CHAPTER 20

Gina caught her breath. “Who’s that?”

She didn’t recognize the shape of whoever hovered in the hall, and she should. Why wouldn’t she immediately recognize the outline of every person in the house? There weren’t all that many.

She wanted to step away from the hovering shadow, but trapped in her room, she had nowhere to go. Instead, she made herself move forward, and as she did, the shadow solidified into—

“Jase.” She let out her breath in a relieved rush, then immediately drew it in again. “Is something wrong?”

He stepped from the darkness and into the silvery light. “I don’t know; is there?”

Gina frowned, annoyed. “I don’t have time for games.” She made to step past him, and he grabbed her elbow.

She glanced at his hand, then into his face. He appeared as annoyed as she. But why?

“What happened?” She tugged on her arm. He didn’t let go; instead he urged her farther into the room.

A prickle of unease washed over Gina, which she quickly quashed. This was Jase. She’d known him all her life. He would never hurt her, though right now … She shifted her shoulder; his grip wasn’t exactly pleasant.

“What did happen?” he murmured, his dark eyes appearing even darker in the hazy gleam of the falling moon. “We were happy here.”

“Happy?” she repeated. “I guess.”

They’d been on the verge of bankruptcy. Working like mules. But, sure, they’d had some good times.

“Then he came and ruined it all.”

“Teo?”

Jase’s lip curled, and he let her go with a little shove. “‘Teo’?” he mocked. “You mean ‘Dr. Moldy.’”

“I mean Teo. He saved us, Jase.”

“Saved?” Jase laughed, but it wasn’t his laugh, the one that made her laugh, too. This laugh was bitter and kind of mean. Not Jase’s laugh at all. “How fast things changed once you let him fuck you.”

“Bite me.” She started for the door again. Jase stepped in her way.

“Did he bite you? Did you like it?”

Gina’s hand curled into a fist. She very much wanted to sock Jase in the gut. Unfortunately, from previous experience she knew that his gut was rock hard and she’d only hurt her hand.

“Move your ass,” she said quietly.

“Or what?”

“I’ll call your mother. She’s down the hall.”

Fanny might appear mild mannered and sweet, but she could get downright nasty if Jase needed her to be. Right now, Gina thought he might need her to be.

Jase stepped back, but he didn’t clear the path to the door. “We were going to get married,” he said, and his voice sounded broken.

“Who?” Gina blurted before her mind caught up to her mouth. “Us? Jase.” She shook her head, took his hand. His was so cold she rubbed it between hers. “No. We weren’t.”

“If he’d never come—”

“It wouldn’t have mattered. I don’t love you that way.”

“You would have eventually. We’d have gotten married, and raised our kids here, and everything would have been perfect.”

Everything wouldn’t have been perfect because the ranch would have been sold out from under them if not for Teo. But bringing that up again … probably not the best idea.

Teo had told her that Jase wanted to be more than a brother to her, that he’d warned other men away, and she hadn’t believed him. Jase had always been her friend—her best friend, her only friend. But marrying him? Sleeping with him? Gina stifled a shudder.

“Jase.” She squeezed his hand between hers until he looked into her face. “That was never going to happen.”

His lips tightened; his eyes cooled. “It would have. You love me.”

“Like a brother.”

He yanked free. “I am not your brother!”

Before she could figure out what to do, what to say next, he grabbed her by the shoulders and he kissed her.

As kisses went, it was pretty bad. Too hard, too desperate. Way too much tongue.

She remained passive, hoping he’d catch a clue. But when his hands began to wander below her neck she stomped on his foot.

“Hey!” At least he stopped kissing, and pawing, her. “What was that for?”

“Don’t ever do that again,” she said. “It was … ucky.”

“Ucky? I thought it was hot.”

Gina couldn’t help it; she lowered her gaze to his jeans, then immediately yanked it back up. He had thought it was hot.

Now she was beyond grossed out.

“Not hot. Not cool, Jase. Get it through your head—I will never love you that way. I will never marry you. I will definitely never, ever, sleep with you. And if you keep pushing it, you’re going to have to leave.”

“We’re partners.”

“In name only. You don’t own this place, and you don’t own me.”

His face darkened; his mouth twisted. “Is that what happened? Mecate bought you along with our ranch? There’s a word for that, Gina.”

Gina sighed. Jase was upset. He wasn’t himself. She wasn’t going to hold what he said now against him.

Much.

“We’ve got bigger problems than this, Jase. Don’t tell me you left the window unguarded to come up here and—” Her lip curled; she couldn’t help it. “Kiss me.”

