“I’m down with clean,” Ransom said.
Ava’s eyes narrowed slightly. “First, I need a toothbrush and a change of clothes.”
“I’m down with that too.” He was down with anything she wanted.
With his chin, he indicated the Supermart department store right across the street, with a crosswalk straight there from Motel Y.
Since they planned on checking in, Ava moved the Pantera into the motel’s parking lot, then they walked over to the store.
“Wow,” Ava exclaimed as they entered the sliding doors. The amount of stuff was overwhelming—anything you could possibly want.
She grabbed his arm, and he was sure she didn’t even notice what she’d done. “Oh my God, will you look at all the chocolate.”
An entire aisle of it. Peppermint patties. Chocolate-covered caramels. Malted milk balls. Dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate. Truffles. Peanut butter cups.
He loved the feel of her skin against his, just as he’d loved the smoothness of her cheek in the restaurant as he’d cleaned off the little bit of secret sauce. Damn, but he’d wanted to lick it off. Yet he’d maintained control even as he burned, just the way he was going up in flames right now.
Keeping the smile off his face, he said sternly, “Keep away from the chocolate.”
Ava laughed. God, her laugh. What it did to him.
He dragged her away from the chocolate aisle, moving on until they found toothbrushes and toothpaste and other sundries.
She stopped abruptly in front of shelves crammed with colored bags and bottles. “Look at all these different scents of Epsom salts.” She looked at him, her beautiful eyes wide. “Do you think Motel Y has bathtubs in any of the rooms?”
“We can ask for one.”
“All right then.” She grabbed a bag. “I want to try these rose-scented salts.”
She’d always loved her baths. He could see her there now. Naked. Bubbles up to her neck, sweet scents permeating the air.
He actually had to shake himself to dispel the seductive image.
She’d already sent him back for a cart, and now she plunked the bag of Epsom salts into it. “Okay, we need clothes.”
She picked out way more than one change of clothing, making him turn his back when she chose panties.
Despite that, he couldn’t help looking at the lacy confection, imagining her in it.
He delighted in how she went overboard. She probably hadn’t shopped like this in years. The boutiques she’d frequent would bring out models to display whatever she was interested in. But now, she was so like the girl he’d loved all those years ago. He loved seeing that girl in the woman now.
After she’d helped him pick out clothes, they headed to the snack and drink aisle. Even there, Ava went overboard.
“This place is awesome.” She beamed at him. “Let’s get some Cheetos and some gummy worms and some Oreos. We need snacks.”
She was already putting them in the cart. Had she ever splurged on calories like this before in her life? Then she added cans of alcohol-laced iced tea to the overcrowded cart. This was going to be some night.
Looking at him, one eyebrow raised, she said with a huge smile, “All of this can be our dessert.”
In the end, they had an embarrassing number of bags to lug back, but Ransom didn’t care. He loved how enthusiastic she was.
They entered the motel lobby with their haul. “This is surprisingly nice,” she said.
The reception station was empty for the moment, and Ransom let his gaze wander over the lobby. The carpet looked new, the walls freshly painted a pastel blue. The furniture—two couches and six chairs—could even have been quite comfortable, the blue plaid fabric matching the carpet.
The clerk, a tall, lanky, bespectacled young man, stepped out of the doorway behind the desk, and Ava headed that way. He was somewhere in his twenties, so this was probably his part-time job while going to university. Before she could even get a word out, he said, “Okay, a room for two. We have a few kings still available.”
Ava opened her mouth to interrupt, but the guy went on, “You’re really lucky. We’re filling up fast with that mess out on the freeway.” He waved a hand at the offending traffic jam.
“No, no, we need two—” Ava started, trying to get a word in edgewise.
The kid was already tapping keys. “Okay, a room with two beds.”
Ava huffed out a breath. “No, two separate rooms.” She enunciated each word distinctly, then flashed a look at Ransom that said, Help me out here.
It was like Abbott and Costello doing Who’s on First? But she was perfectly capable of taking care of the problem, and Ransom said nothing. Maybe there was even a part of him that hoped there would be too many freeway refugees, leaving them only one room.
After a long, almost lingering look between them, the clerk finally said, “Oh. Two rooms.” He cocked his head. “That sounds weird. I thought for sure you guys were a couple. I’m usually never wrong.” He punctuated this personal remark with a firm shake of his head.
Ava was just as firm. “No, we are not—” She hit the word hard. “—a couple.”
They gathered up everything, the lanky kid looking at the plastic bags in their hands. He called, “You need reusable bags. We have them for sale here.”
Ava looked back at him, holding up her arm with two bags slung over it. “We can reuse these, thank you very much.”
When they were out of earshot, Ransom asked, “Did you ask for a room with a bathtub so you can use your new Epsom salts?”
She huffed out a breath, stabbing the elevator button. “You must be joking. He would have changed everything again and given us one room because it was the only one with a tub.”
