Yasmine killed the engine to her Camry, grabbed her oversize satchel from the passenger seat and placed it in her lap. Before she withdrew the keys from the ignition, she listened to the melodic lyrics to one of her favorite ballads, as the singer crooned about being half-crazy in love.
She could definitely relate. She had to be half-crazy. What other reason would she be out this late at night buying chocolate-chip-cookie ingredients?
She glanced toward her backseat, seeing the two overflowing bags filled with not only ingredients for cookies, but a carton of milk … couldn’t eat cookies without milk, she thought. Along with a gallon of cookie-dough ice cream … well, just because … along with an assortment of other “needed” items.
Yep. Half-crazy. That was her.
She’d gone to the grocery store over an hour ago. Although it was late, she’d decided a batch of chocolate-chip cookies were just what the doctor ordered.
A survey of her pantry and she realized she was missing several key ingredients. Rather than giving up on the notion, unable to sleep, she’d mentally shrugged and made a quick dash to the store.
All in an attempt to keep her mind busy. As though she didn’t have enough to think about.
She’d chosen not to accept Clayton’s offer, wrestling with her options for weeks before making her final decision.
After everything that had happened, despite Clayton’s assurances that it would be strictly professional, Yasmine had decided against taking the position.
Instead, she’d met with the producers of the food network. When they’d told her they would love to do a show based on the ranch and “country cooking” made elegant, she’d felt close to tears. Although she hadn’t told them of her change in plans and the show hadn’t been finalized yet, she’d accepted the offer.
When she was better able to deal with everything, she’d tell them.
But even the firm offer of her own show hadn’t made her feel any better, despite the magnitude of what it would do for her career.
Heartbroken, she’d simply accepted the position, knowing that it would take her career to the next level.
After thanking the neighbor who’d been watering her plants and collecting her mail in her absence, and chatting briefly with the elderly woman, Yasmine had gone to her apartment, eager to check her messages. She hadn’t received any calls on her cell from anyone except her aunt, but in the back of her mind, she’d hoped there would be one from Holt on her home phone. Although there were a slew of messages, none had been from Holt.
Although, considering the last time they’d spoken and what had happened, she didn’t know why she felt anything for him at all. He had made his thoughts and feelings about her abundantly clear.
The memory alone made her cringe, of the neutral look on his face after she’d caught up with him … the way he looked at her as though she meant nothing to him, not to mention the words he threw out that cut her as deeply as any of her sharp-edged knives ever could.
The rest of the week, she hadn’t seen him, and later found out from her aunt that he’d gone to Cheyenne on business regarding the ranch. She doubted he had any business but that he simply didn’t want to be around her.
She’d also realized that he didn’t think she’d been kissing another man, and neither had he been about to cancel their date. He’d used the situation to get out of their relationship When he returned, and for the remainder of the two weeks that Yasmine was there, he managed to completely avoid her.
At that point she wanted to be as far away from him as he obviously wanted to be from her, but she couldn’t leave. As soon as Lilly was walking around without assistance, Yasmine had decided it was time for her to go. Their farewell had been emotional at best.
She hadn’t had to tell her aunt what happened, her reasons for leaving. Lilly, as well as everyone else on the ranch, knew. It was impossible not to.
Before she left, she promised a tearful Althea that she could as easily work on the menu for her wedding from New York as she could from the ranch, and promised to return for the ceremony.
She listened to the last crooning notes play out and the DJ’s husky voice break in before she slipped the key from the ignition and opened her door.
After retrieving the bags from the back, she balanced them against one hip and with the other bumped the car door closed, before hurrying up the walk leading to her garden-level apartment.
When she saw someone leaving, opening the door, she hurried her steps, her arms so full with groceries peeking over the tops of the bags, she couldn’t see who it was, but hoped they’d see her and keep the door open.
She mumbled a thank-you once she’d walked into the lobby, unable to see whom it was she thanked with her vision obscured with the bags.
“My pleasure,” a deep voice answered, and Yasmine nearly dropped the bags.
“Let me help you with that,” Holt said, taking the bags from her and rescuing the carton of milk before it made a nosedive onto the floor.
“What … when … what are you doing here?” she asked, so surprised to see him standing there in the lobby of her apartment building that she could only stare up at him.
He took the rest of her bags from her, his expression solemn. “Can we go inside and talk about that?”
Yasmine briefly hesitated before nodding her head, her heart thumping wildly inside her chest.
She lived on the ground floor, so the walk to her apartment was less than a few feet. She used the time to run a glance over him.
Missing were the usual jeans and chambray work shirt, as well as the Stetson he always wore on the ranch. Instead he wore a pair of dress slacks and a silk shirt, easily slipping into the casual sophistication like the chameleon he was.
She glanced away from him.
