by Elle James
He gathered her in his arms. “Thank you for being you. I feel like we bonded as friends in the dark.” Then he crushed her mouth with his, deepening the little kiss she’d given him.
Ariana encircled the back of his neck with her hands and pressed her breasts to his chest.
He wanted so much more than just a kiss. When their lips finally parted, he leaned his forehead against hers. Was it too soon to ask her if she’d like to go back to his place and pick up where they’d left off?
“I’d better go,” she said. “Thank you for today.” She stepped back and smiled up at him. “See you tomorrow at nine?”
He nodded.
“If you change your mind, I’ll understand,” she said. “Not every man wants to be in a room full of older women. Especially doing yoga. I have other classes during the week where I have a good mix of men and women, if you’d rather come to one of those.”
“I’ll be there tomorrow at nine.” He walked her to her car and opened her door for her after she unlocked it.
Before she got in, he kissed her again.
He could do that all night long and not get tired of it.
She looked up into his eyes and ran her tongue across her damp lips. “Goodnight, my stranger from the dark.”
He chuckled. “Good night my redheaded stairwell girl.”
He stepped back and watched as she backed out and drove away.
BODS couldn’t have been wrong with this match. Dillon felt like they fit.
So what if she didn’t fish or ride? So what if she liked cats better than dogs? When they kissed, none of that mattered.
Or had it been too long since he’d had a woman in his bed, and he was just a horny bastard?
No. If that had been the case, he would have asked her to go back to his condo. They would have made love, and he would never have arranged another date with her.
Instead, he’d let her go with a promise to be at a yoga class in the morning, the only man in a room with a dozen older women.
What had he been thinking?
Maybe it was his way of checking their compatibility by entering her world. He’d taken her into his, which had turned out fairly unfortunate. What could go wrong in a yoga class?
He’d spend an hour stretching muscles he never used. The ladies would get a good laugh at his form. Then he’d take Ariana out to a nice restaurant where they would sip wine and talk about…
Fishing?
Probably not.
The construction industry?
She wouldn’t be interested.
Yoga?
Well, it would be a start. Maybe they had the same taste in music. They had to have something in common. BODS couldn’t have been that messed up.
Chapter 9
Ariana dressed for bed and had just laid down when she sat straight up again.
“Damn.”
Dillon didn’t know where her studio was.
Then she remembered she had his phone number because he’d texted her, and she’d responded. She reached for her phone on the table beside her. Looking for the text, she assigned his name and saved him as a contact.
Dillon Jacobs. She even liked the sound of his name. She closed her eyes and said it out loud, picturing the shadowy outline of the stranger in the BODS office before she’d seen his face. His voice had been what had drawn her to him. That deep, resonant tone that curled her toes.
Suddenly, she wanted to hear it again. She had the perfect excuse. He needed the address of her studio. As she lay in her bed, with the lights off and nothing but the glow of her phone screen to illuminate the room, her hand hovered over his phone number.
“Oh, just do it,” she murmured, and pressed the call button.
Her phone rang immediately. She realized her call was going out as another was coming in. The contact name on the incoming call read “Dillon Jacobs.”
Her hand shook so hard she dropped her cellphone.
Ariana snatched up the phone and hit the button to receive the call. Smoothing her hair, she inhaled deeply and let the air out quickly. “Hello,” she squeaked.
“Ariana?” That deep, sexy tone flowed through the phone and into every pore of her skin.
“Dillon,” she said on a sigh and sank back on her pillow.
“I forgot to get the address of your studio.”
“Oh,” she said and sat up again. “Right. I was just about to call with that information.” She gave him the address.
“Nine o’clock,” he stated. “I’ll be there.”
Feeling like he was about to hang up, Ariana gripped the phone tighter. “Dillon?”
“Yes?”
“Uh…how’s your head?” she asked.
“It’s fine. I put an icepack on the lump, and it’s gone down considerably.”
“I’m glad.” She lay back on the pillow again. “I guess you’re going to sleep now?”
“I don’t usually go to sleep this early,” he said.
“Me either. I was thinking about reading a book or watching a show. I’m just not motivated to do either.”
“I’m the same,” he said. “I could go through the plans and emails related to the project I’m working, but when I gave the men the weekend off, I mentally checked out as well.”
“What do you like to watch on television?” she asked.
“I’m pretty boring. I like watching anything to do with history or science. I’ll watch some of the police procedural programs, too.”
“I have a secret love of the British cooking shows,” Ariana said.
“Do you like to cook?” he asked, his voice making her skin tingle with awareness.
“Sometimes. I’m not that good at making dinner, but I love to bake.”
“What’s your favorite, cakes or pies?”
“Pies. And fruit pies at that. None of those cream pies.”
“That’s too bad,” he said.
“Why?” she asked, afraid she’d pointed out yet another difference between them and another reason BODS had gotten their match so completely wrong.
“That’s bad because we’d have to fight over who got the last piece of apple pie.”
