He knew he was going to explode. Just lose it, right then, without having felt the ultimate, longed-for, dreamed-about heat of her body surrounding him.
But somehow, he held on. Held out.
And after a long, wet kiss and numberless glorious and almost unbearable slow strokes with her clever hand, she finally lowered the condom between them, positioned it and rolled it carefully down over him.
He knew then that he would make it. He could hold out long enough to be inside her at last.
“Lizzie.” He whispered her name.
She opened her eyes and met his gaze. She looked dazed, gone, lost in this impossible moment. She looked like he felt.
He smiled. And she responded with a slight lifting at the corners of her red, wet mouth.
“Now?” he asked.
She nodded. And she held his gaze as she wrapped her legs around him and guided him home.
He sank into her with a low groan. She welcomed him, lifting herself, opening.
Nothing like it. Ever. In bed with Lizzie, her slim arms and her long legs around him.
He gave it up to her. He buried his face in the curve of her sweet-scented throat. He rocked his hips against her in a slow, perfect glide.
She went with him. She took his every thrust and gave it back to him. She was like no other woman he had ever known.
She was all the good things, the strong things, the real things.
She was everything.
And more.
Later, he kissed every bruise on her body, lingering over the really big, angry-looking one at the base of her spine.
Then they got up and went upstairs to his rooms—and the master bath, where the jetted tub was big enough for two and then some. They soaked for a while.
And they made love again.
And then, around eight-thirty, they both decided they were starving. He gave her a flannel shirt to wear and he pulled on some old sweats. They went down to the kitchen where they ate leftover lasagna.
They talked a little, sitting at the kitchen table. They agreed that they would just enjoy these last days together, really be together in every way.
There would be no worrying about the future.
He still felt a little guilty, though. Lizzie was his friend. He knew her goals included a good marriage and eventually babies. He was not going to be the guy who put a ring on her finger.
He admitted, “I really feel like I’m taking advantage of you.”
And Lizzie threw back her head and laughed. “No, you are not. You are showing me how to live in the now and I plan to love every moment of it. So shut up and stop trying to be noble.”
He felt vaguely offended. “Trying? I’m only trying?”
“Well, if you were really going to be noble, you wouldn’t have let me seduce you today.”
He found that totally unfair. “Lizzie, you came out into the kitchen, all pink and sweet from a bath, with your hair curling and wild-looking just the way I know you know I like it. You were wearing only a towel.”
“Yes, I was, wasn’t I?” She looked downright proud of herself.
“And then you dropped the towel.”
“You liked that, did you?”
“Lizzie, I’m only a man.”
“Yes, you are.” She raised her water glass. “And a very good man, I must say. A wonderful man.”
He grunted. “How can I get annoyed with you when you call me wonderful?”
“You can’t.” She set her glass down. “Let it be, Ethan. It is what it is. Let’s enjoy the time we have together.”
It was good advice. Great advice.
So why couldn’t he shake the feeling that in the end, when it was over, she wasn’t going to just give it up and walk away? Why couldn’t he shake the feeling that she wanted more from him than to be her lover for the next eleven days, that she wanted more than he had it in him to give?
She shoved back her chair and started unbuttoning the shirt she’d borrowed from him. “Ethan.” Slowly, she peeled the shirt wide. He saw her pretty breasts and her soft belly and that little patch of curly, tempting hair down low.
“That’s not fair,” he said darkly.
“Stop thinking. Enjoy.” She shrugged the shirt off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor.
He swore. And then he got up and went around the table and took her in his arms.
They were still in bed the next morning when Bonnie Drake called. Lizzie lay back on the pillow next to Ethan and listened to the Realtor tell her that Aubert Pelletier had accepted her offer.
Lizzie’s mind started spinning. It was happening! It was real. She owned a bakery!
Bonnie said something else about the inspections and all they had to get done before the closing on July fifth. As if Lizzie could think of anything else right that moment but the one, shining fact that her cherished dream was finally coming true.
She thanked Bonnie politely.
“I’ll need your earnest-money check right away,” Bonnie reminded her. Earnest money was a good-faith deposit on her down payment.
“Of course,” Lizzie said. “I’ll bring it by. Um, say, one this afternoon?”
“That will work. I’ll be here at the office then.”
She thanked Bonnie again. They said goodbye. Lizzie turned off the phone and, staring dazedly at the ceiling, reached out and dropped it on the nightstand.
“Well?” Ethan rose on an elbow and leaned over her. His hair was rumpled and his eyes were lazy. His bare chest and shoulders were big and broad and tempting as the rest of him.
She reached up, slid her hand around his neck and pulled him down for a long, wet kiss.
When she finally let him go, she said it out loud for the first time. “I just bought myself a bakery.”
They got up eventually, had a very late breakfast and then drove to Thunder Creek Realty to deliver the earnest-money check.
After that, they went to Bozeman, where Ethan met with some ranchers about more oil-shale leases. They got back to the house after six.
She had her girls’ night out with Erin and the group at seven. She rushed to get ready while Ethan called Dillon and Corey and the other men whose wives would be out with Lizzie that evening. He invited them all over to play poker.
