Stella

He never made it to our room last night. I don’t even know if he made it home. He could’ve gone home with the blonde for all I know. I’m so angry I could bend a crowbar.

Not even the ubiquitous morning puke-a-thon manages to shake the anger. I shower angry. I slip on underwear and a robe angry. I’m too angry to get dressed without coffee so I head to the kitchen for a tall cup of decaf. I guess I do have a temper…or maybe he just brings out the worst in me.

A masculine groan coming from the great room gets my attention. Tinker, tail wagging, leads me to the other side of the couch, where I find Mr. Fuck Hard stinking of booze, and sprawled out facedown, naked except for his black boxer briefs. An empty bottle of Johnnie Walker lies on the floor along with his clothes.

I hope he has a migraine.

His arm hanging down, Tinker nudges his hand and he pushes her away. I leave him to retrieve two Advil and a bottle of water from the kitchen. When I return, nothing’s changed, he’s still half dead and I’m still angry.

He groans and I push his arm with my bare toes. He swats at me. Then he blinks, line of sight pointed at the wood floor. Lifting his head, bloodshot eyes take me in. An eternity later he blinks and groans. I hope it’s really painful.

Slowly, he sits up while I continue to glare. Not a drop of sympathy for him, not one freaking drop. Hiding his eyes, he bends over and places his head in his hands, elbows on his knees.

I hold out both the water and the painkillers. I’m dangerously close to denying him the painkillers except I need him to understand what I’m about to say. He takes both without looking up.

“I’m going home.”

He shakes his head and winces. Serves him right. Throwing down the painkillers, he chases them with a sip of water. After that he stands and stumbles toward the kitchen holding his head.

“I’m not asking for permission.”

“No talking yet,” he grumbles, his voice as hoarse as if he’d been yelling all night.

To hell with that––and him. I wouldn’t take this behavior from someone rocking my world, let alone someone who has made it abundantly clear I rate lower than a stranger he picks up at a bar.

Grabbing the pot of freshly brewed coffee from the coffee maker, he stares into the pot then drinks from it. I don’t bother to tell him it’s decaf. Throat working as he swallows, he holds up his index finger.

I’ve got a finger for him, the middle one.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you but I’ve had enough.” He continues drinking. “And word of caution, if you come back to New York and continue to treat me like I’m cattle, a possession, you will damage this friendship beyond repair.”

He places the pot down, his eyes downcast as he leans on the counter for support. “I’m sorry…I was a real asshole last night and––”

“Last night?!” I shout. “How about for the past week.”

“Well you’re not helpin’ the situation!” he shouts back, his eyes sparking, then winces again.

My jaw hangs in disbelief. He can’t be serious. Is he really blaming me?

“The hell are you talking about? You’re blaming me? Me?! You’ve been unbearable––when you’ve been around, that is. Usually you’re running in the opposite direction. But somehow in your twisted little male peanut sized brain, it’s my fault?!”

“Yes, goddamit! Dancin’––smillin’ at that fucking cowboy!” His hand slashes through the air as if he’s indicating to someone in the corner. The veins near his temple pop up. Eyes impossibly wide, he advances on me, stopping a mere foot away. “You never smile at me like that!”

Huh? “What does that have to do with anything?!”

“Because I’m jealous! Okay! And you’ve made it very clear you’re not attracted to me but all I can think about is this!”

He’s on me before I can blink, arms crushing me to him, kissing me like I hold the last breath of air on the planet and he means to steal it.

A beat later he stops. His lips against mine he murmurs, “Kiss me back…please kiss me back.”

The demands of my body override commonsense, the anger I was feeling less than a second ago…all of it. One brush of my lips against his and it’s over. I kiss him and I don’t hold anything back.

Suddenly, we’re a tangle of arms and legs. My hands in his hair. His hips bearing down on me. My breasts smashed against his chest. His erection, long and thick and impossibly hard, pressing into my stomach.

He picks me up off my feet, and I wrap my legs around his waist. The robe falling open, all that separates us is our underwear. Teeth clashing, noses banging, we’re so consumed with desire skill has no part in it.

Somewhere in the background my senses take note of the taste of coffee and anger and months of pent-up frustrated longing. His silky lips on mine, warm and pillowy. The scent of him, Johnnie Walker with a side of sex. I’m talking fantastic sex.

