Make Me Stay (Men of Gold Mountain)

by Rebecca Brooks

  “You haven’t even seen what it is,” she protested.

  He pulled out the gloves. They were black, with leather reinforcements across the palm and not a hole in sight. Yet he was holding them as though they might poison his hands.

  He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “This is really nice, Sam.”

  “But?”

  “But I’m sorry.” He shook his head and passed them over to her. “I can’t.”

  “Try one on,” she prodded. Reluctantly he slipped his hand inside. She could tell it fit perfectly, the top cinching at just the right place up his arm so the snow and the cold wouldn’t get in.

  “Tell me they don’t feel amazing.”

  He sighed. “They do. They feel amazing.”

  “Top of the line.”

  “I know.” He pulled the glove off and nestled it with its mate on the back of the couch.

  “I’ve seen how much you work when you ski. This is warm, waterproof, but it’s supposed to be breathable, it’ll wick the sweat away—”

  “Sam,” he interrupted, taking her hands in his. She shut her mouth. “This is really, really sweet of you. But these gloves cost two hundred dollars. I can’t accept that kind of gift from you.”

  She pulled her hands away, surprised by how stung she felt. “It’s my choice. I wanted to get them for you. They’re yours.”

  “No.” He pushed them toward her. “Please.”

  It was such as simple thing. Such a stupid thing. And yet she could feel tears spring to her eyes. She’d been so excited to see him, and the gloves felt like an extension of that. The idea that she was trying to buy him made her feel dirty. The idea that he’d rejected being bought made her feel even worse. This wasn’t his property they were talking about. She’d wanted him to know that she cared.

  “I’m not concerned about the money,” she said.

  “I get that,” he said. “It seems like it’s not a big deal to you.”

  “No, you don’t get that,” she shot back. “Otherwise you’d take them without making it into an issue.”

  She saw the surprise on his face and immediately regretted it, not just what she’d said but the tone. Her phone call with work was still inside her, leaching out.

  But Austin didn’t know her like that. She didn’t want him to know her like that. She wanted him to think of her like Amelia did. What was that word? Nice. Even when she wasn’t. Even when she knew she couldn’t be.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was just excited, that’s all. I don’t want it to be a thing. I’ll take them back.”

  He reached for her hand again. “Thank you.”

  “You wear those gloves held together by duct tape and I thought…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. The idea that she’d thought he’d be excited to have a new pair of gloves had obviously been way off base, but it couldn’t be just about money. Most people politely protested then were happy to accept the thing they wanted but would never have bought for themselves. But Austin had been adamant. It was like he was with the land, so damn principled he couldn’t imagine things another way.

  She put the gloves back in the bag. If only they fit her, she would have kept them for herself.

  If only she had someone else she could give them to, but that made her think of her father and how she couldn’t give them to him, could no longer give him anything, and this time she couldn’t stop the tears in her eyes.

  “Oh, hey, hey,” Austin said quickly, reaching out to wrap her in a hug. “I’m sorry, I handled that wrong. Please, don’t—”

  “It’s okay.” She shook her head, embarrassed by such vulnerability. “It’s not really that. It’s…I don’t know. Something just popped into my mind. It still happens like that sometimes. I think I’m fine and then all of a sudden, it’s like a wave that comes out of nowhere.”

  “Your father?” he asked.

  She nodded, then pulled away from him. “Can we start over?” She dropped the bag of gloves by the door, out of view. “I brought beer. It smells delicious in here. Your place is lovely. I thought about you all afternoon.”

  She forced a smile, but when Austin raised his beer and clinked it against hers the smile was real and she was back, she was okay, the gloves didn’t matter when she bought them and they wouldn’t matter when she brought them back. Austin kissed her, the kind of kiss that said he’d been thinking about her, too. “Can I give you the grand tour?”

  “Sure,” she said, on solid footing now.

  He turned his arm to take in the open floor plan. “This is it.”

