Page 48 of The Contractor & the Entrepreneur

“Short …. distances,” he gasped out.

She laughed and slid on a patch of mud. Flinging forward, she rolled and came to a stop on her side in the wet grass.

“Sloan!” Rhett turned back and dropped down to the grass next to her on his knees. “You all right?”

She inventoried her body. Nothing hurt too bad. “Fine. Just humiliated. How many times do I have to fall in the mud around you?”

He chuckled and helped her up to a seated position, his arms wrapped around her. “This is just wet grass. Nothing like the mud of our construction site.”

“True.” She studied his handsome face, those blue eyes. Things hadn’t ended well last night. Should she apologize, take Kathy’s advice and ‘go for him’, or put on her brave façade and distance herself again? She’d agreed to breakfast, but here they were, his arms around her. She feared she stunk, but the fresh morning air and the scent of pine trees overshadowed any other smells.

“Sloan.” He whispered her name, his gaze trailing to her mouth then back up. He slid around to a seated position from his knees, lifted her onto his lap, and cradled her close to his chest.

Sloan couldn’t swallow past the dryness in her throat. Her pulse raced and she longed to feel his lips mesh with hers again.

The rays of the sun burst over the mountain to the east. Her eyes widened and she blinked from the brightness of the sun’s glory to the beauty of Rhett’s face. “The sun,” she whispered. “It’s like a sign from heaven above.”

“That we’re meant to be together,” he confirmed.

He didn’t give her a chance to refute his words but bent down as he urged her closer. Their lips met and the sun’s rays were secondary to the light bursting from their union.

Sloan had kissed boys and men, but she’d never experienced a kiss to equal Rhett’s.

They kissed with unrestrained joy and passion as the sun rose on a gorgeous spring day in Montana.

Rhett, the sun, and Rhett’s incredible lips lit her up with a joy she’d only dreamed of finding in her life.

Maybe she was his missing piece. She was certain he was hers.

Letting down her guard was terrifying, but with Rhett … it would be worth it.

Chapter

Nineteen

Rhett hummedas he scrambled eggs, flipped pancakes, and turned sausage. He and Sloan had kissed for a long while in the wet grass with the sunrise beaming down on them.

He’d loved every second of it. She was back in his arms, and she occupied every bit of his heart. Was he in her heart? He could hope. He’d walked her home and given her a tender kiss goodbye. Things were tentatively incredible between them. Would they flip the other direction again? He hoped not.

It was almost seven when he heard a rap on the door. She’d insisted she’d walk down for breakfast. He’d wanted to go escort her, but he could tell when she needed to show her independence. Walking from two houses away wasn’t a battle he was getting into.

He hurried to the front door and yanked it open. Sloan was dressed in a T-shirt, jeans, boots, and a flannel jacket.

“You are looking like the most gorgeous construction worker on the planet,” he told her.

She smiled and tucked a long dark curl behind her ear. “And you’re looking like the toughest.” She trailed her fingertips across the muscles on his chest and made his pulse spike.Smiling, she read his T-shirt. “Every construction worker when you drive past a project they worked on … See that! I built that!” She chuckled. “I can relate to that one.”

He captured her hand in his and drew it to his lips. He’d never kissed a woman’s hand before. It was somehow a captivating move. Especially as her breath shortened.

He tugged her in closer and bent to kiss her.

The world stopped moving as their mouths melded together. He wrapped her up in his arms and kissed her, the longing for her to be his was expressed in this incredible kiss.

Suddenly she tugged back. “Is something burning?”

“Oh, shoot.” Rhett ran from the foyer back into the kitchen. Thankfully it was just the pancakes that were blackened. He flipped the burnt ones into the garbage, turned off the eggs, rolled the sausage, and poured on a new batch of pancakes. Turning to Sloan, who had followed him into the kitchen, he winked. “Shall we ruin another batch of pancakes?”

She grinned, but she didn’t rush into his arms. “You can’t just kiss me every other second.” Her voice was playful, but was there something lurking beneath the surface?

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