Christie Ridgway - The Love Shack

And she found she could. Even with a large, masculine presence standing so close. In her house.

“Do you have any wine?”

“You like wine?” she asked, dubious. “Aren’t you more a beer type of guy?”

“I like both.” He shrugged. “But the wine’s for you. You look as if you need a little something to settle you down.”

She couldn’t argue with that, so she led him farther into her home. Once they got to the kitchen, as she disposed of the lemon and washed her hands, he stowed his bag in the freezer. Then he rummaged around for glasses and found the three-quarters-full bottle of chilled sauvignon blanc in her refrigerator. Directing her to sit at one of the two stools pulled up to the breakfast bar, he placed a glass in front of her.

The one he held in his hand was clinked against the rim of hers. “If you deal in camels, ensure that your doorways are high.”

That shook her out of her bemused stupor. Blinking, she tilted her head. “What?”

“It’s an old Afghan proverb.”

“But what does it mean?”

“How the hell do I know?” He grinned, then nudged her wine closer to her hand. “Maybe something about making sure an ex stays out of your life.”

“I didn’t ask him to stay in it,” Skye protested.

“The lemon was a good touch. He didn’t look pleased about having a trip to the dry cleaner’s in his future.”

“He’s harmless.” Except that the confrontation had left her sick and shaking, because of the exaggerated fear she’d experienced for the past few months. Maybe she should have found some way to explain it to Dalton, but her violent dislike of a male touch humiliated her. Shamed her. Made her feel less than a woman.

“So, are we really having sea lettuce salad for dinner?”

She opened her mouth, about to tell Gage she’d been joking about the invitation at the tide pool. But why not let him stay? At least if Dalton took it in his mind to return again this evening, Gage would be available as bodyguard. “I have salmon steaks, too,” she said, “but we’ll need another lemon.”

The aftereffects of the unpleasant encounter with Dalton lasted through dinner. Gage didn’t seem to mind her quiet mood, however. Instead, he kept his distance and moved efficiently about her kitchen, doing his half of the work to throw together the meal.

Afterward, he ushered her into the living room and took one corner of the couch while she took the other. Another glass of wine was in each of their hands. “What did he want?” he asked, his voice casual.

“Can we not talk about him?”

“He’s got you twitchy.”

She didn’t want to tell him every male had her twitchy. “I don’t understand why he seems to want me so much more now that I broke it off.”

“He thinks you’re playing hard to get.”

“Whoa.” Irritation burned off the residual of the day’s disquiet. “Then I’m actually starting to dislike him. He should know me better than that. I’m not into games.”

“I’ll bet he is. That’s why he leaped to that conclusion.”

“Well.” Skye flounced on her cushion. “Now I don’t even feel a little bit bad for breaking up with him.”

Gage grinned. “That’s my girl.”

My girl. She felt herself flush, and then she found herself supremely aware that she was inside her house—door closed, drapes drawn—with the very thing she’d been avoiding all these months. A man, confident, big, oozing testosterone without any effort. Her heartbeat spiked high and that low-belly place clenched.

A strange expression flickered across Gage’s face; then he slowly reached for the remote control sitting on the table at his elbow. “Want to watch some TV?”

She swallowed. “As long as it’s not baseball,” she said.

He found a documentary about the Mayan civilization. Maybe it was the narrator’s deep, soothing voice. Maybe it was the fact that her sleep had been disturbed for months. But she found her lashes heavier than bags of sand and even as she told herself she could never drift off with a strange male in the house...she did.

She roused to a hand on her shoulder. Batting at it, she frowned, still mostly asleep. “Go away, Polly.”

A masculine chuckle tried to thread its way into her consciousness. “I’ll try not to be insulted by that.”

“Good,” she murmured, and turned her cheek in order to get more comfortable.

“You’re going to get a crick in your neck if I let you sleep here all night.”

Her fuzzy mind started to grow more alert. “You’re not Polly,” she said, still not opening her eyes.

“Not unless she’s been hiding her dick.”

Her lashes popped open and she glowered—albeit sleepily—at Gage. “That’s crude.”

“My middle name.” He had slid down the couch to where she was half-slumped against the arm.

She struggled to sit up and gather her wits. “I wouldn’t think you’d admit to that.”

“I don’t play games, either. I don’t try to conceal who I am. You know that from my letters.”

This close, she could smell his scent. It was clean yet mysterious, with a spicy, foreign note. “I feel sure there are some hidden pockets to your soul.”

“That’s exactly where I keep the crude.”

She couldn’t help smiling at him. “You think you’re funny.”

“Hey, I’ve spent a lot of time alone. If I can’t make myself laugh, I’m in trouble.”

Skye frowned. That had never occurred to her...that when he was out on assignment in wild and dangerous places he didn’t always have a support group around him. “Don’t you get lonely?”

Gage seemed to ponder that a moment. “I think I will.”

He will? What did that mean? She opened her mouth to ask, but he beat her to the next question. “Ice cream?” he asked. “That’s what I put in the freezer. Or should I let myself out so you can go to bed?”

She didn’t want him to leave just yet, she realized. “Ice cream.”

He exited to the kitchen, then returned to the living room with a bowl of her favorite flavor. “Rocky road, right? Man, you got my taste buds screaming for relief when you wrote me about your new favorite shop in Newport.”

“This is from Icy Delights?” Eager, she stretched for the bowl.

Dropping down beside her, he held it out of reach. “You need to run your dishwasher. Only one clean bowl was left, so we have to share.” Scooping up a spoonful, he held it to her mouth.

She opened, took it in, making sure to run her tongue over the utensil to lap up every bit of the delicious treat. “Mmm.” Her eyes closed in ecstatic appreciation.

Gage made a low sound. She looked at him, and the heated blue of his eyes staring at her over the bowl was enough to turn the frozen dessert into sugary soup. Skye felt her blood take on the high temperature as it zipped through her system, smoking nerve endings along the way.

He was so big, she thought. Long limbs, wide shoulders, large feet and hands. Under the tanned skin of his arms, she could see the flex of muscle and the pull of tendons. There was a dive watch strapped on one wrist, and the complex piece of technology only served to make her more aware of the primal masculinity of him.

Her breath stalled in her lungs.

That around-men anxiety was back with a vengeance. She should be used to the panic by now, she thought. Except with Gage it was somehow different. Now the fear made her skin flush and feel too tight on her bones. The sizzle in her system, the breathlessness, the edginess of her mood were a totally separate kind of alarm.

As her heartbeat raced, that place low in her belly tightened. She felt a small rush of moisture between her thighs.

And that’s when she realized her response to Gage wasn’t her usual apprehension at all. This reaction of her body didn’t signal anxiety—it had just been so long since she’d experienced it she hadn’t immediately recognized what it truly was.