“I’ve got the cleanup, but you can come keep me company while I wash the dishes.”
She grabbed their beer bottles and met him at the sink, placing his on the butcher block surface as she leaned in to the counter, swirling her own bottle around in tight circles.
“Thank you for tonight. I didn’t realize how much I needed a night out.”
“When was the last time you did anything but work?”
She took a sip and the impish grin she wore as she swallowed told him she knew she looked damn sexy doing it. “You criticizing my work ethic, Ranger?”
“No, commiserating with it. I don’t take nearly as much time off as I should. That’s how I ended up on forced leave for four weeks.”
She placed her beverage on the counter and looked up to the ceiling, shaking her head. “We’re a sad pair, aren’t we? We have everything in life we could need, and yet all either of us seems to find joy in is work.”
He shut off the faucet, picked up a towel to dry his hands, and faced her. “Hopefully we’ll help each other change that.”
There was a spark in her eye. It was intense and consuming. She stepped closer to him, her hands sliding up the front of his white button-down shirt, playing with the collar as she tilted her mouth toward his.
“You don’t have to do this. I didn’t bring you back here to coerce you into sleeping with me.”
“I know I don’t have to do this, and I didn’t think you did.” Her words were intentional, as if she were educating him instead of him reassuring her. “I gotta tell you, this almost pathological need of yours to make me feel safe is the sexiest thing about you.”
He was no prince when it came to romance. But he never wanted his partners to feel somehow pressured into being with him. Maybe it was his overinflated ego, maybe it was the constant insistence of his father that he always ask before he assumed when it came to sex, but whatever it was, he needed more than anything to know Aja’s desire to be with him was as desperate as his.
“Really? I think my charm is way sexier than anything else I’ve got going for me.”
She shook her head. “You mean your bull-in-a-glass-factory charm? No, not so much. I’m more intrigued by your struggle to balance your obligations versus your desires. Watching you watching me, trying your best to be the gentleman your father raised you to be, that was the height of foreplay.”
Listening to her talk about foreplay made heat spread through his body. He could easily have blamed the electric buzz on the alcohol he’d consumed. But no amount of beer had ever made him feel as alive and aware as the thought of Aja Everett in his arms.
“Now that we have that settled, can we get to the part where we’re both naked and happy? Because that would be a big, beautiful bow on top of this amazing gift of a night you’ve given me. What do you say, Ranger?”
He said nothing; he couldn’t. This woman who was bold and forthright almost every moment he’d spent with her stole his ability to think and process language. The dynamic way her mind worked seemed to have more control over him than the siren’s call of her body. God, when did words become so sexy to him?
He knew the exact answer to that. It was the moment she’d cursed him out when he’d arrived on her ranch. He’d thought it was annoyance. Now he saw it for what it was—an aphrodisiac.
All those verbal battles they’d had before were foreplay, a means of ramping up the desire that flowed so easily between them. And now, as he stood with her pressed against him in his kitchen, no restrictions from his job standing in the way of him delighting in this undeniable chemistry they shared, Jackson didn’t want words between them. He wanted nothing between them. Not the clothes they wore and divested themselves of as he led them into his bedroom. Not the hang-ups about love and intimacy that had plagued him for more years than he could count, and most of all, not the hurt he’d been holding on to for so long he almost didn’t know how to let it go.
He reached down, opening his nightstand drawer and removing a condom. The thin aluminum packet felt so heavy in his hand.
“Hey, everything okay?”
He pulled her into his arms, unsure of how to answer that question but needing to try anyway. “I have never in my life wanted to forgo using a condom as badly as I do right now.”
“Jackson—”
He saw the concern on her face. Playing fast and loose with condoms came at a huge cost. He’d never knowingly endanger either of them like that.
“I’m not suggesting we don’t use it. I’m saying for the first time, I don’t want to. Does that make sense?”
She nodded. “Yes. It simply means if that’s something we wish to explore, we’ve got to set up some ground rules first.”
She took the condom out of his hand and opened it, then wrapped her hand around his hardened length and slowly slid it down. “But that is a conversation for another time. The only thing I want to discuss right now is how long it will take for you to join your beautiful body with mine.”
“Woman, the things you say. I finally can have you without feeling like I’m committing a punishable offense, and you want me to rush straight through it?”
“You are absolutely correct.”
She stood on tiptoe, pressing her lips against his, and whatever retort he had was lost in the sweet taste of her. It was such a heady flavor, the sweet and tangy spice of the barbecue they’d eaten mixed with the citrus flavor of the IPA they’d imbibed, and his senses were on overload.
