by Lucy Gilmore
“I won’t feel faint.”
“That’ll certainly make things easier,” she replied without any loss of cheer. “You’re lucky to have such a nice place to do this. Normally, we’d have to take you to a track or a treadmill to get enough distance. But it’s so much prettier out here in the open air.”
“It’s all right.”
“That’s just because you’re used to it. Bubbles will like living out here. There’s so much space for her to roam.” She paused only long enough for them to turn out of view of the house. “I didn’t know you have an aunt. Is she your dad’s sister?”
“Yes.”
The monosyllabic responses might, on any other day, have shut her own flow of chatter off. But she hadn’t been kidding when she’d said it was beautiful out here. The mountain views were pretty in the city, but out here, they were a breathtaking spectacle of hazy, blue rockiness everywhere she turned. It was impossible to be surrounded by all this and feel anything but grateful, anything but alive.
“You can go faster, by the way,” she said. “It makes the most sense for you to set whatever pace you’re comfortable with. Don’t worry. I can keep up.”
He hesitated at first, an innate sense of chivalry holding him in check. But the challenge, once issued, was impossible for him to ignore. After about thirty seconds of loping along, he began to jog faster.
“I have six aunts, but I’m not really close to any of them,” Sophie said as they whizzed down a steep turn and entered the outskirts of the forest. “We’re a pretty scattered family, so we didn’t see a lot of them growing up. One of them is pretty cool though. She’s a bassist in a rock band.”
She’d thought for sure the rock band would pique Harrison’s interest, but he continued to hold out.
“My sisters, now, that’s a different story,” she said. “We’re about as close as three people can be without being physically attached to one another. I couldn’t shake them even if I wanted to.”
That finally got him. “Do you want to?”
The question surprised her—not just because Harrison was finally talking to her, but because it was the one thing no one else would think to ask. Her sisters were vibrant and fun and intelligent, and they would drop everything to help her if she needed it. They’d done that exact thing more times than Sophie could count. No one with any common sense would willingly give up such a great support system.
But… “Yeah, actually,” Sophie said. “I do.”
“Because you’re dependent on them for everything?”
She slowed, alarmed that he could have seen so much of her in such a short period of time. He noticed, of course, letting out a breath that could have been a laugh. “That first day, when we were sharing flaws—remember?” he said. “You told me you were the baby of the family and that they took care of you.”
Heat rushed to the surface of her skin. That Harrison had not only listened to what she’d said, but actually remembered spoke volumes. What he was saying, she didn’t know. But at least they were communicating for a change.
“I didn’t mean I’m literally dependent on them,” she protested. “I’m a grown woman. I can feed and dress myself. I have a stable source of income.”
“As part of their business?”
“As part of our business, yes, but it’s not like I’m contractually obligated to live at the kennel. There’s no reason why I couldn’t move out and be on my own.”
“So why don’t you?”
For some reason, his questions—and the way he kept asking them—stirred something hot inside her. Lila and Dawn had spent the bulk of their adolescence in hospital waiting rooms, enjoying only a fraction of the parental attention they were entitled to. And they’d done it without a single complaint because Sophie was their sister and they loved her. It was impossible to just cast that kind of devotion aside.
At least, it was impossible for her to throw it aside. She wasn’t putting anything past this grump.
“I don’t know,” she countered. “Why do you still live with your dad?”
He laughed—actually laughed, the raspy sound doing strange things to her already-rapid heart rate. “Fair enough.”
“Is that what you’re going to say instead of giving me an answer?”
For the longest time, she was afraid he was going to stop there. His steady breathing and the slap of their feet on the trail beneath them were the only sounds that reached her ears. But he eventually spoke, his voice surprisingly even.
“I can’t move out,” he said. “It wouldn’t be fair to leave him all alone in that house.”
And that was all there was to it. No explanation of why his dad was so attached to the farmhouse, no soul-bearing confession of the family ties that bound the two of them. Harrison couldn’t leave his father alone in that house, so he wouldn’t.
Sophie didn’t need to know more—she’d seen the rest for herself. In the few short days she’d known Harrison Parks, she’d had plenty of time to take his measure. He was the kind of man who would protect a puppy he’d known for twelve hours because the animal had been given over to his care, and that was that. The kind who would fight forest fires with everything he had, even if it meant he was putting his own health at risk every time he did it, because the job needed to be done. The kind who would stay with his dad even when it was clear he’d rather be anywhere else.
In other words, he was a good man. A really good man.
And the best part—or the worst part, depending on perspective—was that he had no idea.
“If you could leave, where would you go?” Sophie asked.
“I don’t know,” he said with something like a shrug. “I’ve never really thought about it. What about you?”
“France. Spain. Egypt. Peru. Thailand. New Zealand. Mongolia.”
“So just a few places, then.”
“I’d like to go everywhere. Or nowhere. I don’t think the destination matters so much as getting there on my own terms.”
