Keep On Loving you

by Christie Ridgway

  Mac lifted both hands, pointing one index finger at Poppy and one at Zan. “Handle this,” she ordered, then flounced over to the table and took a free chair.

  Zan shot another look at Poppy, then slung an arm around the boy’s neck. “Let’s go talk appropriate card games in the other room.”

  Zan would be better off away from the temptation that was Mac, that was sure. Keep the peace, he reminded himself. Keep away from Mac.

  If he got her alone, he’d likely do inappropriate things like demand to know about her date. How it ended. If she’d stripped.

  Shit.

  Keeping his distance meant keeping Mason entertained with card games, then a kid version of dominoes, and then they played another game that involved dismantling a tower of wooden blocks. “You Walkers,” Zan said in disgust when his latest movement caused the whole thing to come tumbling down. “Your uncle Brett beat me at this every time, too.”

  Mason grinned, looking so much like his mother that Zan just had to ruffle his hair. “Good going, kid.”

  “Let’s play ag—”

  “Nope,” Poppy said, poking her head into the room. “It’s time for Mason to go to bed and Zan to have a well-deserved beer.”

  He didn’t protest, though Mason did. It took a few minutes to get the kid up the stairs, and then Zan was fridge-bound. In the kitchen, he didn’t see Mac with the others, and he told himself it was just as well that she’d slipped away before he was free.

  Yeah, since he was still picturing all the ways her date could have ended, it was better for her to be gone if he wasn’t going to jeopardize his standing with the Walker clan.

  Beer in hand, he was directed by Shay to find himself some chips in the separate pantry around the corner. It was a tidy room, holding shelves of foodstuffs...and Mac.

  She whirled when he walked in. He could see she’d just stowed a box of finished place cards in an open space. Inhaling a breath, he took in a hint of her perfume and his chest tightened.

  Her tongue came out to lick her lips.

  Zan took another step closer.

  “These place cards,” she said, talking as if that might keep him from her. “I told Poppy to pay a professional to make the damn things. Ryan couldn’t care less about the expense. But she keeps saying she wants their event to have a personal touch and I keep saying not one guest is going to give a hoot whether we tied that stupid twine or someone else did.”

  “Give a hoot?” he questioned, when the toes of his boots were an inch away from the toes of her sneakers.

  “It’s an expression,” she said, hunching her shoulders and then tucking her hands under her arms as if to make herself smaller...or to stop herself from touching him.

  Because her eyes were eating him up.

  Their chemistry sizzled and hissed.

  Or maybe that was Mac.

  Still, Zan set his beer on the shelf above her head.

  Mac’s eyes were their usual frosty blue, but her body was hot. He could feel her heat reaching out to him. He could see the flush on her cheeks and the rapid beat of her pulse in her throat.

  “Mac...” he began, thinking of how to ask this. How was your date? How did it end? Did you strip?

  And then he said none of those things, because he went completely nonverbal as his mouth slammed down on hers.

  She instantly moved in, going on tiptoe to make the fit tighter. Deeper. Better. Her hands moved to grip the sides of his shirt.

  He slid his hand around her waist, then down to her ass, tilting it to bring her belly against the jut of his hardening sex. Then, with her pressed tight to him, he slid his fingertips beneath the low-slung waist of her jeans to cup his palm over one round cheek.

  She moaned against his tongue.

  “Hey, Mac,” London yelled from the other room, not more than four feet away.

  Zan froze as Mac went stiff in his arms. Fuck.

  “Where’d you hide the scissors?”

  The moment was lost. The mood broken. Mac tore out of his arms, sent him an unreadable look, then rushed away. “Coming,” she called.

  Releasing his frustration, he breathed out a sigh of relief instead. To keep in Walker good graces meant keeping things cool with Mac.

  A vow that was challenged again a few days later when he made his way to Walker mountain to join the family. It had snowed the day before, the flakes drifting down slow and thick like winter fairies parachuting from the sky. The Walkers, en masse, were planning on an afternoon of snow play, using one of the cabins for rest and warm-up. To Zan, who’d been knocking around a huge house that felt emptier than his heart, the invitation was impossible to refuse.

  Second thoughts settled in when he got there to find the group in a spirited discussion about the future of their property. Voices were excited. Poppy bragged about the website she’d been working on with the help of a friend and teenager London.

  Damn. He was really beginning to hate keeping that secret. He’d been thinking on it, trying to come up with ways to handle the situation that would appease Mac as well as himself. As soon as she gave him the go-ahead, he was going to present the papers and facts to Brett and the others and together they’d find a solution.

  But in the meantime he’d made that promise to the girl with the dark hair and frosty eyes...

  Inside the cozy bungalow where a fire was blazing, Zan’s gaze sought Mac. But her attention was directed out the window and when he strolled toward her—maybe he could persuade her to tell all now—she zipped up her jacket and stepped outside. By the time he reached the porch she was already trudging up the hill with Mason, a sled under her arm.

  Avoiding him.

  Which she did the rest of the afternoon—and he told himself he was glad about it—slipping away to the snow or back into the cottage whenever he appeared anywhere nearby. Despite the secret he was really getting antsy about keeping, he ended up having a good time during the moments he could forget his subterfuge.

