me? I don’t mean to imply you’re a scary stalker, but you are exhibiting stalker-like tendencies.” I knew he was resourceful. This, however, was next level.
He snorted and nuzzled the side of my neck, planted a few quick kisses there before speaking. “My father knew where your grandparents lived. This is the only…” Frowning, he glanced around. “…hotel in town.”
“I’m impressed,” I told him in all honesty, my gaze drawn to that soft sensual mouth of his like a millennial to Twitter.
My favorite mouth in the world curled up. “Because I found you?”
“Because you came…” I tunneled my fingers in his hair and he sighed. “…and because it feels like I’m sitting on a speed bump.”
He grinned wide and bright. “That happens by rote whenever it’s near you…I missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
He breathed deeply and his expression sobered as if he were preparing himself for something unpleasant. His arms tightened around me. “Tell me what happened.”
I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to think about Josh, or my grandparents, or the horrible memories this place evoked. My brain felt crowded and I needed to clear my browser history. I wanted to feel good and Scott knew how to do that better than anyone.
Wrapping my hands around his prickly face, I kissed him hard. “I don’t want to talk,” I whispered against his lips. “Not now…not yet. Just make me feel good. Can you do that?”
For a beat, he searched my face. Then he nodded. The jacket was gently pushed off my shoulders, sliding silently to the ground. Slowly, the ratty t-shirt I was wearing was lifted over my head and tossed to the carpeted floor. With supreme concentration, his calloused fingertips traced the lines of my collarbone so gently a shiver wracked my entire body. I couldn’t wait any longer.
While our mouths melded, he stripped me bare, laid me down on the crappy motel bed, and undressed himself slowly as I watched him with undisguised glee in my eyes. It was better than any Christmas present I’d ever unwrapped. Gray sweater? Boom, gone. Designer Italian boots? Atta here, kicked off. Jeans? Bye-bye.
“No underwear?”
His brow folded in worry. “I was in a hurry to get to you.”
“Have I ever told you that you’re perfect?”
“No. But you have called me a royal pain in the ass.” He smiled broadly.
“Same thing. Come here.” I opened my arms to him. Because he was. With all his faults, Scott Blackstone––sensualist, reformed playboy and dilettante, lover of a good time, environmentalist, and newly minted king of the cattle business––was perfect for me.
He stood naked and proud. And proudly showing off each delineated line of muscle meeting muscle. His erection jutted out from the rest of him, leading the charge. An instrument of God. A work of art created to give pleasure and take pleasure.
I thought about what my grandparents would say to that and chuckled. Maybe I was just like my mother after all, a creature of passion and pleasure, a sinner…a hopeless romantic. My grandparents had done everything in their power to beat it out of me and it hadn’t worked. It had gone into witness protection, hiding, waiting for Scott to come along and draw it out in the open.
“You’re laughing at me?” my dream lover said with a half–cocked grin. God bless him, Scott had such healthy self-esteem it would never even occur to him to be offended. I loved that about him. Gloriously naked, he placed a knee on the bed and stalked up my body.
“I was just thinking that I must be a lot like my mother because I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than your body––”
Or your heart…
I couldn’t say that out loud, though. I was seventy five percent certain that I was one hundred percent in love with him, and I couldn’t risk losing him by letting it slip out in a moment of weakness.
Truth was, I didn’t know how Scott felt about me. There was care there, a lot of it, sure, I wasn’t blind, and he’d always been a very expressive guy. But love? I was fairly certain Scott had never been in love before. In addition, he was definitely the type to wear his emotions on his face, so wouldn’t I have known if he was? Wouldn’t I have sensed it?
No, I didn’t think he was in love with me. Not the way I was in love with him.