Falling Hard (Colorado High Country #3)

by Pamela Clare

That’s what this was. He’d never been drawn to someone like this before, and a part of him was fucking scared to death. He had no plan of attack. There was no enemy. Or maybe there was. Maybe he was the enemy.

  What are you going to do about it?

  He could end this. He could call Ellie and explain that things had gotten out of hand. He could tell her that he was interested in sex, not a relationship. He could tell her that he’d be there for her as a neighbor but nothing else.

  And then what?

  She’d think he was an asshole, and she’d be right. Worse than that, it would make him a coward and a liar because he did want to be with her—and not just for sex.

  He stepped outside into the dark and cold and walked through his backyard down the mountain toward Ellie’s house. Snow crunched under his feet, the sky bright with icy stars, the golden light that spilled out from her kitchen window drawing him.

  She opened the door before he could knock. “Hey.”

  Jesse stared.

  Jesus!

  She stood there in nothing but a long nightgown of blue silk, its slender straps baring her soft shoulders, her nipples making little points beneath the fabric.

  You’re letting in cold air, idiot.

  He stomped off the snow and stepped inside, then closed the door and slipped out of his parka, still unable to take his gaze off her.

  And then she was in his arms.

  Chapter 11

  Ellie kissed Jesse the way she’d been burning to kiss him, the way she’d fantasized about kissing him. His response was immediate, like a match hitting gasoline. He crushed her against him as he kissed her back, almost lifting her off the floor, ravishing her mouth with his.

  God, yes.

  She needed this, this raw male part of him, his strength, that hint of aggression he kept under such strict control.

  Oh, he knew what he was doing. He sucked her lower lip into his mouth, traced the outline of her lips with his tongue, then claimed her mouth again, his scent an aphrodisiac, the hard feel of his body making her knees weak.

  She slipped her arms around his neck and held on, molding her body to his.

  One big hand cupped her breast, his thumb teasing her nipple through the silk of her nightgown, each flick heightening her arousal.

  Hungry for him, she slid her hands beneath his shirt, drinking in the feel of him—soft skin, plains and ridges of muscle, the curls on his chest.

  He backed her up against the table, jerked up her nightgown, and slipped a hand between her thighs, stroking her, sliding a finger inside her.

  She moaned, the intrusion sweet.

  It had been so long.

  He moaned, too. “God, you’re wet.”

  “I want you. Now.” She didn’t want to wait. She couldn’t wait. She’d already waited long enough for this—a lifetime it seemed.

  “Impatient?” He lifted her off her feet, and sat her on the edge of the table—then dropped to his knees.

  Her heart seemed to ricochet off her breastbone when she understood what he intended to do. “Oh, no, you don’t have to do—”

  “Don’t distract me.” He looked up at her, his eyes dark with lust. “I’m busy.”

  He pushed her thighs apart, and she watched his expression darken as his gaze fixed on her there, his brows drawing together. Then he parted her with his fingers and gave her a long … slow … lick.

  Her head fell back, her hips giving an involuntary jerk, her fingers sliding into his thick hair.

  “Mmm.” Strong hands grasped her buttocks, dragged her closer to the table’s edge, then his mouth closed over her.

  Oh, God.

  The hot shock of it made her gasp. She’d forgotten how good it felt to be taken by a man like this, one exquisite sensation after another shivering through her as he stroked her clit with his tongue, then drew her into the heat of his mouth and sucked.

  Lost somewhere between bliss and oblivion, she lay back on the table, hands clenching into fists in his hair. “Jesse.”

  Her breath came in moans now. God, she had missed this—the sweet ache, the urgency, the desperation. She was awash in desire, strung out on lust, lost somewhere between agony and bliss.

  Then he pushed a finger inside her.

  She came with a cry. “Jesse!”

  Climax crashed through her, breaking the bars of the cage that had held her heart for so long, setting her free.

  For a time—she couldn’t say how long—she lay there, eyes closed, floating, her heartbeat gradually slowing.

