by Lori Wilde
“Only as a friend and colleague.”
“Okay, well, that clears that up.” She rubbed her palms together, gave him an oopsy smile, and all the misery she’d suffered over the past several days rolled away. Ranger was not interested in Dawn.
Whew!
“Anything else you want to discuss?” he drawled, and toed off his cowboy boots. They hit the floor, plunk, plunk. He rolled over onto his spine and interlaced his fingers, and cradled the back of his head in his palms, crossed his legs at the ankle.
He’d brought it up. This was her opening. Bull by the horns time.
“Is this going to be a one-time thing?” She just came right out and said it. Shot from those lips of hers. Prayed her bluntness didn’t stop things dead.
“Is that what you want?” He narrowed his eyes and sent her an indolent gaze.
“What do you want?” she asked, backing up until her butt hit the dresser and the impact sent the tea candles flickering wildly. Fudge rockets, Ember, said the irrepressible part of her. Kiss the man.
He sat up, all Mr. Poker Face. “I want what you want.”
“So . . . ?”
They watched each other like two cage fighters, circling, assessing, and weighing their choices . . . and their chances of coming out of this unscathed.
“Ember, I can only tell you one thing,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“I want you. With every beat of my damn heart. With every freaking fiber of my being. Now get the hell over here before I come after you.”
It wasn’t settled. She shouldn’t go for sex until things were settled, but she wanted him more than she wanted to breathe. Ranger wanted her, and she wanted him, what could be wrong with that?
There had already been way too much talking.
In the space of a heartbeat she was across the room and in his arms. Jumping in with both feet.
Crazy, impulsive, not looking where she leaped. Not caring what people thought. It was what she did best.
Just ask Trey.
But here, tonight? She did not care.
Chapter 19
“No! Thank you for thinking I am thoughtful.”
—Jane Austen, Emma
“We’re really doing this?” she whispered, searching that dear face, probing the unfathomable depths of his dark eyes.
“I sure as hell hope so.”
“Um, how do we start?”
“A nice bubble bath,” he said.
“I’m more of a shower person.”
“Not tonight you’re not. Tonight, we’re doing it my way. Slow and easy.”
Tonight, we’re doing it my way. He said it as if there would be other nights, and other ways they might do this.
Her heart—and other parts far south—did a happy dance. Do not get ahead of yourself.
“Be right back,” he said, leaving her on the bed alone and disappearing into the bathroom. She heard the sound of running water and he popped back into the bedroom for the tea candles, and disappeared again.
She sat up to watch his gorgeous butt walking away, realized she’d soon be seeing him completely naked. Heat swamped her, and she covered her face with a pillow, barely able to believe this was happening.
He returned for her, took the pillow away, picked up her hand. Led her into the bathroom where the tea candles were lined up on the edge of the claw-foot tub, reflecting soft white light into the mirror. It was the only illumination in the room.
They didn’t speak.
He crouched to slip off her shoes and set them aside. She touched the top of his head to balance herself, felt energy pulse from his scalp into her fingers, travel up her arm to her shoulder, neck, head, where it set up a steady vibrating hum.
It was jolting. It was exciting. It felt both familiar and weird.
She didn’t tell him about the humming. Did not want that to influence him in any way. But the humming stirred within her, this supreme energy. Made her think about her lineage. The long line of women who’d known when they’d found their soul mates.
Before she had kissed him, she didn’t believe any such lore was possible, but now that it pulsed within her, she knew the truth of it. They were connected. Always had been and always would be, no matter what happened.
There was a safety in knowing that. A level of trust and intimacy she’d not thought existed.
Ranger stood up, and her hands slid from his head to his shoulders. He wrapped his arms around her waist and peered into her eyes. Slowly, he reached for the top button on her blouse and unbuttoned it, his knuckles grazing her bare skin.
The humming in her head quickened, a nice steady buzz, whispering, You are alive, you are alive, you are alive.
She fixed her attention on his mouth, the shape of his lips, the sweet crook of his smile. Blissful, she shivered.
“Mmm.” His eyelids lowered, long dark lashes brushing down as he reached for the second button, then the third. His fingers were warm and capable. He might be a scientist, but he was a cowboy too, and years of ranch work had left even the small muscles in his fingers strong and delineated.
A sexy five o’clock shadow had sprouted across his jaw, and her hands twitched to caress the scratchy patch of stubble.
His fingers loosened the last button, and her blouse fell open. He looked at her, and his voice tumbled out husky and rough. “You still with me on this, Sparky?”
This was her way out. She could check her impulsiveness. Back up. Think for once.
But she didn’t want to back out. The last thing she wanted was to think. All she wanted was to feel—his kiss, his touch, his body inside of hers.
“Em?”
She met his laser beam eyes, whispered, “Still with you.”
His smile was a rainbow after a flood, beautiful and filled with promise, and the hot look in his eyes lit a spark low in her abdomen, caught fire, spread flames up to her stomach, her breasts, her lips.
He slipped his palms around her bare waist, his touch a sweet blister, melting any last obstacles. They stared into each other, and with magical movements he slipped her blouse off her shoulders. It floated to the floor.
