She was half seated on the edge of the bed, breathing deeply, eyes shut, her chin drooping toward her chest. She had a pair of pajamas clutched loosely in one hand, a black suede flat in the other.
Apparently, this was as far as she had gotten.
Chase moved closer. “Mitzy.” He touched her shoulder gently. “Sweetheart.”
She uttered a soft sigh. The shoe fell from her hand. Her pajamas landed on her lap. If she was this tired, Chase decided, she didn’t need to wake up.
His heart swelling with tenderness, Chase guided her back against the pillows. Took the blanket draped across the end of her bed and covered her. She remained fast asleep. Determined she would get the rest she needed, he leaned down to kiss her temple, turned off the monitor, then eased out of the room as quietly as he had come in.
* * *
Mitzy woke in a state of confusion, not sure where she was or what time it was. It seemed like morning, given the daylight peeking through the blinds. But it couldn’t be morning, could it? Not when she still had the 4:00 a.m. feeding to do...!
She turned to the monitor. The light indicated it was turned off. And she was...fully dressed? In the clothes she’d worn the night before...?
What the heck was going on? she wondered as she stumbled out of bed and made her way to the door. She yanked at the knob, then stumbled backward at what she saw on the other side of the portal.
Chase. Coming toward her. Dressed in the clothes he’d worn the night before, too. Sans tie and sport coat, of course. He had a day’s worth of stubble on his handsome face. Crinkles of fatigue around his beautiful gray-blue eyes. “Hey—” he flashed her a grin as wide as Texas “—I thought I heard something up here. That you might be up.”
Mitzy shoved both hands through her hair. “What time is it?”
Another smile. Reassuring this time. “Noon.”
She took a moment to absorb that. “Noon?” And how could he possibly look so darn sexy? When he obviously hadn’t showered, either.
“Yeah.” Chase rubbed his hand over his handsomely stubbled jaw. He squinted at her happily. “You slept about thirteen hours. I was hoping you’d go a little more.”
Heavens. Mitzy couldn’t say when the last time that had happened. A couple of years, easy. “And the boys?” She found herself still a little off-kilter, swaying slightly.
He curved a hand around her shoulder, stabilizing her. “Are all fine.” He thrust his chest out proudly. “I did their four a.m. feeding all by myself! And,” he added, with mounting paternal pride, “the boys and I managed to not wake you up.”
This was either the Christmas miracle she’d never expected, or some wonderful dream. Mitzy splayed both hands across his pecs. He sure felt real and warm and deliciously masculine. She swallowed around the sudden dryness of her throat. “Where did you sleep?”
Another proud moment. “On the floor of the nursery.”
Deciding she really needed to use her toothbrush, she headed for the bathroom. “On the floor?”
Chase shrugged. She brushed, rinsed, spit. “Well... I wanted to be nearby in case they needed anything.”
She dabbed her mouth with an ivory hand towel. “I don’t know what to say.”
He grinned, looking as happy as she had ever seen him. “Thank you? And maybe—” he winked sexily “—if I could borrow a toothbrush...”
She got him a spare from the drawer. Watched as he went to work. Trying not to think how intimate this all was.
Or if they were now at the point where she should give him a drawer of his own to use while he was here, or space in her closet...
Not that she had to decide today. He was here. He was happy. She was here. She was happy. It was enough.
“Seriously,” she said when he had finished brushing. “This was above and beyond the call of duty.”
Once again, he looked as if he wanted to kiss her.
They both knew if he did, they might not stop. “It was my pleasure, sweetheart.”
Voices floated up from downstairs. Brought swiftly back to reality, Mitzy guessed, “Volunteers?”
“Yes.” He walked out of the bathroom, past her bed, to the neutral territory of the upstairs hall. “Emmaline Clark, and her mother, Hedda, came at seven thirty, right on schedule,” he said, taking up a station against the wall.
Mitzy settled opposite him.
“They said I could leave. They’d handle everything. But...” His glance roved her face possessively. “I kind of wanted to stay until you woke up. In case,” he said with a slow, sexy smile, “you had any questions about what did or did not happen last night.”
Mitzy searched her memory and came up with exactly nothing after saying good-night to him in the nursery. Ignoring the leap of her pulse, she asked softly, “Ah. What did happen exactly?” Surely, she would remember if they had made love!
“You fell asleep sitting upright on the bed.”
He wasn’t joking. She buried her face in her hands and groaned. “Now I’m really mortified.”
He leaned over to rasp in her ear, “You were cute. And tired.”
Figuring it was better to see him than not be able to keep an eye on him, Mitzy dropped her hands. “Well, in any case, I owe you one.”
He straightened. “Great.” He lifted both arms in victory. “I accept.”
Flummoxed, she said, “Accept what?”
One half of his mouth quirked up in a smile. “Your agreement to go on an actual grown-up, no-holds-barred date with me.”
