by SJ McCoy
“What’s the matter?” she patted the sofa beside her, gesturing for him to come sit with her.
He hesitated, but couldn’t resist. He’d tried to stay away from too much physical contact with her. Not because he didn’t want it, but because he did, and maybe a little too much. At least, his body did. His mind, on the other hand, was in all kinds of turmoil over what getting physical with her might mean. He edged himself onto the sofa beside her with a feeling that he was about to find out exactly what it might mean. “Nothing’s the matter.” He took a sip of his wine. “Nothing except the fact that we aren’t going to get to know each other better, are we?”
She leaned against him and he had to draw in a deep breath as his body reacted to the closeness of her. “I was hoping that we were about to?”
He brushed her hair away from her face, more aware than ever of just how beautiful she was. “I’d like to. Maybe I should have said we’re not going to know each other for long. We don’t have time to get to know all of each other’s little quirks and ways, do we? We have a week, and then all we’ll have is goodbye.”
She nodded. “Unless we think of something else.”
He closed his eyes for a moment. “Part of me wants to be able to think of something else.”
“But part of you doesn’t?”
He nodded. He had to be honest with her. “Yeah. I think one of the reasons I’ve been able to do this with you is knowing that there’s a definite end. You’re not part of my life and …” Now he came to say the words he didn’t like them, but he knew they had to be true. “… and you’re not going to be. That’s why I can talk to you the way I have.” He brushed his fingers through her hair and tilted her head back. Her plump, pink lips were begging him to kiss them. “It’s the only reason that I’m going to be able to …”
She reached her arms up around his neck and pulled his head down to her. She kissed him hungrily, her tongue darting into his mouth, her body pressing against him. inviting him to explore her. He ran his hand down her back and closed it around her ass. She had one hell of a body! Eventually she broke away and looked up into his eyes, her breath coming low and shallow. “The reason you’re going to be able to make love to me?”
He nodded and claimed her mouth again.
Chapter Fifteen
Hope pulled Chance down on the sofa beside her. This hadn’t been her plan when she’d asked him to come back here and drink wine with her, but now that it was happening, she didn’t want it to stop. She’d almost talked herself into believing that he didn’t want her, not physically, not as a woman. She knew he was still dealing with grief and loss, but the pull between the two of them was undeniable. He’d just admitted to her that the only reason he was going to be able to sleep with her was because she wasn’t going to be a part of his life. That made her sad, but it also made her determined to make the most of the time they did have together. If all she was going to be for him was a catalyst—someone who helped him move forward with the rest of his life—then she’d have to live with that, but she’d live with it once she was back home in LA. For now, she was part of his life. For now, he was the most important part of hers.
They slid down on the sofa until they were lying face to face. His hands roved over her as he kissed her. She untangled hers from his hair and allowed them to wander over him. She touched his broad shoulders and ran her fingers down over his muscular chest. His hands closed around her ass and pulled her closer against him, making her gasp as his erection pushed into her belly. His tongue was mating with hers; she’d never been kissed like that in her life. He was claiming her with his mouth—except he wasn’t really claiming her, that was just wishful thinking on her part. Still, she could dream. She kissed him back with all that she was and started to unbuckle his belt.
His fingers found their way inside her shirt, his roughened skin felt so wrong against her, and yet so right at the same time. She shouldn’t be thinking about Drew right now, and certainly shouldn’t be comparing, but compared to Drew’s soft manicured hands, Chance’s felt like the hands of a real man—her man, cried a little voice in her head, except he wasn’t hers and wouldn’t ever be.
She moaned as his fingers found her breast and closed around her nipple. She struggled frantically with his zipper, wanting to get him out of his clothes. He broke away from the kiss and smiled. “What’s the hurry?” he breathed.
She chuckled. “We only have a week.”
He chuckled with her, a low deep sound that rumbled up through his chest. “Well, in that case …” He flipped her on her back and in what seemed like no time at all, she was naked, and so was he. She drew in a deep breath at the sight of him. He was all hard muscle, but he was no gym rat. His was a body earned from hard work, out on the open range. She reached up and ran her fingers over a tattoo that covered his right shoulder, running down his arm and over onto his chest. He seemed to flinch under her touch and she gave him a questioning look. He shook his head slightly, and she understood that the tattoo, like so many things about him, was going to remain outside the scope of what she was allowed to know.
He cupped her cheek in his hand and looked down into her eyes. “If I was capable somehow, of letting someone know me, letting someone love me, and if I was capable of loving them back, that someone would be you.” His eyes that were normally such a light blue looked almost gray, they were so full of emotion, full of what looked like longing.
She swallowed. She wished with all her heart that he was capable, but he’d been honest with her. He wasn’t, and he probably never would be. “Let me love you, and love me back. We can love each other with our bodies, even if we can’t have all the rest.”