From my face, his hands travel up and thread through my hair. Tilting my head for a better angle, his tongue expertly strokes mine, tempting me to meet him halfway with stealthy seduction, and I do gladly.

I am officially gone, swept away by a tide of lust, and need, and something deeper, something––

“You kids about done?”

Mr. Wylder’s scratchy voice cuts right between us. It cools the air without snuffing out the fire. It’s become increasingly clear nothing is snuffing out this fire.

Clinging to each other, reluctant to let go, Dane’s chest rises and falls against my swollen and sensitive breasts, his heart pounding next to mine.

His eyes have yet to pull away from mine, wide and filled with apprehension as much as wonder and longing. Dane’s grip slowly loosens. My hips, performing the slow slide down, get caught on the erection jutting out from his body. His eyes flutter at the friction, jaw hardening in frustration. I bite my bottom lip to stave off the sudden urge to laugh.

“Bedroom, now,” he whisper-growls.

“Now?” I repeat, gaping.

His gaze falls on my breasts, visible under the half-open robe. “We need to talk.” He exhales sharply and lets go, allowing me to close the robe and tighten the belt.

“Oh,” is all I can say, a goofy smile overtaking my face. Dane slides his hand in mine and turns to face his father.

Standing in the kitchen with a smirk, Bill winks at his son while I do my best not to melt into a puddle of embarrassment now that the daze of lust has worn off.

The Wylder men exchange a look.

“You were takin’ forever.” That said, Bill picks up the coffee pot and inspects the contents with a frown. Then he dumps what little is left in the sink, and after rinsing it out, starts brewing a fresh pot.

“’Scuse us, we have some business to attend to.”

Without waiting for a reply, Dane drags me back to our bedroom, locking the door behind us. There are so many questions I want to ask I don’t know where to begin. Which is why I sit on the foot of the bed and wait for him to speak first.

Standing before me with his hands on his hips, expression pensive, he’s a Greek statue come to life.

Questions? What questions?

My hungry eyes trace the perfectly contoured lines of flesh, every ridge and valley of the man whose child I’m bearing. It’s impossible not to stare. I’m only human for crying out loud.

I follow the path marked by a strip of dark-blond hair until it disappears under his briefs. Under my watch, his dick twitches and hardens.

“Eyes up, Shorty, or this talk ain’t gonna happen.”

A deep flush crawls up my neck. My eyes snap up to his face, where I find a small smile. Not one of triumph but rather of affection. This man cares about me. Open and guileless, his eyes tell me so.

One question answered––only a hundred more to go.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he tells me, his voice quiet only in a way a voice can be when the message isn’t up for debate.

My spine stiffens. Not the best start but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. It’s enough to clear my head of the lust fog though, sanity returning all at once.

We can’t do this. There’s too much to lose and very little to gain. So we have sex. Probably great sex. Maybe even epic sex. Then what?

For the rest of my life I’m forced to watch a revolving door of women coming in and out of his life. I’m not built that way. I can’t be casual about this.

“We can’t do this.”

“Why not?”

“Because––”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s against the rules,” comes out in one long frustrated exhale. “I’m not saying I haven’t thought about it––of course I have…it’s just that––”

Stepping closer, he slowly sinks to his knees and pries my legs apart, fingers splayed on the sensitive skin of my inner thighs. I watch him do it as if I’m having an outer-body-experience, turned on, warring with myself. “I mean…I’ve thought about it…you know,” I mumble as I watch him wedges his hips in the space he’s created.

“You’ve thought about me?” he mumbles back.

He strokes the inside of my thighs with those callouses and an electric current travels up to where I’ve thought about having him. I’ve been turned on before but this…this is on a whole other level.

“I’ve thought about you. I’ve thought about you so much it’s killin’ me, Stel.”

Eyes beseeching, voice thick, he nuzzles my neck and I’m seconds away from possibly making the biggest mistake of my life.

Tentatively my hands explore his biceps, where the skin is tight and warm, move up over his sculpted shoulders and wrap around his neck. I pull him close. Just this one time, I tell myself. It won’t hurt to touch him just this once.

His hands, sliding over my ass, yank me closer, close enough that I can feel his hard length pinned between us. “I think about all the things I want to do to you.”

“You do?” I say dumbly.

All the aggression dancing between us a short time ago has changed into something tender. He cups my face and takes his time looking his fill. As if he’s committing this moment to memory and he doesn’t want to miss a thing.