She relaxed, a smile curling her lips. “I’d split it with you.”
“Do you like any cakes?”
“I love brownies,” she said. “Does that count in the cake category?”
“Absolutely.” He paused then added. “Now, this is a deal-breaker question. Nuts or no nuts in your brownies?”
“Brownies aren’t brownies without the nuts. And pecans over walnuts, all day long,” she said.
“Good girl,” he said. “We agree on more than one thing now. We’d better stop while we’re ahead.”
“Right. We should.” She held the phone, not wanting to end the call. “Did you drive back out to the ranch?”
“No. I have a condo in Austin. I usually stay here during the week. The traffic getting in and out of the city can be difficult on good days, impossible on others.”
“You’re lucky. Not everyone can afford to have two places,” she said.
“Having my own place allows me some peace and quiet away from my brothers. I look forward to having a place of my own someday on the ranch. I have the plans all drawn up and the site staked out. I just need to free up the crews to start construction. It’ll have a huge porch wrapping around all sides with porch swings, rocking chairs, a couple of kids and dogs, someday.”
“Sounds wonderful,” Ariana said. “Which will come first, the kids or the dogs?”
“It will likely depend on the mother of my children. She might want to have a say in the matter.”
A stab of longing tore at Ariana’s heart. When BODS spit out the right match for Dillon, that lucky woman would be the one having Dillon’s babies, not her. That made her sad.
“You still there?” he asked.
“I’m here,” she whispered, her throat tightening. “Is it wrong of me to want Leslie to take a long time to fix BODS?”
Dillon chu
ckled. “No. I’ve almost called her twice today to ask her to stall. But that didn’t seem fair to her other clients.”
Ariana’s heart warmed. Dillon had no desire to suffer through meeting a BODS’s corrected match, any more than she did.
“So, after your yoga class, what do you usually do?” he asked, rustling sounding in the background as though he was getting more comfortable in his seat.
“I catch up on my grocery shopping and laundry. Nothing exciting.”
“I could help you with the grocery shop,” he said. “We could get the ingredients to make two apple pies.”
Ariana laughed. “Two?”
“I’d want to make sure we had enough for both of us. Or, we could make one pie and a pan of nutty brownies.”
“Shouldn’t there be some protein and vegetables in there somewhere?” she asked.
“We could call out for pizza delivery.”
“And that qualifies as protein and vegetables?” She laughed.
“If you get a pizza with everything on it, it will have protein and vegetables.”
“You have a point.”
“Of course, I do.” He paused. “So, is there a pizza in our future together.”
“And apple pie?” she asked.
“I like to think so.”
“Makes perfect sense following a healthy dose of yoga in the morning,” she said.
“Then it’s a date,” he said.
Ariana smiled into the phone. “It’s a date.”
“Who needs a computer system when you can find your own match in the dark.”
“With your eyes closed,” she said.
“You had your eyes closed?”
“I was trying to get my night vision faster after the lights went out,” she said. “I thought it would improve if I closed my eyes, and then opened them.”
A chuckle sounded in her ear. “Do you get the feeling we were meant to meet?”
She nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. “It seems that way. Though, I don’t think you were meant to get dumped into a pond trying to teach a neophyte how to fish.”
His chuckle turned into a laugh. “I wish you could have seen yourself as you strung the worm on the hook.”
“And I wish you could have seen yourself when the fish slapped you in the face.” She laughed with him. “A very memorable day.”
“Yes, it was,” he said. “And not all bad. There were some highlights in there.”
“Mine was when you turned around at the coffee shop,” she said softly.
“That was one of mine. There were a couple others.” His voice lowered, getting deeper and sexier.
“The kiss on the shore?” Ariana whispered.
“Definitely,” he said. “And the one at the coffee shop not too long ago. I can still taste you on my lips.”
Ariana touched her fingers to her lips where they still tingled from his touch.
“How many more hours until nine?” he asked.
“Too many,” she responded.
“Tell me again about your techniques of meditation, because all I can think of is you. Especially when I close my eyes. I’m back in the BODS building in the dark, bumping into you, or walking down the stairwell for twenty flights.”
Her heart swelled in her chest, and her pulse beat hard in her veins. “I could cancel my yoga class tomorrow.”
“No,” he said, his voice firm. “That’s your business. I just want to get to know you better.”
“Seems it might only show us how different we are.”
“I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” he said. “Didn’t you say opposites attract for a reason?”
“Yes. But you also have to have things in common.”
“We do,” Dillon said.
“Apple pie!” they said at the same time.
A long, comfortable pause stretched between them
“Are you sleepy?” he asked
“A little,” she admitted.
“Then I’ll let you go to sleep. You need to be bright and cheerful for your class in the morning. Goodnight, Ariana.”
“Goodnight, Dillon.” She waited for a click or a dial tone indicating he’d ended the call. “Dillon?”
“Sorry. I thought you were going to end the call.”
