24
Ty had not been on a Valentine’s date in a very long time. Three years. No, four. Four long years, and every step he took down this road with Winnie felt like he was trying to run when he should be crawling.
He’d managed to get himself dressed as if going to church. Fine, a really fancy church sermon. A wedding.
“Yeah, your own.” He half-scoffed and half-chuckled as he made the turn onto Winnie’s street. His gaze zoomed in on her house, and everything looked peaceful and normal on this golden-bathed-in-sunset-glow evening.
If only he felt peaceful and normal on the inside. He pulled into her driveway and killed the engine. After reaching for the roses he’d bought after breakfast with his parents that morning, Ty dropped to the ground and started up the sidewalk to the front door.
“Howdy, ma’am,” he called to Valerie Thompson, and the woman waved to him tonight, a smile appearing on her face.
Ty moved in a slow, steady way up the steps to the porch, and he knocked on the door before falling back. One hand automaticallymoved to his throat, where he wore a red bow tie for the first time in his life.
Definitely something a man would wear to get married, he thought, though this one had tiny white hearts all over it. He’d bought it at the downtown mall, along with the sleek, almost shiny black jacket he wore tonight.
He dismissed his thoughts about weddings and marriage. This was Valentine’s Day, and he was going out with Winnie. That required polished boots, a new hat and jacket, the blood red roses in his hands, and yes, that bow tie sitting neatly at his throat.
He dropped his hand just as the door opened, and Ty’s smile started to spread across his face before he even saw his girlfriend. Just theideaof her had him grinning like a lovesick schoolboy.
His heartbeat struck against his ribs like a rattler attacking, and every coherent thought Ty had ever possessed flew right out of his head.
Winnie stood there in a jumpsuit that defied every law of physics and good sense. The fabric shone a deep, rich purple, and it clung to her curves in ways that made Ty’s mouth go dry.
One shoulder remained completely bare, the fabric draping elegantly across her collarbone and down her other arm in a way that was both modest and devastatingly sexy. Her hair fell in loose waves around her shoulders, and her lips were painted the same shade of red as his bow tie.
“Hey, Ty,” she whispered, her eyes traveling down to his boots and back to his eyes.
Ty couldn’t speak. He could only stare at the expanse of bare shoulder, the graceful curve of her neck, the way the purple fabric made her hazel eyes look more green than brown.
“Ty?” Winnie’s smile faltered and fell off her face. “Are you okay?” She nodded to the roses. “Are those for me?”
He stepped forward, crushing the flowers between them as he cupped her face in his free hand and kissed her. Not the sweet, hopeful,blazing kisses they’d shared before, but something deeper. Something that tasted like need and want and…mine.
Winnie was his, and he was hers, and that thought burned through Ty’s mind, heart, and soul as strongly as anything else ever had.
Winnie gasped against his mouth but didn’t pull away. Instead, her hands fisted in his suit jacket, pulling him closer as she kissed him back with equal fervor.
When Ty finally pulled away, it was because of the ache in his left knee and not because he wanted to stop kissing Winnie. “You’re beautiful,” he said, his voice rough and yet tender at the same time. “I mean, you’re always beautiful, but tonight you’re—” He shook his head, unable to find adequate words. He did find the wherewithal to back up a step and get his weight settled in a better way.
Winnie’s smile radiated pure sunshine. “You’re not so bad yourself, cowboy.” She touched the red bow tie. “I like this bow tie. Very festive.”
“You said red was your favorite color.”
“It is.” Her eyes sparkled with this sense of knowing. “And you wore it for me?”
“I’d wear any color under the sun if it made you smile like that.”
Giggling, she took the roses from him and lifted them to her nose. “These are gorgeous.” She looked up at him again, a pure playful, desirous edge in her eyes. “Let me put them in water, and then we can go.”
Ty followed her inside, unable to stop watching the way she moved. When she reached up to get a vase from a high cabinet in the kitchen, that bare shoulder flexed, and Ty found himself moving closer without conscious thought.
“Here,” he murmured, reaching past her to collect the vase. But instead of handing it to her, he set it on the counter and turned back to face her. His hand came up to trace the line of her collarbone, and she shivered under his touch.
“I need to know something,” he said quietly, pressing her back into the counter beside the refrigerator.
“What’s that?” She didn’t look away as her gray-and-white cat came meowing into the kitchen.
Ty likewise ignored the feline as he leaned down and pressed his lips to her bare shoulder—just once, soft and reverent. Then he raised his head to look at her, his fingertips tracing down the slender column of her neck until his hand fell away and he tucked it into his pocket.
