Dead last. Again.
The four of them went out after work every Friday, and every Friday Eleanora sat and smiled while guys bought drinks for Sharilyn. Hit the dance floor with Amber. Chatted up Chelsea’s breasts.
Even the sidekicks—wingmen, whatever guys called themselves—refused to give her a second glance. She couldn’t blame their lack of interest on the ring. She’d taken off the meaningless metal circle before the divorce had been finalized.
But to the endless crowd of broad-smile bar-hoppers, she rated five seconds of stilted conversation between texting or checking sports scores or playing Angry Birds. The highlight of four hours of boredom. Single life almost matched the worst tedium of married life.
That’s what she got for saddling herself with David and galloping through her twenties with his ring on her finger. He’d been her first. Her only.
Now she performed rotating roles as babysitter, chaperone, and charity case. She didn’t belong at a too-small table packed alongside tight-skinned and perky-breasted girls who flashed their IDs with the affected nonchalance of twenty-two-year-olds.
She downed the final sip of her third beer of the night. She didn’t dare hop in her car and head home yet. Given her luck, she’d end up pulled over and facing a drunk-driving charge. David would love any excuse to point out her idiocy. Hiring a lawyer without him finding out would be impossible in this town. She’d never live down the humiliation.
“—and it’s deep, too.”
Chelsea laughed along with what’s-his-name. Dog Collar Dude. Not attractive, but he had deep pockets. Probably thought he’d be getting in deep with Chelsea tonight, payment in exchange for buying round after round of drinks. God knew he hadn’t taken his eyes off her breasts.
Laughter came dangerously close to making Chelsea spill out of her silky, sleeveless v-cut. Eleanora’s closet didn’t hold a shirt anywhere near so revealing. Boring and staid, as much an accountant in her fashion picks as in her career choices. And in her bedroom habits.
She tilted her brown bottle. All gone. No magical extra swallows remained to knock David’s voice from her head.
“Whoa.” An unknown quantity stumbled to a halt beside her chair. “Your friend’s hot.”
Fantastic. The newest Mr. Drunk-and-Horny leaned in close and drenched her nose with the scent of teen body spray. Probably the same disgusting brand he’d used in high school. Probably lived in the same bedroom, too.
“Oh? Which one?” She’d come to this lousy bar with three friends—well, acquaintances—and he didn’t have a chance with any of them.
The skinny blond kid blinked as he scanned their table. Jesus. He looked barely old enough to buy the three beers he held, and she’d celebrated thirty-one six months ago.
Sooner or later she’d have to inform her coworkers she wasn’t going out with them anymore. They were twenty-four, twenty-five, and poaching college boys was fine for them. For her, the whole scene smacked of desperation. Three months of this bullshit added up to quite enough.
“Uh, all of ’em?” He presented a dopey smile.
“Damn, Ellie. Picking ’em young tonight, aren’t you?” Sharilyn swung her martini glass upward, sloshing vodka over the rim. “Good for you.”
“Yeah, no, I’m not—”
The kid wobbled into her chair. “I don’t feel—”
Vomit splattered her shoulder and rolled down her chest. Ugh. Should’ve dodged faster. She shoved him back.
Stumbling over his own feet, he landed on his ass, spilled his three beers all over himself, and retched. The acrid stench of puke replaced the flood of body spray in her nose. A toss-up, really.
She laughed over the chorus of oh-my-gods from the rest of the table. At least the night wasn’t boring anymore.
* * * *
“Oh, fuck.”
Rob swallowed the last of his beer. Lucas had better hurry up with the refills. “What now?”
They’d hit a handful of bars already. Brian had found trouble with every damned one. With Lucas staying at his place for the summer, he’d been playing mother hen for the last three weeks.
“I think my baby brother’s puking his guts out.”
“Take him home. Happy beer-buying birthday and all, but he’s done for the night.” He’d celebrated his own twenty-first on base with a pack of fellow tech geeks. Good guys, including Brian. How had fifteen years gone by so fast? “Pour him into bed.”
“Yeah.” Brian grimaced. “Soon as I figure out what to say to the woman with puke running down her shirt.”