“I thought you were,” she said with a smile on her lips. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” he said. This time, he did end the call.
Ariana lowered the cellphone and stared at his name on the screen.
Dillon Jacobs.
Then she rolled onto her side, tucked her phone beneath her ear and closed her eyes, remembering the silhouette of his broad shoulders outlined in the faint glow of the distant exit sign. Something beautiful had happened that night the lights went out in a high-rise in Austin.
Ariana was determined to hold onto the memories as long as she could. Even if Leslie’s computer system hadn’t gotten it right.
Her last thought as she fell asleep was of the initials.
What did the B stand for in BODS?
Next meeting of the Good Grief Club, she’d ask Leslie.
Dillon lay awake well into the night, thinking about Ariana, the kiss and the conundrum of the BODS mistake in matching them.
They weren’t alike in many ways. But he liked the way she made him feel calm and excited in the same breath. She wasn’t anything like the women he’d dated in the past. But maybe that was a good thing. He’d never gone past a single date with most of them, finding himself bored after the first fifteen minutes.
Ariana wasn’t experienced at anything to do with ranching. But that could be taught. Maybe. If not…so what? Why would she ever need to be a rancher?
Dillon and his brothers, along with Emma and Coop, could handle all the work on the ranch. If not, they could hire ranch hands. It wasn’t like they couldn’t afford it. Each of them had amassed their own fortunes either through day trading stocks or building their own businesses to the point they had accumulated significant wealth.
Why did his brothers think it was a requirement for any woman Dillon dated to be proficient at basic ranching tasks, like riding horses or mucking stalls?
Dillon’s lips quirked.
Because they’d been pretty hard on Coop when he’d been matched with Emma. They’d put him through a pretty rigorous test of his worth on the ranch by inviting him to help them haul hay.
What they hadn’t known was that Coop had spent summers between semesters at college hauling hay for pay. Not only did he know his way around a ranch, he loved horses and sports. He’d fit right in with the Jacobs brothers like one of their own.
At first, Emma had been irritated by how easily he’d assimilated into the family. She’d wanted to date and dump her match. Only, she’d ended up falling in love with the billionaire.
And they were perfect for each other. Unlike Dillon and Ariana, Emma and Coop had a lot in common. They knew ranching. Liked sports and could ride horses.
Did that mean any relationship Dillon and Ariana would have could be doomed to failure from the start?
Dillon hoped not. He enjoyed talking with her. And helping her up into his truck. He liked how tiny her waist was and the sweet swell of her hips. He liked the fiery red of her hair and the lush hazel color of her eyes.
And he liked kissing her.
Colton had accused him of loving her.
No. That couldn’t be. They hadn’t known each other long enough.
Thus, the need to see her again. He knew there was something between them, but he wasn’t exactly sure what it was or how long it would last. Only time would tell.
He set his watch to wake him up by five the next morning so that he could get up, go for a run to burn off energy, and then shower and be ready to meet her at her studio with a dozen other women.
He’d rather be alone with Ariana. At least in her class, he’d get to see her in her element and really get to know what she did best. She wouldn’t have a following if she wasn’t good at what she d
id.
Dillon fell asleep, only to be wakened what felt like a few minutes later when his alarm went off.
He rolled out of bed, slipped on his shorts and running shoes and went out into the early morning Austin downtown district. He jogged for three miles, moving through the streets dodging delivery vans and feeling the heartbeat of the beautiful city for what felt like the first time in a long time.
When he returned to his condo, he drank coffee and let his body cool before ducking into the shower. With thirty minutes to spare, he headed to the west side of Austin to Ariana’s Zen studio.
Before he’d met Ariana, if anyone would’ve said he’d be going to a yoga class, he would’ve told them they were high on something. Yet, here he was pulling up to her studio along with the dozen women who paid her to lead the class. Hell, if he liked the effects of the exercises, he might just join them every Sunday. Sunday happened to be the only day he could reasonably attend on a regular basis.
He could imagine his brothers’ reactions to his announcement that he’d be attending yoga classes on Sundays. Dillon didn’t care. His brothers had to have something to pick on him about. But when shit hit the fan, they would always have his back—but not just his brothers. Emma was even more of a force to be reckoned with when someone threatened her family or friends.
Dillon held the door for all the gray-haired women, finally entering after the last one went inside. They all looked at him and smiled as they passed him going through the door.
One winked, said “Hubba Hubba” and pinched his chest. “Ooo…those are real,” she murmured, and then walked away giggling.
He just smiled politely at the woman and refrained from engaging. He wasn’t there for them. Dillon had come to see…
Ariana stood in front of the class, dressed in a black form-fitting tank top and yoga pants. Her feet were bare, and her hair was pulled up into a ponytail, high on the crown of her head.
She smiled at him then turned her attention to the ladies in the class.
Dillon took a mat from the stack in the corner, like the ladies did, but chose to position his at the very back of the room.