“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I didn’t want to feel this way, because it scared the living hell out of me. Falling in love and becoming an instant daddy weren’t part of my game plan.”
“Then it’s lucky for you I’m here to end this before it starts.”
“Ah, but I’m not feeling scared now.” He took another step toward her. “I can’t turn my back on this and walk away. I’m in love with you. No decision to it, no changing it. Done deal.”
Her eyes filled with wariness. “Can you just sit at the table while we talk about this? I’d feel a lot safer that way.”
“You’re perfectly safe, and no, I can’t stay at the table. I like to make eye contact when I’m discussing something this important.”
“We were making eye contact.”
Zeke had a feeling it wasn’t eye contact that had her worried.
“I, um—” She tried to step around him. “I really should go.”
Zeke shot out a hand and caught her wrist. “Oh no, you don’t.”
She flashed him a startled look.
He firmed his grip on her wrist and turned her to face him again. “Do you honestly think I’ll let the best thing that’s ever happened to me walk out of my life because Robert Patterson’s a prick? No way.”
“I can’t do this again, Zeke. I just can’t.”
“Yes, you can. Take a chance on me, honey. I swear to you, you’ll never regret it.”
Her eyes softened. Zeke knew then that she’d fallen in love with him, just as he had with her, and for the first time since she’d mentioned tapioca, he felt on solid ground.
“Stay with me. There’s something special between us, Natalie. Have you ever felt like this before, even with Robert?”
“No,” she confessed, but even as she whispered the word, fear shadowed her eyes. “Not with anyone. That’s why it’s so terrifying to me. The stakes will be higher this time. I survived my marriage. I’ve come out on the other side. I’m not sure I can do that again. And I don’t want to find out. When I look at you, I don’t think about how I’m feeling right now. I think about letting myself care and eventually having you walk away.”
Still holding her wrist, he drew her slowly toward him. “Do you honestly believe I’d say any of these things to you if I thought there was any chance of that ever happening? I won’t walk away, honey. Never.”
He could see her wavering. That was his signal to dispense with talking, which had never been his strong point anyway. He slipped an arm around her waist, hauled her snugly against him, and kissed her with all the longing that he felt. For a moment, she went rigid, the heels of her hands pressing hard on his shoulders. But then she sobbed into his mouth, hooked her arms around his neck, went up onto her tiptoes, and returned his kiss. Zeke tightened his hold on her and deepened his thrust, boldly tasting the hidden recesses of her mouth and staking claim. She was just as sweet as he remembered.
When he allowed her to come up for air, she fixed unfocused eyes on his face. He could see her pulse hammering at the base of her throat. The air between them went electric.
“I’m so terrified, Zeke,” she whispered raggedly.
“Don’t be. I’ll never break your heart, honey. I swear it.” He trailed soothing kisses along her cheekbone, kissed her eyelids closed, and then claimed her mouth again, gently this time, coaxing her with everything he had and trying to convey with his touch how much he loved her. “Trust me,” he whispered. “Please, Nattie? Just throw caution to the wind and take the biggest gamble of your life. I promise you’ll never regret it.”
Her lips went soft, opening for him. She shyly trailed the tip of her tongue over his bottom lip. Then all the resistance shuddered out of her. She kissed him harder, this time making fists in his hair and stepping up onto his feet to lessen the difference in their heights. Her mouth was warm, and sweet, and hungry. Moist silk. Zeke moved a hand from the small of her back to her hip. The contrast between the scratchy surface of her dress and the soft woman underneath set him on fire. He searched lower, found the slit in her skirt, and slipped his fingers through the opening to caress her thigh. Her breath snagged. Then she moaned, the sound a low growl of feminine urgency that further inflamed him.
“It’s been so long,” she whispered raggedly into his mouth, her breath heady with the wine and another taste that Zeke realized was exclusively her own. “Oh, God, it’s been so long, Zeke.”