They’d almost completed the first mile by now and were approaching a barnlike structure near the back of the field. She cast a sideways glance at Harrison to see how he was holding up. His face was hard and his expression flat, but not because of weariness. Oh, no. Never that. It’d take a lot more than a single mile to wear him out.
Unless she was very much mistaken, it was also going to take a lot more than a single conversation to demolish today’s walls.
She ran through a mental checklist of Lila’s suggestions, casting each one aside as it popped up. Religion and politics were way too serious on a gorgeous morning like this one, and she could hardly critique Harrison’s running style—the man’s form was impeccable and, frankly, a sight to behold.
Which left only Dawn and her shoulders.
From a purely technical standpoint, Sophie knew how flirtation worked. It wasn’t that difficult. A laugh and a smile, the brush of her hand on his—most men were primed to read the signs and react accordingly.
Not so with Harrison. He might have agreed to let her play with this thing between them, to lean on their mutual attraction as a way to break through his barriers, but saying it and doing it were two very different things. Especially since it appeared that she was going to have to do most of the heavy lifting.
Show off a body part like a sex goddess—just a flash, nothing more—and then start using it the way God and nature intended, Dawn had said at the diner. Men hate it when you go all functional on them.
It had sounded like strange advice at the time, but Dawn was something of an expert on the subject. Her sister was also a strong advocate of striking while the iron was hot.
The iron might not be feeling the burn, but Sophie certainly was.
The barn’s entrance was approaching, so Sophie slowed her steps. Feigning a hitch in her side, she bent at the waist. “Oh, dear,” she said. “I don’t think I stretched very well. My muscles are starting to feel really tight.”
Harrison immediately slowed his pace to match
hers. “Do you want to head back? There’s a footpath right over there—”
“No, no. You need to keep moving. You don’t want to lose your progress. I’ll just go through a quick series of stretches and catch up.”
He didn’t, as she’d halfway feared, take advantage of his freedom to take off in a mad dash away from her. He started jogging in place instead, following her orders to keep moving to a nicety.
“Where does it hurt?” he asked.
“Um. My hamstring?”
Sophie, never adept at lying—or anatomy—twisted and began a series of leg stretches that had more to do with showing off her body than physical exertion. With one hip jutting to the side, she lifted her arms above her head and stretched as far in the opposite direction as she could go.
Harrison watched her—not as a man being wooed by a sex goddess, but as a highly skilled firefighter trained in first aid.
“Uh, I hate to break it to you, but that’s not going to help your hamstring.”
Sophie dropped her arms, disappointment rendering her movements jerkier than usual. Practical advice was not the response she was going for here. “Maybe it was my deltoids?”
He released a sound halfway between a grunt and a laugh. “They’re not anywhere near your legs. Why don’t you just point to where it’s feeling tight?”
It was too late to back out now, so she turned to the side and ran a hand along the outer edge of her right thigh. Not only was it the location of the largest sheer panel on her running tights, but it was one of her favorite body parts. She might not have Lila’s tiny waist or Dawn’s great rack, but the one thing her smaller, boyish figure had going for it was a good butt.
Harrison noticed.
“Maybe we should just head back—” he began before he stopped jogging altogether.
Emboldened by his inactivity and the fact that his eyes hadn’t moved from her backside, she said, “But we’re making such good progress, Harrison. I hate to abandon everything now.”
He blinked and took a wide step back, suddenly recognizing her tactics for what they were.
“Oh no you don’t. Not now. Not like this. That’s cheating.”
A laugh bubbled to the surface. Sophie had no idea how a man could manage to look both outraged and intrigued, but that was the only way to explain Harrison’s expression right now. “How is it cheating?”
He pointed in the general direction of her ass. “Because you’re wearing.… Because you look…”
She nodded, hoping to encourage him along these promising lines. “You never said there were rules about what I could wear or how I could look. Maybe we’d better write some of them down.”
“Like hell I will. I’m not committing any of this to paper.”
Her laughter sprang free. “Are you changing your mind about this whole thing? All you have to do is say the word, Harrison, and we can get back to running. Word of a Vasquez.”
He didn’t take her up on the offer. He pointed a finger at her instead, his voice showing signs of strain. “I know what you’re trying to do. I can see right through you.”
Yes, well. That was the whole point of these pants, wasn’t it?
“And what’s that?” she asked. Her own voice was coming out none too strong. If he didn’t stop looking at her like that—like she was his tormentor, like she was his everything—she wouldn’t be able to speak at all. “What am I doing?”
He watched the movement of her tongue with agonizing intensity. “Tablecloths,” he said.
“Um.”
“Flowers.”
“What?”
“Bowls of goddamned fruit.”
“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” she asked.
“No, Sophie,” he said, his voice tight. “I’m not feeling okay. I haven’t felt okay since I woke up in that hospital bed and found my entire life turned upside down. Again.”
It was the first time he’d willingly referred to the coma that had kick-started this entire puppy project. In fact, it was the first time he’d willingly admitted that he was in anything but perfect fighting condition—that he, like everyone else on this planet, needed a little help from time to time.
