Strong Heat

by Niobia Bryant

  He thought of her constantly through the day. He missed her around his home when she wasn’t there. He worshipped the apple scent of her hair from her shampoo and the familiar scent of her body from her perfume. She made him laugh. She made him think. She made him better. She made him whole.

  Letting his head rest on the seat of the sofa, he closed his eyes and reveled at how much just being in her presence made him content. It was a mad mix of exhilaration and fear all at once. Like skydiving or deep-sea fishing. Like a moving pendulum, his emotions swung back and forth until he didn’t know if he was coming or going sometimes.

  Lisha could float between roles with ease. He was still amazed that she spent her days off working beside him on the ranch, wading through cow chips as big as three of her feet, even though she had never spent a day of her life on a ranch with farm animals before meeting him. So how could he not love a woman so smart, so independent, so loyal, so protective, so strong, so supportive, so affectionate and so passionate?

  He adored her. He cherished her. He loved her.

  He dreamt of making love to her for the first time and the fact that she held on so dearly—even in the face of all of the temptation created by their passionate chemistry—was not a turn-off but a turn-on. She stood for something and he admired that inner strength because he knew she would love to have him buried deep inside her just as badly as he wanted to be there.

  He loved her.

  I love her.

  “Lisha.”

  She sat up and looked at him with sleep already in her eyes. “Huh?” she asked softly.

  Tell her. Just say it. Say I love you.

  “You ready to eat?” she asked, already moving to climb from his lap as she yawned.

  He shook his head, stopping her.

  She settled back atop his thighs and looked at him still, her eyelids drooping as she fought sleep.

  I love you, Lisha.

  He bit back the words. “You’re sleepy,” he said instead.

  She shook her head. “No, I’m not,” she lied, trying to swallow back another yawn.

  “Hold on,” he said, using the steely muscles of his body to rise as she wrapped her legs and arms around him.

  Kael carried her like that into her bedroom, laying her atop the covers in the darkness. She reached for him. “Don’t leave. It’s early,” she said, looking up at him.

  He bent to kiss her mouth. “I won’t leave,” he promised, feeling like he could mean forever.

  Lisha awakened with a start, lifting her head off the pillow. The bedroom and the rooms of the apartment were dark save for the illumination from the television still playing in the living room. Stretching, she reached out and turned on the lamp on her nightstand. She looked at the clock as she sat up in bed.

  It was just a little after ten.

  Kael must have left.

  Climbing from the bed, she left her room. In the living room she headed straight for the television to turn it off.

  “I’m watching that.”

  Lisha shrieked in fright before turning to see Kael stretched out on her sofa. With her heart still pounding, she moved over to sit on the edge of the sofa near his feet. “I thought you left,” she said, wiping sleep from her eyes.

  “I told you I wouldn’t leave,” he said, his eyes on her.

  His words kicked her regular heartbeat into another crazy pattern.

  Boom-boom-boom.

  “Do you want to stay over?” she asked, unable to keep the hope from her voice.

  “Do you want me to?” he asked.

  “Do you want to?” she countered, her pulse racing.

  Kael chuckled. “You are one stubborn woman.”

  She nodded. “We’re matched that way.”

  “I’ll stay.”

  “Good. I wanted you to,” she admitted with a smile.

  He raised his foot to lightly tickle her side.

  “Did you eat?” she asked, rising to head into the kitchen. “Because I am starving.”

  Kael grunted as he stood up. “I better eat because I’ve seen you throw down and there may be nothing left.”

  She turned on the light in the kitchen and glanced over her shoulder at him. “You’re no slow leak with a fork and plate your damn self,” she said, turning the eye under the stove on medium and doing the same with the small pot of white rice she made.

  “Especially not the way you cook,” he said, as he reached in the cabinets for plates and glasses.

  They moved around together in her small kitchen like they had done it for years. Lisha warmed up the food and fixed their plates. Kael opened the bottle of wine to pour in their glasses.

  Once they were seated at the table and eating, they didn’t bother with too many words. Both were focused on their food.

  “How is it?” she asked.

  “You know it’s good,” he said, before shoveling a forkful into his mouth.

  “Yes, I do,” she boasted.

  When they finished the meal they tidied up the kitchen together with Kael washing and Lisha drying the dishes.

  “We make a good team,” she said, leaning against the counter in her jeans and striped T-shirt.

  He walked up to her and pressed kisses to her mouth before moving past her to set the dried glasses back on the counter.

  Lisha thought he would deepen the kiss and was disappointed when he didn’t. She glanced over at his side profile. “You can sleep in my bed if you want,” she offered.

  He stopped and then glanced down at the V between her legs before looking back up at her in question.

  “Just to sleep and cuddle,” she emphasized.

  “Then no,” Kael emphasized as well.

  “Hey,” she said in protest, reaching for his face and pulling his head down from its six-foot-five height to trace his mouth with her tongue.

  “Lisha,” he moaned into her open mouth, picking her up to sit on the counter and step between her open legs.

  She swung her legs excitedly as he took control of the kiss, but then he broke it again and stood back from her. “What’s wrong?” she asked, her lips still pulsing from the pressure of his mouth.