  She felt butterfly kisses on her inner thighs and opened her eyes to find him watching her, the intensity in his eyes sending a dark thrill through her.

  He stood, holding her legs against his chest, and reached into his back pocket.

  The condom.

  He tore open the packet with his teeth, yanked down his jeans and boxer briefs, his erection straining toward her. She expected him to put on the condom and enter her, but he didn’t. Instead, he slid two fingers inside her, stroking her, exploring her. “Can you feel how wet you are?”

  She was still hypersensitive, the slick glide of his fingers both soothing and arousing. “Yes.”

  He found that magic spot inside her. “Do you like this?”

  “Oh … yes.”

  He withdrew his fingers and stroked her moisture over the head of his cock, making himself slick with her essence, the act so erotic that it made her breath catch. Then, at last, he rolled on the condom.

  He looked into her eyes. “Are you sure?”

  He was truly asking her, giving her a chance to back out, to say no, to refuse him. But she wanted him. “Fuck me.”

  His gaze held hers as he entered her, his pupils going wide, his slow thrust making them both moan.

  It had been so long since a man had been inside her, and it took a moment for her body to adjust to the thick, hard feel of him. But then he was moving, his hips thrusting, pushing his cock in and out of her, the sweet, slippery friction driving her crazy.

  “God, you’re tight.” Big hands palmed her breasts, rubbing and pinching her nipples through the silk.

  Needing him, wanting every inch of him, she drew her knees back, reached for him, her fingers digging into his lower back.

  “God, yeah, open yourself to me, honey.” His voice was rough, his face hard with the raw ache of sex.

  He grasped her hips, drove into her faster, harder, each thrust bringing her closer to the bright edge of orgasm. Oh, God, the way he moved, so smooth, powerful, erotic, all that muscle in motion. He reached with one hand to stroke her clit. The combination felt so … fucking … good.

  She was unraveling, coming undone, pleasure breaking her down. Little moans rolled from her throat with every exhalation, mixing with incoherent whispers. “Jesse … God … Fuck … Oh, yes…”

  Orgasm hit her with the force of a tidal wave, drowning her with more bliss than her body could contain. “Jesse!”

  He wasn’t far behind her. He pounded himself into her, then sucked in a breath and held it, his eyes squeezed shut as climax claimed him, the sexual anguish on his face relaxing into bliss.

  Jesse stretched out in the big bed and drew Ellie into his arms, his body replete, his mind empty. They’d had sex again, this time in her bedroom, taking it slow, lingering over little details, the smallest pleasures.

  She snuggled against him, her head resting on his shoulder, her fingers trailing through his chest hair. “Your heart is still pounding.”

  “So is yours.”

  There was sex a man forgot the moment it was over. There was sex he remembered. There was sex that blew his mind. Tonight had definitely been in the latter category, because … damn.

  Her scent still filled his head, the taste of her lingering on his tongue, his mind and body shaken by the force of his response to her.

  He kissed the top of her head. “I can’t stay.”

  “I know.”

  Still, he couldn’t get himself to leave her. He to
ld himself that no one would want to climb out of a warm bed and hike uphill through the snow. But the truth was that he didn’t want to leave her.

  As they lay there together in the light of her bedside lamp, he began to notice things he hadn’t when they were tearing each other’s clothes off. The plush armchair in the corner. The photo of Ellie and Dan on their wedding day that hung on one wall. The pictures of the twins there on her nightstand. The portrait of Dan in his Ranger uniform that sat on her dresser.

  She must have noticed the direction of his gaze. “Do the photos bother you?”

  They did, though he couldn’t say why. Seeing Dan’s face again …

  “He was your husband. He’s Daisy and Daniel’s father.” That wasn’t exactly an answer, but Jesse couldn’t admit the truth—that seeing Dan’s face left him feeling … what? Uneasy? Jealous?

  You must be a special kind of asshole to be jealous of a dead man.

  “Do you want to talk about this—about what happened tonight?”

