by Maisey Yates
He shook his head. “Not even a little.” He leaned in, closing the distance between them, his lips capturing hers. Finally. And it was perfect. He was perfect.
She leaned into him, deepening the kiss, her heart rate increasing, her nipples tightening as his tongue stroked against hers. She grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him closer. Subtle? No. But there was no time or room for subtle. She’d lied through her teeth when she’d claimed control, and at this point she wasn’t in the mood to cover it up.
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly against him. She had to fight the urge to climb on his lap, straddle him and find the rhythm that would get her there now. Fast. Still in her jeans. She didn’t care. She just needed.
“Sorry!”
They snapped apart like spooked cats and looked in the direction of their intruder. Lark was standing there, her face beet-red, her mouth slack.
“Why did you say sorry?” Cole asked. “We didn’t hear you come in. You could have sneaked back out. No one would have known.”
“I . . . I was surprised,” Lark said, her eyes owlish.
“Join the club,” Cole grumbled.
Kelsey felt like melting into the couch cushions and sliding through the cracks in the wooden floor. If it were an option . . . she would have grabbed it with both hands.
“Game over?” she asked Lark.
Lark edged away from the couch. “Just going to the kitchen to get a snack.”
“What are you doing?” Cole asked.
“Killing zombies,” Lark said.
“Neat,” said Cole, his tone dry.
“Nazi zombies,” Lark said as she backed out of the room.
Kelsey raised her fist. “Give ’em hell.”
“Right.” She turned and scampered out of the room and Kelsey collapsed against the back of the couch, a giggle rising in her throat.
“That was ridiculous,” she said.
“This house is too crowded,” Cole said.
“It’s probably better we were interrupted.”
“Why?” Cole asked, his eyebrows locked together.
“Because we haven’t decided anything. And . . . and maybe . . . I’m just not sure if it wasn’t a mistake. It seemed smart, but now it seems . . . confusing.”
He frowned. “I don’t think sex confuses anything.”
“Ah, look at you. Not arguing the abstinence side anymore. Give a guy an orgasm and his tune changes quickly.”
“I’m not looking!” Lark passed through the room, her head angled away from them, a can of Diet Coke in her raised hand, covering her face.
“Nothing to see anyway,” Cole growled.
“I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed.” Kelsey turned and headed toward the stairs, and she heard Cole’s heavy footfalls behind her. “Alone.”
He groaned behind her, and a very sick, illicit thrill went through her. She liked that she was the one in charge now. That he was the one dying a slow, sexually charged death. Not that she was unscathed. She was in dire need of, at minimum, a shower and some time to herself to resolve the ache between her thighs.
Still, she felt like she finally had the upper hand. And that she liked.
Even if that meant she would now have to apply said upper hand to herself so she could have some modicum of relief.
“Good night, Cole,” she said, heading up the stairs.
“We’ll see,” he countered.
“And that means?”
“We’ll see if you can keep from coming to my room tonight.”
She paused. “Now that you said that, you can guarantee I won’t come to your room.”
“Cutting off your nose to spite your face.”
“Maybe,” she said, starting up the stairs again. “But I win.”
“Sort of.”
Damn him, he was right. But she wasn’t giving in now. Not to the desire that was coursing through her body, and not to his marriage proposal.
***
Kelsey wiggled beneath the covers and hoped some of the excess heat would burn off her skin if she rolled over the cool sheets enough. No such luck.
There had been no luck satisfying herself either. She’d tried. But it was futile. She wanted Cole’s hands. Big and rough and masculine. Her hands weren’t Cole’s hands, and she couldn’t even pretend. Not when the memory of them was so clear in her mind.
She let out a breath and stared sightlessly at the ceiling. She was going to die of sexual frustration. How was it she’d managed to be celibate for so long and not care and now twenty-four hours seemed like an impossibility?
Stupid, freaking cowboy.
There was a heavy knock on the door and she sighed with relief. He’d given in. Thank God.
She rolled out of bed and padded to the door, opening it a crack. She saw a sliver of Cole’s face through the opening.
“You’re weak, Mitchell,” she whispered.
“You’re wide awake, Noble.”
“So? I didn’t come to your room.”
“Are you going to let me in or not?”
She opened the door wide. “Come in.”
He swept her into his arms and closed the door in one fluid motion, walking her to the bed as he devoured her lips.
He laid her down on the soft mattress and she moaned with relief. Yes. Yes. Yes. This was what she wanted. This was what she wanted so badly her entire body ached.
She tugged his t-shirt up over his head and ran her hands over his chest while he made quick work of her shirt and pajama bottoms.
He kissed her deeply while she clawed at his pants, tugging them and his underwear down and kicking them to the floor.
“You want this?” he asked.
“Yes,” she breathed, running her fingertips over his back, relishing the feel of hot skin and hard muscle.
“Good.” He hooked her thigh up over his hip and entered her in one smooth stroke.
It was fast, and it was amazing. She was so close to the edge that the combination of a few deep, hard thrusts, his breath on her neck and his muscles beneath her hands was enough to make her come in record time. And he wasn’t far behind, shuddering out his own pleasure just as the last intense waves of her orgasm trailed off.