“Try an apology.” He shoved his chair back and stood, scanning the tables for Lucas’s god-awful sea-green pullover. “Where is he?”
He spotted the vomit-splattered woman about the same time Brian answered, “Your four o’clock.”
Shit. Lucas had spewed at a full table, and he couldn’t get eyes on him. Man down. Threat?
No punches thrown, so far as he could tell. A circle of horrified and disgusted faces clustered to one side, their owners staring at the floor. One guy held his phone up. On the far side of the table sat a laughing woman with a beautiful smile and a stained shirt. Damn. He hadn’t taken a woman home in almost four months, and Lucas had party-fouled the first to catch his eye. “C’mon, let’s go rescue Lucas and get out of here.”
Looked like tonight wouldn’t be the night to break his sexless streak.
* * * *
“Oh my God, Ellie, seriously, how can you laugh about this?” Light glinted off glitter-speckled fingernails. Amber pushed back from the table. “Yuck. Danny, take me dancing.” She dragged her boy of the night away with a theatrical flounce.
“You do kinda reek, Ellie.” Sharilyn wrinkled her nose. “Not your fault, but eww.”
Waving in front of her face, Chelsea nodded.
Dog Collar Dude flipped through his phone. “Fuck, I missed the kid’s first splash. You think he could upchuck again? The visual’d make the video so much better.”
Eleanora glanced down with care. The regurgitated beer soaking into her shirt quickly lost its amusement value. The kid had added a puddle beside her chair. He barked out coughs like a hoarse dog.
“No, I don’t think he’s got anything else in his stomach.” She poked his knee with her foot. “Kid? You all right? You got somebody we can call for you?”
No answer, unless she counted more retching. Between the sound and the smell, her stomach started to turn.
A second man with the same pale hair as the first dropped to the floor beside the kid and laid a hand on his back. “Shit, Lucas, I thought you might’ve passed out.”
“Are you all right, miss?”
Sex on a stick. Thick thighs encased in denim inches from her eyes. She launched her head back and her chin skyward. Eyes up. Ohhh, bad idea. The stranger loomed over her with his strong jaw and his short, dark hair and his no-nonsense eyes.
“No, of course you aren’t.” His aborted hand movement stopped short of her shoulder. “Ugh, he did a number on your shirt. Let me give you a hand.”
He slipped around the other side of her seat. Cupping her elbow in one hand and pressing against her back with the other, he coaxed her to her feet. Large hands. Warm hands.
Her body jangled like a change jar spilling on tile.
“Look, he’s really sorry, or he will be when he’s sober.” The stranger glanced down, shaking his head. “He’s twenty-one today.”
She nodded. The blond guy picked the younger one off the floor. First legal drinking day. Okay. She filed the data under don’t care and waited for details about Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome.
“You can’t wear that home.”
Her chest had snared more attention in the last five minutes than in three months of flaunting herself at bars. She’d found the secret of dating. When introversion and modest assets failed, distress attracted the good guys. Not how she’d hoped to find someone.
The man with large hands squeezed and let her go. Peeling off his shirt, he revealed a to-die-for body. Solid, toned muscles from top to bottom. Too bad his jeans came almost to his waist. Denim blocked the enticing slope heading into his pants. God, David had never reached such nonchalant bare-chested perfection.
Her rescuer held out his shirt and gestured her toward the back of the bar. “Here, let me give you mine for tonight.”
No fucking way. This guy couldn’t be for real. She stumbled over her chair.
He steadied her with a quick hand on her clean shoulder.
“Thanks.” Oh, hallelujah. She’d started thinking she’d never find her voice. “That’s, umm, I appreciate it.”
“Least I can do, miss.” He guided her in front of him past the line for the ladies’ room and stopped at the door.
“Yo, man, you gotta put your shirt on.” A beefy guy in a black shirt with the bar’s logo over his chest held out an arm. “Carrying it don’t count. You can’t be shirtless, not in here.”
She disagreed with strenuous, silent objections. Her gentleman deserved to go shirtless wherever he liked.
“You wanna run around half-naked, you gotta head down the street to the Lazy Eight.”
