Demanding Ransom

Chapter TWENTY-TWO



Mikey: In the hospital for more tests. Had a killer headache for the past two days.



Me: That sucks, Mikey.



Mikey: Yeah. How’s Mom? Giving you a headache yet?



Me: Not so bad. Haven’t seen her much.



Mikey: She passed out drunk like always?



Me: Probably.



Mikey: You coming home tmrw?



Me: Yeah. Afternoon.



Mikey: Stop by and see me. I’ll want company.



Me: K. Love u.



Mikey: You too, Sis.



“Knock-knock,” Ran says through the door without actually knocking at all. I power off my phone because there’s just a sliver of battery left, and I think we should have a working cell phone on hand for the trip down the hill tomorrow. The conditions have gotten worse—almost whiteout—and Dad’s always getting on me about having a fully-charged phone while driving. Unfortunately, the cord that would charge the stupid thing is still plugged into my bedroom wall at home, doing me absolutely no good here.

“Yeah?” I answer Ran’s knock.

“Can I come in?” He opens the door and doesn’t wait for the response. I don’t bother getting up from my perch on the bed, because even though I hate to admit it, this is the most comfortable bed I’ve ever been in. I’d honestly be content to never leave it for the rest of the weekend.

“I found something.” The way Ran’s eyes light up makes him look about ten years younger, like he’s full of youth-like anticipation. The grin that spreads across his face just adds to his playful aura.

“Let me guess.” I roll my eyes and almost think I hear my bikini tapping on the inside of the dresser drawer.

“Tub time, Maggie!” Ran bounces on his feet. “Go get your suit on…or not.”

I groan. “You seriously found one? I was hoping the closest one would be 50 miles.”

“Nope.” He smiles a toothy grin. “More like 50 feet. It’s outside, built into their downstairs deck. This place has everything.”

“Yeah,” I grumble, rolling off the bed. “Sure does.”

“Meet me in five, okay?”

I nod and Ran all but races out of the room. I can hear him on the other side of the wall opening and slamming drawers in an excited flurry. He’s built this whole thing up so much he’s going to be severely disappointed. I haven’t even tried on the swimsuit, but I’m not nearly as blessed as Cora in the curves department, and I highly doubt the triangle top is going to do anything but accentuate the fact that I don’t have enough to fill it out. This is mortifying.

I drag myself to the dresser—literally drag—because every muscle in my body cries out for me to collapse back onto the bed. I wish Ran had mentioned just how sore I would be from snowboarding. At the time it didn’t feel like I was overexerting myself, but muscles I didn’t even know I had are now telling me a much different story.

Hesitantly, I slide open the top drawer and dig for the bikini, which takes quite a while to find since I’ve buried it so far under the other folds of clothing. I hook a finger around the top and lift it out and it stares back at me, taunting me with its hot pink strips of fabric. There is no way this thing is going to even remotely flatter me. What am I doing?

I slip out of my clothes and try to adjust the suit into place so it covers everything—and I honestly don’t have much to cover—but it’s so tiny that what I do have is still just barely under wraps. My ridiculous reflection in the full-length mirror nailed to the back of the door induces a groan that Ran probably hears through the thin walls. I’m nothing but a pasty, scrawny stick figure that looks like she has pink highlighter scribbled across her. This is not going to work.

I tug a t-shirt out of the open drawer and yank it over my head. Ran said he wanted me to wear this suit. I’m wearing it; I’m doing as he says. But I’m also wearing something over it. That’s not quite breaking the rules if you ask me.

Ran’s already at the spa when I make my way to the downstairs rec room. His back is to me and he’s lifting the cover off the tub, thick coils of steam snaking around him. He’s seriously hot. I’m gawking again, I’m sure, but his back is to me so I steal another glimpse at him as he crosses his arms at the waist and lifts his shirt off. I hadn’t seen his back before, which is probably good because if I’d seen it along with his incredible chest and stomach earlier, I would have fainted and hit the ground, which would have added to my long list of embarrassments.

