All He Ever Desired (The Kowalskis)

by Stacey, Shannon

  “Hey, kid,” Ryan said, giving her a quick hug. “How’s business?”

  She waved her hand around the empty barbershop. “Gee, I’m not sure I can fit you two in.”

  “I’m all set, actually. But the princess here says his hair’s tickling his ears.”

  “When it starts getting long, it curls over the tops of my ears and drives me nuts.”

  Katie shoved him toward the chair. “I told you your hair grows fast and if you don’t come in every four or five weeks, it’s going to tickle your ears.”

  “I don’t see why you can’t cut it when you’re at the house.”

  She snapped open a clean cape and draped it around his shoulders. “Because you don’t pay me when I cut it at the house.”

  “I didn’t charge you that night you spent at the lodge because you stayed up too late playing cards with Rosie, did I?”

  “That’s not the same thing.”

  Josh held up his hands to Ryan, as though looking for support. “How do you figure that?”

  “Because I have very sharp scissors a fraction of an inch from the tip of your ear and I said so.”

  As usual, their arguing quickly turned to sports and Ryan tuned them out. He should have just gone to the market as he’d originally planned. Instead, he pulled out his phone and read through email, flagging some to respond to when he got home. One was urgent enough that he went through the laborious process of typing out a response on the tiny phone keys.

  Finally, Katie brushed Josh off and removed the cape. “Fifteen bucks.”

  “You still owe me twenty because of that blown field goal last Sunday.”

  Ryan shook his head. Those two would bet on anything.

  “That’s football. This is my business. I keep them separate and you owe me fifteen bucks.”

  Josh grumbled while he dug out his wallet, but he kissed her cheek before they left. “See you later, kid.”

  Since Josh was already heading out the door, Ryan knew he hadn’t seen the pink that tinged Katie’s cheeks or the way her mouth twisted when he called her kid. The guy was hopeless.

  “See ya, Katie.”

  The hardware store was next just because they’d have to drive past it to get to the market. Ryan had to park a few spaces down the street. “You want me to leave it running?”

  “I’ll go in with you.”

  “It’s going to take me two minutes.” When Josh opened his door and got out, Ryan cursed and shut the truck off.

  He followed his brother into the store, then stepped aside for a couple who were on their way out.

  “How goes it?” Josh asked, walking straight to the counter.

  “It goes.”

  Ryan looked around for a minute, but he didn’t feel like wading into the back room. “Hey, Dozer, do you have any flashing?”

  He crossed his arms and gave Ryan a flat stare. “You can call me Mr. Dozynski, I think.”

  “What?” Ryan had never heard anybody call him that. Ever. He’d been Dozer since he’d moved to Whitford and bought the hardware store in the seventies. “What did I do?”

  “You molest my daughter and then come in here and think I’ll sell you flashing?”

  “Whoa!” Ryan held up his hands. “Your daughter’s thirty-four years old. Nobody molested anybody.”

  Dozer looked at Josh. “Is that not the word I wanted?”

  Josh shook his head. Albert Dozynski had grown up speaking Polish at home and English at school and still had some trouble with the more outside-the-classroom words. “People use it joking around, but it’s not cool if you’re throwing out serious accusations.”

  “What word do I want?”

  Josh considered for a few seconds. “Soiled.”

  “You soiled my daughter,” Dozer threw at Ryan.

  He glared at his brother. “You asshole.”

  “Hey, he needed a word.”

  “Look, I didn’t soil Lauren, okay? I spent the night with her, yes. And I’m taking her to dinner tomorrow.”

  “And you don’t come and talk to me about it, like a man?”

  “Uh...no.”

  Dozer looked at Josh, who shook his head slightly. “That’s more for marrying, not soiling.”

  Ryan made a mental note to kick Josh’s ass later.

  But Dozer wasn’t finished yet. “You seduce my daughter, and then you buy her dinner? And you think that respects her?”

  Ryan wasn’t sure who had seduced whom, but “seduce” was a better word than “soil” any day of the week. He mentally flailed for a way to answer the question.

  “I’d taken her out for a meal before,” he blurted. Meeting her at the diner and paying for her burger probably wasn’t what her father had in mind. And even though they hadn’t technically gone together, he added, “And we went to my brother’s wedding.”

  Dozer narrowed his eyes. “So you’re dating my daughter?”

  “Yes, sir.” He thought so, anyway.

  “I suppose you want a discount.”

  “No, sir. I just want to buy some flashing so I can get back to work.”

  “My wife will want to meet you.”

  Ryan was going to start downing a shot of something hard before coming into town. “Mrs. Dozynski has known me my whole life.”

  Not that anybody saw much of her. She refused to learn to drive and preferred staying home to going out and socializing.

  “True. But now you’re dating my daughter, no?”

  “I’ll mention it to Lauren.”

  “Good. I’ll get the flashing. How much do you need?”

  Ryan told him and he disappeared into the back room. Josh managed to wait until he was out of sight before he broke into laughter.

  “I knew I should have left you in the truck.”

