He shifted his weight to match the angle of her hips, signaling his intention by an almost imperceptible tightening of his fingers against her waist. She followed his lead flawlessly, as if this were one of her fancy ballets, as if they’d practiced these moves hour after hour, night after night.
With choreography far more intimate than any Texas Two-Step, he guided her toward the couch. He half expected her to hesitate, to freeze, to refuse to follow his lead. But she sank down before he did, raising her arms above her head like some sort of exotic goddess, summoning him, asking him to join her.
Not that he required much urging.
Kat caught her breath as she lay back on the pillows of the overstuffed couch. Rye looked huge in the dim light from the foyer—sturdy and confident and
present
in a way that made her heart race. Sure, she had kissed other men. She had even fooled around on a couch or two. And practically lived with a jerk. But she had never felt this inner drive, this absolute certainty that she was doing the thing that she was meant to do, that she was with the man she was meant to be with.
For a fleeting moment, she thought of her mantra—goals, strategies, rules. There weren’t any rules for the sort of passion she felt now. There wasn’t any wrong or right. There was just being. Being in her own physical body. Being with Rye.
She needed to feel him, needed to know the weight of him against her.
She twined her hands around his forearm, tracing the ropes of hard muscle, the scatter of chestnut hair. She tugged with a decisiveness that left no doubt of her intentions. “Rye,” she said. “Please…”
She didn’t have to ask a second time. He sank beside her, pulling her onto his lap as he sprawled against the back of the couch. She felt the rigid length of him against her thigh, the absolute confirmation that she wasn’t imagining his interest, wasn’t fooling herself about his need for her. Knowingly, she traced her fingernail along the denim ridge, barely restraining a grin as he groaned.
But there was more for her to explore, more of his body to know. Even as she yielded to another of his soul-rocking kisses, her fingers found the buttons of his shirt. Summoning all of her concentration, all of her determination, she undid one, and then another, and another. She tugged the tails of his shirt from his waistband and then did away with the garment altogether, tossing it onto the floor with reckless abandon.
All the while, he was doing incredible things to her neck, laving the tender spot beneath her earlobe, tangling his fingers in her hair. A crimson glow ignited in her belly as he stripped away the scarf around her hips. When he trailed the silk across her throat, drifting it over her ruby charm, the throbbing heat that rose inside her nearly made her lose her concentration, almost forced her to yield to his ministrations, to fall back against the soft couch and let him do whatever he wanted to her.
Almost.
Instead, she remembered that groan that she had incited as she traced the outline of his need. She wanted to draw that sound from him again. Relying on her taut dancer’s muscles, she pulled herself upright on his lap. She placed her hands on his shoulders, straddling his waist so that she knelt above him. For one instant, she lost her balance, pulled askew by the unaccustomed weight of her walking boot, but his hands settled beneath her rib cage, holding her, steadying her.
Before she could continue with the exploration she was determined to complete, he stripped his hands up her body, skimming off the clinging black of her top. She gasped at the sensation of cool air bathing her skin, but she was immediately warmed by the satisfaction in his gaze. While one hand spread against the small of her back, giving her the support she needed, the other flirted with the lace edge of her bra, delivering the attention she craved.
His thumb brushed against one nipple, then the other, and the sensitive buds tightened so fast that she cried out. He repeated the motion, adding a caress to the smooth plane of her belly. The red-hot fire inside her turned incandescent. She arched her back, begging him for more attention, and he lost no time complying. One hand sprang the hook on her bra, the other bared her white and willing flesh. His mouth was hot against the underside of her breasts; his tongue traced arcane patterns that left her writhing. When his lips closed over one solid pearl, she thought that she would scream. When his teeth snagged the other, she did.
Panting, eager, she forced herself to concentrate, to return to her original plan. With ragged breath, she pushed against his shoulders, making his head loll back against the couch. She left a trail of kisses along the line of his jaw, featherlight and barely hinting at all that she could do to him, for him. Her lips tingling from his rough stubble, she traced the line that had been bruised the week before, the now-invisible ache that she had given him when she had driven his pickup off the road.