She wanted to wipe her hand across her lips; she wanted to jump in the shower and wash off the slurpy feeling his touch had left all over her skin. “You need to go downstairs.”

“I don’t take orders from you. I’m just an employee, so I guess I take orders from—”

“Me.”

Both of them turned as Teo stepped into the room.

*   *   *

From the paleness of Gina’s face, more had gone on here than an argument about who was the boss of whom. Which was all that Matt had heard upon arrival. But he hadn’t liked the tone of McCord’s voice, one he’d never heard the man direct at Gina before.

“Go downstairs,” Matt ordered, but his gaze remained locked on Gina’s. Physically she seemed all right, but her eyes … Matt didn’t like the sadness that lurked there. A sadness that had been caused by her best friend in the world.

The best friend had to go. If necessary, Matt would make him. Matt thought he might enjoy it.

For an instant, McCord hesitated, and Matt thought, Please take a swing at me. Just one. Then the man cursed and stomped out the door. Matt reached over and shut it behind him, flicking the lock for good measure.

Gina stared at the closed door, confusion pushing the sadness from her eyes. “That was so unlike him.”

Matt crossed the room, setting his hands on her shoulders, frowning when she tensed. “What did he do?”

She stepped out of Matt’s reach, and his frown intensified. He didn’t like this at all. “If he hurt you—”

“No,” she said, but she rubbed at her arms as if she were freezing. “I think I hurt him.”

“He looked fine to me.”

Her lips curved, but she was still so sad. “All he wants is for me to love him, Teo, and I can’t, because—” She broke off, biting her lip, then turning to stare through the window at the setting moon. “It’ll be dawn soon.”

“Why can’t you love him, Gina?”

“I do love him,” she insisted, and Matt’s heart stuttered. He’d been hoping— “But not the way he needs me to. When he kissed me, I—”

“He kissed you?” Fury blasted through Matt, stronger and sharper than any he’d ever known. She was his. She always would be.

“Yeah,” she said, and faced him. “It was awful.”

“Really?” He lifted a brow. “Why’s that?”

“Because he wasn’t you.”

This time when Matt reached for her, she came into his arms, burrowing against his chest with a sigh.

“I know we’ve got problems—big, toothy, deadly problems—and I want to hear what you found out from whoever Isaac called. But right now…” She leaned back. “Kiss me. Touch me. Make me forget that I probably just lost Jase forever.”

Matt didn’t think McCord would be so foolish as to throw away any part of Gina he could get—her friendship was better than nothing—but he also hadn’t thought the man would be so stupid as to force a kiss on her.

Matt had to agree. That wasn’t like McCord. Of course everyone snapped eventually. And if Matt had been in love with Gina and she hadn’t loved him back …

Matt set his hand against her cheek. He was in love with Gina. The thought of her kissing McCord made him crazy. The sadness in her eyes made him want to move heaven and earth to erase it.

Matt framed her face with his palms and lowered his lips to hers.

Her taste was woman and warmth; her mouth opened, welcoming him in. She lifted her arms, tangling her fingers in his hair, pressing her unbound breasts to his chest. He went hard instantly.

Memories flickered. The two of them in the tent, their first time, which had been more about lust than love. However, those memories enhanced; they didn’t distract. Because of them he knew that scraping his thumb just so, along the lip of her collarbone, would make her breath catch.

When he palmed her hips he remembered how he’d palmed them that night as he’d slid into her, filling her, stretching her, making her come. She’d been so tight, so hot.

Hell. If he didn’t stop thinking about that night, her on her knees, her breasts swaying, her—

Matt cursed and lifted his mouth before he lost control and tossed her onto the bed, tore off her clothes, and did her exactly the same way all over again.

“Shh,” she whispered, mouth searching for more, hands in his hair insistent, bringing his lips gradually, achingly, back to hers.

“Gina,” he protested. “I want to be slow, gentle. I want you to know how I feel.”

“I already know how you feel.” She cupped him through his pants—when had one of her hands left his hair?—then ran a fingernail along his sac. He thought he might faint or, at the least, disgrace himself right then and there.

He grabbed her wrist, meaning to pull her away, but when she licked the line of his lips with just the tip of her tongue he had a change of heart. Instead, he laid his hand over hers and pulled it closer. There was something strangely erotic about using her hand to touch himself. From the curve of her mouth and the enthusiasm of the continued touching, she agreed.

His dreams of slow and gentle evaporated. He wasn’t going to last that long.

As if she could read his mind, she removed her hand and stepped back. “They’ll be looking for us soon.”

She was right. Matt was surprised McCord hadn’t started pounding on the door already, or at least sent his mother to do it. He ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah. We should stop.”

