“Do what right?”
“Well...if I start working at the ranch, I’ll be working with Marlene, so...”
“So.” She felt a twinge of pain, remembering the woman’s gorgeous eyes and wide smile.
“Yeah,” he finished weakly.
She tried to ignore the jealousy that stabbed through her. “You mean maybe you two would have a thing again?”
“What? No! I meant I’d be working with a woman I once dated.”
“I don’t know what you’re saying!” she cried out in exasperation.
“I just mean I wouldn’t want it to upset you. And if it would, maybe I shouldn’t work there.”
Charlie managed to beat the jealousy back entirely at those words. “Are you kidding? If I were going to get upset about all the women in your past, Walker, I never would’ve slept with you. You’ve had lovers. So have I, I promise. Even if this were more—”
“It is more,” he interrupted.
“More?” she repeated, certain he didn’t know what she’d meant.
“Yes. More than sex, damn it. More than nothing.” He rose on his elbow and met her eyes. “It is for me.”
“Walker...” What was he saying? Surely not that. Not this soon.
“We’re friends, Charlie. We always have been. I like you. I admire you. You make me laugh and think. And you turn me on so much, my fucking hands shake when I touch you. That might not be love, not yet, but it isn’t nothing, Charlie. Is it?”
She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. “Love?” she whispered.
“Maybe. Someday. Would that be so awful?”
“With you?” she asked.
Walker winced. “That’s what I was thinking, yes.”
Love. With Walker. That damn natural disaster was suddenly looming over her, changing the pressure in the air. Love. Just the possibility of it made her heart shake with fear.
But fear wasn’t the only feeling. Not at all. She’d always loved so many things about him, after all. That part was already real.
“Maybe I haven’t been the kind of guy you could count on, Charlie. Maybe that’s why you didn’t confide in me or ask me for help. But I will be that man. I swear it.”
She thought of the way she’d felt when she’d opened the door. When she’d seen him standing there. Relief had washed over her so suddenly that all the little twigs of bravery and strength she’d stacked up over the past year had been swept away. She’d been left standing there completely raw and crumbling. And Walker had scooped her right up. That had been all she’d needed to let go. His arms. The rumble of his voice telling her it was okay.
“I know I could ask you for anything, Walker,” she whispered. “It wasn’t like that. If...” She swallowed her fear and tried again. “If this was more, I’d be fine about Marlene. And anyone else in your past. I could deal with that. If...you loved me. Maybe.”
She hadn’t realized how tight his jaw had been until the tension left it.
“I mean, as long as I don’t have to hear anything about it. How amazing the sex was or—”
“No one is more amazing in bed than you, Charlie.”
That stopped her words on a laugh. “Ha! You and your flirting. You’re the worst.”
“You don’t believe me?” He flipped her over onto her back and loomed above her. Taking her hand, he drew it down and pressed it to his cock. It was already hard. “You drive me crazy. Everything about you. Everything,” he whispered as he closed the space between them and took her mouth.
God. She’d thought she’d never feel this again. She’d thought it was over, and now he was offering more. She kissed him eagerly, desperately, her hands digging into his shoulders so he wouldn’t change his mind and pull away.
“I’ve never loved anyone, Charlie,” he murmured, “and you’re the last woman I’d ever deserve.”