“Not fair,” Ethan said in a voice that was more an animal growl than any noise a man might make. “Go put some clothes on.”
She did the opposite of what he told her to do, which really didn’t surprise him because she generally did everything but what he told her to do. She left the doorway and came toward him, her bare feet making no sound on the limestone tile of the kitchen floor.
He stood up and faced her. Which was probably a mistake, given that his physical reaction to her standing there in that towel had been instantaneous. Now it was obvious—to him, and to her.
She looked down at the ridge in his jeans and then, with a slow smile, back up into his eyes. And she kept coming. Until she was standing right in front of him and he could smell her—vanilla and a hint of something tart. Lemons, maybe—no. Oranges. Ripe, juicy oranges.
“Lizzie, come on.” He groaned. He couldn’t help it. “Don’t do this to me.”
She didn’t say anything. Only lifted a hand and laid it on his chest. His heart pounded like wild horses set loose on a midnight run. He knew she could feel the pounding.
“Lizzie, don’t…” That was as far as he got.
Because she slid that hand up over his shoulder and clasped the back of his neck. The towel dropped into a puddle at her feet.
He couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop himself. He looked down.
Into heaven.
He saw her pretty breasts with their hard pink nipples. He saw all of her, all of that soft, firm, smooth flesh. And then she did worse.
She pressed herself against him—those warm, amazing curves of hers, touching him all along the front of him. The hardness in his pants got harder.
It hurt to want her that much.
And then she leaned that fraction closer. She kissed him, her soft mouth opening beneath his.
What did she expect? A man could only go so far in trying to do the right thing. After a point, the woman he wanted and was trying desperately to protect from his bad self had to meet him halfway.
Lizzie wasn’t helping him. Lizzie refused to meet him halfway.
Lizzie was blatantly, shamelessly leading him into temptation.
And temptation was just too fine of a place to be.
He gave in.
With a low, angry, frustrated growl, he reached out and hauled her hard against him.
Heaven. Oh, yeah. Lizzie, naked, in his arms. He ran his hungry hands across the silky skin of her long, strong back. He cupped the sweet twin curves of her bottom in his palms.
She gave a little moan into his mouth. He drank that sound. It tasted of her eagerness, of her warmth and her breath. Her sounds were his—she was his. Her body, her mouth, that annoying, too-quick brain of hers, her big heart, her goodness. All the things that were Lizzie.
For now, at least, they were his. She was his.
A bed, he thought. We really need a bed.
Hers was closest. So, still kissing her, still holding on tight, he bent enough to get one arm under her knees. The other, he used to hold her shoulders.
He straightened, lifting her high in his arms. She let out a strangled little squeak of surprise. He smiled against her parted lips.
And then, with a happy little sigh, she wrapped her arms around his neck and went on kissing him. She was no lightweight, his Lizzie, but he knew he could make it down the hall to her bed.
He started walking. She kissed him harder, deeper. He lost track of where he was going and collided with the door frame on the way through. She groaned.
He groaned, too. “Sorry…”
“I’ll live,” she muttered against his mouth. “Keep walking.”
And he did.
At least she’d left her bedroom door wide-open. He carried her through, turning that time, so she went in feetfirst and they could fit without running into anything.
Her bed was waiting, wide and inviting, the covers already turned back. He set her down on the white sheets. She held on. Probably afraid that if she let go of him, he would start telling her why they shouldn’t do this.
She didn’t have to worry. He had no arguments left. He wanted this and she did, too.
So be it.
They were doing it.
Gently, he took her hands and peeled them off his neck.
She moaned as he broke the never-ending kiss. “Ethan, don’t go…” She tipped her face up to him longingly, offering those soft, tempting lips.
He took her shoulders. “Lizzie. Lizzie, open your eyes.”
With great reluctance, she did. They were so soft right then, her eyes, soft and moss-green. “Don’t you dare turn me down,” she said in a whisper that promised everything and threatened some, too.
