by Marie Jermy
Rex barely registered Ramona’s words as her fingers glided around to tease his stomach, warming him inside and out and stiffening his cock to almost a painful level as it rubbed against the zipper. “What are you saying, Ramona?”
“Do you agree we have red-hot chemistry?”
He nodded. “Tauter than a violin bow.”
“Want to loosen it? With me? In my bed?”
Oh, Rex definitely wanted to loosen it with Ramona, in her bed. Repeatedly. Until he was slick with sweat and she was screwed senseless. But wait…
It was obvious Ramona wanted him as much as he wanted her, but how much more did she want? Would she at some point in the future want to further things between them? Being a partner at work was one thing, but in bed, it spelled “commitment.” Would she want marriage? Kids? Why hadn’t he thought of that before? Rex grimly suspected it was because no matter how many times he’d told himself Ramona was off-limits, his cock and his brain had ultimately fused together.
Ramona was inching closer, her ripe, luscious mouth parting for a kiss, her pink tongue visible and waiting. Fuck, no! If anything cooled his wanting to release his aching cock into Ramona’s slick and hot pussy, it was the thought of that walk down the aisle. He pushed her away. “No, Ramona. I’m not interested. Not now. Not ever.”
Then before he changed his mind, because, honestly, another second, with his cock ramrod stiff and refusing to listen to reason, he would have done, Rex strode away.
* * * *
Her mouth wide open, Ramona added another description as Rex occupied himself with another woman—Cindy “Legs” Lopez, no less—before she could blink. SOB. Who the hell did he think he was? She’d practically offered herself on a plate, and he’d given her the brush-off in the coldest, cruelest way possible—in public.
Mounting anger mixed with mortification, Ramona swiftly left the dance floor, even managing a smile at a worried-looking Samantha, and went straight to Rustlers. She needed a drink that was as stiff as the hard-on Rex had prodded against her, and the same hard-on that Cindy “Legs” Lopez was probably being prodded with right now.
At that thought, her anger reached “eruption level.” The flash from a camera right in her face made it spew. “Get the fuck out of my face!” she snarled at… Well, at nothing, just a fading shimmering light. What the…? Had she just seen a ghost?
It was at that moment that Stanford noticed her agitated state and served her with a chilled glass of white wine. He then led her to the cellar, telling her it was a great place for cooling off and thinking.
Five minutes of sitting on an empty crate and Ramona couldn’t agree more with Stanford. She no longer felt the need to shout, swear, and inflict bodily harm on Rex “Smug SOB” Latimer. What she did need, though, was payback. And the plan that began to crystallize as she sipped her wine was very subtle.
And oh, so appropriate.
Chapter 6
“Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun?” Rex said to himself, a scowl darkening his already grim mood as he tore “July” from Mimi’s desktop calendar, crumpled it into a ball, and lobbed it into the wastepaper bin.
He had been a resident of Silver Creek for one whole month. And he liked it. The locals were friendly and had made him feel welcome and part of the community, so much so it felt like he’d lived in the town for years. He’d definitely come home. Accepting Stephens’s offer of employment and leaving his old life behind had been a wise choice.
Furthermore, for the last twenty-five days of that one whole month, he’d been co-owner of the “Greg Stephens Veterinarian Practice.” He liked that, too. Mimi Parish, who bore a remarkable likeness to Angela Lansbury, had taken to him like a mother and fussed around him at every possible opportunity. He didn’t mind in the least, especially when she’d discovered his weakness for peanut butter cookies. The only problem was, not only was he susceptible with piling on the pounds, but if he kept on eating them at the rate which Mimi baked them, he’d soon begin to look like one.
And Ramona… Well, what of Ramona? The woman filled his dreams and stirred his cock like no other woman could, so there had been no one-night stands or flings. He couldn’t do it. He hadn’t even shared Ramona’s bed, yet it felt like he would be cheating on her if he had sex with another woman. Hence the reason for his nonexistent sex life. On the subject of the house, she continued to ask him to sell his share to her, and if he was going to move out. He continued to give the same answer on both—an unequivocal no.