Ran’s broad shoulders and the muscles that wrap around them pull with each movement, and his waist tapers perfectly into a V like a swimmer’s body. He still isn’t facing me when he slinks slowly into the water and settles in. The jets make the water roll like it’s boiling, and the steam rising out of it produces a haze that makes the disparity in temperature between the water and the air so evident.

I close my eyes, pull in air because I had briefly stopped doing that, and reach my hand to the door. I’m met with an icy chill that freezes me in place.

Ran spins around at the sound of the door gliding open. “I didn’t think you’d actually show.”

I’m a little insulted, though I shouldn’t be. I’m still shocked that I’m here, too.

“I’m a woman of my word.”

Ran snickers. I walk the four feet on the decking toward the hot tub, my bare toes curling against the contact on the frozen wood. Ran scans me up and down, and a look of disappointment flits across his features before he replaces it with a wide grin. “I’m glad you came.”

The hot tub is sunken into the deck, so I’ll have to step down into it. But I hadn’t counted on him being here, watching me as I take off my t-shirt to enter the water, so I pause, playing out the scene in my head. If I remove my shirt now, then it will look like I’m stripping for him, and I’m not about to do that. I would look awkward and clumsy, and on top of that, it’s totally ridiculous. But if I wear the shirt in the hot tub, I’ll look like an idiot. After two minutes of vacillating, I decide being an idiot is better than an inexperienced, amateur stripper.

Ran’s been eyeing me the entire time, and when I put my toe in the water with my over-sized t-shirt still clinging to me, he lets out a soundless laugh of air that hangs frozen in front of him until the steam from the spa vaporizes it.

“That’s how you’re going to do this?”

“Do what?” I’m up to my thighs now, and the water burns my skin like hundreds of tiny needles slicing into my flesh. My legs feel like an abused pincushion. How did he slip in so gracefully? “Is this like a thousand degrees?” I suck in a breath that puffs up my chest and I’m grateful for the shirt because I really don’t want to draw unnecessary attention to how ill fitting this swimsuit is on me.

“It’s 102.” Ran slides down in his seat and angles his neck back to take advantage of the spa’s headrest as the jets bubble right at his shoulders. “And it’s perfect. You’ll get used to it.”

“I’m not so sure.”

Ran lifts a brow. “I can name a couple other incredibly hot things that you’ve gotten used to, Maggie,” he says, his white teeth gleaming under a haughty smirk.

I have to grit my own teeth for so many different reasons: to keep them from chattering in the below freezing temperatures, to keep them from grinding against one another to absorb the pain the searing water inflicts, and to keep them from letting the sigh slip past that’s been on the back of my tongue since first seeing Ran in just his swim trunks. I lower myself so the waterline hits right above my waist and grip the edges of the spa to keep from sliding in deeper.

“You look crazy tense, Maggie.” Ran is in the water all the way, so the froth from the jets skims just under his earlobes. “Relax. This is supposed to be relaxing. I’m pretty sure that’s why hot tubs were invented.”

Nothing about me is relaxed; every inch of me is tightened with anxiety, like I’m some twisted coil ready to spring. The only way to get over the pain and the nerves is to push myself to do this in one swift motion. Like diving into the deep end as a kid. That’s what I’m doing. I’m diving in.

I draw in one unsteady breath and unlock my knees to sink into the water so it rushes over the top of my head. It burns me from scalp to toe, but the sting is easier to endure when it all happens at once. Like ripping off a Band-Aid. I stay under just long enough to drench my hair and as I rise above the surface, I crane my neck so my hair spills down my back instead of over my face. I smooth it under my fingers, pulling at the tangled ends. Once the water slips from my eyes, I open them.

That’s when I see Ran.

