Wishes for Tomorrow: Westmoreland's Way

He gazed down into her face thinking she looked uncertain and indecisive. “You give. I take. No regrets,” he said in a thick voice.

Dillon hoped she understood because he meant every word. She glanced down at the engagement ring on her hand and his gaze followed hers. And while he watched, she twisted the ring off her finger and then placed it on the windowsill.

Then she looked up, met his gaze and said in a soft, barely audible voice the exact same words he’d spoken to her. “You give. I take. No regrets.”

Her words touched an inner coil within him, made desire drum through his entire body at a pace that had him breathing in deeply.

He took another step toward her and heard himself groan low in his throat at the same moment he reached out and pulled her into his arms. And with a hunger that he felt all the way to his toes, he lowered his mouth as she parted her lips. The connection was explosive, and sensations rocked through him as his mouth greedily took hers, desire flooding him from all corners and settling in his body part right below his belt.

His hands tightened around her waist when she began to tremble in his arms, and she kissed him back in a way that made everything within him, every single molecule, feel new, revitalized and energized. He couldn’t recall the last time he had feasted on a woman’s mouth the way he was feasting on hers.

He didn’t want to take the time to pause to pull air into his lungs. He just wanted to keep kissing her, continue pressing against her middle to let her feel the hard, solid evidence of just what she was doing to him, how she was making him respond.

The kiss went on, seemed unending until the cell phone in his pants pocket sounded. Of all the times to get a damn signal, he thought, and for a moment he refused to release her mouth, needing to ply it over and over again with strokes of his tongue, although each flick inside her mouth was causing his muscles to contract in a way they had never contracted before.

He hoped the phone would stop ringing but when it didn’t, he reluctantly pulled his mouth away from hers, after he’d swept his tongue against her already moist lips.

The ringing had ceased by the time he snatched the phone from his pocket and saw the missed call was a text from Ramsey. He checked the message and it said one word. Bane. Dillon gritted his teeth, wondering what the hell his baby brother had gotten into now.

He glanced over at Pam and thought at that moment he really didn’t care, since Ramsey’s message had interrupted the most passionate kiss of his entire life. Never had a kiss left him with his senses spiraling out of control and his entire body feeling like it had been torched into flames.

He knew Pam had been as affected by the kiss as he had. She seemed to be trying to pull herself together. They had done more than just grasped the moment, they had taken total control of it in a way that had them both still scraping for breath.

He watched as she slowly moved away from him to return to the window. She gazed out and he couldn’t help wondering if she had reneged and now had regrets. He tensed, refusing to let her off his hook that easily. “Come to my hotel room tonight, Pam.”

She swirled around and met his gaze but before she could open her mouth to say a single word, he reached out, pulled her back into his arms and took control of her mouth all over again.

The last time, he had kissed her with a need. This time it was with desperation. He refused to let her incriminate herself in any way, and if kissing her was the way to keep it from happening, then so be it. He would stand here and ply her mouth with his kisses forever if that’s what he had to do.

A short while later, when he finally released her mouth, she looked somewhat dazed and her lips appeared slightly swollen. He lifted his hand and pushed her hair from her face, tempted beyond reason to sink his mouth onto hers again. Just the thought of doing so made his hand tremble. He hoped she knew this wasn’t the end. Just the beginning.

And to make sure of it, he repeated the words he’d said earlier. “Come to my hotel room tonight, Pam.”

Again she looked up and met his gaze. Her lashes fluttered just seconds before she replied, “No.”

But before his heart could drop to the floor, she added, “Mr. Davis, the owner of the hotel, knows me, so that won’t be a good idea. However, my drama school is only a few blocks away on Durand Street. Will you come there?”

He nodded quickly. “What time?”

“Eight,” she said almost in a whisper. “I have a class tonight and everyone should be gone by then.”

A moment of silence purred between them and then she searched his eyes. “So, will you come?”

A smile touched his lips and he reached out and stroked her cheek with the back of his hand, leaned closer to her and responded in a low, husky voice, “Sweetheart, nothing short of death is going to keep me away from you tonight.”

Chapter 6

Pam glanced around at the excited faces of her students. Practice had gone perfectly, with all of them knowing their lines. There was no doubt in her mind that nine-year-old Shauna Barnes had an acting career in her future. Everyone was gearing up for the play Dream Makers Drama Academy would be presenting next month, Charles Dickens’s classic A Christmas Carol.

“Do you need me to stay behind and help you straighten things up?” Cindy Ruffin asked a short while later, after all the students had been dismissed and were rushing out the door. It hadn’t rained as Pam had predicted, but a light layer of snow flurries were coming down.

“No, I’m fine,” she said smiling.

