Free Hot Extraction by Laura Day

here.” His heart rends for her, unable to do anything to take away her fear and pain.
     
    “I know,” Ronnie sniffs again. “Thank you for staying.”
     
    Ryker smiles into her hair. If he were to have his way, he would never leave.
     

CHAPTER TEN
     
    Ronnie wakes the next morning and sighs softly. She looks at the bedside clock, its glowing red numbers indicating that it’s a few minutes after nine. Nine hours of solid sleep has done her much good and her world has turned right side up again.
     
    “Good morning,” Ryker’s voice whispers softly in her ear.
     
    Ronnie feels her smile widen but she doesn’t move. “Good morning,” she replies. “How did you sleep?”
     
    “Not well,” Ryker admits. “I am so sore it is unbelievable.” Having Ronnie so near didn’t help either, but he keeps that part to himself.
     
    “So no workout this morning?”
     
    Ryker chuckles softly. “Oh, there will be one. It’s called getting out of the bed.”
     
    Ronnie smiles as she lies still, thinking. It’s too bad they are so sore. No matter what happens, she and Kenneth are done. She doesn’t love him and never has. He was safe, comfortable, and convenient—nothing more. But now she wants more. Ryker has stirred feeling in her like no other man. These feelings may only be the result of what they have gone through together this week and amount to nothing. Either way, though, there are going to be some changes in her life. Life is too short to be content with safe, comfortable, and convenient.
     
    “Ryker… may I ask you something?” Ronnie asks. Win or lose, she’s going for broke.
     
    “Sure.”
     
    “Do you want me?”
     
    He is shocked into silence by her question. How does he answer that? Tell her the truth that she is the most desirable woman he has ever met? Or should he play the gentleman and deny his true feelings because he suspects her judgment is clouded by recent events. “Yes,” he finally whispers.
     
    Ronnie feels herself relax. It took him so long to answer she had been afraid that he was trying to find a way to let her down easy. But she still can’t get past why he would want her. “Why? I’m almost ten years older than you.”
     
    “You are not!” he protests.
     
    “Didn’t you say you joined the Navy right out of high school in 2002?”
     
    “Yeah, so?”
     
    “Ryker, I graduation high school in 1994. You do the math.”
     
    Ryker is silent. He figured she was a couple of years older than him, but he would have never guessed eight. “So?” he asks, punctuating the question with a lingering kiss to her shoulder.
     
    “So… I don’t know what is happening to me. But after yesterday, I am ready to make some changes,” she says turning in the bed to face him. “Starting with Kenneth. I have realized that I want more out a relationship than stability. I want passion. I want heat. I want to live a little. And I don’t understand why you are interested in me. I’m flattered, but I don’t understand.”
     
    Ryker stares into her hazel eyes. “What are you telling me, Ronnie?”
     
    “What I’m telling you, Petty Officer First Class Ryker Evans, that if I weren’t so damn sore I would be tearing your clothes off of you right now. Life is too short. I don’t know if the attraction I feel toward you is because you are the most gorgeous man I have ever met, the fact that you have saved me from certain death twice, the fact that you were willing to die to try to protect me... or what. But whatever the reason, I can’t go back to the life I had. Not the way it was. I want more than to just sit in a chair and read while Kenneth prepares his lecture notes for the next day. I want more than a quick peck on the cheek when I leave for the lab in the morning. I nearly died yesterday and I realize that I haven’t even lived yet.”
     
    Ryker smiles at Ronnie. “Ronnie, I do want you. You are the most beautiful, the most desirable woman I have ever met. But… I