by Lisa Jackson
Lindsay got to work, cleaning the mess, reorganizing the three rolls of wrapping paper and one of those big bargain spools of cheapo ribbon. Still, it was adorable he’d tried this hard. A mushy heart of gold underneath all that gruff sternness on the outside.
She used to think that’s just how he was, but with a slightly more mature outlook she could see that wasn’t accidental or even just his personality. His soft heart had been broken so many times he’d tried to build himself the hardest, thickest shell he possibly could.
She wanted to get underneath that shell again, but she had to admit it was going to be an uphill mountain climb. In an ice storm. In the dark.
Still, she got to work wrapping Sarah’s gifts, humming “White Christmas” to herself, and occasionally sneaking glances at him or even the room around them. It was a small office-type room that Cal said had once been used as a ranch manager’s quarters. So, it had heat, lousy, though it was. And it had a bed.
She snuck a glance at the bed. They’d spent some time on that bed, in this room, playing at being grown-ups. She sighed at the odd mix of nostalgia and the wanting to actually build that future they’d always planned. It’d be different, sure, but she didn’t want the trappings anymore. The life. She wanted him. The partnership.
“A lot of firsts happened here,” she offered, sneaking another glance at him.
His expression was blank, but she knew he remembered. He had to remember everything just like she did. They were good, sweet memories no matter what came after, too. She wouldn’t let bitterness coat them, and she hoped he wouldn’t, either.
“You made me wait forever,” he said after a very long pause.
“We were sixteen.”
He shrugged. “Even more reason it felt like forever.”
“I wouldn’t make you wait that long now.” She finished tying the bow and making it sure it looked pretty and perfect before she dared look up at him.
His blue gaze blazed hot, and she felt it wash through her like wildfire. A need she hadn’t felt ignite inside of her with that intensity since him. No date, no boyfriend, no other man on this planet had ever made that pang pull sharp and sweet that fast or that desperate.
It was a need to touch him, to feel him, to be with him. She suddenly didn’t care about foundations anymore, or building or waiting or trust. She only wanted.
Because they weren’t teenagers anymore, and that promised so much . . . more. More than sweetness and exploration and just being excited to see someone naked. They’d been with other people, and she assumed he’d learned the same lesson she had.
Only the two of them together ever caught that spark into true fire.
She carefully placed the wrapped gifts in the corner and pushed the supplies over in the same direction. Then she got to her feet and smoothed her dress out. He was still sitting behind the falling-apart desk shoved in the corner, but she sidestepped the desk and stood next to his chair.
Swallowing against the way a mix of nerves and desperation pounded through her, she reached out and brushed her fingers over a lock of hair at his temple.
“Cal.”
He shoved to his feet. “I’m not going to—”
She blocked his exit, pressing her hands to his hard chest where his coat was open. She could feel his warmth, the strength in him. A new strength since she’d touched him like this, and a much harder shell to crack.
But underneath all that he was still her Cal.
“You don’t have to make me any promises,” she said, spreading her fingers wide.
“I’m not promising—”
“Or believe any of mine,” she continued, dragging her fingertips down his abdomen. She met his hard, blazing gaze with an imploring one of her own. She stopped her fingers’ journey at his belt buckle. “Let’s just remember,” she whispered. Though her hands shook, she undid the clasp of his belt.
And he didn’t stop her.
CHAPTER 7
Somewhere in his brain, a dim voice was telling him to move. But it was such a quiet demand, and it had nothing on the pleasure of a woman’s hands just barely brushing his very, very, very hard erection.
Which was at least in part because it was Lindsay. Lindsay. Those luminous blue eyes, that lush mouth parted slightly. He had memorized every sigh, every moan, every slide of their bodies together.
Then he’d tried to burn it all from his memory. For that first year or two, he’d tried to drown it in other women. He’d been determined to forget Lindsay and love and lose himself in someone else and sex. Anything, anything that felt better than the bleak emptiness of life on his father’s ranch with a horrible stepmother.
Then the stepmother had gone, and there had been a relief in that. An opportunity to take over the aspects of the ranch Dad didn’t like or was too drunk to handle. Not feeling like a failure every time he found out that woman had gotten to Sarah when he’d tried so hard to protect her.
In that year of freedom, he’d come to a dire kind of acceptance. Other women didn’t do anything to solve his actual problem. And until he could get Lindsay out of his head and heart, other women couldn’t fit into either.
So, it had been a long time. And with this look on Lindsay’s face, cheeks flushed with desire and hands slowly and deftly opening his jeans, every memory of them together roared back through him like a freight train. As if he hadn’t eradicated them at all but had just found a way to make them dormant.
Now they were alive again, and there was no turning back. There just wasn’t. She didn’t make promises and he didn’t fool himself into thinking this was the start of something even if she did.
It was just sex. Maybe it’d mess him up a bit, but he was already a mess. A mess without sex.
So.
He grabbed her wrists and pulled them from his now open jeans. She made a noise of protest, but he covered it with his mouth. He poured years of wanting her into that kiss and propelled her back toward the bed.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her long, lean body against his. He groaned an oath into her mouth, then sank deeper into it, tangling his fingers in the silky strands of her hair.