His eyes are the largest they’ve ever been and his mouth is open like it’s ready for words to drop from it, but nothing comes. I see his broad chest rise and fall rapidly just under the surface of the water, and he shakes his head quickly like a dog after a bath.

“Are you okay?” I ask, genuinely concerned because he looks like he’s in pain. Maybe the temperature of the spa is finally getting to him, too.

“Um…” Nothing else comes out. He hasn’t blinked for at least a minute.

“Ran?” I wave a hand in front of his face. “Are you alright?”

Still nothing.

“Ran?”

He blinks three times, his dark eyelashes flickering. “Yeah?”

“I asked if you were okay.” I scoop all of my hair to one side and wring it between my hands and the droplets that trickle to the surface of the water are swallowed up in the jet-created foam. I shouldn’t have dove under like that. Now my hair is absolutely freezing, completely soaked and chilled by the frosty air. With my luck the strands will probably turn into icicles and break right off and I’ll end up sporting some ridiculous pixie haircut that I definitely can’t pull off.

“No, I’m not okay.” His face remains expressionless. “I’m recuperating, Maggie.”

“Recuperating? From what?” I wrap my hair in a bun and use a strip of it to tie around it and hold in place. I’m a little worried it might permanently stay this way.

“From just witnessing the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

My entire body jolts and I contemplate jumping out of the hot tub.

“Shut it.” I can’t come up with anything else to say, and since that seems to be my go-to with Ran, I use it freely.

“Seriously. That was hot.”

I want to drown myself right here in this mini whirlpool. I think there’s probably room to if I really tried. Why is it that I seem to find a way to absolutely humiliate myself in front of Ran in every situation that we’re in?

“I wasn’t trying to be hot.” The fact that I’ve kept on this oversized shirt is proof of that. “I’m wearing a t-shirt, Ran.”

“I see that.” He glances down and I sink up to my shoulders under the bubbling current to hide from his gaze. “And trust me, it’s hot.”

When I bind my arms over me, I suddenly realize that I’ve just given Ran his very own, private, wet t-shirt contest viewing. Seriously, I’m beginning to think the Dough Boy ensemble from earlier was much more my speed.

“Maggie,” Ran says, wiggling his shoulders under the stream from the jets. “I know you’re trying to be modest, and I find that cute as hell.”

“I’m not trying to be anything.” I make the mistake of lifting my shoulders out of the water, and it’s as though the fabric instantly freezes into a thin sheet of ice layered over my body. Maybe the shirt wasn’t such a good idea.

“You have to be freezing in that, right?”

I bite down hard on my frost-covered bottom lip and I’m sure I’m going to pay for that tomorrow. Like at the dentist when they numb you and you can’t feel a thing and spend all day chomping down without worry, only to realize you’ve mangled your mouth once the numbness wears off.

“You’re going to freeze with that on, just so you know.” Ran closes his eyes and curls into his corner of the spa, allowing the jets to massage his back and neck.

“I know.” I half-swim, half-walk over to the seat diagonal from Ran and slip down under the water like he has.

“So take it off.” His eyes are still closed. “I promise I won’t watch, Maggie. As badly as I might want to.”

“I’m fine.” I allow myself to relax a little now that I’m under the water. The heat feels good against my aching muscles, each one feeling the burn from the many trips down the mountain earlier this afternoon.

“If you’re planning to keep yourself covered, I just wish you would have borrowed one of my shirts instead.” Ran’s eyes remain closed, almost as though he’s daydreaming. “That might be the only thing to make this hotter, if that’s even possible.”

“I’ll just have to see about getting one from you, then.”

Ran’s eyes open slowly and the smile that eases onto his mouth can be seen in them, too. “Are you having a good time, Maggie?” The roll of the jets makes it so he has to talk loudly to be heard, especially because I’m still several feet away from him, occupying my own personal hot tub corner.

“Here at the cabin? Or with you?”

