“You off work, honey?” Miranda asked.
“I just finished for the day. What’s up?”
“We ladies have an unofficial Sunday-night drink club. We would love for you to join us.”
Drinks did sound nice right about now.
“I’d like that.” She followed the ladies across the street to Jennifer’s home. There was a long porch in the front of the house with cozy hanging benches and brightly covered deck chairs facing the street. Ophelia chose a chair and accepted a glass of white wine from Eliza.
“So, you settling in okay?” Miranda asked once everyone had drinks and was comfortably seated.
“Yes, I unpacked most of my stuff yesterday.”
Eliza leaned forward, smiling deviously. “Okay, let’s get to the good stuff, girls. Ophelia, we know you went over to Colt’s last night. Dish, girl. It’s a part of our Sunday-night ladies’ code.”
“How did you—?”
“I saw you,” Jennifer said. “My kitchen window faces the street.”
Oh boy . . .
“It’s not what you think. I ran into Colt at the store, and he helped me after I tripped and fell.”
Eliza nodded. “The tuna incident? Yeah, we heard.”
“You heard?” Ophelia didn’t know whether she should laugh or shake her head.
Jennifer waved a hand. “Small town. Word travels, honey. Continue.”
“Anyway, I was exhausted, and he offered to cook me dinner since he was already grilling.”
“Wait, he offered to cook dinner? Or was he like, ‘I’ll just throw a steak on the grill’?” Miranda asked.
“Definitely the latter.”
Eliza sighed in disappointment. “Shame. I thought for sure we’d found someone he would like.”
“What?” Ophelia prayed to God these women weren’t trying to play matchmaker with Colt . . . or her.
“He’s our brooding resident bachelor. It’s fun to see if we can catch his attention with someone,” Jennifer explained. “When he first moved in, I mowed my lawn in my bikini for two months just to see what he would do. I had the best tan that year, but he never gave me the time of day.”
Ophelia was surprised by that. Even entering their forties, both Eliza and Jennifer were gorgeous women in their own right, and they were way more confident about themselves than she was. If Colt hadn’t looked at them twice, she didn’t stand a chance.
Then what about that kiss?
That might have just been a one-time thing. Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was just an opportunity he took but instantly regretted. The thoughts made her heart sink.
“We thought he might be looking for someone, you know, a little younger. Ever since Miranda described you, we’ve all been dying to see what Colt will do.”
As if on cue, Colt’s front door opened and he stepped outside, Noah on his heels, leashed and clearly excited.
“It’s five thirty, girls. Here we go.” Miranda leaned back in her place on the swinging bench and sipped her wine.
“What happens at five thirty?” Ophelia asked in a whisper.
“Colt goes running with his dog. Every night at this time.”
They all turned to watch him head in their direction as he walked down the sidewalk toward the street. He wore basketball shorts and a tank top that showed off his perfectly toned arms. He didn’t even glance their way as he started to jog, his dog keeping pace.
“It’s got to be the military lifestyle. He rarely misses a run.” Miranda kicked her legs against the porch floor to make her bench swing a little.
“So back to this dinner,” Eliza prompted. “What’s his house like inside?”
“Normal?” Ophelia wasn’t sure what these women expected. “A bit masculine, for sure, but it’s cozy and nice. His backyard is lovely. He really has a talent for gardening.”
“No kinky sex dungeon?” Jennifer asked. Eliza smacked her arm.
“What? No. I mean, I don’t know. I only saw the living room, kitchen, and backyard.”
“Ah, thank goodness, that leaves the basement. I was having the best fantasies of him in one of those sex rooms with toys and stuff. Fifty Shades style.”
Eliza snorted. “You would. If he and I were together, we wouldn’t need toys.”
Ophelia watched Eliza and Jennifer trade barbs. Miranda rolled her eyes with an indulgent smile and continued to drink her wine.
The conversation soon turned to other topics—children, ex-husbands, the latest local scandals of who was building some god-awful shed or who was not keeping their lawns up to code. Ophelia sipped her wine and gazed at Colt’s house, unable to avoid thinking about him and his bedroom and his imaginary sex dungeon and all the things that might happen there. She shouldn’t fantasize about him, she really shouldn’t, but it was hard not to with the images the ladies had put into her head.
Ophelia didn’t know what he would be like in bed, not from that one kiss, but she could imagine. The kiss had started soft and insistent, but he’d deepened it and his hands . . . they had been everywhere. Possessive, cupping and stroking in an almost dominant way but not quite. Would he be the kind of man who wanted to tie her up and fuck her hard? Or would he be slow and sweet, taking his time to draw out an endless orgasm? The only thing she was sure of after that one kiss was that he would devastate her.
After her breakup with Jack, she wasn’t sure she wanted a man to have that kind of power over her again. And she hadn’t even been wildly in love with Jack. They had enjoyed being together, but it was more like companionship than love. And yet being dumped by him had hurt so much. The idea of liking a man even more than that? Of loving someone and getting her heart broken? That was the last thing she needed. Colt would have to devastate her only in her deepest, darkest fantasies.
Colt was determined to be on his best behavior. He had made it a full two months now without kissing Ophelia since she had moved in. Everything felt almost normal.
Almost.
He’d gotten into the habit of taking walks in the morning with Noah, and one morning Ophelia had just sort of joined him. Now they’d been meeting up to walk every day since. Then it had seemed only natural that he’d come over to her house a few times a week to help weed her front flower beds. He’d also carried bags of mulch for her, since she was so damn small.
They’d had drinks at her place more than once, and he’d found himself talking about his past, his parents, the rough times he’d had as a teen, and how he’d ended up in the navy.
In turn, she’d told him all about her life back in Portland and how she’d gotten burned out working for a fancy fashion designer who’d yelled at everyone all the time. Colt had never laughed so hard as when she told stories about the fashion industry and all the crazy personalities involved.
They really had become friends, just as Ophelia had told him she’d wanted. Colt, to his own surprise, didn’t mind that at all. In fact, it gave him an incentive to get up in the mornings. Noah was crazy about Ophelia and had apparently decided that his training to stay in place or heel did not apply whenever Ophelia was in sight. Colt wasn’t mad—he could understand the dog’s desire to bound up to her and lick her. Hell, he had the same desire to run up and grab her and kiss her senseless. He had done nothing since the night of the kiss two months ago but fantasize about Ophelia naked and making love to her until she cried out in exhausted pleasure.