He laughed then, low and huskily. “I’m not turning you down.”
“I mean it. This is what I want. This is…” She blinked and blew several strands of hair out of those beautiful eyes. “Uh. What did you say?”
He kissed her, quick and hard. “I said, I’m here. I’m staying. All I’m trying to do right now is take off my clothes.”
Her eyes somehow got brighter. Slowly, she grinned. “You’re serious. You surrender?”
“I do, yes. You win, Lizzie.”
“Well, then.” She blew the hair out of her eyes again. “By all means. Go right ahead and take off your clothes.” She released him and scooted back among the pillows, gathering her long, bare legs up under her chin, looking about as cute as he’d ever seen her.
Plus, she was naked. That definitely added to her considerable appeal. He straightened and started stripping. He had his shirt off, his belt undone, his zipper down in seconds. He kicked off the mocs he liked to wear around the house. All that was left was to shove down his jeans and his boxers and step out of them.
She licked her lips. “Oh, Ethan…”
He started to go down to her, but then he remembered. “We need condoms.”
And just like that, she reached over and pulled open the bedside drawer. “Got ’em,” she said. “Plus, I’m on the pill.”
He should have known. It was so like her, to take care of her own protection. Lizzie was not the kind of woman who left things to chance. Especially not something so important as a new life—or as dangerous as an STD.
Well, all right. That problem solved. He took the box from the drawer, set a couple of packets on the nightstand and then put the box back. She slid the drawer closed.
And then, finally, there was nothing else—no questions unanswered, no necessities unattended to. There was only the two of them.
Him and Lizzie. At last. Naked.
He went down to her, gathered her close in his arms. She sighed as she eagerly accepted his kiss.
She was…a miracle, in his arms. Nothing like the small, fragile women he’d always chosen. There was so much more of her, and all of it womanly and smooth and strong and sweet-smelling.
So good.
She filled his arms.
And his senses.
She rolled him over until she was on top of him and then she kissed him until he hardly knew where he was or how he’d gotten there. He only hoped he would never have to leave.
He rolled them both again, so she was on her back. He cupped her breasts in his hands. They were full and so beautiful. He kissed them. He took her nipple into his mouth and sucked on it, teasing it with his tongue, drawing on it deeply, while she wove her fingers in his hair and held him close and lifted her body toward his mouth, offering herself up.
Giving him all of her. Every glorious, long, sturdy inch.
He touched her all over, molding the inward curve of her waist, dipping his index finger into her navel and then his tongue after that. He eased his hand over her lower belly, which was smooth and slightly rounded, begging for his caress.
She lifted her hips to his hand, letting her long, strong thighs fall open. He touched her there, at the womanly heart of her. And she moved against his hand, her hips rocking, her soft mouth sighing. She said his name. She said it more than once.
As if she meant it. As if he was someone so special. The only one for her.
He kissed her. Right there, where it counted. He parted the vanilla-and-orange-scented dark gold curls and he put his mouth on her. She was wet and soft and slick and hot. He drank her in. She tasted so sweet. Sweet as heaven.
His Lizzie—and yeah, okay. She wasn’t his. Not really. But that evening, together with her in that way he never had been before, it felt as if she was his.
And he was hers.
And this thing they had, this way of being that was open and true and, yeah, about sex, but also about so much more…
It was like nothing he’d ever known before with any other person. It was so special.
It meant everything to him. More than he knew how to say in words. More than he even really understood.
She reached down and she held his head as he pleasured her, her fingers splayed in his hair. She lifted toward his secret kiss, open, ready, her body rising toward the finish so easily, so freely.
Strange. To think of Lizzie as a lover. His lover.
Strange. But right, too. Just exactly right.
“There,” she whispered. “Oh, Ethan. Just…there…”
And he felt the butterfly wing fluttering against his tongue, felt her as she came, as the finish took her and rippled through her, as she cried his name yet again.
And then again.
