“Perhaps I should be the judge of that?” he suggested wryly.
“Easy for you to say. You’re perfect,” she snapped.
He laughed at that. “Oh, my dear Yvette. I’ll never be half good enough for you. I’m just a hick cop from a small town in Kansas. You…you’re royalty around here.”
“God, I hate being a Colton, sometimes.”
His gaze shuttered and slid away from hers. The same thing had happened once at the hospital. What had they been talking about then? Something to do with her father—
Reese stood up abruptly, carrying their empty plates over to the sink.
“I made a pie,” she said tentatively.
“You bake?”
“I do. It’s apple pie. It was the only kind I know how to make that you had the ingredients for. I didn’t know if you’d like that or not.”
“Apple pie is my favorite,” he said in a muffled voice.
“Of course, it is.”
“I guess that means you hate apple pie?” he asked.
“Nope. Love it. Warm with ice cream melting all over it.”
“Glory be. We agree on something for once.”
She looked over at him sharply. “How can you declare that you’ve fallen for me and then be snarky over how we don’t agree on anything?”
“Haven’t you ever heard that opposites attract?” He turned around, sleeves rolled up, wielding a towel as he dried the big pot she’d cooked the pasta in.
“I’ve also heard that opposites combust when combined, ultimately consuming and destroying each other.”
He shrugged. “That may be true in a science experiment, but I think people whose weaknesses and strengths compensate for each other can be the strongest couples of all if they can learn to accept each other’s differences.”
“It didn’t work out for my parents,” she said sadly.
Reese replied tartly, “When the difference between two people is that one’s an asshole and one isn’t, that’s not a great foundation for a relationship.”
“You really don’t like my dad, do you?”
“Nope. Not one bit. He let his partner talk him into doing something that would get people killed, and he knew it. He had a great family and chose to ignore it, and now he has bailed out on all of you and left you guys holding the bag for his crimes. The rest of you Coltons have to walk around this town bearing his name and his blame, while he’s taken off.”
“Do you know where he went?” she asked.
“I have an idea.”
“Well? Where?”
“I’m not at liberty to say. One of his conditions for signing the plea deal was he didn’t want anyone in his family to know where he’s going to settle down next.”
She sat back, shocked to her core. She realized her jaw was sagging open but didn’t have the wherewithal to shut it.
Reese turned to look at her. He must have seen how that bombshell had hit her for he moved over to her side swiftly and pulled her out of her chair and into a big, tight hug.
Dishes forgotten, he bent down, scooped her off her feet and carried her into the living room, which was lit only by the light of a sluggish fire burning hot and slow. He sat down on the overstuffed sofa in front of the fireplace with her still in his lap.
“I’m sorry you had to find that out from me,” Reese murmured against her temple. “I’m a jerk for just springing it on you.”
“I recall springing Jordana’s move to Chicago on you, so I’d say that makes us even. Do my siblings know? Oh, God. Does my mom know?”
Reese winced and she put her palms on each side of his face and forced him to look at her. “Does my mom know?” she repeated.
He sighed. “I believe it was your mother who asked for it. She wanted a clean and complete break from your father.”
She stared up at Reese in dismay. “What did he do to her? She’s not a vindictive person. She doesn’t cut anybody out of her life like that.”
He closed his eyes tightly for a moment. When he opened them, their blue depths swam with pain. “You’d have to ask her.”
“You know more than you’re saying,” she accused.
To his credit, he replied candidly, “I do have an idea why she did it. But that information is not mine to share. You’ll have to ask her.”
“I will! Right now!”
“Maybe right now you should rest and relax a little after overdoing way too much today.”
“I made a pot of spaghetti,” she said scornfully.
“And the rest of a nice meal, and you baked, and cleaned if I’m not mistaken.”
“Well, maybe I did dust and straighten up a little.” She paused, and added, “And do a couple loads of laundry.”
Her gave her a withering look.
“I swear. I feel fi—” She broke off. “I feel great.”
“Good. Let’s keep it that way,” Reese replied.
“Does that mean you’d kiss me in front of the fire again if I asked you to?”
Reese laughed against her lips. “I thought you’d never ask.”
“You can ask me, too, you know.”
“Cool. Wanna make out?”
She swatted his arm as she laughed at him. “You can do better than that.”
“Hmm. Let’s see. How about this? It feels like I’ve been waiting for you my whole life. Now that I’ve finally found you, I can’t get enough of you. I love the feel of you in my arms, the softness of your mouth, your passion, your intelligence, your humor. Would you do me the great honor of consenting to make passionate love with me?”
Making love? Well, then. “Wow. That’s, umm, much better.”
“Are you swept off your feet?” he asked hopefully.
She laughed up at his ridiculous expression. “Blown away.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Do you accept my offer?”
“Oh. That.” She pretended to think about it for a few seconds. Then she said all in a rush, “Yes, you romantic man. Of course, I accept.”
He wasted no time lowering his mouth to hers, capturing her lips for a lingering, cinnamon-and-apple-flavored kiss.