Sharing the same house as Ramona had its plus and minus points. More minus than plus, but then again what did he expect when she continued to leave the bathroom looking like a bomb site?
Another minus was her apparent refusal to even consider his idea of turning the smallest bedroom into another bathroom. Another was her fluctuating moods. One day, she was sweetness and light and an outrageous flirt. The next, she was as cranky as hell. He just didn’t get her, not that he was an expert at understanding women.
But the biggest minus of them all had to be Bud Watson. While they shared the patients who attended the surgery and took any weekend emergency callouts in turn, Ramona consistently left him to deal with Watson. He thought that was unfair. They should share the pain in the ass.
And last night, finally, Rex thought she had conceded.
Watson had telephoned asking for assistance with his foaling mare. Ramona had taken the call and agreed to attend. But halfway through the evening, he’d received a call from her asking him—no, ordering him—to go to the Watson ranch and deliver the foal himself. Her reason? She was needed elsewhere. Other than that lame excuse, he hadn’t been able to demand a proper explanation because she hadn’t returned home.
And that was why Rex was waiting in reception, not for Mimi and her peanut butter cookies, but for Ramona.
“So what the hell was the emergency last night?” he demanded the moment she stepped across the threshold. She looked pale and drawn, her usually sparkling eyes dull and lifeless. He didn’t care. “I’d made dinner plans, and I wasn’t too impressed about having to cancel them to go and deliver a foal because you were needed elsewhere.” He hadn’t really had any dinner plans but, frankly, was too pissed to let her know that.
A warning light blinked in her eyes. “Oh, I’m dreadfully sorry,” she purred, her tone dripping with scorn. “But I think the rape of my sister was more important than worrying about your guts.”
“Samantha’s been raped?” He immediately cooled off. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Why should you? It’s none of your business.”
“If there’s anything I can do, then—”
“Yeah, there is,” she interrupted. “You can stay the hell out of my way.”
Nice one, Latimer, Rex berated himself when Ramona flounced into the office and treatment room and slammed the door. He should really apologize for being a jerk. Though knowing what kind of a mood she was in, would she accept it? Deciding he had to at least try, he knocked and entered the room.
Her back to him, Ramona was standing by the window. He approached and felt certain he saw her shoulders shuddering. He reached out to touch her, but then thought better of it. Andy Ward, his meteorologist friend from Kansas, was a twin, and Rex had experienced and understood the bond that twins shared when Andy’s brother had been seriously hurt in a motorbike accident. Ramona was probably feeling just as hurt and upset as her sister, and the last thing she’d want was to be touched by a man.
Since the night of the centennial celebrations, and because she visited Ramona almost every night, he’d seen a lot more of Samantha. Though shy, she was a really nice, kind-hearted woman, who didn’t have a bad word to say about anyone. Sure, he was opposed to violence, but at that moment, Rex decided whoever had hurt Samantha needed to be strung up by his balls from the nearest tree. And he would gladly do the deed himself.
“I thought I told you to stay out of my way.”
Ramona’s tone, although harsh, cracked with
what sounded like a sob. He definitely needed to apologize. “I know, but I wanted to say sorry for being a jerk.”
“Apology accepted.”
“Oh.” Rex frowned. That was too easy. Ramona turned to face him, and he instantly noticed her striking emerald eyes appeared moist, as though she was holding back the tears. He contained another urge to touch her by shoving his hands into his pants pockets. “Who attacked Samantha? Was it somebody local? From the town?”
“Mark Raven.”
He’d only met him the once, but remembered how he had wanted to punch the man’s lights out. He definitely wanted to do the deed himself. Just one problem… “A tree won’t be of any use. Raven hasn’t the balls to be hung by.”
Ramona smiled. Rex smiled back.
“Have you finished?” she asked.
“Finished what?”
“Twenty questions.”
Yep, it definitely had been too easy.
“Kiss off and leave me alone.”
His brows shot up with surprise. “Excuse me?”
