Rory poked him in the chest. “Try again.”
“An odd whim?”
Another two pokes to his chest as she shook her head. “Tell me.”
“Here’s the truth. I’d intended to take you out for a nice dinner at Field’s. Renting a private room, hiring one of them fiddle players that walks around.”
“You mean a strolling violinist?”
“Yeah. Whatever. Anyway, I thought it’d be romantic, sharing a candlelight four course meal, champagne, roses, chocolate…”
“But?”
His gaze hooked hers. “But since you inspected my land today, I worried all that hearts-and-flowers shit might look like a bribe. Not only to you but to others in the community and I’d never put your professionalism at risk.” He blushed but didn’t look away. “So I brought you to the community center for a game of table tennis, an activity which ain’t romantic and you’d never mistake as a bribe. Especially since you whupped my ass.”
The man was an idiot. A sweet idiot, but an idiot nonetheless. And she was so insanely in love with him it scared her.
“So since you won our battle, you choose what happens next.”
Rory ran her palms down his shoulders, his biceps, his forearms. On the way back up her fingers traced the cut muscles and well defined bulk. She loved seeing him in sleeveless black T-shirts, the tighter the better. He worked hard on this body, he oughta show it off. She curled her hands around the back of his neck and leaned in to rub her mouth across his pectoral. And she got that rush of want from his scent—laundry soap, sweat, deodorant and his underlying musk.
“Rory, you keep doin’ that and I won’t be able to walk out of here.”
“I can’t help it. Sometimes I just look at all this—” her hands slowly cruised down his chest, stopping on his abdomen above his pelvis, “—and I’m blown away that it’s all mine.”
Dalton’s fingers on her chin lifted her face to look into her eyes. “Are you admitting you own me every bit as much as I own you?”
Her this-is-just-sex side didn’t even bother to speak up anymore. Nor did it lodge a protest when she said, “Yes.”
“Need to get you home. Now,” he said in that low, dangerously sexy growl.
She swept her lips over his in a fleeting kiss. “Hold that thought. I won so I get to pick the next activity.” Took every ounce of restraint to step back instead of closer.
“I hope it’s wrestling.”
She laughed. “Nope. But it does begin with a W.”
“There ain’t a pool in there so it doesn’t have to do with water.”
“It’s weight lifting. You lift; I get to watch.”
“Why in the hell would you wanna watch me lift weights? Lots of grunting, straining, sweating.” His eyes narrowed. “Get that look off your face, jungle girl. It’s not even close to sex and it sure ain’t sexy.”
“I’ll be the judge of that, won’t I? It’ll be interesting to see you pump something besides me for a change.”
So she’d never actually watched a lover working out with weights before. Oh, sure, she’d seen guys lifting weights in the gym. Quite a few of them had amazingly hot bodies, but it hadn’t affected her beyond her appreciation for the strength and beauty of a buffed up masculine form.
But watching Dalton pumping iron? Whole. Different. Story. Seeing his biceps and triceps flexing and glistening with sweat. Taking in every inch of his bulky forearms. Seeing the strain across his shoulders beneath his T-shirt as he pulled on the weight and pulley thing. Watching the V ripple in his quads as he performed squats and that also caused the thick bulge in his calf to contract.
Wasn’t like Dalton paid attention to her attentiveness to him. He remained focused on each exercise and when it ended he’d move to the next one. He didn’t watch his weightlifting form in the mirror like she’d seen so many other gym rats do. No admiring smug glances as he stared at himself.
She knew he’d started working out in hotel fitness facilities as a way to stave off boredom before poker tournaments. It wasn’t like Dalton was overly muscular with biceps bigger than her waist or his own neck. He needed that strength in his logging job. He didn’t work out to impress anyone, although that cut, ripped and toned body was an impressive benefit. For her.
“Christ, Rory, stop doin’ that.”
Her gaze moved from his butt to his eyes. “Stop doing what?”
“Licking your lips.”
“Uh, I wouldn’t be licking my chops, cowboy, if you didn’t have the very finest chops I’ve ever seen.”
“And all the times we’ve been nekkid together, what? You weren’t lookin’ at me?” He set down the dumbbells and perched on the edge of the weight bench.
“I look at you plenty. Touch you plenty.” She sauntered forward.
“I still don’t get the point of this. You’ve been watchin’ me lifting for half an hour.”
Rory straddled his legs and lowered herself onto his lap.
Dalton’s hands circled her hips to steady her. “Whoa, sugarplum, what are you doin’?”
She licked a rivulet of sweat from the hollow of his throat up to the edge of his jaw. “Having a little taste of you.”
“So does that mean we’re done here?”
“No.” She sucked on his earlobe before she blew in his ear. “It’s late. We’re probably the only ones left in the whole place.”
“Which means it’s time for us to go home.”
“I can feel you getting hard,” she breathed against his damp skin. She inhaled a lungful of him and sighed. “You smell delicious. Your muscles are so pumped up right now. I bet you could lift a small truck, couldn’t you?”
“Uh…yeah. I guess.”
She slipped her hand between them and lightly stroked his nipple as she strung kisses down the column of his throat. “Just looking at you gets me hot. I suspected it’d be sexy watching you pumping iron, but I had no idea it’d make me so wet.” Rory sank her teeth into the warm, salty section of skin where shoulder curved into neck. “So very, very wet and ready.”
“Woman, unless you want me to pin you to this weight bench and f**k you, you’d better take it down a notch.”
Rory pulled his hair, yanking his head back when he attempted to nudge her away from his neck. “I was thinking more of you f**king me in the storage closet. But this weight bench will work.” She nibbled the edge of his jaw up to his ear. “Or even the ping pong table.”