It just about broke her heart.
Sophie knew better than anyone how it felt to wake up to an uncertain world, to feel like the one thing everyone took for granted—their health—was so far out of reach it might as well be the moon. She also knew the surefire way to combat it. After all, she’d learned from the best.
What this man needed more than anything else was a pair of bickering sisters. Companionship. Laughter.
“You know, now that I think about it, you’re a lot like Sleeping Beauty,” she said, the words popping out before she could stop them.
He blinked, the movement so careful and deliberate it was like watching a video in slow motion. “What did you just say?”
“You’re like Sleeping Beauty,” she repeated. “Gorgeous and grumpy, awakening after a long, deep sleep to find everything overtaken by thorns.”
Considering the decay of the barn behind them, it seemed an apt metaphor. The red paint had long since faded to a burnt pink, the roof sunken in several places. The scent of animals and hay had given way to a more general earthiness.
Just like the house, just like the man, it was a kingdom in ruins.
“That would make me the prince, you know,” she said. When he didn’t answer right away, only stared at her like she’d been taken over by body snatchers, she added, “Because I kissed you.”
That got him to snap to attention. “The devil you did. I was the one doing the kissing.”
She did her best to ignore the force of Harrison’s words—and how forcefully they set off a reaction in her body, setting her pulse thumping in ways that no amount of running could match—but it was no use. There was something so liberating about the way he handled her. Not carefully or delicately, or even like a thing to be cherished, but as a woman of courage.
As a woman of strength.
“They say the Sleeping Beauty story is a metaphor for sexual awakening,” she said, emboldened by this realization. “I wasn’t sure I bought into it at first, but it grew on me after a while. I mean, on top of that whole waking-up-from-a-kiss nonsense, she pricks her finger on a spindle. Have you ever seen a spindle? Like, a real one?”
“Where would I have seen a spindle?” he demanded. “Do you think my dad weaves textiles in his spare time?”
She giggled, unable to picture her second-favorite Parks man going anywhere near a textile. “Well, I’ll save you the trouble. It’s basically ye olde phallus.”
His lips quivered as he fought a smile—the reluctant one, the devastating one, the one she was beginning to realize had the power to change her whole life. “Okay, now you’re just making things up.”
“I’m not!” she protested. “I’m just calling it like I see it. You’re the beauty, I’m the prince, and the spindle is a literary device meant to shame women into chastity.”
“You are no prince, Sophie Vasquez.”
“How dare you? I could totally be the prince.”
“In this story?” He laughed and shook his head. “I don’t think so. Not when you’re so clearly the dragon.”
Her eyes widened in surprise, the laughter in her throat replaced by a sudden swelling of elation. No man—no person, actually—had ever looked at her and seen anything but a petite approximation of her sisters. She was a little less bright, a little less exciting, a little less strong. She didn’t have their confidence or their drive and had long since reconciled herself to a life lived in their shadows.
Until now. Until she squared off against this magnificent, quarrelsome man who looked at her and unhesitatingly drew his sword.
Because I’m so clearly the dragon.
Unable to hold herself back any longer, she launched her whole body at Harrison. She caught him off guard, a fact borne out by his heavy grunt as she hit him with the full force of her weight. He didn’t budge though.
He was too much like a rock, too much like a wall. Everywhere her body touched his was hard. He was warmer than he normally was, exertion giving him a heat that almost felt like a glow.
Which was why she didn’t pull away from it. So much of what Harrison said and did was meant to keep her at a distance, but the way his arms came up to catch her worked a number on her senses. For what felt like the first time, he was letting her in.
In was suddenly the only place she wanted to be. Before his reserve could come back up, she cast aside all of her scruples and fears and did the unthinkable.
She kissed him.
She caught him off guard with that too, her lips reaching his while they were still partly open. It was a good thing, because she might not have gone through with the rest of the kiss otherwise. There was something hugely intimidating about attacking a bear of a man with one’s tongue, even if he did look and taste like this one. Besides, he was so much softer than she’d expected.
Oh, his body remained like stone, of course, and his arms were more like a pair of manacles than anything else. Those things were good—those things were great, actually—but nothing could have prepared her for the press of his lips against hers. His mouth was gentle, his tongue, when it slid past hers, like a silken embrace.
It made her yearn to discover the other hidden parts of him, those places where he hadn’t yet turned off against the world. They were all her favorite parts of a man. Not—contrary to popular opinion—the rock-hard abs and rigid cock, but the places where pleasure could be found unexpectedly. The dip of an upper lip, right where the skin began to grow soft. The smooth curve of a well-formed buttock. Any spot where he might let his guard down long enough to admit to being ticklish.
Any part that would cause him to smile.
“Sophie, you devil.” When Harrison pulled away, the smile was fixed in place. Even though it was accompanied by a rueful laugh and a shake of his head, nothing could dim its power. “What are you doing? I thought we were supposed to be getting my heart rate up and my blood sugar down, not cavorting in the wilderness.”