Guilty as Sin

by Jami Alden

  And she was cold. Mind-numbingly, bone-jarringly cold. Her jacket didn’t have a hood so her hair was soaked, strands clinging to her neck in sopping ropes. Not that a hood would have helped, she grumbled to herself. The damn thing was so flimsy it didn’t offer up the least defense to the cutting wind, and the so-called water-resistant fabric proved to be anything but.

  She was soaked to the skin, her entire body shaking with cold as she struggled back to the narrow dirt line she hoped was the trail. Lightning continued to brighten the sky around her, making her heart pound with as much fear as exertion. This section of trail, coming down from the ridge, was all grass and shrubs, leaving Kate the tallest object for several hundred yards. Once she found the trail, she kept her head down, walking as fast as she could toward the outcropping of trees on the other side of the meadow. With the wind and rain whipping in her ears, her gaze intently locked on the trail in front of her, she didn’t hear the male voice calling her name until she was only a few feet away.

  “Kate!” the voice shouted.

  She looked up, shocked, to see a man standing in front of her. Even with the hood of his navy-colored shell shadowing his face, Kate recognized Tommy instantly. There was no mistaking the broad span of his shoulders, the way every muscle was coiled for action.

  “What are you doing here?” she yelled above the rain.

  He let out a harsh laugh. “Saving a clueless tourist from freezing to death or getting struck by lightning. Come on, we’ve got to get out of this.” He grabbed her hand and tucked her behind him so he bore the brunt of the wind and rain. Under other circumstances she might have questioned the wisdom of getting too close to Tommy Ibarra, but right now she reveled in the warmth that soaked through her palm where it was pressed against his. She pushed herself as close to his back as she could get without tripping both of them.

  His pace was quick, much faster than hers as the trail that had so confounded her seemed to reveal itself to him. Within a few minutes, they were in the relative shelter of a grove of pine trees.

  She followed him silently, too tired and cold to speak as he led her through the woods. After about half a mile the trail forked and the terrain opened up. Once again they were completely exposed.

  Kate bit back a protest when Tommy took the fork going to the right. Even though every cell in her body recoiled. The shack wasn’t visible yet, but Kate knew it was there, just over the rise in front of them.

  A voice in her head screamed at her to jerk her hand out of Tommy’s hold and flee in the opposite direction. But she knew the safest thing to do was to follow him. She would have to pass the shack, yes, but Tommy’s truck was no doubt parked on the fire road just a couple hundred yards beyond. She forced herself to focus on the warm grip of his hand on hers, his size and strength, as though that could protect her from everything, even her own horrible memories.

  They came up over the rise. Kate squeezed her eyes shut and burrowed her head harder against Tommy’s back, determined not to look.

  Lightning flashed to her right, turning her vision red behind her closed eyes. Tommy’s swear was muffled by the accompanying thunder. The wind picked up again, whipping so fiercely now Kate knew she wouldn’t be able to see even with her eyes open. Tommy sped up the pace and Kate forced her frozen body to keep up, knowing the faster they moved, the faster she’d be in Tommy’s truck with the heater going full blast.

  Tommy stopped and Kate stumbled into him, confused. Though she hadn’t hiked these trails in years, she didn’t think they’d been moving fast enough to make it to the road.

  She realized, as she opened her eyes, her stomach twisting with dread, that they hadn’t.

  Instead of leading her to the road, Tommy had led her right to the shack. The greenish gray structure was humble but sturdy and gave no clue to the horror that had happened inside one long-ago summer night.

  Kate shook her head, a litany of nos falling from her frozen lips. She didn’t even realize she was backing up until she stumbled and would have fallen on her butt had Tommy not wrapped his hand around her arm at the last second.

  He pulled her against him, bent his lips close to her ear. “Kate, I know you don’t want to go in there,” he said in a low, soothing tone she hadn’t heard him use in fourteen years. Now it did little to calm her. “I don’t either,” he continued, “but we have to get out of this storm.”

