Page 32 of Never Marry the Best Man (Whatever It Takes #4)

Tom

“Right. That the spare room?” Charlie asked Tom, pointing at the only other set of doors off the living area. “Mind if we crash there? I seem to have run out of energy. We’ll sort this out in the morning.”

Without waiting for an answer, he headed in that direction, Ani trailing behind, exhaustion in her posture.

Tom turned and stood facing the closed doors of his, and Ranney’s, bedroom. Or at least, it had been their bedroom.

Now, it was more of an emotional minefield.

He was at a definite disadvantage here.

Not a parent of a daughter–not a parent at all.

Not familiar with Ranney’s parenting style, or their family history, or basically one single thing that had happened to her before they connected in the airport two days ago.

At this point, she’d met a lot more members of his family than he had of hers, if her brief exposure to Thea could be counted as a meeting.

To his advantage, though, the Phillips family was quite extended, encompassing multiple generations, genders, last names, cultural backgrounds, and right- as well as left-brain thinkers. And in the eyes of the State of Nevada, at least, Ranney and Nessa were now members of that extended family.

He’d witnessed many a row between parent and child, and even been party to a few of them, especially back in his university days. What had he learned that could be applied to this situation?

First of all, emotions ran high. Parents felt, apparently at any age, that their children’s behavior reflected on them. In this case, that seemed to work both ways: Nessa clearly thought Ranney’s behavior somehow reflected on her.

Fair enough, especially considering that they worked together.

Also, adult children considered themselves to be fully capable of evaluating people and events independently, whereas parents did have an unfortunate tendency to remember the day that their progeny turned up with a venomous snake in a cardboard box and announced that its name was Pinky and it was going to sleep in the bath.

(Pinky had been carefully released into the wild, but his mother still brought it up as proof of Tom’s overly trusting nature.)

In the present case, it was true that Nessa was not in possession of all the facts, but she had definitely made a judgment and it was not in Ranney’s favor.

Could he blame her?

His feelings for Ranney, strong from the very beginning, had grown infinitely deeper tonight.

They knew each other intimately now, and it was so much more than he had ever imagined he could feel.

Now the object of all this emotion–the woman he loved –was behind those doors, overcome with emotional pain.

He had to help her. But how, when he could only understand parent/child relationships from one side, and that side was Nessa’s?

Ahhhh!

That was how he could help, what he was uniquely able to provide. If he could help them understand each other, bridge the generational gap between them, maybe he could be of real service to Ranney. Lord knows she had put herself on the line to be of service to him.

With one hand on the door handle, he hesitated–should he knock before entering? What the hell was the protocol here?

Splitting the difference between a coldly formal knock and bursting in without warning, he opened the door slowly, announcing himself with a soft, “Ranney, my love?”

The only light inside the room came from the fireplace, although the city lights would probably have cast a glow by themselves. He could make out her form, curled up in a ball on the sofa, apparently staring out the window.

“Hi.” Low and quiet, but not unwelcoming.

“Are you all right? That was difficult, I know.”

“I’m so sorry, Tom. It was such a perfect night, maybe the most perfect of my life, and then all that ugliness… it’s not usually like that between us. I mean, we have our differences, we’re a normal mother and daughter, but nothing like what happened out there.”

“That wasn’t exactly a normal situation.”

“What a mess I’ve made of everything. It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this…”

The tears started then, and he thought his heart might burst. He had never felt so helpless in his life.

“You did nothing wrong, you’ve been wonderful through this whole bloody thing.

If I hadn’t been so stupid and lazy about the citizenship papers, none of it would have happened.

” He reached for her, wrapping her in his arms, her head resting on his shoulder.

“But I don’t wish for that, how could I?

If everything had gone as planned, I’d have spent tonight sitting around some crummy card table in Idaho, drinking whisky and losing money while you sat in your room waiting for a disaster to happen and listening to Chloe–or whatever her name is–banging on about what to wear when she meets Queen Camilla. ”

He rested his cheek against her hair and she sighed. “Claire, not Chloe. That would still have been more fun for you than watching me fight with my daughter.”

“But not more fun than making love to you for the first time.”

“Hard to believe that was tonight. It seems like days ago.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

“Now what?” she asked.

Tom chuckled. “That is a very open-ended question, isn’t it?