Making that man put his shirt back on would be a crime. Her skin heated at the slow slide of excitement between her legs. Thirty minutes of fantasizing and foreplay with David left her dry as a desert compared to three minutes of standing next to Shirtless Gentleman. The longer she lingered in his orbit, the harder her lungs worked to serve up oxygen.
Lust walloped her with embarrassing swiftness. She lacked the looks and flirty attitude to pull a guy without adding a vomit-soaked shell to the mix. Riding off into the sunset with Shirtless Gentleman glinted so far out of the picture the location didn’t exist on her map.
“Yeah, I get that.” Shirtless Gentleman raised a hand. “You can toss me out in a minute. Right now, this pretty girl’s got someone else’s puke on her clothes, and I’m going to make sure she’s safe while she’s changing.”
Gripping his shirt, she ducked into the ladies’ room past the line of pissed-off, well-beyond-buzzed women. Shirtless Gentleman’s presence seemed to deflect any cursing about cutting the line.
“No, ma’am,” he rumbled over the din of music and chatter. “I don’t wax and you may not touch.”
Ma’am. Polite. Mannered.
She stuffed her shirt in the trash and grabbed a handful of paper towels.
Fit. Chivalrous.
The damp paper towels scraped her neck under her hardy scrubbing. At least the kid hadn’t destroyed her bra. The practical white soft-cup would serve.
Was Shirtless Gentleman military?
Tucking in the shirt didn’t give her the fitted look it had given him, but she managed to minimize her resemblance to a child swimming in her father’s clothes. Squinting hard almost made the outfit look intentional. A style choice to wear a black wide-neck tee with exposed white bra straps.
Yeah, almost.
She slipped into the hall, her skin electric. His bare chest greeted her from two feet away, his arms crossed and his feet planted in a wide, easy stance. A few hoots and drunken catcalls rose from the women waiting in line.
Shoving aside her embarrassment, she tipped her head back and met his eyes. “Thank you.”
His attention stayed centered on her. The unsmiling bulk of a man sported solid pecs and a penetrating stare.
“Again.” She fumbled for a classy conversation starter. “Your shirt’s really soft.”
Your shirt’s really soft. What the fuck. Her brains had gone soft. Complete mush. Mashed potatoes held the edge in outthinking her.
His mouth twitched. “Must match your skin.”
“Sorry?” She’d heard him wrong. No way had he complimented her skin. Men didn’t say those things to her. “I didn’t catch that.”
He shook his head and dropped his arms. “Shirt looks better on you than it ever did on me, miss. Let me walk you back.”
Turning, he swept his hand behind her and landed with a light touch. Five points of pressure, a half circle of fingertips keeping in contact as they returned to the table. More than a few whistles followed them.
“It doesn’t bother you? Being”—she waved at the crowded tables—“stared at? Graded? Like you’re on display?”
Stupid question. Of course, the attention wouldn’t bother him. He had cool, calm confidence perfected. Anyone with his godlike body would want to show off.
“I got over any fear of public grading in basic training.”
Military. Nailed it.
Not yet, you haven’t.
Her face flamed.
“A’course, the opinions of a bunch of yappy drunks aren’t worth all that much, positive or not.” Shrugging, he tapped her back. “Being on display for the one woman who matters, well now, that’s a whole other thing. That’ll make a man nervous, sure enough, however cool he plays it.”
Great. He had a woman who mattered. Smooth, too, about sliding the revelation into the conversation. No ring, but an empty finger didn’t mean much these days.
“I think you’ve got cool down.” Months of going out with the girls from work had taught her how to categorize the bar crowd. The unholy chaos broke into three groups, all ring-free, with the singular difference whether they were ring-free but committed, ring-free and open or cheating, or ring-free and actually unattached. Limiting herself to the third group hadn’t done her any favors. “I hope your woman who matters sees through the facade and tells you what a great catch she’s made.”
He paused his tapping. “Oh, I don’t—”
“Woo, I didn’t know you were that kind of girl.” Sharilyn slapped her hand on the table. “Swapping clothes in a stall?” Her nosy, flamboyant attitude owed nothing to the drinks she’d downed. She came by her perky personality naturally. “What else did he get on you, Ellie?”
