by Ava Miles
“You open a bag. Pour the dressing on. It’s not hard.”
Her cool blue eyes met his, pleading with him to keep up his part of this delicate conversation.
“Ah…I haven’t asked you. Have you met any poker players yet?” It was a dumb question, he realized. The Grand Mountain Hotel was a poker destination, and her boss was a poker player. So was her brother’s fiancée.
She brightened and threw another bone into the bowl. “Well, no one makes quite the impression Rhett does. Have you met him yet?”
Since he didn’t wander around Dare Valley much because people tended to either ask for an autograph or curse him for retiring, he hadn’t. “Not yet.”
“Well, I’ll have to introduce you.” Then she stopped short, and he knew she’d only then realized she was implying they would go out together—in public. Or to a family gathering. Something he knew she wasn’t ready for.
His stomach gurgled again. Touchdown even gave a short bark and cocked his head at him. He was now sitting in the chair next to Natalie’s so she could eat.
“Goodness, are you still hungry? How many miles did you run today?”
“Ten,” he answered, pressing his hand to the center of his stomach where the pain was most persistent. Shut up, he told it.
“Ten? Wow. I guess you go full out when I’m not holding you back.”
Because he needed to burn away all his sexual desire somehow. He desperately wanted to reach for her hand. “You’ve never held me back, Nat.” How many times do I have to tell you that?
She looked away and continued to eat, no longer attempting to string together a conversation. He did the same, picking at his food. In truth, his body did need fuel after the punishing workouts he’d been putting himself through. When they finished the meal, the flickering torchlights were the only sound between them.
He reached for her plate. “I can clean up.”
“But you cooked.”
Memories of them kissing as they attempted to load the dishwasher filtered through his mind. Even cleaning up with her had always been filled with laughter and fun. And sometimes, they hadn’t finished the dishes. He’d simply pick her up and take her to bed.
He was starting to sweat again. Maybe he could duck in and change. Then he realized she’d notice. Great. He’d have to be more Machiavellian than that. He moved his plate a little to the left so it would knock his champagne over. It fell to the table, the liquid running toward him and soaking the lower part of his shirt and pants.
“Oops,” he said. “I’ll just take these in and change. You relax. Switch the music if you’d like. I’ll get dessert after I’m cleaned up.”
He tried to smile to deflect the puzzled expression on her face; then he picked up all the dishes he could carry and headed back inside. He had never been so happy to be soaked with champagne, not even after a championship victory celebration with the guys in the locker room.
He dumped the dishes into the sink as best he could without breaking them and then jogged to the bedroom. Changing and adding some deodorant should take no more than two minutes flat. He sniffed his armpit as he stripped off his shirt and winced. God, he was vile. As a man who expended sweat for a living, he knew there were different kinds. Usually his was a clean sweat from a hard workout, but this…this was the sour odor of fear and nerves.
He whipped off his pants next and dug into his dresser for a new pair. He eyed his favorite pair of well-worn jeans.
He sensed her presence before he heard her clear her throat. His back muscles tensed under the power of her scrutiny, and he was suddenly excruciatingly aware of the fact that he was wearing nothing but black briefs. What was she doing?
Because there was no way she’d gotten lost in his house looking for the bathroom.
Should he turn around? Could he bear it if she looked at him with wariness in her eyes—as he’d seen her do these last weeks—rather than the hunger and frank appreciation he remembered? He couldn’t bear to know.
“In case you’re looking for the bathroom, it’s down the hall.” She could take the out if she wanted it.
“I’m not lost,” she said, and he clutched the jeans to his stomach.
“What can I do for you then?” he asked, trying to decide if he should put on his jeans or simply wait for her to leave the room.
“You can turn around and tell me why you spilled your drink on purpose.”
There was fire in her voice. He turned around, still keeping the jeans against his body. It was almost funny. He’d never been modest before.
“Why are you angry?”
Her brow knit. “Did you do it because you wanted to escape from me? I know tonight has been…strained.”
He ran his tongue over his teeth, trying to decide how to answer. “If it’s been strained, it’s my fault. I was trying to be romantic, and it backfired. Frankly, I’ve been sweating like a hog all night. I stink, and I didn’t want you to end up gagging if we kiss later. The drink was a necessary casualty so I could change clothes without it being weird. But hey? Weird is here.”
“You changed because you stink?” she asked, her mouth twitching. “You’ve been sweating like a hog?” She started laughing.
“It’s not funny. I’m trying to be on my best behavior with you. To impress you, but apparently all it does is make me sweat. Are you happy now?” His temper was getting hotter the more she laughed, and he knew he needed to rein it in, but he was so damn tired of glossing over everything. So damn tired of constantly feeling like he was on the chopping block. “So, let me change in peace and put on more deodorant. Then I’ll get your dessert.”
She pressed her hand to her mouth. “So your whole monster-in-the-stomach sounds weren’t from hunger?”
The tips of his ears flushed hot. “Out.” He crossed the room toward her, prepared to lift her out of his room and close the door in her face if need be.
“Oh, Blake. What am I going to do with you?” she asked, still giggling. “Here, let me see how bad it is.”
