by J. S. Scott
“You, too.” Tate disconnected. His mind whirled as he stuffed his phone back into his pocket.
Lara would never believe him if he told her that he had a psychic friend. She’d still get on that plane, and she’d die. He felt it in his gut, the same way he knew that Ally would have been dead had Travis not spirited her away during the time of her possible demise.
“Let’s go, boy. I’ve got some planning to do.” He pulled on Shep’s leash, and urged him back to the house as soon as the puppy had watered the edge of the woods.
He thought as he walked back to the house, finally pulling his phone out of his pocket as he reached the porch. Tate had a plan, but it was a little drastic. Lara would be mad, but it was much preferable to her being dead.
He made the calls.
Lara had cried as she hugged Shep for the last time. She had cried when she said good-bye to Aileen and Chloe, too. Damned if she hadn’t felt like a damn leaky bucket all day long.
She sighed as she settled into the passenger seat of the helicopter, looking over at the closed-off portion of the airport.
Obviously, the investigation still wasn’t finished and the area was still shut down.
If not for the investigation, Tate and I never would have met.
Try as she might, Lara still couldn’t regret meeting Tate and being with him during this stolen time. He’d opened up her eyes to so many things, namely her own sexuality. The problem was, she didn’t have any desire to explore that newfound desire with anyone except him.
Tate had been quiet most of the day, telling her he had to go out and take care of some things. It had hurt that he hadn’t wanted to spend her last hours in Colorado with her, but it was probably better that way.
They’d fly to Denver, and she’d say a hasty good-bye, never letting him see her tears until she was well away from him.
They lifted off quickly. Lara felt as though her stomach had stayed on the ground while the rest of her body was still in the helicopter. She looked down at the huge pine trees and the open spaces with no people. She could see Blake’s ranch in the distance, and it spread out in most directions as far as she could see. The only thing next to Blake’s spread was Gabe’s home and horse farm.
She rode along in silence, looking at the Colorado scenery for a long time, nervously trying to keep herself occupied. Finally, she looked at their position and where the helicopter was headed.
And it wasn’t to Denver.
“Where are we going?” she squeaked as she realized that Tate was actually landing.
“I want to show you something,” he answered in a graveled voice.
“I don’t have much time to catch my flight.” She needed to get there early, and she had lingered for a while with Tate’s mom and Chloe.
“That won’t be a problem,” Tate answered nonchalantly.
“Of course it’s a problem. It’s listed as being an on-time flight right now. I take off in less than two hours. We have to head to the airport now.” She was anxious as he lowered the helicopter into a mass of pine trees. Not that she was worried about him landing safely, but she was concerned about the area in which he landed. They were nowhere near the airport.
“It’s not an issue,” Tate repeated.
“Why?”
“Because I’m not taking you to the airport,” he said in a husky voice in her ear.
Lara looked around frantically, seeing nothing but mountains and trees as they landed.
She pulled off her headphones as Tate shut down the aircraft. “What in the hell are you doing?”
He pulled his headphones off and looked her straight in the eyes. His eyes were dark gray and incredibly intense as he informed her, “I’m detaining you temporarily.”
Lara stopped and gaped at him before he hopped out of the helicopter without further explanation.
What the hell was he doing?
She opened the door, turned in the seat and looked around, seeing absolutely nothing but wilderness. The landing pad had been cleared, but everything else was buried in snow.
Tate appeared, lifted her out of the seat, and closed the door behind her after he lowered her to the ground.
Luckily, she wore boots, and they were buried, the snow up to her knees. “Tate, we have to go. My flight—”
“Will be leaving without you,” Tate concluded her sentence. “Something is going to happen on that flight. Something bad. You’ll be as far away as possible.”
She trudged through the snow beside him and he tugged her along. “Do you know something? We have to warn somebody if something is planned—”
“It’s not like that,” Tate grumbled. “I have a friend who has psychic dreams. He saw me mourning your death in a plane crash. That is one dream I don’t want to see in real life. I’m not taking that chance.”
Lara could see the back of a cabin ahead. “Your friend has precognition dreams?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but Travis knows. He saved my life once, and he saved the life of his own wife.”
She didn’t think he was crazy, and she couldn’t deny that foresight in dreams was possible, but…
“Precognitive dreams are pretty unpredictable,” she told him as they arrived on the back porch of the cabin. “I don’t think you’re crazy, but I can’t live my life because somebody I don’t know foresaw my death. It could be many years in the future, or it may never happen.” She didn’t know his friend, but he could be delusional.
“I know him, and it isn’t far into the future. His dreams only come rarely now, and only about people he’s close to or family. Travis and I have been buddies for years.” Tate unlocked the door with a key left under the mat and pushed it open.
“So kidnapping was the only answer?” She propped her hands on her hips after she entered the door.
“Would you have waited for another flight later?”
“No,” she answered him honestly.
“Then yeah…sidetracking you was the only option.”