And that, Ransom thought, wouldn’t have been a bad idea at all. In fact, he would have very much enjoyed imagining her in the tub.
* * *
As she stepped into the elevator when it arrived, her cheeks were hot and her blood was up. “How could he think we’re a couple?”
Ransom’s mouth curved in what might have been a smile, as though the situation hadn’t bothered him at all. Of course, he hadn’t tried to help either. “Why wouldn’t he think so?” he asked mildly.
Ava fumbled a bit. “Well, because…” And really, there was no answer to that.
Of course, Ransom pushed. “Because why?”
She pursed her lips, “You know why.”
It was the same circular conversation she’d had downstairs with the clerk. And Ransom continued it. “No, I really don’t.”
She sputtered out a breath before saying, “Do I really need to refresh your memory?”
Abruptly, Ransom turned serious, all the humor draining from his face. “I don’t need you to explain.” He held her gaze, his eyes dark with something she was afraid to analyze. “I know you left me because I was a complete jerk.”
The confession left her speechless until the elevator arrived on their floor and he stepped out. He was actually admitting he’d screwed her over? She couldn’t let acknowledgment of this moment go by. “Yeah, you were.”
She counted down the room numbers until they reached hers. Before he could stop her, she flashed her card key in front of the lock and opened the door. With a curt, “Good night,” she closed it behind her.
Only then did she sag against the door, having left that very important conversation hanging.
She didn’t want to address it. This was a business deal between them. She didn’t want any other kind of relationship. She didn’t want to take blame or cast blame or even accept that he was taking the blame.
Finally pushing off the door, she walked to the bed and dumped all her Supermart bags on it.
And then she turned.
Ransom stood in the doorway of the connecting room, his hands braced on the doorjamb as he leaned in slightly. The darned clerk still hadn’t gotten it right.
Ransom said softly, in a voice that made all her nerve endings tingle, “We weren’t done with our discussion.”
Hand on the doorknob, she said, “Yes, we were.”
Then she closed the door in his face, hoping he’d stepped back before it hit him, and locked it with a resounding click.
* * *
Ransom stared at the closed door. He’d stepped back just in time to avoid having his nose smashed.
“She closed the door on me again,” he lamented metaphorically as well as literally. Obviously, she wasn’t ready to hear what he had to say.
Stretching out on the bed, staring at the ceiling for long minutes that might have turned into an hour, he thought he heard water running next door.
Damn. She had a bathtub. She was taking a damned bath. In sweet-smelling bath salts.
He slept like crap, his mind turning everything over and over, not just what he’d admitted—that he had been a complete jerk—but that bath. And the connecting door. He didn’t have to go outside to get to her room. He could just knock on that door.
Of course she wouldn’t open it.
And it wasn’t just the conversation he wanted to continue. He wanted to look at her. He wanted to close his eyes and breathe her in. Wanted to put his hands on her. Taste her.
It was time for a cold shower if he was to get any shut-eye at all. He needed a big bucket of cold water to tamp down all his thoughts.
He stayed under the cold spray until his teeth chattered.
Back in bed, though, he found the cold shower hadn’t done its job. He was still thinking of pounding on that connecting door. And if she opened it…
* * *
Dammit, she hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep. That connecting door kept calling to her.
Ava had taken a bath, because thank goodness there was more than a shower in the room even without asking the clerk for it. She’d popped a can of the iced tea and opened the bag of Oreos, allowing herself two. Okay, three. She’d thought a bath would help relax her, even make her sleepy. But then she remembered other baths, ones she’d taken with Ransom, and what happened.
She should have taken a cold shower instead.
Darn that clerk. She would have been so much better off if they’d had rooms on either end of the corridor, far, far away from each other. As it was, she couldn’t stop thinking about Ransom, couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d admitted. Couldn’t stop thinking about his hard body and his too-kissable lips.
But she had to remember how badly she and Ransom had failed the last time. Just as she’d told Gabby, she and Ransom sucked at the love game. Dane and Cammie could make it. The Mavericks and their ladies could. But she and Ransom hadn’t made it work before, and they wouldn’t be any better at it now. He was still married to his career, and hers was of the utmost importance to her. If anything, the gulf between them was wider. And she had no intention of having a casual affair. At least not with Ransom. Because there would never, ever be anything casual about an affair with him.
She must have slept in the end, because she woke to the last vestiges of a naughty dream about him, his hands all over her, his mouth doing things, his body taking her to places she hadn’t been in far too long.
Throwing aside the covers to dispel the sexy images, Ava jumped out of bed.
Her Supermart bags were strewn across the floor, and she knelt to rummage. The only clothing at Supermart was end-of-season summer wear. They weren’t stocking the winter stuff yet, and Ava had bought a thin, spaghetti-strap dress. She couldn’t pair it with her high heels, so she’d found cute white tennis shoes with multicolored glitter all over them and huge wedges. They might have been only fifteen dollars, but she loved them, even more than her thousand-dollar Jimmy Choos.
