Breathless Descent Read Free

her slender figure, tucked under her arms. With a smaller towel, she dried her light blond hair spun with the color of snow-streaked wheat that accented equally light blue eyes brimming with mischief and challenge.
    “Now, Shay,” Sharon scolded, “don’t be giving Caleb a hard time.” Sharon chuckled and elbowed Caleb. “Better yet. Please. Feel free. Does my heart good to see you three kids together, stirring up harmless trouble.”
    Kids? Kent and Caleb were thirty-one. Shay was a mere three years younger. Hardly kids. And any jest between Shay and him was hardly harmless.
    “Both you women need to behave.” The playful reprimand came compliments of Bob White as he joined them, proudly sporting khaki shorts and a T-shirt that read Forty is the New Thirty. With his blond hair now silvery gray, he remained tall and athletic—an older, wiser version of his son.
    “Cut Caleb some slack,” Bob ordered. “He’s been getting a business started.” He kissed Sharon’s cheek and then raised a hand to Caleb. “Come ’ere, boy! Give the ol’ man a hug.”
    Another bear hug ensued—in a manly kind of way, of course—before Shay asked, “Where’s my hug?”
    Caleb’s gut clenched, thinking of how she felt in his arms…as she had the night of her eighteenth birthday. The night everything had changed. The night he’d forgotten himself and kissed her. And if not for an interruption, he might have done a whole lot more. No. No “might.” He would have. His attraction to Shay was that strong, an attraction that only seemed to age like fine wine—get richer and more irresistible. It was a hard lesson he’d learned on the few visits home that he’d dared while enlisted.
    She was in front of him now, driving him insane with her nearness. “Unless you’re afraid I’ll get you wet?” she taunted softly, her gaze sliding over his jeans and T-shirt, a contrast to everyone else’s swim trunks, shorts and various summer attire. “You aren’t exactly dressed for the pool.” She leveled him with a stare. “You do know the meaning of pool party?”
    He wanted nothing more than to dive into that pool with Shay, with nothing but swimsuits between them. Exactly why he’d dressed to avoid temptation.
    Bracing himself for the impact, he decided to take charge of this unavoidable hug and then make a run for the other side of the pool. Caleb attempted a short, one-armed hug, his beer a great excuse to avoid anything more intimate. “How’ve you been, Shay?” he asked.
    Instantly, her arms wrapped around his neck, preventing his escape. She clung to him, her soft, warm curves melting into him—a friendly embrace to anyone watching, but they both knew it was more. And damn it, it wasn’t enough. He’d longed to hold her again for so very long. He wanted to mold her closer, to inhale her, to absorb her.
    Among all the women a decade of traveling the world delivered to a Special Ops soldier like himself, none of the fast exits had left him with regret. But leaving Shay had, and often he had wondered if she were the reason why no one else had mattered. Because there was no question—she had long ago reached inside him and refused to let go.
    “I missed you, Caleb,” she said softly, near his ear.
    I missed you, too, he thought, fearing the words would sound as those spoken by a man, not a brother. And he was her brother. Brothers were forever. The minute they became more, they were like every other couple—they could crash and burn, lose what they had. And he’d lose more than her. He’d lose the only family he’d known for the past fifteen years.
    He snatched the wet towel she’d draped over his shoulder and tugged it out of her grip, stepped backward and handed it to her. “Thanks for the soggy shoulder, Shay-Shay,” he teased, reminding her of their youthful play and putting their relationship where it was meant to be—laden with sibling jest.
    “Oh, God,” she said, rolling her eyes and wringing the