“You’re beautiful, Aelissm Davis,” he replied.
The heat of girlish coyness warmed her face. To cover it, she pulled his mouth back down to hers. Anticipation surged through her, coiled unsettlingly with hesitation. She may have conquered the kissing part, but everything else was new to her and she didn’t have any clue what she was doing.
“What’s the matter, Aeli?” Pat asked, pulling back to regard her with worried eyes.
“I’m a little… nervous, I guess. I have no idea what I should do.”
He smiled adoringly at her. “You’re doing just fine, sweetheart. Don’t think, just feel.”
“Take your shirt off,” she commanded. “If you get to admire my half-nakedness, I get to admire yours.”
Chuckling softly, Pat did as he was told and sat up. As he slid out of the flannel he’d borrowed from her father’s dresser and pulled his t-shirt over his head, muscle danced beneath skin silvered by moonlight. She traced the lines of him with her eyes before she realized he’d given her permission to explore with her hands and her lips, too. As her fingers trailed over his skin, she felt a strange emotion settle over her even as passion escalated. She wanted to give him the same pleasure he gave her. She wanted to give him everything she had and was and wanted nothing more than proof of his happiness in return. Was that love? It certainly wasn’t lust. Even in her limited experience with the latter, she knew lust was selfish.
She wouldn’t complicate things by blurting it out. She wasn’t going to ruin things by going all mushy in the thrall of desire. But she did love him. And if this was as far as things were going to go between them, she could live with that. As long as he was happy. She felt fortunate to have as much of him as she had.
“Aeli… are you sure you want to do this?”
She smiled at him. “I’m sure. But I’m thinking too much, Pat. Make my brain shut up.”
What started out as tender, curious caresses soon turned into fevered strokes and demands. Somehow, they managed to keep the sleeping bags tucked around them, though occasionally, a blast of chilly night air coaxed goose bumps from their flesh.
Aelissm’s bra was discarded and her jeans and black panties followed quickly. With hungry intent, she unbuckled Pat’s belt. She wanted there to be nothing between them but heat. He traced circles around her nipples alternately with his fingers and tongue and she arched up, digging her fingers into his back. She ached for him and unthinkingly reached for him, thrilled to hold him hard and ready in her hands. He groaned as a shudder racked his body and, brazenly, Aeli pushed his jeans down over his hips and pressed herself against him.
“Oh, good god,” he whispered. His hand delved between her legs, stroking her to overload. “I need you, Aelissm.”
“Then take me,” she hissed. “Please….”
Pat braced himself on top of her, but instead of taking her, he trailed kisses from the hollow of her throat to her navel and slid his fingers inside her again. She moaned, falling into rhythm with his hand. It felt incredible, but she wanted more of him. A pleading whimper escaped her. He entered her then, gently, and pain seared through her. She stiffened and bit her lip to keep the cry locked in her throat.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured in her ear.
He kept their pace slow and shallow, allowing her to adjust. The pain faded away, leaving only joy and pleasure and he pushed deeper and faster until he filled her completely and she gasped. When she thought she couldn’t take anymore, he slowed again, giving her a new range of sensations. Time sped out of existence as he thrust into her, taking her nearly to the peak and bringing her back down again. Each time she neared oblivion, the ecstasy grew and finally, he took her there. The orgasm broke over her thunderously and bliss and dizziness rumbled through her. She clenched around him, pulsing in perfect time with him. As it subsided, her body quivered with raw gratification.
Pat pulled away from her and rolled on to his back, his chest heaving from the exertion. As sensibility returned, Aelissm propped herself up and gazed down at him, grinning smugly. His eyes were closed and on his lips was the most beautiful, sated smile. She curled against his side with her arm around his waist, her head on his chest and her legs entwined with his. When he wrapped his arm around her, she knew there was no more perfect a place to be.
I love you, Patrick O’Neil, she said to herself. And I may get my heart broken when you leave, but I’ll never regret this night.