He stayed with her. He kissed her through the soft explosions of her climax. He went on kissing her until, with a final long sigh, she lay limp under his touch.
Then he lifted his head enough to rest on her belly. She stroked his hair and traced the shape of his eyebrows, one and then the other.
And then she urged him up her body, one slim, strong arm reaching out to take a packet from the nightstand. She tore it open with her teeth.
He found that unbelievably sexy for no reason he really understood: Lizzie, placing her neat white teeth on the edge of that wrapper, tearing it open.
She eased a hand down between them. And she encircled him.
He almost choked with the thrill of that, of her cool and capable hand surrounding him.
And then she kissed him. She caught his mouth with her soft lips, and below, she was stroking him….
He knew he was going to explode. Just lose it, right then, without having felt the ultimate, longed-for, dreamed-about heat of her body surrounding him.
But somehow, he held on. Held out.
And after a long, wet kiss and numberless glorious and almost unbearable slow strokes with her clever hand, she finally lowered the condom between them, positioned it and rolled it carefully down over him.
He knew then that he would make it. He could hold out long enough to be inside her at last.
“Lizzie.” He whispered her name.
She opened her eyes and met his gaze. She looked dazed, gone, lost in this impossible moment. She looked like he felt.
He smiled. And she responded with a slight lifting at the corners of her red, wet mouth.
“Now?” he asked.
She nodded. And she held his gaze as she wrapped her legs around him and guided him home.
He sank into her with a low groan. She welcomed him, lifting herself, opening.
Nothing like it. Ever. In bed with Lizzie, her slim arms and her long legs around him.
He gave it up to her. He buried his face in the curve of her sweet-scented throat. He rocked his hips against her in a slow, perfect glide.
She went with him. She took his every thrust and gave it back to him. She was like no other woman he had ever known.
She was all the good things, the strong things, the real things.
She was everything.
And more.
Later, he kissed every bruise on her body, lingering over the really big, angry-looking one at the base of her spine.
Then they got up and went upstairs to his rooms—and the master bath, where the jetted tub was big enough for two and then some. They soaked for a while.
And they made love again.
And then, around eight-thirty, they both decided they were starving. He gave her a flannel shirt to wear and he pulled on some old sweats. They went down to the kitchen where they ate leftover lasagna.
They talked a little, sitting at the kitchen table. They agreed that they would just enjoy these last days together, really be together in every way.
There would be no worrying about the future.
He still felt a little guilty, though. Lizzie was his friend. He knew her goals included a good marriage and eventually babies. He was not going to be the guy who put a ring on her finger.
He admitted, “I really feel like I’m taking advantage of you.”
And Lizzie threw back her head and laughed. “No, you are not. You are showing me how to live in the now and I plan to love every moment of it. So shut up and stop trying to be noble.”
He felt vaguely offended. “Trying? I’m only trying?”
“Well, if you were really going to be noble, you wouldn’t have let me seduce you today.”
He found that totally unfair. “Lizzie, you came out into the kitchen, all pink and sweet from a bath, with your hair curling and wild-looking just the way I know you know I like it. You were wearing only a towel.”
“Yes, I was, wasn’t I?” She looked downright proud of herself.
“And then you dropped the towel.”
“You liked that, did you?”
“Lizzie, I’m only a man.”
“Yes, you are.” She raised her water glass. “And a very good man, I must say. A wonderful man.”
He grunted. “How can I get annoyed with you when you call me wonderful?”
“You can’t.” She set her glass down. “Let it be, Ethan. It is what it is. Let’s enjoy the time we have together.”
It was good advice. Great advice.
So why couldn’t he shake the feeling that in the end, when it was over, she wasn’t going to just give it up and walk away? Why couldn’t he shake the feeling that she wanted more from him than to be her lover for the next eleven days, that she wanted more than he had it in him to give?