“For exactly how long?” She was angry now. Maybe he thought he was doing the right thing, but she didn’t know his friend, and it should have been her choice to risk it or not. There were very few documented cases of true precognitive dreams, and they weren’t predictable at all. Lara didn’t discount that dream foresight could happen. The power of the human mind was somewhat of a mystery, which was why she’d always been fascinated by psychology. But she would never live her life based on the possibility that she could die some day in the future from a plane crash. It could very well be some kind of coincidence, or just a regular dream.
They both shed their outerwear. The cabin was already warm.
“As long as it takes,” Tate answered abruptly as he walked into the cabin.
Lara followed and looked around the small hideaway. The cabin was one enormous room with real log construction and huge log beams along the high ceiling. There was a kitchenette on the other side of the room, a wood burning stove next to her that seemed to be throwing off a whole lot of heat, and rustic and charming furniture. Along one of the walls was a king-sized bed with a comfy looking patchwork quilt, the carved wood frame enormous. It looked like it was probably hand carved.
“Tate, that’s not even reasonable. In all likelihood, nothing will happen. People think they have precognitive dreams all the time, and they’re just coincidence.” She tried to use logic because Tate was the most logical man she’d ever known. It was difficult to hang onto her anger when he was obviously concerned about her. She could see it in his expression.
“Don’t you think I know that? But I can’t take that chance. Travis has been right too many times,” he growled.
“And if nothing happens?”
“I want to stay here for just a little while,” Tate admitted.
“For how long?”
“Until I can make you love me,” he replied in a guttural tone. His eyes looked at her intensely.
Lara’s heart clenched and beat at a rapid pace; a lump formed in her th
roat. She swallowed hard and choked out, “Why?”
“I want you to love me as much as I love you.” He paced the enormous room, circumventing the chairs in the living room area as he walked back and forth restlessly across the cabin. “Honestly, I doubt that’s even possible because I love you so damn much that I can’t fucking think rationally anymore. You’re my obsession. My thoughts all focused on you almost from the day we met. I’m scared you’ll get hurt, that something will happen to you, and I’m damn terrified that once you leave, I’ll lose my sanity.”
Lara choked back a sob as she watched Tate move like a caged lion. His agitation and vulnerability brought her to her knees.
He loves me.
Not only did he love her, but he loved her every bit as much as she loved him. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she watched his powerful body, now dressed in only a pair of jeans and a forest green sweater, move unceasingly. His expression was grim, and he speared an agitated hand through his already spiked hair.
Finally, he stopped right in front of her. “Tell me what I have to do and I’ll do it,” he grunted as his nostrils flared. His eyes were molten and swirled with a dozen emotions, all of them powerful and intense. “No limits.”
Lara felt her nipples harden and her pussy spasm painfully. The wildness in Tate aroused her unbearably; his vulnerability broke her heart. “You don’t have to do anything,” she confessed.
“No hope for me?” he asked sharply. His eyes sparked, and then changed to a silver sorrow.
Lara’s heart skipped a beat. “No hope for me either,” she whispered huskily. “I think I fell for you from the moment you saved those waffles for me at the buffet,” she told him lightly. “And I’ve just kept falling until I know I can’t escape.”
Luckily, now that she knew he loved her, she didn’t want to escape. She just wanted to wallow in Tate.
“You love me?” he asked incredulously.
“So much it hurts,” she answered with a sob, swiping at her tears.
Tate wrapped his muscular arms around her body, squeezing her so hard against him that Lara could hardly breathe, but she didn’t care. Her arms snaked around his neck and she inhaled the scent of him, drowning in her love for him.
“Why didn’t you tell me, baby? Jesus, I love you so damn much,” he said in a harsh tone.
“I was afraid. I thought love was a burden you didn’t want.”
“Have I ever made you feel like a burden?” Tate growled in her ear.
Lara thought for moment and answered candidly, “No.” She’d been a burden to her aunt and uncle, but Tate had never made her feel that way. “I think it was my own insecurities. I’m sorry. I almost left without telling you. I shouldn’t have cared if you could love me back. I should have said it.”
“It wouldn’t have been the end,” Tate told her firmly. “I would have come after you, used everything I had to make you want to be with me. Somehow, I would have worn you down eventually,” he finished confidently. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I needed you, baby. I would have lost my mind if there was no hope.”
Her heart was so full of love that Lara thought it would explode. “I love you, Tate Colter.”
“Christ, baby. I worship you. I adore everything about you. I don’t know how you couldn’t have known how I felt about you.”
She leaned back and looked into his eyes. “Maybe because I was so head over heels in love with you. Fear is a powerful motivator.”
“I wouldn’t know,” he teased. “I think the only thing that’s ever truly terrified me is you leaving me.” He grasped the back of her head, pulled her into him and crushed her mouth with his.
He kissed her as though he were making a vow, as if he’d never let her go. His tongue swept into her mouth and he slanted his mouth over hers again and again, until Lara was out of breath and panting.
“I need to be inside you, Lara. Now,” he demanded as he pulled his mouth from hers. His breathing was rough and heavy.
“Yes.” She fumbled with her jeans frantically, needing him so desperately that it was painful. “Please, Tate.”
They stripped at what was probably a record speed, a tangle of legs and arms, as they tore at their own clothes and each other’s.