  “You should have seen your face when he accused you of molesting Lauren.”

  “I just wanted flashing.”

  “Fran’s good friends with Mrs. Dozynski. I hope we don’t have to tell Rose she can’t have half-and-half for her coffee because you were soiling Lauren.”

  “I should have let Sean drown you the day he got you stuck in the toilet trying to give you a swirly.”

  * * *

  “We could have gone to the diner, you know,” Lauren said, trying not to laugh at Ryan’s expression as he read the offerings of the upscale restaurant they’d driven an hour to get to.

  “The diner’s not a date. It’s just...the diner.” He flipped the menu over, saw the back was blank, then flipped back to the front. “Oh, steak tips. We’re in business.”

  “So this is our first date?”

  “Let’s call it our third.”

  Maybe his definition of a date and hers weren’t quite the same. “How do you figure that?”

  “I think lunch the day you were working at the hardware store should be our first date. That way Mitch’s wedding could be our second date. And then I spent the night.” He grinned across the table at her. “I don’t want people to think you’re easy.”

  She laughed. “Funny. You’re a real funny guy.”

  “Actually, that’s kind of how your dad thinks it went.”

  She stopped laughing. “My dad? What are you talking about?”

  “I went to the hardware store for some flashing and he wouldn’t sell me any because I’d soiled you, so I had to convince him we’d been dating before I, you know, soiled you.”

  “Wait. Soiled?”

  “Josh was helping him with his words.”

  “Great. So you convinced him we were dating.”

  “I really needed the flashing.” He winked. “Did you know Nick refers to me as your you know, whatever? He called me that the other day when we were working on the trails.”


  “That sounds about right for Nick.” She traced a trail in the condensation on her water glass. “What word would you use?”

  “Helpless sex toy,” he said without any hesitation.

  “You’re shameless.”

  He lifted his water glass, his gaze locked with hers. “When it comes to you, absolutely.”

  The waiter appeared to take their order, breaking their eye contact, though his presence didn’t put a dent in the hot anticipation she’d been practically tingling with all day. The diner might not have fit his definition of a date place, but if they’d gone there, they’d probably be in her bed already.

  They talked about a little bit of everything while they ate. The lodge and his family and Nick. Then they moved on to books and music and television shows and movies.

  “Here’s something I never thought I’d say,” she said, “but I can’t believe I had sex with a man who can quote every line of Spaceballs.”

  “It was pretty good, though, wasn’t it?”

  “Spaceballs?”

  “No, the sex.”

  She shrugged. “A little short on quotable dialogue, but it was pretty good, yeah.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “I guess I’ll have to try even harder.”

  If he tried too much harder, it might kill her, but she just smiled at him while he tucked his credit card back in his wallet. It was going to be a very, very long ride home.

  They were about halfway home when it hit her that he’d never given her the word he’d use to describe his place in her life. He’d used humor to deflect her and, while “helpless sex toy” wasn’t a bad thing, she would have liked a serious answer to the question. If she introduced him to somebody as her boyfriend, would he balk?

  But that moment had passed. He was telling her a funny story about the time Matt had called him from a customer’s home because he needed an answer from the homeowners before he could continue working. Unfortunately, they were occupied in the bedroom and he didn’t want to interrupt them having sex, so Matt wanted the office to call and ask them and then call him back.

  It didn’t really matter if he had a label, she told herself. She was just going to enjoy his company.

  She was laughing so hard at a Dill story, she almost fell out of the truck when he parked in her driveway and come around to open her door.

  “You’re lying,” she said when she’d caught her breath and unlocked her front door.

  “Ask him tomorrow. I swear it happened.”

  Lauren was a few feet inside when she realized Ryan hadn’t followed her in. He was still standing in the open doorway. “What are you doing?”

  “Waiting for you to invite me in. Or at least kiss me good-night.”

  She laughed and walked back to the door. “Really? So if I just kiss you and say good-night, you’ll just go home?”

  “Well, plan B would be to kiss you good-night until you’re so crazy with lust you forget you weren’t letting me in. But plan C would be going home.”

  “What’s plan A?”

  He braced his hands on the doorframe and leaned forward so that he was almost close enough to kiss her without technically being in her house. “Plan A is a race to your bed, stripping on the way, and the first one there naked gets to be the choreographer.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He almost managed to hide his disappointment. Almost. “On to plan B.”

  “We can’t leave our clothes scattered all over the house again, and we have to close the bedroom door, just in case.”

  “Okay.”

  “But we can still race. Go!” She took off running, then called over her shoulder, “Make sure you close the door!”

  She laughed when she heard him curse, but he had long legs and she lost her little bit of advantage when she fumbled with her bra hooks.

  Just as she kicked off her panties, a jumble of clothes landed at her feet, her bedroom door slammed closed and Ryan launched himself—totally naked—past her, hitting her mattress so hard he bounced. “I win!”

  “How the hell did you get your clothes off so fast?” She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “And why didn’t you let me win?”