DJ, Dax and Dillon had babysitting duty. Ethan said they should bring the little ones over. He would make them popcorn and they could watch Disney movies on the DVR.
Lizzie kissed him goodbye at the door, a very long kiss, one that left her giddy and yearning. She found herself kind of wondering why she was going out when she could be home with him.
But then she met all her Thunder Canyon girlfriends at the Hitching Post and she totally got it. A surprise love affair with Ethan was a very special thing, but girlfriends mattered, too. They mattered a lot.
Every one of those wonderful women hooted and hollered and clapped and jumped up and down when she told them that she’d bought La Boulangerie.
Allaire said, “I knew it.”
And Tori just grinned.
Steph Clifton asked, “Are you changing the name—and when are you opening?”
“It will be the Mountain Bluebell Bakery,” Lizzie announced. She could tell by the gleam in Steph’s eyes that she remembered that moment up on Thunder Mountain, when Lizzie had seen the blue thimble-shaped flowers and Steph had told her what they were called.
“I like it,” said Steph, with feeling. She raised her tall glass of tonic with lime high. “To Lizzie and the Mountain Bluebell Bakery. Much success.”
“To Lizzie,” the others echoed. “To Lizzie and her bakery…”
“And what about your grand opening?” Allaire wanted to know. “You didn’t say when.”
Lizzie hardly dared to admit her plan. She knew she was probably being unrealistic, so she started hedging. “I know this will sound impossible, but the equipment is all in place. If there are no surprises, we’re pretty much ready to go. I know there will be a mountain of permits to get, some kind
of a promotional campaign to plan. And I’ll have to hire and train at least a couple of employees, just to get the doors open. But I did practically grow up in a bakery. I know what needs doing and I know how to do it. I have all my mother’s time-tested recipes and they are fantastic. And I’ve had my basic business plan worked out and ready to go for years now.”
“But when?” Erin demanded. “We want to know when.”
Lizzie confessed, “I’m shooting for the last Saturday in July.”
There was more applause, more stomping and fist pumping and excited whistles. They all told her she could make it, and they promised to help any way they could.
It was a great evening, Lizzie thought, one she would always remember. It meant so much, not only to have actually bought her bakery at last, but also to have friends who believed in her, who offered unstinting encouragement and a boatload of support.
She had so much fun that she stayed out until well after midnight with the diehards of the party for that evening: Shandie Traub, Hayley Cates and Erin and Tori. Erin wouldn’t let Lizzie buy a round or even a plate of nachos the whole night. “This is my tiny little payback,” she insisted. “For my beautiful, perfect wedding cake.”
The house was dark when Lizzie got back. The poker game must have ended, the players and the little ones they’d brought with them all gone home.
When she came through the inner door of the garage, she could see the faint glow from the kitchen, the under-counter lights that they always left on during the night. But everything was very quiet.
Ethan must be in bed. She seriously considered tiptoeing up the stairs and joining him. But really, the poor man probably needed his sleep. She’d kept him up most of the night last night—and before that, there’d been all the excitement up on Thunder Mountain during the day.
Uh-uh. He deserved a break. She went on down the hall to her own room, where she quietly shut the door and got undressed.
The soft knock came when she stood by the bed in her panties and matching camisole. She felt a definite rising sensation under her breastbone and her pulse sped up.
So he wasn’t asleep, after all.
She padded over and pulled open the door and there he was, barefoot and bare-chested in a pair of frayed sweats that rode low on his hips.
“I heard the garage door open,” he said, his eyes full of promises she fully intended to see that he kept.
“I didn’t want to wake you…” She was whispering, moving in nice and close. He drew her like a magnet. She wanted his touch, his kiss, his body heat.
He did touch her. He ran the back of his index finger down her cheek, setting off sparks of desire, making her breath catch. “I wasn’t asleep. I was waiting for you.”
“Ah.” It was more a sigh than an actual word.
He slipped his warm fingers under her hair and wrapped them around the back of her neck. “Did you have fun with the girls?”
“I did. So much fun.” She couldn’t have resisted if she’d wanted to. She leaned in, brushed a kiss across his lips.
Electric. Amazing. Every nerve in her body seemed to be purring.
He settled his mouth more firmly over hers. “Lizzie,” he said against her lips. Just that. Just her name. So softly. So intently.
And then his tongue was there, tracing the shape of her mouth, leaving a trail of wet and heat. She opened. He slipped his tongue in as he gathered her closer.
They kissed, standing there in the open doorway. They kissed for a long, sweet time.
And then he undressed her. That didn’t take long. He slid down the panties, pulled up the camisole and tossed it to the floor. She helped, too. She pushed down those sweats he was wearing. He kicked them away.
And she thought, as he sank to his knees before her, that she didn’t want to lose him. She couldn’t stand the thought of that, even though she knew that too soon, she would lose him.
Too soon, she would move out. And he would move on. She had accepted that. Or so she kept telling herself, so she had told him last night when he tried to get her to talk about it.