The memory of the way he’d casually dismissed her, refused to speak to her, helped her to harden her heart.
Her hands fumbled as she dug inside her bag for her key. With shaky fingers she managed to insert it into the lock and open the door.
Standing back, she allowed him to enter.
“You can put them on the counter,” she said, motioning toward the bar-style kitchen counter.
Once he had placed the bags down, he turned, glancing over her small apartment.
“It’s small, but it’s home,” she said, looking at her place through his eyes.
It was the first place she’d called home since leaving the ranch. Until that point, Yasmine had lived in dormitories while in school, or rented small apartments during her apprenticeship.
She’d ripped down the previous renter’s dusty pastel wallpaper, and had painted the rooms in muted yet light colors, using the sunshine that streamed in through the windows to enhance the airy feel.
Rent was expensive in New York, and unable to find a one-bedroom within her budget, and not wanting a roommate, she’d rented the studio, using the large open room off the kitchen as both living and bedroom space.
Although it was small, she loved her apartment.
“It’s pretty, Yas,” he said, and she heard the sincerity in his voice.
She turned back to face him. “Why did you come, Holt? You made your feelings clear the last time we spoke. Did you forget something?”
At that he closed his eyes, briefly, blowing out a long sigh. “Baby, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Baby?” She shook her head. “You gave up the right to call me that when you thought I was kissing another man and when you calmly waltzed in to tell me you had a date with another woman.” She spat the words.
“I’m so sorry, Yas. If I could take back what I said, I would. God, baby, you have to know I didn’t mean that. Please,” he said.
She pulled away from him. “No. You can’t just say whatever the hell you want, ignore me, refuse to talk to me, and think you can just waltz back in my life and tell me you’re sorry and I forgive you?” She ended the last word on a question. “I don’t know why you’re here, but you can go back the way you came. I’m—”
“I love you, Yasmine. Please, baby, don’t send me away.”
She closed her eyes, fighting back the tears and anger that both warred for dominance.
“You hurt me, Holt.” She whispered the words.
She felt his hand on her shoulder, felt him pull her around, forcing her to look at him. The wealth of emotion she saw in his eyes before his mouth descended on hers forced a cry from her lips, even as he covered them with his own.
The kiss seemed to last an eternity. The minute their lips met, Yasmine’s body was on fire. She kissed him with all the yearning, anger and betrayal that she had been living with since the day he turned away from her.
He pulled her closer, lifting her in his arms. “Where’s your bedroom?” he asked, around her lips. “Please, baby, I’ve got to feel you, know that you’re still mine.”
She closed her eyes and nodded toward the living area. “One and same,” she said, barely able to get the words out.
He carried her to the large sofa sleeper that occupied the corner of the room. Before he laid her down on the soft cushions, he had her shirt up and over her head, her sweats along with her panties soon joining them on the floor.
Quickly divesting himself of his own clothing, he was hot, naked and hard, his body crushing hers into the cushions.
He devoured her lips, his tongue greedily reaching within her mouth and stroking along hers. Yasmine’s moans turned to a sharply indrawn breath when she felt the hand that had inserted itself between them reach the V of her legs and push past her entry, testing her readiness for him.
“I don’t know how long this is going to last, Yas. I’m so hungry for you … Baby, I missed you so much,” he said, his words muffled against the corner of her mouth. Yasmine cried out when his finger pressed farther inside. When he felt her essence cover his fingers, he groaned against the side of her neck.
She desperately clung to his mouth, her hands scoring his back as she pulled him tighter against her.
“It’s okay …” she panted. “I don’t need foreplay. Just love me, Holt.” He barked a throaty, purely masculine laugh.
Pushing away from her, he raised her hips to his, adjusting their bodies so that they were in perfect alignment. “Your wish—” he stopped, slowly pressing into her body “—is my—” he fed her another inch of himself “—command.” He pressed home.
“Ohhhhh.” Yasmine released her pent-up breath in one long whoosh of air as he gave her all of himself.
Her chest moved up and down harshly, and her tongue came out to wet her dry lips.
The room was in shadows, the only light coming from the kitchen. In the dim light, she saw his bright blue eyes clearly as he stared down at her. She felt the muscles in his forearms tremble slightly when she placed her hands on them, her nails scoring into his skin at the feel of his thickness invading her body.
It had been several weeks since they’d last made love, and she felt her walls contract and release on his shaft.
She held her body still, his thickness seeming to take up every bit of space inside her.
He closed his eyes, and sank his face into the curve of her neck. “Baby …” he groaned.
The steady tightening and releasing of her walls around his shaft made him grit his teeth, the strain of holding back and not just pushing into her silken warmth torturous.
Yet he didn’t move, waiting for her. For Yasmine, he’d wait an eternity if he had to.
“Are you okay?” he asked, and she nodded her head.
