Chapter Seventeen
“How set areyou on us breaking up by New Year’s?”Riley asked when he saw Letty again.It was probably a mistake to bring this up, but he felt like it needed to be said.
Letty looked puzzled.“That’s what we agreed on.”
“No, that’s what you decided.That was never what I wanted.”
“Why bring this up now?We’ve still got plenty of time—”
“Nine days isn’t plenty of time.”She looked torn and it irritated the hell out of him.“Can you at least think about it?”
“I don’t know.I don’t want to lead you on.”
“I’m a big boy.I can take care of myself.Just tell me you’ll think about it.”
“All right.”
“Great.”He swung her up in his arms and started for her bedroom.
“Riley!What are you doing?”
“I thought that was obvious.I’m taking you to your bedroom so I can make love to you.”
“Don’t you have to go home?”
“This is the first time I’ve been off the ranch other than to get supplies since my mother went into the hospital.She’s better, Jasper’s with her, there’s a night nurse coming, and I’m going nuts here not being with you.”
She put her arms around his neck and kissed him.“I miss you too.”
“Thank God,” he said and tossed her on the bed.
He took it slow and steady, building her up and allowing her to come down, nothing like as frantic as it had been in the tack room.They managed to undress, and Riley took the time to make sure she climaxed, touching her and kissing her in all the spots he knew drove her wild.Of course, it drove him wild as well.Going slow, not talking when he wanted to claim her, to make her admit she felt more for him than just having a fun time, over almost as soon as it started.
But he was already pushing his luck, asking her to think about extending their ‘fling.’He’d thought he had plenty of time to convince Letty that they could be together.But then his mom got sick and he’d hardly seen her.And when he had seen her he’d been stressed and busy, and his dad had been being an incredible pain in the ass.Not very romantic, that.
He was becoming less sure by the day that he could convince Letty to give them a chance.And if he couldn’t, damn, he didn’t even want to think about that.
*
What was shegoing to do about Riley?Letty had promised to think about not breaking up at New Year’s, but the problem was, she didn’t really want to break up.It would be easy to say, sure, we don’t have to break up.Yet she knew if she kept seeing Riley that she would fall for him.
Like you haven’t already.
Even so, all of her reservations were still present.What if she fell in love with him and he didn’t feel the same?Or what if he did and then something happened?Something like one of them fell out of love.Or one of them was hurt, or worse died.She didn’t want to live through that again.Losing her parents had made her hyper aware that bad things could happen.
She’d considered a longer relationship once with Kyle, the worthless cowboy.She should have known better.For one thing she knew she didn’t love him.Not as her parents had loved each other.She reasoned that maybe she could stand to lose someone she cared about but didn’t love.Which, she admitted, had been wrong.Or maybe nothing bad would happen and she could live with that.But then he showed his true colors and she knew he wasn’t worth it.
She knew Riley wasn’t like that.There was so much to like about Riley and damn little to dislike.He was loyal, hard-working, smart, loved his family, his ranch, and his animals.Lord knew he was good-looking.Not to mention, the sex was amazing.But none of that guaranteed the relationship would last or that if it did tragedy wouldn’t strike.And to lose him if she truly loved him, she couldn’t bear.
Look at Lorraine.She’d gotten ill when no one expected it.They’d all thought Jasper was the one they had to worry about.Then Lorraine had gotten pneumonia and as far as she could tell things at the ranch were a mess.At least Jasper had relented about the nurse and even allowed a night nurse a few nights a week.
Christmas was the day after tomorrow.Riley had asked her to come to the ranch.She knew Mercy, the Fletchers’ housekeeper, would cook a nice Christmas dinner for the Fletchers but since Lorraine was still being careful about exposure to germs, they were limiting dinner to Jasper, Lorraine, Riley, and her.Val had told her that her family wouldn’t be there since, as she put it, kids were petri dishes for all kinds of diseases.
Tomorrow, she planned to visit Val and family and hoped Riley would be able to get away as well.While she was deciding what to do about seeing Riley, he called.
“Hey, want some company tonight?”
“Really?You can get away?”
