That he couldn’t control himself. That when it all came right down to it, he didn’t have the self-control, and it was all just passion.
Yeah. Maybe that was exactly the kind of thing his dad would’ve told himself.
The really frightening thing was he didn’t suppose his dad imagined that he was a villain.
He was a villain to the other people in the story. A villain to every person that he’d hurt, but never to himself.
For the first time, he really wondered what his dad had thought about leaving the ranch to him and his siblings.
Did he think he made up for it by doing that? Did he think it erased all of his sins? Did he think he was a good person?
And if he thought he was a good person, then hell. Who actually knew?
“Cody,” she said. “I’m thirty-two years old. I’ve been married. I’ve managed hotels. I’m not a young, naïve girl. I’m not someone who can just be taken advantage of. I’m not trying to say anything negative about your mother –”
“I get it. She was young.”
“Yeah. And I’m not. I’ve also just been let down by somebody that I knew for half of my life. If I can’t know the man that I was with for fifteen years, I’m never going to know anybody. Not really. That’s how cynical I am now. You’re right about that. And I wasn’t before. Somehow, I didn’t learn that lesson when I was younger. Somehow, I still believed that there was something better than what I grew up with. But I think I’m getting where you’ve been for a long time. Everything is ridiculous, people are selfish, they’re going to fail you. You can never build your roots around another human being, because then they’re just going to get ripped up. You don’t have to worry about me. That was great. I really…” She nodded. “You know what, you’re right. There had to be a first time. Thank you for making it so good. Because it was.”
He could see her putting herself back together, and it wasn’t so much her putting her clothes on, it was a feeling. She was gathering herself, she was figuring out how to hold her posture, how to turn herself back into the hotel manager.Rather than the woman who had just come apart in his arms moments before.
“It was amazing,” she said. And if she wasn’t still slightly flushed, and if her hair wasn’t a mess, he almost wouldn’t have thought that he had just fucked her three minutes ago.
He still felt it. His heart was racing.
He didn’t know how long it would take for his pulse to go back to normal.
“The cabins are great,” she said.
He couldn’t help it. He sputtered a laugh, and he’d never been one to laugh at inappropriate situations. Hell, he wasn’t one to laugh easy.
“Yeah. The beds are pretty good.”
“I’ll make sure that they’re cleaned,” she said.
“No,” he said. “I already decided I was going to do that.”
“Did you? I didn’t recall you making that decision.”
“I decided it in my heart. And I’ll just come back and clean it later. I don’t want you to do it.”
“It’s my job.”
“Yeah, but I’m going to go ahead and assume responsibility for this.”
“All right,” she said. “I’ll let you. But only because it’s your ranch.”
“Appreciated.”
He didn’t quite know what to do with this. Because most of the time, when he slept with a woman, then it was done. And there was no more interaction that was going to occur, and there were no more meetings that would have to take place, and he wasn’t going to see her every single day.
But odds were, he was going to see Marlowe every single day.
And somehow, he was going to have to figure out how not to ache for her.
Oh shit. They had driven over heretogether.
“Well, I guess I need to take you back to the hotel.”
