Rodeo Christmas at Evergreen Ranch (Gold Valley #13)(70)

“I think you know the answer to that.”

Her stomach clenched tight. “You know what, I haven’t worn a dress since I was a child. So I really don’t know. That’s the problem, Jake, I don’t know.” She felt like she was begging, felt like she was going crazy. And maybe she was. She had never felt this way before. It had never been like this. She had never been like this. And she had never felt so simultaneously close to her friend and far from him all at once. She wanted to open up the shirt he was wearing and curl up against his skin. She wanted to be closer. She needed to be closer. This man.

He did things to her. He made her feel things. He made her want to do things.

She wasn’t squeamish. Not at all. Her lack of experience with sex had everything to do with the fact that she hadn’t actually met someone she wanted to do anything with. It didn’t have anything to do with it disgusting her. She hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about it, but once she had gotten down to it, with him, she found that there were very few things that she was averse to. But it was beyond that. She wanted to do things with him. Anything. Anything to chase that high that he’d made her feel. Anything to feel closer. To be closer.

“You know,” he said. “That’s the problem. You know it all too well. You know that you got me over a barrel, darlin’, I really think you do.”

“What does it mean, though? Because you said that we couldn’t. Not anymore.”

“We shouldn’t.”

“I love it when your hands are on me,” she said.

And his face turned to granite. No one could hear them. They were close to each other, their mouths a whisper away. And the music was wrapping them up in a sensual rhythm. Carrying them, carrying her, to a place that she didn’t think she was going to be able to come back from. Except maybe it wasn’t the music. Maybe it was just them. Maybe it was her. She’d put her foot on this path some time ago. Either when she kissed him out at his place, or even when she’d gone to ask him to be her husband. And it was carrying them here. Inevitable as it was anything else. Like the passage of time, or the air they breathed. The way that their hearts beat. Maybe there had never been any getting away from this. Maybe this was always where it was going to go.

And she couldn’t see farther down the road. Couldn’t see where it would carry them. Couldn’t see if it was a terrible, dangerous idea or not. But she had to be here. At this point in the road. There was no other option.

“Callie,” he growled, “that is dangerous.”

“So now what I wear is dangerous. What I say is dangerous. Seems to me like things have changed. Because we used to just talk, didn’t we?”

“You know that changed.”

“You keep trying to pretend it didn’t. So if it’s already changed, then what are we going to do? What could we possibly break?”

“You know the answer to that, too. And you don’t want to do it. I know you don’t. Any more than I do.”

“I don’t know what I want. But I think I know what I might need.” She was very aware that her parents were standing right there. Very aware that she was attempting to seduce a man for the first time in her life. And really, the worst audience ever was around. But he was her husband.

She was trying to seduce her husband.

It’s not real.

It felt real. It felt more real than anything. More real than Christmas.

More real than the food they’d just eaten. More real than the whiskey that still lingered on her lips.

Was there anything more real in her life than Jake?

That’s how it’s supposed to be. When you’re in love.

She didn’t want to let her mom’s words dwell in her mind like that. She didn’t want anything other than this moment. She didn’t want to worry about tomorrow. For the first time in her life she wasn’t looking way up ahead. This really was like riding. It was the only thing that came close. That moment before the chute opened. When everything was clear.

Right now, looking into his eyes, everything was clear.

“I want your hands on me,” she whispered. She wrapped her arms around his neck, put her lips up close to his ear. “I want your mouth on me. I want to be naked with you. Do you remember... Do you remember when I tasted you? I want to do that again. I’ve never thought much about how sexy men were. But I think about you all the time. About your body. About the way it felt when you were inside of me.”

He went rock hard. Every muscle in his body. And she could feel him getting hard in the front of his jeans.

“You want me,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” he said, his voice scraped raw.

“Why? Because you don’t think life comes with guarantees? Don’t you think that maybe that should be your excuse to live? Not just throwing yourself around like you might be disposable, or indestructible, or whatever game you’re playing to try and deal with the feelings left behind by the pain that caused you. I don’t know. I’m your friend. But I don’t have any magic insight into that. What I do know is that I think you want to do something for yourself.”

“All I do are things for myself.” His face was half an inch away from hers, his eyes intense. She wanted to breathe him in. She wanted to taste him.

It was all she wanted to do.