He darted back a few steps in horror when she leaned forward to sniff him. “Hey! Cut it out. I’m trying to be nice here.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be so nice.”
This was not a conversation to be had while he was wearing briefs. He shoved one leg in his jeans. “You’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t. At the rate we’re going, I’m going to end up with IBS.”
She made a gurgling noise like his stomach had made, and he was lifting his other leg to pull on his jeans when she reached out a hand and shoved him. He toppled to the floor.
“Hey! What was that for?”
“For trying so hard. For twisting yourself up into knots. Why can’t you relax?”
Outrage turned his cheeks red. “Why can’t you?”
“Because we’re trying to date when we’ve been married. Like Rhett would say, you can’t put that horse back into the barn.”
“Natalie, you’ve got to level with me here. I have one leg in my jeans, and I’m sprawled on the floor. I reek of sweat. So don’t talk in riddles…what in the hell do you suggest we do?”
She stopped laughing. Her eyes ran up the soles of his bare feet to his thighs, settling on the bulge in his briefs. After an arresting pause, which had his heart pounding, she continued her assessment up his torso. Finally she met his eyes.
“We can’t pretend to date, Blake, not when we both remember how it used to be between us.”
Then what the hell had they been doing these last weeks? A strangled sound escaped from his throat. He sat up and stared at her. “Tell me what you’re trying to say then,” he said hoarsely, his skin prickling as he awaited her response.
“Every time we’re together, it’s like the big elephant in the room, isn’t it? That’s why it’s so hard to find things to talk about when we’re together. We’re not being normal with each other.” She gestured to him. “This is the most normal we’ve been. This is the first time I’ve laughed easily with you other than over playing with Touchdow
n or watching TV.”
He snorted. “I do believe you laughed when I wore that Don Johnson 1980s outfit, not to mention when the guys hung all my underwear out in the tree.”
Her blue eyes softened. “Yes, I did.”
Shaking his head, he tugged his jeans the rest of the way on and lifted his hips to pull them up. “So, basically all I need to do is make a complete ass of myself, and we’re normal? Wait. Let me write that one down.”
As he pushed off the floor and stood, she took a step closer. Then another, until she could lay her hand against his hard, bare chest. Her touch felt burning hot.
“Not a complete ass. Just…not Super Friend or Pretend Boyfriend or whatever the hell it is you’ve been playing these last weeks.”
If her hand hadn’t been on his chest, he would have walked out of the room. “I’m doing the best I can here, Nat. What do you want from me?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I want you to treat me like you used to. I want you to stop treating me like glass, and I need you to tell me when I’m being ridiculous.”
“Fine. You’re being ridiculous. Are you happy now?”
Her hand lifted and traced his jaw. “I want you to follow me.”
“Where?”
In response, she only spun around and left the room. “And don’t put on a shirt,” she called out over her shoulder.
He gulped, rock hard now as he strode after her. She left the house, then the patio, and headed for the bridge. When she reached it, she fingered the trails of lights as she passed through their soft glow, her sandals echoing on the wooden planks.
When she opened the back door of her house, she turned in the doorway and leaned against it. He could see the unmistakable desire in her eyes. His footsteps ate up the ground between them. When he met her in the doorway, he stared into her brilliant eyes, the blue so dark it was almost indigo now.
“You’re going to have to say it.” Please, God, let her say it.
“I want you,” she said and laid her hand on his chest again, right in the center over his thudding heart.
He dipped his head until their mouths were inches apart. Her warm breath rushed over his face when he yanked her body to his rock-hard one.
“And I want you. Only you. Always you.”
Chapter 23
After weeks of pseudo-dating, Natalie had grown needy and restless. She wanted to be normal with him again and could no longer deny that fact to herself. And so she’d followed him into his bedroom to confront him, worried that he may have simply given up on her, on them, after their awkward conversation had lapsed into silence.
Hearing how nervous and awkward he’d felt—that she’d made him sweat through his shirt… Well, her huge and scary love for him had burst its confines.
She wanted to be herself with him again and laugh, and she wanted to see him let down his guard and relax—and sweat in her presence from a purely different reason.
The only way to do that was for them to be intimate with each other.
If he’d shown her anything over these past weeks, it was that he loved her. He’d do anything for her. Now she needed to see how much she could do for him, with him, once again.
Though he was poised just inches away from her mouth, he still didn’t kiss her. She could almost hear him asking her if she was sure. Okay, she wasn’t, but the only way she’d know is if she plunged ahead. She rose on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his, and the groan he released told her everything she needed to know about his state of arousal.
His tongue was like rock striking flint, stirring the smoldering sparks of desire inside her. His lips were the kindling fueling the blaze. Heat spread across her body, and all the years of missing him fanned the flames into an inferno.
She tugged off her sundress in a fit of near madness, desperate for him. “I need you. Right now.”
He released her and stepped back a few paces, all the better to see her, she knew. The sight of his muscular, broad chest was enough to make her damp in places that had gone dry since leaving him. Lust swept through her, destroying her fears. She unhooked her bra and let it drop to the floor.
“Touch me,” she said, padding forward, lifting his hands to her breasts.