“Are you hard of hearing as well as being a jerk?”
Dammit, she had to be the most exasperating woman he had ever come across. Rex resisted an almost childish urge to kick the filing cabinet. He felt he had three choices here.
One, he could have an all-out argument with her.
Two, he could ignore her.
Or three, he could kiss her.
Against his better judgment, and because he was a red-blooded man who had slowly and unequivocally been going out of his mind for the last month, Rex opted for the latter.
Removing his hands from his pockets, he reached out and curled his fingers around Ramona’s upper arms. Then, yanking her against him, he lowered his head and fused his mouth to hers. Because her mouth was open, probably down to the startled gasp she’d uttered, his tongue plunged between her teeth to explore her warmth with energetic strokes.
At first, she resisted, but then her hands stopped pushing him and started grabbing him. She grabbed the front of his shirt, his collar, his tie, his hair, and kissed him back twice as hard, her tongue dueling wildly with his, evoking a spike of hot need to shoot down the entire length of his body, before it settled in his groin. Dreams of dewy, hunger-driven, tongue-tangling kisses had nothing on the real thing.
And she kissed with open eyes!
His heart pounding with gusto, his cock pounding to the same beat, Rex wrapped his arms around Ramona, lifted her up until their bodies were intimately aligned, and backed her into the door, provoking a startled and somewhat painful cry. He broke off their wild, passionate kiss to see what the problem was. Seeing the protruding coat hook was the culprit, he spun them around and deposited her onto the treatment table, then near enough jumped up onto it, too.
Foreplay and finesse forgotten, panting hot and hard, they frantically tore at buckles, buttons, and zippers, desperate to sate the red-hot-tauter-than-a-violin-bow chemistry that had been sparking and twanging between them from the moment they met. As soon as his pants and boxers and her jeans and panties had been flung to the four corners of the room, Rex rocked into Ramona. The table rocked with him. There was then a loud snapping sound, and the table gave way beneath them.
“Fuck!” Rex swore when they both landed back on terra firma in more ways than one. He’d forgotten all about using protection. And it was a toss-up of either being hypnotized by her mouth or her eyes that had made him forget. He pulled away. “I’m not wearing a condom.”
“It’s okay. I’m on the pill,” Ramona panted, trying to pull Rex back down onto her, into her, but he pulled further away.
Hurtful images from the past swamped Rex’s mind.
“Stacey, darlin’, please listen to me. We’re not to blame for losing our baby… No, please, don’t do that!”
He’d grabbed her hands in order to stop her tearing the scan photo into pieces, but hadn’t been quick enough. The pieces fluttered to the floor, like the tears that had spilled from his eyes, blurring his vision of the woman he’d wanted a family with. Had wanted to grow gray and old with.
“Freak. The incident was a freak. Damaged. As damaged as the bastard who made it. You!”
“No!” Rex mentally kicked himself for his sharp tone. Ramona was not his ex-wife, far from it. He told himself the chances of a repeat performance were, at best, zero to nil, and yet, he couldn’t make himself trust her, not when Stacey’s poison still taunted him. “I mean, I haven’t got anything, you know… But—”
The lust in her eyes turned glacier. “Oh, I get it,” she interrupted. “If I had something to catch, you wouldn’t want to catch it.”
He gave himself another mental kick, this time harder, when she shoved him away and stood up. “Ramona, I didn’t mean that.”
“Oh, yes, you did! It’s written all over your smug face.” The slamming of the door behind her rattled the window pane.
This time, the urge was too strong, and Rex gave the filing cabinet a hefty kick. He gave it another for good measure and gathered his clothing. He’d just fastened and belted his pants when he heard an extremely loud and vocal curse, and Ramona flew back into the room, her face flushed bright red.
She glared at him as if daring him to ask for an explanation. Not that he needed to, not when he spotted her jeans spread-eagled on the desk and her yellow lace panties snagged on the cactus plant on the windowsill…
Hang on a minute. Yellow lace panties? And not just any yellow, either, but an in-your-face yellow. How could he have not noticed them? He stared at them and a renewed surge of heat stiffened his cock. Colorful lingerie had always been a turn-on for him. His lips then quirked when Mimi Parish spoke through the door.