  As though to prove his point, a bolt of lightning rocketed down not ten yards away and buried itself in the stump of a cottonwood tree. The smell of charred wood and ozone filled the air.

  “No,” Kate said again. “The road is right past it. I remember—”

  Tommy shook his head. “There was a washout two years back and the road was never repaired. My truck is parked almost two miles away.”

  Every muscle in her body cried out in protest. Still, she shook her head. “I can’t,” she choked. She squeezed her eyes closed but couldn’t shut out the images of Michael, slumped against the wall, his T-shirt soaked with blood from where the bullet from Emerson Flannery’s gun had slammed into his narrow chest.

  Tommy cupped her face in his hands and tilted her head back to meet his gaze. “I know, Kate, I know what it’s like,” he said, his dark, deep-set eyes burning with emotion. “I once had to stay in a four-by-four cave for eight hours after a buddy of mine got his head blown off. I had to do it, because it was the only thing that was going to keep me safe. And you’re going to do this. I know you; you’re strong enough.”

  Kate started to shake her head then winced as she was suddenly pummeled by what felt like dozens of icy marbles.

  Hail. Hurling down on them in chunks varying in sizes from BBs to golf balls.

  You have to suck it up, she told herself. It’s just a building where something very bad happened.

  Squaring her shaking shoulders, she brushed by Tommy to the front door of the hunting cabin and shoved it open.

  Chapter 11

  Tommy couldn’t suppress the surge of pride he felt as Kate walked through the doorway of the shack.

  He knew how hard it must have been for her to step inside. He hadn’t been lying about being trapped in a cave with the body of one of his best friends. He knew what it took to resist the urge to run in a situation like this. And though she did a good job of keeping up a resilient front, he knew how much she’d loved her brother.

  Being forced to enter the scene of his murder was like torture. But he didn’t see much choice. If it had just been rain, he could have run the two miles with Kate on his back, no problem, and he would have warmed her up in the truck.

  But the lightning storm that raged outside made a run too risky.

  He closed the door behind him and shrugged off his dripping shell. The high-tech waterproof fabric had done its job. Though his pants were soaked from midthigh down, his long-sleeve T-shirt was bone dry.

  Kate, in contrast, stood shivering in the center of the small cabin, rainwater dripping off to form a puddle around her feet. The dirty windows didn’t let in much light, but he could see her shiver, her face ghost pale as she kept her gaze fixed to a spot on the floor.

  Any admiration for her courage evaporated as he took in her sorry state, anger flaring at her for being so foolish to put herself at such risk.

  “What the hell were you thinking, Kate?” he asked sharply as he flung his backpack onto a tattered wicker chair and yanked out the dry T-shirt and fleece jacket he’d packed. “I know you haven’t been here for a while, but you know better than to go out in the mountains without the right gear.” He tossed the shirt and fleece at her. “Put these on.”

  “I d-d-didn’t kn-know I w-w-would be out this long,” she said, struggling to close her violently trembling fingers around the zipper tab of her useless jacket.

  “It doesn’t matter if you go out for five minutes or five hours,” he snapped. “You know how quickly the weather changes here. For Christ’s sake, you were here the summer those hikers got caught in a blizzard the first week of
August!” His voice was raised, too loud for the tiny space, but he couldn’t help it. Not when his brain was spinning with images of Kate, her slender body blue with cold. And hell, the cold was just the start. She could have been crushed under a limb of a tree blown down in the high winds. “Dammit, Kate, you’re lucky you didn’t get struck by lightning and turned into a charcoal briquette.”

  “I know!” she cried. “And I’m sorry I wasn’t exactly thinking about the weather when I left. I made a stupid move, and I’m sorry you had to be inconvenienced!”

  An idea flared in his head with a way for her to pay him back, sending a rush of heat through him that chased away any chill that might have settled into his skin.

  Kate, however, was another story. Lips blue, convulsing with cold, so far she’d only managed to take off her jacket.