It was only after they’d made love again that she realized they were both decorated in soft, downy feathers. Oh, they were going to have some explaining to do in the morning.
Chapter Fifteen
AELISSM PROPPED HERSELF up on her elbow and watched Pat sleep, bathed in the obscene yellow glow of the tent. The sun had only just risen high enough to crest the mountain and pierce the forest. Peeking out the mesh window, she discovered their temporary home was in one of very few shafts of sharp morning light. Returning her attention to her lover, she traced the lines of him with her eyes, recalling with exquisite detail every touch, every whispered plea and every quiver of desire from last night. Lying there, gazing down at Pat, she was soothed by the steady rise and fall of his chest and the way his face was relaxed by contentment.
She heard the zipper on June’s tent slide and pulled herself carefully out of the nest of sleeping bags she and Pat had created last night when they’d finally returned to their tent. As she crawled to the door of the tent, she decided she wasn’t at all sore. Chuckling softly to herself, she slithered outside and greeted the young day with a satisfied smile.
“You two must’ve had some night,” June remarked.
Silently cursing the blush that heated her cheeks, Aelissm met her friend’s intent gaze head on. “You might say that.”
“There’s a trail of feathers from the boulder we were star gazing on last night to your tent. I think poor Luke may have been scarred for life when he went out to water a tree.”
Aelissm blanched. This was one of those rare instances when she couldn’t read June’s scowl. She wasn’t sure if her friend was joking or truly angry with her. Sheepishly, she asked why June thought Luke had been traumatized.
“All I know is that he went out, minding his own business, heard music—you never told me Pat plays a flute—and looked up in time to see the two of you making out like a pair of horny teenagers.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, ‘oh.’ What were you thinking, Aelissm?”
“To be honest, I wasn’t doing much thinking.”
“Judging by the state of your pillow, I’d say that’s rather obvious. Sometimes I wonder if you listen to me at all.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Aeli demanded as June started gathering wood for a breakfast fire.
June straightened, put her hands on her hips and gave Aelissm one of her must-I-repeat-myself-again sighs.
“The deeper you go, the more it’s going to hurt when he leaves,” she said, her voice soft with concern.
“In that case… it’s going to hurt like hell, because he went deep. And it was incredible, June. Please don’t ask me to regret it.”
“I’m not and I never would.” June shook her head and started chuckling. “I can always count on your honesty, even if I don’t want or need to know. No wonder Luke was startled. I hope he didn’t see that.”
“I doubt it. We were in the sleeping bags.”
“So you do have a shred of decency in you.”
By her exaggerated tone, Aelissm knew June was done playing the over-protective best friend. She was surprised to find herself disappointed. She wanted to talk to June about what had happened between her and Pat last night. Not the juicy details, but the emotional ones. June, of all people, would be able to tell her if she was either completely insane or if her seemingly irrational desire to have at least one night with Pat was right. She snorted. Wantonly abandoning all common sense and making love to a man she knew was going to leave was most definitely not being responsible, so she already kn
ew June’s advice wouldn’t lean in that direction.
“I wanted to have a memory of him to comfort me when I have to watch him drive away.”
June narrowed her eyes and studied Aelissm for a long time before replying. When she finally spoke, the words were the last Aeli expected to hear. “You don’t have to watch him drive away.”
“How? I don’t know when I won’t have to worry about Adam anymore, but someday in the not-too-distant future, Adam will be out of my life for good and Pat will go back to Washington. To his job and his life.”
“How much do you love him?”
“I don’t recall saying that I did.”
“It’s written all over you face, Aeli. It has been for weeks.”
Damn you, June, she thought without heat. Her friend knew her too well. So well that she had apparently known what Aelissm was feeling long before Aelissm was aware of it herself. Or, at least, before she was willing to put a name to this strange, painful, wonderful and completely uncontrollable fluttering of her heart.
“Whether you’re willing to admit it yet or not, you do love him, Aelissm. The question is, how much?”