Chapter Nine
“Well, that was a blast from the past,” Mitzy said on Wednesday, as they left the San Angelo dance hall, where they had spent a lot of time, years ago. Only this time, instead of going in the evening, they had gone in the middle of the day.
The place had been empty except for the two of them and the college kid working the lights and sound system. The music, definitely hits from a decade before. Including some of her very favorites.
“Feeling sentimental?”
Mitzy nodded. Ridiculously so. She’d forgotten what it was to look at the world with such unvarnished appreciation. To feel like everything and anything was possible. Maybe it was time she remembered.
“Good.” Looking as content and hopeful as she was beginning to feel, Chase reached over and squeezed her hand. “Wait till you see our next destination.”
The taco stand on the edge of the town. It looked very rough around the edges, but had some of the best Mexican street food in the area. He ordered all their favorites to go, just the way they had when they’d been dating, set them in a thermal container to stay warm, then drove back to his place. Inside the house, a picnic area had been set up, complete with pillows and blankets on the center of the floor. The flavored waters and electrolyte drinks they still guzzled in the summer heat were there, too, set in a party bucket filled with ice.
Only it was December now.
Christmas.
But the decor, which included harvest-colored disposable plates and napkins, looked like late summer, early fall. None of which actually jived with the Christmas tree they’d put up the weekend before, with the help of his entire family.
She stood, hands on her hips, gazing around. “Okay. You’re going to have to tell me where you’re going with all this.”
He went over to turn on the lights. The tree lit up beautifully. He came back to her, lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the inside of her wrist before offering a rakish smile. “I know what we should give each other for Christmas.”
They were exchanging presents? Mitzy thought, her skin tingling at the brief intimate contact. Boy, was he leaping ahead!
Trying not to consider how easy it would be to fall in love with him all over again and want more than either was currently prepared to give, Mitzy drew an unsteady breath. “You do?” she asked hoarsely.
Mitzy’s knees were suddenly wobbling. “The one where we broke up.”
He aimed a heart-stopping, sexy look her way. “With a move forward instead.”
She splayed her hands over the hardness of his chest, wedging distance between them. Much as they might want it to be, life wasn’t magic. Or run by wishful thinking, no matter how poignant, or fantasy filled. “We can’t go back.”
He guided her down to the blanket to sit beside him. “But we can erase some of our mistakes. Breaking up with you, letting you break up with me, was the worst error of my life. It completely derailed me.”
Mitzy tugged off her boots and sat cross-legged. “You seem to have done pretty well for yourself.”
Chase shrugged, doing the same. “Professionally perhaps. And in that regard, so have you. But in here,” he said, laying her hand over his heart, “all forward motion stalled.” His voice caught. “In here, I’m still the same guy who fell in love with the prettiest girl in town.” His smile turned tender, his glance direct. Chuckling, he asked, “Why else do you think I had my mom and dad buying new saddles every time I could talk them into it?”
Her heart did a little flip in her chest. “Because Gus and crew made the best custom saddles in the state?”
He unpacked their feast of grilled chicken and steak tacos. “Because it meant—if it happened when you were in town, visiting Gus—you’d be there at MCS.” He opened up the containers of pico de gallo, guacamole and sour cream. “Plus, getting to know your dad paved the way for me getting a summer job at his shop, interning there during college, landing my very first job with him after.”
Struggling to get her equilibrium back, Mitzy cleared her throat, sat back and asked a great deal less sentimentally, “You did all of that to be close to me?”
“Yeah, well.” He shrugged and continued as they began to eat, “I was all lusty hormones back then. And you were the girl I wanted. The only girl I ever wanted.”
The warmth was back, spiraling up inside her. “Oh, Chase, you were the only guy I ever wanted, too.”
He leaned over to kiss her.
She clung to him. “It broke my heart when we split up.”
He held her close. “Mine, too.” He threaded his fingers through her hair. And kissed her again, even more tenderly this time. “Which is why I want to completely erase that mistake.” He put their food aside, took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. “And what better way to do it,” he said, sliding a strong arm beneath her knees and swinging her up into his arms, “than by making love again, here and now.”
Mitzy let out a little gasp of surprise. She had known they would end up making love again, she had even expected it to be this afternoon, but what she hadn’t counted on was the way it would feel to be in Chase’s home, in his bed.
He’d said she was his woman.
She felt like it as he undressed her with extraordinarily intimate pleasure. He was so strong and virile and willing to let her take them anywhere she wanted, and what she wanted was to take their time, exploring and basking in one another in the soft afternoon light.
His chest was sleek and powerfully muscled with a crisp mat of brown hair that spread across his pecs, before arrowing downward to his navel and the most masculine part of him.
As he kissed her, her fingers followed the path. Eliciting a few groans from him, and a bigger thrill for her as she found the hot, hard length of him.
Caught up in something too primal to fight, she explored him with both hands, slid between his thighs and then bent to kiss the hot, velvety maleness of him.
