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CHAPTER 16.1
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LOVE IN TEXAS CHAPTER 16.2
Then he took one nipple into his mouth and suckled, and Shannon’s back arched off the bed. A cry of sheer pleasure escaped her throat and shot straight to his loins.He’d had in mind to go slowly, make it last. Next time. Maybe.He fumbled for his wallet, but when he pulled out the condom, she took it from him. “Let me,” she said breathlessly.Nick nearly groaned. He didn’t know if he could take it, but he gritted his teeth and let her push him over onto his back.Shannon moved his hands so they rested beside his head, then tore open the packet and straddled his thighs. Looking down and seeing him totally at her mercy gave her a rush of power that was heady in its intensity. Odd that she would feel it so much. She usually didn’t feel a lack of power. But then, she didn’t usually have a naked man beneath her, hers to do with as shewould.Slowly, one fraction of an inch at a time, she rolled the condom down onto his erection.“You’re about to kill me,” he said through clenched teeth. S
LOVE IN TEXAS Chapter 16.3
Did that mean she was trying to impress Nick?Of course she was, she admitted, working a dab of styling gel into her shoulder-length hair. She wanted him to like her work so he would let her interview him, so he would want to be included in the project and have a chapter about himself.Frankly, she just flat out wanted him to like her. Nothing wrong with that, was there?Then there was the other. The sharp physical attraction.Call it what it is, Shannon—red-hot sex.She couldn’t deny their attraction, but what made her nervous was that she greatly feared she had overestimated her ability to keep business and pleasure separate. They weren’t separate when the man was the same for both. She wanted to interview Nick, and she wanted sex with him. Ifsomewhere in the back of her mind she wanted more than that—if she wanted to be close to him and let their togetherness chase away herloneliness—well, that was her problem, not his. If she wanted more timewith him—weeks, months—it wasn’t goi
LOVE IN TEXAS Chapter 17
Friday was both Spirit Day and Homecoming Day at Tribute High. The halls and classrooms were a blur of red and white. Teachers and students alike were revved up for the football game later that evening. The footballteam was cocky; the cheerleaders giggled whenever they saw one another; and anyone who made it from one end of the hall to the other without getting a pom-pom in the face was one lucky individual. Nick had been“accidentally” assaulted twice so far, and there was more than an hour left before classes let out.Nick tried to remember if he’d ever been as excited over anything as these kids were. Two occasions came to mind: Christmas morning as a kid, and his first day with the Fire Department of New York.That old association with FDNY had reached out and tapped him on the shoulder when he’d been walking home from Shannon’s in the wee hours of the morning. It happened every year the night of the bonfire. Somehow,without planning it, Nick always ended up walking past the rem
LOVE IN TEXAS Chapter 17.1
She smiled, and it spoke of sadness and perhaps empathy. She placed a hand on his arm. “You really have been stung by the media, haven’t you?” She gave his arm a warm squeeze. “The tape is just for me, to use as a backup for my notes and my memory. If it makes you uncomfortable, Iwon’t use it.” She picked up the recorder and made as if to put it away.Nick stopped her. “No, go ahead. Just do this the way you usually do.”She gave a small bark of laughter. “It was too late for that several days ago. However, we’ll start with basics. I’m going to ask you all sorts of things that might not end up in the book. But they’re things I need to know to get a better picture of who you are, where you were in your life on 9/11, how that affected you and brought you to where you are today. I have your vitals, date of birth, immediate family members, your education. I’d like to start with you telling me why you wanted to become a fireman, and whenand where you first knew that was what you wanted.
LOVE IN TEXAS Chapter 17.2
She narrowed hers. “I asked first.”He shook his head. “Mostly I don’t get it.”“Well, that’s all right. You’re not who they’re aiming for, anyway.”He gave her a half smile. “The rap music industry isn’t aiming for an audience of old has-beens?”Shannon tilted her head and studied him. “That’s not really how you see yourself, is it?”“Is that an interview question?”She groaned and barely stopped herself from stomping her foot. “There you go again, answering a question with a question.”“You answer a question with a complaint.” She laughed at him, and he made a face at her. “Carlucci, how’s it going?”Shannon nearly swallowed her tongue when she recognized the man who came and sat sideways, facing them, on the next bench down.“Pretty good. How about yourself?” Nick shook the man’s hand.“No complaints. I’m being nosy. Maybe it’s the newspaperman in me, but I believe I know your friend. It’s Malloy, isn’t it? Shannon Malloy?”Now she really was speechless. She had met Wade Harrison o
LOVE IN TEXAS Chapter 18
“You don’t have to stay, if you’d rather not,” Shannon said, her nerves twisting into tight knots.Nick tore his attention from the television and looked at her. “You want me to go?”The Tribute Tigers had won their homecoming game, and after joining the throng for an ice-cream cone at the Dairy Queen, Nick had walked her back to her room. He’d turned on the television and stared at it withoutsaying a word. That was ten minutes ago. He was brooding. She recognized it easily, as her father used to act the same way when something heavy had weighed on his mind. The trick was getting him to unload, or share the burden.“No, I don’t want you to go,” she told Nick. “Do you want to talk about it?”He stared at her, then looked back at the television. “I don’t know whatyou’re talking about.”Shannon felt a hot stinging behind her eyes. Her vision blurred. She whirled away from him and closed herself in the bathroom until she could beat back the threatening tears. He had just shut her out co
LOVE IN TEXAS Chapter 18.1
“Wade gave me a heads-up, so I lay low while they were here.”“How do you lay low in a town this size? What did you do, stay home?”He gave a wry laugh. “The first time, it was summer, so, yeah, I kept pretty close to home. But for the monument and the wedding, I had to be at school every day. We were shorthanded, and I had to spend some time at the elementary school, where Dixie’s boys go, so don’t think I wasn’t worried. But I kept out of everyone’s way. Drove instead of walked. If I had to walk, I stuck to back alleys.”Shannon shook her head. “All that trouble, and now here you are, a few weeks later.”“Huh. It’s one thing for the town to learn who I am. Most of them won’t care. But with that other group, the media and whatnot, I would have been plastered all over the place again. Just like last time.”“Just what did happen with the media? Oh—no. Don’t answer that.That’s an interview question. We’ll get to it tomorrow. Except you’ve got an appointment tomorrow.”He looked away an
LOVE IN TEXAS Chapter 18.2
For once, Shannon was at a loss for words. She didn’t know what to say to help him. He was obviously speaking from experience; platitudes would be worse than useless, they would be condescending. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.He whirled on her. “What for?” The words shot out as if fired from a gun.“I’m sorry that someone made you think you had to live up to all that. I can see some of the problems it can cause.”“When you try to tell them you’re nobody’s hero, just an ordinary man, they argue with you, or think you’re being humble or something, or they get hurt or mad because they need a hero, and they expect you to be it.”Shannon ached for the anguish he tried to disguise with anger. “Come here.”He narrowed his eyes. “Why?”“Because I like sitting next to you.”He dropped his head and heaved a sigh. “I’m being an ass, right?”“No.” She scooted back on the bed until she sat against the headboard.Then she patted the space beside her. “That’s a pretty heavy load for anyone to carry
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