Page 30 of Passion in Bloom

Chapter 10

Roarke

I only went to thebathroom to clean up and have a moment to recover from the rush of her going down to her knees and giving me head so spontaneously like that. She’d rocked me. She’d made me weak in my damn knees, trying to stand and not collapse from the rush of pleasure.

I set my hands on the edge of the vanity, sighing and thinking back to what she’d said.

It was a defense mechanism. I knew it had to be. Her quip about preoccupying herself by sucking me off.

No, she was not better off doing something so filthy and good like that instead of using her mouth to talk to me.

Sex, at the basis of it, was just sex. I knew it’d be good with her. Two people with the amount of raw, electric chemistry that we had couldn’t get together and not have mind-blowing sex.

But that in no way meant that I didn’t want to really have something solid with her. Something that was more than sex. A connection. A bond where I could know she trusted me to help her when she needed it but couldn’t ask for it. Where I would be able to let her realize she didn’t have to face David, or any other fears, alone.

I turned on the water to wash my hands, but the damn pipes squealed and whined like they had been.

“What the hell did you do, Todd?”

Ever since he’d tried to tackle the old problem of water issues to the cabins, I’d been dealing with issues like this. Low pressure. No water. And those awful, grinding sounds of something trying to open up and move in the pipes.

I gave up waiting for the water to heat up past the lukewarm it was. I rinsed with cold water and didn’t care.

Any second now, Heather could slip away. I bet she could be just as flighty as my niece was.

Sure enough, when I returned to the living room, I saw that I was alone.

“Dammit.” I sighed and let my shoulders drop.

So much for a chance to talk tonight.

The next morning, after a shitty night of sleep where I tossed and turned and wondered if Heather and I would ever figure out a way to be together, I got up madder than I had been when I went to bed.

I left later than usual, lucky to have a delayed start time at the ranch because of working ahead last week. On my way down the bumpy road, I caught sight of her walking out of her cabin.

Braking quickly, I stopped and got out of my truck to confront her.

Yes, she wanted her privacy. She demanded it. But hell, after what she did last night, she’d be giving me mixed signals if she got fussy about me stopping to talk to her now. I wasn’t some boy toy or thing to play with and cast aside as she pleased.

“What, Roarke?” she asked. “I need to get to work.”

“So do I.” I stood with my feet shoulder-width apart and crossed my arms, letting her see how I wasn’t going to budge. I didn’t miss how she scanned her surroundings, like she had to scope out the scene in case David was watching. He wasn’t. Or he wasn’t by way of driving here. Todd and I had set out cameras near the main turn to come back here, and no alerts had come to signify a car passing through.

“You ran again.”

She narrowed her eyes, propping one hand on her hip. “Excuse me?”

“You ran. Last night.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Again?”

“That’s what you did. What you do. You snuck away last night instead of—”

“Instead of what?” she snapped. “What did you expect me to do?”

Expect?Hell, I just wanted to talk. “I didn’t expect anything but to talk.”

“And I’ve told you that I don’t want to. That I’m not ready to.”