Page 59 of Take Me Away, Cowboy

She moaned with pleasure as he rose and found her collarbone, trailing his teeth and tongue along it until he reached the base of her neck. There, he sucked and kissed and used his hands to cup her butt, pulling her into his arms. She wrapped her legs around him as he buried himself in her neck. Paige marveled at his strength—one arm holding her in place and the other turning off the water and opening the shower door.

Owen carried her, dripping wet, to the bed where he laid her down on the comforter. Paige didn’t even care that she made a moisture-lined imprint of herself on the bed. She only wanted to add his figure on top of it.

She watched with muted pleasure as Owen walked back to the bathroom, his taut, tan skin beaded with moisture, covering muscles that seemed poised to ripple right off his body. He came back to her in less than three strides, again making her feel like the hunted. That is, until he delicately ran a towel over her body, taking his time and caressing each square inch of her skin with the soft fabric.

She’d never been so glad she splurged on the nicer towels two years ago when she’d been trying to woo and impress Paulo. In that moment, Paulo became a ghost to Paige, an idea more than a man who’d ever laid with her like this. Because he hadn’t, had he? He’d always made her feel used and unappreciated as he sprinted through each lovemaking session with more of a “get off” mentality than passion-filled romance.

Not that every time had to be the latter, but he hadn’t once made her the center of attention the way Owen did now. He’d spent not a moment looking in her eyes so she could see herself the way he saw her. Owen made her feel beautiful, even if only by proxy, herself reflected in his gaze.

Paulo’s memory evaporated as Owen finished towel-drying her body, standing before her, hard and erect.

“Come here,” she urged him. He only smiled and moved his gaze across her body so slowly she swore he used his hands because she could feel heat rise from each place he devoured with his eyes.

“In a minute,” he teased, his arms crossed over his muscled chest. She took the moment of pause to marvel at him with the same slow appreciation, her eyes moving down from his long, wavy gold-spun hair she couldn’t wait to wrap her fingers in, to his shoulders that looked like maybe he was Atlas, holding her world up. She paused at his chest, sprinkled with a finer, but similarly colored, blond hair that trailed down his stomach in a thin line she wanted to trace with her lips since it led right to his perfect shaft, standing at attention for her.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he leaned over her, caressing the barely visible bruises along her side, the physical reminder of how their last love-making session had gone.

“I’ll be gentle,” he promised her, his voice a whisper. Her breath stilled as a single fingertip moved up and over her breasts, tracing her nipples, turning them hard as diamonds for him.

“Please don’t be,” she said, pulling him on top of her. She’d waited so long for this. Her night—and life—were just getting started, so she intended to enjoy both to their fullest.

Owen growled, a noise that emanated from low in his throat and the dam finally broke open as Owen slid inside her. She was filled as much as she was drained, and for the next few hours, nothing changed.

Sometime in the late afternoon, Paige found herself awake, cocooned in Owen and the sheets to the point that she wondered if she’d have to wake him to get herself untangled. She needed water desperately, all of the moisture in her body given to Owen in some form or another. Their lovemaking had lasted most of the afternoon, Owen taking his time, making her crazy for and with him.

Not just her body, either. She’d never been so seen, inside and out, as she was with Owen, and even though she couldn’t be sure yet what her future held for work, she wanted him to be a part of it. The oddest part about that admission was that it didn’t worry her in the least to be falling for this man so unlike her typical choice in partners.

That’s what made him so appealing. That he was aman, a grown-up with his own life and his own career and interests that, though they didn’t align with hers, made him a complete person with or without her.

Paige walked gingerly to the sink. Though Owen had tried his hardest to be gentle with her, her ribs still cried out from the exertion after so long being benched and kept out of the game. It was so worth it though. Paige smiled as she headed back to bed, to Owen.

She stopped halfway there, though.

There, slid under the door like a covert operation, lay a manila envelope with her name on it. Curious, she picked it up, holding her side where it ached. Paige smiled when she saw her brother’s handwriting on the top, otherwise blank, page.

I’m sorry I doubted you. About either thing. I can’t fix the first (yet), but here’s something for the second. Go take on that wide world of yours, Paigey. It’s waiting for you. Love, Your Idiot Brother.

She laughed quietly, careful not to wake Owen who had sprawled out in her absence. Paige pulled herself back to the small stack of papers her brother had left her.

A glance told her they were applications for teaching hospitals not in the States. All of them a perfect fit for her. Where the hell had her brother found these? She looked guiltily at the bed, where Owen still lay, unmoving.

These were the jobs she’d wanted. They would let her practice, let her teach, let her travel. It looked like if she got started with any one of them, she could travel between the system of hospitals they had in various countries. She’d never have to come home again.

Now her breath struggled to regain control for a reason other than the man who lay not three feet from her.

She tucked the stack of applications under her daily calendar on her desk, hiding them for now until Owen left and she could look more closely at them.

She tiptoed back to her bed, feeling guilty that her thoughts migrated far from Owen, that even as she wrapped her arms around his warmth, she imagined boarding a plane again, the destination not as important as the leaving.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Question

Owen stretched hisarms as wide as they could go, finding the ability to do so in the California king bed both a comfort and a sadness. If he could move this freely, it meant Paige was no longer next to him. He lifted his head from the pillow, feeling the strain in his shoulders.

He’d been so intent on making sure none of his weight landed on Paige last night that his body ached like he’d gone blow-for-blow against a heavyweight. He groaned as he twisted his back, and it cracked in more than a few places.

Thoroughly exhausted by the exertion, he fell back against the mattress. He exhaled slowly, letting his mind wander to the night before and what it meant. For starters, he realized with something close to felicity that he hadn’t had a single bad dream, let alone a nightmare. To his recollection he hadn’t dreamt at all, but that was a blessing considering the violent images that usually ran rampant through his slumber.

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