  “You need to get out of those wet clothes,” Tommy said hoarsely.

  “I’m trying,” she said through chattering teeth. Her shirt clung to her like a second skin, outlining the soft curves of her breasts and slim line of her waist.

  Tommy’s mouth went dry as he caught the outline of her nipples poking through, the cold pulling them into hard little points. Another shudder and she lost her grip on the hem of the T-shirt. Cursing, Tommy walked the two steps to her side and yanked the shirt up over her head, leaving her naked from the waist up except for the cream silk and lace contraption that passed for a bra.

  He knew better than to look, but his gaze locked on her breasts as though drawn there by a tractor beam. His cock instantly thickened at the sight.

  The silky fabric had gone all but transparent, and through it Tommy could make out creamy skin and the deep pink of her nipples. Lust hit him like a punch to his gut. His hands itched at the memory of her soft skin under his hands, the firm buds of her nipples between his fingers.

  He wanted to peel the straps down her shoulders, push the filmy fabric aside, and run his tongue inside the soft curves before he took her into his mouth, sucking and licking until she moaned with need.

  Instead he tore his gaze away and shoved the dry T-shirt at her. “You probably want to take the bra off too,” he said, his voice sounding thick. “You’ll get the shirt wet otherwise.”

  She nodded shakily, turned her back to him, and reached for the back closure on her bra. It took her three tries but she finally managed to unhook it, Tommy noted with relief.

  If he’d had to undo it for her, he couldn’t be held responsible for what happened next.

  As it was, he was practically shaking with lust as his eyes locked on the slender line of her back, the deep curve of her waist, the lush curve of her ass filling out the shorts that clung damply to her curves.

  She pulled the dry T-shirt over her head and the throaty sound of pleasure that came from her made him feel like she’d reached out and cupped his balls.

  Over that went the fleece, and then Tommy handed her the sweats.

  She thanked him and again turned her back, shifting a little as she reached up under the layers of cotton and fleece to fumble with the button and zipper of her shorts. Look away, he told himself. Look the fuck away.

  Yeah, fat chance. Kate Beckett was undressing in front of him and there was no way in hell he was missing it.

  Though he couldn’t see anything with both his T-shirt and the fleece hanging nearly to her knees, that didn’t stop his cock from rearing to full attention as Kate shoved the shorts down her legs. Tommy followed them hungrily down the sleek, pale length of her legs. The fact that they were covered in scratches and bristling with goose bumps didn’t stop him from imagining how they’d feel wrapped around his waist.

  He put a mental clamp on that image, reminding himself of the thousand or so reasons why it was a bad idea for him to let any woman—but especially Kate—get under his skin. He tore his gaze from the smooth lines of her calves and focused on the floor, only to have it snag on the crumpled mound of her shorts. And there, peeking out of the mound of olive green, was a scrap of cream-colored silk edged in lace.

  Jesus Christ.

  He jerked his gaze back up as she dragged the sweatpants on and ordered himself to get a fucking grip.

  “Better?” he asked.

  Kate nodded and wrapped her arms around herself, her body still shaking with cold. His clothes were ridiculously large on her, hiding every inch of her slim curves. Her hair hung in wet ropes over her shoulder, and her lips were tinged grayish blue.

  She should have looked ridiculous, comical even. There was nothing about her appearance right now that should be filling Tommy’s head with fantasies that started with him peeling off the yards of fabric and ended with him sliding himself as hard and deep inside her as he could possibly get.

  He bit out a curse and stalked across the small dirt floor. Desperate to get away from her, impossible though it was in the tight quarters. Even across the room, he couldn’t escape the floral scent of her damp hair, combined with the smell of his own laundry soap from the clothes she wore.

  His clothes, which she was wearing with not even a thin barrier of underwear between the fabric and her skin.

  Was it possible for a man to be jealous of a pair of sweatpants?

  He scrubbed at the dirt-encrusted window and peered outside, willing the storm to let up enough so they could make a break for it.