“Both.” Ran lifts his arms out of the water and folds them up behind his neck. His biceps flex with the effort and I can’t help but follow the rivulets of water that slide down them. I’m starting to get dizzy. Damn it. How long does it take to dehydrate from staying in a spa too long? It has to be more than five minutes, right?

“It’s not so bad,” I reply vaguely.

Ran’s shoulders lift an inch in laughter. He’s humoring me, I’m sure. “You do realize that you have me half naked in a hot tub and you’re still pretending I have cooties, don’t you? This would be a dream come true for most women.”

I don’t answer him. I try to, but the words die in my mouth, along with any other response other than launching across the hot tub toward him to claim the kiss that I’ve been craving all day. I’ve gotten to the point where I can’t stand it any longer.

“I need to do something.”

Ran cocks his head. “And that is?”

I briefly seal my eyes shut and when I open them, I hold up my index finger. “You have the deepest blue eyes I’ve ever seen.” Ran tilts his head further to the left so it’s almost resting on his shoulder, like he’s trying hard to understand what I’m doing. “Seriously, when I look into them, it’s like I’m staring into the depths of the ocean—like I’m diving into some unexplored world that holds so many secrets and discoveries. They’re captivating, Ran.” I pause. “You’re captivating.”

I feel like I’m in a fight with the volume of the jets and they’re winning, so I swim off my seat and lessen the gap between us so I don’t have to shout over the motor. I raise another finger. “Your quick wit and well-placed innuendos—though incredibly inappropriate at times—are a major turn on. I want to hate you for what they do to me, but it’s hard to hate something that makes you feel that good.”

Ran’s eyes are smaller than they were a minute ago, and his brow is pulled taut over them as he strains to understand.

I hold up three fingers.

“I love your loyalty. With your job, with your dad, with me. Even when you don’t get anything out of it. It’s an overwhelmingly admirable trait—not one you see in many guys your age—and it sets you apart from everyone else.”

I scoot across the hot tub nearer to Ran so we’re just a little over a foot from one another. He’s dropped his hands from behind his neck and now has them laced across his chest, his head still slightly cocked and his lips pursed in mild confusion.

I hold up a fourth finger.

“I love your willingness to forgive, and the grace you extend toward those that have wronged you. Many people go to the grave harboring hatred and guilt, but you realize the importance of each day and the necessity to give it up. You’re incredibly wise, Ran. There are people that cling to a grudge on their deathbed, unwilling to let it out of their grasp. You’re not like that, and it’s the most refreshing thing about you.”

I hear him swallow and see his Adam’s apple pull in his throat nervously. I regulate my breathing, bring myself so close to him that I’m all but in his lap, and hold up my hand, all five fingers raised, as I face him. Ran lifts his hand out of the water and presses his palm to mine, the trail of liquid curving down our fingers to the length of our arms. His eyes don’t falter from mine when he hooks his free arm around my waist and pulls me all the way to him. The resistance of the water softens our movements and I glide forward so I’m pressed to his chest. Our linked hand is chilled by the exposure to the air and he rests it between us, but my shirt freezes against our skin and the shiver that overtakes me can’t be hidden.

With the hand that’s around my waist, Ran fingers the hem swimming along my stomach and raises an eyebrow as if to ask for permission. I nod and he gently pulls the shirt up. It’s sodden with water and the heaviness makes it hard for him to do one handed, so I help by wriggling out of it. It’s an odd sensation that once it’s finally off of me, I feel so much warmer than before.

“You. Are. So. Beautiful,” Ran breathes in between kisses pressed onto my forehead, my cheek, across my nose, and onto my other cheek. He leans his head back and drinks me in. I want to wrap my arms over myself to hide from his gaze because this swimsuit makes me feel vulnerable and exposed. But the expression held on Ran’s face makes me feel anything but those two things. Seeing him adore me like this strips away any of the earlier fear that I had.

I pull my hand from his and hold up my five fingers again.