  He wanted to tell her there was nothing to talk about, that they were just neighbors who’d hooked up for sex. But when he opened his mouth, that’s not what came out. “I’m not the man you think I am, Ellie.”

  “What kind of man do I think you are?”

  “I’m not good with relationships or kids.”

  “You do a great job of faking it. I’ll even give you extra points for the tiara.” She raised her head and looked up at him. “Is this the part where you say, ‘thanks for the sex,’ and leave?”

  That was more or less the gist.

  “I just never imagined myself getting serious with anyone—or being a father, raising kids.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder again. “You get along well with the twins.”

  “I’m not saying that I don’t like kids.” Hell, he’d just fucked her senseless. She might as well know. “I grew up in a pretty screwed-up family. My dad wasn’t really my dad. He married my mother when she was pregnant with me. He beat the shit out of me. I never found out who my real father was.”

  She turned onto her belly, her gaze soft with compassion. “God, Jesse, I’m so sorry. That must have been terrifying.”

  Yeah, but that wasn’t the worst part. “My mother tried to protect me, but sometimes he beat her, too.”

  “Watching that must have made you feel so helpless.”

  “Yeah.” How could he explain this? “I’ve always been afraid…”

  “That you would be like him.”

  “Yeah.”

  She shifted in his arms, bringing her face even with his. “I’m a pretty good judge of people. Most nurses are. I don’t think you have it in you to hurt women or children.”

  “I’m not a hero, Ellie.”

  She brushed her lips over his. “You might feel that way, but you’re going to have a hard time convincing me of that. You’re a combat veteran who saves lives for a living, shovels my sidewalk, watches my kids, and makes me scream.”

  He couldn’t help but smile. “That last part is true.”

  It’s a wonder she hadn’t awoken the twins.

  “It’s all true.” She settled into his arms again. “I’m okay with taking this one day at a time. Neither of us expected this to happen. Just promise me one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Be honest with me.”

  That’s what he’d been trying to do.

  Jesse trudged uphill through the snow toward his cabin, fat flakes beginning to fall, a cold wind blowing from the northwest. Somehow, he’d fallen asleep, the alarm on his smartphone the only reason he wasn’t still lying in bed beside Ellie. It had been hard to pull himself away from her—her warm body, all that feminine softness. For just a few minutes, he’d thought about calling in.

  Hey, Matt, I was up most of the night fucking. Can I have the day off?

  Yeah, no. That wouldn’t go well.

  Strangely, he wasn’t tired. He felt energized, awake, alive. He’d told Ellie about his family. She hadn’t shown him pity. She hadn’t pulled away from him. She’d understood. She’d understood all of it.

  Dan Meeks had married an incredible woman.

  Jesse unlocked his door and stepped into his cold, dark cabin. He didn’t have time for a shower, so he slipped into his warmest layers, put on his ski pants and parka, then made a lunch and headed to work, his mind full of Ellie. God, he could still smell her, her scent lingering on his skin, images of last night playing in his head. Ellie answering the door in that nightgown. Ellie lost in orgasm, pleasure dancing across her face. Ellie lying asleep beside him, eyelashes dark on her cheeks.

  What the hell had he gotten himself into?

  He didn’t know, but he liked it.

  He was so caught up in thinking about her that he almost missed the turn-off to the ski resort.

  Get it together, jackass.

  By the time he parked in the staff lot, the snow was coming down hard, wind creating near-blizzard conditions.

  Inside the chalet, Matt was on the radio with someone from management. “We’re looking at gusts of thirty to fifty miles an hour up here. Yeah. I don’t think we have a choice.”

  Well, shit.

  It took a hell of a lot of snow to shut a ski resort down, but wind was something else. Ski lifts couldn’t operate safely in high winds. People could get blown out. Chairs could derail and fall, or swing into the support poles and crush someone. And a ski resort without operational lifts was a ski resort without skiers.

  But that didn’t mean it was going to be a slow day. Far from it.