  Lightning crackled and the rain crashed harder on the wood-shingled roof, taunting him.

  “How long do you think it will last?” Kate asked, her voice still shaky.

  Tommy turned and faced her. “Hard to tell. Usually these things blow over quickly, but sometimes the storms get caught on one side of the mountain.”

  But even if the lightning stopped in the next five minutes, Kate was in no way ready to go back into the elements, he acknowledged grimly. She perched on a rickety bench that fronted an equally rickety-looking table, her knees folded into her chest and her arms wrapped around them. Still, there was no way he could miss the way her body still convulsed with cold.

  He knew that kind of cold, how it could settle into your bones and wrack your body until nothing short of a steaming shower or some quality time in front of a roaring fire could warm you. Since he was lacking both, he came to the unfortunate realization that he was going to have to take matters into his own hands.

  He took a deep, bracing breath. He could do this. He’d spent the last fourteen years learning how to push away all emotions and keep an iron grip on his baser urges. He didn’t let anything rule him.

  He damn sure wasn’t going to be felled by a hundred fifteen pounds of damp, freezing woman, no matter how badly she could fry his circuits with one soft look of her blue eyes, one innocent flick of her tongue across that plump mouth.

  Bracing himself as if for battle, he marched over to Kate. Ignoring her startled look, he snatched her up in his arms, sat back down on the bench, and settled her into his lap, his arms wrapped tight around her.

  Kate didn’t think she was ever going to get warm. The piles of fleecy fabric Tommy had brought offered some relief, but even as she sat huddled in on herself, it wasn’t enough. She was still shivering so hard it was as if she were having a seizure. And though the dilapidated shack bore no evidence of the violence that had occurred here, the thought of what had happened sent a wave of cold through her that had nothing to do with the icy rain that had soaked her.

  Tommy’s attitude didn’t help, his tension rippling off him in waves, his body language conveying quite clearly that he would rather be anywhere in the world than stuck here with her.

  So why was her head suddenly full of long-forgotten memories of the way he smiled at her, the way he laughed at her? The way he made her feel so special and wanted with a mere look.

  Seeing him now, every muscle pulled tight across the back turned to her, the grim look he wore, it was hard to believe that boy she knew ever existed. The life he’d lived in the last decade and a half had stripped all the light out of him. Stripped away any hint of softness.

&nb
sp; It had started with Michael’s death, she knew. But more had happened since then. Things she would never know.

  And the fault for that was squarely on her shoulders, she knew. If she hadn’t let her father take away Tommy’s scholarship, would he have joined the military, seen and done the things that had morphed him into the hardened warrior he’d become?

  She’d never know. She’d lost that right the moment she decided to side with her father and keep the truth to herself.

  She saw him shift in the corner of her eye and looked up, startling when she saw him headed straight toward her, his mouth pulled into a grim, determined line.

  She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but it wasn’t for him to pull her up off the bench like she weighed nothing and settle her into his lap.

  She stiffened for a second, but any thought of discomfort fled at the delicious warmth that seeped through the heavy fabric of her borrowed clothes. It didn’t seem possible given how chilled she was, but immediately everywhere her body touched his began to pulse with heat.

  She burrowed closer, tucking her hands between their bodies and burying her head against the wall of his chest. His arms wrapped around her, warmer than a down comforter, and she could feel the heat of his palms through the layers of clothing as they swept up and down her back.

  Within minutes her tremors stopped, her teeth quit their chattering as the heat of him radiated through her skin and pulsed in her blood. She became acutely, intensely aware of him, his huge, muscular arms wrapped around her, the spicy, musky scent of him.

  She opened her eyes, flicking them up from his chest to the hard, tan column of his neck. Her lips tingled at the memory of trailing soft, sucking kisses down its length. Her mouth watered at the remembered salty taste of his skin on her tongue.

  Cheeks flooding with heat, she forced the thoughts from her head. Whatever chemistry might linger between them, he’d made it more than clear he wasn’t interested in any replay of the past.