A Rancher’s Song

by Vivian Arend

  She moved forward and pulled out the chair beside him. “How are you feeling after your climbing adventure the other day?”

  Confused. Worried. “Embarrassed as hell you had to rescue me. I didn’t mean to put you in danger.”

  Heat flared in her eyes for a moment, silver flashing sharp as a dagger. “I’m glad I was there. You could’ve been seriously hurt.”

  There wasn’t an answer to that. She was right, although he hoped he would’ve snapped out of it eventually. “I expect I was winded from hitting the water. Just a foolish lark, but I shouldn’t have gotten you messed up in it. I’m glad you recovered okay.”

  Ivy’s lips tightened as if she wasn’t about to let the topic go before she sighed heavily. “Stubborn rock.”

  A snort escaped before he could hold it back.

  Amusement twinkled in her eyes again, thank God, because that’s what he needed. He needed to see his Ivy, all tender and sweet, restoring something that had been missing in his soul for so long.

  Pathetic. Sitting in her ramshackle kitchen was enough to make him happy.

  She went to the counter and poured them cups of tea, placing one in front of him along with a box of cookies before settling in her chair and deciding it was time to mess with his mind.

  “Getting back into the dating scene is making me uncomfortable. More uncomfortable than I expected.”

  Good.

  It shouldn’t have been his first thought, but it was the only thing that rushed through Walker’s brain. “Abrupt change of topic.”

  “Well, it seems as if you don’t want to tell me why you were playing Spiderman, so I figured I should go ahead and talk about something that’s on my mind.”

  She was thinking about dating, and it was uncomfortable, and since he wasn’t the one she would be dating, now he was uncomfortable. “Sorry it’s awkward.”

  “I need your help.”

  They were venturing into dangerous territory. “What can I do?” He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth.

  Because they weren’t dating. Even though he’d come over to her place for some ungodly reason…

  She played with her cup, staring into its depths. “I’m a little uncertain on the whole contact part.”

  Walker hesitated. “Contact. As in getting in touch with them via cell phone, text or whatever?”

  She lifted her gaze to his, quicksilver eyes so cold they were burning hot. “Contact as in physical contact. It’s been a long time for me, and while I know it’s not a case of getting rusty or anything, you know I’m really shy.”

  “You seem to have improved in that area,” he offered deadpan. “You talking about sex, Snow? Because I’m pretty sure I didn’t ever get you to actually say the word back when we were in high school.”

  And this was one impossible conversation. Not at all what he’d expected, although truth be told, he’d kind of just rushed out with no real agenda other than he needed to be with her.

  Her cheeks turned red at his words, but her gaze was rocksteady. “It’s still hard to say, and a lot harder to do. I mean the thought of doing. So I was wondering if maybe…if you’d consider…it. Help me warm up a little.”

  There was a special place in hell reserved for men like him. Men whose first thought after being offered sex by a timid young woman was to throw her over their shoulder and haul said woman to the nearest flat surface.

  Walker closed his eyes, pretending he hadn’t just been propositioned by the woman he wanted more than his next breath. “I don’t know if that would be a good idea.”

  “Oh, I understand how bad of an idea it is, but at the same time I think it’s exactly what we both need. I suppose we don’t have to do it,” Ivy offered. “Just fooling around might help.”

  Goddamnfuckinghell. “Ivy.”

  Her gaze remained pinned to his. “Walker. I know you said you can’t offer me anything, but you honestly can. I haven’t been with anyone since you, and I trust you. Getting to figure this part out slowly over the summer could be a good thing, and I want you to seriously think about it—”

  He hadn’t heard the last dozen words she’d said. Everything after ‘I haven’t been with anyone since you’ was a bit of a blur. “Wait. What? You haven’t been with anyone?”

  Ivy shook her head, her eyes lowering for a moment before she dragged them back up into position. The steel rolled back into her spine as she waited for him to respond.

