by Lori Wilde
She pulled his head down and gave him another kiss on the lips. Hoped he was getting the message. Stop kissing forehead and cheeks, buddy. Lips. Kiss the lips.
One palm slid down her spine to spread out over her bottom, his fingers sinking into the flesh of her buttocks.
He ran his tongue over her lips, and she loosened her jaw, tipped her head back farther, allowed him deeper inside her.
Falling. She was falling. Falling straight into him, heart and soul.
“Hey,” he said, wrenching his mouth from hers. “What’s that brushing against my leg?”
“Oh.” She glanced down, laughed. “That’s Harry.”
“Ah, the cat you rescued. I was beginning to think you made him up. Harry as in Harry Potter?” Ryder squatted to scratch the orange tabby behind the ears.
“As in Harry Houdini. He’s a sly one. Stealthy.”
Harry pressed his head against Ryder’s palm and purred like a sports car engine.
“He likes you.”
“I like cats.”
“Have you ever had a cat?”
“Barn cats on the ranch when I was growing up. Never a pet of my own.”
“I have a feeling he’s going to fill the empty hole in my life,” she said.
“You’ve got an empty hole? Wait . . .” He laughed. “That came out wrong.”
“Not hole. That’s the wrong word. Space. There’s space in my life for more.”
“More what?”
“Love.”
“Oh,” he said, and then again, “oh.” His tumultuous eyes met hers, and she saw something there she could not name.
Her heart hammered, and she dropped her gaze. Turned away. Hurried over to the counter. “Chicken’s getting cold.”
“I like cold chicken.”
“You’re in luck. So do I.”
“I know,” he said.
He’d gotten up and was headed for the sink to wash his hands after petting Harry, orange hairs clinging to his shirt, his eyes heavy-lidded and sultry.
“Hey, why do you have a compass on your counter?” He dried his hands on a cup towel and picked up the antique compass from its spot next to the flour canister.
“It was Matt’s.”
“He meant a lot to you.”
“I didn’t keep it because it was Matt’s. I kept as a reminder not to ever lose sight of who I am again.”
Ryder glanced from Katie to the compass in his big palm and back again. “Matt robbed you of your identity?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I allowed myself to get caught up in his dreams and ignored my own. I put my needs aside for his.”
“What are your dreams, Katie Cheek?” Ryder asked, stepped closer. “What are your plans for filling those empty spaces inside of you?”
“To eat chicken.” She laughed because she couldn’t begin to tell him what was in her heart.
He laughed too, a sound as wobbly as her own. “Remember the night we fought over the last piece of cold fried chicken in your mom’s refrigerator?”
She did indeed. She’d awoken in the middle of the night hungry for her mom’s leftover fried chicken. She’d padded into the kitchen to find Joe and Ryder with their butts sticking out of the fridge.
Joe had sunk his teeth into a juicy chicken leg, when Ryder, who was holding the last piece, a breast, her favorite part of the chicken, looked up and saw her standing there.
“I was coming for that,” she’d said.
“Too bad,” Joe gloated. “We beat you to it. You snooze, you lose.”
Ryder had glanced at the chicken and then back at her. Katie had given him an award-winning smile, and fluttered her eyelashes.
“Aw, hell,” Ryder said.
“Don’t you dare give that to her.” Joe snorted. “Have some self-respect.”
Katie’s stomach growled loudly. “I’m so hungry,” she whimpered, and placed a palm over her stomach.
Ryder hesitated.
“Don’t fall for it. She uses that poor little youngest thing to get everything she wants.” Joe picked up an apple. “Here, have a Golden Delicious.”
“I was dreaming about that chicken,” Katie said.
“Tough. We beat you to the punch. Suck it up. You want the apple or not? ’Cause if not, I’ll eat it too.”
“Here, take it.” Ryder had thrust the chicken at her. “I can’t take any more of those pitiful eyes.”
“We didn’t fight over the chicken,” she corrected him now. “You gave me your piece.”
“Did I?” He sounded dubious. “That doesn’t sound like me.”
“You did. But this time, it’s share and share alike.” She dug around in the paper bag, pulled out the fried chicken and containers of buttered green beans, mashed potatoes, cream gravy, and buttermilk biscuits.
“I missed Froggy’s something fierce when I was in the Middle East,” he said. “After my mom died, me and Pop ate there so much Floyd MacGregor started reserving a table for us.”
Katie didn’t know what to say about that. She couldn’t remember having heard Ryder speak of his mom. She knew it was a tender topic. When her family had taken him in, her mom had warned them not to bring up his mother, and no one ever had.
“That must have been such a rough time for you,” she said, trying to calm her pounding heart.
He shrugged. “I barely remember her now.”
Katie didn’t know whether to keep talking or shut up. The only thing she knew about Ryder’s past came from Joe, and Joe didn’t spill much.
“I’ll take the dark meat,” he said. “I know white meat is your favorite.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Defer to me. There are two chicken breasts. We can both have one.”
“What’s wrong with giving you what you like?”
“It spoils me.”
“And?”
“Being the youngest, my family did that to me my entire life. It made me . . .”