Zeke wasn’t prepared for what happened next. With a muted little cry, she locked her arms around his neck, hitched herself up, and encircled his waist with her legs, hooking her ankles to lock them in place. Startled and caught off balance, he staggered back a step. Natalie seemed oblivious. She captured his mouth with hers again, delving deeply with her quick little tongue, then nipping feverishly at his lips. Every clear thought in his head took a hiatus.
Holy shit.
“Touch me,” she cried.
From some murky part of his brain, a single, disjointed thought resurfaced. Not here. The kitchen was no place to make love to a lady. But, oh, God, never in all his life had he been kissed like this—need and hunger converging their pulses into a single, throbbing beat. She freed one hand to smooth her palm over his shoulder, then dug in hard with her fingertips.
“Please,” she whispered.
“The bedroom,” he managed to rasp. “I want this to be perfect for you.”
Her breathing rapid and shallow, she pressed her forehead to his. “Perfect isn’t necessary.” She hauled in another shuddering breath. “Just close will make me happy.”
Zeke caught her up in his arms and walked through the dark house, drinking in the taste of her as he went. He made it as far as the hallway before he had to stop. Using the wall to support her back, he dipped his head to skim his teeth down the column of her arched throat. “Ah, Natalie,” he whispered.
She moaned and found his ear with her hot mouth, using lips, tongue, and teeth to torture him. The sound of her quickened breathing prodded him to move a few more feet. At the doorway of the bedroom, he braced her against the frame, angled his head to deepen the kiss, and barely had the presence of mind to come up for air.
“Last chance,” he whispered. “If you’re not sure about this, I’ll let you go home. We can discuss it later when you haven’t been drink—”
She hitched herself higher to silence him with her hungry mouth. Zeke accepted that as her answer and carried her to the bed. He meant to gently deposit her on the mattress, but she loosened her legs from around his hips to fall back, the tight circle of her arms at his neck pulling him down on top of her. The next instant, he felt her hand on his belly. The jolt shot clear to the soles of his feet.
“Whoa,” he whispered, grabbing her wrist. “Where’s the fire?”
She quivered beneath him. “Inside of me.”
Her answer drove him straight over the edge. Feverish to get her naked, he reached around to unzip her dress, but he couldn’t find the tab—or a damned zipper, period, for that matter. She assisted him by lifting her hips to tug up her skirt.
“It’s stretchy,” she whispered breathlessly. “Off over my head.”
He twisted onto his knees, grasped her by the shoulders, sat her up, and divested her of the dress with one upward tug. In the moonlight that poured in through the window, her skin shimmered like pearls, pale and flawless. Her bra was a black push-up with lacy half cups and a front clasp. He’d never seen anything sexier in his life. When he unfastened the clasp, her full, heavy breasts spilled out into his hands, her large nipples as dark as copper in the shadows.
“They sag,” she whispered.
“What?” Zeke sat back on his heels to make his own assessment. “You’re perfect,” he said, and meant it with all his heart. She was all the more beautiful to him because she didn’t seem to know it. He gently pushed her back onto the pillows and bent to trace a line up her breastbone with the tip of his tongue. “You’re absolutely perfect, Natalie.”
“But—”
“No arguments. I’m the expert here, and my opinion is the only one that counts.”
She shivered and threaded her slender fingers through his hair. “Oh, Zeke. I’m scared.”
“Feeling like this would scare the bejesus out of anyone.”
She giggled. Then she sobered, her big, luminous gaze clinging to his. “Let’s forget all the heavy stuff. Only for tonight. Okay? No expectations, no strings. Tomorrow we’ll just—you know—pretend it didn’t happen.”
“No way, lady. I have expectations, and I want strings. Tomorrow morning when you wake up, I want to be the first thing you think about—that you’re mine, that you’ll always be mine.” He scraped his teeth over the underside of her jaw and settled in to nibble at the sensitive hollow just beneath her ear. “One time with you will never be enough for me. And if I do my job, it won’t be enough for you, either.”
