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  Kelly’s Woman

  Kirstie Abbot

  At a friend’s wedding reception, Sean can’t resist the allure of the chief bridesmaid—Kate, the woman he loved and lost three years earlier. Risking his heart once again, he makes the most of the opportunity to remind her of what had once existed between them.

  Kate had loved the Royal Navy officer with all her heart. However, family circumstances had left her no other choice but to drive Sean away. Now her life is very different. When Sean, no longer serving his country, enters her life once more, she can’t turn him away—even though the bitter memory of the breakup that she instigated still stands between them.

  When Sean suggests they go away to Scotland for a few days, he’s surprised by Kate’s ready agreement. In the remote cottage their love is rekindled, but it takes a blizzard to erase the past and allow them to start finding out who they really are—together.

  Inside Scoop: Includes hints of a blossoming BDSM relationship.

  A Romantica® contemporary erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

  Kelly’s Woman

  Kirstie Abbot

  Dedication

  Linda, Liz, Julie, Alex, Charles, Gerwyn and Henry—this book is dedicated to you, in recognition of your support and in gratitude for your friendship. You had faith in me when I didn’t. You’re the best.

  It is also dedicated to my editor, Julie Naughton, without whom none of this would be possible—Julie, you’re the Fairy Godmother who made this Cinderella’s dream come true.

  Chapter One

  “Don’t you understand? I’m broken! No one can fix me! You. Can’t. Fix. Me. Now leave me alone! LEAVE ME ALONE!”

  Those words had haunted Sean Kelly every night for three years, just as the woman who’d spoken them had dominated both his dreams and his waking thoughts. And now, seeing her again, they twisted through his heart with even greater ferocity. He wouldn’t have believed it possible, but she was even more beautiful than he remembered.

  Bloody weddings. He didn’t usually attend the damn things. Too much emotion anyway and this one in particular… Stupid. Her little sister was the bride, so who else was going to be chief bridesmaid? Too bad for him that the groom was one of his best friends—it wouldn’t have been the done thing to stay away from the most important day in the life of one of his team, the men with whom he’d been to hell and back several times over.

  It was just sheer dumb luck that had saved him from the role of best man. He’d been out of the country when Jonas was recruiting for the role, with no guarantee that he’d be back in time for the ceremony—otherwise he’d have been the one forced into making small talk with the chief bridesmaid. And after the way they’d parted company the talk would have been anything but small. If luck had been on his side, it would have been nonexistent—if not, it could have been full-scale Armageddon.

  She was laughing and smiling—something she hadn’t done enough of in the year they’d spent together. Now that was intriguing—he looked at her more closely and found himself surprised to realize that the emptiness that had broken his heart had gone from her eyes.

  He flexed his shoulder, felt the nag of the almost-healed injury. Either he was getting slower or the bullets were getting faster. So much for the glamour and excitement of being a special advisor to Her Majesty’s Government. He was getting older and he knew it—perhaps it was time to start leaving the field assignments for the younger guys and concentrate on dealing with the suits in Whitehall.

  Bloody wonderful. Save me the pipe and slippers, just fucking shoot me now.

  Sean took another sip of whiskey, savoring the smooth, spicy flavor. Apart from that fiery spark of eye contact in the church, he’d steered well clear of the love of his life for the duration of the reception until this point and his sensible head, the one on his shoulders, maintained that it was safest to keep it that way.

  The head with which he tended to do his thinking around Kate was inclined to disagree. He shifted on the barstool, trying to ease the growing discomfort at the top of his thighs. He closed his eyes, replaying that moment in the church when their eyes met. During the ceremony, with her concentration on the bride and groom, she’d obviously never noticed him among the plethora of dark suits in the pews on the groom’s side—so when she’d caught sight of him as the wedding party returned down the aisle, the shock had been all too evident in her pale, beautiful face. It was a shock to him too and he’d known she’d be there.

  Why the hell was he putting himself through this torture? It wasn’t as if the bride and groom were oblivious to the history he shared with Kate—he could have talked himself out of attending the wedding eventually, but the truth of it was he’d really wanted to see her again, to find out if she’d moved on from their relationship, found someone she could love enough to lower her defenses the way she hadn’t with him.

  Sad bastard that he was, that was it. He hadn’t moved on because he couldn’t move on…because he’d loved her from the moment he’d looked up and seen her in the pub and he’d go to his grave loving her. So he’d waited for this day, told himself that he wouldn’t care if she turned up with a significant other, and had spent the last couple of hours trying to work out, from her movements round the guests, if such a beast existed.

  Sean. Here.

  Back when Jonas made his decision, Kate Travers had sighed in silent relief when she’d found out that he wasn’t going to be the best man at her sister’s wedding. It was too much to hope for that he wouldn’t be there at all.

  She stole another glance in his direction. He looked older and not just by the three years since she’d last seen him—since they’d parted company with her screaming at him to leave her alone. In spite of that, though, he was still the most attractive, charismatic man she’d ever met and just looking at him was enough to get her heart racing again—and remind her that she was a woman.