When she was dressed, she shoved her suit into the empty bag, not caring about the wrinkles. It would have to be dry cleaned anyway. She didn’t bother to bring all the snacks and drinks they hadn’t shared—and that irritated her too—then left her room, intending to knock on his door.
Ransom was already waiting for her, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, board shorts, and flip-flops. Together, they could have been mistaken for a couple heading off for a Hawaiian vacation.
Ava couldn’t help laughing. “What, are we going on vacation instead of getting to work?”
His gaze seemed to heat up the hallway. A tickle of something—she hoped it wasn’t desire—shimmied down her spine as he said, “We could. Right now. Just take off on the next flight to the islands.”
She barely managed to stammer, “I was joking.”
But God, how she wished he’d stop saying things like that, like how he understood why she’d left him because he’d been a jerk or how they could fly to Hawaii or the Bahamas or anywhere. Together.
He couldn’t possibly mean any of it. But the thought that he might messed with her insides.
Especially since she hadn’t slept much last night. And she’d awakened from that very explicit dream. But a casual affair with Ransom was out of the question. They had too much history, too many emotions. Even casual would spell disaster for her heart.
Turning, she tromped along the hallway to the elevators, both of them silent for the entire ride down.
The same young guy manned the desk. Ava marched right up to him, ready to take him to task for giving them connecting rooms with an open door.
But once again, he didn’t let her get the words out, a grin spreading across his face. “You guys said you weren’t together, but look at you now, all ready for vacation. I knew you were just jerking my chain with that separate-room thing.” He shook his finger playfully at them, then he gasped. “I get it. You two were playing some kind of sex game, right? Role-playing about being two strangers meeting in a motel room?” Chortling, he slapped the counter. “And the door just happened to be open between those two rooms. I couldn’t have planned it better.”
The man literally stunned Ava into near speechlessness. All she could do was slide the key cards across the counter. “You’ve got my credit card on file. Thanks.”
Still laughing, he said, “Thanks for all the dreams I had last night.”
Oh my God. How totally inappropriate. She wanted to act like a little girl and stick her fingers in her ears so she wouldn’t have to listen.
Outside, she looked at Ransom, and he looked at her.
“He wasn’t actually talking about wet dreams, was he?” she asked.
Ransom said, “Yeah, I think he actually was.”
After one more look at each other, they simultaneously burst into laughter, so hard she had to drop her bags on the ground and cover her mouth. And still she couldn’t stop. Leaning over, hands on her knees, she laughed until it hurt.
When she could speak, her words came out in jerks. “I’m not sure—he should be—doing that job.”
Ransom snorted out another laugh. “Are you kidding? He’s perfect for it.”
Ava got into the story. “People probably come back just so he can check them in.”
“If you ever have to spend the night while you’re visiting your San Juan Bautista facility, you have to come back here. I’m sure he’ll remember you. And he’ll say something totally inappropriate all over again.”
She nodded, another peal of laughter breaking out of her.
Then Ransom said, “But speaking of the hotel room, you charged them both to your credit card. I owe you the money.”
All the laughter seemed to die inside her, as if he’d reminded her that this was just a business trip, when she’d wanted to think of it as something else entirely. Even if she’d stomped away from him when he’d said they could take the next flight out.
Her insides were all messed up around him. One minute she was running and well aware of how bad it could all get, and the next wishing they were going on vacation. It was ridiculous. And she could not have a sexy vacation with him. Not even a sexy date. Because he wasn’t just any man. He was Ransom, and she’d loved him. Anything, even a kiss, had the potential to destroy her all over again.
So she waved a hand. “It’s a business expense. I’m hiring you, therefore I pay for the rooms.”
He didn’t argue, laughing once more. “You certainly got your money’s worth with that guy’s act.”
They dropped their bags in the Pantera’s trunk, which, with the mid-engine setup, was bigger than you’d think. And when she would have climbed into the driver’s seat, Ransom took her arm, turning her as he pointed across the parking lot.
“Look,” he said softly, his mouth right next to her ear.
It took her only a moment to read the sign. “It’s a Pancake House.”
His breath whispered across her hair. “I haven’t eaten a chocolate chip ten-stack at a Pancake House since…” He stopped, and she knew deep in her belly exactly what he was thinking.
Since the last time with you.
“Me either.” Oh God, he was seducing her with memories, and she stiffened her spine to the point where her neck popped. “One, I don’t eat like that anymore.” Okay, she wouldn’t think about the burger and fries they’d had yesterday or the junk food she’d added to the Supermart cart. Thank God she’d left it all behind in the room. “And two, we really don’t have time.”
