Jill Shalvis - The Rancher’s Surrender

She met his gaze as he hunkered by the fireplace, match in hand. "It's a home," she said with some surprise. "A real one."

"Yes." He knew exactly what she meant, for their backgrounds weren't all that different. Neither of them had belonged before, had ever had a true home. The ranch house was his first, and it gave him one of his few good pleasures because it was warm and cozy and everything he imagined a real home should be.

"But…" Distress filled her expression. "I don't want to know this about you," she whispered, suddenly looking stone-cold sober. She wrapped her arms around herself, confused. "I don't want to know you're capable of this, that you can…"

He lit the kindling, then rose to his feet in one movement, suddenly restless. "You don't want to know I'm a real man with real needs like warmth and comfort and love and affection?" Anger was a slow, inexorable burn in the pit of his belly. "A man who maybe isn't just after your land, but maybe something much, much more important?"

"Yes, that," she agreed softly, backing up as he took a step toward her.

The fire crackled, the night outside the windows was complete. Inside was close and toasty and soothing. It absolutely terrified the woman in front of him in a way he understood better than anyone else would.

"You said we'd go slow," she whispered hoarsely as he came close.

"Yeah, well, I think I've just ran out of 'slow'." He tossed aside the matches and reached for her. "Face it, Zoe. You're not mad because I told your sisters we kissed. You're mad because you liked it, because you know you want more. But mostly you're mad because you know that those kisses meant more than just sexual tension-which, by the way, is running between us so hot I can no longer even function."

She swallowed and took another step away from him, her gaze glued to his lips, which made him instantly hard.

"Tell me, Zoe," he said quietly, stalking her in the living room, unable to handle her distance. "Tell me now, when you're staring at my mouth as if you could devour it, tell me, dammit, the truth. That those kisses meant more than anything, more than even your wildest dreams."

"I… I don't want them to."

"It's too late."

"No! Don't you understand?" she cried. "I can't give myself when I don't even know who that is!"

That stopped him. "You know who you are."

"No, I don't, I know nothing about myself. Nothing! Not what kind of place I came from. Not my heritage, my culture." Slowly she shook her head, staring off into space. "I don't know if my father ever held me. Hell, I don't even know if he knows I exist! It drives me crazy that I can't remember."

"You were only three," he said softly. "Just a baby, Zoe. It's not your fault."

She wanted to believe that. "I just wish I knew why my mother left me."

"You could try to find her," he suggested quietly.

"I've tried. Cade's working on it, but there's nothing. She's gone and I have no idea who I am."

He was shaking his head. "You decide who Zoe is, no one else can do that. It doesn't matter if you were born in the gutter, no one can take you away from you."

He was talking from experience, they both knew that.

"And then there's you," she whispered. "You make me feel things… things I don't want to feel. You want to know me, you want me to let you in…" She let out a pained laugh. "You want me to let you in when I can't find the door to open. I mean, I can't even tell you what my father's name was, Ty."

"Zoe." There was compassion in his voice and something that sounded very much like pity, which she couldn't take. She was going to break down right here in front of him if she so much as blinked.

"I'm sorry," he said so gently her eyes filled. She needed out. Now.

"I'm thirsty," she muttered, and dashed into the kitchen, swiping at her eyes.

When Ty followed her, he found her standing in front of his opened refrigerator.

"I need something to eat," she said with a hitched breath.

"I thought you were thirsty."

"Well, now I'm hungry."

He sighed. "I'll take you home."

"You… you want me to go?"

He looked at her, saw the fear and nerves, and cursed himself for pushing her. Cursed himself for caring so much.

"Fine. You won't talk, but you want food." He yanked a tub of ice cream out of the freezer and dropped it on the counter. Grabbing a can of whipped cream from the refrigerator, he shoved it at her. "Go for it."

Reflexively she took the can, clutched it to her chest. "I don't know what you want from me."

"I want…" What did he want from her? "Hell," he muttered.

"See?" she cried. "It's not that easy, is it?"

"Yes, it is," he decided. "I want you to open up and talk to me."

"No, you want me to tell you how I feel about you."

"That, too," he agreed.

"But- But you've never told me how you feel."

No, he had to agree, he hadn't.

"Tell me, Ty."

Without warning, his heart started pumping, because she was right, it wasn't nearly as easy to define as he'd thought. He stared at her, struggling. "Zoe-"

"Oh, forget it." Turning from him, she touched the container of ice cream. "I don't want to know how you feel, anyway."

A blatant lie, but one he was willing to let her have at the moment, because for some reason he was frightened, truly frightened. Big, bad, tough Ty Jackson, scared to death by this woman. "I want you," he said to her back. "There's more, but I'm not sure I'm ready for the rest."

"Convenient."

"Honest," he corrected her. "I won't ever hurt you with lies, Zoe."

"So you want me. That's not really that big of a secret, Ty."

"Neither is the fact you want me back."

She stiffened and clammed up, which infuriated him. "Eat," he said, opening the carton. "Go on. Keep pretending you're not the least bit affected by me, that you feel nothing-"

She whirled around. "At the moment, I don't have to pretend a thing!"

"You're so full of-"

She popped the top off the whipped cream and sprayed it in his mouth and on his face, muffling the rest of his sentence.