“I’m okay,” she panted, but still he waited, wanting to make sure she was ready for him. He licked his finger and ran it over her clit, moistening it even more as he slowly massaged the straining nub.
“Holt,” she moaned, dragging his name out as he pinched and massaged the tightening nub.
As impatient as he was to rock inside her tight, warm sheath, he wanted it to be good for her, as well.
He wanted to devour her, saturate himself in her essence and make love to her in ways that would force her to realize how much he cared about her.
How much he loved her.
The dawning realization that he loved her had hit him the moment he saw Clayton Moore kissing her.
It was at that moment, even as he knew she hadn’t been returning his kiss, overhearing the conversation and the deep-seated knowledge that she would never betray him like that, he’d felt a paralyzing fear.
Fear that she’d come to mean so much to him, and that she’d someday leave him.
He glanced down at her through a haze of love and lust at the same time as she wrapped her legs around his lean hips, anchoring her feet against the middle of his back, and arched into his embrace.
“God, Yasmine, I missed you,” he said roughly against her throat as he slowly began to glide inside her. He pulled away so that he could see her face as he made love to her.
He had to see her face. Had to let her see him, as he made love to her.
“I missed you, too, Holt,” she whispered back as he carefully rocked into her.
Slowly he made love to her. Took his time with her, placing careful kisses over her face, down her throat, before capturing one of her breasts within his mouth. He sucked hard on the distended nipple, making her cry out and arch her body up, meeting his downward stroke.
When she repeated the move, pushing her body upward just as he stroked down, he could no longer hold back. Grabbing her hips, he picked up the pace, his strokes becoming faster, more demanding.
“Holt, Holt … oh, oh, oh, ohhhhhh.” Her moaning litany became frantic cries as he felt her body trembling violently against his. “Baby … baby, I’m com—” she screamed, her mewling cries bouncing off the walls and reverberating around the room. He felt her hands on his back, scoring deeply, yet he continued to shift and thrust inside her body, not ready to give in to the release he felt ready to consume them both.
“I love you, Holt!” he heard her cry from a distance, behind the roaring in his ears.
“God, I love you!” He grasped her hips tightly, his fingers digging into the fleshy skin of her hips, and thrust deeply inside her. After one more, deep stroke, her walls clamped down on him, and unable to hold back, he gave in to his release, and together they reached the pinnacle in unison.
“Do you love me enough to marry me?”
Holt felt Yasmine’s body stiffen against him, the hands that had been feathering his arm that lay crosswise over her chest coming to a standstill.
She didn’t say anything for such a long time, he wondered if she’d heard him.
“I did,” she said softly. When she said nothing more, his heart fell to his gut.
“You may as well say yes, Yas,” he said softly.
Caught off guard, she turned to face him. “Oh, yeah? And why is that?”
“I told everybody that when I came back, I would be bringing my bride with me.”
“And what’s going to happen if you don’t?” she asked. Although it was dark and he could barely make out her features, Holt detected a lightness in her response, one that eased the tension, making him relax against her.
“Hmm…. maybe your aunt’s reaction when you tell her you’re pregnant?” he said, running a hand over her flat stomach, reminding her that they hadn’t used a condom.
From the sound of his voice, it didn’t seem as though he minded if she were pregnant.
She paused and glanced up at him. “I think we have a few things to talk about before we discuss you being my baby daddy … don’t you?” Yasmine quipped back, forcing a lightness to her voice she wasn’t feeling.
He wanted to marry her.
She was just getting over the fact that he’d come after her and that he loved her.
He sighed, again moving her so that her bottom was snug against his shaft.
“Yes, I guess we do.”
“Why do you do that?”
“What?” he asked, nuzzling the back of her head.
“Whenever we talk you move me so I can’t see your face. You did the same thing when we were in Sheridan.”
She felt his shrug. “It’s easier for me that way, I guess.”
She digested that while she waited for him to speak. “Yas, I owe you, you know.”
She frowned. “What for?”
“For forcing me to see who I was, who I’d allowed everyone to think I was.” He stopped. “By opening up to me, and not expecting anything in return.”
Yasmine closed her eyes, remembering how hard it had been not to shake him and make him open up to her. How hurt she’d felt after opening up to him, letting all her emotions show, and him not giving her anything back. How hurt she’d felt when he closed her out. The memory of what it felt like when she thought she meant nothing to him.
“You made me see myself, forced me to look at myself in ways that were damned uncomfortable,” he said, his voice low.
They were silent after that, each lost in their own thoughts, before Holt spoke.
“Everything isn’t a joke to me, Yas,” he said, reminding her of what she’d said to him in Sheridan. “It’s just that I’ve operated under the same M.O. for so long, hiding my feelings, keeping it all locked down, it became who I was. Someone afraid,” he said, the admission torn from him.