“Ramona, when you’ve finished running around half-naked, perhaps you can attend to your first patient of the day? A cat with a serious case of hairballs.”
“Don’t you dare laugh!” Ramona sternly told him.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He waited until she was dressed then caught her wrist as she went to walk past him. “I only dream of you.”
“If that’s some sort of half-assed apology for saying I’ve got something to catch—”
“I never said that!” Rex shoved his free hand through his hair, causing it to stick up at right angles. “Dammit, Ramona! Hasn’t it occurred to you that I have other reasons for using condoms?”
“Yeah, you don’t want to get me pregnant.”
“Exactly.”
“But since I’m on the pill, that’s unlikely to happen. So what the fuck is your problem, Rex?”
“Hmm, let me think about that? How about being on the pill doesn’t mean—” Rex broke off before he spilled his guts about Stacey. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Ramona, but I don’t owe you anything. No explanation. No nothing” She obviously did take it the wrong way because her glare was glacial. He released her wrist and, adopting an equal frostiness, reminded her, “You’ve got some hairballs to attend to.”
Ramona opened the door, her murmured curse fiery and curt. But then she did something that surprised the hell out of Rex. She pressed the door shut and kissed him. His arms immediately went around her, his hands cupping and kneading her well-rounded ass, pulling her closer to his hard body and even harder cock. She purred, which he promptly savored, then deepened the kiss until…
“Ramona? Hairballs.”
Smiling, Ramona drew back and straightened his tie. “When you do want to explain, then you know which bedroom to come to.”
No, Rex didn’t want to explain, but he certainly knew which bedroom to go to. The one next to his.
* * * *
In actual fact, later that same evening, Rex did go to Ramona’s bedroom.
Casually dressed in a purple velour jog suit, a frown wrinkling her brow, she was sprawled out over the bed studying what appeared to be architectural drawings. He paused for a moment, uncertain whether to disturb her or not, but then tapped lightly on the open door. “Hey.”
She looked up, s
tartled. “Hey, yourself.”
“I thought you were staying with Samantha again tonight?”
“Oh, I am. I’m just going.”
The speed with which Ramona folded the papers and tried to shove them under the mattress piqued Rex’s interest. “What’re you looking at?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing, my eye,” he said, stepping over and taking the papers from her hand. He sat down beside her and flattened the pages out. They were architectural drawings. And there was something very familiar about the building drawn. A second later and he realized why. “Is this our house?”
She gave a small shrug. “Might be.”
“Might be, my eye.” She tried to snatch the papers away, but he held them out of reach. “Do you want to tell me why you have plans drawn by a Jack Raven…” He paused and frowned. “Jack Raven?”
“Mark’s father. He’s an architect. Nice man. Though Dad would disagree. He can’t stand the sight of him. Some long-standing feud. Don’t know what about. But anyway…” She waved a carefree hand as though she’d said too much.
“Right. Plans of our house with what looks like an annex built at the rear? An annex which includes a further six bedrooms and five bathrooms. Well, I’m waiting,” he said when Ramona remained silent.
“It’s really none of your business.”
“I live here, Ramona. It is my business.”
She sighed and relented. “Sammy had the idea to turn the house into a type of summer camp for disadvantaged kids. You know, a place where they can have fun, make new friends, forget about whatever crap is happening back home. They could help look after the animals. Maybe if they were interested in becoming a vet, I could set up a scholarship fund or something.”
Rex laid the plans back on the bed, his brows drawing together thoughtfully. He was silent for a few moments as he digested her words. The idea tugged at the once-abused boy within him. “Is this why you wanted me to sell my half of the house to you?” He sighed when she nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me, Ramona? It’s a brilliant idea. But I think you and Samantha could go one better. You’ve got the land here. Build another house, a separate house. Maybe even adapt it for disabled children, as well.”