Lara’s heart beat frantically, her breathing hot and panting as she looked at Tate, completely nude. She put her hands on his shoulders and ran her palms all the way down his chest and abdomen. “God, you’re a beautiful man.” She brushed her fingers over his hard, heavy cock and wrapped her fingers around him. “I can’t believe you love me.”
“Believe it,” he answered in a low, desperate voice. “You’re mine, Lara. You’ll always be mine.”
She couldn’t argue with his arrogant comment. Her heart would always belong to him. She squeezed his cock gently. “Does that mean this is mine?” she asked seductively, loving the way his eyes flared as she teased him.
“Everything. This whole body is yours, flaws and all,” he rasped. He slid his fingers down between her thighs and stroked through the wet heat that greeted him and groaned. “Mine. All mine,” he said greedily.
“Then take it,” she begged him, needing to feel him, be connected to him.
He kissed her hard on the mouth before he turned her body and placed her hands on the arm of the couch. She closed her eyes as she felt Tate cup her ass, and stroke over it roughly.
“Hold on, baby. I don’t think I can hold back right now,” he warned her in a husky tone.
“No holding back,” she demanded, wanting him to take her rough, make her his.
She gasped as his fingers plunged between her thighs, stroking through her folds to tease her clit. He moved through her heat possessively, covetously. Two of his fingers dipped into her channel, curled around the sensitive place inside her that made her go completely insane. “Tate,” she whimpered, needing him to make her come. Her body was tight and she trembled.
“Tell me, Lara. Tell me.” He kept up his rough, sensual assault.
“I love you,” she cried out, throwing her head back as he intensified the pressure to her clit, and fucked her with his fingers—harder, faster, stroking over her g-spot with every pump.
“Oh, God.” Her body convulsed.
“Come on my fingers, Lara. Let go,” he commanded.
She didn’t have much of a choice. Her climax hit her hard and fast, intensifying as Tate removed his fingers and impaled her with his cock. His groan of ecstasy had Lara rocking back against him. She clenched the fabric of the couch as she felt her body coil tightly again.
“I can’t come again,” she panted wildly. Everything was so intense, so overwhelming that she was certain she’d break apart.
“You can and you will,” Tate growled as he fisted a hand in her hair and pulled her head up. “Look at us.”
Lara’s vision was blurry with leftover tears, but she stared across from her and saw a sight so carnal, so erotic that she nearly came just from watching Tate’s face. The full-length mirror propped up against the wall showed both of them; Tate pummeled into her with unrestrained lust. She watched, entranced as her breasts jerked and swayed with every thrust of Tate’s hips. The carnality of feeling and watching them at the same time made her pant even harder, her eyes glassy and fixed mostly on Tate. He looked like an ancient warrior claiming his woman, and the sight was so raw that it ramped up her desire even more. “Harder,” she whimpered. The sight of Tate mastering her body, his fingers pulling her hair erotically was so damn good. The sensual image would be burned into her brain from this moment forward.
He thrust harder and buried himself deeply inside her with every stroke. Lara moved her ass back against him; their skin slapped together as they both reached their breaking point.
Tate was going to make her come, and she wasn’t certain she’d survive it.
He released her hair and trailed a hand along her back. Lara kept her head up to watch his every movement; his face contorted in both anguish and pleasure.
“M
ine,” he declared roughly. He met her gaze in the mirror, and their eyes locked together.
“Yes.” She nodded her head, keeping her eyes locked with his.
One of his hands slid down her belly, searching for and finding her clit. He grasped it roughly and rolled it between his index finger and thumb.
Pleasure and pain ripped through her, the feeling so intense that it sent her body into a powerful climax.
“That’s it, baby. Come for me,” Tate insisted dominantly.
She imploded as if her body responded to his commands. The walls of her sheath spasmed wildly and her reaction was so strong that she dropped her head, breaking eye contact with Tate.
“Pull your head up. I want to watch you,” Tate growled. He tilted her head by her hair again. “Watching you come is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen,” he groaned as he pounded into her.
“I love you,” Lara screamed.
“I love you, too, baby,” Tate answered in a strangled voice, and pumped into her one last time before he found his own release.
They shuddered together. Tate’s arms wrapped around her waist as the last ripples of her climax faded. “Jesus, you will kill me. But I’d die this way anytime,” he whispered low and heated in her ear as he leaned over her body. His chest heaved as he swung her around and picked her up, carrying her over to the big bed and collapsing, protecting her fall with his body.
She climbed off him so he could breathe, and then snuggled up beside him. He grasped her hand and entwined their fingers together as they caught their breath.
“Why do you have a cabin out here in the middle of nowhere?” She stroked her hand over his powerful chest, unable to stop herself from touching him.
“I don’t,” Tate confessed. “It’s Gabe’s. He uses it during fishing season. I asked him if he could set it up for me and if I could borrow it for a while.”
“It’s pretty nice for a fishing cabin.” Lara looked at the beautiful rugs on the polished wood floor, the nice furniture, and she was already lying on the comfortable bed. “How far are we really from the main highway?”
He rolled on top of her and pinned her hands over her head. “Why? You planning on making an escape?” He sounded as if he was only half joking.