“I think I’m in love with you, Ran.” I thought I’d choke on the words, but the way they flow out of me—the way they sound like they’ve always been there, right on the tip of my tongue, just waiting for permission to finally be uttered—makes everything in my world fall into place. “You’re this captivating, witty, grace-filled, loyal man, and I love you.” I drop down a finger with each statement. “I love you, Ran.”

He hasn’t said anything, but instead listened intently while I bared my soul, which honestly wasn’t as terrifying as I’d envisioned it being. The way he looks at me right now, the way I see everything I’ve just declared reflected in his eyes, melts something deep in my core.

The water roils around us and my heart pounds in my chest, thunders in my ears, and rattles my brain.

I swallow hard. “I’ve owed you those five compliments for a long time, Ran.” I force out an insecure, light laugh.

The ball of muscle at the back of his jaw tightens and he shakes his head, his indigo eyes tense. I feel the rush of air that he pushes out as he says, “And I think I owe you something now.”

Ran shoots forward and his mouth collides against mine with force. I bobble backward in the water, and I’m immediately shocked when his lips give instantly, molding softly despite the rush of impact. The heat of them, the supple way they feel, the way he inclines in with just the right amount of pressure, steals all of my senses from me—all but the one involving touch because that’s all I am now, just one exposed nerve ending that feels every single movement of his mouth against mine echoed in every part of my body.

Sliding his hand out of the water and up the curve of my bare spine, the wet tips of Ran’s fingers trail up my back. He cups the base of my head in his palm gently, hooking his fingers into my hair that’s twisted there. It tumbles from its temporary hold and spills across my shoulders, chilling them, but I’m all chills now anyway, so they make themselves at home with the rest.

Our lips haven’t parted and the way Ran angles as he tugs my bottom lip into his mouth and then rotates his head the other way to deepen the kiss, makes me thankful I’m submerged in water because everything in me goes limp and the water is the only thing that keeps me afloat. If it weren’t for the buoyancy, I’d be a puddle on the ground right now.

We both draw in air. We’re probably just trading it back and forth between us, really. Everything feels seamlessly synchronized as his lips tangle against mine. If there’s some kind of ideal method for the way people are supposed to kiss, I’m one hundred percent sure Ran has found the perfect formula. Like the necessary ingredients are his mouth, my lips, and this exact moment in time, combined to create this sensation that I didn’t know was possible.

Ran slides back into the slope of the seat and I slink onto his lap, never breaking the connection between us, still absorbing everything I can from his warm lips that taste like honey, sweet and smooth.

I love that he takes the lead—how he uses his hand at my neck to guide me and move me so that our mouths counter the weight, the pressure, and the force of the other. I part my lips, opening my mouth slightly, and feel the edge of Ran’s tongue sliding over my bottom lip. That’s something I’d wanted to do to him since the first night we’d met and he’s beaten me to it. I mimic his movement as soon as his tongue pulls back into his mouth, and I trace the shallow dip in the middle of his full bottom lip, feeling the perfection of it, and it’s even better than I could have ever dreamed. And I’ve dreamt about it. A lot.

My heart flutters and my breathing does the same. The strands of icicles that hang at my back sting my skin and I try to hide the shiver, but I can’t—no matter how hot this tub is, the air that slices against me is freezing.

Like he’s in tune with every single part of me—even my temperature—Ran dips me back, guiding me under the crests and waves of water until just our necks rise above it. I take advantage of the way our bodies wind around one another and brush my hand over the muscles of his chest, running it down to the ripples of his stomach, greedily gliding my hand over every curve. Ran keeps his hands curled around my waist, though I’m guessing he wants to do the same to me. The water disguises the sweat that drenches from my palm, but the beads that form above my lip from the steam are still present. Ran’s breath rushes in and out of him, picking up in tempo, increasing mine right along with it.