Ugh. She smiled through her irritation. Eleanora was bad enough, thanks to her mother’s obsession with family history. Every girl wanted to be named for the great-grandmother she’d never met.
Shortening her name to Ellie might as well transform her into a cow. Get along now, Bessie, Daisy, Ellie.
Sharilyn made her sound like a cow giving the milk away for free with a man she’d met ten minutes ago.
“I’m—we weren’t—”
* * * *
Christ. Her little friend produced as much bile as Lucas had, and the bitter sting seemed to hit her harder. The woman who’d laughed over a ruined shirt faced her sniping girlfriend with hunched shoulders, stammering a response somewhere roundabout her shoes.
“I’ll overlook that because you’re young and drunk, but you might wanna think on what you’re saying about your friend.” He’d dropped into his gruff tone, a favorite for his square-your-shit speech. A touch of gravel worked great for rattling the nerves.
The bile-producer dropped her mouth open, amazingly without the rim of a drink glass attached. The modest beauty wearing his shirt lifted her head.
“I’m not the sort of man to take a beautiful woman in a bar bathroom for an audience.” Not on the first date, at least, and not unless he’d be fulfilling a fantasy for her. “And she seems like a fine lady who deserves a better class of friends.”
“Did he just—who the hell are you to say what—”
Lordy, Miss Martini could screech. The woman beside him stood silent, watching him with narrowed eyes. Not angry, so far as he could tell. Assessing, like she’d spotted something new. Good. She might spare more than a thought for something new, if he got the chance to correct her misunderstanding about his relationship status.
“Shar, be chill.” The curvy blonde beside the screecher leaned forward.
He averted his eyes from her gaping shirt. His daddy’d taught him to be polite. Daddy’d also taught his sisters to have more respect for themselves than these girls possessed.
“Hey, rescue dude, your buddy took the spew monkey outside for some air or whatever. Said they’d wait for you out there.”
Fuck. He’d offered to drive tonight so Brian could get smashed with his brother.
“Right. Thanks for the message.” He turned to the woman in his shirt, torn between handing her down to her chair the way a gentleman ought to and asking if she’d care to go for a drive.
He should’ve bought the extended cab. Nothing romantic about sitting four across in the pickup with a boy sick as a dog hanging his head out the window.
Of course, he’d have the lovely lady beside him, her thigh pressed alongside his. Maybe the tickle of her honey brown hair on his shoulder. His cock twitched, eager as a teenager’s for a shot at action.
“I’ll walk you out,” she blurted. “In case the staff gives you any more trouble. About the shirt, I mean.”
Holy hell. He might have a better-than-nothing chance of getting her number yet. “My heroine. That’s right kind of you, miss.”
She linked her arm around his, sweet as you please, and tugged him away from the table.
“Yeah!” Stemware drained, martini girl slung the empty glass with loud, obnoxious, sloppy encouragement. “You’re halfway there, girl.”
At sixteen, he’d begged every night in his dreams for that type of rowdy girl. At thirty-six, he had other ideas.
“Take him out and ride him home, Ellie.” The girl’s shout followed them. “You deserve it!”
The one who mattered tightened her hand around his arm, and her steps quickened. She’d already been taking the better part of two to his one. Five-five, he estimated.
The top of her head came to his lips. The perfect height for tucking under his chin or dropping a kiss on. Or picking up and pressing to a wall to deliver a real kiss. Get those curvy legs wrapped around his hips.
He cleared his throat in a vain bid to distract his cock. “So your name’s Ellie?”
She scrunched her nose. Cute, but not a happy scrunch. “It’s Eleanora, actually.”
Hell, he had experience with disliking his name. Points in common melted ice faster than taking a chisel to the deep freeze.
“Eleanora.” Nodding, he held open the door. A classy name. Old-fashioned. No wonder she didn’t appreciate her friends’ butchery.
The July heat slapped his face. Same as the inside of the bar, with all its sweaty bodies, but with added humidity.
Eleanora released his arm.
Loathe to let her slip away so soon, he extended his hand.
“I’m Rob.” Leaning close, he kept her hand clasped in his. “My mama named me Robin, but don’t be letting that get around, all right? It’s another one of those things that’ll make a man nervous.”