  “I’m a Kowalski. We’re genetically incapable of taking a dive.” He rolled onto his side and propped himself on his elbow. “Standing like that makes your boobs look great, by the way.”

  She walked over to the bed and lay down next to him. “Fine. Choreograph me.”

  He lifted her arm by the wrist and let it go, then laughed when she let it flop bonelessly back to the mattress. “Somebody’s a sore loser. I never would have guessed that about you.”

  “I think you cheated.”

  “Hey, you should be proud. You came in second.”

  She rolled to her side and then shoved him to his back so she could straddle him. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you it’s not nice to gloat?”

  He reached up and cupped her breasts. “Yeah. Usually the people who come in second.”

  She pinched his nipple and his body jerked under hers.

  “Ow! Be nice.”

  “Oh, did that hurt?” She leaned forward and kissed the same spot, then flicked her tongue over the sensitive nub. “Is that better?”

  He moved his hands to her hips. He pulled her forward and then pushed her back so his erection glided between her legs. “A little.”

  Lauren swiveled her hips and his fingertips gripped her hips tighter. When she leaned forward to brace herself on her hands, Ryan lifted his head and captured her nipple between his teeth.

  “Don’t you dare,” she hissed.

  He dared, just enough to make her squirm, but not enough to hurt. She whimpered as he switched to her other breast and did it again.

  Then he flopped back onto the pillow. “Shit. Condoms are in my pants, which are in a ball...somewhere. I threw them.”

  “I tucked one under the pillow earlier. Just in case.”

  Seconds later, he was wearing it and she lowered herself onto him. Slowly—so slowly she could hear him grind his teeth—she rocked her hips, taking him deeper and deeper.

  He rolled her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers as she rode him. With her hair falling around her face, she looked down at him, keeping her gaze locked with his. There was no doubt, when he looked at her like that, that he thought she was the sexiest woman he’d ever seen.

  Ryan reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear before stroking a fingertip down the side of her face. “Yours. That’s the word I’d use.”

  She wasn’t sure what he meant but, then again, most of her brain cells were being thoroughly distracted by the exquisite sensations going on in other parts of her body. “What do you mean?”

  “If somebody wants you to pin a label on my place in your life, just tell them I’m yours. It’s that simple.”

  “That simple, huh?” She ran her thumb across his lower lip and he nipped at it. “Mine?”

  “Yours.” Then, in one swift movement, he rolled them so that she was on her back and he was buried deep between her thighs.

  With hard, powerful thrusts he sent her over the edge and then he said her name in a low and raspy voice, his face pressed against her neck, as his orgasm racked his body. He shuddered, collapsing on top of her with a groan.

  “Jesus, Lauren, you’re going to kill me.”

  She chuckled and snuggled closer to him. “Have I ever told you I love the way you say my name?”

  “I didn’t realize there was more than one way to say it.”

  “Smart-ass.” She jabbed him lightly with her elbow. “I meant I like the way it sounds when you say it. It’s warm and sexy.”

  “I’ve always thought you have the most beautiful name I ever heard.”

  “My dad learned Engli
sh watching Bogey and Bacall movies. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t have a brother.”

  “Yeah, a name like Humphrey Dozynski wasn’t going to help in the getting laid department.” He nuzzled her hair before rolling over to dispose of the condom. Then he pulled her up against him, one arm thrown over her to hold her close. “Although you know everybody in Whitford would have just called him Little Dozer anyway.”

  “Dad would have loved that. Now I’m almost sorry I don’t have a brother.”

  He chuckled softly, but she could already feel the muscles in his arms going slack as he started dozing off. She closed her eyes, and without even having to work at relaxing, drifted off to sleep with a smile on her face.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ryan was beat. He’d started his day with an hour-long telephone call trying to convince a homeowner she was totally in the wrong while simultaneously soothing her ruffled feathers. Then he’d spent the rest of the day laying shingles. He wasn’t in the mood to see Dean Carpenter’s truck pulling up the drive.

  He dropped his hammer on the roof with a thud and made his way to the ladder.

  “You want me to come down?” Josh asked.

  “I’m all set.” He paused a few rungs down. “But if he starts something and it looks like he’s kicking my ass, then yeah, come down.”

  Nick was picking up the ties they’d been cutting off the bundles of shingles and throwing over the side all day.

  “Hey,” Ryan said. “Your dad’s here.”

  “I told him I’m almost done.”

  “So you knew he was coming?”

  “Yeah, I called him to come get me. Mom left a message at school that she’s sick so she wanted me to come straight home from school since she couldn’t come pick me up here, but I called my dad and he said he would.”

  “Your mom’s sick? What’s the matter with her?” She was fine when he’d left yesterday afternoon.

  “She started getting stuffy last night and she had a sore throat this morning. Got worse, I guess. Wicked bad cold.”

  “That sucks.” But nothing so bad he had to be mad she hadn’t told him. Although she could have called and asked him to drive Nick home. It bugged him she thought he wouldn’t do it. “Next time, you don’t have to call your dad. I don’t mind giving you a ride home.”