Page 38 of His First Baby Rodeo

But she had been wrong to fear that. He had wanted to spend the evening with her. He’d said so himself. And now he was reaching for her with both hands, pulling her to him, wrapping his arms around her — embracing her with both arms for the very first time.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “You don’t know how much it means to me to have someone else get me like that.”

She looked up at him. She never would have thought of Mac as someone who wouldwantto be understood. But in this, at least, he obviously did.

And it felt powerful that she had been the one to do it.

As their lips met in a kiss, El found she couldn’t be sure which of them had initiated it — but it didn’t seem to matter. What mattered was that they were both here and they both wanted this, and she felt more sure of the bond between them than she ever had before.

CHAPTER17

EL

El woke slowly, feeling the heat of the morning sun on her bare skin. It was warm, and it seemed to be tracing a path over her body, drawing her slowly into more and more awareness…

No. That wasn’t the sun.

That was Mac.

His fingers skated over her bare torso, waking her gradually, bringing her back to delicious consciousness. She turned to look at him. He was smiling.

“Hey,” he murmured.

“Hi,” she said softly.

“Sleep okay?”

She blinked. They weren’t in her bedroom. Details of the night before came flooding back to her now. After that first passionate kiss, they had gotten up and found their way to his room. They had made love in his bed.

Made love? Since when do I think of it in those terms?

But any other language felt wrong. What had happened last night had been miles away from the quick trysts they’d had throughout the house, the fiery moments of flinging themselves into one another’s arms, only to pull away after they were finished with sheepish grins and awkward one-word sentences. Last night had been slow and lingering, and they had spent much of it staring into one another’s eyes. El didn’t think she’d ever had such a meaningful experience before.

And then she had fallen asleep wrapped up in his embrace. That was a terrifying thing to contemplate. It was the one thing she had promised herself she wasn’t going to do. It was the thing she had known she couldn’t allow to happen. This was a line, and now they had crossed it.

And maybe there was no going back.

“El?” Mac asked, sounding concerned, and she realized she hadn’t answered his question. “Is everything all right?”

“Everything is fine.” That was an overstatement, but what could she say? How could she put her current fears into words? “Last night was… amazing.”

He nodded. “It meant a lot to me.”

What did that mean? The sex had meant a lot to him? Or was he just saying that he’d appreciated the fact that she had finally understood the joy he found in his rodeo career? It could have been either one. She was too afraid to push for specifics.

“It meant a lot to me, too,” she said, abandoning all efforts to hide from him. Ithadmeant a lot to her. In spite of herself, she had given in to him, and now this would be the experience by which she would measure all other men and all other encounters. The thought filled her with turmoil.

“You look sad,” he observed, tracing her cheekbone with his thumb, and how she wished she could tell him everything she was thinking! It would have been such a relief just to say the words out loud —I think I’m falling in love with you.

The phone rang.

El felt as if she’d been jerked out of a fantasy and landed on concrete. “That’s mine,” she said, recognizing the ringtone.

“Let it ring,” Mac suggested.

But it felt too portentous that she was getting a phone call in the middle of this moment. Something like that had to be a sign. “Let me just see who it is.” She leaned off the side of the bed and found her phone on the floor in a pile of her clothes. Her heart turned over at the sight of the contact information on the screen. “It’s Jeff.”

“He’ll call back.”

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