He was so close, she could smell the aftershave he’d bought at Supermart. It was enough to make her dizzy.
“One, haven’t you heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day? And two, you know you can’t resist all those chocolate chips covered in all that scrumptious syrup. And three, this is exactly the kind of food that chefs eat after a long night at their five-star restaurants.”
Before she could protest again, he grabbed her hand and pulled her across the parking lot.
As she stepped over the separating curbs in her high-wedge tennis shoes, the sparkly glitter on them caught the morning sun, making her smile. Shopping at Supermart and staying at Motel Y made her smile. Her sundress and Ransom’s flip-flops made her smile. Even the thought of the Pancake House after all these years made her smile.
And most of all, for some terrible reason she couldn’t allow herself to think about right now, Ransom made her smile too.
Oh, she really had gone crazy.
The restaurant was only half full, with fifties music playing at just the right level and the scent of frying bacon filling the air. Once they were seated, Ransom angled the menu so she could see and tapped the ten-stack chocolate-chip pancakes. Without a word spoken between them, when the waitress arrived, he ordered the pancakes with an extra plate to share.
Memories of all the times they’d gone to the Pancake House—every Sunday when he was in town—assaulted her. He could have made pancakes back at the apartment, but there was something about the Pancake House, about the vinyl seats and the Formica tabletops and the waitress with the gravelly voice and kind smile. They didn’t even have to tell her their order. It was always the ten-stack of chocolate-chip pancakes, and they always shared.
Her mouth watered for them now—all that gooey chocolate, all that yummy syrup. And sharing it with Ransom.
When the stack arrived, they devoured it, practically licking the plate between them. God, the memories it brought back. They had so many good rituals. Sunday pancakes. Chopping vegetables together for dinner. Curling up on the couch to watch a movie. Taking a hike in one of the nearby parks. Ransom pulling her into the trees where he could kiss her, touch her, excite her. Making love to her the moment they got home.
They’d been good together, at least most of the time. Yes, there’d been little arguments, like how much time they didn’t have together, things that had probably been pushing them apart long before that huge fight.
But there’d been so many good things as well. And it was those things that were tearing her apart now.
Watching him lick syrup off his fork, she was hot and edgy, remembering exactly how those Sundays went down. Gorge on yummy pancakes, then gorge on hot, crazy-amazing lovemaking. They were sexy, seductive, hot-as-hell pancake Sundays.
Her thoughts made her feel hot and sexy now. Maybe it was the long night of knowing that he was in the next room. Wanting to knock on that door and beg him to touch her. Even if it was a terrible idea.
Ransom waggled a finger at her, just as he had yesterday when she’d worn secret sauce on her face. “You’ve got syrup and chocolate all over your mouth. Just like a kid.”
She put her finger to her lips, then to the side of her mouth, wiping up the last streaks of syrup and chocolate.
Then she let herself go crazy, let all these hot, sexy feelings take over. With her eyes on him, even though she knew better, she very deliberately licked the remnants off her finger. He was getting under her skin, and she wanted to get under his. She wasn’t about to go through this alone. She wanted him to feel the same sexiness she did, to have the same memories.
For an endless moment, he seemed paralyzed, his mouth hanging open, his eyes wide.
All her thoughts and feelings ganged up on her. She was driven by his admission last night that he’d been a total jerk, by knowing he was on the other side of that thin door, by sharing the pancakes this morning. Maybe it was even the young man at the reception desk asking if they’d been playing some sort of sex game.
And Ransom was dumbstruck.
Mildly, she said, “Catching flies?”
When he closed his mouth, when he looked at her, when his dark eyes turned the color of the maple syrup, she owned her terrible mistake. Now he’d think she wanted to rekindle things. Which she didn’t. It was just those memories. She’d deliberately opened Pandora’s box and let them all fly out.
Even as she tried to back away from what she’d done, Ransom didn’t let her. “Do you think I don’t remember what our ten-stack of pancakes always led to?”
She steeled herself. “No.” Then she added primly, “But it’s just business between us now.”
God’s honest truth, however, was that she’d been thinking about sex since the moment Ransom stepped back into her life. And not just sex with anyone. Sex with him. She’d never wanted anyone more.
You could want something badly even though you knew how bad it would be for you.
And now, after she’d done that deliberately provocative thing, she’d be stuck in a car with him for ninety minutes. It would sit between them all the way back to San Francisco.
She had to get things back on track. Straightening her pretty Hawaiian dress—and mentally straightening her spine—she became the consummate businesswoman again. “I’ll pay. Like the motel bill, it’s a business expense.”
Ransom sat back, arms folded over his chest, letting her grab the ticket and march up to the front counter. Even with her back to him, she felt him stewing in the knowledge that she wanted him.
Damn, the man didn’t have to say or do anything to get under her skin.
In fact, the less he said, the deeper he seemed to burrow inside her.