For one brief moment he pulls back. “Maggie,” he says against my lips, his voice hoarse and raw. “What are you doing to me?” He grasps me at arm’s length briefly enough to look into my eyes, and the look he gives holds more intensity than our entire kiss. It causes something in me to ache, and I know the only way to appease it is to surrender my mouth to his again.

This time I take charge, my hands on either side of his jaw, pulling his mouth onto mine, letting him know exactly what I want. Ran lets me have my way. He doesn’t lead, but follows me. I suck his upper lip between both of mine, dragging it slightly into my mouth, just enough that the pull draws him closer and forces him to respond. Not that he wouldn’t—our lips have been in perfect unison, reacting to every movement from the other this whole time. I gain confidence and snake my tongue into his mouth. Ran’s slides against mine, exploring every inch of my mouth hungrily. A low noise escapes from his throat and he pulls out of our kiss and says, “This is our limit, Maggie.” He runs his tongue slowly across my lips and I go lightheaded, my heart racing, my breath ragged and shallow. “We have to draw a line, because I’m about to cross it if we don’t put one in place right now.”

I don’t want to draw any lines and I’m all for bounding right through the ones he wants to make, but the tenor in his voice and the way he nearly pleads with me pulls at my core. And unfortunately, it almost turns me on more than our actual make out session. The fact that Ran wants to take things slow is a crazy turn on, which sort of defeats the whole purpose. It’s like some unfair, sexual oxymoron.

“Okay,” I hesitantly agree as our lips part. My chest rises and falls rapidly as I reclaim some semblance of composure. “This is the line.”

But it feels so strange to have a boundary with someone when I want to do so much more. Brian and I never had any set boundaries, and I honestly didn’t even want him the way I want Ran. Not even close. To have to pull back and limit it to this, especially given how incredible this is, almost feels unfair. If kissing Ran can make me feel this way, I can only imagine how everything else must be.

“Maggie.” Ran’s lips connect with mine a final time in one heavy, long press. “That was hot.” His eyes burn into mine, desire and need radiating through his gaze.

“Yeah,” I smile against his mouth. “Well, we are in a hot tub.”

Ran sweeps me around in the water and we settle against the side of the spa, slinking down into the bench seats. He wraps his arm around me and I coil mine around his waist. “That would have been hot in Antarctica.” He presses his mouth against my crown of hair. “Seriously, best first kiss ever.”

“But in all fairness, you admitted to not ever really having a first kiss. So I think that wins by default.”

“Maggie.” Ran guides my head onto his shoulder and combs his fingers through the length of my hair that swims around me in the rolling waves of the jets. “I’ve done much more than that in my past, and I can promise you, there’s no comparison. Not even on the same chart.”

“But it was just a kiss,” I say, insecurity hanging in my voice. My breathing still isn’t normal and I have to fight my lungs to adopt a rhythmic pace. It’s all shallow and shaky now, and if I keep it up, I’ll end up passing out.

Ran’s hand drops from my hair and floats down to the outside of my thigh where he grabs onto it and runs his thumb over my skin tenderly. It takes a moment before I realize it’s the leg with the scar, and for some reason, I feel like I should be embarrassed—like he’s going to notice my imperfections just under the pad of his thumb. But I think his hand placement might actually be intentional, and there’s something comforting in the act—in knowing that he chooses that leg, despite its flaws.

“Maggie,” Ran says quietly, assuring me as he continues, “sometimes it’s not about what you’re doing, but who you’re doing it with.”

“Sometimes it’s about what you’re doing and who you’re doing it with,” I suggest. My joints and muscles ache even more than before, and I’m sure the way they tensed during our kiss didn’t help at all with that. I let the warmth of the water wash over them and close my eyes as I curl against Ran’s body.

“In our case, yes.” With my eyes shut, Ran flips me around by my waist, drawing me onto his lap again. Consuming me with his gaze, the tips of his fingers slide my hair back on either side of my face, and he cups it between his palms. “And I’m glad that we’re just getting started because if that was just a taste of what’s in store, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to wait for more.”