  Which he couldn’t do yet because he was a dumbass cowboy and needed more information. “You haven’t been on a date since you left Heart Falls?”

  “I’ve been on dates. And I’ve had a few kisses but nothing else. Not really.” The faint colour in her cheeks flushed up to volcanic levels. “I do have some toys I use on a regular basis, so it’s not as if I have no sex life at all.”

  Walker was about to fall over, killed by her casual reference to masturbation. “I—”

  Nope, he couldn’t do it. His vocal cords had frozen because his brain was far too busy sending him images of Ivy lying naked on her bed, hands caressing herself, reaching between her legs.

  He felt lightheaded enough he had to lean forward and support his head in his hands and take a couple of calming breaths.

  A soft hand landed on his shoulder, patting him reassuringly. “Walker?”

  He looked into her face and saw no sign she was teasing or leading him on. Nothing but earnest Ivy, sweet and desirable, and every bit of his past and all sorts of things that he longed for in the future that he couldn’t have.

  Except he could. Because she was offering herself to him, once again, and this time he was too much of a bastard to turn her down. “I can’t promise you anything, Ivy. I still don’t know what lies ahead.”

  She nodded. “I understand, but this is something I want, and I think you want it too. I’m not asking for promises. I just want now. I’ve had too many days when I didn’t know I was going to have a tomorrow. And maybe this is a stupid idea, but if it’s going to make us both happy, why not?”

  “So even though we might not end up together, you want us to be together now?”

  “If by ‘be together’ you mean having sex and being in each other’s beds, yes.”

  He might be a fool, and his entire life might be steamrolling past without him at the wheel, but damn if he wasn’t going to grab on to this one with both hands. “Hell, yes.”

  * * *

  For one terrible horrible moment she’d thought he was going to once again be all considerate and gentlemanly and turn her down, even though she could tell this was what he wanted.

  Thank God he didn’t.

  Only… “What now?”

  She hadn’t gotten her bedroom ready first thing with this in mind, unless it had been a subconscious choice. Either way, there was a queen-size mattress waiting at the end of the hall, but she wasn’t quite brave enough to simply take him by the hand and haul him there.

  One moment Walker was looking at her as if she were a tasty appetizer, and the next he reached across the distance between them and picked her up. She grabbed his shoulders for balance, but he resettled her quickly, and suddenly she was seated in his lap, tucked up tight against that sturdy chest, his gaze fixed on her lips as if she might vanish at any moment.

  It felt right to be in his arms.

  He brushed his knuckles over her cheek, his gaze following his fingers. “What now is we get reacquainted. I don’t think I should strip us down and take you right here on the floor.”

  It was suddenly very difficult to swallow. “You don’t?”

  “Not that impulsive sex would be a bad thing, and not that I have anything against floors, but I kind of want to savour this,” he admitted. “Take you in one little bite at a time.”

  He wasn’t doing anything except brushing his fingertips over her face, but it was if he’d stroked a match and lit her on fire. Streaks of heat ran down her torso before settling between her legs.

  “I’m kind of a sure th
ing,” she whispered.

  The resulting shudder made his hand move erratically against her skin as his thumb stroked the side of her neck. “Doesn’t mean we have to go all the way right now, Snow.”

  And even though she really, really wanted to, part of her didn’t. Because stupid as it was, she hadn’t been with anyone over these years. She’d fooled around a bit, but sex was special, and she’d never found anyone she wanted to share that intimacy with. Not since Walker.

  Not until now.

  She scrambled to find some kind of mental footing to regain her internal balance. “Not going to go all the way? Are we back to high school and baseball analogies?”

  He chuckled. “Maybe. That’s a good idea, in a way, although I bet the kids these days have come up with some other lingo.”

  “Probably computer based, but I don’t have the guts to ask my baby sister.”

  “And I’m definitely not asking Dustin.”

  His hand had travelled all the way down her arm and landed over her fingers, his thumb stroking her knuckles. She turned her hand over and snuck her fingers into his, and a rush of excitement swept through her.