That said, Zeke set himself to the task of making this the most fabulous experience of her life, paying relentless attention to detail during foreplay. He kissed his way up the sensitive inside of her arm, then nibbled his way down her side, lingering to tease the outer swell of her breast. From there, he angled across to her navel and inched her panties down with his lips as he tasted the satiny skin of her lower abdomen. Soon she was strung as tautly as a bow, her spine arched, her breath coming in shallow pants, every line of her body begging him for release.
To keep her distracted, he reclaimed her mouth with his while he reached over to tug open his nightstand drawer. When his hand met with open air, he froze for an instant. Then his mind went ice cold with realization.
“Well, shit.”
She stiffened and blinked in bewilderment. “What?”
“My nightstand.”
“What about it?”
“I sold it when I moved! Shit!”
Natalie couldn’t see how his nightstand had anything to do with anything. When he pulled away to sit on the edge of the bed, she struggled to sit up, her head spinning from the wine she’d drunk earlier, her body throbbing with unsatisfied needs. It had been so perfect. She wanted to slug him. No orgasm in three years, and he had stopped because of a stupid nightstand?
“Shit,” he said again. “This is great, just great.” He turned to look at her. “That’s where I kept the condoms. We’re SOL.”
SOL? Natalie’s brain finally clicked into place. She drew up the rumpled sheet to cover herself. “No condoms?”
“I kept them in the frigging nightstand.”
She sat back on her heels and tried to slow her breathing. “Didn’t you empty the drawers of the nightstand before you sold it?”
“Yes.”
There was hope, after all. “Where’d you put the condoms?”
“In the trash. They were old. I was afraid they might be rotten. I figured I could just buy some more if I ever had occasion to need one.”
She swallowed hard. “No protection.” She laughed a little hysterically. “You’ve lived here since May, and you haven’t needed a condom in all that time?”
“You find this humorous?”
Natalie didn’t think it was humorous at all. But it was revealing. “No, not humorous. I just can’t believe you haven’t been with someone since you moved here.”
“What do you take me for?”
The indignant expression on his dark, shadowed face nearly made her laugh again, and in that moment, all her fears fell away. He was, hands down, the handsomest and most wonderful man she’d ever known, and she was starting to believe he’d be the most loyal, never straying, possibly never even looking at another woman.
“I don’t sleep around.” His voice was gruff with frustration and unspent passion.
Tears stung her eyes. “Oh, Zeke.”
“What?”
“No condoms? That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
Sweet? He didn’t get it. He couldn’t make love to her, damn it. He wanted to tear hell out of something or put his fist through a wall. She’d come very close to walking away from him tonight. Now he’d blown it, and he might never get this chance again.
Since becoming an adult, he’d been as horny as a two-pecker goat more times than he wanted to count, but he’d never felt this kind of need—a knifing pain, low in his groin, the ache spreading up into his belly.
She patted the sheets, looking for her clothes, which made his heart sink even though he couldn’t accommodate her if she stayed. When she found her bra, she lifted her beautiful legs over the opposite edge of the mattress and presented him with her back while she donned the garment. When she stood up, she tugged her panties back into place and reached around for her dress. Zeke wanted to weep.
“Will you come again?” he asked. “Next time, I swear, I’ll make it worth your while.”
After pulling the dress over her head, she wiggled to tug the stretchy material down over her hips. Watching her, Zeke almost came in his Wranglers. Turning to look at him, she raked a hand through her wildly mussed hair and tossed her head. “Of course I’ll come again.” She flashed him a sassy grin. “I’m not finished with you yet, cowboy.”
Relief eased the tension from Zeke’s shoulders. He pushed erect, refastened his jeans, and followed her from the room. “When?”
She giggled. “When we can find some time alone. Two kids, remember. They pose a slight problem.”
Even in the darkness, her dress sparkled as she walked up the hallway. Once in the kitchen, she spun to look at him. “I’ve got Sunday night off. How about then?”