  She laughed. “Fabulous. What’s cooking?”

  “Soup and fresh-baked bread, although before you get too excited I should confess that I had Connor bring it over. I don’t know a thing about bread.”

  Sam’s eyes lit up. “A Connor creation? Then I know it’s going to be good.”

  “Maybe I should lead with that, tell you the dinner’s amazing because Connor was here.”

  “It does help your pitch.”

  “So I shouldn’t be embarrassed that Connor also seasoned the soup?”

  Sam bit her lip, pretending to think. “If the meal is good, you’ll still be able to hold your head high.”

  “Let’s hope he didn’t intentionally sabotage my whole plan.”

  “Your plan?” Sam sank into the couch and looked up at him with an eyebrow raised.

  Austin took her beer from her hand and placed it next to his on the coffee table. He wrapped an arm around her and then shifted the two of them together so he was lying partway on top of her, leaning her back against the arm of the couch. “My plan to wow you with dinner and then get you into bed.”

  Sam slithered farther under him. Up against a wall had been fun, but to feel the weight of his body on top of her, the press of his leg between hers—this was what she’d wanted all afternoon. “I don’t think that required much of a plan,” she said, running her hand through his hair, marveling how it got all spiky and messed up and perfect looking no matter what he did. “You could have served me anything and I’d still wind up in your bed. Or, as it turns out, your couch.”

  He ran his hands up her stomach, grazing the side of her breast. “Damn,” he murmured. “All that work for nothing.”

  His hand was large, strong. The way he touched her made her feel like he had her completely. Like she belonged.

  “I guess now Connor knows who in Gold Mountain is getting some tonight,” Sam said with a laugh, tracing her fingers up his back.

  “I may have said that I needed dinner tips to impress a lady. I didn’t say which lady. And I was vague about the terms of the word ‘impress.’”

  “And how often do you typically call on Connor to save your ass when it comes to entertaining women?”

  “Not often enough,” Austin conceded.

  “And how many unnamed ladies has Connor seen you with recently?”

  “Possibly just one.”

  “Yet again, you go around making me look like the dirty one.” She shifted under him, pressing her pelvis up against his thigh.

  He pushed back into her just as firmly and rolled up the bottom of her sweater, exposing the skin underneath. “I don’t recall you objecting before,” he said, his voice low, dropping down to kiss the bare skin. Reminding them both of what they’d done up there on the mountain, desperate for each other against the shelter wall.

  She stroked his hair. “Maybe you should turn off the heat under that soup.”

  Austin agreed that was an excellent idea. He turned off the stove and whistled for Chloe to go to her dog bed upstairs. Suddenly Sam found herself almost…nervous. A quick and dirty whatever-it-was in the stolen minutes in the middle of the day was one thing. The quiet crackle of the fire, smell of warm bread, the home she knew was so important to him—this was something else altogether.

  Austin was right. She shouldn’t have gotten him the gloves. They were too much, an extravagance her bank account could afford but not her heart. They wouldn’t make him
think kindly of her when it was over. They’d only serve to remind him of how different, how completely at odds they were.

  But when she stood up, she couldn’t make herself call this off. He came back to the couch and she wrapped her arms around him, inhaling the scent of him, soap and smoke from the fire, spices from the soup. She felt his solidness against her chest and knew she was like a log on the fire, too much a part of him now to pull back.

  It was a good thing she knew how to act without thinking. She had a lifetime of experience pushing aside her nerves and doubt to do whatever she was determined to accomplish. She kissed him and he kissed her back, and that was all she needed to forget her uncertainty. She pushed him back toward the couch and then down so he was sitting. She pulled her sweater over her head as he looked up at her. His hands reached for her and she slapped them away. Austin’s eyes flashed.

  Sam leaned over him, her breasts cupped in a plum bra accented with lace. She loved the way he looked at her, how his breath quickened when she straddled his lap. She loved the feeling when she ground her hips against him, and the press of his hard-on through his jeans.