“You taste good,” she murmured against his mouth.
“So do you.”
“Remind me to keep an apple pie in the house at all times,” she replied.
He kissed his way down the column of her neck and back up. “I could go for chocolate cake, or maybe brownies, too. You’d taste good flavored chocolate. The creaminess of your skin and the tartness of your tongue would pair perfectly with that.”
She gazed up at him as she reclined in his arms, more relaxed and at ease that she could ever remember being with any guy. “Oatmeal cookies,” she announced.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’d taste great with oatmeal cookies. Not a bland one. A really good one with lots of spices and flavor. It would have to be a cookie because you’re practically a walking milk commercial, and you remind me of whiskey or maybe rum. The raisins and spices in an oatmeal cookie would go perfectly with that.”
“And here I was, thinking I was pure vanilla.”
Her lips curved wickedly, “I certainly hope not. Personally, I prefer a little spice in my life.”
His eyes smoldered with interest. “Do tell.”
“I’m a show, don’t tell, kind of woman.”
“My kind of woman.” He stood up, setting her on her feet in the flickering light of the fire. He ran his hands across her shoulders and down her arms to her hands, which he grasped lightly and brought up to his mouth for a kiss.
When he released them, she laid her palms on his chest, measuring the width of his shoulders and the bulk of his pectorals as her hands slid down his ribs to his waist.
“You’re so beautiful,” he breathed. �
��All woman.” He trailed his fingers through her hair, pulling long strands forward over her shoulders. “Your hair feels like silk.”
She touched his jaw with her fingertips. “Yours feels like sandpaper.”
“Do you want me to go shave?”
“No. I like you this way. A little scruffy, very masculine. I like you best when you’re not all buttoned down, polished and starched. Relaxed, off-duty you is the man I fell for first.”
“Are you admitting you’ve fallen for my cop self, too?” he asked with a little smile.
“Maybe.”
He tilted his head to one side, studying her quizzically, and she relented, saying, “Okay. Fine. I’ve fallen for that side of you, too. I like everything about you.”
He let out a long, slow breath as her words sank into him, becoming part of him. His gaze went dark and serious. “I like everything about you, too.”
“Everything you know, maybe. There’s still a lot about me you don’t know.”
“I’d like to learn, Yvie.”
Very slowly, she rose on her tiptoes, never breaking eye contact with him. She paused when her mouth was only a few inches from his and whispered, “I’d like that, too.”
He closed the gap between them, kissing her slowly at first, reverently, even. It was so easy to sink into him, so natural. She loved losing herself in a kiss like this, with him. She felt absolutely safe with him, but she loved the edge of danger that clung to him, a promise of more passion than met the eye, of an alpha male to be unleashed.
She deepened the kiss, opening her mouth, doing everything in her power to draw out the dark and dangerous side of this man. She rubbed her chest lightly against his, relishing the way her nipples had tightened and become so sensitized that she gasped a little at the brushing contact.
The only light in the cabin was the flickering glow of the fire, and the darkness was sultry and mysterious around them. Reese reached for the hem of her sweater and paused in the act of starting to lift it over her head.
“Ground rules for tonight,” he said quietly. “If you get a headache at any time, you’ll tell me immediately. Yes?”
“But if I do that, you’ll stop. And maybe I won’t want you to stop, umm, whatever you’re doing.”
“Which brings us to the second ground rule. The doctor said no vigorous activity. You are to sit back and enjoy and not exert yourself. At all.”
“Well, that sounds like no fun.”
“Have a little faith. I believe you can have fun without overdoing.”
“Challenge accepted,” she said jauntily.
He shook his head. “You have to learn to turn down a dare now and then.”
“I’m a Colton. We don’t know how.”
His eyes glinted. “Fair enough.” He gently lifted the sweater over her head carefully avoiding her bandages. The laceration on the side of her head was healing nicely but she appreciated his caution with the wound.
She ran her fingers across the fine cotton of his dress shirt, reveling in the hard muscles beneath it as she reached for the small buttons and one by one pushed them through the starched fabric. The fabric peeled back to expose the base of his neck, a few dark chest hairs poking up, hinting at more below. She continued to unbutton the shirt, shoving it aside as she went, loving the feel of his smooth skin and crisp chest hair beneath the pads of her fingers. His heat and hardness drew her in and excited her deep in her core in a feminine place that responded powerfully to him.
She unbuckled his belt and slowly pulled it from around his lean waist. When it came free, she dropped it to the floor.
He lifted her cotton turtleneck over her head next, and her face popped free all at once,
“Is your head okay?” he asked in quick concern.
“I would tell you it’s fine, but you would get mad. It doesn’t hurt, and as far as I can tell, I’m not bleeding.”
“Promise you’ll tell me if anything hurts your head at all,” he murmured.
“Will do.”
“And tell me if you don’t like anything we do.”
“All right already. Any other rules of engagement, Officer?”
“My badge is in the kitchen. I’m not a cop in here.”
“Just the way I like it best. No work between us and you fully in the moment with me.”
“I’m right here. All yours.”