“What?” he asked, looking interested.
“Complacent. I thought I’d get everything on a silver platter, and I drifted through life. Until . . .” She swallowed. Why was she telling him all this?
He leaned in, watching her divvying the food on the plate. One breast for him, one for her. One leg for him, one for her. Two scoops of potatoes for him, two for her. Making it come out equal.
“Oh,” he said. “I almost forgot.”
She raised her head, met his frank gaze. “Forgot what?”
“I found this when I was cleaning out my old room.” He reached in his back pocket for his wallet, opened it up, and passed her a pink envelope that smelled faintly of cotton candy. His name was scrawled on the front in her penmanship.
At the sight of the envelope, her heart tripped, stumbled to her stomach. “You kept it.”
Chapter 18
A tender smile tugged at his lips. “Of course I did. You were the only one who ever handmade me a birthday card.”
“It was dumb.”
“I thought it was awesome.”
“I wanted to give you something special.”
“And you did.” He thrust the card into her hand. “Open it.”
She didn’t have to open it. The memory was imprinted in her brain forever.
But because he was standing there looking expectant, she slid the flap back, took out the folded piece of paper, filled with teenage drawings of hearts and flowers and smiley faces. God, what a dork she’d been.
Some of the glitter and rhinestones she’d stuck on with Elmer’s Glue had fallen off, the pink paper age-dried crisp, the red ink faded. But she could still read the girlish proclamation, “Happy birthday to my favorite guy.”
Her face heated. “I was a silly kid with a crazy crush.”
“You were sweet,” he said. “The card was sweet.”
“Cheesy.”
“No way.”
“You don’t have to be nice about it. I know I was a huge nerd.”
; “For months I carried this card around in my wallet. Even took it with me to basic training. Every time I looked at it, I felt a little less . . .”
“What?” she prompted when he didn’t go on, and her heart gave a bunny hop of hope. For what, she had no idea.
“Lonely,” he finished, looked chagrinned, and shrugged. It was adorable, the big, burly alpha guy all sheepish and vulnerable.
She stared down at the dopey card decorated with the dreams of a starry-eyed fifteen-year-old. “I still can’t believe you saved it.”
“I didn’t have a lot of good things to remember about my childhood,” he said. “This was one of them. Your family was one of them. You were one of them.”
Why was he looking at her like that? What did it mean? His eyes were soft, and special as Christmas morning.
She shifted her gaze away, unable to bear the poignancy of the moment. I’m doing it again. Getting swept away. Losing myself. She shouldn’t be smiling about it, but she was. Oh crap. Where had he put her compass?
Katie’s pulse hammered, and her mouth went dry and her toes curled inside her fuzzy socks. He was looking at her in such a way that she couldn’t think straight, so she offered him a casual smile, and turned back to the food.
“Sit down.” He guided her to the kitchen chair, and fool that she was, she let him. “I’ve got this.”
He rested his hands on her shoulders and kissed the top of her head, and Katie wriggled at the hot brand of his lips on her scalp.
“Hmm,” he said, his voice dropping as he dipped his head close to her ear. “You smell like purple flowers.”
“Lavender.” She shivered at the prickle of his breath against her skin.
“Cold?”
“Ticklish.” She slanted her head away from him, but his mouth was at her ear, his breath warm on her skin, and she forgot everything else in the world.
She closed her eyes and inhaled heavily at how good his body heat felt against her skin. “I thought you were hungry,” she said, feeling the corner of the envelope poking from her pocket into the small of her back, and shivered again.
“Starving,” he said and stepped back.
Katie exhaled audibly and straightened her spine, surprised to find just how hot and melty her body had become.
“Whoa!” Ryder exclaimed, and she turned her head to see him dance, off balance, around Harry, who’d appeared out of nowhere to trip him in the middle of the floor. “Where did he come from? I’m beginning to see why you named him after Houdini.”
“He’s probably hungry. Let me feed him.” She got up to give the cat half rations per Sam’s postsurgery instructions.
While she was feeding Harry, she heard a lighter strike behind her, smelled a whiff of spiced apples. Turned her head to see Ryder had lit the kitchen candle that was casting soft yellow light over the room. He switched off the overhead light.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Creating a mood.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket, opened up a music app, riffled through a playlist to find Justin Timberlake singing “Rock Your Body.” The hot Billboard song burning up the charts the same summer he’d left for the army.
The same summer she’d kissed him.
“You had this planned. My favorite takeout. My favorite song . . .”
“Your favorite guy,” he said, added, “I hope.”
“Ryder,” she whimpered helplessly.
“Katie.” He held out a hand to her.
She gulped, but took it.
He pulled her close, spun her around the room, waltzed with her to a rock song.
“I had no idea you could dance.”
“Learned while I was in the army,” he said.
“Impressive, but we’re out of step to the beat.”
“I know.”
“Well, as long as you know.”
He stopped moving in the middle of the kitchen, and they stood there surrounded by the smell of fried chicken and apple crisp candle and each other; the sound of their past stroking their ears as they gazed deeply into each other’s eyes.
What was going on here? She was too scared to hope, and yet how could she not?
