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“That’s a lot for a tool belt.”
She pointed at him. “You like my shoes.”
“The stilts?”
“Yes, the stilts. You mention them, often, which tells me you notice. And you notice what they do for my legs.” She shot one out, turned her foot at the ankle. “They’re good legs.” She angled her head and her smile. “Maybe not as long as Cameron’s, but they’re good legs.”
“You’re not lying.” He gripped her calf, swiveled her toward him. When his hand started its slide up, she swiveled back, rose quickly.
“We should eat. I thought I’d set up in The Dining Room.”
He simply reached around her, turned off the oven. Then pressed her back, moved in.
Not just his mouth this time, but his hands, quick, impatient, just on the edge of rough. Desire, never far below the surface when he was near, punched through and made her knees weak.
Some sane part of her thought of the impropriety if one of the guests walked in. But that part simply wasn’t loud enough, strong enough to drown out the primal pull.
“Stay there,” he ordered the dog, who sighed and settled again.
Hope was still reeling when he grabbed her hand, dragging her out of the room. “Ryder—”
“They’ve got wine, pizza, and sex. It’ll be a miracle if they come out before morning.” He paused briefly at her office. Not M&P, he thought, not with those two doubles. “Not down here. We’re going to need a bigger bed.”
“I can’t just—”
“Wanna bet?”
And not her apartment. Damned if he was hauling her up to the third floor. He grabbed the key to T&O, pulled her out and toward the stairs.
“But if they need something—”
“They’ve got what they need. It’s time we did.”
He turned her on the stairs, pressed her back to the wall, and kissed her until even the idea of protest seemed not only impossible but absurd.
If she didn’t have him, and now, she might just blow apart. Then nobody would have an innkeeper.
“Hurry,” she managed, and began pulling him.
Breathless from much more than a dash up a flight of stairs, she clung to him when they reached the second floor. Now her hands rushed and took, riding over his hips, up his back as they stumbled their way to the door.
“Hurry, hurry, hurry.” She chanted it, and fixed her teeth on his shoulder as he fought with the key.
His hand shook. He’d have thought it mortifying if he could think at all. He could only want, and want. When the key shot home, he pushed her into the room, barely had the presence of mind to lock the door behind them before they fell on the bed, into the canopied bower.
“Leave the stilts on,” he told her.
She managed a laugh, started to pull him to her. The laugh tumbled into a grateful gasp as he yanked the thin dress down to her waist.
His mouth, his hands, his weight, his scent. Everything she wanted, everything she so desperately needed. She wanted the thrust of him, hard, strong, crazed inside her more than she wanted to breathe.
“Yes. Yes.” She turned her face into his throat. “Anything, everything, everywhere.”
The tidal wave swarmed over her, roared through her, at last. The heat, the pleasure, the quick spikes of panic and madness. Hard hands on her flesh; a hungry mouth on her breast. Taking, feeding, destroying.
More. More. More.
He felt her hands on his belt, working, tugging, and her breath hot on his throat, against his ear. Everything blurred, the feel of her—smooth as silk and soft as water, and hot as lava. Her voice on a cry of release when he shoved up her dress and found her. Movement, all movement, her hips, her hands, her legs.
Her mouth found his, fixed greedily as her hips rose, ground to him. Knives of need tore through his body when she shoved his jeans down and closed her hand around him.
And her legs locked around his waist. They took each other in a kind of madness, all speed and desperation breaking on pleasure so keen it sliced.
She clung to him while her body quaked, while the glory of those aftershocks trembled and shook. Then weak, her hands slid away. Spent, he collapsed onto her, and lay there waiting for his mind and body to make a connection.
She’d … annihilated him, he realized. And that was a first.
He understood, dimly, he still wore his boots, and his jeans were somewhere down around his ankles while her dress was a fragile bunch at her waist.
Not exactly the way he’d planned it. And a far, far cry from what he’d expected of her.
At length she let out something between a moan and a sigh. “God. God. Thank God.”