The air was cool on her skin, a sharp contrast to the fire inside her. Her knees were trembling. Oh hell, who was she kidding? She was trembling all over.
He kissed her. Their second kiss. Not in front of an audience this time.
The humming in her head was the music of love and belonging. Song of the Soul Mates, Granny Blue called it and Kaia confirmed it.
She thought of those many frogs she’d kissed when her Prince Charming had been on the Silver Feather all along.
She leaned into him, boneless and wiped out.
“How was that?” he murmured.
“You have to ask?” She gifted him with a smug smile, a woman impressed by a man.
“Did you . . . hear anything?”
She didn’t want to lie to him, but neither was she ready to admit she heard the humming. She knew he was her soul mate, but she didn’t want to put pressure on him. She loved him too much to burden him with her vulnerability. Not yet. Not now. They were best friends, and she didn’t want that to change.
If she admitted the humming it would change everything.
Too late, sweet cheeks. Everything had already changed.
Instead of answering him, she wrapped her arms around his neck and tugged his head down to meet hers, and this time, she was the one who kissed him. Taking charge and not a bit ashamed of it.
The humming was their love song.
“Hear anything?” she teased.
“The wild beating of my heart.”
“Ranger,” she whispered.
“Ember.” His fingers moved to the snap of her jeans. “Your bath is getting cold.”
She reached over and twisted on the hot water faucet. “Our bath,” she corrected. “I’m not getting in there by myself.”
“No?”
“We can’t have me clean and you dirty.”
“
Aww, why not?” he teased.
She grabbed the front of his Western shirt and tugged hard, and grinned as the snaps popped open.
“That wasn’t slow and easy.” He groaned.
“You go at your pace, Professor, I’ll go at mine.”
“How in the world is that going to work out? You fast, me slow?”
“I wasn’t the one who got a speeding ticket tonight,” she said.
“A warning,” he said. “It was only a warning. Calvin told me to slow myself down.”
She chuckled. “That explains that. You always were a rule follower, Lockhart.”
“Not always. Not whenever I was with you.”
“True.” She stroked his cheek. “I’ve led you astray so many times.”
“I went willingly. You were the sunbeam of my life, Ember.” His tone turned serious. “I hope you know how special you are.”
He was just as special, but this was getting mushy when it was supposed to be getting sexy. She twisted off the hot water, straightened, steam rising between them.
His warm, agile hands went to her hips and he peeled off her jeans, taking his time, pausing to plant hot kisses on her thighs as he went, sinking to his knees. Leaving her standing in her bra and panties, her heart pounding so hard she could see it beating beneath her skin.
He planted one long kiss at the apex between her legs, his hot breath searing through the thin material of her white cotton panties, unraveling her in a dozen different ways.
When it was her turn to take his pants off, she shucked him like an ear of corn, and he threw his head back and laughed so loudly it touched a soft place deep inside her. And she kissed him boldly between his legs. Felt his shaft harden and rise inside his black boxer briefs.
“Ooh-la-la,” she said.
“By God you are fun!” he declared, pulling his breath in through his teeth in a hissing sound and dragging her back to her feet. “Funny and smart and outrageous.”
He meant it to be a compliment, she knew that, but the word “outrageous” was a personal trigger. Trey had thrown it at her every time she did something to step out of what he considered the lines of propriety. Which, in his view, consisted of being too boisterous, too outgoing, too happy.
Forget Trey. That’s over. You’re here with Ranger.
“I’m getting in the tub,” she mumbled past the lump in her throat, and without waiting to see how he would respond, she pinned her hair to the top of her head with a barrette from the counter, undid her bra and let it drop. She wriggled out of her panties and without looking back, slipped into the water.
Closing her eyes, she sank in the claw-footed porcelain tub until her chin touched the bubbles. She heard him walk toward her, but she did not peek.
He climbed in on the other side, the water sloshing and displacing as he eased down. His legs spread out and she clamped her knees together so he could surround her. His feet were at her hips. Her feet . . . well . . . her feet were perilously close to the most masculine part of him.
Ember kept her eyes closed. Savoring the moment. Understood the sublime truth. She was in the bath with her best friend who was about to become her lover. The lover, who according to the humming in her head, was her soul mate, her destiny.
The logical part of Ember had trouble believing this, fumbled to find an excuse for the humming, most of it dire—tinnitus, going deaf, a brain tumor. But another part of her firmly believed in the magic. She had not heard the humming until he’d kissed her.
Wish fulfillment, argued her logic.
Cosmic energy, said her magical brain.
Does it really matter? whispered her heart. Trust what you feel.
She could feel Ranger studying her, and she smiled faintly. Delighted with this man. Her man. Listened to him breathing, audibly. Long. Slow. Deep. Calming and peaceful. His soothing tempo and sound. A steady man, reliable and patient.
Ranger took hold of her big toe, wriggled it. “This little piggy went to market . . .”