Cold stickiness clouded his brain so that for a moment he could only gape at her, he was so shocked. She was shocked, too, if her wide eyes were any indication. Slowly those eyes blinked, then ran over his face, stopping at the sight of the cream around his mouth. Ty licked his lips to speak and her eyes were riveted to the action.

Heat spiraled through him irrationally. He didn't stop to think about the wisdom of his actions, he simply reached for her, but she was quicker. Backing up a step, she aimed the can at him and looked comically fierce. "Don't take another step," she warned.

No way was she going to squirt him again, he thought, taking another step.

She shot him in the chest and stomach, layering whipped cream over his shirt.

"You're going to be very sorry for that," he promised, grabbing her, wrestling the can from her hand and, without qualm, using his superior strength to wrap a long arm around her, holding her immobile against his side. He held up the can with a nasty smile.

"Don't you dare," she choked, wriggling against him in a way that had his blood boiling.

"Never dare me, Zoe." With that he deliberately and slowly shot whipped cream over her, ignoring her struggles and squeals. Or maybe using them as an excuse to shoot lower, across her front. Her outer plaid shirt, unbuttoned, had come off her shoulders in the struggle, pinning her arms to her sides. All the more perfect, he thought diabolically. It took only a couple of more squirts to have her T-shirt plastered to her breasts, the firm curves perfectly outlined for his enjoyment.

Her nipples were hard and straining against the thin cotton, and his mouth watered. His body tightened and he held her still, staring down at the sight he'd created, wondering how in the hell he was supposed to let her go now.

"I'm going to scream," she gasped, but her eyes told him something entirely different.

"Yeah?" he whispered thickly. "Do it." Still holding her, he bent her back over his arm and put his mouth to her throat, sucking the gooey stuff from her skin in little love bites, waiting to see if she made good on her threat.

She didn't scream at all, but moaned and clutched at him. He trailed his tongue down, licking as he went, and Zoe went wild in his arms, leaving no doubt in his mind as to what she wanted. He dragged open-mouthed kisses down, down, then hovered over an aroused and waiting nipple.

She stopped breathing.

So did he.

He felt as though he were drowning in desire, needing her beyond all sanity. His tongue darted out and licked at her through her cotton T-shirt and she did scream then, arching up so that he could suck her breast into his mouth.

When she was without reason, Ty lifted his head, gazing down into her flushed, damp face. "This is where you belong, Zoe. In my arms. I'm going to prove it to you."

Her eyes cleared and flashed, her mouth opened, surely to claim otherwise, and he took full advantage, swallowing her angry words with his lips. He could taste the lingering brandy, and her own sweet breath. Could taste her desire, and the fear of that very thing. Could taste the confusion and remembered pain of her past, and that hurt he tasted touched him as nothing else could have.

Gentling the kiss, he drew her even closer, sank his fingers into her glorious, now-sticky hair and deepened their connection. She responded immediately, pressing against him with an urgency he understood all too well. This had been too long in the coming, too much tension, and he had no idea if he could slow down enough to do it right.

But then he slid his hips against hers and she stiffened in his arms, inexperienced and uncertain. There was just something about her, so wise and yet innocent, and it tugged at his soul.

And he knew in that moment that for her, he could slow down.

He could do anything.

"Zoe."

She looked at him from beneath slumberous green eyes. Their bodies were glued together by the whipped cream, belly to belly, chest to chest. He wanted to make love with her, but he wanted so much more. And even more shocking, he wanted her to want those things, too. "I want-"

"Kiss me again, Ty."

"But-"

"Dammit, you started this, now kiss me!"

Taking matters into her own hands, she wriggled her hands free, grabbed his ears and pulled his head down to hers.

The kiss was wild, and he was weak, losing himself in the woman holding him as if she'd never experienced anything like it before. As if he were all she could ever want.

A nice fantasy, but he wanted it to be a reality. His reality. "Zoe-"

"You talk too much," she murmured against his lips. "Make love to me instead. Please, Ty. Make love to me."

So much for him claiming this woman as his own. Zoe was doing that for him.

She reached for the hem of his sticky shirt. Pulled it over his head. Stared in wide wonder at his bared chest, letting out an appreciative breath that made him laugh shakily.

"You're so beautiful," she whispered.

He did the same, pulled off her shirt, and was equally awed. "Not like you." His voice was thick with need, and he was surprised he could speak at all. "I want you, Zoe. I want you skin to skin, beneath me. I want to hear you cry my name as I sink into you." Her eyes darkened to a forest green, her breath quickened. "I want you wild for me," he whispered. "Only me. Always only me."

Now fear flared in her again, mixing with her need, and he didn't care because this kind of fear he could assuage. Once again he drew her close, slipping his hands down her bare sides, his thumbs flirting with the curves of her breasts. "I want you to want me back, to give me everything you have. One hundred percent of you, the real you."

Even in a haze of desire, she understood every word, which only increased her fear. She had hurt him by holding back and he needed to know, in this one area at least, that she would give all. But she herself was just beginning to know the real Zoe. How could she share that woman? "Ty-"

His fingers played with the front clasp of her bra.

"Um… Ty?"

The clasp fell open.

"I…"

"What, sweetheart?" His hands found her bare breasts and every thought danced right out of her head.

She wanted skin to skin, too. She wanted to be beneath him. She wanted to go wild, right here, right now, because in Ty's arms she was everything she wanted to be. He could make her feel loving, warm, wonderful… a somebody. In his arms she was a passionate, hungry, beautiful woman, and she liked it.