Love on the Line

by Aares, Pamela

  They worked through the morning and finished reinforcing the last of the weak fences. The sawing and banging slowed in the barn, and Ryan hoped that meant Adam was coming to the end of the work in there.

  “How’s the shoulder?” Alex asked.

  “I tweaked it a few days ago loading a barely breathing kid into my car.” Tweak, ping, zing—that was about all any player admitted to unless he was on the training table. And sometimes not even then would they admit to anything more drastic.

  “I thought you were rescuing donkeys.”

  Ryan told him about the emergency run with Sam and Cara.

  “It’s the damnedest thing,” Ryan said. “When I think about her, the pain goes away.” He didn’t mention his phantom pain theory. Scotty had already ribbed him hard for that.

  “Better keep her in mind, then,” Alex said with a chuckle.

  Though Ryan felt foolish, he had to ask.

  “How’d you know, I mean know... with Jackie?” He didn’t say the word love, didn’t want to. Though he wrestled with the word in his mind, pushing it away, it kept bobbing to the surface of his thoughts whenever he thought about Cara. Alex had found a great woman to share his life, everybody could see that. Ryan trusted Alex’s opinion on the subject.

  Alex leaned on the fence post and crossed his arms. “It’s not something you know. It hauls down on you and you’ll wish it hadn’t—it’s never convenient.” He raised a brow as a half-smile lit his face. “Maybe that’s the real yardstick—if it’s painful and inconvenient and you still can’t help yourself or can’t stop thinking of her, then she’s the one.”

  “She’s pretty much keeping me at arm’s length.” He could admit to Alex what he tried not to admit to himself.

  “Maybe you’ll get lucky.” Alex grinned.

  Maybe he would.

  The next morning Ryan took the back road to Cara’s place. The early morning sun speared shafts of light through the low-hanging coastal fog, circling the oaks and coyote bushes with a soft, golden hue. He pulled his Jeep into her drive.

  He sat for a moment admiring the colorful flowers that banked up against the front deck of her tiny cabin. Everything about her place seemed to whisper the praises of the simple beauty of country life. Of her.

  He pulled the Mason jar filled with daisies from the cup holder. He’d cut them just before he’d left his house so they’d be fresh. He leaned over and lifted the carefully folded knit scarf from the seat beside him and headed up the path.

  Words formed in his mind as he stepped onto Cara’s front deck. Words he’d rehearsed. Words he hoped would serve as stepping stones into her world.

  He knocked at the door.

  As he waited, his carefully collected words fled, and he began to frantically search for new ones. Words had never been his strong suit. When Cara opened the door, sleepy-eyed and tousled, wearing only a robe, his mind went blank.

  “It’s six thirty in the morning,” she said with a puzzled smile.

  He looked to his watch. Water splashed out of the jar and onto the leg of his jeans. Great, that was a ridiculous move; he knew what time it was. He righted the jar and held it out. The daisies stood like colorful guardians between them.

  “These are for you.” Embarrassment washed through him, and he quickly held out the scarf. The scarf gave him a legitimate reason to be there. “And this. You left it in my car.”

  She propped the door with her foot, then took the scarf and wrapped it around her neck. “I thought I’d left it at the hospital,” she said, patting the scarf. “Molly made it for me.” She looked up at him. “Thank you.”

  She reached for the Mason jar holding the daisies. Her fingers brushed his, and she took in a breath. What she felt, he wasn’t sure, but with that light touch he knew the path he wanted to take, words or no words.

  “These are lovely.”

  “You didn’t seem the long-stemmed red-rose type.”

  She stiffened, and immediately he regretted saying such a stupid thing. Maybe she did like red roses. When she pulled her hand away, he wished for better words.

  She opened the door. “Have you had breakfast?”

  “Hours ago,” he said, wishing now that he hadn’t.

  “Would you like to come in?” She motioned toward the living room.

  “That’d be great.”

  He stepped into the room and caught the scent of her. Though it was familiar, her scent always caught him off guard. Like it snuck into some place in his brain that was otherwise closed off to him and started firing up synapses.