  The snow was powdery. The selection of food and drink they laid out delicious and designed to take out the chill. He almost felt like a kid again when he captained one snow war team and Jace the other. Years of experience with the Walkers let him know the best picks for his team. Shay had a trick for packing a mean snowball. Poppy’s sweet disposition made the opposing team members feel like bullies if they picked on her, so she went about her business virtually unscathed. He took a chance on Ryan, and London turned out to be both stealthy and ruthless.

  It might have been years since he laughed so hard when the whole lot of them turned on Brett at the same time and buried him in snowballs.

  But as everyone began piling into cars to head home, he finally gave in to the clamor inside him and managed to corral one certain unsuspecting Walker. As she headed out the door toward her vehicle, he caught her by the back of her hood and towed her inside the cabin. Though the fire was almost out, the interior remained warm. With his foot, he shut them in.

  “Someone will see!” she hissed.

  “They’re leaving. I told Poppy you and I would lock up.”

  “They’ll...they’ll think something!”

  “They’ll be wrong unless they think we’re going to be discussing telling the truth.” That was all he was after, he promised himself. Didn’t it weigh on her as much as it did him?

  “We shouldn’t be alone together,” Mac insisted. “We don’t want anyone imagining Zan and Mac as a couple again.”

  “But this isn’t about Zan and Mac. This is about Zan and Mac and being honest.”

  “Not right now—”

  “Don’t you think the sooner the better? Then we can put our heads together and come up with something acceptable to all.”

  “There isn’t anything acceptable beyond accepting the situation, don’t you get that?”

>   He put his hands on her shoulders. “I could—”

  “No.” Her body was rigid in his grip. “We can’t take from you. We won’t take from you.”

  He rolled his eyes skyward. “Mac, don’t you see I took from all of you for years? You were my friends and as close to family as I had.”

  “We don’t expect payback.” Her color was high and her eyes burned with icy fire. “Please tell me you get that.”

  Letting her go, he ran his fingers through his hair. “Why are you so damn stubborn?”

  She turned her back on him and made for the fireplace. Staring into the burning embers, she braced one hand on the mantel. “Brett is settled now. Shay secure with Jace and London. Please let me make sure Poppy has the day of her dreams before you do anything to shake up what she sees as her future.”

  “What is this?” Zan said, coming up behind her. “I’ve never seen this mama bear side of you.”

  “In the years you’ve been gone, I’ve become the head female in this family,” she said, her voice quiet.

  Oh, Mac. Was that some of the reason she’d been engaged three times? Her effort to ensure the stability of the family? “Poppy’s stronger than you think,” he said, even as he thought, And you’re more vulnerable than I knew.

  “Something’s off with her, I can tell,” Mac said. “She looks tired. And I...”

  “You...what?”

  “I can’t have anything endangering her happiness. At least not until she’s safely committed in marriage to Ryan and sheltered in his arms.”

  Who is there to shelter you, Mac? With all the Walker siblings paired off, who was going to be her buffer against the cold? “Mac...” Zan took hold of her shoulders again, but he lost the thread of his thoughts when she looked up into his face, her eyes big, her expression anxious.

  “Please, Zan.”

  “Sweetheart.” Tightening his grip, he lowered his forehead to hers, no longer concerned with keeping distance. “What’s going on with you?”

  “I think... I think Poppy holds all my hope. I think if we can keep her buoyant and bright, then I might eventually be that way, too.”

  He closed his eyes. “There’s honesty for you,” he muttered. The killing kind, because he wanted buoyancy and brightness for Mac, too. She used to be so assured, so easy with herself. And sometime in the past ten years she’d taken on the weight of the world—and built up a thick armor to help her hold it steady.

  “What am I going to do with you?” he asked, opening his eyes.

  She hesitated a long moment. Then her mouth opened. “Hold me?” she whispered. “For just a minute, can you hold me?”

  Oh, Mac. No scruple could hold strong against that request. Drawing her close, he pressed his face to her hair. It smelled of snow and smoke and this winter interlude that he’d never forget. Her arms went around him and she fit her body to his.

  His cock hardened, even though he told it not to, and then she pushed her face into his neck and breathed him in and there was no hope to stem his sexual reaction. No hope in the universe, when she pressed an openmouthed kiss there.

  “Mac.” He groaned her name. “You’ve got to feel what you’re doing to me.”

  “I want to do it to you.” Her body trembled against his. “I want to do it with you.”

  She was willing to be honest about this, at least.

  “Yeah?” He brought his lips to her ear and drew her more tightly against him so he could feel her every breath. “Right now? Right here? Are we going to do it in the cabin?”

  Because, God, he was no longer capable of holding out.

  “You’re so easy,” she murmured in a teasing voice that might have been forced, and then she kissed him again, running her mouth along his jaw. “Do we need to discuss this? Have some rationale? Give it a name—”

  “Not sex buddies,” he said, vehement about it.

  “Not sex buddies,” she agreed. “For old times’ sake, then?”