She shoved back her chair and started unbuttoning the shirt she’d borrowed from him. “Ethan.” Slowly, she peeled the shirt wide. He saw her pretty breasts and her soft belly and that little patch of curly, tempting hair down low.
“That’s not fair,” he said darkly.
“Stop thinking. Enjoy.” She shrugged the shirt off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor.
He swore. And then he got up and went around the table and took her in his arms.
They were still in bed the next morning when Bonnie Drake called. Lizzie lay back on the pillow next to Ethan and listened to the Realtor tell her that Aubert Pelletier had accepted her offer.
Lizzie’s mind started spinning. It was happening! It was real. She owned a bakery!
Bonnie said something else about the inspections and all they had to get done before the closing on July fifth. As if Lizzie could think of anything else right that moment but the one, shining fact that her cherished dream was finally coming true.
She thanked Bonnie politely.
“I’ll need your earnest-money check right away,” Bonnie reminded her. Earnest money was a good-faith deposit on her down payment.
“Of course,” Lizzie said. “I’ll bring it by. Um, say, one this afternoon?”
“That will work. I’ll be here at the office then.”
She thanked Bonnie again. They said goodbye. Lizzie turned off the phone and, staring dazedly at the ceiling, reached out and dropped it on the nightstand.
“Well?” Ethan rose on an elbow and leaned over her. His hair was rumpled and his eyes were lazy. His bare chest and shoulders were big and broad and tempting as the rest of him.
She reached up, slid her hand around his neck and pulled him down for a long, wet kiss.
When she finally let him go, she said it out loud for the first time. “I just bought myself a bakery.”
They got up eventually, had a very late breakfast and then drove to Thunder Creek Realty to deliver the earnest-money check.
After that, they went to Bozeman, where Ethan met with some ranchers about more oil-shale leases. They got back to the house after six.
She had her girls’ night out with Erin and the group at seven. She rushed to get ready while Ethan called Dillon and Corey and the other men whose wives would be out with Lizzie that evening. He invited them all over to play poker.
DJ, Dax and Dillon had babysitting duty. Ethan said they should bring the little ones over. He would make them popcorn and they could watch Disney movies on the DVR.
Lizzie kissed him goodbye at the door, a very long kiss, one that left her giddy and yearning. She found herself kind of wondering why she was going out when she could be home with him.
But then she met all her Thunder Canyon girlfriends at the Hitching Post and she totally got it. A surprise love affair with Ethan was a very special thing, but girlfriends mattered, too. They mattered a lot.
Every one of those wonderful women hooted and hollered and clapped and jumped up and down when she told them that she’d bought La Boulangerie.
Allaire said, “I knew it.”
And Tori just grinned.
Steph Clifton asked, “Are you changing the name—and when are you opening?”
“It will be the Mountain Bluebell Bakery,” Lizzie announced. She could tell by the gleam in Steph’s eyes that she remembered that moment up on Thunder Mountain, when Lizzie had seen the blue thimble-shaped flowers and Steph had told her what they were called.
“I like it,” said Steph, with feeling. She raised her tall glass of tonic with lime high. “To Lizzie and the Mountain Bluebell Bakery. Much success.”
“To Lizzie,” the others echoed. “To Lizzie and her bakery…”
“And what about your grand opening?” Allaire wanted to know. “You didn’t say when.”
Lizzie hardly dared to admit her plan. She knew she was probably being unrealistic, so she started hedging. “I know this will sound impossible, but the equipment is all in place. If there are no surprises, we’re pretty much ready to go. I know there will be a mountain of permits to get, some kind of a promotional campaign to plan. And I’ll have to hire and train at least a couple of employees, just to get the doors open. But I did practically grow up in a bakery. I know what needs doing and I know how to do it. I have all my mother’s time-tested recipes and they are fantastic. And I’ve had my basic business plan worked out and ready to go for years now.”
“But when?” Erin demanded. “We want to know when.”
Lizzie confessed, “I’m shooting for the last Saturday in July.”