  When Austin reached his hands up to try and unhook her bra, she grabbed his wrists and threw them back, pinning them against the cushions. He bucked his hips up into her. She pushed back equally hard. This was what she wanted, a chance to let go. There was no worry about right or wrong or slutty or reserved or whatever the ubiquitous chorus of criticisms in her head and all around her came up with next. Right now Sam wasn’t nice or a bitch or one of Seattle’s most powerful executives. She was just a woman panting in his ear, getting ready to take what was hers.

  One hand kept Austin’s wrists pinned in place. The other undid the buttons of his shirt. She knew he was strong enough to push her off whenever he wanted, but she also knew the rapid rise and fall of his chest was real. His breath came fast and ragged, his body on edge. He tried to reach for her, but she slammed his arms back into the sofa. “No.”

  Sam opened his shirt, running her hand over his chest. She ran her lips along the newly exposed skin, licking that incredibly sexy vein that ran across the front of his shoulder and down his biceps. But she had to release his arms to do this, and now he grabbed her hair in his fist and pulled back, making her lift her head. His green eyes were hard and bright in the firelight. He ran a finger down her nose, over her lips. She opened her mouth and sucked on his fingertip.

  “Take off my pants,” he said hoarsely.

  Sam snaked her tongue over his finger and lowered her head, kissing down his stomach, making him squirm. She would do what he demanded, but slowly. In her own way.

  She used her teeth to unbutton his jeans. Then she clamped her mouth on the zipper and tugged. Austin let out a groan, thrusting his hips up, desperate to be released. She pulled back the top of his jeans and ran her tongue along the line where his boxer briefs hugged, her mouth watering in anticipation. The sight of that curve where his hips plunged down made her breath catch. She pressed her lips there as she tugged his pants down the rest of the way.

  His cock was fully hard in his well-fitted black boxer briefs. She ran her face over it, feeling him through the fabric, a precursor to the way she was going to devour him. Then she hooked her fingers under the band and pulled down just so the tip poked out. She kissed it, wet with suction from her lips, and she thought Austin was going to cry he was so ready for her mouth.

  But the more of the fabric she pulled down the more skin she had to kiss, and she teased him, making him wait until he was completely naked and at her command. She might have tortured him even more, but she was desperate, too. She settled with her knees on the ground and slid his length all the way back to her throat.

  He was thick and full and she took as much as she could, moving her mouth up and down, sliding her tongue over the tip before plunging back down. She loved how he filled her. She loved how he groaned, a luscious sound, his head thrown back, his eyes closed. His thighs clenched, hips thrusting into her mouth. He ran his fingers through her hair, and when she reached up to press her palm to his stomach, he covered her hand in his, holding it tight. Every so often she caught him lifting his head to look at her, and then the waves of sensation would overcome him and he’d have to drop his head back into the pillows. When she felt his balls tightening in her palm, she wasn’t surprised when he pulled her off him.

  “Too close.” He let out a long, steadying breath. “Way, way too close.” He pinched his eyes shut and swore.

  Sam lifted her mouth and allowed herself a small, self-satisfied grin. His cock glistened with saliva, beautiful and inviting. She stood up. Austin, panting, limbs gone slack with wanting, gazed up at her.

  “You’re stunning,” he whispered.

  She took off her bra and dropped it on his chest. His eyes devoured her breasts, then darted to her pants. She raised an eyebrow, as if in question.

  “Dear God,” he choked. “Please.”

  She unzipped her jeans while he watched, mesmerized. She pulled them over her hips, enjoyed the tight slide down her thighs. Stepped out of them as he took her all in. Austin grabbed her ass, drawing her closer. His teeth raked over her panties, his mouth hot on the wet spot she had made.

  He was hungry for her. He was tight and hard with wanting. He was going to make her pay for every torturous second she’d withheld her mouth from him.