  “TV working?” he said, not knowing what else to say.

  “Brilliantly.”

  She set the daisies on the table beside the TV. She bent to arrange them, giving him a very good look at her beautiful backside hugged by the silky robe. He tried to talk down his arousal, but it was hopeless. Good thing he’d tied his fleece jacket around his waist, or he’d be busted.

  “How’s Sam? I wanted to call Molly but didn’t have her number.”

  Cara turned to him. A smile played along her lips and revved up his hope. “He’s great. He’s a hero now, thanks to you.”

  Ryan raised a brow.

  “He’s the only kid in town who’s ridden in your Bugatti.”

  “Might be the new version of a pony ride,” he said. “Maybe I should charge a fee.”

  She laughed then, and he felt his shoulders relax.

  “Would you like a coffee?”

  “Is it safe?”

  She laughed again. “French Press. No rocket-science machines in this house.”

  “Cara.”

  He put his hand on her arm and closed his fingers around it. She lifted her chin, and he saw her lips quiver. Under his fingers, she trembled. It was clearly not his morning for wordsmithing. He pulled her into his arms and lowered his lips to hers.

  She opened to his kiss and let him snug her against him. It was the green light he’d dreamed of. He pulled back so he could look into her eyes, so he could touch her face. Then he kissed her again.

  Tender good-morning kisses led to passion and then to need. He lifted her in his arms, and she tipped her face to his.

  “Upstairs,” she whispered. “First room on the right. But I can walk, you know.”

  “I’m not taking any chances.”

  He would’ve run up the stairs, but he’d promised her this time he would go slow. It would take every bit of discipline he could summon, but he would love her slowly, properly, with everything he had.

  He was vaguely aware of the muted colors of the room as he laid her across her bed. She fisted her hands in his shirt and tugged him to her, pressing her lips to his. In the searing heat and heady taste of her, his resolve for going slow was ripped from him. She nipped at his bottom lip, and that resolve simply died.

  He pressed up and away from her lips and called up his willpower, the willpower that gave him an edge on the field and made him better than good at the game. But when he saw the smoldering look in Cara’s eyes, he knew that no practice, no training, had prepared him to harness the desire she fired in him.

  He hauled in a breath and willed his body to submit to his command. Then he parted her robe and cupped her breast. The sensation of her smooth warm skin and the beauty of her body tested him. He ran his thumb over her already hard nipple. She arched up with a gasp that he hoped was pure pleasure. He smoothed his hand down her belly, then followed it with his lips. When she tried to sit up and reach for him, he pressed her back to the bed with his forearm. And gave silent thanks that his physical power could constrain her and allow him to continue on the path he’d charted for her pleasure. He held her pinned and traced his mouth along the crease of her thigh. When he parted her folds with his tongue and tasted her silky, salty wetness, she cried out and plunged her hands into his hair. He resisted her effort to draw him away and back up to her mouth.

  “I promised you slow, Cara.”

  He teased her with his tongue and wasn’t sure when he hear
d her muffled sighs, when her hands gripped the sheets and her hips bucked up against his mouth, that he had the control he’d imagined. But he focused on her pleasure, drinking in her cries and keeping her pressed down into the bed. He circled his tongue over her and felt her shudder, drank in her moan and slid a finger into her. Her muscles contracted around his finger as she cried out his name. Never had his name sounded so good. She grabbed his hair again and tugged, hard, making him more intent on staying right where he was and doing exactly what he was doing.

  “Ryan—”

  He dipped a second finger inside her, and she gasped.

  “Ryan, you’ve”—she dragged in a breath—“you’ve proven... your point.” She tugged at his hair once again, harder this time. “I’ll die if I don’t feel you inside me and—Oh!”

  He loved the feeling of her hands in his hair, the passion her grip telegraphed. He moved his fingers slowly inside her, angling them to the spot that would send her over. He ignored the insistent throbbing in his groin and traced slow, near-teasing circles with his tongue. A shudder of ecstasy took her, and her legs tightened around his shoulders as she arched up. And then she went still.