“I think about how good I wanna make you feel.”

He presses closer, dragging his erection against my core, and my eyes squeeze shut. His lips hovering over my lips, slide right and place a light kiss on the side of my neck, near my ear.

“Dane––” I gasp, on the brink of losing what little hold on sanity I have left.

“Do you want me?”

Do I want him? I almost laugh. Every cell in my body is ordering me to get closer and I know he’s feeling it too.

His hips roll. Driven by instinct, mine lift to meet his. The feel of him through our underwear alone enough to make my toes curl. So, yeah, I want him.

“Because I want you so badly it hurts. It fucking hurts, Stel. Wanting you is all I can think about…has been for a long time.”

The moment stills, which road we travel soon-to-be determined because not only do I want this man, but I like him. I really like him. I like everything about him. I like his stupid country-boy routine. I like his tendency to always lighten the mood. I like the crinkles at the corners of his expressive eyes he's earned by smiling too much. I like that he's a reluctant hero. But most of all I like his heart. His great big heart. And I don’t want to lose all of him by asking for a little bit more.

“Yes––I do.”

Pushing out a sharp breath, he places the lightest kiss on my lips.

“I’m taking you on a date tonight.”

I don’t ask what this means––even though I’m dying to. I don’t ask how he feels about me. I don’t ask where this is going. I don’t ask the hundreds of questions sprinting in circles in my head because I don’t want to ruin this…whatever this is.

For once in my life, I chuck caution to the wind, dispense with the spreadsheet, and just go with it. It’s only a date. What could it hurt to go on one date.

* * *

“Hello?” Delia croaks.

After Dane left for a business meeting regarding the ranch, I went straight to his office to get some work done. Delia hates interruptions when she’s working on a new book. Therefore, watching the time like a hawk, I wait for it to strike 5:00 to call my love doctor.

I hear a muffled, “Colton, get off of me…yeah, I’m serious. Time to go.”

“What are you doing?” I feel compelled to ask as I glance at my phone just to be sure. Yep, 6:10 in New York.

“Taking a break from writing.”

Right. I hear more strange sounds.

“Hold on,” she says to me. “No, you’re not sleeping over…because this isn’t a slumber party, that’s why…I have an early meeting with a spin bike tomorrow…lock the door on your way out, thanks, sweetie.”

Poor Colton.

“What’s up?”

“He kissed me,” I whisper as if there’s any chance of anyone overhearing. I locked the door before dialing her number.

“Gee whiz, Jan, do you think you’ll go to second base with him?”

I can always count on my best friend to turn my big deals into a whole lot of nothing.

“I don’t know, Marcia, should I?”

“Hell yeah. Get it while you can,” she practically shouts. How predictable. I don’t know why I ask when I already know the answer. “Ride that baloney pony across the plains of Oklahoma.”

The snort cannot be helped. “Gross. That’s…you’re really gross sometimes.”

“Oh please, you love it.”

“I do love it,” I retort, snickering. “I don’t know…” My eyes wander to the wall, over the draft night picture of Dane holding up his Gladiator jersey. He was so young. The smile is the same though. “This could ruin everything.”

“I’ve got news for you. It’s already ruined––at least, your intention of keeping this thing all business is. You’re half in love with him already so you may as well shoplift the pootie from the hot, single, soon-to-be dad.”

“I can’t shoplift. I’m no good at shoplifting.”

You know that gene that all girls get, the one that comes with the instructions on how to flirt? Yeah, I don’t have that.

I can talk to men. I can work with them. I can negotiate with them. I can even hang with them. But I cannot flirt. The few times I’ve attempted it I end up sounding like I’m reading sports stats––or stock analysis. In other words, very unsexy.

And I can’t even refute what she said about me being half in love because A– it would be a bald-faced lie and B–she would never buy it.

“Jiminy Crickets, this is not brain surgery. Take your clothes off and I guarantee he’ll take care of the rest.”

“And then what? What happens after? What if we can’t get along?”

“Stop overthinking. Stop trying to put everything in a box with a label.”

“I do not do that.” Maybe I do…a little bit.

“Uhhh, yeah, you do.”

“I do not.” A tiny bit.

“What’s your favorite store?”

“That means I’m organized.”

“Say it.”

Sigh. Big, heavy sigh. “The Container Store.”

“Nuff said. I’m hanging up now. Happy shoplifting.”

The line goes dead.