“I’ll tell you what,” Austin said. “I’ll do this on one condition.”
“Anything,” Sam said, and she meant it.
“I’m writing up a preliminary contract, and you have to accept it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Do I get to read it before I sign?”
He laughed. “Of course. But I’m naming my terms, and this time I’m really not going to budge.”
“I told you,” she said, “whatever you want.”
“Paper?” he asked, but they couldn’t find anything besides the blueprint, so reached for a napkin. He grabbed the pen they’d been using and turned his back to her.
“What are you doing?” Sam demanded, trying to see over his shoulder, but he pushed her back so she couldn’t see.
He lifted the pen and paused. “How much did that six-pack cost that you brought over last night?”
“What?” Sam was completely confused. “I don’t know. Seven ninety-nine?”
Austin scribbled something else down. When he finally handed the napkin to her, she burst out laughing. “You can’t be serious.”
“Sign.”
The laughter died in Sam’s throat. His jaw was hard, his green eyes flashing. She knew this wasn’t a joke. “This isn’t legally binding, you know.”
“I don’t care. It’s binding to you, and I know you’ll honor it.”
Sam shook her head. “I can’t.”
“This is the only way you’ll get me.”
“But it doesn’t have to be this way.”
“It does for me. Come on. Just sign.”
Sam didn’t want to, but she’d told him he could have anything, and if this was what he wanted, then he was right. She had to do as he asked. She picked up the pen and signed her name—her full name—the pen bleeding across the line he’d drawn below where he’d scratched his demands:
I, Austin Reede, do hereby agree to work as a consultant for Kane Enterprises for the annual fee of $7.99, plus tax.
Then he, too, signed and dated the napkin and handed it to her. “For your lawyers, so they know what to write up for you.”
Sam smiled. “I’ll remember to make sure they don’t overstep and try to give you some kind of salary.”
“I told you,” Austin said. “I don’t want the work part getting mixed up with us.”
“But there doesn’t have to be an—”
Austin’s lips were on hers before she could finish saying the words they both knew she hadn’t meant. For a moment she was too stunned to respond, and then instinct took over. Whatever had been rising within her, leaping up as soon as she saw him again, extended its hands and warmed her from the inside out. Her lips parted and her tongue moved with his, tasting his sweetness, her hands reaching for him as he, too, inched his body closer, one hand brushing the hair from her shoulder and clasping her firmly around the neck.
“Not idealistic,” he whispered, his forehead bent to hers.
“What?” she murmured, forgetting what she’d just said.
“You’re not idealistic. Why can’t we think of it as realistic? As something we’re really going to do.”
Slowly Sam pulled away. The kiss lingered on her lips, but his words brought her back to reality. To all she couldn’t have. “We are going to do it, Austin. I know we are. But this has to be business, Austin. I can’t—” She swallowed hard. “I can’t do this again.”
Austin reached for her before she could back away. “Sam,” he said. “Please, listen to me. I’m so sorry for the things I said to you. I was angry for no reason. You didn’t do anything wrong when I pushed you away.”
She pulled back her hand. “Don’t say that just to kiss me.”
“No. I mean it. Please, let me have one more chance with you. You were kind, and generous, and cared about me, and I couldn’t believe all of that was true. I thought I wasn’t good enough for you. I thought if I let you in, you’d find some way to hurt me.”
“You could have told me what happened to you,” Sam said. “You could have told me about the gloves, your injury. Or you could have just said thank you. You didn’t have to use them. You could have returned them on your own, or told me they weren’t for you but done so without blowing up at me over things I had no way of knowing.”
“You’re right. I wanted to tell you everything. Desperately. But that scared me. Usually I keep that secret buried so deep nobody has any idea there’s anything there. Everything is different with you, Sam. I couldn’t keep that secret anymore and I just—”
“Exploded?” Sam offered when he couldn’t think of the word.
He shook his head sadly. “It all came out so wrong. I let you in and I pushed you out at the same time. But I don’t want to carry so much bottled up inside me. I want us to be able to talk to each other, be open when we need to. If we’re going to be working together, we have to be able to trust each other. Both of us. No secrets anymore.”
Sam pressed her body close to his, feeling the muscles of his chest, the solidness of him so close she wanted to lay her head against his heart and feel it beating.
“In the spirit of honesty, I think I may have lied to you again,” she murmured, tracing her fingertips along his cheek, his jaw, over the tickle of blond hair on his chin.
He pulled away sharply. “What are you talking about?”
She rested her fingers on his lips, feeling the curve as though it were all new to her. As though this were, once again, the first time. “I told myself I came here for business reasons only. I promised myself—and you—that was it. But I can’t pretend that’s the only reason I came back.”
Austin ran a hand through her hair. “I can understand if you want to keep this a working relationship. We might not be good together as a couple. I don’t know. The best I can promise is that I’ll try. But I don’t want to mess anything up for you. I know you have a lot riding on this deal.”
“No.” Sam shook her head. “No, no, no.”
“I’m just saying. I’ll do the consulting even if that’s all you want. I don’t want you to feel like you have to do anything else just to get me on board. Because I already am.”