He nodded and covered her body with his own. He felt so good, so right lying there with her. She had to stop letting herself get carried away. He was sharing all he was capable of sharing. She looped her arms up around his neck and moved herself underneath him. Shudders ran through her whole body as he nipped at her neck. She bit into his shoulder as he spread her legs with his knees and his hot, hard shaft pushed against her. He looked down into her eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He thrust his hips and she moaned as he entered her. He felt as though he was made to fit just her. Their bodies molded together as they moved in time. He was slow and gentle at first, carrying her slowly but surely toward the edge of the known world. They moved together as if slow dancing their way through mounting pleasure. Just as she began to lose her grip on solid reality, he picked up the pace, his hips thrusting wildly. She moved with him, receiving every thrust, taking him deeper and deeper and closing around him. She clung to him as she felt him stiffen, knowing that they were about to take each other hurtling over the precipice. His release triggered hers, wave after wave of pleasure crashed through her body, lifting her up, carrying her away. She clung to him, her arms and legs wrapped tightly around him, her inner muscles drawing him ever deeper until eventually they lay still, spent.
He rested his head on her shoulder, breathing heavily. She lay with her eyes closed, limbs still wrapped around him, hoping they could stay this way for a while, not wanting the moment to end—not wanting to discover what his reaction was going to be. She wasn’t stupid, great as that had just been, she was fearful, to say the least, about what he might do next. After sharing his story with her last night, he’d gotten away from her as fast as he could. She was dreading that after sharing his body with her, he might be about to do the same thing. She didn’t think she’d be able to deal with that so easily.
Eventually, he lifted his head and looked down into her eyes. “Damn!”
She smiled. “That’s what I thought, too.”
He smiled and sat up, pulling her with him so she sat with her head against his shoulder. They didn’t speak for a few minutes and she started to wonder whether he was working on his excuses.
He turned to look into her eyes, but still he didn’t speak.
She couldn’t stand it any longer. “Are you going to run out on
me now?”
His eyes widened in surprise. “Do you want me to? Is that what you’re waiting for?”
“It’s what I’m waiting for, but not because I want it. It’s the last thing I want, but I’m afraid it’s what you need.”
He smiled and slid his arm around her shoulders. “I’m not going to lie to you, honey. I thought that would be what I needed, but it’s not. What I need right now is to be here with you, be as close to you as we can be. You just blew my mind and I want us to stay as close as we just were.”
A big smile broke out on her face. “You mean it?”
“I mean it. You already know I don’t say things just to be nice.”
She nodded. Now she knew he wasn’t itching to get away from her, she could relax. She didn’t need words, didn’t need to talk. Like Chance, she just wanted to be together, be as close as they could be and treasure the moment.
~ ~ ~
They sat that way for a long time. Chance rested his arm around her shoulders. He was trying not to think. Once his brain kicked in again, he didn’t know what kind of tricks it might play on him. For now, he was enjoying just being. He felt good. Hope felt good nestled against him. She was warm and soft against him, but she felt strong and reassuring somehow. He’d made love to her, not just had sex with her. In his mind, there was a big difference. He’d had a lot of sex, but he’d never made love to a woman before—only to a girl, Chloe. He closed his eyes; there went his mind reasserting its authority. It wanted answers. It wanted to know how he could have just done that, if he still loved Chloe—and how could he ever not love Chloe?
Hope looked up at him; she must have felt him tense.
He braced himself for the questions. He didn’t know how he’d be able to answer them. He couldn’t answer them for himself and to answer them for her would only feel like betraying Chloe further.
To his relief, the questions didn’t come. Hope simply smiled and rested her head back down on his shoulder. He relaxed a little, grateful that she must understand somehow. He frowned as a thought struck him—maybe she didn’t understand, maybe she didn’t need to. Maybe to her it had just been sex? She was the one who’d suggested that they have a no-strings arrangement for the time they were here. Maybe he was making something out of nothing. He looked down at her. She was so damned beautiful, it made his heart clench. How fucked up was he? He didn’t know what hurt him more—the thought that she cared and understood him and he couldn’t just let himself be with her, or the thought that she didn’t even care enough for it to matter to her.
She turned and met his gaze. “I wish you were capable.”
He raised an eyebrow, not following what she meant.
“What you said before, about if you were capable of letting someone know you.” She stopped and nodded slowly. “Of letting someone love you.”
He closed his eyes. Part of him wished so hard that he was capable and that that someone could be her. “Me too,” was all he allowed himself to say. Part of him wanted to talk about it, to explore the possibility. But a part of him didn’t want to go anywhere the hell near that conversation. He got to his feet, wishing he was less of a coward, but he wasn’t.
Her big blue eyes followed him as he gathered up his clothes. “Do you need to go?”
He’d been intending to, but the look on her face, the way she asked, made him want to stay. She wasn’t about to try to change his mind; he knew it. She was only trying to understand him and how he was feeling. He shook his head. “Only to the bathroom to freshen up.”
She smiled. “Okay.”
He took his time in the bathroom. He needed a few minutes with himself before he faced her again. Well, that wasn’t fair, there was nothing about her that needed facing. What he needed to figure out was how to face his own feelings when he was around her.
When he finally came out, she was hobbling around in the kitchen. “Are you hungry?” she asked. “I thought I could fix us something.”
“I can do it, you should be resting your ankle, you’ve been on it too much today already.”