  He pointed down at his erection running along the seam of his jeans and lying on the top of his upper thigh. “Look, baby, you’re killing me,” he admitted.

  “I want to make love to you. I want to have sex with you. I want to . . . bad,” Kael said. “So you can’t expect me to be able to lie in bed with you all night and not want to.”

  “But—”

  “The couch will be fine,” he told her, walking out of the kitchen.

  Lisha’s shoulders slumped as all of her old fears and insecurities about being a virgin resurfaced. Uh-oh, here we go.

  “Baby, you’ll get me a pillow and a blanket,” he called from the living room.

  She came to stand behind the sofa and looked down at him. “Are you sure you’re okay with not having sex? I understand that it can’t be easy for you,” she said. “It’s not even easy for me.”

  Kael got up on his knees and reached over the back of the sofa to grab her hips and pull her forward. “No, it’s not easy. It’s hard as hell. I mean right now my dick is about to poke a hole in this sofa, it’s so hard, but I respect that you want to wait.”

  She pressed her hand to the sides of his face. “But I really would like to wake up next to you, Kael.”

  “Do you want to stay a virgin?” he asked point blank.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know how hard it is to kiss you and taste you and have you taste me and touch me and never get to slide inside you?”

  Lisha opened her mouth.

  Kael held her finger to her lips to stop her words. “I can do things to you to make you forget about your virginity. I can make you so hot that you’ll beg me to make love you. I can make you feel so good that you won’t have any regrets until I’m gone.”

  Lisha gasped at the thought of it all.

  “I cannot sleep in the bed cuddled up with y
ou because I will seduce you. I will turn you on. I will make love to you,” he promised with heated eyes. “And you will love it. Trust me.”

  Lisha’s pulse raced and she bit her bottom lip. “Wow,” she said softly.

  Kael turned his face into her palm and kissed it as he shook his head in denial. “Right now I do what I have to do to get the pressure off me, but please believe that jacking my dick is not like being inside you, Lisha,” he explained. “And when we do things together and take it right to the edge I go a little crazy because I’m about to jump off that motha.”

  Lisha felt her clit pulse. She licked his lips and then blew a cool stream of air against it. “I could do the other thing,” she offered lightly before biting her bottom lip.

  “You’d wear your damn jaw out trying to do it every time you made me horny,” he told her, smiling as he pinched her chin.

  Lisha smiled and then pouted her lips. “So what are we going to do? Because I don’t want to lose my virginity, but I don’t want to lose you,” she admitted.

  “You won’t lose me.”

  She planted kisses all over his face before allowing them a long and heated kiss that deepened as they both moaned in pleasure.

  “I am so wet,” she sighed heatedly into his mouth.

  Kael grimaced and lowered his head to her shoulder. “Good night, Lisha,” he said.

  “What?” she asked innocently. “It is.”

  Releasing a long heavy breath, he lay down on the couch on his back. His erection stood up like a soldier through the flap of the boxers that could not constrain it.

  Lisha panted a bit at the sight of it. Long and hard and dark with a thick tip. She felt her pussy jump to life as she gasped.

  “The covers and the pillow, Lisha,” he reminded her, trying and failing to cover it with his hands.

  It would be so easy to give in. Just enjoy the ride. The pleasure.

  She licked her lips, surprised at the urge she felt to feel it against her tongue and lips.

  “Lisha.”

  Shifting her eyes up to him she felt dazed by the dick. “Uhm, yeah. I’ll be right back,” she said, forcing herself to walk away from the dick.

  She grabbed an extra pillow and blanket from her linen closet and brought them to him. He shoved the pillow under his head as she opened the blanket over him and the back of the sofa.

  Bending to kiss him, he turned his head. “Good God, Lisha, it just went down. Don’t wake it back up,” he said gruffly.

  She walked to her bedroom but turned at the door. “’Night, Kael,” she called over to him.

  “’Night.”

  She stepped into the room and began to undress.

  “Shut the door . . . please.”

  With the hint of a smile, she did as he asked.

  Chapter 14

  Lisha sang at the top of her lungs along with the “The Twelve Days of Christmas” song playing on the radio sitting on Kael’s counter.

  Kael grimaced as he walked into the kitchen via the mudroom. “Good thing you know how to cook because singing ain’t your thing,” he said.

  She turned down the volume on the radio as she watched him leave his boots at the door. He looked handsome in his usual garb of Wrangler jeans and plaid shirt, but she couldn’t wait to see him in the suit she convinced him to wear for dinner. “Did you get enough wood for the fireplace?” she asked, using the back of her hand to brush her bangs out of her face as she opened the oven door to check the turkey.

  He nodded. “I had a bunch down at the hunting cabin. It’s all on the back of the truck.”

  After basting the turkey and removing the oven mitts she’d purchased for him, Lisha turned the radio back up. Her face lit up as a jazzy rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” played.

  Kael frowned as he came over to inspect the contents of the four pots bubbling away on the stove.