Had as a boy, more like. Calling him Robin constituted grounds for schoolyard fights. Though he damn well wouldn’t share how the guys in basic had settled on Sherwood, or that Brian had joked later his nickname ought to be “Sure Wood” for the string of ladies he’d taken to bed.
“You don’t have anything to be nervous about.” Her smile held a trembling hint of shyness at the corners. “I know how to keep my lips sealed.”
He hoped not. It’d be a crying shame not to taste her sweetness. “Good to know.” He spotted Brian over her shoulder, leaning against the truck with a shit-eating grin. “Lucas will pay for the damage when he sobers up. You can text me the cost.”
“Oh—that’s—he doesn’t have to.”
He resisted the urge to drop his head and kiss away her frown.
“But, I should probably get your number anyway.” Blinking like she’d startled herself, she pulled her hand free and dug in her pocket. “So I can return your shirt.”
He didn’t give a damn about the lost shirt, but he rattled off his number when she produced her phone. A smidge skittish, a mite shy, and hanging with a crowd unsuited to her reserve. His Eleanora must’ve ended a long-term relationship not so long ago. She didn’t seem keen to hop on a rebound train.
Good. Neither was he. Take things slow, help her build up her dating confidence, and with any luck she’d see the potential in him he saw in her.
He walked her to her car, said a polite goodnight, and closed the door for her. Crossing the lot back to his truck, he waved off Brian’s laugh.
“Lost your shirt to the newest Maid Marian, eh, Sherwood?” Brian opened the passenger door and swung into the middle seat, leaving the window for a green-around-the-gills Lucas. “Hope you got a little something in return.”
Lucas groaned as he hoisted himself up. “Man, tell me I didn’t puke all over that MILF.”
Rob turned over the engine. Christ. Drunk or not, twenty-one-year-olds were blind stupid about women. Anyone past twenty-five probably registered ancient-to-prehistoric on the Lucas scale.
“Sorry, man, you did, and I didn’t.” The chance for something more, maybe, if she—
His phone sounded with a text alert. Yanking the digital leash from his back pocket, he jammed his arm against the seat.
The message originated from a caller unknown to his address book.
Just checking. I hear people give out fake numbers sometimes, and I’d hate to leave my shirtless gentleman without his shirt for long.
Well now. That was promising. Bolder in text than in person, was she?
He typed a quick response.
Brian craned his neck. “Still got nothing?”
Lousy snoop. He threw an elbow at Brian’s ribs and tucked his phone away. “Maybe a little something.”
* * * *
The living room curtains glowed cheery yellow as Eleanora pulled her secondhand Civic into the driveway a skosh after eleven. The security timer would’ve shut off the light between eleven-thirty and midnight if she hadn’t made it home.
One of the many things she’d gotten accustomed to remembering since David had moved out. A woman living alone couldn’t be too careful.
Of course, in the two years since their trial separation started and the three months since they’d finally signed the damned papers, she’d never not come home for the night. And she still hadn’t brought anyone with her.
Tonight, though. “Temptation, thy name is Rob.”
The dashboard didn’t reply.
She parked in the garage and navigated the dark kitchen with ease. Five years since they’d bought the place by the grace of a falling housing market and down payment help from David’s parents. Now she wished he’d taken the house in the settlement or they’d sold the rotten thing. Living here entombed her in a mausoleum of their dead marriage.
She hadn’t been able to make herself sleep in the master bedroom, not one more night after David had left. Flipping the mattress hadn’t helped. Dousing it and the sheets with lawn mower fuel had brought by a crew of very polite volunteer firefighters in their wailing truck. They’d explained the open burning ordinances while she’d raged and sobbed beside the mound of flames in the backyard.
The spare bedroom she’d taken for her own bore the neutral tones of an inoffensive motel. Off-white rug, off-white walls, dainty floral wallpaper border near the ceiling. No reason for a makeover—no one else saw the place. No money, either. The plain double bed had been intended for family visits, the empty room across the hall for a nursery someday. Scant chance of children now, when she spent her Friday nights in pathetic attempts to attract attention at student-heavy bars.
