Mountain Investigation

by Jessica Andersen

  Mariah thought she felt her heart sigh, and maybe break and bleed a little for what she couldn’t have. But this was her deal, her terms, so she said only, “I wasn’t looking for poetry or romance, but you just gave me enough of both to count as a memory in itself.”

  There was beauty, too, in the powerful promise of his bare shoulders, the bulge of his biceps and the glistening planes of his upper torso. There was poetry there, whether he knew it or not.

  They drew together and kissed then, because it was impossible not to. The attraction that had started as sparks and grown into something more flared from a warm kernel in Mariah’s belly to a lick of heat when his lips touched hers.

  That was the only point of contact at first—mouth on mouth. Mariah tasted the tang of mineralized water on his lips, and gloried in the press of wetness, of heat. She felt the brush of his bare legs against hers, felt one of his hands skim across her hip.

  A bubble of joy burst through her at the caress, and the glint that entered his eyes. His normally closed expression held acceptance, anticipation and blatant male hunger. She touched her lips to his, then sank into the kiss, into the water, and tangled her legs with his. They dipped beneath the surface, lost in each other.

  The kiss spun out on a single breath, a single moment, as they came together, skin on skin, with her breasts pressed against his powerfully sculpted chest, and the solid, hard length of his erection nestled between them. Her flesh burned at the points of contact, and the perfection of the fit, the feeling of connectedness, was so acute she shied away from it, afraid she was in over her head, figuratively as well as literally.

  With a powerful surge, he sent them back to the surface. Mariah’s head was spinning when they broke into the misty air, and she regained her footing. She ended the kiss to suck in a great lungful of air, exhaling it again on a delighted laugh when Gray hooked an arm around her, pulled her from the ledge and started swimming, aiming them at the waterfall.

  “You’ll drown us!” she exclaimed, though she hung on to his neck, reveling in the coarse friction of masculine hair against her water-softened skin, and the powerful play of muscles as he drew them beneath the thundering stream.

  “Then you’d better hang on!” With that scant warning, he dove beneath the waterfall, wrapping his arms around her and taking her with him.

  They surfaced, laughing, in the sheltered space behind the waterfall. She’d swum there before, and had explored the small niche where centuries—maybe millennia—of watery friction had carved a soft-edged bowl in the stones behind the cataract. She’d never been there at night, though, never seen it moonlit.

  “Oh,” she said in a small gasp of pleasure as Gray released her, touched bottom and stood, rising over her to inspect the ledge.

  The silvery moonlight cast the waterfall in a brilliant white glow. Against it, Gray was a black silhouette of masculinity as he reached down to take her hand. “Come here,” he said, his voice pitched low beneath the waterfall’s thunder.

  Mariah went. How could she not join him in the shallow niche? How could she not rise from the water with him, and lie with him there, in that place outside reality?

  They lay on their sides on the warm, water-smoothed stone, facing each other, and sank into a kiss that spun out endlessly. The water cooled slightly on Mariah’s skin, bringing delicious shivers instead of chills as she touched him, tentatively at first, running her hands over his shoulders and down the leashed strength of his arms.

  He copied her actions, slicking the water on her skin and kindling the sparks within her to a flame. She murmured her pleasure and crowded close.

  It was all that she’d dreamed of in her premarriage fantasies—a romantic setting with a handsome man, out in the open, though with little threat of discovery. The realization brought a laugh bubbling to the surface, and Gray pulled away to look down at her, his features unreadable in the dark silhouette of his powerful form.

  “That tickle?”

  “No. Or rather, yes, but in a good way.” She paused, then went with the truth. “I was just thinking that before—well, when I was younger—I always imagined doing this outside. I never have until now.”

  A low growl rumbled in his chest, a mix of amusement and feral sexuality that kicked her pulse a notch higher. “What, exactly, did you imagine?”

  She blushed hard and hot. And she told him, embellishing in the places where her innocence had fallen short before marriage. Not that her marital sex had been great, ranging as it had along a descending continuum from pleasant to domineering, but it had given her some ideas of how things were supposed to work.

  And oh, boy, did they. Gray took her at her word and then went from there, kissing her, touching her, exploring her body more intimately than she’d imagined in the not-so-wild fantasies that had suddenly become real, and then been exceeded. He licked her, suckled her, made her bow back in ecstasy.

  A small orgasm caught her unexpectedly, vising her inner muscles in a long, languid pull of pleasure that had her crying out, her words lost beneath the water-thunder. Then he was shifting onto his back, and lifting her above him.

  She stiffened. “I don’t know—”

  “The stone’s worn smooth, but it’s still stone. Trust me, this’ll work better than me squashing you flat. And…it’ll let you work out more of those fantasies. That is, assuming you’ve had a few of what you’d like to do to your lover.”

