Page 33 of Spark
More importantly, he had to beat Chris to the punch and win Sophie for his mate.
Matt wasn’t sure how he was going to do that exactly, but he had to figure out a way.
* * *
Grizzly Creek Ranch
The next morning
After a sleepless night spent thinking about Chris and his amazing kisses, Sophie stayed in bed until Athena left for her summer school session and her parents both headed over to Ash’s house for a business meeting.
Even after all these years of steadily increasing success in the gaming industry, Ash still ran Grizzly Creek Games out of his home, with most of his employees working remotely from their homes or from rented offices located all over the world.
Once she was sure that the house was empty and that no one would be there to ask her uncomfortable questions about her outing to Cougar Lake Ranch last night, Sophie got up, took a shower, and made herself a strong pot of coffee.
She was going to need it if she planned to get any work done today.
Once the pot was done, she filled a mug, added milk, grabbed her tablet and went out onto the covered porch. It was a beautiful summer morning, with the sun shining on the ranch’s velvety-green pastures and the snow-covered peaks of Bearpaw Ridge looked like they were just a short walk away.
Sophie settled herself into one of the comfortable wooden rocking chairs on the porch, and turned on her tablet.
She brought up the first of the old newspaper articles that she had saved to her cloud account.
But her thoughts kept drifting to last night, and whether she’d made a huge mistake.
For a bunch of good reasons, she probably shouldn’t have kissed Chris, but she was having real trouble regretting it.
He had made her very first kiss a memorable one.
Even now, she could feel the firm, warm pressure of his lips against hers, and the faint rough sensation from his stubble. It had been a fabulous experience in every way, and her body had definitely agreed.
She was so turned on by the whole experience that she’d been happy to find the house darkened and everyone already in bed by the time she got in last night. She’d locked her bedroom door, then made a beeline for her underwear drawer, where she’d stashed the vibrator she’d bought on an uncharacteristically-adventurous outing with her college roommates to a sex toy shop, adjacent to campus.
Remembering how Chris had touched her breasts made her come almost immediately. Amazingly, after that she was still turned on, so she imagined what it might feel like to have him between her legs instead of the toy. And then she came again. And again.
If just thinking about having sex with him gave me more climaxes in a row than I’ve ever had, then what would it be like to do it for real?
In the cold light of day, she decided that she shouldn’t let her hormones do the thinking for her.
She ruthlessly suppressed a stab of disappointment at her decision and told herself firmly:Not kissing Chris again—or doing anything else with him-- is the only sensible course of action here. Things could get really messy and really weird, especially if Matt finds out that we’re hooking up.
As if one kiss even counted as a "hookup," she reminded herself.Don’t get carried away. One goodnight kiss doesn't mean anything, and it certainly doesn't mean that Chris is interested in more.
Even after hashing it over and over last night, she still couldn’t figure out why Chris had kissed her. Was it some kind of friends-plus thing? Or was he suddenly interested in her as a not-friend girlfriend?
Maybe he just kissed me because I was giving off desperate vibes and he felt sorry for me.It wouldn’t be the first time.
She forced her thoughts away from bitter memories of Hunter and her stupid crush on him.
Yeah, messy. See?
Then she heard Matt call her name.
She looked up from her tablet and saw him driving one of the ranch’s big white pickup trucks. The window was rolled down, and he smiled and waved at her as he passed the house.
She waved back at him, with a weird pang of guilt and immediately wondered why she was feeling guilty. In all the years that they’d known each other, Matt had never indicated that he wanted to be anything more than just friends.
But somehow, she knew he wouldn’t like it if he ever found out that she’d kissed Chris.