Not like she had much choice. David’s hometown didn’t contain all that many options. Cruising the classier places ran the risk of encountering David’s legal buddies. The dives held the dregs of boozehounds, the guys her age and older who hadn’t grown out of college binge-drinking weekends and never would. If she stopped tagging along with Chelsea and the girls at the places they preferred to shop for men, she’d be going alone. Hell no.
Jeans shucked and tossed aside, she slipped her bra out from under her borrowed shirt. She shambled into the bathroom to brush her teeth and chug a glass of water. Beer mouth, that cottony, swollen tongue and stale taste, wasn’t a joy to wake to.
Not like Rob would be. His tongue, in the morning, on her—
Choking, she spat toothpaste into the sink.
Thirty-one had to be too young for hot flashes.
She abbreviated her bedtime routine and scurried to the thermostat. Boosting the air conditioning would end this foolish heat chasing her. Life would return to normal by morning. The air kicked on. She sprawled under the thin top sheet, snug in his t-shirt and her panties.
She’d been so unlike herself at the bar. Asking Shirtless Gentleman for his number. Calling him by that name in her text message. She hadn’t dated since college. Ten years. David had walked into her life, and she’d been head over heels.
Not like tonight. With David, she’d experienced a girlish fluttering in her stomach. With Rob, the quaking in her body danced closer to…heels over head?
Dragging the sheet over her face, she groaned. Hiding from a nonexistent audience solved nothing. She flung the sheet back.
Spreading her legs failed to ease the ache. Closing them triggered the dim memory of adolescent explorations. Back when she’d still listened to her own body and chased pleasure by herself, for herself. Before David’s wounded act the one time he’d walked in on her, and oh, how she’d believed him.
“Is this where your love goes, Eleanora? To yourself? I give you everything you need, and you don’t want it. Not the jewelry or the lace negligees or those perfumed bath scents to make you feel like the wife you’re supposed to be.” Sagging to the bed, he sold his performance with his bowed head and his lips against the ring on his left hand. “You’re betraying our marriage vows, touching yourself when you should be touching me. No wonder our bed is so cold.”
She’d stopped. A lifetime ago. Those pleasures belonged to them as a couple. Going after pleasure herself was no better than trawling bars for strangers to excite her. David said so, and he only wanted the best for her because he loved her.
Lies. Every word from his mouth, a lie.
Hand drifting across her belly, she rubbed the soft, soothing cotton. Such an undemanding cloth, accepting her strokes without quibbling over speed or direction.
Rob’s dark brown hair might be soft. She’d have to touch to find out. As she dragged his shirt up, the bottom roughed her fingertips. Maybe his super-short hair would be more like the hem, all bristle-brush and tingly.
He had a handsome face. Kind, with quiet strength and gold-flecked hazel eyes that had never seemed to leave her. Whenever she’d looked at him, he’d been looking back at her.
She dipped her fingers inside her panties and yanked them back. Wetness, thick and slippery. Her rare brushes with desire since David’s reprimand had always produced far less evidence. Even headed down the road to divorce, she’d obeyed his edict. In the months since they’d signed the papers, her furtive, aborted attempts ended in numbness or sobbing—rewards not worth the hassle.
Burying her face in her shoulder, she breathed in an earthy warmth, the freshness of a garden in spring as the spade turned over the old soil and exposed the new. Rob’s scent. So unfamiliar, untainted by the rank stench of fail-sweat and unshed tears. A cocoon rather than a grave. Snuggly and humid and sparking with life, warming under—her fingers. Moving with purpose between her legs. He hadn’t handed over his shirt for this.
But he’d never know how she fisted his shirt in one hand and succumbed to her body’s compulsion with the other. She’d launder the cozy cotton before she gave his shirt back to him. Another meeting, returning his unexpected generosity, would present a second chance to appreciate his strong grip. To imagine more places he might lay his hands.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she blocked out the bland bedroom where she lived like a guest in her own home. This body belonged to her. The wetness, hers. The spreading heat, hers. The musk mingling with Rob’s earthy embrace, hers. She pushed herself faster, her fingers controlling the knots tightening her muscles, making them dance and shake from one central point. When her breath stuttered, his voice delivered the words of his reply to her text.