She held him against her chest, her heart pounding hard, their breath sharp and broken in the silence of the room.
“I feel so much better now,” she said.
He laughed. “Yes. So do I.”
She smiled. “Okay, you’re right about the sex. It’s great.”
“As much as I like hearing you say I’m right, can we just enjoy this?” He rolled to the side and took her with him, drawing her tight up against his chest.
“You mean, without a fight or snark or . . . anything like that?”
“Yes. That.”
She turned her face into his chest and inhaled the scent of skin and sweat. And Cole. He was starting to seem so familiar. So important.
“Okay.”
“Did you just agree with me?”
“Yes. I would like to lie here in post-orgasmic bliss for as long as possible.”
He moved his hands, letting his fingers drift over her curves. She felt her nipples getting tight, felt that little tightening of arousal low in her stomach. “Until you’re ready to have some real-time orgasmic bliss,” he said, his voice rough. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her neck, and she shivered.
“Don’t you have to . . . recover?”
“There are a lot of things I can do while we wait.”
There was no smart remark at the ready for her. There was nothing but need. “Show me,” she said.
And he did.
***
Restraint wasn’t their strong point, it turned out, but Cole didn’t mind. He slept in Kelsey’s bed every night for the rest of the week. Well, most of the night. He still left before everyone in the house woke up. It was too complicated to broadcast that they were now sleeping together, having a baby together, but still not getting married or even commit
ting to dating.
He’d never imagined such a screwed-up situation could exist; much less that he would be involved in it. In his mind, marriage was the best solution. The way he could be there for her. Protect her. Kelsey didn’t agree.
And today was the day they left for Portland, and then her parents’ house. Cole was making good on his promise to come, whether she wanted him or not. She’d done crazy things for their baby, including coming to the ranch in the first place. It was time for him to be a little crazy. Even if he had to follow her in his truck, he was going. Because he was in it. And he would be a part of their son or daughter’s life, which meant that her parents had to at least get to know him.
Plus, the idea of what her parents might do or say when they found out made him feel slightly sick. Kelsey was a beautiful, unique, amazing woman, and she didn’t seem to realize it. Not fully.
Some of that was the rat-bastard-ex factor, he was sure. But some of it came from her parents. And that made him feel pissed. And protective.
Kelsey emerged from her room carrying a duffel bag, and he held out his hand. “Can I take that?”
She looked up at him. “Um . . . sure.” She handed him the bag, and he slung it over his shoulder. “What are you doing?” she asked. “I’m coming with you.”
She rolled her eyes and started walking down the hall toward the stairs. “I know.”
“No argument?”
“Is there any point?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“I didn’t think there was. So I figured I would just bring you.”
He caught up to her and descended the stairs beside her. “A pity inclusion?”
“If you want to think of it that way.” She let out a sigh. “No. Okay? No. I’m scared. I have to go and face my parents and tell them that their heathen, job-possessing daughter went and got knocked up and I don’t want to. I’m scared of what they’ll say, and . . . and yeah, I want you there so they can get mad at you. Can you pretend you took my virtue?”
“Sure. But you’ll have to tell me if I’m projecting the proper ‘stealer of innocence’ vibe.”
“You sort of exude that, actually.”
“Do I?”
“Well, I mean, I’d have given it up for you. If I hadn’t already. I mean, I’ve slept with you. Lots. So clearly . . . I find you somewhat irresistible.”
A shot of heat went down straight to his groin. “Really? Irresistible?”
“Oh, don’t let it go to your head.” She pushed open the door and he reached over her head and held it open, letting her go through first.
“Too late. Irresistible?”
She blew out an exasperated breath. “Have I resisted you once this week?”
She turned away from him and walked down the stairs, heading across the gravel lot to her car. “Nope,” he tossed back.
“So, there’s my point.” He followed her down to her car, watching her shoulders bunch, her irritation clear. “I mean, clearly I was powerless to resist.”
“The lure of the fertility clinic,” he said.
She growled and opened the door to her car. “I’m a wimp.”
He leaned in and hit the button for her trunk, then deposited the bag in the back. “No you aren’t. Parents have a way of making people totally crazy. If I remember right.”
She looked down at her hands. “What happened to your parents?”
He walked over to his truck and took an overnight bag out of the bed, then threw it in beside Kelsey’s before slamming the trunk shut. “My mom . . . my mom had accident on the ranch. She was trying to drive a tractor through some mud. It was too deep, but, you know, she’d done it a lot of times before. She was . . . she was a hell of a woman, Kelsey. Strong and . . . strong. Anyway, the she rolled the tractor onto herself and it was too late by the time anyone found her.”
“Cole, that’s . . . I’m so sorry.”
“It was horrible,” he said. “But . . . we all survived. We sort of stuck closer together. Come to think of it, my dad went out of town less often after. I always thought it was just because he had more to take care of. The ranch and the kids. But I wonder now if he felt a little guilty too.”
“Trying to atone?”