“I truly am sorry I was too much of a coward to tell Joe how much I want you.”
“You weren’t cowardly,” she said. “You were just avoiding a black eye. We both know Joe has an infamous punch. He might have reacted poorly to hearing you wanted to take his baby sister to bed.”
“Here’s the real deal, Miss Priss, I’m not good enough for you. Joe knows. I know it. Everyone in this town knows it, but I swear I must be the luckiest bastard on the planet because for some bizarre reason, you seem to want me too.”
She shook her head. Ryder didn’t think he was good enough for her?
His personality was a vortex, big, sweeping, commanding.
She was getting sucked in again. Letting a man drive the relationship. If she’d learned anything over the past year, it was that she couldn’t keep taking a backseat. Not if she wanted to live life on her own terms.
But honestly, this was what she wanted. She wasn’t deceiving herself about that.
Was she?
“Enough apologizing,” she said. “If you really want to make things up to me, shut up and kiss me.”
Splaying a hand to the nape of her neck, Ryder speared his fingers through her hair, brought her head closer to his, capped her sweet mouth with his, and took his time exploring.
Or rather tried to.
She had no patience for his leisurely pace. She met his lips with a force that rocked him back on his heels and stole the air from his lungs. A soft little moan, and a hot, fervent kiss that left him thinking, At last. He had her again at last.
Everywhere she touched him, he caught fire. His lips, tongue, gums. Hands, arms, palms. Fire. Hot, beautiful fire.
She pressed her body against him. God, she had such a perfect body. Curving and soft, but strong too. Womanly and earthly and heavenly and impossibly in his arms. Her breasts were squashed against his chest, her thighs melded into his.
Her frantic fingers worked the buttons of his shirt. She wanted him as much as he wanted her, and Ryder let out a laugh of pure joy over that. She was so much damn fun!
She wriggled her hips against him, made a noise of frustration when one of his buttons refused to yield. Finally, she just yanked and the button snapped off, shooting across the room and landing to the floor with a ping.
“Sorry about the shirt.” She chuffed and jerked it off his shoulders, tossed it to the floor.
“Screw the shirt.”
“No, screw me!”
Holy shit. Ryder got harder than he’d ever been in his life. What a sweet little firecracker. She had changed since last year. Had grown bolder, more fiery, more beautiful. So beautiful he didn’t know if he could stand it.
He took her mouth again, held her hands between his palms, and kissed her as thoroughly as he knew how. Kissed and kissed and kissed until they had to come up for air, panting like guppies.
She moved to go back for more, but he raised a hand. “Wait.”
She looked horrified. “No, no, you’re not backing out now. You can’t back out now. Not when you’ve got me all charged up and wanting you so badly I can’t remember my own name. What is my name again?”
He laughed again, tickled by her eagerness. “No, not backing out. I just have to warn you.”
“About what?” She slapped a palm over her mouth. “Do you have a venereal disease?”
“Good grief, no. Do you think I would let things get this far if I had a disease?”
“Sorry. I had to ask.”
“Smart girl. Don’t apologize for it. I get an annual physical and my doctor checks out everything and I’m careful.”
“Then why are you interrupting? Things were just getting good.”
“That’s why I’m interrupting.”
“Listening. Spit it out.”
“I don’t want you to be disappointed.”
“Huh? No chance of that, buddy. I have a great memory and last year was amazing. I expect more of the same. So let’s get after it.” She wriggled against him again.
He caught her wrists. “Slow down. Or if you don’t I’m not going to last eight seconds. I haven’t had sex since I was with you.”
She paused, blinked up at him. “You haven’t had sex since me?”
“No.”
“Why not?” She looked sincerely puzzled.
“Because I didn’t come across anyone who interested me as much as you did.”
“Really?” A trill lifted her voice on the last syllable. “That is so sweet.”
“Not really. It means I have a hair-trigger response. The first time is going to be a dud, just warning you.”
“Or”—she rubbed her palms with glee—“I could take care of you first, then we move on to act two where you give me lots of foreplay until you recover.”
“I can’t argue with that logic.” He groaned and gathered her to him.
“Wait.” She held up a palm. “Now that we’ve taken a break and had time for common sense to settle in, there’s something else we need to talk about.”
He tightened his grip on her. “What’s that?”
“This is a causal thing. No strings. Three weeks of fun. And then you can scamper on back to LA.”
“No strings,” he said, just repeating what she’d said, but she seemed to think he was agreeing with her.
“Glad we’re on the same page,” she said. “And one other thing.”
“Yes?” He braced himself. What was she going to say next?
“We keep it a secret from family and friends. We don’t need everybody weighing in on our business. Especially Joe and Gabi.”
She was ashamed of him. The thought rolled like a marble around in his head.
“Agreed,” he said, surprised at how ragged the word came out when he forced it past his teeth. “A secret affair.”
“Perfect!” she exclaimed, and jumped into his arms. “Now follow me into the bedroom, and bring the chicken. We’ll need a snack for later.”
Chapter 19
Thank heavens he’d agreed to keep their affair a secret. Katie couldn’t handle it when he left if everyone knew and kept asking her about him.