She followed the logical line of that diagonal, adding her tongue to the attention of her lips. She found the dark trail of hair that marched down his tight abs, and she traced its promise, first with her lips, then with all the soft heat of her mouth, ending with the knife-edged promise of a single fingernail.
“Kat,” Rye groaned when the pressure became more than he could bear. He had to feel more of her, had to find the liquid heat that spoke to his arousal. He let his palms course over her sides, felt her eager body rise to meet his. He made short work of ripping open the walking boot’s straps. She sighed as he eased her foot free of the device, as he tossed the contraption to the floor. His fingers found the hidden side zipper of her crazy New York pants, and he caught his breath at the unexpected gift of lace that he revealed.
She scrambled for his waist, for the familiar bronze button of his jeans, but he caught her wrists, holding them still, bringing the fluttering birds of her fingers to rest beside her hips. There was time enough for his pleasure, time enough to find the complete release that she promised him.
He walked his fingers along the delicate top of her panties, measuring the taut tremble of her belly. She followed his silent command, raising her hips to meet him, to beg him, to invite him to share in the glory that she promised. With the lightest of touches, he traced the hollow behind her right knee, the sensitive cave carved by her tendons. She bucked against the sensation, and he caught a laugh in the back of his throat.
Kat moaned his name, reaching up to pull him down on top of her. She needed to feel his weight against her, needed him to anchor her. Something about the gesture, though, brought full realization crashing down upon her. She’d had no intention of bringing a man back to Rachel’s home. She’d had no plan to make love that night.
She had no protection.
“Rye,” she whispered, hating every word she had to say. “I don’t have…anything. We can’t…”
“Hush,” he said, and the fingers that he traced along her inner thigh nearly sent her over some crazed edge. “We won’t.”
Before she could flounder in the sea of disappointment that his words released upon her, his fingers went back to the lace edge of her panties, to the damp panel of silk beneath. “Rye —” she protested.
“Hush,” he whispered again, but now he breathed the word against the most secret part of her, turning it into a promise. She closed her eyes as his fingers slipped beneath the lace; she caught her breath as his thumb found the pearl between her legs. One gentle flick, two and she was writhing for release.
He laughed again, ripping away the last of the lacy barrier. She felt his stubble against her thighs, gently raking one leg and then the other. Forgetting her dancer’s control, she tilted her hips, longing for the ultimate pleasure that she knew he was prepared to give her.
A single velvet stroke of his tongue. Another. One last, savoring caress, and then she was crashing over a precipice, clutching at his hair, tumbling down an endless slope of clenching, throbbing pleasure.
Rye watched the storm pass over her body, the beautiful twist of her lips as she breathed his name, over and over and over again. When it was past, when he knew that she was drifting on a formless, shapeless sea of comfort, he eased himself up her body. She was utterly relaxed as he pulled her languid form to lie on top of him. Her hair spread across his chest, and the warmth of her flushed cheek soothed his own pounding heart.
“Mmm,” she murmured, and her fingers drifted down his torso.
“Rest,” he said, smoothing one hand down the plane of her back, while the other cupped the curve of her neck.
“I want…” she whispered, but she drifted into silence before she finished the sentence.
He eased himself to a more comfortable position, telling himself that his body’s demands would quiet in a few minutes, that the ache below his belt would ease. He underestimated, though, the force of the woman whom he cradled. He had not considered the power of her honey-apricot scent, teasing him with every breath he drew. He had not taken into account her soft pressure against his chest, his thighs, his entire excruciatingly primed body.
But he managed to take comfort in Kat’s utter peacefulness as her breathing slowed. He waited, and he watched, and he held her until she slipped into the deepest of sleeps.
Only then did he look around the living room, seeing the home that Rachel had let fall into disrepair. He could fix things up in short order. Rip out the awful carpet, put down a new floor. Replace the fogged storm windows with something that would insulate the house better. Renovate the entire kitchen, with its creaky old appliances.
It wouldn’t take long. A couple of weeks. A month. He could stay in Eden Falls while he worked, keep an eye on every step of the process.
No.
He wasn’t going to stay in Eden Falls. He lived in Richmond now. He had a life for himself, a business that he had fought hard for. For the first time in his adult life, he was free to do what he wanted to do, free from family and clinging girlfriends.