She was all she’d ever been—sweetness and light, and a balm to his fractured soul. He didn’t want her to be any of that, but she was. She just was. She shoved the coat off his shoulders as he unzipped hers. He nudged her onto the bed and she sat with an audible squeak of the old, rusty frame.
Firsts. Yes, they’d explored a million firsts here and he should probably shove them firmly in the lasts column of his life. Maybe that’s what this was. A good-bye. A last hurrah. An exorcism.
He didn’t believe it, but it at least gave him a reason to move forward, to pull his shirt off and drop it on top of his coat. It gave him enough mental excuses to reach behind Lindsay and unzip the back of her dress.
She wriggled out of the sleeves and the fabric pooled at her waist, the colorful bra she was wearing a bright contrast to the pale acres of skin. She stood up, letting the dress fall off completely, and then she stepped out of the shoes she’d been wearing. So, she was standing in front of him in this chilly room in nothing but her underwear.
Lindsay Tyler. The ghost he couldn’t exorcise. Flesh and blood and offering herself up to him. No matter how many times he’d dreamed of this, and his inevitable refusal, he’d understood even in those fantasies of rejection it was just a fantasy.
For all the ways it made him weak, pathetic, and a damn useless human being, he was inextricably linked with Lindsay Tyler for the rest of his life, and he didn’t have it in him to say no to this.
She reached out and pulled at his jeans, so he toed off his boots and let the pants fall. She smoothed her hands over his abdomen and chest and then over his shoulders, till she was pressed against him, holding on to him, taking his mouth with hers.
No matter that he didn’t want it to be sweet, her skin was smooth and warm and her mouth was like honey and hope. He had nothing left to hope for, but he’d take it a
nyway. He unclasped her bra, pulling the straps off her arms even as he didn’t break the kiss. When his hands closed over her small, firm breasts, they both groaned against each other’s lips.
She deepened the kiss, everything between them going something closer to wild. Her fingers slid inside his boxers and grasped him, sighing as she did. Still his fingers explored the perfection of her breasts. The tight buds of her nipples, the soft skin around them. The way she arched against him when he applied pressure.
Then his hands weren’t enough. He lowered his head to taste the sweet perfection of her nipple. She squeaked, and then she moaned, and he spent precious minutes simply tasting her, from one side to the other. Until she was gasping, scraping her nails through his hair, her hand gripping and stroking him with increased fervor.
“Cal, please.”
It ricocheted through him. Lindsay pleading for anything from him. So he tumbled them onto the bed. Not because she’d pleaded, but because that “please” made him desperate and desperate would only end everything far too soon.
The aftermath would be ugly. The sex had to be fan-fucking-tastic to make up for it.
She wiggled out from under him and maneuvered on top of him, and before he could offer up, well, anything she guided him inside of her.
He swore between clenched teeth because it blew him off his axis. He used to prepare for that. The moment when everything else ceased to exist except her. Them. But he’d forgotten how potent being inside Lindsay could be, and he hadn’t thought he’d forgotten anything.
“Lindsay,” he managed to say in the best warning tone he could muster.
She grinned down at him, trailing her fingertips down his chest. “What? You used to like me to lead.” She moved her body slowly, torturously taking him deep, then moving away.
It was hard to say anything to her words, hard to think of anything beyond the movement of her body against his.
Used-tos hurt, and yet used-tos were why he was here. So, he didn’t say anything at all. He gripped her hips, hard enough to keep her still as he moved deep into her.
She said his name on something like a gasp, so he kept it up. Holding her and moving against her and leading the whole damn thing even from his back. He kept an iron grip on his control and ruthlessly drove her to her peak.
She chanted his name, she held on to his shoulders as he thrust inside of her, with a slow, methodical pace that had her begging all over again.
“Please, Cal, oh God, go faster.”
So, he did, until she was shuddering apart, clinging to him. His, again.
Temporarily.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he thought he heard bitter laughter.
* * *
He let her catch her breath. It took a few seconds, maybe a few minutes, but slowly the knowledge he was still hard inside of her burned through the glorious aftermath of orgasm.
Lindsay moved her body against him, watching him narrow his eyes at her. His mouth seemed carved out of granite he clenched his jaw so hard, and this time as she curled her body against him she brushed her fingers down his abdomen, reveling in the hard rigidness of his body.
Then without any warning whatsoever, he flipped her onto her back, looming above her. She shivered in anticipation at the determined, chaotic look in his expression. He wanted her. He needed her.
It was everything those other boyfriends hadn’t been. Her friends had always made fun of her for that—for saying Cal was by far the best sex she’d ever had. They’d always told her sex was sex, no matter who the sex was with, and she only needed to find a more skilled partner if she wasn’t getting off.
But that wasn’t true, because being with Cal wasn’t just simple biology. It was love and hope and knowing another person. It was being connected not just physically, but emotionally, maybe even spiritually.
No one else could give her what Cal gave her, because no one else was Cal.