His fingers caressed the undersides first, where he knew she was sensitive. Her head fell back as his touch curved around to the top. God, she had missed his hands on her breasts. It had been torture to keep their contact to kissing and light touching these last few weeks. Suddenly, she realized they were still in the doorway. Touchdown lay on the ground only a few feet away in the kitchen.
“Stop fooling around,” she said in a stern voice, pulling him inside and slamming the back door.
“You always were impatient,” he answered in a husky voice.
She leaned back against the door, wanting him to take her against it, hard and fast, before she could think of anything else. “Blake.”
His thumbs rubbed her nipples with agonizing precision, and she cried out. If he would only kiss her there, she would come. She knew it. But he didn’t. Blake planned to savor their joining. She could feel it in his every movement, his every gesture. She clenched her eyes shut.
He swept her up into his arms. “Come on. There’s no way I’m taking you against the door.”
He’d carried her like this so many times before. Good memories flooded back to her as he swept her up the stairs, and she curved a hand around his strong, defined jaw. He’d shaved again for her, she could tell. So thoughtful.
When they reached her bedroom, he closed the door behind them. Touchdown was never allowed in this sanctuary of theirs. He set her down on the bed and looked his fill. She was more than ready, so she laid back and tugged off her underwear. His breath hissed out as she anchored herself with her elbows on the bed.
“You are still so beautiful you steal my breath away.”
She let her gaze travel over him—his sculpted chest, the worn jeans that hung loosely on his hips.
“And your body is still the most ridiculous work of art I have ever seen.”
His mouth tipped up at the corners. How many times had she called his body ridiculous in that playful tone, making him smile? Not enough and not for what seemed like eons.
When his mouth lowered to kiss her stomach, she opened her legs. One of his hands curved behind her back as he held her to him, taking his sweet time, savoring every inch of skin he touched as he kissed his way up her body.
“I need you,” she whispered as her aching breasts rubbed against his bare chest.
His mouth finally found hers, and he took the kiss deeper, wetter, wilder than any they had shared since reuniting. Her belly tightened with the dark strands of desire. She ran her nails gently down his back, knowing how much he loved it.
He groaned, the husky timbre reverberating throughout his chest. “Oh, Nat, Nat…I missed you so much.”
He lit a trail of fire across the length of her neck, tracing her sensitive skin with his tongue, his soft lips, and the delicate nip of his teeth. It was enough to warm her skin and make her body clench with need, but there was also a familiar tenderness.
Her skin and bones began to dissolve like a cloud in direct sunlight. With Blake she’d learned the scary truth that bodies weren’t boundaries. No, with him, making love had always led to a oneness, a merging undefined by time and space. Her heart was preparing to leave its numb sanctuary, to welcome him again to see the secret, most guarded parts of herself.
A wave of primal terror swept through her chest, and she struggled for air. Would she have to talk about why she left him? Would she have to talk about Kim after they made love? Surely he would broach those forbidden subjects.
“Let’s move along,” she told him, reaching for the waistband of his jeans and unzipping them.
The hard length of him told her he was more than ready, and she had her hand wrapped around him in seconds.
His breath hissed out. “God, your hands are cold.” He pressed his forehead to hers as she gave him
the long strokes she knew made him wild. “Oh, God, Nat,” he whispered, his voice broken now. “Stop.”
She froze, wondering what she’d done wrong. He’d always liked this before.
He took her hand away and brought it to his mouth for a kiss. “It’s not that I don’t love it…it’s just…been so long.”
With that, her heart ventured forth again, edging closer to his warmth. She’d wondered how many other women there had been in their time apart. She hadn’t been able to stop the jealousy from creeping into her mind when she couldn’t sleep.
“Has it?” she whispered.
His brown eyes burned into hers. “Yes.”
It was one simple word, yet it was somehow also an affirmation of his feelings for her. Her lips wobbled with emotion.
“You don’t have to wait.” She transferred her touch to his chest and kissed him, feeling out of control.
His laugh was more like an agonized sputter as he drew away from her. “If you think I’m going for speed after all this time, you’re crazy.”
She was afraid she was crazy…or that letting herself feel so much again, after spending so long living each day to get through it, would make her that way. “I want to touch you.”
She pushed him onto his back, or rather he let her, and tugged his jeans and briefs down his legs. Her mouth went dry, seeing all that bare skin, the utterly perfect musculature of a professional athlete. She ran her hands up the hard planes of his calves, the undersides of his knees. He flinched, and she smiled, knowing how ticklish he was there. But she had another target in mind. She curled her hands around his massive thighs, tracing the defined muscles straight to the heart of him.
“No, seriously,” he rasped. “I can’t take having your hands on me this time even if they aren’t freezing cold now.”
She leaned over and kissed his belly in response, and his hands jerked her up until she met his mouth. He kissed her again, a sweet slide of his tongue on hers.
Then he rolled her onto her back and proceeded to show her how he put the E into endurance. He kissed her breasts with increasing pressure, going from gentle laves to hard suction. Her back arched against his mouth, but before she could peak, he released her and kissed his way down her stomach.