Sam clasped her hand over his where he was touching her neck. She pressed him close to her, as though reassuring herself that he meant what he said. “One thing you can always trust about me,” she said. “You know that if I’m doing something, it’s because I want to.” She paused. “But, Austin, you get to decide what you want, too. The job is yours no matter what happens between us.”
“I want to do more than spend all my time skiing. Maybe my life can be a little bigger than home, the mountain, Mack Daddy’s, rinse and repeat. Maybe I can have more of an impact this way.” He paused and flicked the opening where her blouse collected in a vee down her chest. “But I don’t just want to work for you. I don’t want that to be all that we have.”
“I’d still be your boss,” Sam murmured.
He unbuttoned the top button and pulled down the fabric so the lace of her peach bra peeked through. “I think I can get into that.” His fingers traced her nipples through the fabric. “There’s one more thing we have to square away, though, if we’re going to go into business together.”
“What’s that?” Sam asked, trying to keep her breath steady as her nipples strained, knowing he was watching her, teasing her, seeing how far he could push before her poise broke.
“We’re starting off on uneven footing. I owe you something from earlier.”
Another button gone. Still Sam trembled. “You don’t owe me anything.”
“Yes.” The next button gone. Her breasts spilled out of the shirt, only one button at the bottom keeping it draped partway over her shoulders. “I promised you something this morning, and I didn’t deliver.”
Sam racked her brain. The whole day had been so long, she had no idea what he was talking about. “Let’s consider it a fresh start,” she said. “As long as we’re honest with each other from here on out.”
“I agree. But that’s n
ot what I’m talking about.” The last button. He slid the blouse over her shoulders. It was luxurious, the brush of silk down her arms, the trace of his fingertips bringing goose bumps to her skin. Austin stepped close to her, enveloping her in his warmth. His hands slid around and cupped her ass through her pants.
“I was negligent this morning.” He bit gently on her earlobe. How could it be this easy for Sam to sink into him? How could it feel this right to stand half undressed before him when just that afternoon she’d thought her heart had shattered?
“Stop thinking,” Austin whispered. “I can hear you thinking.”
“I don’t understand how we got here,” Sam murmured into his chest.
“Don’t question—at least not until I even the score.”
“It’s not a competition.”
“No. But you should know that I’m a thorough and dedicated employee.”
He unbuttoned the top of her pants and slid his hand down the front, cupping her, letting out a grunt of pleasure as he felt her dampness through the fabric.
“You know I’d already write you a glowing review.” She moaned as his fingers stroked her slowly.
“Ah, but my write-up on orgasms for the day would be an N for Needs Improvement, when I’ll settle for nothing less than excellent.”
Sam laughed. “What are you talking about?”
“On the snowmobile. You didn’t get yours.”
“Something tells me it’ll even out over time.”
“No,” he said, biting the side of her neck. “I owe you one.”
He turned her and lifted her up so she was sitting directly on top of the blueprints. She wrapped her legs around him as he worked his tongue down from her lips to her breasts. He reached around to unhook her bra and licked her breasts until her hips were bucking up into him, a direct line from her nipples down between her legs. God, she’d wanted this. All day she’d wanted this, primed by the morning on the mountain, desperate until she feared she would explode.
And then everything had gone wrong, but it wasn’t wrong, not really—not if she could be arching her back on his kitchen table, her hips crinkling the blueprints she had worked so hard to produce.
His tongue trailed down her stomach, and he wiggled her out of her pants. “I’ve wanted to taste you all day,” he moaned as he leaned her back and bit the tender flesh through her panties, then kissed around the inside of her thighs where fabric met skin. Sam moaned and pressed her hips up to him, begging him to take her without teasing.
He slid her panties down so she was naked on top of the blueprints, hot and wet and wanting. Then he knelt on the floor and circled his tongue over her clit so that her hips jerked and she let out a gasp. Her hands reached down and clutched his wrists where he held open her thighs, pinning her in place against his tongue. There was a time for foreplay, for buildup, but this wasn’t it. Austin was entirely focused on making her come.
And he was going to. His tongue flicked and circled and danced until Sam was clinging to him, crying out loud. She pressed to his tongue as the wave built and built, and then it all came crashing down. She was wet all over the blueprints, wet all over his face, naked and panting while he didn’t have a single piece of clothing removed. When he stood up, wiping his mouth with a sly little grin, she hooked her heels around his legs and pulled him down until he was lying on top of her, his jeans scratching her thighs as he pressed into her, hard and straining against his fly.
“That was dirty,” Sam whispered as she wrapped her legs around him and ran her fingers through his hair.
“Hope you didn’t care too much about these blueprints.”
“I’ll have to make another copy now.”
“Don’t want anyone at work to know what you’ve really been up to.”
“Mmm.” Sam squirmed with pleasure against him. “Sometimes it’s okay to have secrets. Especially when they’re this good.”
He lifted off her. “Tell me you’re not going back to Seattle tonight. Tell me you’re going to stay.”