  He stood and kicked off his jeans, pulled his shirt over his head. She leaned up on her elbows, the aftermath of pleasure still pooling in her eyes, the glisten of sweat lighting the curves of her body. Her cheeks were flushed, and she looked thoroughly loved. When her robe slipped from her shoulders, she wriggled free of it. Ryan drew on a condom and watched her watching him as he unrolled it up his erection. And prayed that the insane pulse of want that flooded him was his to harness and control.

  She held out her hand and he took it, pinning it above her head. He took her other hand and did the same. Her eyes went wide as he teased her, circling and barely dipping the tip of his erection inside her. She fought to free her hands, but he held firm. She moaned and bucked up against him, sheathing him with her heat, her muscles contracting around him and flooding him with intense sensation. He held her captive as he stroked into her, holding his weight up and away from her so that the only place they were joined was inside her and at their palms. She tossed her head in the side-to-side almost uncontrollable rhythm that revealed her pleasure and matched each of his deep thrusts. She tried again to release her hands, but he met her effort with deeper thrusts. How long he could hold back, he didn’t know. All he knew was that in that moment, she was his. His. And he’d do what it took to keep her that way.

  He wedged his hips between her thighs and released her hands, running his palms up her hips to cup her bottom and pull her tightly to him. She wrapped her legs around his hips, and he plunged, each thrust taking him nearly beyond his control. He slowed and dipped down to once again taste her lips, and met the ecstatic thrusts of her tongue against his.

  Never had he wanted to pleasure a woman as he wanted to pleasure her. Never had he known such beauty as he saw in her. He wanted the moment to last, wanted to hold time back and to forever feel the power coursing between them. But she arched into him, pressing her breasts against his chest, digging her fingers into the muscles of his back and writhing against him so that her nipples danced over his, and he was lost.

  He lifted her hips high and drove into her until her cries and his were indistinguishable, until the fire in him exploded and he could hold back no more. He held her gaze as the power took them, shuddered with the force of it and the stripped-to-the-bone pleasure that flooded her eyes.

  He lowered to his forearms, holding his full weight off her and willed his breathing to settle. She looked up at him, and he had no words for the emotion he saw in her eyes. He touched his forehead to hers, then kissed her cheek and then her lips.

  “I’m thinking that you can’t possibly know how beautiful you are,” he whispered against her lips.

  Her eyes widened and even through the flush of their lovemaking, he saw her blush. He kissed the tip of her nose and slid out of her.

  “I thought you didn’t.” He propped himself up on an elbow and brushed a strand of hair back away from her face. “And you know why?”

  She shook her head. Her breathing hadn’t settled. She shivered, and he pulled the edge of the duvet to cover her. “Because there aren’t words for such beauty.”

  She laughed. It was a laugh like he’d never heard—a laugh that a person who believed in heaven or angels might hear from a creature inhabiting those realms. Nothing could have made him happier.

  She lifted up to her elbows and motioned for him to lie beside her.

  “I’d be lying if I told you that the power I feel when we connect doesn’t scare me,” she said in a soft, still-breathless voice.

  “No,” he said, stroking her cheek with his thumb. “There’s no need to be scared.” He lifted his other hand and cradled her face in his palms. “Our bodies are meant to harness this power, to share it. But I’ll admit it’s a mystery. It’s as mysterious as knowing before a pitch is thrown that I’ll connect. The resonance between people, no one knows what it’s made of.”

  She put her palm to his chest, above his heart.

  “I hadn’t meant to love you, Ryan.”

  Love. The word stopped him. Light speed. That seemed to be the pace of what was happening between them. From the way Cara colored and slipped her gaze away from his, the speed had taken her by surprise too. And though she said she loved him, she’d said it as if it were a painful confession rather than something she was happy about. That she’d be unhappy about her feelings for him hadn’t crossed his mind.

  And he sure didn’t want their morning together to end on an unhappy note. That wasn’t part of his plan. Not part of his plan at all.

