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“What border?”

“The International Border of Awkwardness.”

She laughed as she turned on her side, facing him, while lying to herself that she hadn’t just cut the distance between them by a few inches. “I wasn’t aware that border existed.”

Dean shifted until he was also on his side, looking at her. “Oh, it definitely does.”

Vivian stared at him for a long, long time, considering what she hoped would—what she wanted to—come next.

“Permission granted to cross the border,” she whispered.

Dean froze, his brows furrowed, and she got the sense he was trying to decide if he’d heard her correctly.

“Viv—” he started.

“Cross the border,” she interjected.

Dean stared at her one heartbeat, two, three, and then…

He reached out, grasping the back of her neck, erasing every single inch that separated them, as he kissed her.

Chapter Three

If Dean had been thinking with the right head, he would have politely found a way to tell Vivian no. Or at the very least, spent a few minutes talking to her about her request, before grabbing hold of her like she was the last life jacket on a sinking ship.

And Vivian wasn’t helping him pull himself together, because there wasn’t a damn thing shy or hesitant about the way she was kissing him back.

He’d spent the entire night trying to remind himself that this was Vivian, Victor’s much adored little sister. A widow still grieving for the love of her life. A caring, attentive single mother.

Vivian Kelly wasn’t the type of woman a man picked up in a bar and simply fucked. She was the kind of woman a man dated and wooed slowly, the type who deserved romance and flowers and goddamn poetry.

Dean was no poet.

Hell, at the moment, he was nothing but helpless. Completely and utterly helpless to pull away, to stop kissing her, to resist the need to…

He shifted until he was looming over her, caging her beneath him. His hands drifted under the hem of her pajama top, seeking out the bare skin of her midriff.

Vivian moaned, the deep sound only encouraging him to continue his explorations. She huffed out a quick burst of air when his fingers tickled her stomach, but it wasn’t enough to push them apart.

He deepened the kiss, stealing a taste of the tantalizing blend of minty toothpaste and the red wine she’d drunk at dinner, their tongues dancing together.

His hand slid slowly upward. She’d kept her bra on, something he tried not to notice when she’d stepped out of the bathroom earlier. Obviously, she’d been opting for modesty, or perhaps she’d been trying to convince herself that behaving was in their best interest.

If so, she hadn’t been any more successful than he had. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have issued that invitation.

God. He still couldn’t believe she’d been the one to initiate this. He’d been lying on his back, staring at the ceiling, determined to prove that he was stronger than his lust.

Ha fucking ha.

Dean cupped Vivian’s breasts, the lacy bra not much of a deterrent. Her tits were perfection. Big and full and definitely more than a mouthful. Not that he didn’t intend to give it the old college try. The idea of sucking those tight nipples of hers into his mouth, of spending hours worshipping her breasts, appealed greatly.

Vivian was systematically destroying his powers of resistance. Every time she moaned or purred or arched her back, forcing more of her tits into his hands, he lost sight of no.

He should say it, should list all those reasons he’d been compiling since dinner about why this was a bad idea. Truth was, he’d compiled a pretty decent list.

Dean wasn’t looking for a relationship. At forty-four, he’d long ago accepted that marriage wasn’t in the cards for him. For one thing, he was wholly committed to his career, determined to prove himself as a head coach after so many years playing second fiddle as a mere assistant in Vancouver.

On top of that, his dating track record basically proved he was a bad risk. His longest relationship—if he could call it that—had been the whopping thirteen months he’d spent with a flight attendant, Janine. And the only reason that lasted as long as it did was because their time together had been severely limited by their jobs. She was on the road as much as he was, which had made the commitment easy and untested…until they’d decided to take a long weekend trip to Olympic National Park.