Chapter Eighteen
He shattered deep inside her, his release an explosion of need and yet a whisper of love. Of coming home.
They were one, his body, her body, his heart, and—God, if only—her heart.
Her skin was like velvet against his, her taste like the finest wine. While they’d always been perfect together, in sync, knowing exactly what the other needed, this was simply more. Though simple was a mild word for what he felt with her.
Simple, like the ocean pounding on the shore. Simple, like the softness of a kiss against his skin, like the sweetness of cherries on his lips, like the perfume of wisteria on a spring morning. He indulged his senses in her, holding her for long minutes after the wave of passion had subsided.
“Shower,” he murmured. He wasn’t thinking about washing off their lovemaking. He was thinking about the hot water, her skin, her taste, and more, always more.
He couldn’t get enough of her.
“We should—”
With a kiss, he cut off what they should or shouldn’t do. A deep, luscious tasting. Then he picked her up, still inside her, her legs wrapped around him, and carried her to the bathroom. The room smelled sweet, like her lotion. Or maybe it was just Ava, who had never smelled anything but sweet.
He had to set her down to get rid of the condom, and he said with a grin, “You’re still wearing your high heels.”
Even with them, she had to rise up on her toes to kiss his lips.
He relished that even though she was a tall woman, he could still make her feel petite.
Reaching around her, he turned on the shower tap, while she closed the door as if someone might hear the water running.
“I don’t want to get my hair wet,” she said.
“Your hair is not where I want to make you wet.”
Then he pulled the last few pins out of her chignon, waves the color of garnets falling over her shoulders.
“You’re so bad,” she whispered as she stepped out of her shoes.
He pulled her into the shower and didn’t get her hair wet. Not yet. “If you won’t let me wash your hair, I’ll have to soap you everywhere else.” He pumped body wash onto his palm.
“But I already took a shower today.”
He smiled wickedly. “This has nothing to do with anything that happened before that first kiss.” Soaping her breasts, he ran his fingers around the peaks, watching them tighten all over again. “Your skin is so soft, so smooth.”
He pulled, tweaked, and she gasped, holding on to his shoulders as if her knees were weak without him.
Plastering her against him, he slid his hands around to her spine, his fingers trailing down her back to her bottom, soaping her, molding her to him until she had to feel how hard he was for her already.
She groaned. “But I have a meeting.”
“Screw your meeting,” he said, burying his face against her neck, nibbling her sweet skin, biting her lightly until she arched into him.
He followed the curve of her hips and slid his hand between them to find her center. With his mouth to hers, he whispered, “I told you there were other ways I wanted to get you wet.”
“Ransom.” His name was a moan on her lips.
He stroked her until she whimpered with need. With all the soap washed away, he slid his hands down her thighs and went to his knees before her. Pushing her back against the wall, he tasted her. Christ. She was ambrosia on his tongue. He didn’t care that the water plastered his hair against his head. He simply wanted her moans, her sighs, her pleasure. He wanted her.
“Ransom. Ransom.” She fisted her hands in his hair. “Oh God.” Then twisted her fingers as he brought her closer to the edge.
But he needed to go deeper, so much deeper, and he pulled her leg up, her thigh over his shoulder, and filled her with his fingers while he played her with his tongue.
“Ransom, please, oh my God, please, Ransom.”
His name hadn’t been on her lips in the throes of ecstasy in fifteen years. And the words stroked him like her fingers on his skin.
He gave himself up to the sensual taste of her, the feel of her, the scent of her as her shuddering climax rippled through him. Her cries melted away with the steam.
Finally, she pulled him up to tower over her, then down to take his lips with hers.
They parted just enough for her to say, “I want you inside me. I need you.”
Her need caressed his soul, but all he could say was, “I don’t have another condom.”
“Then I want this.” She wrapped her hand around him, and if he was hard before, he was like steel now.
She went to her knees.
“Your hair’s getting wet.”
