Just Between Friends (O'Rourke Family 4) by Julianna Morris Page A

also stuck to him like glue, leaning into him, brushing his face with the tips of her fingers, and wiping away tiny smears of lipstick from his mouth whenever they kissed. Which was often. His body churned with sensual whiplash, and he had to keep reminding himself it was all an act. He kept trying to fix in his mind the way she’d looked the day they met, the sweet and shy and charming four-year-old, but the mental picture kept dissolving into an adult Kate, with undeniable adult curves.
    “It’s too bad Kane and Beth couldn’t come,” she said after they’d visited with the director of the children’s hospital and she’d promised to arrange for a local mime troupe to entertain the kids.
    “They’re not going anywhere for a while,” Dylan murmured. “Beth won’t leave the baby, and Kane won’t leave Beth.”
    Kate’s smile wavered for some reason, then she kissed the corner of his mouth again. His blood surged with predictable speed. “She’s very lucky.”
    “Jeez, Kate.” He took a step backward and she followed in perfect tandem. “Maybe you should be more restrained.”
    Her green eyes blinked. “But if I’m not affectionate, people will wonder if there’s something wrong with our marriage,” she said. “At least anyone who really knows me.”
    She was right.
    She was just being Kate, but that was the problem—loving, naturally affectionate Katydid, acting the way she’d always acted with anyone who’d let her. It must have been hell for her growing up in the Douglas family; they were the least demonstrative people he’d ever seen.
    Dylan glanced around the large room—feeling more trapped than ever—and saw the last person he wanted to see.
    “Damn,” he muttered.
    Kate turned the same direction and wrinkled her nose as the stately, silver-haired Richard Carter approached them. That’s all she needed. He’d asked a number of questions when she’d brought her marriage certificate into the office, watching her with his shrewd eyes. It wasn’t an experience she wanted to repeat.
    She leaned against Dylan for both warmth and comfort, and his arm slid around her waist. Richard Carter couldn’t know about their arrangement. He might suspectthe truth, but what could he do? They hadn’t broken the law and she had every intention of making her marriage real; she just needed time to convince her husband. That’s why the lawyer scared her, because he could take away her last chance to be with Dylan.
    “Buck up, Katydid. It’s going to be all right,” Dylan whispered in her ear.
    The warmth of his breath made her shiver and she looked up. He was strong and sure and everything she’d ever wanted. She forgot all about Richard Carter and her grandmother’s will with its unpleasant codicil.
    “Have I ever mentioned how great you look?” she asked.
    “You mean I clean up okay in a tux.”
    Kate smoothed the lapel of his tuxedo. “I mean you’re a great looking guy. Your brothers can’t hold a candle to you, in a tux or anything else. But you’re particularly sexy in jeans.”
    “Hah.” He grinned down at her. “You must be blind. I’m the ordinary O’Rourke. Remember?”
    “There is nothing ordinary about you,” she said. “Why do you think Tilly Haviland is so jealous of me? She knows she’ll never have anything a hundredth as good.”
    A chuckle rumbled through his chest. “I thought you were going to scratch her eyes out earlier.”
    “Not quite that bad.” She shrugged. “But dumping strawberries down that silicone cleavage would have been satisfying.”
    “Silicone?” His eyebrows shot upward.
    “You don’t actually think her bustline is real, do you?”
    Another shiver went through her as Dylan traced her collarbone, his gaze drifting lower to her own moremodest cleavage. “I wouldn’t know, I was too busy catching my breath over your dress, sweetheart. I keep wondering what keeps it…up.”
    Kate swallowed, her breasts tightening. She remembered how it felt to