“What’s going on with us, Soledad?”
She shrugged her shoulders as she placed the last of the dirty dishes into his dishwasher. “I’ve been thinking about that most of the day. I worry that what’s happening is just us reacting to our being thrown together in what looks like an impossible situation.”
Palmer nodded. “I’ve thought that, too. But I also know that I’ve had a crush on you since forever. But it’s like I told you before—I didn’t pursue it because I knew we were on different pages. I didn’t think I could give you what I knew you wanted for your future.”
“And now?”
He hesitated briefly. “And now I think about you all the time. I don’t want to leave your side because I’m enjoying your company so much. I want to see where we can take this if we put effort into it.”
“I feel the same way...” Soledad responded, her voice trailing to a whisper. Her eyes skated across his face, noting the tiny scar above his top lip. One eye was just a hair smaller than the other and his cheeks dimpled if he smiled just so.
Palmer smiled. “There’s a but there...”
She shrugged again, smiling back. “But...I can’t help but wonder...” She struggled to find the right words to convey what she was thinking, but nothing came. She shrugged a third time.
“You and I are very similar,” Palmer said. “We don’t do anything that doesn’t make sense. We are desperately trying to make sense of all this. Of what’s happening. What might happen. Our feelings about everything. About each other. It’s a lot. Maybe even too much. Maybe we should shelve this until another time, after you go back to your life?”
“Is that what you really want?” Soledad questioned, her eyes still dancing over his face. Because it wasn’t what she wanted, she thought to herself. She wanted forever, and she found herself wanting forever with him and being afraid that she couldn’t have it.
Palmer answered without hesitating. “Not at all,” he said. “What I really want is you.”
With the stealth of an animal on the African plain, Palmer slipped to Soledad’s side. He stood before her, the heat between them rising swiftly, easing them into a dance that had them both panting heavily. He placed one arm around her waist and pulled her to him. Soledad slid her own arms around his neck, still staring into his eyes. Then she stood on the tips of her toes and kissed his mouth with a fervor she had never known before.
* * *
As soon as he did it, Palmer knew that kissing Soledad had quickly become his most favorite thing in the world to do. His mouth fit over hers with near perfection. She tasted sweet, her lips sugared from the cupcake icing. When she’d parted her lips and had granted him permission to enter, his tongue had slipped past the line of her teeth to tangle sweetly with hers. He’d tightened his hold around her waist, pulling her pelvis to his, and every muscle in his lower extremities had tautened with a vengeance. In that moment, he knew there’d be no way in hell that he would ever kiss anyone else again.
Soledad suddenly pressed her palms to his broad chest and pushed him back gently to break their connection. Her breathing labored, she was gasping for air.
“I’m sorry,” Palmer apologized, still panting softly. He took a deep breath and held it momentarily before blowing it back out slowly. He was unable to read the emotion that seeped from her eyes.
“N-no,” she sputtered. “Everything...everything is...fine.” She gasped, inhaling deeply.
Confusion washed through him. “What is it?”
“I can’t make love to you. Not tonight.”
Palmer felt a slow smile creep across his face. He saw the bewilderment that washed over hers. And he understood it. She could take all the time in the world, because he was willing to wait for her no matter how long it took for her to be ready and things to be fine between them. “Okay...”
“I don’t want you to think I’m easy. Because I’m not. I need to make you work for it.”
“Okay,” he chuckled. “Is that how dating works now?”
“I don’t know. I just know it’s what my mother always told me and my sister when we were growing up. She’d say, ‘Don’t just give a man your sugar dish. Make him earn that privilege. He’ll work for it if he really wants a taste.’”
“Sugar dish?”
“Sugar dish, cookie jar, goodies... Take your pick.”
Palmer smiled at her. “I just want to kiss you, but we can take things as slow or as fast as you want.”
“And I want to kiss you, too, but I’m also ready to come right out of my clothes, and I haven’t shaved anything since before I got here. The fur on my legs alone might scare you away.”
“Fur?” Palmer howled with laughter. “Really?”
“It’s not pretty,” Soledad said.
He leaned forward and pecked at her lips. His heart swelled full of excitement and anticipation. He couldn’t begin to tell her that everything about her brought him pure joy. Even the “fur” she feared he might see.
“And if you keep kissing me, I’m sure I’m going to be embarrassed at some point.”
He shook his head. “I doubt there’s anything I will ever see that you need to be embarrassed about. You set the pace, Soledad,” he said. “We’ll make love when you’re ready, not one second before. Okay?”
Soledad nodded, her eyes still dancing with his. Her lips parted ever so slightly, warm breath blowing softly. “Kiss me,” she whispered.
Palmer slid his fingers into the length of her hair and dropped his mouth to hers, kissing her hungrily.
As if to resist the sensations of his touch, Soledad fell against his body and kissed him back. Sweeping her up and into his arms, Palmer carried her down the short length of the hallway to his bedroom. He laid her gently across the bed, then stood back to stare down at her. She was the most exquisite woman he had ever known. Her hair fell in wisps around her face and there was the faintest dusting of baking flour across her cheek. Her lips had swollen slightly from his ministrations, leaving her with a picture-perfect pout.