  She was giddy, just like the first time they’d held hands. Him, tugging her with him toward the barns, but instead of letting go once they were in the darkness, he’d held on.

  That same sensation of connection and wonder slid up her spine with prickly fingers.

  Walker adjusted his chair, turning away from the table so there was more room. “What are we going to tell people? Because you know damn well they’re going to ask.”

  She wanted to say it was nobody else’s business, but he was right. “I’ve already told you that no matter how this ends, I’m not going to be upset.”

  “I have a feeling your dad has a hole dug in his backyard with my name on it,” Walker informed her.

  “And I have space in my bed with your name on it,” she countered, “and since I’m an adult, I win.”

  When he spoke, his voice had gone deeper and more rumbly. “You need to stop talking about your bed.”

  She shivered at the sheer lust in the simple statement. “I think we should let people jump to their own conclusions. You said you wanted to come fix my stairs, and I’ve got a bunch of other jobs around the place I can’t do. I’ll pay you to do them, and don’t argue with me about that because I’d have to pay anybody else.”

  “And when I come over we can work on more than the house?” He didn’t look entirely happy about the solution. “What’re you going to tell your sisters?”

  “That you and I are friends, and you’re helping me out.” She picked up his hand in hers, tracing her fingers over his knuckles. “Look. Just because I love my sisters doesn’t mean they or my parents get to know all the details of my life. I don’t have a problem with this. I think we tell people we’re friends, and leave it at that.”

  She wanted him to say yes so badly. Or at least she wanted him to say yes to them fooling around.

  However she could get him, she would take him. Because she’d told the truth—there’d been too many days when she hadn’t known if tomorrow would come. Ivy wanted him, all of him, but she’d take him one small step at time if that was the only way to convince him to try.

  Only that’s when something changed. He was big, and she was small. And sitting in his lap felt as if she were surrounded by a forest; his back a rock wall behind her, the sturdy limbs of his body like a stand of spruce trees, warding off the cold.

  So when he shifted position under her it was noticeable, his body straightening just a bit as if the rock wall at her back had risen twenty feet.

  “No.” The word came out hard. He shook his head, his fingers rising to cup her chin as he tilted her face toward him. “I mean yes, we’re friends, but that’s not what we’re going to tell people. We’ll figure out what the hell we’ll tell them at the end of the summer but for now? I’m not tiptoeing around like some handyman in a bad porn movie, crawling into your bed and being a dirty secret. I’m going to be here anytime I want, and that’s not going to be something we can wave away.”

  He leaned closer, his lips only inches from hers, and she was trapped. He wasn’t hurting her, but he was holding her still as if he wanted her to get every nuance of his message.

  “Every time I’m in town and have a spare moment I’m going to be here. I want to see you in the daytime as well as the night, and I’m going to take you anyway I want. Not giving this a name means we’re sneaking around, and that’s not acceptable. You’re mine. You okay with those rules?”

  “I’m yours until you figure out what you’re doing?” His eyes burned intensely, stoking the heat inside her. Thank God it had worked. “Yes. Okay.”

  He leaned in close again, the air from his lungs mixing with hers as she breathed in, searching for control. She found herself shaking as she stared into his familiar and yet brand-new face.

  This wasn’t how he’d been as a teenager, and she liked the changes. She admired this determined and focused man.

  He brought their lips together. It was sweet for a moment, a memory of their past sweeping in, easy yet full of emotion. The next moment it was apparent she needed to put aside the memories and focus on the man here and now, the man kissing her senseless as if he’d been storing up passion for eleven years.

  Walker didn’t kiss, he consumed.

  He breathed her in, using his lips and teeth and tongue until she was gasping for air. Her hands tangled in his hair, her body leaning tight against his as she accepted his demands and made a few of her own.