Cindy had been a godsend. Her husband, Todd, had been a classmate of Pam’s and, like her, Todd had left Gamble for college. He’d played pro football until an injury ended his career. A few years ago, after Hurricane Katrina, Todd had decided to move his family from New Orleans and back to his hometown. Everyone in town was glad for Todd’s return and within a year had talked him into running for mayor.

“I think the kids did an awesome job at practice tonight, don’t you?” Cindy asked as a bright, cheery smile touched her lips.

“Yes, and I have to thank you and Marsha for it. You’re the ones who have been working tirelessly with them while I’ve been dealing with paperwork,” she said.

“Yes, but having you here is such an inspiration to them since it shows how successful you can be with hard work. You graduated from high school and went off to California to pursue your dream of acting. Do you miss it? All the glitz and glamour of Hollywood?”

Pam thought about Cindy’s question. A part of her did miss it, but since she hadn’t yet become a part of the “Hollywood crowd” there wasn’t a lot she’d had to give up. She had gotten parts in a few low-budget movies, and her dates were mostly those planned by her agent for publicity purposes. She’d spent most of her free time studying her lines for auditions.

“No, I really don’t miss it,” she said honestly. “At least not as much as I thought I would. I have so much going on for me here.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Cindy said, glancing down at Pam’s engagement ring. “You didn’t make an official announcement about your engagement, but I gather a wedding is coming soon. Have you set a date yet?”

Pam swallowed deeply as she looked down at her hand. She had put the ring back on after Dillon had left. Whenever she thought about the kiss they had shared, she could feel her eyes glaze over and her cheeks burn. She had never been kissed that way before. Never.

Clearing her throat she said, “No, not yet.”

After a few minutes more of conversation, Cindy left, leaving Pam all alone in the spacious residence that now housed the acting school. Several of the bedrooms downstairs had been converted into office space and classrooms, and the walls had been removed from the entire upstairs area to transform it into one vast studio.

The huge basement had been transformed into a mini-movie-set where scenes could be filmed. It was here at Dream Makers that she had starred in her first low-budget movie for the Gamble theater group. She would always appreciate her very humble beginnings here.

She glanced at her watch. It was a little past seven. She would have a chance to be by herself for a while before Dillon arrived, she thought.

Dillon.

She couldn’t think about him without remembering the kiss they had shared earlier that day. And every time she did sensations too numerous to count would invade her body, sending a thrill through her. She’d heard of a man pushing a woman’s buttons but, in Dillon’s case, he not only pushed them, he had leaned right on them and pretty heavily at that. He had pressed them into another zone. She still felt wired up.

He had left her home shortly thereafter, saying he thought it would be best if he did so, fearing if he were to stay he might not be able to control himself. So she had watched him leave, Jay’s journal tucked under his arm, while flutters of desire had overtaken her stomach.

Fletcher had called before she’d left home to tell her he had arrived in Montana safely but wouldn’t be returning to Gamble at the end of the week as he’d planned. The insurance company was being difficult, so it would be the first of next week before he got back.

He had asked about Dillon, wanting to know if he was still hanging around town, and she had been up-front with him. Pam had informed him that Dillon had been invited back to dinner and had come to the house to finish going through the items in the attic. She could tell from the tone of Fletcher’s voice he hadn’t been pleased.

She had dropped by Lester Gadling’s office before arriving at the academy and asked him to recheck her father’s papers to make sure he hadn’t missed something the first time. The attorney had seemed agitated by her visit, and had told her that he would do as she requested, but was confident that nothing would change. She had been hoping that somehow he had made a mistake.

After phoning in and checking on her sisters to make sure everything was okay and all their homework was done, she began walking through all the rooms, tidying up as she went along. As it got closer to eight o’clock, she began to feel a nervousness tugging at her insides. And that same outlandish bout of desire that had overtaken her earlier that day was working its way upward from her toes to her midsection.

There was no doubt in her mind that tonight she and Dillon would do more than just kiss. She knew they would be sharing passion of the most intense kind. They would both give, they would both take and she was truly counting on neither of them having any regrets. Now that she’d thought everything through and was comfortable in her decision, she would admit that she needed him tonight. She wanted him. And she intended to have him.

* * *

After pulling into the empty parking lot, Dillon switched off the ignition and checked his watch. Noting it wasn’t quite eight o’clock, he decided to stay put for a while.

Adjusting the car seat to accommodate his long legs, he stretched them out in front of him as he released a deep sigh. It seemed as if time had done nothing but drag by since he had seen Pam earlier. He’d nearly gone crazy waiting so he had tried reading more of the journal. So far all Jay Novak had written was information about the dairy business and how well he and Raphel worked together. Apparently, Jay hadn’t been suspicious of the relationship between Raphel and Portia.