“You want to know if I love him enough to follow him back to Seattle.”
June nodded.
“If he wanted me to? I don’t know yet, June. I honestly don’t.” She took a long, deep breath and let it out slowly. “Washington has a lot of bad memories for me.”
“I know it does.”
“And Northstar is home.”
“Yes, it is.”
She saw the point June was trying to make. If she didn’t love Pat enough to face her lingering fears and go to Washington for him, it was best if things didn’t go any farther than they had already. It wasn’t fair to either of them if she couldn’t make that kind of commitment. Especially if Pat loved her…. She couldn’t hurt him like that, not after what he’d been through with his ex. Her mother had told her once that when she couldn’t imagine her life without a man, she’d found the right one. Well, she could still see her life without Pat in it, but the image was becoming more and more hazy. It was a snap to picture them together… at the altar, celebrating the birth of their first child, spoiling their grandchildren rotten.
“The look on your face right now would usually make you sick,” June remarked. “You’re dangerously close to impersonating those moon-eyed, love-sick teenage girls we teach.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’m a little disturbed.”
Aelissm offered her friend a playful scowl. “I get it, June.”
“Good.”
With that, June returned to gathering wood, ignoring Aelissm completely. She’d given Aeli plenty to consider and she would consider it, right along with what she could do to get Adam out of her life. For the time being, however, all that could wait.
She snuck back into her tent and woke Pat with a kiss and a playful caress.
“I know June’s up, so don’t start anything you might be too embarrassed to finished,” he murmured sleepily. His eyes were still closed, but there was a faint smugness about his features.
“Mmm. And what about me has ever given you the idea I’d be so easily embarrassed?”
He opened one eye and looked at her. “The fact that you’re blushing about it right now.”
“Okay, fine, be that way. Get your sexy ass out of the sack.”
She flipped the sleeping bag back and was awarded with a beautiful view of a gorgeously built, entirely naked man.
Cursing, Pat grabbed his boxers and yanked them on. “That’s mean, Aeli, and cold. What’s the temperature out?”
“Oh, probably around thirty-five.”
“You’re a cruel woman, Aelissm Davis. Gimme that back.” He reached for the sleeping bag.
“Nope. It’s time to get up. June’s starting the breakfast fire, so if you want something to eat, get dressed.” She cocked her head and smirked at him, hungrily devouring the sight of him with her eyes. “Then again, I’m really liking the scenery, Mr. O’Neil.”
“Uh-huh. Be gone with you, fiend.”
Aelissm retreated from the tent obediently but unwillingly. Luke was sitting on a log by the roaring fire June had started, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. When he caught Aeli’s gaze, his face turned ashen, then red. She apologized for what he’d seen last night and he smiled timidly in response. The sudden distance he’d put between them shocked her and left her feeling odd, like something she was trying to hold on to was slipping through her fingers. There was so much to consider before she made her decision about Pat and she had the distinct impression she would miss something.
It would have been a simple choice if her lust had been slaked, but curiously, having known Pat so intimately last night, she was all the more attracted. She wanted to watch him move, to take in the fluid movements of his body and revel in the pleasure of it.
She laughed at herself. Maybe she did love him enough to go back to Washington. But the thought of living so close to the city again, falling prey to the persistent, consuming rush of it made her skin crawl. Since coming back to Northstar, she’d found herself again. The woman she’d become in Seattle, the one that had given in to the lifestyle and the man she saw now she’d never loved was gone. She was Aelissm again and beyond grateful to be nothing more or less. If she went back to Washington to be with Pat, how long would it be before the woman he’d fallen in love with—if he loves you, a vicious little voice whispered in the back of her mind—became lost again? Kitsap County wasn’t Seattle, but it was too close for her liking. Every time she stood on the Indian Point dock or the beach, she’d see the city across the water. Would Pat still love her if she reverted to that half-crazed, cold, impatient bitch? Or would he be reminded of Sara and turn away from her in horror?
