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There were times in the past few weeks when she wasn’t sure where they were going, so she’d prepared herself to be friend zoned, telling herself that that would be enough, and knowing that she was lying to herself.
But in that look she’d seen something, something she’d longed for since the beginning but was afraid to reach out and take. She’d convinced herself because of the ease with which they’d slid into the nightly phone sessions that friendship was the most she could hope for. No man ever opened up like that to a woman he was interested in surely. But now she wasn’t so sure anymore.
He made some kind of whistling sound and the horse beneath her trotted over to his side. He looked over at her feet to make sure they were firmly planted in the stirrups and reached out to fix her hold on the reins. “If you get scared tell me!” He gave her another heated look after imparting those words before starting off.
She remained tense for the first few minutes until she realized he wasn’t about to canter off and have her follow. Riley collected his thoughts as they headed off at a much slower pace than he was accustomed to.
He didn’t mind though, since riding was one of his absolute favorite things to do he figured she should get used to it too. He was no longer questioning things where she and their relationship was going, no longer worried about what others might say.
He’d only been thinking of her anyway, and if a relationship between them would make things hard for her at work. Now he didn’t see why it should, they’re both adults, free to choose what and who they want to do.
He’d even thought of the fact that people may speculate that she’d been responsible for his wife’s death, but now everyone knew she wasn’t even anywhere near the jail when it happened.
Ever the meticulous thinker, he’d been making sure everything was in place before he made his first move, something she had no idea about. She could have no way of knowing that their many phone conversations were just a precursor to what was coming.
He knew all day what he wanted to say, where he wanted things to go, but now that she was here in front of him, he wasn’t sure how she was going to take what he had to say. He knew enough about her now to know that she’s an independent little thing and stubborn as hell, though she tries to hide the last from him. Fuck it!
The truth is he wasn’t sure how she was going to take to his ideas about what a relationship should be. She’s a cop for crap sake, so who knows how she’ll react to him wanting to control her? Not in any manipulative way, but with her, for some odd reason, he felt the need to play the dominant role.
With her he’d want to know where she’s going, who she’s going to be with, what she’s going to be doing. He wants her there when he needs her and when he takes her to his bed, which he’s damn sure he’s going to do, he wants her to know who owns her. But those thoughts were also the cause of his hesitation now.
A strong woman like her, someone who’d left everything she knew behind and moved to the small town they called home without looking back and had landed on her feet pretty much on her own, might not take kindly to what he has in mind.
He shook his head to rid himself of his defeatist thoughts, reminding himself that he’d played the gentleman in his marriage and look where it got him. Just because he was raised to be a gentleman didn’t mean he had to pussyfoot around his woman.
His woman! Since when had he started thinking of her like that? Was it after he finally crawled out of the bottle he’d climbed into? Or was it in the midst of one of their many nightly phone calls? It didn’t matter when, what mattered was that it felt right.
She’d done a good job of trying to hide her true feelings from him, but he’d known long before now. It hadn’t taken him that long to figure it out, just one hour spent in her presence during the investigation had been enough.
Back then he was still confused by her, plus the fact that he was married and didn’t have a dishonest bone in his body had kept him from looking too close. But now there was nothing standing between them. Nothing but the ugliness of the case that had more or less brought them together and he refused to let that take anything else from him.
He’d been too angry in those first few days and weeks after his wife took her own life to want to even think about jumping back into anything, but she got to him. He could admit now that he’d forced himself on her so to speak. Though he hadn’t been sure, he’d moved in on her, crowding her even from afar, and now they were here.