She sighed. “I have to be in the office tomorrow. I probably have about eight thousand messages about the deal. It’s going to be worse once someone actually bothers to glance at the contract and realizes how much of the specifics I crossed out.” But then she looked at him, and she couldn’t think about business anymore. “I do still have a toothbrush here, though.”
He grinned. “Stay, then, and leave first thing in the morning.” He ran his hand along her side, over her hip.
“You know, I used to think I wouldn’t need to do that much myself up here once the deal was signed,” she said.
“And now?” he asked.
Sam propped herself up so she was pushing him back, sitting with her legs wrapped around his waist as he stood before the table. She slid down so she was standing, naked against his clothes. She hooked her fingers through his belt loops and pressed her lips to his forehead. For the rest of her life, she wanted to be the one to kiss those worry lines away.
“And now,” she whispered, “I suddenly find myself with a very good reason to stay.”
“What reason is that?” he asked, so quietly she had to strain against him to hear.
She might have felt like she should wait, it was too soon, too scary, too big to jump in. But she was done waiting, pretending she was protecting her heart and sealing it off instead. “I went and fell in love with you.”
Austin didn’t just kiss her. He told her in every way—with his words, his tongue, his hands, his heart—that he loved her, too.
And then he led her to his bedroom, although she was tugging down his jeans before they made it to the top of the stairs. Yes, there was the project keeping her here. But more than that, there was Austin. There was the love they had. Wasn’t that more than reason enough to do something crazy, something different, something to completely change their lives?
Austin seemed like he had his routines. Sam did, too. She wasn’t sure what it would be like for either of them to make new habits, to open their lives in new ways.
But as he lifted her onto his bed and laid her back against the pillows, she couldn’t wait to find out.
Epilogue
Sam flew down the mountain, wind on her cheeks, bright sun glinting off the snow. Austin was ahead of her, but she was close on his heels. She’d been traveling back and forth between Seattle and Gold Mountain for almost a year now, and all the skiing she’d done last winter had stayed in her bones. Although she still got a secret thrill in her stomach whenever she stood on the lip of Diamond Bowl and looked down, it was a surge of happiness that hit her—not fear.
Okay, maybe a little bit of fear. It was still a long way down.
But she liked the rush. She didn’t think she’d ever stop being awed by this landscape—or the man she was with. She took the moguls with everything she had, bringing her whole body into each turn. Ahead of her Austin pulled up short, laughing, and she nearly bowled into him, spraying him with snow as punishment for beating her yet again.
It wasn’t really a competition. They were out here to have fun, taking in an early-morning run before the rest of the town woke up. After a sweet, lazy summer in which Austin spent most of his time in Seattle, Sam had been sure to be in the mountains so he could take advantage of the first major snowfall of the year.
“Still remember how to do this?” he asked, breathing hard.
“Please,” she scoffed. “I nearly had your ass on that run.” She smacked his butt. Instantly he pounced on her, toppling her backward into a mogul powdery with fresh snow.
“Get off!” she cried, hysterical with laughter, but he pinned her there as her skis swung in the air. Even through their layers, lying in the snow, the weight of his body against her felt like home, felt exactly where her body belonged.
“Are you ready for today?” he asked, still not getting off her.
“Of course I am.”
“It’s a big day.”
“It’ll be fine.”
“New Kane
offices opening in Gold Mountain.”
“It’s not a big deal,” she reiterated. “It’s just so we can have a home base up here while the development is happening.”
“Yeah, because the boss lady spends so much time at some guy’s house in the woods. She’s not in Seattle enough to get anything done.”
“Or it’s so we can actually be part of the town and not just come in when we need something. And the boss lady spent plenty of time in Seattle, so much that she was afraid her boyfriend was going to get sick of it.”
“I’m more worried you’re going to get sick of being up here.”
Sam shifted under him so she could raise her goggles. She squinted, trying to read his expression. She’d thought they were joking, but Austin looked serious. “I’m never getting sick of you,” she said. “Don’t you know by now you’re stuck with me?”
“Do you mean that?” he asked.
“I love you.”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “I love you, too.”
“So no more nonsense about me not wanting to be at your house.”
“Well, actually.” He took a deep breath. “I was thinking that if you’re going to be spending so much time here, maybe it shouldn’t be my house anymore. Maybe it should be ours.”
He lifted off her and popped out of his skis. Then he knelt down in the snow. Sam sat up, brushing snow from her jacket. Was he saying what she thought he was?
Austin took off his gloves, the leather dark and warm. She remembered the first time he’d worn them, after she’d come back from the Hendersons’ and spent the night at his place. They’d spent so long in bed they were scrambling by the time they had to leave, rushing to their cars. When Sam saw Austin reach for the gloves by the door, she offered to take them back to the store on her way out.
But Austin said no. “It’s cold out today. I was thinking I’d take them for a test run. Leave those crappy duct-taped things at home.”
Sam came over to him and took his hands in hers. “Your gloves aren’t crappy. I know they mean something, and I wasn’t trying to take that away.”
Make Me Stay (Men of Gold Mountain) Page 19
