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Evidently, please actually was the magic word, because like a spell had been broken, she lurched to life, rounding the counter and sprinting for the door. It was locked, and she fumbled the bolt, trying to turn it the wrong way at first before finally sliding it free. She yanked the door open, the poor bell flying off its hinges again, and then she was in his arms.
He was in her bakery, in her town, and she was in his arms.
She took his face between her hands, his soft stubble tickling her palms, the heat of his skin and firmness of his bones almost convincing her she wasn’t dreaming. “How are you here?”
While his gaze searched her face, his hands surveyed her body, sliding over her hips, pressing, squeezing, like he was making sure she was real too. “It can wait,” he ground out a split second before he cupped her neck, brought his lips to hers, and kissed her.
She thought she’d been so careful, that she’d meticulously committed the strength of his lips, the soft slide of his tongue, his minty taste to memory, but the Cole in her mind was in shades of gray compared to the technicolor Cole in her arms.
Backing her up step by step, he took her ass in both hands and hauled her up onto the counter, breaking their kiss only long enough to slur, “Madigan needs someone to watch Little Timber while they’re on their honeymoon,” so fast she barely understood a single word. And then he was kissing her again, and it didn’t matter what he’d said. It only mattered that he was warm and solid andhere.
Wrapping her legs around his waist, she slid her fingers into his hair, knocking his sunglasses off his head. When they fell to the floor with aclack, they looked down at his glasses curling around her broken bell, looked back at each other, and then they smiled the kind of smiles reserved for children opening birthday presents, skydivers jumping out of airplanes, hikers summiting Everest.
Coming reluctantly to her senses, she said, “Did you say you’ll be watching over Little Timber?”
He nodded. “It seemed like a good idea when I offered, but now I think I might be pretty screwed.”
Your lips to god’s ears,she muttered inwardly.
“I’m not Madigan,” he continued while she hooked her heels behind his hips, wondering what it would feel like to run her tongue along his collarbone, over the ridges of his throat. “I have no idea what I’m doing. The men will probably eat me alive. But I had to come.” He cupped her cheek. “I had to see you again.”
“You’ll be amazing,” she told him, not entirely sure what they were talking about anymore, barely caring when he pulled her hips forward, his hard length pressing into her through her thin leggings.
“Is anyone home?” he asked, kissing her shoulder, her neck, his hand sneaking under the hem of her sweatshirt.
While his fingertips slid up her side, she struggled to say, “Ian’s…playing at church. Mom’s at…water aerobics,” dazed by the softness of his lips, the hardness of everything else. “Gone for a little more than…an hour.”
He pulled back, and when his thumb grazed the underside of her breast, when he said, “I can work with that,” she nearly lost consciousness. “Is there somewhere we can go?” He angled his head toward the very large, very see-through windows. “To talk?”
“Sothat’swhat they call fucking in your fancy big city.”
“Please,” he scoffed, pulling her off the counter while she clung to him. “Everyone knows ‘talk’ means oral. Now point me to your room so I cantalkto you until you forget your name.”
* * *
“This door,”she said, sucking on his earlobe while he pushed her door open.
“You sure you want to do this?” He kicked the door closed behind them, pushing the lock button. “We really could just talk.”
He set her feet on the ground, and she said, “I’m sure. Are you sure?”
“Never been surer of anything.”
Grateful that yesterday Mira had cleared her clothes and shoes from her floor, she kicked off her flats, grasped the collar of his soft, plaid shirt in both hands, and froze. “Cole?” she said, staring at his chest. “Are these…pearl snaps?”
His smirk was the single sexiest thing she’d ever seen in her entire life. “Montana enough for you?”
Biting her lip, about to make all her secret cowboy fantasies come true, she popped his first snap, and then his second, then the rest all at once.
“Nice technique,” he said while she slid his shirt off his shoulders, letting it fall to the floor, letting her gaze trace the soft swirls of silver blond hair between his pecs, down the line of his stomach, leading into his boxers.
“I’ve always wanted to do that.” When she reached for his pants, fumbling for his button, he covered her hands with his, stilling them.
“Can we slow down for a second? Only one,” he promised when she actually whimpered. “I just want to look at you.”
Raising her head, she met the rich depth of his eyes and knew he was right. She needed to look at him too, feel him, breathe in the sun-warmed scent of him and hold it in her lungs.
After a moment, he dropped his forehead to hers. “I’ve missed you.”