  At the morning huddle, Matt gave people their assignments, then added a word of caution. “We’re seeing temps of minus forty with wind chill up at the top. Watch yourselves. Hypothermia is a sneaky son of a bitch. I don’t want to lose anyone to the weather—not one of you and certainly not a guest.”

  With no lifts to carry them up the mountain, patrollers rode up on snowcats and snowmobiles. Jesse rode up to Eagle Ridge with Kevin and Ben and a load of explosives, snow swirling in the snowmobile’s headlights, wind beating down on them. By the time they reached the top of the ridge, Jesse knew they were fucked.

  He shouted to the others, wind biting into his face, the cold merciless. “We can’t toss bombs. The wind will catch them. We’ll blow ourselves up.”

  Jesse could tell Kevin wasn’t happy.

  Ellie awoke to the beeping of her alarm at five. She stretched in the darkness, smiled to herself, and reached to feel the indentation Jesse had left on the pillow. He’d left behind other signs of his presence, too—his scent on the sheets and on her body, the salt and musk of sex in the air, the soreness between her thighs.

  She crawled out of bed and walked naked to the bathroom, feeling as if she were floating on air. She stepped into the shower, her hands retracing the path his hands and mouth had taken last night, the memory turning her on.

  She was no stranger to great sex. She and Dan had had a crazy, wonderful love life, cocooning when he was home on leave, trying to make up for lost time, screwing until they could barely walk straight. But last night with Jesse had been …

  Incredible was the only word that came to mind.

  Jesse had been rough. He’d been tender. He’d overwhelmed her in the best possible way. How many times had she come? Four. No, five. It wasn’t her record for one night, but it was only off by one. And she and Jesse barely knew one another. What would it be like once they’d been together for a while?

  Don’t lose your head over this.

  She ignored that annoying voice. She wasn’t a teenager. Jesse had been upfront with her. He’d told her that he wasn’t good with relationships and had never planned to be a father. She’d heard him. If a week from now he ended it…

  How will you feel then?

  She would be fine. She would be better than fine. She knew something now that she hadn’t known two weeks ago. She could feel again.

  She woke the kids, got them ready to go, and drove through wi
nd and four inches of new snow to drop them off at her parents’ place.

  Her mother answered the door. “There are my sleepy angels.”

  Ellie set the kids down just inside the door. “How’s Claire?”

  Her mother bent down to take off the kids’ hats and coats. “I haven’t heard anything since last night. She was in a fair amount of pain, but Cedar was taking good care of her. Haven’t you called her yourself?”

  “I went to the fundraiser at Knockers last night and got home late.” Ellie omitted the fact that she’d spent the rest of the night having sex with her neighbor. “I’ll call her on my lunch break if I get one. I’m in the ER today.”

  It was a slow day, slow enough that she was able to work on the SnowFest first-aid tent and spend a fair amount of time thinking about Jesse—his mouth between her thighs, his hands on her breasts, the expression on his face when he came.

  “Don’t distract me. I’m busy.”

  Good God!

  You’re at work, Nurse Meeks.

  Scolded by her inner Nurse Ratched, Ellie sorted through the volunteer forms for the first-aid tent, matching them with the CPR certifications she’d received. She was missing only one—Jesse’s. She’d left it at home on her kitchen counter.

  They had a couple come in with their four-day-old baby. The poor little thing was crying and running a fever of 102.8. The doc on duty quickly diagnosed the cause—an infected circumcision. They gave him some IV fluids, piggy-backed antibiotics, and gave him oral medication for his pain and fever. Because he was so little, the doc admitted him. The mother, who was still recovering from giving birth, was clearly exhausted from being up all night.

  Ellie did her best to support her. “The nurses will take good care of him. You should try to get some sleep.”

  Then it was lunchtime.

  She walked down to the cafeteria, sat down with her salad, and called Claire. “Hey, sis. How are you feeling?”

  “Better than last night, or maybe the Percocet is working. I can tell you already that I don’t like walking on crutches or having my mobility limited.”

  They talked for a while about the surgeon’s prognosis and the physical therapy regimen Claire would be starting in six weeks.