Kat shifted in her sleep, spreading her hand across his chest.
What the hell was he doing here? Maybe he had come home with Kat precisely because he knew that
she
wasn’t sticking around Eden Falls. She had been absolutely clear—she was heading back to New York, just as soon as he could finish work on the studio. She was safe. She wasn’t going to take over his life. She wasn’t going to be another Marissa, teasing him, shaping his life to hers, then leaving him in her dust.
Kat had already built a life for herself, a life outside of Eden Falls. She had remained true to herself, true to the promises she’d made when she was just a kid.
Was he really such a wimp that he couldn’t do the same? He had
vowed
that he would make a go of things in Richmond. Moving away was what he’d always wanted, what he needed, to prove that he was a real man.
He couldn’t give all that away. Not for an impossible future. Not for an unknown, unmeasured relationship with Kat, who had already found her own path to independence.
A chill settled over the room as the final heat of their exertion faded. Rye fought against a shudder, forcing himself to stay perfectly still, lest he ruin Kat’s sleep. The night grew long, and he watched and waited and thought about all the futures that might be, and one that he would never, ever have.
Chapter Six
R
ye stood in the dance studio, surveying the stack of hardwood flooring. Brandon was the cousin he’d enlisted for assistance that day. He was pretty sure the guy had only agreed to come over because he hoped Amanda Morehouse would be visiting Kat. Rye had probably implied as much, now that he thought about it. He didn’t feel too guilty, though. In the past, Brandon had roped Rye into worse duty on the family’s huge organic farm.
“The staple guns are out in the truck,” Rye said. “The saw is there, too, along with the rolls of waterproofing to lay out beneath the wood.”
“I’m pretty sure that I’m the one who taught
you
how to install a hardwood floor,” Brandon retorted.
“Just trying to be helpful,” Rye said. He didn’t mind his cousin’s gruff reply. Instead, he took advantage of Brandon’s expertise to head toward the office, to the private refuge where he knew Kat was hard at work.
Kat. Even now, he could feel her weight on his chest, her body melted and cooling after the pleasure he had given her. The memory, though, made a corner of his heart curl in reflexive avoidance.
He hadn’t thought this through. He hadn’t realized quite how hard he was falling for Kat, how much she had come to mean to him. There was no way that their lives could ever come together—she was determined to get back to New York the second she was shed of that walking boot, if not before. It had been what? Three weeks already? She’d said that she was only going to wear it for a month. One more week—at most—and then she’d be gone forever.
And he certainly couldn’t put all the blame on her for his current discomfort. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told her he had an early Saturday meeting in Richmond. Late Friday night, actually early Saturday morning, he had finally carried her to her bed, tucked her in beneath her comforter and stroked her hair until she fell back to sleep. But then he’d left, hitting the road, letting the freeway roll out beneath his headlights as he drove home in the dark of night.
He hadn’t called on Saturday. Sunday either. He’d needed to put some distance between them—emotional space to match the physical one.
This whole thing shouldn’t be as difficult as it was turning out to be. So what if Kat was heading back to New York soon? Rye could always come down to Eden Falls, stay here until she left. Who knew what would grow between them in the time that they had?
No.
He wasn’t going to do that again. Wasn’t going to cash in his dreams. If he walked away from Richmond now, he knew that he would never again find the nerve to build his own business. He would stay here in Eden Falls until he was old and withered and gray, until he couldn’t even remember what to do with a woman as intoxicating as Kat.
Damn.
He knocked lightly on the door frame. “Mornin’,” he said as Kat looked up from behind the desk.
God, she was beautiful. Her hair was back in one of those twists off her neck, making her look like every schoolboy’s fantasy librarian. Her silvery eyes brightened when she saw him, and her smile made his heart ache.
“I missed you,” she said. “It was a long weekend without you.”
He was supposed to apologize for living in his new hometown. He couldn’t. No. He
wouldn’t
. Instead, he asked, “What did you do?”
“Niffer had a T-ball game. You didn’t tell me that you’re a million times better coach than Noah is.”
He shrugged, fighting against the pang that told him he should have been there for the game. “Britney was out of town, so Noah didn’t have an excuse not to be there.”