He simply watched her with that inscrutable expression as she moved underneath him, trying to get him to move with her, until she felt less languid and more needy. Until he took her hand off his shoulder and held it above her head, then took her other hand from his back and did the same.
So that he was in charge. He was above her, setting the pace. Nothing languid or slow. No, everything sped up. She shouldn’t be this desperate for more when she’d only just had some, but she needed it. Her own again. His. She needed everything, and it all sparked into brilliant life when he dipped his head to hers and kissed her.
Not soft or sweet, but not the desperate clashing from earlier. She could almost believe this was a start. Right here. Right now. He’d just needed time and they could start right here.
She loved him with all she was, and this was her chance.
He pushed deep inside of her, breaking the kiss on a groan, and she held him as he moved against her a few more times, deep and deeper still.
He collapsed on top of her, and she held him tight. She felt like crying, like making him all those promises she’d said she wouldn’t.
But this hadn’t just been remembering. It hadn’t. It had been both the same and new. It had been both nostalgia and just beautiful present. It was the same as that kiss. Perfect and everything she wanted to build her new life on.
But slowly tension crept into his shoulders, and he shifted his weight off of her. She couldn’t let that happen, so she held on to him, moving with him as he shifted to his side. She kissed his cheek, then his mouth, but still he stiffened, rolling onto his back, his eyes going up to the ceiling.
She blew out a breath and looked up at the ceiling, too. Okay, so . . . Maybe he didn’t feel all those same things she had.
Except he had to. He had to. The thought that he might not made her want to cry for a million reasons, but she stared at the ceiling and blinked back tears. When she finally found words, they weren’t exactly romantic. “I’m . . . on birth control. So.”
“Christ,” he muttered, and she didn’t know if he was swearing over the awkwardness at announcing it or the fact they hadn’t discussed it beforehand, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Not with the temperature cooling degree by degree.
She couldn’t . . . she couldn’t bear it. Before she thought she could stand it even if he still didn’t want to try again. She thought she could be brave and certain he’d come around eventually. Fight for him, like her mother said, and eventually it would work out.
Eventually currently scared the hell out of her. She wanted him now. She wanted this now. If he walked away after that . . . Well, then she didn’t think they felt the same things at all.
She turned onto her side, looking at him desperately. “Cal, I love you. I do. It hasn’t changed for me, either. The things you said about . . . I tried, too, to move on, but I couldn’t. Because I will always, always love you.”
He rolled off the bed immediately and began to pull on clothes. She needed something else to say, but she struggled to find words.
He pulled on his pants, shoved his feet into his boots.
“Cal.”
“I love you, too,” he finally said, not looking at her as he pulled his shirt over his head.
Elation welled inside of her chest. Even though she was cold, she didn’t move for her underwear or her dress. This was too important. “So . . . We should start again.” She grinned at him, even as he pulled on his coat and expressly avoided her gaze. “Cal, we can start over. We could. We love each other. We belong together. Give us a chance to—”
“I can’t, Lindsay.” He zipped his coat, and finally those ice blue eyes met hers. Flat and certain and, worst of all, pained. “I love you. I do. But I could never trust you. I’d always be waiting for you to leave and I’d make us both miserable. I don’t know how to change that. Whatever we have, it doesn’t work anymore. Ever.”
She could only stare.
“Do you need a ride home?”
“No,” she managed to whisper.
Then he left her alone with the
terrible understanding she had nothing to fight his words. He couldn’t trust her and she couldn’t make him.
And that was just . . . that.
CHAPTER 8
Cal had felt a lot of things regarding his relationship with Lindsay over the years. They ranged the gamut, too. From happiness and certainty and love beyond measure to a vile, black hatred of what she’d done to him.
But in all those times, he’d never felt this low-level beat of panic that was threatening to swallow him whole. He hadn’t slept all night. Sex for the first time in years and he hadn’t slept at all.
Now it was the day of the wedding and after struggling through his ranch chores he had to help Sarah make sure everything was in place. And Bill would be there.
Never mind that much as he hated to admit it, he liked Bill, he didn’t like watching his nineteen-year-old baby sister fawn all over a man she was going to marry.
Marry. The word itself left a sick feeling in his gut, and he couldn’t escape the word because there would be a wedding on his land today. A Tyler wedding. A Christmas-themed Tyler wedding, because life had a way of really clubbing you over the head hard and over and over again.
He blearily poured the last dregs of the coffee into a mug and looked around the kitchen. Sarah had spent all morning decorating little wedding-themed cookies, and while she’d cleaned up most of the debris, there were trays and trays of goodies.
Cal was too tired to work up the energy to poach a few. Which worked in his favor as Sarah bustled into the kitchen at that moment. So, instead of being caught red-handed he was just standing there.
“You can have as many as you want,” she offered with a grin. “I made enough for twenty people and the only people here will be the ladies. The female wedding party is getting ready here, which will be . . .” She counted off on her fingers. “Four. Although the florist and baker might come up here, too, but even so, six won’t eat all these. So help yourself.” She frowned at him. “Are you getting sick?”