  “Hey, that’s Ella Fitzgerald,” she explained, turning the volume up more as she reached for his hands and pulled him into the center of the kitchen to sway to the music.

  Kael gave in to the festive holiday spirit and swayed with her as the sounds of horns filled the kitchen. Lisha spun away from him and snapped her fingers in sync to the music as she worked her shoulders before spinning back to him as Ella’s voice filled the air again.

  Lisha sang along, not caring that her voice was off-key. She absolutely loved Christmas most of all. And spending the day with her family and his here in Kael’s house was perfect.

  Kael picked her up and Lisha wrapped her legs around his waist tightly and crossed her fingers behind his neck to lean back as he spun her until the song ended. With a sigh filled with happiness she tried her best to stay stable on her feet when Kael let her down. She stumbled even in her flats and Kael caught her by her hips to help keep her steady. “Merry Christmas, Kael,” she said out of breath with her face alive and bright with delight.

  He kissed her. “Merry Christmas.”

  He kissed her again. And again. And again. The fire that constantly simmered between them was stoked with each touch of their lips.

  Lisha licked her mouth before he kissed her yet again.

  “This feels so right,” Kael told her.

  “I don’t want it to end,” she admitted.

  And another kiss. Plus one more.

  Lisha pressed her fingers to her lips when he released her. They were warm and pulsing to her touch.

  “You better go get dressed,” he said. “I’ll watch the food.”

  She wondered if there would ever come a time her heart didn’t act so crazy around the man. “I’ll be right back,” she said, walking out.

  “You might need this.”

  Lisha turned. Her mouth fell open at the gold chain hanging from his finger. Dangling at the end of the chain was a diamond heart. It was so cliché, but the winter sun glistened through the windows and hit off one side of the heart, causing the diamonds to twinkle.

  Kael came across the kitchen and clasped the chain around her neck, the heart settling right at the tip of her cleavage.

  She pressed her hand against the heart. “Kael, this so nice, but you need all the money you can for the ranch. I can’t take this,” she said, reaching to undo the clasp.

  He brought his hands up to stop hers. “It’s pretty rude to turn down a gift,” he said.

  “Kael,” Lisha said. “I—”

  “Rude as hell.”

  She looked up at him, feeling overwhelmed. “Thank you,” she said, acquiescing. “I love it.”

  And I love you.

  Kael slapped her buttocks as she left the kitchen still rubbing her thumb against the diamond heart. As she walked down the long bare hall she stopped and picked up her overnight bag from by the door where she’d left it earlier that morning when she’d arrived. She was still fingering her heart when she walked into Kael’s master bedroom.

  She barely took in the huge king-size bed that dominated the room as she walked into the bathroom and stood looking at her reflection in the mirror over the sink. Her eyes locked on the heart. She loved it.

  Everything was too good. Too right.

  Lisha hated that all of the goodness of their relationship made her feel like she was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  “You ready, Lisha? Everybody’s supposed to be here in a few minutes,” Kael said, reaching into his closet for the jacket that matched the plaid pants he wore.

  “Almost,” she called back.

  He opened the box atop his dresser for his watch. “What the hell?” he said softly, looking down at the small box wrapped with red paper and a gold bow. He picked it up, turning the dangling tag over.

  “‘Merry Xmas from Lisha,’” he read.

  Kael tore the paper and opened the cardboard box to pull out the gold link ID chain nestled atop the cotton. It was inscribed.

  Strong Ranch est. 1974

  A legacy for the many generations to come

  “Aw, damn,” he said, touched b
y yet another show of confidence by her in him and his dreams.

  Kael draped it over his left wrist and clasped it securely with his right as he walked into the bathroom. He looked on as Lisha stretched her lips across her teeth as she applied lip gloss. She smiled over at him as he stood in the doorway while she tousled her hair.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “You think I’m ready?” she asked, turning to face him in the lined wide-leg red satin pants she wore with a matching shirt and a thin gold belt with several chains around her neck.

  “Are we having Christmas dinner with our families or going to a disco?” he asked, waving his hand at the plaid suit he wore with an open-collared chocolate shirt.

  “You don’t like it?” she asked, her bright eyes widening with worry.

  Kael stepped into the bathroom with her and pressed a kiss beside her mouth, not to get her gloss on him. “I love it and I love my bracelet,” he said, raising his wrist to show it to her.

  She reached out for his wrist and touched the bracelet. “Did you see the inscription?” she asked, her eyes gleeful.

  He nodded. “I did. Thank you. I really love it.”

  And you.

  “Good,” she said. “Junie helped me pick it out.”

  “Is she still coming?” he asked, walking out of the bathroom and reaching to pull Lisha behind him.

  “Yes, so it should be interesting,” she said from behind him.

  They took the stairs down together.

  “The house looks good,” he said, taking in the major furniture pieces Lisha helped him pick out, but not missing the bareness of the wall. “Not finished, but nice.”

  “The tree I picked looks good,” she told him, before rushing down the hall to the kitchen.

  “Yes, the tree I cut and dragged does look good,” he called to her.

  Knock-knock.

  “Yes, the tree that I decorated while you watched TV looks real good,” was her reply.