* * *
He reached for the hem of his T-shirt and pulled the garment up and over his head. He looked like he’d been pumping weights, his muscles like sculpted marble beneath his taut skin. He had a near-perfect six-pack, his hard body the result of the manual labor he did around the ranch. Soledad’s eyes dropped to his narrowed waist and the lines that V’d downward. She bit her bottom lip and the gesture sent a wave of heat into the pit of his abdomen and then rippled up the length of his spine.
Soledad reached for him and her fingers crept slowly against his skin. As he lowered his body to hers, settling in the eave of her parted legs, his mouth reclaimed hers. Every ounce of air felt as if it were being sucked from the room as she slid her hands into the back of his sweatpants and grabbed the round of his ass.
Palmer whispered her name, muttering it over and over again as if in prayer, and then, without warning, Lyra’s tiny voice cried out from the baby monitor and Jack barked for their attention.
* * *
Soledad shook her head, laughing as Palmer pulled away from her. He adjusted himself in his pants as he blew a heavy sigh.
“Well, it looks like we have our very own personal chaperones,” he muttered, visibly flustered.
“I’ll go check on her,” Soledad said as she pulled herself upright.
“I’ve got her,” Palmer answered.
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. “Jack probably needs to go out, so Lyra and I will walk him to the door.” He winked at her as he turned and headed for the other room.
Soledad tossed him a smile as she slid to the edge of the bed and adjusted her clothes. She’d been one kiss from welcoming him to her most private place, excited to spread herself open to him. Everything about him felt like home, and she had wanted to give him the key and have him claim her. She laughed out loud, pulling her
knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs.
She could hear him cooing, trying to calm Lyra down, but her wails moved from the bedroom to the kitchen and back.
Palmer suddenly called Soledad’s name, a hint of anxiety in his tone.
He called her a second time. “Soledad!”
“What’s wrong?”
“Lyra has a fever. Do you have a baby thermometer?”
Soledad hurried to his side, pressing her hand to Lyra’s forehead and cheek. “She is warm,” she said as she reached for the diaper bag.
Annie had packed everything she’d thought her daughter would need, including a digital thermometer and children’s ibuprofen. Palmer sat with the baby in his arms, Lyra clinging to him like her life depended on it. Twice, Soledad tried to pick her up, but the little girl wasn’t having it. She only wanted Palmer, her tears dripping onto his bare chest as he cradled her against him. Outside, Jack was barking to get back inside.
Soledad shook her head. “If you would take her temperature, please, while I go let Jack back in.”
Palmer nuzzled his cheek next to the baby’s. Lyra clutched his facial hair in a tight fist, still whimpering steadily. Soledad ran her hand down the child’s back before going to the kitchen to let Jack back inside.
After securing the door, she warmed a bottle of milk for the baby, hoping meds and a full belly would help Lyra to feel better. Heaven forbid, Soledad thought, that something serious was wrong with Lyra. She didn’t want the child to be ill, but if she was, Soledad hoped it was a simple virus or a cold that Lyra could fight off on her own. Anything more serious would put them in the hospital emergency room, where Gavin might find them.
There was a moment of quiet panic as Soledad tried to fathom what she would need to do and how she would do it if something were seriously wrong with Lyra. Would a doctor allow Soledad to be responsible for the baby’s treatment? Would the hospital insist on calling her only living parent? Would they call the police? Truth be told, Lyra had always been such a healthy baby that Soledad hadn’t considered illness an option she would have to contend with. Now she didn’t have a clue what she needed to do, and she was worried that she might lose Lyra.
She moved to the computer, pulled up Google and typed in Lyra’s symptoms. The lengthy list of search results suddenly had her even more anxious, her stomach twisting nervously. She suddenly felt as if she were failing Parenting for Dummies, being thrown a curve she hadn’t prepped for.
Back in the room, Lyra had finally stopped crying. She still clung to Palmer, her head resting against his shoulder. She stared at Soledad, but wasn’t moved by the woman’s efforts to comfort her.
“Her temperature is high,” Palmer said, “but it’s not high enough that I think there’s something seriously wrong. I gave her a dose of that ibuprofen. She should feel better in no time.”
“I thought she might want a bottle,” Soledad said, handing it to him.
She watched as Palmer shifted the infant in his arms and fed her the warm milk. Lyra’s eyes traveled between the two adults, then stopped to linger on Palmer’s face.
I like him, too, Soledad thought, amused by the look of awe Lyra was giving him. I like him, too!
Chapter 14
When the alarm sounded, Palmer woke with a start, feeling like he’d been run over by a truck. It had been a long night, neither he nor Soledad getting much sleep. When the night had started, he’d imagined that making love to Soledad would have kept him up till the midmorning, the two of them savoring the sensual exploration that came with the first time. Neither had imagined a sick baby usurping the moment. Lyra had fussed on and off well into the early morning. Then, just like that, she’d fallen into a sound sleep, leaving the two of them to wonder what they’d done right and why they hadn’t done it sooner.