“Afraid of what?” she asked softly, her hand coming up to cover his.
He laughed, without humor. “Afraid to love, I guess. To get close enough to anyone to be that vulnerable.” He shook his head. “Afraid that if I did, they’d leave, eventually.”
“What about your father?” she asked. “Your brothers … Aunt Lilly. You love them.”
She felt his shrug against her back. “That’s a different kind of love. Family love. And they first showed me how to love. They showed me that I could trust someone enough to do that. That they wouldn’t leave me. Like my …” He stopped.
His mother.
Yasmine knew of Holt’s background from her aunt, knew that he’d come to the boys’ home after getting into trouble constantly at school. When the social workers were finally called in it was to see he was living in a beat-up group home, basically raising himself. The house was in shambles, and there was no sign of his mother.
“My mother left me when I was barely old enough to take care of myself. But even before she physically left, she wasn’t there mentally—half the time she was out at one of the local bars, the other half she was at home drunk. I got used to taking care of myself.”
“Is that how you ended up in the boys’ home?” she asked. Even though she already knew the answer, she wanted him to tell her. Wanted him to open up to her, wanted him to know that he could trust her, even with things that made him feel exposed.
“Yeah,” he said, sighing heavily. “And things didn’t change for me much there. I was still raising hell,” he said, and laughed lightly. “If Jed Wilde hadn’t taken me in, I don’t know where I would have been, what kind of man I would have turned into.” He stopped.
“Where did she go?” she asked softly, after a moment. “Your mother?”
“I don’t know. But it didn’t matter. At least that’s what I convinced myself, anyway. She said she was heading to California, but I’ve never heard from her since she dropped me off at the home. But that’s all in the past. I’m a big boy now,” he said.
“I’ll say,” she quipped, wiggling her butt against him, seeking to lighten his mood.
“Enough of that, woman, or we won’t get to finish this ‘talk’ you seem hell-bent on us having.”
Yasmine sobered. “I don’t want you to think you have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I—I don’t want to bring up things that make you unhappy, Holt.”
He turned her around to face him. “You haven’t and you don’t. I want to tell you. Because I love you.”
Yasmine smiled, blinking away the tears she felt burning her eyes. After a long kiss, he released her.
“I—I decided to pass on Clayton’s offer,” she said after the kiss ended.
Holt’s hands stilled on her back.
“About that…. baby, I’m sorry. I totally made a jackass of myself and I’m sorry. Please don’t pass up an opportunity like this because of me. You don’t have to. We’ll find a way—”
She placed a finger over his mouth and explained the idea that had taken root while she’d been on the ranch, and the producers’ immediate love for the idea.
He frowned.
“Did I have anything to do with that decision?”
She rolled her cheek against the finger running over her skin. “Maybe,” she said, and he leaned down to cap ture her lips. Once he released her, the worried look returned to his face.
“What’s this for?” she asked running her hand between his brows.
He captured her finger, pulling the small digit into his mouth, then slowly releasing it. “I was wrong to say what I did to you. You’ve got to know I’ve never regretted saying anything more than when I hurt you.”
He watched her dark, soulful eyes stare into his, the look in them uncertain, as though she didn’t fully believe what he was saying.
With a groan, he pulled her close, slanting his mouth over hers, kissing her with all the love he had for her, hoping that in action he could make up for what he’d done to her with his words. Finally, he released her.
Placing his palms over her face, he forced her to look at him. “And I promise you I will never give you a reason to doubt me, my love for you. And if you agree to marry me—” his words came to a stop, emotion clogging his deep voice “—I don’t have the words, Yas. Just please marry me, love me …” He stopped, and Yasmine drew in a deep breath.
“You complete me, Yasmine. All I’m asking is that you let me prove to you that I’m worthy of your love.
The last weeks without you have been pure hell. And I don’t want to live my life without you. I can’t breathe without you,” he finished in a voice so low, she barely picked up the words he said.
Along with the raw emotion she saw reflected in his light blue eyes, Yasmine saw love and honesty there, as well.
She loved this man with everything she had in her. Had loved him for as long as she could remember. The month she’d spent on the ranch had only sealed a fate that had been theirs all along.
Yasmine closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them, she reached for him and pulled him close, wrapping her arms tightly around him, tears slowly easing down her face.
He laughed, his voice husky, catching her before she tumbled them off the sofa. “I guess this means yes?” he asked, but despite the laugh, she heard his voice tremble. She bobbed her head up and down, unable to speak past the constriction in her throat.
With a loud “whoop!” of joy he tightened his hold on her, pulling away from her far enough to see her face.
“It’s about time you made an honest man of me … What took you so long?” he asked, and tugged her back down, slanting his mouth over hers, swallowing her startled laughter.