She smiled. “I’m fine, honestly. I heal quickly and I’m tired of sitting around all the time. Plus, I’d like to make something for you for a change. You’ve pretty much been my caretaker since we met, and that doesn’t sit well with me. I need to shift the balance a bit, if that’s okay with you?”
He nodded. It was more than okay. He enjoyed being able to take care of her, but he didn’t need a woman who needed him to do for her. What the hell was he thinking? He didn’t need a woman at all, and even if he did, even if they both wanted it to be, it wouldn’t be her. He needed to get a grip. He needed to remember that this was just a … a what? What the hell was he playing at here? Was it an experiment, a test to see if he was capable of feeling something for a woman? Was it just a simple fling, two people making the most of each other’s company and bodies while they were on vacation? Whatever it was, it wasn’t the beginning of a relationship between the two of them. It couldn’t be, for any number of reasons.
She was watching him, no doubt wondering what was going on in his head. “Do you like taco salad?”
He smiled. She was dealing with everyday realities and wondering what they were going to eat, while he was trying to figure out the emotional meaning of everything going on between them. Since when had he become the woman in this scenario? “Yeah, that sounds great. What can I do to help?”
“You can pour us another glass of wine, if you like. Other than that, just pull up a seat and keep me company.”
Once he’d poured the wine, he perched on one of the stools at the countertop and watched her work. She was neat and efficient, chopping the tomatoes precisely, cleaning up after each thing she did. “I take it you like to cook?”
She looked up with a smile. “I do. People laugh at me, but to me it’s kind of an escape. It helps me unwind. My mind has to focus on the task at hand, there’s an order to everything.” She shrugged. “I think it keeps one part of my brain occupied enough, that the busy part can shut down. If that makes any sense at all?”
“It does. I never thought about cooking as a way to do that, but I know the concept. I use it all the time.”
“You do? What do you keep yourself busy with?”
“The cattle, the horses. There are a million and one jobs that always need doing around the ranch, they don’t need all your attention, but they take up enough of it to let you shut down.”
“Do you enjoy it?”
Chance smiled. “I love it. It’s funny, when Dave first took me out there, I didn’t know one end of a cow from another, but it’s become my life. At first, I wanted to learn everything I could as fast as I could. I wanted to show Dave that he hadn’t made a mistake putting his trust in me, and I wanted to repay him for everything he’d done for me. The only way I knew how to do that was to work my ass off. Somewhere along the way, and it was in the first year I was there, that life became a part of me. I wasn’t doing it for any outside purpose anymore. I was doing it because it was what I did, it was who I’d become. Who I still am.” He looked up at her, wondering for the first time what a woman like her, a business woman, a former model might think of a guy like him. He was hardly a suitable match for her, was he?
She spoke as if she’d heard his question and wanted to answer it. “I told you I grew up there. I always thought the ranchers, the cowboys were the noblest of men.” She smiled. “There’s something so amazing to me about being able to manage the land and the animals. I don’t know, it seems to me that that life has more meaning to it, it’s more real somehow. The rest of us go about our little lives, doing whatever little jobs we’ve made up to keep ourselves busy.”
Chance raised an eyebrow at her.
She laughed. “I mean, come on. Look at me, a model? How real is that? People pay you lots of money to take photographs of you that they can then use to help sell things, things like soft drinks and clothes and face creams. How real is that? How useful is it to actually living a
real life?”
Chance shrugged. He could see her point, but he didn’t see how rearing cattle and driving them from one pasture to another was any more real.
“I suppose what I mean is that you’re actually out there doing something. You’re raising animals, and you’re out in the real world. I still love Montana. I love the mountains and the rivers and the big sky. To me, that place is so much more real than the city, especially LA.”
Chance nodded, now that he could understand. “When was the last time you visited?”
She looked up at the ceiling as she considered it. “It must be three years ago now. My cousin, Oscar, held a birthday party at his house.”
“You said he’s one of Johnny’s sons?”
She nodded. “That’s right.”
“And he has a house there? I’ve never even heard of him before.”
Hope laughed. “He hardly ever goes back. That party was probably the last time he was there, too. He’s a … I’m not sure how to describe him. I used to call him a wild child, but he’s a bit old for that now. Playboy seems such an outdated and not very nice term. He’s brilliant. Perhaps a little too brilliant, he’s always seeking a new challenge, pushing the limits. He likes to party.”
Chance nodded. Oscar didn’t sound like his kind of guy.
“Anyway, other than that party, I haven’t been there in over ten years.”
“But you say you still love it, why don’t you go?”
Her face clouded over. “There are too many memories. It’s okay to go through on a whirlwind weekend, but it’s painful to spend any time there.”
Chance sucked in a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I feel pretty selfish now. I’ve gone on and on to you about my past and my pain. I never asked about yours; I was too focused on myself. Do you want to talk about it?”
She shook her head and turned away from him, back to the oven. “It’s not the same for me. It’s not something that affects me in my life anymore. It’s over, done with. It’s not like you and Chloe. I don’t think about it, and I don’t have to if I don’t go back there.”