Colt’s brow furrowed. He obviously was not following her.
“You know, offer gardening services? Strip club rules, look but don’t touch? You could make a mint.”
She couldn’t resist teasing him. She wanted to see him smile.
“Or maybe I’ll mow my damn yard naked and charge admission for the show.” He grinned darkly, as though the idea brought him a little too much joy.
Ophelia shook her head. “The logistics wouldn’t work. Too many people could watch from their windows for free. Maybe if you did it as a fundraiser. If they raise X amount of money, you do the yard work naked.”
“I’m sure the HOA would have something to say about that.”
“Yeah, but who do you think is on the HOA?” she said, chuckling. “But yeah, you’re probably right. Besides, you might cause a car wreck, and I’m sure that would end up in the HOA newsletter.”
He almost smiled again. “You have a point.”
After a moment, he collected the plates and headed inside. Ophelia stayed on the back patio, admiring the beds of flowers and the hardy maple trees that sheltered his decent-sized yard.
A squirrel scampered down one of the trees. In a burst of speed, Noah chased it right back up the trunk. Ophelia giggled and tucked her feet up in the large chair, feeling content for the first time in a long while. Right now there was nowhere she’d rather be. Her bruised heart felt healed in some small way, for the first time since her breakup. And she had a bearded Navy SEAL who didn’t like people to thank for it. What a strange thing life was.
Colt put the dishes into the dishwasher and watched Ophelia laugh as Noah chased some squirrels. His chest tightened unexpectedly. How many nights had he and Talia spent like this? A few, most of them nice, but he’d been too young, too foolish to sense her unhappiness. A quiet life in a small town had never been her plan. She had wanted him to stay in the service and to work his way up the ranks so she could be a high-powered military wife and travel the world with him. There was nothing wrong with that, but she had never really understood what it meant to be in the service, nor what it meant to be married to someone who was.
A spouse of a service member gave up a lot, starting with a normal life. He’d met many men and women who took their roles seriously, and their dedication to helping the others on military bases mattered a hell of a lot. But Talia had only wanted the fun and none of the sacrifices. Colt had not been the man destined to make her happy.
When he had talked to Ophelia about running away to a place like this, he’d wanted to warn her not to be like him. Yet as he watched her now, a peaceful smile on her face, he realized maybe he was wrong. Maybe she needed the sleepy town as much as he did.
Ophelia finally rose from her chair and came inside. “Can I help you put anything away?” She looked bone-tired, as she had in the grocery store.
“No, it’s all taken care of. You should get home and sleep.”
“Oh . . . okay.” He didn’t miss the note of disappointment in her voice and had to fight the urge to keep his distance. He followed her to the front door, where she turned to face him.
“Thank you for tonight. I hope you’ll think of me as a friend. I could sure use one in a new town.”
She looked so damn sweet, so vulnerable in that moment that all of Colt’s instincts just flew out the window. She turned, a hand resting on his doorknob, but he caught her other arm, gently spinning her around and pulling her toward him. She was so small and curvy. She fit right against him as he cupped the back of her head. His hand buried itself in her dark hair, which tumbled in loose waves down her shoulders. It felt like silk, and he groaned inside as it slid against his skin, tickling him.
She stared up at him with those doe-brown eyes of hers, framed by thick sooty lashes, her pale-pink lips parted. He knew he was a goner.
He lowered his head to hers, his blood pounding in his ears. Her lashes fluttered closed, and she melted in his arms in the most wonderful way. They were drawn together like a pair of stars circling each other as gravity pulled them in for a cosmic explosion.
Colt’s mouth covered hers in a gentle, searching kiss that Ophelia answered. Her hands clutched his shoulders and then slid up around his neck. A new urgency drove him as she opened her lips to his and he slipped his tongue inside, deepening the kiss. She tasted sweet, and she kissed so perfectly, a tender eagerness in her that made him feel like a teenager in the back of his dad’s old Buick, trying to get to first base.
She tasted innocent, but she wasn’t inexperienced. She met him kiss for kiss, leaving his body on fire with a growing hunger for more. He answered her with a savage intensity, drinking in as much of her as he could, his hands roaming over her, exploring her, the flare of her hips, the curve of her spine, and the feel of her shoulders and face as he touched her wherever he could.
A dreamy intimacy cloaked him as he made love to her mouth, showing her what he desperately wanted to do to her body. He wanted to spend hours with her in bed on Sunday mornings, kissing every inch of her after he’d given her such sweet pleasure that she would never want to leave.
He clutched her to him a moment longer before he heard Noah bark. Their mouths parted, the spell broken. He still held her hips, their bodies touching as they gazed at each other in shocked silence. Her lips were swollen and wet, and her eyes glowed with desire, but he could see she was coming back to her senses, like he was.
For a second neither of them moved or spoke. Then she blushed.
“Uh-oh . . .”
Uh-oh didn’t even begin to cover the trouble they were both in.
3
Last night had been a big mistake. She shouldn’t have let him kiss her. This move was supposed to give her time to breathe, to forget about guys and relationships and just let her focus on herself for a bit. Yet Ophelia kept replaying that kiss over and over in her mind. She had just asked him to be friends, and he’d pulled her into his arms and given her the most amazing kiss of her entire life. She hadn’t known a kiss could feel like that, like the beginning and end of the world all at the same time. Yet it had, and she couldn’t look at his house anymore without thinking about that kiss.
She forced her eyes away from the window and settled at her desk in the small room just off the dining room to begin her work. She logged in and spent the next few hours reviewing customer fashion profiles and matching their needs to a variety of potential items that could be packed and shipped off, along with a personal message to each customer. When it was five o’clock, she logged off and headed to the kitchen to figure out what to do with the rest of her Sunday.
The doorbell rang. Miranda was there at the door waiting, along with two other women.
“Miranda!”
“Hey, Ophelia. I brought two of the gals I mentioned yesterday. This is Eliza and Jennifer.”
Ophelia remembered. According to Miranda, they were two of the more interesting divorcées on the street. They seemed nice, but Ophelia sensed they would love to know every little detail that Ophelia could share about Colt, now that she was living next to him. But she wouldn’t talk about him, if she could help it. She was determined to have Colt as her friend, and would not betray his confidence. The last thing she would do was tell these women about how earth-shattering his kisses were.