Nice move, Morgan.
She must look like dried out leftovers because that was how she felt. Rising to a sitting position, she had a moment of pause at the comfy, homemade quilt covering her.
How sweet of Dare to cover her with a blanket. Especially when she’d crashed at his place without permission, and after asking him such a scandalous question.
Why had she drunk the whiskey? She should have kept her wits about her. They hadn’t failed her until now. But as favors went, hers wasn’t an easy one to ask.
Dare did that to her though. Made her stupid, always had. She hated feeling this way, which is why she’d drunk the whiskey. In hindsight, that had been a big mistake. There could have been so many other ways she could have handled the situation better.
From the first time Dare had picked up Gabi for a date, Morgan had had stars in her eyes for him. She’d been two years behind him in high school, and she’d stalked him from afar with her best friend Rhiannon. Rhiannon had it bad for Brey, Dare’s older brother. She couldn’t blame her there. Rhiannon had given up on Brey when he moved to Nashville. But Brey was back, and Rhiannon still stared at him like he hung the moon, not that he seemed to notice, and Rhiannon wasn’t willing to do anything about it.
Well, that wasn’t Morgan. Her father always said moss refused to grow on her—but when did moss really grow on people? Sure, she was always busy with something or other, and maybe leaped before she looked. Well…not maybe, always.
Last night being a good example.
Which was why she was currently sitting on Dare’s couch, getting up the nerve to let him know she was awake.
She wished she could wash her face first. She probably had raccoon eyes from smudged mascara. Not probably—most definitely. Not to mention, she’d fallen asleep without brushing her teeth. Ugh. So not attractive.
“You’re awake?” Dare asked, entering the living room and expressing the fact more as a question than a statement.
“Uh…yeah. Sorry for falling asleep on your couch.” She tried to smooth her hair into some semblance of order.
“Not a problem. I’ve slept there more times than I should.”
Knowing that he slept in the same place she just had shouldn’t fill her with warmth, but it did.
“Again, I’m sorry.”
“No need to be. Hungry?”
“Starved.”
“Come on then. I’m not the best cook, but any man worth his salt knows how to cook bacon. I might have gone overboard. I don’t have guests much, so I fried up not only the bacon, but sausage, ham, hash browns, and scrambled eggs with cheese. Though the hash browns didn’t turn out the best.”
“I’m sure they will be fine.” Obviously, he wasn’t concerned with cholesterol, which is all she heard her mother debating with her father about. But then looking at Dare—his muscle-packed frame with no room for fat—he could probably eat anything without a second thought.
Sled dogs, when they were racing, ate up to ten thousand calories a day. She bet Dare could get away with that too, with the shape he was in. It made her want him more.
Dang it, he had to be her first.
Somehow, she needed to find a way around his objections and get him to agree.
She should have been able to lose her virginity many times over, after all the ratio for Heartbreak was ten men for every one woman, but she’d been a late bloomer, and not a lot of men had looked twice at her. Until recently.
But Dare was right. While she didn’t feel the need to be in love with the first man she slept with, she didn’t want it to mean nothing. She wanted fond memories too.
She’d thought that would happen with Bart, but it hadn’t. If anything, being rejected by him made her more determined to be a woman of the world. Ready and willing to sleep with whoever she wanted. Just like Samantha in Sex in the City.
Of all the characters, she saw herself more as Samantha than wishy-washy Charlotte or high-powered, family focused Miranda, or the star of the show, Carrie, who seemed more perplexed about who she was than any of them. Nope, Samantha was in charge of her life, knew who she was, did what she wanted, and didn’t take prisoners. That was who Morgan wanted to be. Independent, powerful, and a total kick ass.
She hadn’t lied when she told Dare about her friends who had horror stories of their first time. The pain, the tearing, the zero chance of an orgasm. Rhiannon had been what Morgan considered date raped, though she wasn’t willing to admit it or report it. That was years ago, their junior year of high school, and thankfully, Rhiannon was doing better now, but she was still shy when it came to men. To this day, she’d never revealed who the man was, but Morgan had an idea that it was Todd Ellis, owner of Eternal Springs and Spa. Not that anything could be done about it now. Plus, karma had a way of taking care of things. Last she’d heard, Todd had impregnated Leia Atwood, who was a nut case and bound to make his life a living hell.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, she thought.
Her own mother had taught Gabi and Morgan well, giving them more information about sex than they probably needed. But then her father was a randy man, and her mom had seemed more pregnant than not during Morgan’s growing up years, resulting in five children to date. Though Morgan wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t another surprise before the doors closed for business on her mom’s reproductive organs.
Morgan wanted the man she finally settled on to want her to distraction like her father wanted her mother. A man who cornered her in the kitchen, felt her up on the couch under pretense of “cuddling” and pretty much shocked the crap out of their kids at every turn with the abundance of affection he showed her—and her him.
It was good to show kids that their father loved their mother to distraction. And while her parents had embarrassed her as a preteen, teen, and adult, she valued that they loved each other so much. So much so, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other no matter how much their kids complained.