That was the gist of it. They had no hope of continuing what they’d begun. She couldn’t ask him to give up his career any more than she could leave Northstar. So, it was probably best that they find a way to resolve his reason for being here in the first place and put a stop to this disaster-in-the-making before the damage became too great.
The shy smiles he gave her all through breakfast and the occasional, fleeting times he took her hand on the hike down the trail from the lake firmed her resolve. Whether or not he loved her was still unknown, but he felt enough for her that, for his sake, she needed to end this. The shadows Sara had put in his eyes had been gone for a while now and she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she put new ones in their place.
It was when they reached his truck and she saw his notebook sitting on the dash that she understood what she was going to do. When she had the chance, she’d snoop through it. She wasn’t dumb enough to believe he didn’t have Adam’s address if he had a vehicle description and a license plate number. Even if he didn’t, she could use what he’d found so far to do some research of her own. It had been over a year now since her life had been thrown into chaos and it was time she took control. Pat may be the best thing to have ever happened to her, but he had the potential to be the worst. If she was going to get her heart broken, it was going to be on her terms and her timeline. Not too long ago, she’d vowed to June that she was done running and she hadn’t run since. She’d dug her heels in with every ounce of the stubbornness that used to drive her mother to distraction. Now, she was going to play the game her way.
Adam, she thought, it’s time you and I come to a little understanding.
Six hours later, she was standing in front of a tiny rented house behind the Paradise Motel in Devyn, holding a note and a pushpin. Without a moment’s hesitation, she tacked the carefully worded letter to the door and took a deep breath. Remarkably, her hand was steady and her legs were firm beneath her. She wasn’t doing this because she was tired of Adam’s obsession with her or even because she wanted her life back. She was doing it because she’d made a decision about Pat.
“If we’re going to make it, my love, it won’t be because Adam is keeping you here.”
&nbs
p; * * *
Much of Pat’s day was spent in a haze of warm daydreams. How he managed to take orders at the Bedspread and serve guests without error was nothing short of a miracle, because when he stepped outside for a break, he was shocked to find it was nearly dusk and he couldn’t remember most of the day. He knew Nick Hammond and his wife and infant son had stopped in for lunch and Nick’s father and Old Matt Carlyle had been in for their nightly beers a short while ago, but other than that, there was little he could recall since he’d kissed Aelissm good-bye and watched her drive off.
He could clearly remember her kissing him awake this morning, however, and he could certainly recall last night without any difficulty. Oh, yes, he remembered the feel of her soft skin beneath his hand as if he were touching her now, and the memory of her arching against him, pleading for more was still a raging wildfire in his veins.
“And if you don’t stop this train of thought, you’ll be sorry,” he muttered, cursing the returning ache in his loins.
Besides, he seriously doubted Aelissm would be too understanding of any dereliction of his duties at her inn, even if it was thoughts of her that continually distracted him. He recalled with fondness her aggravation at his short attention span when he’d first started working here. He’d since gotten much better about staying focused and on task and knew the job well enough that he could get through a day on auto-pilot. Today was proof of that, he mused, because he certainly hadn’t been thinking about the orders he’d taken or the food he’d cooked and somehow, everything had met or exceeded his patrons’ expectations. Aelissm would be pleased about that.
As he took a deep breath, he wondered how her class was going. It was the last of this course, but she wouldn’t have much of a break since her summer class would start in just two weeks. A smile touched his face as he thought of her settling in Northstar permanently. She belonged here and he couldn’t imagine Northstar without her or see her anywhere else. It wasn’t only that her neighbors adored her or how much she genuinely enjoyed teaching her class and running the inn. It was the private smiles that occasionally brightened her beautiful face for no apparent reason when she was puttering around the cabin or traipsing over to June’s or leaning on the porch railing of the Bedspread’s dining room like he was now.
Mountain Angel (Northstar Angels, Book One) Page 23
