Page 54 of Heal Me
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
Her smile took his breath away as she threw her arms around neck and hugged him close. “I love you, Ric.”
He closed his eyes as tears burned in them. To hear those words from her was more moving than anything he’d ever felt and he couldn’t help his strong reaction. “I love you, too, Kate.”
When she drew back, he brushed away a couple of tears from her face and she did the same for him. They laughed together and exchanged a tender kiss that conveyed their newfound feelings to each other. As the kiss deepened, Ric’s desire for Kate flared again and he rolled over with her.
Ric didn’t say it again as they became wrapped up in each other, but he showed her in every other way how much he loved her. He gave her as much pleasure as he possibly could, making every move, each kiss, and caress count. Powerful emotion filled him as he felt his love returned to him as they reached the summit together.
Looking in her beautiful eyes while they remained in each other’s arms afterwards, Ric knew that he’d finally found the woman of his dreams. Kate was the woman he’d been waiting for all of his life and he planned to never let her go.
*****
On Sunday of the following weekend, Kate groaned as she rolled over in bed. Her and Robert had gone hiking to Lost Falls in Rocky Mountain National Park yesterday and the demanding hike had shown her that she was a little out of shape.
“What’s the matter?” Ric asked, yawning.
“That hike kicked my ass. It’s been a long time since I went on a really hard hike like that. I should’ve listened to Robbie. He said that we should do an easier hike, but did I listen? Oh, no. I had to—oh!”
She broke off as she felt Ric straddle her legs. His large, capable hands settled on her shoulders and started massaging her sore muscles.
“I’ll give you a million dollars if you don’t stop,” she mumbled against her pillow.
“Our sex marathon last night probably didn’t help any,” Ric said, chuckling.
Kate grinned. “Probably not, but at the time, I wasn’t feeling any pain. Of course, I’d had a couple of glasses of wine, so that might be why.”
She groaned and moaned as Ric gave her a full-body massage, even working on her feet and toes.
When he finished, he said, “Stay right there. I’ll go let the dogs out.”
“Okay. I wasn’t planning on moving anyway. I feel like Jello now. I don’t think I can walk.”
Ric called the dogs to him and Kate listened to them troop down the stairs after him. A few minutes later, she heard the bathtub running. Ric’s bad humming made her smile. His phone went off.
“Hey, answer me! Chase is calling you!”
Kate roused and crawled over to it. Normally, she wouldn’t touch Ric’s phone, but she wanted to talk to Chase and she didn’t have his number. She tapped the answer button.
“Hello,” she said in a throaty purr. “Is this Chase McIntyre, the hottest man in LA?”
“Why, yes, it is. This must be the luscious Dr. Donoghue,” he responded. “I take it that Rikki-Tikki-Tavi isn’t close at hand.”
“No, but he has great hands. He just gave me a massage and I think he’s drawing me a bath.”
Chase laughed. “That was awful nice of him. Are you planning on thanking him?”
“Oh, I thanked him for a long, long time last night. I prepaid,” she said, giggling.
“Then he definitely owed you. Glad he’s paying back his debt.”
Kate chuckled and got out of bed. “I’ll hand you off to Ric, but it was nice talking to you, Chase.”
“You, too, darlin’. Hit me up on Skype sometime. My ID is chasethedream.”
“Sure it is,” she laughed. “I might do that sometime.”