He groaned again, on the verge of losing control. “My turn,” he rasped long moments later, turning the tables and flipping her onto her back. The next thing she knew his hands were spreading her thighs wide. He was slipping between them. Loving and caressing, until sensation spiraled through her unlike anything she had ever known. And although she had promised herself she would wait for him this time, he found a way to touch and kiss her that made her feel wanted and protected, loved and treasured, a way that sent her teetering toward the edge, and then tumbling over it.
She shuddered, her whole body throbbing, and he held her in his arms until the aftershocks passed. And still it wasn’t enough. She wanted to open the packet and roll on the condom, drape herself over him as his body took on an insistent throb all of its own.
Her palms slid over his hips and she lifted him to her. Their lips fused as surely as their bodies. Lost in the pleasure, she pressed her breasts against his chest and gripped his shoulders, hard. He moved within her, trembling with a need they could no longer contain, rocking together toward the outer limits of their control.
She was part of him, he was part of her and then there was no more holding back, no more pretending that something important between them did not exist.
Mitzy didn’t know if it was love or passion. Sheer excitement or a salve to loneliness. All she knew was that she needed him, and he seemed to need her, too. And it was that sweet yearning that had them connecting as never before, savoring everything about this moment, then free-floating over the edge, into ecstasy.
* * *
Unfortunately, they had a time limit because they were relying on volunteer baby wranglers, so Chase couldn’t make love with Mitzy again. Not at that moment in his bed, anyway, so reluctantly, once the after shudders had passed, they’d had to get up and get dressed.
To his chagrin, Mitzy seemed as conflicted and disappointed as he was about that.
Which just went to show the sooner they could move their relationship into a more permanent arrangement—one that had all six of them under the same roof—the better.
Then he’d be able to help Mitzy, comfort and make love to her whenever, however, she needed.
But for now, it was still just a few stolen hours here and there...
Mitzy pulled on her Christmas-themed boot socks, then stood and zipped up her jeans. She gave him a wry look from beneath her lashes, then deadpanned, “For the record, I don’t think it is possible, either.”
Instinct told him that once again they were not on the same page.
“What isn’t possible?”
She tugged her sweater over her head and spread her hands wide. “For us to simply pick up where we left off.”
She was serious.
He tugged on his own boots and closed the distance between them. Irked to find them going through the cycle of passion and regret again, just because they’d acknowledged their ever-escalating feelings for each other and made love, he looked her in the eye and challenged mildly, “You don’t think it can happen?”
She looked at him as if he had grown two heads. “No.”
“Hate to break it to you,” he rasped. He took one of her hands and put it over his heart. Then situated one of his palms over hers. “In here?” He let his gaze drop to the regions of both their hearts. “Sweetheart, we can pretend all we like...but the caring about each other...the wanting and needing each other...it’s clear now it never stopped.” He paused to let his words sink in. “For either of us.”
She blinked in amazement. “Which means what exactly?”
He still wanted to move at her speed, because that gave them the best chance at success. “You tell me,” he rasped, albeit a little impatiently.
Once again, she intuited exactly where he was headed, and wasn’t ready to go there.
She jerked free and spun away from him. “I know it would make things simpler, Chase, at least in some respects, but I can’t just start wearing your engagement ring again.” She stormed from the bedroom.
Personally, he didn’t see why not, but aware pushing her would get them nowhere,
he focused on all she hadn’t said, then paused to repack their barely touched meal. “You still have it?” He had hoped that would be the case after she had tried to give the diamond back to him and he hadn’t let her.
She shrugged. “Somewhere.”
He was pretty sure from the pink sweeping into her cheeks that she was fibbing about her uncertainty of the diamond’s whereabouts.
“Okay,” Mitzy admitted, throwing up her hands in defeat, “I know exactly where it is, in the jewelry box it came in, in the middle of my lingerie drawer, at the bottom of a stack of camisoles.”
That was oddly specific for something she claimed not to care about. “Why there?” he asked curiously.
Not to let the delicious Tex-Mex food go to waste, she helped him pack up, turning her back to him in the process.
“I don’t know,” she muttered temperamentally, giving him a great view of her delicious backside and sleek thighs in the process.
Her lower lips slid out in a petulant pout. “I figured it would be safe. I wouldn’t have to look at it every day, or... I don’t know.” She whirled around and glared at him in exasperation. “I just never got around to going to the jeweler to see if they would buy it back, okay?”
And if he believed that, she probably also had swampland to sell him.
He shut the lid on the cooler and left everything else as it was. He moved toward her with lazy deliberation. “So,” he surmised with a taunting smile, as he took her resisting body all the way in his arms, “if truth be told, I was correct. You’re still as stuck on me as I always have been on you.”
Silence fell.
As it faded, so did her resistance.
Mitzy let out a long sigh. She looked at him, still petulant. “As much as I hate to admit it, cowboy, apparently so.”
Chuckling, he lowered his head and gave her the kind of kiss that let her know whether she wanted to admit it or not she was still his woman and he was her man. End of story.
The Texas Cowboy's Quadruplets Page 11