She reached up to cup his face in her hands. “Same. I’m here, and yours.”
He started at her right ear, kissing his way slowly down her neck, across her shoulder and down into the warm valley between her breasts. He reached the lace of her bra and dropped to his knees, then resumed kissing a path down her stomach to the top of her jeans.
He paused there, unbuttoning her waistband and unzipping the denim pants. He tucked his fingers into each side of her jeans and slowly shoved them down, skimming his hands over her hips and down her thighs.
She planted a hand on his shoulder for balance as he guided her feet clear of her pants legs. And then he kissed his way back up the outside of her right thigh to her hipbone, and then back up her stomach.
He stood and unzipped his own trousers, stepping out of the pooled wool at his feet. As she’d suspected, he was lean and hard all over his body. His abs were ridged with muscle, his thighs more powerful than they appeared at a first glance, wrapped in long slabs of muscle.
His skin retained a faint golden cast left over from what must have been a dark summer tan. Unlike her. She’d inherited Lilly’s porcelain skin that burned at even the slightest exposure to sun, and hence she lived in hats and sunscreen nearly year round.
“You look like a statue of a Greek goddess,” he murmured.
“Yep. That’s me. Stone cold and hard as rocks.”
His mouth curved up into a smile against her shoulder. “I meant your skin is alabaster and perfectly smooth. Also, I meant that you’re an image of female perfection.”
“Me? Not hardly.”
He sighed, a gust of warm breath against the base of her neck. “When will you stop putting yourself down? Do you realize that every time you insult yourself, you’re also insulting my taste in women? I chose you. Out of all the women I could have fallen for, I fell for you. If you can’t honor yourself, at least honor that.”
It was her turn to sigh. “I’m sorry. I make jokes when I’m uncomfortable.”
His head jerked up and he stared down at her. “Why are you uncomfortable? Are we moving too fast for you?”
“Goodness, no. If anything, we’re moving too slow! I’m impatient as heck to get naked and horizontal with you. I’m uncomfortable because I’m self-conscious about…how I look,” she finished lamely.
He smiled a little. “Every woman I’ve ever known is self-conscious about how they look. But here’s the thing. You’re going to have to take it on faith that I find you beautiful. Beautiful and sexy and desirable above all other women.”
Wow. That was nice to hear.
He continued to skim his hands across her skin lightly as he spoke. “If I wanted to be with another woman, I would have pursued this hypothetical other woman and not you. But the fact is, I’ve been waiting for you my whole life. And now that you’re here, I have no interest in any other woman. None.”
“You make it all sound so easy.”
He laughed aloud. “Honey, you’ve been anything but easy. You’ve thrown up every roadblock in the book at me, and I’ve had to find a way around every last one. You’ve been a challenge like no other.” He added, leaning in to drop a light kiss on the end of her nose, “Totally worth it.”
She didn’t bother arguing the point. He was right. “And you still want me?” she asked in a small voice. “You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
He took her face gently in both of his big callused hands, cupping her cheeks as if they were the mos
t delicate crystal. He kissed her sweetly to prove the point, ever so slowly deepening the kiss until her head slanted to one side, his to the other, and their tongues swirled together in a sexy tangle of wet, hot need.
Without breaking the contact of their mouths, he bent down slightly, reached one arm behind her thighs and scooped her up into his arms. It was one of the best advantages of being petite. Big strong men like him could pick her up and literally sweep her off her feet.
“Protection?” he murmured.
She answered briskly, appreciating his concern for their health and safety, “I’m on the pill and haven’t had sex with anyone since I came back to Braxville. I am so STD-free it’s depressing.”
“Ditto. I haven’t been in a relationship in…longer than I care to stop and count, now. I’m happy to use a condom if you want, though.”
“Fair. And thank you.”
“I’m a safety guy.”
“We’ll see about that before I’m done with you. I plan to shake up all that caution and rule following of yours.”
He laughed. “I look forward to it.”
He strode swiftly down the hall to his bedroom and lowered her carefully onto the mattress. Unwilling to break the yummy contact with him, she kept her arms looped around his neck and urged him down with her. He stretched out beside her, supporting his weight on an elbow as he leaned over her to continue kissing her.
She loved the feeling of him pressing her down deep into the thick comforter and plush mattress, and she wanted more of it. She twined her legs with his and rolled more fully onto her back, dragging him with her.
He laughed a little against her mouth. “Impatient much?”
“Extremely.”
“Good thing I like to take my time and savor the journey, or else this would already be over if you had your way.”
She growled a little in the back of her throat.
“Oho, so the kitten has claws, does she?”
She pushed him onto his back and pressed up onto her elbows on his chest to mock glare down at him. “I’m no kitten, mister. I’m a wildcat, thank you very much.”
“A very tiny, ferocious one,” he teased, rolling her over and reversing their positions. She was aware that he’d made a cage of his arms around her when he’d very carefully rolled her over, protecting her the whole time from taking any of his weight.
Harlequin Romantic Suspense December 2020 Box Set Page 43