Kat laughed. “Daddy was feeling so much better that Mama let him walk down to the park with us. We had to take it slow, but he made it. It was great to see him out of the house, soaking up the sunshine.”
“That’s good news.” He felt stiff as he said the words. Awkward. This was terrible—he felt like he was lying to Kat with every word he said. Every word he didn’t.
“How was Richmond?” she asked, the faintest hint of worry etching a thin line between her brows.
He forced himself to answer with a hearty smile. “Everything is going great. That Saturday morning meeting was with a new client—a massive kitchen renovation. Yesterday, I met with a computer guy—he’s set up all my client files.”
Kat wasn’t an idiot. She could tell that something was wrong.
Something. There wasn’t a lot of mystery about that, was there? What was the one thing that had changed since she and Rye had last talked, had been easy and comfortable and happy in each other’s company? Her cheeks grew hot, and she wasn’t sure whether the leap in her pulse was because of the memories of what they had done, or her regrets about what they hadn’t.
But that wasn’t all. She understood the warning behind Rye’s stilted conversation. She
knew
that he lived in Richmond now, that he was only here in Eden Falls as a favor to her. He didn’t even
want
to be working on the studio. That was just as well. She was going back to New York, after all, leaving all of this behind in just a matter of days.
And that thought left her strangely numb, as it had every time she thought it over the weekend.
But that was ridiculous. New York was her home, had been for ten years. New York was the place where she had her friends, her job, her life.
She thought of the gray concrete canyons, the buildings so tall that sunshine never touched the streets. Before she could be depressed by the memory of such a bleak landscape, though, she forced herself to confront the hard facts of living in Eden Falls. A big night out was stopping by the cinema to watch a first-release film. There wasn’t a single twenty-four-hour business in town. The only restaurants that made deliveries were the pizza parlor on Elm Street and the Chinese place on Baker.
But she and Amanda had had a lot of fun at the movies, just last night. She’d left Niffer with her parents, and she and her cousin had shared a huge tub of popcorn, watched some silly chick-flick. After all, who needed to work twenty-four hours a day? And why would she ever need to order in anything other than pizza or Chinese?
No. She could never live in Eden Falls long-term. No matter how much fun she was having on this spring break. Vacation wasn’t the real world, even a vacation rooted in caring for her healing father, for her wayward niece.
Bottom line—it was absolutely, positively 100% necessary to drive around a town like Eden Falls. Kat had been imposing on her mother and Amanda for the entire time she’d been here. Sooner or later, her family was going to refuse to ferry her from one place to another. And she had no intention of making another disastrous attempt at getting behind the wheel.
Eden Falls had nothing on New York. She just had to remember that.
In fact, there was one more dangerous thing about Eden Falls: Rye Harmon. She had a sudden vision of his lips on the inside of her thigh. Her cheeks flushed at the memory of the pleasure he had given her. At the thought of the fulfillment he’d denied himself. She had to say something, had to let him know that she had stopped by Doherty’s Drugstore the day before. He needed to know that she had purchased a packet of silver-wrapped condoms, to use in the future.
Whatever future they had. She cleared her throat. “Rye, about Friday night,” she began, even though she had no earthly idea what she was going to say after that.
He answered her quickly, too quickly. “I shouldn’t have… I’m sorry. I live in Richmond now. I —”
“Rye!” She cut him off, touched by how flustered he’d become. “I know that. I understand.”
“It’s just that in the past… There was someone who…” He ran his fingers through his hair, leaving his chestnut curls in disarray. “I’m making a total mess out of this.”
She caught his hands and pulled them close to her chest. “No,” she said, meeting his eyes. “You’re not. I’m not expecting you to drop everything and move back here to Eden Falls. I’d be crazy to ask that, when I’m only here for a while myself. Friday night was amazing—and I hope we’ll spend more time together before I go back to New York. But I’m not expecting you to walk in here with an engagement ring and the keys to your family’s Eden Falls house.”
Right then, for just that moment, when her smile got a little crooked and she squeezed his fingers between her own, he would have left Richmond. He would have dropped Harmon Contracting, abandoned all his hopes and dreams.