She took a seat at Dare’s table, watching as he quickly moved sled drawings aside to make room for the platters of food he’d cooked.
She’d always marveled over how Dare could streamline a dog sled, decreasing the drag and helping his dogs skate faster over the snow.
He set a plate in front of her loaded down with more food than she ate in a day. Bacon, sausage, ham, eggs, hash browns, and sourdough toast.
“There is no possible way I can eat all this,” she said, looking at the plate and then up at him.
“Whatever you don’t finish, I’ll eat.” He spooned eggs and hash browns covered in hot sauce into his mouth, his plate piled higher than hers.
Yep, the man was in training and eating as many calories as his famed dogs.
“When are you leaving for Kasilof?” she asked in her attempt at normal conversation. Lord knew, last night she’d bungled it.
“Snowpack is still too low on the Kenai Peninsula, so I’ve had to push my plans back. I hope they get dumped on soon. Hell, we don’t even have enough snow up here for me to run them with a sled. Damn global warming,” he muttered around a mouthful of food. “I hope to be headed down there in a few weeks to qualify for the Iditarod.”
Which didn’t give her a lot of time to talk him into her plan.
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if she could come along. She had a fascination with dog sled racing, the Iditarod and Yukon Quest especially. She knew Dare had raced the Iditarod not once but twice. His first, finishing at an amazing tenth place. Unheard of for a rookie. And the second time he’d come in fourth, another amazing feat. He was bound to place in the top three this year, if not take the title, which would put his sleek and aerodynamically designed sleds on the map. She’d heard he’d sold a few sleds overseas to Finland and knew it was only the beginning for him.
Dare Wilde could not travel fast enough. Whether it was with dogs, four-wheelers, or snow machines. She’d hate to see what he would do if his focus ever shifted to automobiles, or heaven forbid, airplanes.
; They ate in silence until it stretched enough around the elephant in the room that she’d planted last night that she had to say something to break the tension.
“Have you given any thought to my suggestion?”
“Suggestion?” he choked. “You call that a suggestion?”
She smiled inwardly. So, he hadn’t forgotten. “All right, so maybe suggestion isn’t the right word.”
“You think?”
“But have you thought about it?”
“Yes. It’s all I’ve thought about,” he mumbled.
“And?” She held her breath as she waited for his answer.
He bent his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “Morgan…”
Well, crap, he was going to turn her down. Again.
She steeled her expression, not wanting him to know his answer meant so much to her.
“Forget it,” she blurted out, stirring her cheese-covered eggs.
“Forget it?” He looked up at her surprised, his brows furrowed. “How the hell can I forget it?”
She pushed her plate back, no longer hungry. “You were the at the top of my list. But there are others.” She moved to leave the table, but he grabbed her arm, forcing her to regain her seat.
“Others? What others?” he growled.
She shrugged. “There are more men in Heartbreak than just you, and then there is the population of Fairbanks to consider. I’m sure one of them will take me up on my offer.”
“The hell they will.” He jumped up, his chair tipping back and falling to the floor, unheeded.
“What do you care? You said no.”
“Morgan, I can’t let you do this.”
“It’s my body, my choice.”
He grimaced at that. “What you are willing to throw away is special. Something to be cherished.”
“Special to whom? It’s an annoyance. I can’t go home with a guy without it being a ‘thing.’”
“Who do you want to go home with?”
“None of your business.” Though there really was no one who had captured her fancy, except Bart, and now Dare. Dare had always been the one she’d dreamed of, even though she thought for a time she and Bart could make a go of it.
Now that Dare was no longer dating her sister, being with him was a possibility, if he would only agree. Maybe throwing other men in his face would do it? Though she didn’t like how petty the thought made her feel.
“Who else is on your list?” Dare demanded.
“Never you mind about that.” She decided to change the subject. “When do you think you could set up that meeting with Lynx Maiski?”
“Holy shit! Don’t tell me he’s on your list? He’s a happily married man with three, four, or five kids now. And his wife, Eva would kill you and him. They’d never find the bodies.”
She laughed. “Remember I wanted you to set up a meeting with Lynx to discuss working with him? And no, he isn’t on my list.”
Dare seemed to relax a bit. “That’s good. No, it’s not good. You shouldn’t even have a list.”
“Forget about it. You said no, so there is nothing for you to worry about.”
He growled again and paced the small space. Eska looked up from her spot where she was curled up, seemed to roll her eyes, and settled back down again as if she was used to this kind of display. Morgan enjoyed the show while chewing on a perfectly crisp piece of bacon.
Dare was adorable in his frustration, and she really shouldn’t take pleasure in the fact. But, oh well, what could she say? It pleased her to no end to tie him up in knots. She hoped that didn’t make her a bad person.
“Listen, Morgan, I can’t let you go through with this.”
“Dare, it’s really none of your business.”
“You made it my business when you asked me to…you know.” He scowled at her, planting his hands on his hips. “Does Gabi know what you’re planning?”
She choked out a laugh. “Gabi would lock me in a tower if she knew. She takes to being an older sister much like a wolverine.”
“That’s what I thought. You need to put this idea out of your head.”