  She didn’t miss his use of the generic—he hadn’t said “what you’d like to do to me,” as though any man would’ve done once she’d made the decision to take a lover. Though she understood his need for distance, she put a purr in her voice when she said, “I don’t know about that, but I’ve definitely gotten a few ideas over the past week or so.”

  And she proceeded to show him.

  If she fumbled anything, he didn’t seem to notice or care, showing her his appreciation with long, possessive strokes down her back and sides, letting her hear it in his groans. When it finally became too much, when they’d driven each other beyond reason and joining wasn’t just the next step, it was the only one, he gripped her hips in his powerful hands and shifted her so the long, hard length of his erection was poised for entry.

  There, he paused. “Okay?” he asked, his voice a sexy rumble almost the same pitch as the water. “We’re condomless, but I’m clean.”

  “Oh.” Positioned there, poised for the most intimate of joinings, she scrambled to collect her thoughts. “Yeah. Yeah, we’re good. I got tested after…well, after.” After she learned her husband wasn’t even close to being the man she’d thought. “As far as the other, I’ve got an IUD. For medical reasons, not because I sleep around.”

  “Yeah. I sort of got that from the part where you haven’t been with anyone except the ex.”

  The reminder probably should’ve been a cold one. Instead, it made the comparison between the two men that much more poignant.

  Lee had insisted on being on top, on being in control. Gray had touched her the way she wanted, then put himself on the bottom so he’d be the one with his back to the stone.

  Because of that, she found a smile when part of her wanted to weep for the girl she’d been, for the way her life might’ve gone if she’d chosen better the first time around. “Then that’s your answer. Bombs away.”

  Her words were flip, but there was nothing frivolous about the sensations or emotions when she eased down and back, taking him within her. She couldn’t see his face in the darkness behind the waterfall, but she could feel his intensity in the reverence of his touch, hear it in the catch of his breath and his low hiss of pleasure.

  He was large inside her, filling her, stretching her, his size magnifying each sensation, every burst of pleasure. Her eyelids eased down, blocking out even the silver glow of moonlight. The sound of the waterfall surrounded her, as did the feel of the man who moved beneath her, urging her, guiding her, touching her as he whispered praise and promises, making her feel every bit of the woman she’d
once imagined herself becoming.

  She bent to kiss him and he rose to meet her, so they were sitting face-to-face, with her straddling his lap. The position brought new sensations, new heats and desires. She went with them, riding him until they were both groaning and gasping and laughing, partners in pleasure.

  Then he dropped them down into the water, still joined, still wrapped together. He pressed her back against the stone wall, pinning her hips in place and driving deep.

  Mariah arched back on a strangled gasp, gripping his shoulders as the sensations within her changed from pleasure to blinding heat, from play to something larger and darker, an all-consuming need that threatened to take over and leave her helpless.

  Yet even as Gray thrust into her, pressing her against the stone and holding her steady as he pistoned, she knew he was as much in her power as she was in his. This pleasure was a give-and-take, not a domination.

  The knowledge, and the strength it brought, gave her the confidence to let go. She strained into him, against him, and touched her lips to his.

  The kiss held a sweetness at odds with the rampaging fury of their bodies. She sank into it, into him, and heard him murmur her name as the awesome madness of their pleasure rose up, sweeping her into a pulsing coil of heat and need, and the power they made together.

  Her orgasm was a long, throbbing pull of pleasure that bound her to him, and him to her, as he shuddered in her arms and cut loose. She felt him surge within her, felt her inner muscles contract to prolong the spasms—his, hers, theirs. And when she leaned back onto the rock ledge where he’d held her pinned, he followed her down, turning them so they were on their sides, she tucked against him. Then he turned his face into the side of her neck, breathing her in. And whispered her name once again.

  GRAY’S WORLD HAD GONE soft and warm, smoothing out all the edges he’d lived with for so long. Mariah was curled up against him, her back to his front and his hands folded with hers beneath her chin.

  Yet, at the same time, she surrounded him as surely as the warm mists and the water that ran from their bodies. He breathed her in, felt her in every cell of his body. He’d just spent himself inside her, yet he wanted her again already. He’d been her first lover in all the ways that mattered, the first to be with her for her own sake, and his, not because of some nefarious plan.

  The thought of Lee and al-Jihad brought too much reality into a moment where it didn’t belong, so Gray pushed the outside world aside and touched his lips to Mariah’s neck, kissing the soft place behind her ear. She shuddered against him, raised their joined hands to her lips, and pressed a kiss into the center of his palm.

  The simple gesture, one of love and acceptance, sent a poignant jolt through his system, and a whispered thought: I wish. He wished he were a better man with a different life. He wished he could offer her a home and a lifetime. Those wishes were so strong, yet so incompatible with the things that had driven him for so long. And still, part of him said, What if?

