Chapter Twenty-Five
Cheryl
“Stop!” she giggled, rolling away from him as he tried to tickle her some more. “No, please. I can’t!”
His hands didn’t relent and she started laughing again, eventually ending in shrieks as he picked an even more sensitive spot. Rowe was laughing. He never pushed it too far, and besides, she didn’t fight fair.
Cheryl pushed out against his knees with her feet and pulled his hands upward.
“Ack!” he yelped, suddenly unbalanced. His head plummeted right into her cleavage.
“Pervert!” she yelped, swatting him with a pillow.
He growled and mounted her, swiftly pinning her down so that he could smother her in kisses. They started fast, but eventually became slower, more deliberate, more purposeful. A craving awoke within her, but she kept it at a simmer for the moment. There was something she needed to talk about before things became sexual.
“We can’t do this forever,” she said.
“Do what? Have sex?”
“Not that!” she hit him lightly, forcing him to see she was being serious. “I meant just act like this. Spending our days doing nothing but exploring each other’s bodies, boundaries, and fetishes.”
Rowe fell silent.
“It’s getting time to move on, don’t you think?”
He lay still. “Palin has told me that you’re free to go anytime you want.”
Cheryl sat up. “What?”
“From the job. He’s not going to make you stay after all that happened here, he understands that. This isn’t a situation a human should have to deal with. At all.”
She snorted. “Did their mates leave? It seems that the mating process is a bit of an adventure for everyone.” Her expression softened. “I’ve seen them together. It’s hard to imagine happier people, or pairs who fit better together.”
Rowe just shrugged, unsure of what to say to that.
He’d explained to her all about mates and dragons. Then over the past five days he’d gone about showing her just how wonderful life mated to a dragon could be. Her school debt was gone. Her car? Gone, replaced by a much newer one. Nicer, too. Then there was the sex. Oh yes, the sex, that was pretty damn amazing too.
Cheryl had never been so spoiled in her life. It wasn’t the easiest thing to get used to, after working so hard, but the effort behind it was appreciated. Rowe enjoyed spoiling her and making her life easier, and so she focused on that particular aspect instead of trying to fight him every time he bought something expensive for her.
Now after all that, he was telling her she should go?
“I don’t understand.” She picked at her nails nervously. “Is it over, then? Just like that you’re through with me? You don’t need me anymore.”
Getting to her feet, she waved his protests off. “No I don’t care. I understand. You had your fun, now you buy me a few hush-presents to keep your secret safe while you get rid of me?”
Rowe was on his feet and blocking the door. “Cheryl Elizabeth Payne,” he boomed. “What has gotten into you?”
She stopped. “You’re telling me to go. That I’m not wanted here.”
He frowned. “That’s not what’s going on at all. Think it over. You know better than that. What is the true issue here?”
Hadn’t he been telling her to go? She thought back over his words. “You’re phrasing it nicely, but I understand.”
“I don’t think you do,” he countered. “I told you that Palin said you were free to go. That if you didn’t want the job anymore he wouldn’t hold it against you. Nowhere in there did I say that you would be leaving without me. If you go somewhere, I will go with you.”
She blinked. “You will?”
He nodded.
“Oh.” Cheryl felt silly. “I guess I’m still a little unsure of this whole thing. To know that you want to spend your entire life with me. It’s kind of overwhelming. You’re so perfect, and it’s almost too good to be true.”
Rowe stepped forward and held her. “Well, it is true. But I still don’t know if that’s the entire source of your outburst. Tell me, my love, what is bothering you?”
She thought about it, mildly unsure herself just what had prompted such a burst of emotion. It was unlike her. “I started a job,” she said slowly. “I signed a contract, and I said that I would get this ranch up and running. Make it profitable. Now one little setback and everyone assumes that just because I’m a woman I’m too weak to overcome it and get the job done.”
Rowe smiled. “I told him you wouldn’t take his offer.”
“You did?”
“Yes. I knew the fire burns brightly in you. I just needed you to see it.”
Cheryl was buoyed by the confidence he’d shown in her. “Yes, you’re right. I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to prove it to a lot of people, but most importantly I’m going to prove it to myself. I can do this, and I can do a damn good job of it.”
“I never doubted you for a second.” He swept her into his arms and kissed her forehead.
She rested on his chest, enjoying the sound of his heart, the slow rise and fall of his lungs, and the constant ball of warmth that he seemed to exude at any time. “Sorry for freaking out. But I’m going to finish what I started, Rowe. I have to.”
“I know,” he said, stroking her hair with his large fingers, sending little tingles down her neck. “I know.”
“Will you join me? I could use a right-hand man, and I think we make a good team.”
He made a noise that signaled thinking. “Are you asking me to work for you?”
Cheryl laughed. “I think it’s only fair that I get to boss you around at some point. Since you’ve been doing that to me since this whole issue ended.”
“Perhaps.” He was speaking into her ear now. “But I seem to recall that you’ve benefitted greatly from following my commands as well.”
She blushed. “Have I? I think I’ve forgotten. I might need a refresher.”
Rowe’s foot closed the door behind him. “That can be arranged.”
She perked up. “So, does that mean we have a deal?”
Her mate picked her up and swung her around.
“I think we can come to some sort of arrangement.”