  Zan held her away a little, just so he could look into her eyes. “Not for the sake of old times, sweetheart. But because this Mac, the present you, is beautiful and complicated and a smart-ass and... Oh, screw it. I just want to fuck you.”

  Her laugh rang out, natural and easy like the girl she used to be. But the look in her eyes was mature and sultry and his dick went impossibly hard. He slid one hand into her hair at the back of her head and let the other follow the line of her spine until he breached the waistband of her jeans. There, he didn’t hesitate to slide below it so he cupped her fine ass.

  “God, you feel good,” he said, and took her mouth.

  Consumed her with his kiss. He sunk his tongue deep inside and hers tangled with him there, her hands exploring, too, one under his flannel shirt at his back, the other crawling up his belly. His muscles twitched beneath her touch—then he took her down to the rug beside the hearth.

  Mac lay on her back and he ranged over her, elbows on either side of her face. Her cheeks were flushed, her mouth already reddened by his kiss.

  “We have a hell of a lot of clothes on,” he said.

  She nodded. “Layers.”

  “Socks and boots. Long underwear.”

  “I still have on my jacket.”

  Then he smiled at her. Slow. “I’ve got an idea. We’ll race. First one naked gets—”

  She already had pushed him over and was throwing off her clothes.

  He had to laugh until his fingers were tangled in the laces of his snow boots. Then he was cursing and she was laughing, and then she was nude and Zan gave up on his shoes and just stared at her in the orange and gold light from the fire’s dying embers.

  He pulled her into his lap and began kissing her again, and it was unbelievable, all her soft, warm skin available to his touch after days of keeping his distance. Bending his head, he sucked in one of her nipples, deep, and she made a hungry sound and arched her back, pushing it farther into his mouth.

  He thought the top of his head might blow.

  The top of the other head, too, as she wiggled against the denim covering his dick. “I can’t get enough of you,” he said, moving his mouth to her other breast. Cupping it, he fed it between his lips. Mac arched again, and he ran his free hand between her legs until he found her slick folds.

  He glided into her wet inner heat with one finger. Then two.

  Her thighs fell apart and he looked down at the pretty pink flesh open for him. Mac, open for him. A special gift, he thought, instinct telling him being this exposed didn’t come easy for her.

  He inserted another finger in her, working it in slow, and her eyes closed. “I’m not going to be able to do without you,” he said.

  She made a noise somewhere between a moan and a whimper.

  His fingers rotated, scissored, and she caught her lower lip with her teeth. “You hear me, baby?”

  The sound she made was an affirmative one, then its note squeaked high as he dived deeper inside her. “Oh, God,” she whispered.

  Oh, God, he thought, beautiful. With his thumb he found her clit and she jerked in his arms at the first touch. “Yeah, not able to do without you,” he said.

  Her head dropped back as he circled the bundle of nerves and started thrusting inside her in a careful rhythm. Her inner muscles clamped hard on his fingers and beneath his flannel, a drop of sweat rolled down his spine.

  “While I’m here, baby, you’re in my bed.” It wasn’t smart, it wouldn’t keep the peace, it went against the inner voice shouting warnings at him. He didn’t care.

  “What?” She buried her head into the side of his throat. Took hold of his skin with her teeth.

  Christ, he was going to come in his jeans.

  He grit his teeth, holding off the climax. “My bed. You. Me.”

  When she didn’t reply, he pull
ed his hand free of her. They both groaned. She lifted her head, her gaze hazy, her breathing heavy.

  “Mac—”

  “Shut up and fuck me, Zan.”

  “Smart-ass,” he said with a laugh, and then he was kissing her, and she was helping him shed his remaining clothes, and when they were both naked she took the condom he handed her and slowly rolled it over him.

  He drew in a sharp breath through his teeth, barely holding on as she knelt at his side and slowly worked the latex down his aching shaft. Then she shifted over him and he groaned, falling back, letting her guide him into her wet heat.

  Once inside, she dropped to his chest, and he closed her in his arms. Her hips canted up, then down, starting a rhythm that was going to take him there in too short a time. His mouth pressed a kiss at her throat, and he thought again, Not able to do without you, as he tightened his hold on her.

  But even knowing he might be jeopardizing the peace, even knowing that he must, eventually, do without this luscious, sexy woman, he was able to lose himself and every further thought in the beauty of Mac. In the beauty of being her shelter, if only for this winter moment.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THIS IS ME, giving you me.

  The moment Tilda said those words to Ash, they changed the course of his life. Well, not strictly true. His course was still the same, but now he was determined to bring a companion alongside him on the journey.

  When he went to London, he wanted Tilda to be with him.

  He was in love with her, and every sign suggested she felt the same toward him.

  Life was good. Life was fucking good when you could see your future in bright relief.

  That didn’t mean he expected convincing her would be easy. But as he’d always been taught by his dad, he first used his head. After considering what objections she might have, he’d concocted a strategy.

  First, he had to open her world.

  Then he’d open her mind to what was on his.

  As he’d expected, he found her at the local branch of the library. It was a light-filled, airy space, with windows providing spectacular mountain views. Tilda was taking them in, sitting at a long table in front of her laptop, chin in hand.