Page 101 of Riding the High

“Come on, let’s start the day right,” I tell her.

I pull her by one hand to my bathroom, her coffee in the other. She sits up on the counter and takes a sip, a look of curiosity on her face. The tops of her thighs flatten against the counter and, naturally, I want to push them apart. I do my best to control my urges for five goddamn minutes to make this moment about her. It is not without great effort.

The large ivory claw-foot bathtub in the middle of the room looks out over the backyard through a frosted glass picture window. The morning sun streams in while I start running a bath.

“Why am I in your bathroom, Cole?” Ginger asks.

“Just sip your coffee and stop asking questions,” I tell her, adding some Epsom salts and bubbles to the water, letting the tub fill while I head back to the kitchen to bring my own coffee mug and the pot back in.

I bend down to kiss her, taking her cup and setting it down beside her. I drop a chaste kiss to her lips once more before pulling her shirt off over her head, lifting her off the counter and turning her to face the mirror. I stand behind her and, using both of my hands, sweep her thick tresses into a high bun. All the while trailing my lips down her neck and shoulders, just enough to relax her. She lets out a sigh.

“Tonight is going to go well,” I tell her as I reach into my bathroom drawer and pull out a black hair tie, securing the bun and using my hands to smooth her hair. “You don’t have to be his entire support system.”

“Not bad, Law Daddy.” Ginger smirks at me in the mirror, admiring her hair. Most of her is now on display, her pink nipples pearled and ready for my fingers … my mouth.

“If the sheriff thing doesn’t work out, you could always go into hairstyling,” she says.

I smack her panty-clad ass and turn away from her. If I look at her in the mirror for too much longer, it will be game over. I slide the teak bath table in the corner over to sit beside the tub, setting both our mugs on it before losing all my clothes and sinking into the hot bath and shutting off the faucet.

“Truth or dare?” I ask as she climbs in to sit in front of me, her back to my chest.

“Always a dare, Cole,” Ginger says as I begin to move the bubbles up over her shoulders. She sighs and I reach over tohand her her mug of coffee. She takes a sip as I trace lines over her shoulders, her neck. She instantly relaxes into me and the feeling pushes all the blood in my body straight to my cock.

Fuck. Focus, Cole.

‘I dare you to tell me what’s going on in that pretty head of yours. What are you afraid of?” I ask.

“That’s cheating, Sheriff. I didn’t say truth.” She laughs.

I kiss her neck, once—fuck it, twice. She smells like coconut and the sun, andme.I can’t tell which note I like best.

“That’s the nice thing about being sheriff. You get to make the rules,” I tell her as I slide my fingers over her arms, penciling circles in the bubbles against her skin.

“You’re being very convincing,” she muses.

“Then start talking, Mrs. Ashby,” I tell her in my best cop voice.

“I’m … nervous,” she says, draining her mug and setting it back down on the table.

“About what?” I ask as I start to draw words into the bubbles on her back:wild,light,loving.Anything that comes to mind about her.

I kiss a line down her warm neck as she tips back further, exposing the smooth column of her throat to me. When she doesn’t answer, I lean forward and nibble on her shoulder. She flinches and swats at me as I kiss her in the same spot.

“About what?” I repeat.

“This. You … us … Why the hell I seem to care about you so much. It’s annoying and hard to understand … and …” She trails off as my tracing of her skin continues.

I writesweetandproud, then smooth more bubbles up her skin to start again.

“And what?” I press her for honesty. I don’t have to look at her to know she’s biting into her plump bottom lip in thought.Grace.

“How I’m going to adjust … when I leave and go back to work,” she says. “How I’ll cope when I’m away from Mabel.”

Goddamn, I did not expect that much honesty, and Ginger’s rawness causes a tight feeling to take over my chest. I say nothing as I trace another word:beautiful.

“You owe me one,” she says, angling back into me but still giving me enough space to continue my tracing of her upper back and shoulders.She likes it.

“Truth or dare?” she continues, tilting her head to look up at me. Her fiery eyes meet mine and I’m a goner. I kiss her once because she’s too perfect to resist.

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