Before she took him between her lips, she murmured, “Screw my hair.”
* * *
His taste was the nectar she’d dreamed of for years, even if she’d never wanted to admit it. His skin was smooth beneath her fingertips, his muscles taut against her palm. Groans of pleasure rained down on her, and he was a hard jewel in her mouth. Fingers in her hair, he gave her the sweetest massage as he guided her. A sound rose from her throat, came out as a moan around him. And his legs trembled.
His taste, his feel, his musky male scent—it was all like waking from a dream. While all they’d done had been dazzling when she was twenty-one, it was as if they’d only been practicing for this.
She didn’t care about the water raining down on her, didn’t care about the meeting she’d be late for, didn’t care that Naomi would have heard the lock turn or the water running.
There was only this—his granite hardness in her mouth, his muscles bunched beneath the hand she steadied him with, and those delicious sounds that fell from his lips.
She felt him throb and wrapped her hand around him, stroking him while her mouth took him. His legs quivered beneath her touch.
He growled, “Goddammit. I’m so ready. I can’t stop.”
She heard the warning but didn’t stop, loving him between her lips. When he climaxed, she took all of him, needing it, wanting it, glorying in his salty-sweet taste.
He was delicious beyond her memories, beyond her imaginings, beyond anything she’d ever tasted. Beyond her wildest desires.
When she’d taken his essence, every last drop, he pulled her up to wrap his arms around her, capturing her lips in a kiss that tasted of them both. He took her mouth ravenously, kissed her with a passion she hadn’t known since the last time with him. Kissed her with the promise that it would only get better.
His hands roved her body as he bent to lick water from her throat, going lower still to take the tip of her breast in his mouth. Her pleasure spiked all over again as he made love to her with his lips, his tongue, then his fingers between her legs. He stayed there only a moment, as if he were teasing her, but then his hands were everywhere, kneading her back, sliding down her spine, cupping her bottom, pressing their bodies together as he once again plundered her lips.
She rubbed against him, wanting him again, the taste of him still filling her mouth. Then he slipped a hand between them and went straight to her core. He surrounded her, filled her, his fingers inside her, then sliding back out to find the hard nub of her desire. She fell apart in his arms, waves of erotic pleasure swamping her body, her mind.
Her heart.
She gave herself up to the sensations, reveled in them, savored them. Gloried in him.
Her release was so wild she would have fallen if he hadn’t been holding her.
It was how she’d felt at twenty-one, as if she couldn’t stand on her own without him.
She clung to him, kissed him with the passion she’d banked all these years. With the crazy need she’d held at bay, telling herself she didn’t feel it anymore.
But, oh God, how she felt it all now.
He pulled back, cupping her face for one last beautiful kiss, then running his hands through her hair. “I’ve so missed feeling you come apart in my arms.”
The words made her knees buckle.
Yet she couldn’t say them back, couldn’t tell him how much she’d missed all the emotions he brought up, all the sensations his touch elicited, the roar of release, the languor of satisfaction.
Still trapped in the thrill of his arms, she managed to say, “I really do have a meeting. I’ve got to dry my hair and redo my makeup.”
He smiled with a fondness that only people who have been together for years could feel. But they’d had only a few months together back then. And only a few days now. And as badly as she wanted to stay right where she was, to send Naomi out for a packet of condoms, to do this all day long on the sofa, on the conference table, on her desk, and back to the shower again, she couldn’t.
Finally, he let her step out and grab a towel. She handed him one too. As she dried off, she watched him towel his hair. He was so beautiful, so strong, so perfect. His body was like something a master had sculpted.
She covered her head with the towel, blotting out the sight of him as she squished the moisture from her hair. Her robe hung on the back of the door, and she pulled it on, began brushing her hair.
When he was dry, he stepped out of the shower, and his body heat filled the too-small room, turning it hotter even than the steam.
“I’ll get our clothes.” His voice was thick with emotion about what they’d done.