No, she didn’t want to talk about it. Talking would ruin everything. As soon as they started talking, it would all become too clear. That she did want his ring on her finger.
She wanted it a lot. She wanted Ethan for a lifetime.
And Ethan for a lifetime was something no other woman had managed to get. A lifetime was something he just didn’t want to share.
She sighed and she gazed down through half-closed eyes at his dark head. He parted her with those clever fingers. He kissed her there, at the heart of her sex. It felt so good. So right.
Good enough that she moaned and speared her fingers in his hair and let her head fall back. Good enough that she forgot everything but the moment, everything but the silky feel of his dark hair between her fingers, everything but his hot mouth against her, and the fire building within.
A few minutes later, he scooped her up and carried her, limp and satisfied and yet longing for more, to the bed. As he gently lowered her to the sheets, she told herself that whatever happened later, it was worth it. To be with him like this, just the two of them. For a little while.
As a man and a woman.
In the middle of the night.
Chapter Thirteen
Each day was a treasure.
Every night like a sweet, naughty dream.
It all fled by much too fast. In the last week of June, they spent Monday morning dealing with inspections—both for Ethan’s new office building and for Lizzie’s bakery. Both buildings required some minor repairs and those were scheduled to be handled within that week.
Monday afternoon, at a local car lot, Lizzie bought a barely used Chevy cargo van with all-wheel drive. It had only ten thousand miles on it. She was thrilled to have found it, because she was not only going to need her own vehicle, but she was also going to need one with plenty of space for hauling goods to and from the bakery. Ethan had the rental place pick up the economy car she’d been using and she parked the van in the garage.
Tuesday and Wednesday they were on the road meeting face-to-face with more ranchers and landowners, following new leads Ethan had turned up. Thursday, Ethan’s mom and stepdad flew in. They spent the rest of that day and Friday, too, at the resort finalizing the investment that TOI had decided to make. To represent TOI’s interest, Ethan assumed a seat on the Thunder Canyon Resort Group board.
Saturday, Rose arrived in town for a monthlong vacation. She took a luxury suite in the clubhouse at the resort, confiding to Lizzie that she liked to be where the action was. Allaire had a family party out at her and DJ’s ranch that night. Ethan and Lizzie went together—and the strangest thing happened: nothing.
No one seemed to notice that they were together in a different way than before. Probably because it wasn’t anything all that new in a social setting for him to spend a lot of time talking with her, or to throw his arm around her shoulders in a companionable sort of way. Over the years, she’d often stood in as his “date” for parties and family gatherings. He’d always said he liked going out with her. She was fun, he said. And he felt relaxed around her. Plus, she never clung or acted needy, unlike some of his girlfriends.
At home in his bed that night they joked about it, that they were having a hot affair, and no one had a clue.
But in her heart, Lizzie was starting to wonder if it might have been the two of them who didn’t have a clue. They had never realized what they actually were to each other, that they were more than just friends, more even, than lovers.
And they’d both been blind to the truth for too long.
Now, she had the blinders off. She knew that she loved him. But he had never once so much as hinted that he might love her.
So did that mean he was hiding his true feelings from her?
She wanted to think so. But then again, what would be the point? He knew that she wanted a home and a family. If he wanted that, too, and with her, well, why not just ask her? Some men we
re shy about going after what they wanted.
But not Ethan. No way.
Which led her right back to the original problem, to the most likely truth: she loved him and she’d started picturing a life with him.
And he just wanted what he’d always wanted: to have a good time and to be free.
She told herself not to think about it. She promised herself she would enjoy what they had right now. And then she would let him go. She told herself it was good for her, to just go for it for once in her life, to live in the moment and not always be thinking ahead, always worrying about what was going to happen next.
And then she realized that she was doing just what she’d told herself this one time she wouldn’t—worrying about the future.
Monday, Independence Day, the day before the fifth of July, came much too soon.
It was a big day in Thunder Canyon, with a parade down Main Street and a Fourth of July rodeo out at the fairgrounds. And then, that evening, there was the Independence Day dance upstairs in the ballroom of the town hall.
Ethan insisted they do it all. They watched the parade, went to the rodeo, had dinner at the Rib Shack with half of the town. And then, in the evening, they went to the dance.
It was a casual kind of thing, the women in summer dresses and the men in jeans, Western shirts and boots. Lizzie and Ethan danced to the six-piece band up on the stage at the far end of the rustic, wood-paneled ballroom. She also found time to hang out with her friends. Everyone wanted to know about her progress with the bakery. She told them that she was closing the sale the next day. And she’d be moving into the apartment above the shop before the end of the week.
They were all so sweet and encouraging. Anything she needed, they reminded her, she only had to let them know.
At ten, out on Main Street, the town merchants put on a fireworks display. Everyone piled out onto the ballroom balcony or down the stairs and outside to watch the show. She and Ethan managed to squeeze into a corner of the balcony. There were fountains and spinners and those rockets that rose with a high, screaming sound and exploded into huge, varicolored pinwheels of light high in the clear night sky.
Resisting Mr. Tall, Dark & Texan Page 16