I’d rather see my shirt go home with you than me.
And I promise you there won’t be anything fake between us.
—Your Shirtless Gentleman
Pleasure shot through her in shuddering waves. God, how had she forgotten the thrill of this peak and the stealthy contentment creeping in after? Embarrassed and giddy, she wiped her fingers on the bottom of his shirt.
G’night, Rob.
* * * *
He dropped Brian and a healthier-looking Lucas at Brian’s apartment with the promise to meet them Saturday afternoon for the game. “Swear you’ll keep Lucas outta the beer cooler. He throws up while tagging a runner out at second, and we’ll have a brawl instead of a ballgame.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Brian flipped him a friendly bird. “Go meet up with your damsel in distress. Don’t get so much action that you’re sluggish running the bases tomorrow.”
No chance of that.
He pointed the truck for home and cruised on autopilot, every turn one he’d made a thousand times before. Sometimes with a woman, but less and less so in the last year.
One place he and Brian disagreed. They’d marked the same number of years on the planet, but Brian wasn’t looking to settle down and probably never would. He lived for short-term romance. Rob craved the family life.
He’d bought this old farmhouse five years ago with the hope of having a wife and a toddler or two to fill the place by now. The sort of family he’d grown up in, with laughing siblings and loving folks and room to run. Between his older brother and his two baby sisters, his folks had eight grandkids to spoil already.
So far, he had a yard to mow and an upstairs full of empty rooms.
The shine wore off every relationship. The girls crawling the bars dreamt of luxurious suburban mansions or penthouse apartments in distant cities. Their ambition didn’t extend farther than a man’s wallet. Fun for a night or three, but not interested in or interesting enough for more.
Desire ate at him for a real woman, one with the ability to stand on her own two feet. One who chose to lean on him when he made her weak in the knees. One worth protecting and cherishing for the rest of his life.
One like the woman at the bar tonight.
Eleanora.
Made of stern stuff. Able to laugh off a disaster. Compassionate, too—covered in sick up and still asking Lucas if he needed help. Fuck, she had good mom instincts, and humor, and brains, and blue-gray eyes stirring as a summer storm and honey brown hair robust as dark lager. He prayed for the opportunity to drink deep.
Standing at the kitchen sink downing a glass of ice water to stave off dehydration, he unzipped his fly and eased the pressure on his hardening cock. He set the glass down and pulled himself free, hissing at the chill of condensation from his fingertips. Mixed with his heated thoughts, the slick pleasure promised steam.
Out the window, beyond the empty clothesline, the tall grass waved in the moonlight. The lone bur oak in the lawn proper waited with leafy arms for a tree house. He had plans aplenty. What he lacked was the right woman to share them.
“How about it, honey girl?”
Her shy smile mesmerized him. Fuck, the sight of her in his shirt. He stroked his cock with a loose grip. He’d claimed her in front of the whole bar tonight, whether she’d recognized the move or not. Scoped out his target and draped his shirt over her in a warning to any idiot who thought he had a shot.
He stretched his jaw, tension building at the idea of any other laying a hand on her.
She was the one.
His mind and body united in that truth. His thoughts on her ran in directions no other woman had matched. Oh sure enough, he wanted her in his bed. Wished he’d be seeing her still in his shirt in the morning as she rolled on top of him and he teased the fabric off to feast on her flesh.
His grip tightened. His motion quickened. Icy chill forgotten, he imagined her soft heat cradled him.
But he wanted her in the yard, too. Hanging sheets on the line together and dancing between them. Chasing her through the billowing fabric and bringing her to the grass. Fingers fumbling at buttons and zippers, her laughter turning to moans that soared on the wind the half-mile to the neighbors’ place.
“That’s right, let the whole world know I’m loving you. Deep as I can go.” He splayed his left hand on the counter, grunting at the rush pooling in his balls. “Gonna make you mine. My Nora.”
Tension and relief climbed up his cock and sprayed the window over the sink, blurring his vision with milky white streaks. Bedsheets, waving in the wind.
Sleep tight, honey girl.