He shrugged and rounded the car, opening the passenger door. “You want to drive?”
She nodded, and he got in, buckling up while she made her way to the driver’s seat.
She started the car and sat for a moment. “And your dad?”
He frowned, closing his eyes against the wall of anger and grief. Just intense, strong emotion that he couldn’t seem to sort through or get a handle on. “He had a heart attack. He was that guy, you know? Bacon and streak all the time, and damned if the doctors knew what they were talking about. He was a stubborn cuss.”
“A little like you.”
“Yeah. I always thought so. I always wanted to be like him.” He shook his head. “I don’t anymore, Kelsey. That’s the biggest thing I lost. Not just my dad, but . . . who I was going to be. I was so torn up over the divorce, because I knew that my dad, if he’d been alive, would have been disappointed. Would have told me a real man owned up to his responsibilities. To his mistakes. A real man didn’t quit. Well, he wasn’t a real man. He wasn’t the man I thought.”
She reached over and put her hand on his. “I . . . Is saying I’m sorry worth anything?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“Maybe he believed what he told you, Cole. He just couldn’t live it. Not perfectly. But it doesn’t mean that he didn’t mean what he told you.”
He dragged a hand over his face, his chest heavy. “Maybe. Maybe that’s true.”
“And I don’t think he would have been mad at you for getting divorced. If he had seen your ex yelling at Lark?”
“He would have thrown her out himself.”
“He loved you.” Kelsey stuck the key in the ignition and tapped on the little plastic keychain that hung from it.
Cole nodded. “I know.”
She turned the car on, the engine rumbling, swallowing some of her words. “I think he probably loved your mom too.”
He cleared his throat and looked out the window. “That’s one of the things that scares me.”
Cade came out onto the porch, his hands in his pockets, looking toward the car. “Does he know you’re going?” Kelsey asked.
Cole welcomed the subject change. “Yeah, I told him last night.”
“Ah. And yet, you didn’t tell me. Not even after we—”
“I was planning on having to fight you. So I figured I’d spring it on you at the last minute.”
She snorted a laugh, then waved at Cade as she put the car in reverse. “You always have a plan, Cole Mitchell.”
“Except when I don’t. Except when I feel completely at a loss.”
“Do you ever?”
“Every moment of the past month.” And basically for the past few years of his life.
“You seem like you always know what you’re doing.”
“I have you fooled.”
“Yeah, you’re pissed at life, but you move through it like you’re ready to bar-punch it if it gets too mouthy with you. You just don’t seem as . . . flail-y as me.”
He laughed. “I never thought you seemed that way. You always seem like you’re the one with the plan. The one with the guts to take over your life.”
“When I’m not quaking over the fallout of my decisions, yeah, that’s me. My family scares me though. Still . . . I’m grateful that I have them.”
“Family is complicated. And just because you feel bad that I lost mine doesn’t mean you can’t resent yours sometimes. I resent the hell out of my dad right now, and he’s dead. So go on and complain all you want.”
“I appreciate that.”
“We might actually get along on this trip.”
She laughed. “Yeah, maybe. We’ll see. If you get too tough to deal with, I have some cables—I can always tie you to the roof.”
; “If you don’t need them to tie me to the roof, maybe save them for the bedroom.”
“Don’t tempt me, Cole.”
“But I like to tempt you.”
She tossed him a quick look. “Then it’s a good thing I enjoy being tempted.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Her house looked small. It had never looked small to her before. But it could easily fit inside the common area of the big ranch house, and it was crammed up against the neighbor’s fence. No wide open spaces here.
She’d always thought it was cute and quaint. On the edge of the city without really being urban. Not one of the new clone houses that had no character or personality.
But it didn’t look as inviting as it always had. It looked cold. And old.
She let out a breath. Probably because it was both of those things. Especially since she’d been away for a month. It was out of the way, as in it added hours to their trip, but she really had to go check on her house in person. Anyway, maybe one night spent there would provide her with some magical life answers. Maybe it would make her feel less drawn to Silver Creek and the ranch.
“Home, sweet home,” she mumbled, digging her keys out of her purse and marching up the uneven cement walk. She jammed the key in the door and swung it open, walking into her familiar little kitchen. Thankfully, it was clean. Which was mostly Alexa’s doing—her contribution before their road trip, since Kelsey had felt too much like garbage to accomplish anything even remotely productive four weeks ago.
Had it only been a month? It felt like forever.
She felt Cole behind her. It really did seem longer than that. Had he really been a stranger the last time they were here together?
“Does it feel good to be home?” he asked, setting their bags on the floor by the door.
“Meh,” she said, leaning up against the counter and looking around. “I mean, yeah, it does, but . . . weird too.”
It didn’t feel like home. She’d expected a rush of emotion. Happiness. She’d expected the wonderful sense of being in surroundings that fit her. But there was none of that. This felt like a part of someone else’s life. Like a place she’d visited once. Not like her home.
“But you know”—she bent down and opened up one of the drawers set into the cabinets, rifling until she found a paper takeout menu—“I can order dinner, and someone will deliver it. You don’t have that in Silver Creek.”