  Commander Sean Kelly, RN. The image of him in uniform popped into her mind, from the one time she’d gone to meet his ship—he’d looked so handsome and he’d been so happy to see her there, but his reaction upon seeing her in the church had been vastly different. As she’d followed the happy couple back down the aisle, her eyes had meshed with his for a nanosecond and what had been blatantly obvious was the sudden flare of strong emotion at seeing her again after all this time. It didn’t take a genius to work out that that emotion was nothing good. It couldn’t be.

  After the unexpected encounter, Kate had managed to regain her composure by the time the wedding party emerged from the church. She’d concentrated on following the photographer’s instructions, there and in the grounds at the hotel, and through it all, she’d also managed to avoid being anywhere in the vicinity of Sean Kelly.

  During the wedding breakfast, she’d been part of the top table, of course, while Sean had been some distance away, at a table that included members of his SBS team and their partners. She told herself that she wasn’t interested, that it didn’t matter that he seemed to be the only one without a companion—it wasn’t any of her business. Yet her eyes kept drifting toward him, drawn by those bold, Celtic cheekbones and the look of an ancient mythical warrior.

  In the end, she’d bitten the bullet and asked her sister—only to be told that Sean had come to the wedding without a plus-one. What she found strange, though, was that neither Jilly nor Jonas had seen fit to warn her that Sean was expected to attend after all.

  After the formality of the meal, she’d mingled with the guests, with the family and friends who had come to see Jilly marry Jonas Mitchell, a former member of Sean’s team. She’d done her share of chatting and smiling and dancing and now she just wanted a few minutes to herself at the empty table to one side of the hotel ballroom where the wedding reception was taking place.<
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  Her mind a million miles and a million lifetimes away, Kate was staring blankly at a spot on the carpet about four feet in front of her when someone walked into her field of vision. The black shoes had been polished to within an inch of their lives and the creases in the jet-black trousers were sharper than a Katana blade. She didn’t need to hear the voice to know to whom the shoes and creases belonged.

  “Dance with me.”

  She looked at the hand that appeared in front of her, refusing point-blank to raise her line of sight to look at its owner. “Is that an invitation or an order, Commander Kelly?”

  “An invitation—but I’m prepared to make it an order if I have to.”

  The hand wasn’t going to go away. She told her own hand to ignore it but her hand stubbornly refused to cooperate. With a curious sense of detachment, she watched it take his hand, and then he led her onto the dance floor.

  It just had to be something slow, didn’t it? He pulled her into his body, the heat of his hand at the small of her back far more intimate than if he’d blatantly aimed lower. His other hand curled around hers and pinned it against the hard wall of his chest. Held so close, she had no choice but to curve her left hand around the back of his neck, the cool silk of black hair teasing her fingers.

  Thank God for the bodice of the bridesmaid’s dress—the rigid corset-like structure would prevent Sean from becoming acquainted with the fact that her nipples were already responding to his strong, muscular body.

  Up close she could see the fine lines that hadn’t been on his face three years earlier and the hint of silver shining in the raven’s-wing black. She found herself wondering if he was still a commander, or if he’d achieved his goal of making captain.

  It was almost as if he’d read her mind.

  “I resigned my commission two years ago, darlin’,” he murmured, his breath warm against her cheek. “It’s just Sean now—or ‘selfish bastard’, if you prefer.”

  Kate closed her eyes at the memory of calling him that in the arguments that had grown increasingly frequent toward the end of their relationship. “If you’re no longer an officer, you can’t issue orders.”

  “And around you I was never a gentleman either.”

  But he had been, she remembered. She’d been introduced to him not long after her little sister had first met Jonas. Jilly had dragged her to the pub and there he was, one of the Special Boat Service team. Except he wasn’t actually one of the team—he was its leader. She could have been drawn to any of them, but no, it had to be Sean Kelly…drop-dead gorgeous, a body to die for—the epitome of tall, dark and handsome. A few years older than her, born in Scotland to Irish parents, educated in England and an officer in the Royal Navy.

  The instant attraction had been mutual—he’d maneuvered her into sitting next to him and for the rest of the evening, the only times he hadn’t held her hand—mostly anchored to a muscular thigh—had been when he went to the bar for drinks. At the end of the evening, he’d escorted her home and he’d been on her doorstep at eight a.m. the next day, flowers in hand, asking her to spend the day with him.

  “Be careful, darlin’, or I’ll be thinkin’ that’s a smile that’s teasin’ your sweet lips.”

  Kate cringed at the exaggerated accent. “Drop the pound-store Paddy act, Sean, it doesn’t suit you.”

  More to the point, she’d only ever heard a trace of his Irish roots in the endearments he used when he was making love to her and even then, it was a soft, lilting hint of a brogue that beguiled the senses. And making love with Sean was the last thing she needed to remember right now, held hard against a body that had lost none of its impressive strength and muscularity.

  Thank God he couldn’t see her face. She was sure the memories would be reflected in her eyes, of his body, long-limbed, battle-scarred, covering hers, his hands and mouth working their incredible magic, teasing her with orgasm after orgasm before he took her, made her his with every deep, impassioned thrust of his cock.