  He looked around the room, searching for something to say, something to do, some bridge to stretch between the life-rocking moments and the day-to-day world. He saw a small painting hanging next to a poster of wildflowers. A painting of the countryside.

  He stood and walked over to the painting. It was simply done; the stippled colors reminded him of the hills near his childhood home in the spring. “This is beautiful,” he said. Words were still stubborn, elusive, not at his beck and call. He peered closer. The painting looked remarkably like the ones he’d seen at the exhibit opening that Alex had dragged him to after a day game the previous week.

  Perhaps he imagined it, but Cara darted between him and the painting as if there was something she didn’t want him to see.

  “How about that coffee I promised?” she said.

  Her voice had a cool tone, but he could feel the heat of her body even though she was inches away. He batted away a ridiculous ping of warning and reached for her.

  “Um... sure. But first—”

  He pulled her to him and cradled her face with his hand, dipped his lips to hers and tasted. Their bodies were still slick with sweat, and he felt her nipples go hard against him as he pressed her closer. She didn’t stop him as he tracked his hand down the curve of her belly and slipped it between them, lowering it to touch her slick, wet sex.

  An alarm sounded from beside her bed.

  She groaned and walked over to silence it.

  He glanced at his watch. Though it seemed like hours had passed since he’d carried her upstairs, it was only seven thirty. “Do you have to drive the bus?”

  “Parent-teacher day,” she said with a near-wicked smile.

  He moved toward her.

  “No,” she said, backing away. “You may have had breakfast, but I haven’t.”

  She lifted the robe from her bed, slipped it on and tied the belt. Maybe she knew that the silk hugged her curves and accentuated the swell of her breasts beneath it. Maybe she didn’t. Either way it had the same effect on him. He hoped it’d be a quick breakfast.

  In the small kitchen she moved like a dancer running through a well-rehearsed routine. Her movements lent a grace to the simple activities as she scooped a gray porridge-like cereal into a pan on the stove and made coffee. The aroma of the coffee melded with the scent of their lovemaking
.

  He’d never think of coffee the same way again.

  He was grateful for the simple routine, the activities of her making breakfast. He’d felt awkward after sex in the past, but never had he felt odd tension that gripped his chest as he watched her move about the kitchen. Making love with her had cut through to a place he hadn’t even known he’d needed to guard. As he watched her, it occurred to him that she might feel the same vulnerability. Though it wasn’t kind to wish it so, he did. He’d hate to be traveling that territory alone. She hadn’t spoken of the sex that’d just blown his mind, but she had used the word love. Evidently he’d made an impression. But the way she’d said it, it felt almost like past tense. He was still sorting through his thoughts as she poured two mugs and set them, along with her bowl of steaming cereal, on the table.

  “Why a ranch, Ryan?” She sipped at her coffee. “I mean, I get the donkey rescue. Love it, really. But how’d you decide to buy the ranch in the first place?”

  She spooned a bite of the cereal from her bowl, and he had a hard time not staring at her lips as she ate it off the spoon. She saw him staring and smiled.

  “Are you sure you don’t want some?”

  He shook his head.

  “I’m always curious how people figure out how to orient their lives,” she said. “I’m still working at that myself.”

  She’d lost her job, and he hadn’t even mentioned it. He felt like a heel. Her livelihood had been pulled from under her and here he was acting like everything was fine, selfishly chasing after his own dreams.

  “I was sorry to hear about your job.”

  She rested the spoon in the bowl and shook her head. “It’s okay, I’ll get another one. But I liked driving the bus. The kids. The routine.”

  She nibbled at a half-burned piece of toast. He resisted the urge to lunge across the table and kiss her.

  “But really,” she went on, “I’d like to know how you decided to come out here, buy the ranch and get involved with the town.”

  He was grateful for a topic he could talk about easily. Since they’d come downstairs, his mind had been reeling with scenarios he’d spun of a future with her, scenarios it was way too early to explore. At least he knew how to talk about the ranch.