“Stop?” Gina, whose fingers had just gone to the hem of her T-shirt, laughed. “I meant we should hurry.”

Matt hesitated. Despite the call of his body to do just that, he didn’t want to hurry. He wasn’t going to. People could pound on the door all they wanted, but this time he was going to make love to Gina the way he’d never made love to anyone before.

As if he meant it. Because he loved her and he believed that she loved him. In this strange, uncertain world they’d tumbled into, love might be the one thing they had to hold on to.

He put his hands over hers. She glanced up, a question in her dark eyes. “Let me.”

She smiled and lifted her arms.

He undressed her as if they had hours, touching and kissing, loving every inch as it was revealed. Within minutes, she’d forgotten about hurrying. He kind of thought she’d forgotten about everything.

Except them.

He herded her to the bed, and when her knees hit the mattress all it took was a little push for her to fall. Her laughter caused his belly to flutter. She had forgotten all that waited outside this room. Now he needed to. He doubted it would be much of a problem.

As Matt bent to tug the sweatpants from her hips, he paused. “Someday I’d like to see you in your boots.” He lifted his gaze. “And nothing else.”

“Someday,” she agreed, then put a fuzzy stocking–covered foot to the middle of his chest and shoved. “You’re such a guy.”

“Guilty.” He tossed the sweatpants aside.

“I’m glad,” she said.

“That I’m guilty?” He quickly divested her of her socks and panties, as well.

“That you’re a guy.” She dropped her now-bare foot to the part that made him a guy, and he gulped. “Lose the clothes, Professor.”

With her leaning back on the bed, completely naked, her hair tumbling over her shoulders and caressing her breasts as he wanted to, he needed no further encouragement. He lost the clothes, set his glasses on the nightstand, then covered her body with his.

He spent a good long while just kissing her, enjoying the slide of skin along skin, thigh to thigh, chest to breast—even her feet felt good against his.

He could have gone on kissing her, learning the contours of her mouth with his tongue, for hours, except she began to squirm and the friction, the pressure, made him hiss in a breath and set his forehead to hers.

“Teo.” She licked his collarbone, and he gritted his teeth. Was she trying to kill him?

“You smell like oranges, but you taste like…” She paused, and then she licked him again.

He was done for. He couldn’t wait. He forgot all about gentle. Instead, he lifted his hips and he plunged.

Her breath caught; he was terrified he’d hurt her. He began to withdraw, but her nails dug into his shoulders even as her heels dug into his thighs.

He opened his eyes. Hers were right there—dark and fierce, stark with need.

“Don’t. You. Dare,” she said between her teeth.

He managed not to orgasm—barely. She was both gloriously tight and unbelievably wet. He slid in with ease, but when he slid out she clenched around him, causing him to mutter expletives in three different languages. Her lips curved as if he’d whispered endearments.

He needed to concentrate if he wanted to keep from exploding, so he began to close his eyes. If he looked at her dark hair spread across the creamy sheets, her lips swollen from his, her eyes begging him to do her, do her hard, there was no way he’d last another minute.

Then she murmured, “No, Teo, don’t,” and he froze, uncertain.

“Don’t close your eyes. Look at me. See me.”

“Gina,” he whispered. “All I ever see is you.”

*   *   *

All I ever see is you.

The words hung between them, beautiful and infinitely sweet. Gina’s throat closed; she wasn’t sure she could speak.

She was poised on the rim of orgasm, and if the quiver in his arms, his belly, the part of him buried deep within, was any indication, so was he.

She rocked her hips, hoping to send them over the edge, and while the slow slip and slide was magnificent, they both seemed to be waiting for something more.

Gina touched his face. She reached up to kiss him, and the words tumbled out: “I love you.”

He didn’t answer, merely tilted his head and waited for her to come to terms with it—either take the statement back as a mistake, uttered in the heat of the strongest passion she’d ever known, or admit it was a truth she’d kept locked in her heart.

“I do love you,” she repeated with some amazement. “I wasn’t sure.”

“I was.” He thrust once. She couldn’t breathe. “I am.” A second time. His gaze bored into hers. “I always…” Three. “Always.” Four. “Will be.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Always.”

Those declarations were what had been missing. The next instant they were coming together, falling apart, holding on as the storm washed over them and then away.

His head fell forward until it rested against hers, his hair shrouding them both from the dying rays of the moon. She ran her hand over his back, let her palm rest at the base of his spine, enjoying the sensation of his still being inside of her.

“Don’t move,” she whispered.

“I can’t,” he returned, and their laughter mingled along with their breath.

They had one more instant of peace, and then, somewhere in the house, someone screamed.