If you mean right now, it’s almost three o’clock and I suggest we go back to bed.

If you mean tomorrow, I think we have to decide that in the morning, after we talk to Chunk and whoever is holding the fort in Idaho from your company.

And you’re going to have to try to talk to Nessa.

So either way, we should just go back to bed. If you mean the future–”

“No, no, I don’t mean the future!” she said hastily. “Bed sounds good… wonderful, in fact.”

Tipping her chin up, he kissed her, and not in a comforting, it’ll-be-all-right, let’s-get-some-rest kind of way. It might have started in that way, but it quickly morphed into a demanding desire that had little to do with comfort and nothing at all to do with rest.

Standing, he pulled her to her feet then bent and lifted her into his arms.

“I’m a little bit sleepy,” she whispered apologetically.

“Not for long, I promise you,” he answered as he laid her down on the bed. He jolted. "Unless that is a firm no? Of course, darling, if you’d….”

Her hand moved to a firm place on him as she kissed him back with so much passion he nearly lost his footing.

"Sleepy, not dead, Tom," she whispered against his jawline.

Oh, he'd married the right person.

Tom’s gaze fell on Ranney, and for a moment, he forgot how to breathe. She was watching him with that sleepy, vulnerable softness, but as he brushed a thumb along her jawline, he saw something shift in her eyes. Sadness melted into warmth, then into something far more dangerous and intoxicating.

She smiled, a grin that was slow, sly, and utterly devastating.

Catlike. As if she’d gone from curled-up housecat to sleek huntress in the span of a breath. His pulse roared.

“You are so beautiful,” he murmured, leaning down until their lips were only a whisper apart.

She tilted her chin up, her lips brushing his in a way that was more suggestion than kiss, teasing him as if to say, Are you sure you can handle this?

The challenge only made him want her more.

The kiss began as soft reassurance, a reminder that the world outside this room didn’t matter, but the moment her fingers curled into the open neck of his robe, the mood shifted.

Her lips parted, inviting him, and his entire body answered.

He deepened the kiss, one hand sliding into her hair, the other settling at her waist, feeling the warmth of her skin through the thin fabric of his robe.

Ranney arched against him, and he nearly lost the ability to think. Her earlier sadness had dissolved completely. Now, every movement of her mouth, every soft sigh, told him that she wanted this just as much as he did.

He pulled back just enough to look at her fully. The firelight caught her features, making her skin glow like warm ivory, her hair tumbling over her shoulders in loose, dark waves. Her eyes—God, those eyes—were wide and shimmering, as if she was letting him see every emotion that ran through her.

She was revealing herself to him. Not just her body, though the thought made him dizzy with wanting, but all of her.

Through Nessa’s storming in, through her defenses and worries, and now here—she was letting him in.

She was an open book and a mystery at the same time, and he had never been so desperate to read every single page.

To touch each line.

“You look at me like I’m something extraordinary,” she whispered, smiling softly against his lips.

“That’s because you are,” he said, meaning every word.

His robe slipped as he kissed her again, deeper this time, the fabric loosening until it pooled at his elbows. Ranney’s hands smoothed over his shoulders, exploring him and memorizing the shape of him. He was half disrobed, grinning into her kiss.

“You’re overdressed,” he teased, his voice low and rough.

“Am I?” she said with mock innocence, the sparkle in her eyes making his stomach flip.

“Terribly,” he said, brushing his fingers along the hem of her shirt. “May I?”

She nodded, biting her lip in a way that melted his heart and sent a bolt of heat straight through him.

He drew the fabric upward slowly, savoring every inch of skin he uncovered, kissing the warm curve of her collarbone, the hollow of her throat, the softness of her shoulder.

She gasped when he reached the edge of the neckline and laughed breathlessly when he tossed the shirt aside.

“You make that sound like a ceremony,” she teased.

“Everything about you is worth ceremony,” he murmured, brushing his mouth along the top of her shoulder.

She smiled, that dazzling, feline smile again, and pulled him closer, her hands roaming over his back as if she’d waited forever to do this. The kiss turned hungry, all heat and heart, their breaths mingling, their bodies drawn together as if there was no space left for doubt.

Tom felt her fully surrender to the moment, and in that surrender, she was even more powerful.

Beautiful, fierce, and unguarded.

And also - his .