There was more applause, more stomping and fist pumping and excited whistles. They all told her she could make it, and they promised to help any way they could.
It was a great evening, Lizzie thought, one she would always remember. It meant so much, not only to have actually bought her bakery at last, but also to have friends who believed in her, who offered unstinting encouragement and a boatload of support.
She had so much fun that she stayed out until well after midnight with the diehards of the party for that evening: Shandie Traub, Hayley Cates and Erin and Tori. Erin wouldn’t let Lizzie buy a round or even a plate of nachos the whole night. “This is my tiny little payback,” she insisted. “For my beautiful, perfect wedding cake.”
The house was dark when Lizzie got back. The poker game must have ended, the players and the little ones they’d brought with them all gone home.
When she came through the inner door of the garage, she could see the faint glow from the kitchen, the under-counter lights that they always left on during the night. But everything was very quiet.
Ethan must be in bed. She seriously considered tiptoeing up the stairs and joining him. But really, the poor man probably needed his sleep. She’d kept him up most of the night last night—and before that, there’d been all the excitement up on Thunder Mountain during the day.
Uh-uh. He deserved a break. She went on down the hall to her own room, where she quietly shut the door and got undressed.
The soft knock came when she stood by the bed in her panties and matching camisole. She felt a definite rising sensation under her breastbone and her pulse sped up.
So he wasn’t asleep, after all.
She padded over and pulled open the door and there he was, barefoot and bare-chested in a pair of frayed sweats that rode low on his hips.
“I heard the garage door open,” he said, his eyes full of promises she fully intended to see that he kept.
“I didn’t want to wake you…” She was whispering, moving in nice and close. He drew her like a magnet. She wanted his touch, his kiss, his body heat.
He did touch her. He ran the back of his index finger down her cheek, setting off sparks of desire, making her breath catch. “I wasn’t asleep. I was waiting for you.”
“Ah.” It was more a sigh than an actual word.
He slipped his warm fingers under her hair and wrapped them around the back of her neck. “Did you have fun with the girls?”
“I did. So much fun.” She couldn’t have resisted if she’d wanted to. She leaned in, brushed a kiss across his lips.
Electric. Amazing. Every nerve in her body seemed to be purring.
He settled his mouth more firmly over hers. “Lizzie,” he said against her lips. Just that. Just her name. So softly. So intently.
And then his tongue was there, tracing the shape of her mouth, leaving a trail of wet and heat. She opened. He slipped his tongue in as he gathered her closer.
They kissed, standing there in the open doorway. They kissed for a long, sweet time.
And then he undressed her. That didn’t take long. He slid down the panties, pulled up the camisole and tossed it to the floor. She helped, too. She pushed down those sweats he was wearing. He kicked them away.
And she thought, as he sank to his knees before her, that she didn’t want to lose him. She couldn’t stand the thought of that, even though she knew that too soon, she would lose him.
Too soon, she would move out. And he would move on. She had accepted that. Or so she kept telling herself, so she had told him last night when he tried to get her to talk about it.
No, she didn’t want to talk about it. Talking would ruin everything. As soon as they started talking, it would all become too clear. That she did want his ring on her finger.
She wanted it a lot. She wanted Ethan for a lifetime.
And Ethan for a lifetime was something no other woman had managed to get. A lifetime was something he just didn’t want to share.
She sighed and she gazed down through half-closed eyes at his dark head. He parted her with those clever fingers. He kissed her there, at the heart of her sex. It felt so good. So right.
Good enough that she moaned and speared her fingers in his hair and let her head fall back. Good enough that she forgot everything but the moment, everything but the silky feel of his dark hair between her fingers, everything but his hot mouth against her, and the fire building within.
A few minutes later, he scooped her up and carried her, limp and satisfied and yet longing for more, to the bed. As he gently lowered her to the sheets, she told herself that whatever happened later, it was worth it. To be with him like this, just the two of them. For a little while.
As a man and a woman.
In the middle of the night.