“Sunday?” Zeke took a quick mental count. “That’s five days from now.”
She smiled demurely. “I’ll keep.”
He wasn’t sure he would. “Tomorrow night.”
She shook her head. “I’m essentially working two full-time jobs right now, coming here during the day and going to the club at night. I really can’t afford to stay up late like this again and lose the sleep.”
Zeke had seen shadows of exhaustion under her eyes more than once. “Sleep in tomorrow. It’s really not necessary for you to be here early.”
“But that was our deal. Now, on top of the damages to your place, Chad owes you for the earrings. I can’t sleep in and come late. How would that be right?”
Zeke caught her face between his hands and kissed her again. Within seconds they were both breathless. “That’s how.” He leaned back to find that she’d closed her eyes and was smiling. “Tomorrow night?”
She slowly lifted her lashes. “How late can I sleep in?”
“As long as you need to.”
She giggled and went up on her toes to taste his mouth again. “We’re assuming I’ll be able to sleep. The way I’m feeling right now, I may lie awake all night, staring at the ceiling.”
When Zeke awakened the next morning, he felt supercharged. Natalie. Her name was like a song in his mind. He wanted to see her face. He needed to know that last night hadn’t been a figment of his imagination. Problem. He didn’t have a single good reason to walk across the field to see her at six thirty in the morning and couldn’t have brought himself to do it anyway. She needed her rest.
Instead he grabbed a shower, then went to the kitchen to make coffee. The gallon jug of wine still sat on his kitchen counter. He picked up the juice glass she’d used and smiled. She’d actually been there, and they’d almost made love. It had been the most frustrating experience of his life—and the most fabulous.
He scowled as he measured grounds into the coffee filter. No condoms. Never had he felt like such a dope. Zeke Coulter, the guy who planned everything down to a gnat’s ass.
Well, he’d damned sure be ready the next time, he assured himself. Assuming, of course, that there’d be a next time. She’d been a little tipsy last night. When she woke up this morning, she might thank her lucky stars that nothing had happened.
The thought made it difficult for him to breathe. She was terrified of getting hurt again. He’d seen it in her eyes, heard it in he
r voice. Just words, she’d said. How was she to know that he’d never said them to anyone else?
Lemon-yellow sunlight played over Natalie’s face. Luxuriating in the warmth, she bunched her pillow under her cheek and listened to the birds singing outside her open window. Wake up. Wake up! they seemed to say. It’s a beautiful morning! In complete agreement, she smiled dreamily, thinking of Zeke, how the deep rumble of his voice moved through her when he whispered near her ear, how his big, work-roughened hands felt against her skin, how steely his arms felt when he locked them around her. He was so wonderful—a tall, dark, sexy cowboy who could have had any woman he wanted.
And he’d chosen her.
She almost laughed out loud every time she remembered the condom debacle. Bless his heart. He’d sat there on the edge of the bed, whooshing for air like a surfacing whale, every muscle in his body coiled with frustration. Up until that moment, she’d still had reservations. A woman couldn’t live through what she had with Robert and trust another man without questioning her sanity. What if everything Zeke said was a pack of lies? But knowing that he’d been with no one since moving into his house, discovering that the prophylactics in his old nightstand had lain in the drawer for so long that he’d thrown them away, and seeing the indignant look on his face when he’d said, “What do you take me for?” had soothed away her fears.
Well, not all her fears, she decided as she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. Robert had left his mark on her, and she would always be afraid, way deep down. But the fear was no longer so overwhelming that she felt panicky. She was coming to trust Zeke in a way she hadn’t thought possible.
Natalie threw her arms wide to stretch, feeling fabulous even though she’d barely slept a wink. Tonight. A delightful sizzle of arousal moved through her at the thought.
A light tap at the door brought her head around. “Who is it?”
Valerie opened the door and poked her head through the crack. “Well?” she asked sleepily. “How’d it go?”