She let him go, and only then realized she’d barely taken a breath. Gulping in air, she looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was a tousled wet mess, her makeup gone except for mascara smudges beneath her eyes.
What had she done?
He was like a lightning strike.
With him outside the bathroom and her inside it, all the potential pain she’d opened herself up to washed over her. It could be even worse than the hurt she’d suffered before. Because kissing him, tasting him, taking him—it was all like poking a wound that had never healed completely. Even as she’d told herself that she was fine, that she’d moved on, that she had her life in order, had attained her dreams, she could feel it all draining away with the possibility that her heart would break all over again.
It had been half an hour of glory. After he’d ghosted her for fifteen years. She’d discovered nothing during all that time that made her believe love between her and Ransom could actually work.
Not Dane’s love for Cammie. Not all the love she saw between the Mavericks. Love wasn’t the problem. She and Ransom were. And what did thirty minutes of the most amazing lovemaking that was even better than she remembered, better than her body had ever felt—what did those thirty minutes mean stacked against fifteen years?
The last few days had been great. He’d listened to all her needs and come up with a fabulous plan. He’d done an amazing job on the wedding.
But truly, how was anything different now? All this time, he hadn’t even understood that he’d pretty-womaned her, that he’d ignored her dreams, that he’d made her less than. How could she know for sure that he understood now?
She didn’t want a few stolen minutes in her office. She didn’t want a casual relationship where he drifted into her bed and right back out again when he had another flight to catch or a TV show to shoot.
She wanted nothing less than a love like Dane and Cammie’s, like the Mavericks.
Letting this go on would break her heart. And her heart absolutely could not survive another break. Like Humpty Dumpty, she could never be completely put back together. If Ransom broke her again, she’d never be the same.
He was dressed when he returned, setting her neatly folded clothes on the vanity beside her as she pulled her hair dryer out of the drawer.
“I’ll wait for you.”
Something welled up inside her. More than fear. Maybe even terror. She turned to face him. “No. Please don’t wait. I’ll be a while.” Her voice was soft, but she hoped it wasn’t broken.
“I don’t mind,” he said with a tenderness that was like nails on a chalkboard.
“No. I really need you to go now.” The words were so low that he leaned forward to hear, his scent washing over her.
“Why?” His brow creased with utter bewilderment.
She didn’t want to sound like she was throwing him out. Or as though what they’d done hadn’t been what she’d wanted in that moment. All she could say was, “I really need some time to think.”
And even though she didn’t want to beg, she added, “Please.”
* * *
What they’d just shared had been far more than amazing. There wasn’t a word in the English language that could describe it. And yet, the crumpled look on her face and her downcast eyes spoke to her conflict. It was clear their lovemaking had meant something to her, but it was equally clear that she wasn’t ready to handle it.
He’d walked into her office and realized how badly he wanted her, how much he still loved her, that he’d never fallen out of love with her.
But she wasn’t there yet.
He could only pray she’d get there the way he had.
He tipped up her chin, held her gaze for a long moment of eye contact as he searched for more clues to what she was thinking.
But she was shuttered now.
They still had so much to talk about, and maybe he’d been an idiot for letting his desire take over. Not that he would change a moment of the last half hour. But as he looked into her beautiful eyes, as his gaze roved over her gorgeous features, his gut told him that anything he said to her in this moment would be wrong.
She drew a shuddering breath, clearly on the edge—emotional, even frightened.
If he pushed her now, she might never let him in again.
This wasn’t like the last time. He wasn’t walking away. He couldn’t let her be the one to do it either.
But he could give her time. “I understand. I’ll leave you now, and I’ll work with Naomi.” Taking her hand, he squeezed her fingers lightly. “But call me soon. We really need to talk this through. We can’t let it be like last time, where neither of us said anything.”
He leaned in to kiss her cheek, tasting the salt of a tear. Then he released her, backing out of the door and finally turning to go.
He was leaving. But he wasn’t walking away.