  The sex had always been mind-blowing—it was the emotional entanglement that had sent her into hiding. It hadn’t been long after they met that Sean had declared his feelings and clearly believed that she felt the same way about him.

  He hadn’t been wrong…but she couldn’t tell him that. She’d once told another man she loved him, given him the power to hurt her and he had—he’d just walked away, crushing pieces of her shattered heart under his feet as he went.

  As if that weren’t enough, Kate also managed to convince herself that Sean couldn’t possibly love her—that he loved the person he thought she was. For years, Kate had hidden her real self from everyone, pushed aside her own hopes and dreams, tried to be whatever other people wanted her to be, to the point where she no longer even knew if the real Kate Travers still existed. And even if she did exist, Sean probably wouldn’t even like her.

  The more she’d thought about it, the more convinced she’d become that he wouldn’t. On top of that, she was also determined not to drag Sean into the heart-breaking reality of her home life, to reveal to him the reason why she could never spend the whole night with him, or do anything spontaneous.

  As time went on, she became more defensive and the more defensive she became the more determined Sean had grown in his battle to get her to lower those defenses—until she’d broken down in front of him and screamed at him to leave her alone.

  And now three years later, it was back to square one—she was in Sean’s arms again and her treacherous body wanted it never to end.

  “When you’re ready to go, I’ll escort you up to your room.”

  “What?” Absorbed in her thoughts and memories, Kate wasn’t sure she’d heard him right.

  “Unless you’ve changed drastically in the last three years, you won’t last the night out. I remember we always ended up leaving the party before I got to slow-dance with you. When you’re ready to go back to your room, I’ll take you.”

  “And then what?” Kate tensed, waiting for the answer.

  “I’ll kiss you goodnight and wait another three years to see you again. I wasn’t the one who ended things between us, Kate—remember that.”

  * * * * *

  Sean sipped what he swore was going to be his last whiskey of the evening—Irish, in deference to his heritage, rather than Scotch from his place of birth. His body was still humming from the dance he’d shared with Kate—his Kate. From where he sat, he could see the entire ballroom, his dark-brown eyes sweeping over the guests all still having a great time—and then his gaze returned to the only one who interested him.

  Shit, but she’d felt good in his arms. It had been as if the last three years never existed. He’d watched her go to her sister and new brother-in-law—there was something about her body language that indicated her intention to make her excuses and leave without telling him, much as he’d anticipated. He checked his pants pocket for the scrap of paper, snatched up his suit jacket and was just about shrugged into it when he caught up with Kate at the entrance to the ballroom, one arm automatically finding a home at her waist. She shot him a look.

  “What are you doing, Kelly?”

  “I told you—I’m escorting you to your room. It’s 358, right?”

  The short, indignant sound was almost inaudible. “Even I can’t get lost in a hotel, Sean. Elevator up to the third floor, turn right, go to the end of the corridor, turn left and it’s the fifth door on the right. I don’t need a compass and I don’t need an overgrown Boy Scout to show me the way. If all else fails, they have signs and I can read.”

  Yeah, she could read all right. She’d read him like a book and ducked and dived for the whole of the twelve months they’d been together, always keeping him at arm’s length so that he couldn’t get a handle on what made her tick, right up until the end, when she’d crumpled in front of him and told him to get out of her life.

  He’d gone, thinking that she just needed a little time to catch her breath, that perhaps he was rushing her toward something serious a
little too quickly. The days became weeks became months and the phone call never came. Eventually he’d realized that she meant it, though he’d never come to accept it—and never would. He’d fallen for her on sight and knew with an unshakeable certainty that they were meant to be together.

  That she hadn’t felt the same, or so she’d claimed, had left Sean reeling—so much so that he’d buried himself in work, especially after resigning his commission to set up his own consultancy. Work had flooded in and he’d found himself and the former servicemen he employed—initially, Jonas and the rest of his old team from the SBS, followed by other former members of all the branches of the armed forces—to be in demand as advisers to the Ministry of Defence, at first specializing in the field of maritime security, but then broadening the scope of their work as the consultancy’s skills base increased in depth and breadth.

  Although work had left him too exhausted to do anything but sleep when he wasn’t on the job, it hadn’t kept his thoughts away from Kate or his memories away from the last words she’d said to him.

  And now she was standing beside him in the elevator and the pain of losing her had come roaring back to shred his heart all over again. At least she wasn’t wearing any rings, nor did she appear to have a partner for this shindig. Still, it didn’t do to assume.

  “Where’s your boyfriend, Kate? Couldn’t he make it?”

  He was expecting the sharp look. “On a fishing trip, Sean? What do you want me to say? That there hasn’t been anyone since you?”

  The elevator doors opened. Sean followed his woman out into the corridor, falling into step beside her and putting a protective arm around her waist again. “Has there been, Kate?”

  They reached her room. She fitted the keycard into the slot and opened the door, turning to face him on the threshold, at the same time effectively barring the way into her room.