because he was drunk he turned into someone else and hadn’t listened and had held her still and she had to get away and the only way to do it was to—
Bringing her knee up into Kane’s groin was easy; but it made his knees buckle, and he fell against her even more heavily, so she had to hit him several times in the side of the head before he finally moved to the side, away from her. In a blind haze of fear, she ran to the door and opened it.