But then he heard Brandon shift equipment out in the studio. It was like his cousin was trying to remind him of his business, of his future, of all the reasons he’d fought to get out of Eden Falls.
Rye was an independent businessman now. And Kat wasn’t part of his past. She wasn’t Marissa Turner. She was a woman who had found her way clear of Eden Falls years before. That was part of what made her so damned alluring.
He slipped his fingers free from her gentle grip, but he stepped even closer. His palm cupped the back of her neck, and he leaned down to steal a quick kiss. She was more hesitant than he’d expected, though, almost as if she were afraid of the spark that might ignite between them.
Well, spark be damned. His free hand settled on the small of her back, tugging her closer, so that he could feel the whole long line of her body. He traced her closed lips with his tongue, and his blood leaped high when she yielded to him. Before he could follow through, though, before he could think about easing up the rumpled cloth of her blouse, there was another clatter from the outer room.
“That’s Brandon,” he breathed, settling his forehead on Kat’s shoulder and drawing a steadying breath. “He’s ready to install the floorboards.”
Kat’s own breath hitched as she took a step back. What was she thinking, anyway? She wasn’t exactly the type of girl to revel in a little afternoon delight—not with countless business details left to take care of.
“Great,” she said, trying not to sound too rueful. Then, she repeated the word, broadcasting it for Brandon’s hearing. “Great! Let me show you this website that I found. I can use it to design stationery for the studio—letterhead and flyers and business cards.”
He edged around the desk, coming to stand behind her as she pulled her chair closer to the computer. She sat like a classical statue, straight and tall. Her hands flew over her computer keyboard, smoothly competent as she called up something on the screen. He didn’t care about any stupid website. He was just pleased for the excuse to be standing so close to her.
“Look at this,” she enthused. “They have hundreds of templates—you can choose one that’s right for you. Here, I’ll show you. Let’s make a flyer for Harmon Contracting. Didn’t you say that you needed to do that?”
She looked at him expectantly, and he nodded, eager to see her smile. He wasn’t disappointed.
“They have themes, like Medicine and Legal.” She let the computer mouse hover over those choices for a moment to illustrate the possibilities, and then she swept it toward the top of the screen. “But we probably want Carpentry.”
She clicked once, and the screen was filled with the image of a creamy white page. Silvery scrolls curled around the edges, folding into twined hearts in the corners. Ornate writing spelled out the formal words of an invitation: Mr. and Mrs. Robert Smith request the pleasure of your presence at the wedding of their daughter…
“Oops!” Kat slammed her palm down on the mouse, as if it were a living creature that might actually scurry away. “I clicked on Celebrations by mistake.”
He couldn’t help himself. He grinned at her obvious discomfort. She was acting like that one false click was a much bigger deal than it was. From her level of embarrassment, it was almost like she’d unveiled some deep dark secret, as if he had walked in on her while she was showering.
He felt the first stirring of his body responding to that delightful image, and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
Business, Harmon
, he remonstrated with himself. This was a business website that she was showing him.
By the time he had schooled his mind back to professionalism, she had brought up a different page. Hearts had been replaced with tiny images of a hammer and saw in one corner, a toolbox in another. Bold lettering stated John Smith Handyman Services, with a mock address at 123 Main Street.
“See?” Kat said, and she was studying the computer screen just a little too intensely, staring at the page as if it might turn into a bird and take flight. “I can click here, and we can change the name.” He watched as her fingers picked out “Harmon Contracting.” “We can add your Richmond address. There’s room for an email address, a landline, and your cell phone. You can keep the dark brown, or you can make it any other color. Navy, maybe. Or maroon.”
“What if I want the silver, from the other screen?”
He couldn’t say what made him ask the question. It wasn’t fair, really. He just wanted to see emotion skip across her features, flash across her platinum eyes. She darted a glance toward the office door, toward the studio where Brandon served as unwitting chaperone.
Kat cleared her throat, consciously deciding not to take the bait. Instead, she dashed her fingers across the keyboard, pulling up the draft files she had created for her own business, for the dance studio. Toe shoes filled the corners, and the lettering was a professional burgundy. Morehouse Dance Academy. The street address. Eden Falls, Virginia.