“Are you praying or thanking me?”
“Both.”
He managed to roll off her so they lay side by side as they were, still mostly dressed, dazed, and utterly satisfied.
“I was in a hurry,” she said.
“Tell me about it.”
She sighed again, closed her eyes. “I’ve been in the desert where sex is concerned. It’s been more than a year.”
“A year? Jesus, I’m lucky to be alive.”
A laugh sounded low in her throat. “Believe me, you are. I can’t believe I spent all this money on new underwear. Neither one of us appreciated it.”
No, he thought, nothing like what he’d expected of her. On every level, a whole hell of a lot better. “Were you wearing underwear?”
“See? And I still am. Just not where it’s meant to be worn.”
Still flat on his back, he reached over, down, skimmed his fingers over the lace-edged bra bunched with the dress around her waist.
“You can put it back where it goes. Then I’ll appreciate it later before I peel it off you. We’ll go for full naked next time.”
“I could use some full naked. You’ve got a really nice body, but—well, in a hurry …”
She turned her head, studied his profile—those strong bones, those hard curves. After a moment, he turned his so they stared into each other’s eyes.
So damn beautiful, he thought. It ought to be against the law to look like that. It messed up a man’s head.
“We must look ridiculous,” she murmured.
“Don’t look.”
“I won’t if you won’t. Are you hungry?”
“That’s a loaded question, considering.”
She smiled as she worked her bra back into place. “Why don’t we go down and eat, pretend we’re civilized adults.”
“Too late for the second part.”
“It’s never too late to be civilized.”
“You’re starting to think about the kids in W&B.”
“Avery made us a beautiful meal, and we should eat it. And it gives me the opportunity to be available in case. Then we can bring the wine—should there be any left—back up here. You can appreciate my new underwear.”
“It’s a good plan.” He levered up enough to pull up his shorts, his jeans. “And maybe next time I’ll manage to get my boots off before you jump me.”
She wiggled back into her dress, smiled. “No promises.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
RYDER COULDN’T QUITE DEFINE THE SITUATION WITH Hope. They weren’t exactly dating. They weren’t exactly friends. They weren’t exactly what his aunt Carolee called An Item.
But however he angled to consider the situation, he liked it.
Maybe it included a few elements of strange, the way he parked his truck behind Vesta or over by the fitness center job site rather than right behind the inn.
It wasn’t as if someone couldn’t figure out what was going on if they paid attention. Someone always paid attention. Still, it didn’t sit right with him to be blatant about it.
And maybe it added more strange the way he went up The Courtyard stairs to the third floor, and into the building that way.
Some evenings he heard voices from below, and just let himself and D.A. into her place until she knocked off for the night.
And maybe he found hi
mself taking more of an interest in the workings of the inn than he’d expected to, but he was in it more than he’d imagined, so that followed.
And those workings struck him as pretty well oiled. No surprise, since in a lot of ways she was Owen in a skirt.
She emailed herself, doing room checks with her phone, using the phone to email herself notes she turned into lists on her office desktop. Fresh batteries for the remote in N&N, more TP in W&B, fresh room packets or menus or lightbulbs wherever. Saved steps, he imagined, as she’d be up and down countless times a day—stocking the coffee supply in The Library, hauling up wine, sodas, water from the basement storage.
She lived and died by lists, to his way of thinking. And, again like his brother, by the sticky note.
He’d invariably find a few whenever he’d go into her place while she handled guests. Beer in the fridge—stuck on the fridge door as if he couldn’t open it and see for himself. Leftover pasta on warm if you’re hungry—stuck on the oven, as if ditto.
But he had to admit it was nice to have her bother.
He supposed he’d figured she’d be rigid—live and die by the schedule as much as her lists and sticky notes. But she flexed, and plenty, when things called for it, giving here, adjusting there, shoring up or letting go.
He could admit he’d expected her to start laying down rules or making demands about their … situation. Instead she rolled with it—and rolled plenty with him, he thought as he set the next replacement window in the fitness center.