  He ran his hands over her body as though to prove she was here, she was real, she was his. When he pulled her panties down, he slid his finger along her slit, then pressed his chin against her pelvis and looked up, smiling. She ran a hand through his hair that always looked good no matter how messy it was. And then quickly, firmly, she pushed him back so he was lying on the couch again.

  Austin might have thought it was his turn, but Sam wasn’t done. She climbed on top of him, straddling him, rubbing her sex against the length of his shaft, feeling the tip of his cock against her clit.

  “There’s a condom in my pocket,” he said hoarsely, but Sam shook her head.

  “Not yet.”

  He looked confused until she dragged her legs up his side, straddling his torso, then his chest. He’d seemed to enjoy it so much in the shelter—why shouldn’t she make this last as long as she could? She bent down and kissed his lips, soft and warm. Then she slid her knees up by his ears and sat directly on his waiting tongue.

  He licked her, devoured her, let her grind her hips into his mouth, his chin. His stubble grated her thighs with a delicious scratch right on the line between pleasure and pain so that she was pulling away even as she thrust down. She felt his arm moving and knew he was stroking himself in the same rhythm that he licked her. The thought of his hand on his cock drove her out of her mind. She pulled away from his mouth—she didn’t want this to be over too soon.

  “How about that condom now?” she asked and bent over to riffle through his pants. He took the opportunity to come partway up on his elbows, but when she sat over him, ripping the condom wrapper with her teeth, she pushed him back down. His eyes flashed. She slid the condom on.

  They held eyes as she lowered herself onto him, feeling the sweet, sharp sensation of her body unlocking for him.

  And then she let him know exactly who he belonged to tonight.

  Jim had always accused Sam of wanting to be on top because she had to be in charge, but that wasn’t it at all. What Jim didn’t understand was that Sam liked being on top because it felt goddamn good—why wasn’t that reason enough? And Austin was more than game. He responded to her every move until her whole world narrowed to the sensations mounting within her. His cock filled her; her clit ground right where she wanted it. The twinned pressure built and built until all of a sudden, like a wave, it broke.

  She was still drawing out every tremble when Austin picked up his pace. He clung to her hips, positioning her, and came with a cry, lifting his torso to bury his face in the crook of Sam’s neck. She rocked her hips with him, savoring every second. When he finished they collapsed
together on the couch. She pressed a palm to his chest and felt the gallop of his heart, the way that it raced just for her.

  Austin pulled out and took the condom off, but after he threw it away he came back and lay down with her. She settled against his body with a sigh. He was so warm, so comfortable, so hard and soft in all the right ways. Only the grumble of her stomach made them finally pull away.

  “I have to feed you if I’m going to keep your energy up,” he said as he went to reheat the soup and let the bread warm in the oven.

  Sam couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across her face. Had he just promised her another round?

  As he moved around the kitchen, she peeked over the top of the couch to get a better view of what she was getting to enjoy tonight.

  “Damn, that ass,” she murmured, staring at him. She hadn’t fully realized she’d spoken out loud until he gave a little shake of his butt at the stove. She burst out laughing. She was still giggling when he jumped on the couch and tackled her, kissing and tickling, before finally pulling a blanket over them so they could lie in front of the fire until the soup was done.

  Forget what Sam had to deal with tomorrow. This, she thought with satisfaction, is a man who knows how to do a one-night stand.

  Chapter Eleven

  Austin pushed back the coffee table so they could sit in front of the fire as they ate. He’d turned off the kitchen lights and was watching the glow of the fire dance on Sam’s naked skin. She was flushed and luscious and he wanted to yank off the blankets he’d brought and take her all over again.

  “Is this what you always do after a day on the mountain?” Sam ripped a piece of crusty bread from the loaf and dipped it in the soup.

  He laughed. “If only I could get Connor to come cook for me every day.”

  “He certainly helped you out this time.”

  Austin grinned. “I lure you here with promises of Connor’s cooking—”