  Walker put one hand on her hip, the other sliding up her back and into her hair. His fingers tightened as he twirled the strands around his hand, making a fist and tugging slightly to lean her back as he moved away from her mouth. Spending time along her jaw then up to her ear.

  A noise escaped her, somewhere between a moan and a squeal as he put his teeth to her earlobe and nipped. Soothing the pain with his tongue then putting his lips to a spot on her neck that set her squirming.

  The hand on her hip tightened, locking her in place against his body. She rocked in frustration, wanting to rub against him. Wanting his mouth back on hers.

  He worked his teeth along the tendon of her neck. “Oh, yes. Walker…”

  It wasn’t his name, it was a moan of pleasure as he fastened his mouth and sucked. Her entire body reacted, and the only thing moving against her were his lips. The hand at the back of her head held her, the one on her hip rigid as well, as if she were encased in the stone of his namesake.

  And inside the stone, she was melting. Heating up to volcanic proportions, she really hoped he knew how to deal with what he’d unleashed.

  She’d been waiting a long time for this.

  Walker moaned happily, returning to her mouth as if he simply couldn’t stop himself, tasting and dipping, slower now, and yet just as desperate.

  Under her hip his erection pressed against her, proof he was as affected by this—whatever this was—as she was. She certainly couldn’t call it just an innocent kiss.

  It wasn’t innocent, and it wasn’t just anything.

  Their tongues tangled before he took control, filling her and demanding she let him in.

  She’d seen enough porn for that to spark other images of him demanding entry to other parts of her body. “Please.”

  “Yes.” The word came out muffled against her, and she wasn’t even sure what he was saying yes to. But the hand on her hip was rising, drifting over her ribs, sliding until he cupped her breast.

  She had her fingers tangled in his hair, and for some reason the thought of Brad’s shaved head slipped out of nowhere and to her dismay, a giggle escaped.

  Walker slowed, his lips against hers curling into a smile. “What?” he demanded.

  He pulled back far enough she could look into his eyes. She softened her fingers and let her right hand slide through his dark hair. “I like your hair,” she admitted.

  One brow arched upward. �
�That’s what you’re thinking while I’m kissing you? Damn, I need to try harder.”

  She tightened the fingers of her left hand that were still tangled around his locks, tugging slightly. Loving the flash of fire in his eyes. “You’re getting more than an A for effort, trust me.”

  Ivy took a deep breath, and that’s when she realized he still held her. His hand was cupped around her breast as if he had no intention of ever moving it again.

  And yet he wasn’t stroking her, and he wasn’t teasing, but as he leaned forward and took her lips again it seemed her skin grew hypersensitive. The small motions of their bodies made his hand over her blouse rub her bra slightly.

  It was enough friction to tease nipples that had gone tight somewhere around the first thought of him touching her. They were sensitive, and they ached, and she really wanted him to do more than hold her, but it seemed he had his own agenda.

  She was okay with that, returning her attention to his lips because it was too good to miss a single moment.

  Everything in the room sparkled when he pulled their lips apart, but she wasn’t sure if it was because the sunlight was hitting a batch of glasses she’d left on the counter or if she was so oxygen-deprived she wasn’t seeing straight.

  They stared at each other for a while, Ivy taking advantage of the opportunity to touch him. To run her hands over his shoulders and down his back, and when he chuckled and pulled her in tight for a hug, she closed her eyes and soaked in the sensation.

  Sex and sexual tension were wonderful things, but his arms around her gave her a firm place to rest, and that was a glorious sensation.

  A buzz sounded just before his phone rang, and he shifted her so he could reach into his back pocket to answer the call. “Yeah?”

  While the buzz of a voice echoed softly, Walker’s gaze drifted over her face. She watched him intently, his eyes no longer soft but growing more focused as he brought himself back from where they’d drifted to together.

  “I’ll be there.” Walker hung up and made a face. “I gotta go.”

  Which was probably a good thing, even though it didn’t seem like it at the moment. “Okay.”