“Not going to happen.” She took a bite of her eggs. “Besides, it really has nothing to do with you now that you said no.”
“Morgan…”
She wiped her mouth with a napkin and stood. “I really need to get going. Thank you for breakfast and the use of your couch. Please call me when you’ve set up a meeting with Lynx.”
“You can’t go until we iron this out.”
“There is nothing to iron out. You said no, end of story, and I have things to do, as I’m sure you do.” She reached up and kissed his cheek. “See you later.”
And then she was out of there before Dare could come up with anything else to keep her.
Once outside, she dragged in a deep breath of the chilly, bracing, arctic air, and made her way to her truck. While Dare had turned her down, and she needed to look at the second man on her list, that wasn’t her biggest problem.
She currently lived at home. How was she going to explain to her overprotective father where she’d been all night?
Chapter 6
Dare slopped through his chores and then headed to the Forget-Me-Not Inn. He needed his twin. He had to talk to someone, and Ryder was his go-to guy. Now that Ryder was marrying Gabi, would Ryder’s alliances still be with his brother or his intended?
Guess he was about to find out.
He walked into the inn without knocking, not that anyone could have heard him with all the saws buzzing and nail gun concussions that greeted him.
They were making great progress on updating and renovating the inn and it was beginning to show signs of being a real Alaskan show piece. He found Ryder in the kitchen which had been gutted and was now in the process of being converted into a state-of-the-art culinary kitchen that would rival any in the lower forty-eight or even Europe. Ryder had outdone himself with the design, using custom birch cabinets and local granite counter tops.
“Hey, bro,” he greeted. “Got a minute?”
Ryder took off his safety glasses, eyes narrowing, already catching onto Dare’s mood. “Sure. What’s up?”
“Any chance we could do this somewhere besides here?” He hadn’t seen Gabi, but he knew she was around somewhere, and this conversation needed to happen far, far away from her.
“I could use a stroll,” Ryder said, unhooking his toolbelt and laying it in the corner of the room.
They headed out of the inn and down the gravel path to the dock that overhung the clear-blue waters of Mistress Lake that bordered the town.
They didn’t speak until they were far enough away that there was no chance of anyone overhearing them.
“What is it?” Ryder asked.
“Morgan.”
“Gabriella’s Morgan?”
“Do you know of any other Morgans in town?”
“What happened?” He narrowed his eyes. “What did you do?”
“Nothing, and believe me I wanted to.” Still do.
“Seriously?” Ryder raised a disbelieving brow. “Nothing?”
“I was the perfect gentleman, even though Morgan asked me to take her virginity.”
“She what?”
“Yeah, and get this. She doesn’t want any strings attached. I feel like a goddamn piece of meat.” Well, that wasn’t totally true. Somewhat, but not all.
He was beginning to think he had real feelings for Morgan. Another reason he couldn’t do what she wanted, and he sure as hell couldn’t allow her to approach the others on her “list.”
Hell, he needed to find out who she had on it, so he could warn them off or kill them. He’d never experienced feelings like this toward a woman before. They were downright possessive, which scared him.
She’d told him if Gabi found out, she’d lock her in a tower. Well, he wanted to do worse, kidnap her and squirrel her away to someplace in the woods where no one would find her. No one, but him.
Ryder rubbed the back of his neck,
the action a mirror to Dare’s. While Ryder always used his left hand, and Dare his right, it was still kind of freaky to others. To them, it was natural.
“Why would she do that?” Ryder asked.
“Maybe because she fancies me?”
“You know what I mean. What woman doesn’t want their first time to be special?”
“Hey, I’d make it special.”
“You know what I mean. Her wanting to be in love with the man and all that romantic stuff.”
“I know what you mean. It was a question I asked her and then she turned it around on me.” He took a moment to look over the still waters, lapping at the snow-dusted banks. “Did you love the woman you lost yours to?”
“You know I didn’t. God, that sounds crass. I liked her and she liked me well enough, and she was no virgin. But no, the only woman I have ever loved has been Gabriella.”
“That’s what I thought. Morgan is right about the double standard thing.” He turned to face his brother. “Why do men rush to get rid of their virginity and woman are expected to hold onto it and only give it up in the marriage bed or to someone they are madly in love with?”
“Hell if I know.” Ryder leaned his elbows onto the dock’s railing. “You know you can’t do this.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Do you? Really?”
“Really. Believe me, if Gabi ever found out she’d not only kill me, but you by association.”
“Got that right. So, what are you going to do?”
“I’ve already told Morgan no.”
Ryder winced. “How did she take it?”
“Surprisingly well.” Too well. “Apparently, she has a list. I just happened to be at the top of it.”
“Holy hell. Who else is on the list?”
“I have no idea, but I’m going to find out and beat the shit out of every one of them if they even look twice at her.”
“Good plan. It will keep my soon-to-be wife out of jail, because if she finds out, she’ll kill whoever is on that list too.” Ryder shifted his feet. “Since you’re here, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about too.”
Wild Streak (Alaska Wild Nights Book 6) Page 3