She opened her eyes. His head was cocked to one side, and he looked both inquisitive and rakish. His muscles were toned and taut as any athlete’s. Once he’d recovered from his childhood illnesses, he’d always made fitness a priority. A sexy professor. A red-hot scientist. A rugged cowboy. Mmm. What a combo.
“You okay, Sparky?” he murmured, massaging her big toe between his fingers.
“I’m way more than okay. I’m over the moon.”
“Me too.” He moved onto the next toe. “And we just got started.”
She moaned softly. His touch felt so good.
“That’s what I like to hear,” he said. “Your pleasure.”
He bathed her gently, tenderly, caressing her with a soft washcloth and lavender-oatmeal soap. It had been a long time since anyone had taken such care with her.
And when he was finished, she bathed him. It was both sensual and nurturing, the prefect description of this new dimension of their relationship. She was familiar with most of his body, but she found new spots she’d never explored. Touching him in places that made him wiggle and groan, and she understood what he meant about liking to hear her pleasure, because hearing him lit her up inside.
The water cooled, but their desire for each other reached a rolling boil. Every kiss, every touch, every stroke leading them further and further up an erotic path. All these years she had been yearning for something she could not fully define, and here she’d found it in the kind eyes of her best friend.
All along.
It had been Ranger all along.
The sweet humming in her head sang the Song of the Soul Mate, and she swallowed the fable like a starry-eyed homebuyer clutching on to the belief of the perfect dream home. In her head, in this moment, the fantasy was real. He was her beloved. The other half of her.
Nothing had ever felt so right or sounded so true.
Loving him changed the physics of her emotional universe and redefined the borders of reality. So many new possibilities. Together, they were discovering a new frontier.
“Let’s get out of here.” He stood up, water sluicing off him, exposing her to the full, glorious view of his proud male body bathed in candlelight.
She gulped. He had a lot to be proud of.
He reached out his hand to her. She took it and he pulled her up beside him. From the corner of her eye, she saw their reflections in the mirror. It struck her what a handsome couple they made. She, fair, blue-eyed and redheaded; he, dark-haired, dark-eyed, darkly tanned.
Opposites attract.
But it wasn’t opposition that drew her to him. Rather, it was his familiarity that called to her. Their shared history. Their deep knowledge of each other’s habits and foibles. The landscape from which they’d both sprung.
Taking her with him, he stepped from the tub and slowly dried her off.
Oh the waiting!
His restraint was phenomenal. Her heart knocked so hard she could feel her ribs pressing against the walls of her chest, hungry, desperate, aching. When he finished, he didn’t speak a word, just handed her a fresh towel and turned his back for her to dry him.
Buffing his muscular butt dry was the highlight of the bath. She could get used to doing this every single night of her life.
Getting ahead of yourself. Slow down. One step at a time.
Good advice, but she could not ignore the thrill that shot through her as she knelt to pat his legs dry.
“All done,” she said sadly, and got to her feet.
Ranger hugged her.
She looked into his eyes and was rewarded with a smile so big it burned her like the sun. He tilted her chin up and kissed her lips, taking possession of her mouth as the humming took possession of her head.
And she was lost. So sweetly lost.
He bent to scoop her into his arms, and he carried her to bed. She didn’t protest, just slipped her arms around his neck and let him be her knight in shining armor. He draped her over the mattress and eased down beside her.
The room
was dark, the only light coming from tea candles shining through the open bathroom door.
“Do you have any idea how hot you look?”
She lowered her eyelashes and smiled, not coyly, but not quite believing that he thought she was sexy.
Scents drifted in the air—the vanilla fragrance from the candles, the velvet smell of lavender, the coconut sachet on her nightstand, his woodsy masculine aroma. They lay on their sides on the mattress, heads propped on their arms, face-to-face, staring at each other and grinning like kids.
He stroked her cheek with the knuckle of his index finger, moved to her bottom lip. She caught his knuckle between her teeth, bit down lightly.
“God, you are amazing,” he said, his voice filled with the same awe and wonder as when he talked about stars.
Scooting closer, he kissed her again, fusing their mouths in a searing brand of lips, teeth, and tongues. It was an I-found-the-love-of-my-life kind of kiss. A kiss that made promises Ember prayed he could fulfill. She’d been so unlucky in love. Could she bank on him?
Her head buzzed. The song that told her yes, yes, yes, she could count on him. Forever and always.
Should she tell him about the humming? How would it change things if she did? Would she be better served to wait until later? Or should she just spill it and see what happened? Her spontaneous personality, the part of her she’d spent a lifetime suppressing, shouted, Tell him, tell him now.
But how many times had those impulsive urgings gotten her into trouble with other people?
“Ranger, I—”
“Shh.” He placed that enticing index finger to her lips. “Just let me look at you and savor this moment.”
Got it. Spontaneous side checked. Shh, indeed.
He looked her up and down, shifting and moving to take her in. Like a good research scientist, he got to know his subject. Nibbling her earlobes, nipping her chin. Tracing his tongue down her neck to her breasts.
And so it began in earnest, their first time together. The first time these two best friends made love. Because even if neither of them wanted to say it out loud, that’s what they were doing. Not just having sex or hooking up, but making love.