Once they’d realized it was going to be a long night, Palmer had insisted they all climb into his bed. The television had played in the background, reruns of some investigative criminal show Palmer was a fan of. They had passed Lyra back and forth between them, depending on whose arms she showed preference for. To Soledad’s chagrin, Jack had licked her tears away, but even she couldn’t complain when the dog seemed able to calm her down when they couldn’t.
Despite it all, what Palmer had found most interesting was how natural it felt to him: waking up to Soledad in his bed, the baby asleep atop a pillow between them and Jack snoring at their feet. The only other time in his life when something had felt so right, so amazingly perfect, was when his mother Leanne had gone above and beyond to adopt him. When he’d discovered the love of family for the first time and that family was all his. It felt like that again, with Soledad and Lyra. It was inexplicable joy, and Palmer realized it was something he’d been missing, and he wasn’t ready to let it go.
He sat watching the two of them. Soledad mumbled in her sleep, only a word here or there that he could recognize. Her breathing was steady, her chest rising and falling rhythmically. Her face was flushed, and one fist was clenched tightly around the bedclothes.
He smiled. He’d often heard friends complain about children changing the trajectory of their sex lives, and now he fully understood it. Any other time, he would have made love to Soledad until his body failed him, exhausted from their loving. Lyra had successfully blocked that effort, his erection withering with her cries. But there was still that ache of need and desire through his pelvic floor, that tingling in his appendages as he thought about the two of them together.
Rising, he headed into the shower, needing the spray of cool water to help him open his eyes and get his day started.
* * *
When Soledad opened her eyes, Lyra was sound asleep beside her and Jack lay on her other side. The sound of running water told her Palmer was in the adjoining bathroom. As she thought about him, that shower suddenly felt like it was calling her name. It had been an exceptionally long night and Soledad knew it was probably going to be a long day, as well. She imagined that Lyra would sleep until she was well rested. Then she’d be wide-awake and in need of attention.
Soledad eased her body off the bed, careful not to disturb the sleeping child. Jack lifted his head to give her a look, then nuzzled himself even closer to the baby. They were quite a pair, she thought, remembering how Lyra had given her a side-eye when she’d tried to move Jack to the floor. They had claimed each other and refused to be moved from the comfort they found in their affection for one another. Soledad found herself a little envious of their connection.
She suddenly thought about Palmer again. They had been one orgasm from the tide of their relationship shifting. The intimacy between them had been unexpected and everything Soledad had ever wished for. She had wanted him more than she had ever wanted any man in her life and knew the feeling had been mutual. She could feel it in the hardened lines of every muscle that had risen in his body and in hers. In fact, she still wanted him, that desire so intense that it felt like a gulf had opened up in the pit of her stomach, threatening to swallow her from the inside. The heat was so vast that she imagined herself combusting internally.
Nothing about their situation made an ounce of sense, but in the insanity of it, something beautiful was blooming between them. Something so precious that it gave immense value to the future she wanted for herself. And what she wanted for herself was him.
Sliding open the nightstand drawer, she carefully opened that new box of condoms and palmed one in her hand.
Easing off the bed so as not to wake the baby or the dog, she headed toward the bathroom. With each step, Soledad second-guessed her decision. It was a momentary hesitation as she questioned if she was doing the right thing. Instinctively, she kept moving forward, faith in everything that felt right about him and her together guiding her steps.
As she stepped into the bathroom, Soledad dropped a trail of clothes onto the tiled floor. The room was warm and moist, steam from the ho
t water painting the walls. Palmer stood behind the frosted glass doors, his head tilted back as the water washed over him. He looked startled when Soledad slid the shower door open.
Neither spoke, words unnecessary as they each admired the view. Soap streaked his torso and the patch of pubic hair was lathered with bubbles. His breathing was suddenly labored and she watched as his erection grew, seeming to beckon her to him. She lifted her eyes to his, moisture laced through his lashes.
The prophylactic in her palm spoke volumes. She watched as he took it from her and sheathed himself quickly. He extended his hand toward her and pulled her forward. As the palms of her hands pressed against his chest, Palmer crushed his mouth to hers in a kiss that stole her breath and had her curling her toes.
They were suddenly an amalgamation of hands and fingers, mouths and tongues. He lifted her against the tiled wall as she wrapped her legs around him. Heat coursed between them with a mind of its own, the magnitude sweeping through the entirety of the bathroom.
When his body entered hers, Soledad cried out, her nails digging into the flesh across his back. The walls of her most private place pulsed with fervor around his male member, welcoming him home. She met him stroke for stroke as he pushed and pulled against her. Their loving was intense and swift, its power like a tidal wave of energy neither could control. It was a sweet dance of give and take, back and forth, round and round. Soledad climaxed first, her entire body convulsing with pleasure as she clung to him. Palmer followed, the intensity of their interaction making her feel like she’d been thrown from a cliff and was flying sky-high. His legs shook as he eased himself and her to the shower floor, collapsing beneath the sheer beauty of the moment.
* * *
Rescued by the Colton Cowboy Page 16