  What if he put aside his drive for revenge and made a new life for himself? For them? He could turn in his gun and badge; they could rebuild the cabin, and then…

  And then what? He was a cop from a family of cops. He knew policework, loved it. He didn’t have any hobbies, didn’t know who or what he’d be without the job. More than that, there were Ken, Trish and Catherine, and all the others al-Jihad and his men had killed. They no longer had their lives or loves. Didn’t he owe it to them to put off his own until justice was served?

  Still, he wished. And because he wished, because the desire to make an impossible change was so strong that it nearly consumed him, he eased away from her. “We should swim back out and check the phone. If Lee and the others have left the vicinity, they may have taken the signal scrambler with them.” When that came out more coolly practical than he’d meant it to, he consciously softened his tone. “Besides, I could do with one of those energy bars. You just about used me up.”

  She lay still for a moment, then rolled away from him and sat up, her gloriously naked female form silhouetted against the silver rain. He couldn’t see her expression, but her voice was carefully neutral when she said, “Back to reality, then?”

  “Back to reality.” When that seemed pitifully inadequate, especially considering the undeniable depth of what had just happened between them, he tried to explain. “It’s not that—”

  “Don’t,” she said, interrupting with the single, soft word. “Please, don’t. I didn’t mean for this to complicate things. I just…I wanted a better memory. Which is exactly what you’ve given me.”

  “What if I want more than that?” he said. He should’ve been shocked by his own words. Instead, they felt exactly right.

  “Do you?”

  “Maybe.”

  She shifted, and a glint of refracted moonlight allowed him to see her small, sad smile. “Even if that ‘maybe’ had been a heartfelt ‘yes,’ my answer would be that I’m flattered, but we both know I’d need and want more from you than you’re willing to give.” She paused, and when he didn’t argue, she nodded. “Yeah. Thought so.”

  “If it helps at all, I wish things were different.”

  “But not enough to change them.”

  Something squeezed tight in his chest. “I can’t.”

  She nodded. “Then there we are.” She leaned into him and touched her lips to his, surprising him. The heat gathered, sparked higher. But then she eased back, with that same sad smile in place. “Goodbye, Gray.”

  Neither of them was going anywhere at that moment, but he knew what she meant, knew that this was the end of anything physical between them, which was something they probably shouldn’t have started, but he’d be damned if he’d regret it. She wasn’t the only one who’d made new memories just now.

  He tipped his head in acknowledgment. “Goodbye, Mariah. And good luck.”

  Together, they slipped into the warm mineral waters, ducked beneath the waterfall and swam to the flat boulder where they’d left their clothes and supplies. They dressed in awkward silence and she rummaged through her dusty pack for food and water while he checked his phone.

  The signal was good, and a text awaited him: Tracking your GPS; chopper ETA 30 min. The time stamp said they were down to less than ten minutes.

  He showed the message to Mariah, who smiled sadly as water dripped from her hair like tears. “Well, then. Back to reality it is.”

  “Yeah,” Gray said, and turned away, gritting his teeth at the sudden realization that he damn well didn’t want to go back to reality. He wanted to stay exactly where he was.

  THE PICKUP WENT SMOOTHLY, with no sign of Lee or al-Jihad, which left Mariah wondering whether they should’ve tried to sneak back to the cabin rather than hiding up at the glen. But, by the same token, she couldn’t regret the decision, or what had come after. New memories were precious things.

  Not wanting the others to know what had happened between them, she consciously avoided looking at Gray as the helicopter flew them down off the ridge, back to Bear Claw City. Instead, she huddled in the blanket she’d pulled from her knapsack, trying to recapture the warmth of the hot spring without thinking of the things she and Gray had done to each other, the feelings he’d unleashed in her.

  It was impossible not to think about the emotions, though. They overwhelmed her, consumed her and made her deeply afraid that she’d done the unthinkable and had once again fallen for the absolute wrong guy.

  Realizing that she’d heard someone say her name, she looked to the front of the passenger area of the helicopter, where Gray was huddled with two other agents while talking into a radio headset. He was looking at her, one elegant eyebrow arched to suggest that he’d asked her something. When their eyes met, heat sparked low in her midsection, hotter now than before, because now she knew how it could be with a man like him. Or rather, with him.

  She cleared her throat. “Sorry, I was zoning out.” And then some.

  “A car is going to meet us at the landing pad w
ith the statuettes. Once you’ve pointed out the right one, we’ll take it for analysis and the driver will take you to your parents.” Gray rapped out the summary, making it clear that what happened next wasn’t open to discussion. He wasn’t the soldier now, or the man. He was pure, cold federal agent.

  “Fine,” she said dully, suddenly sick of it all. She’d tried to make the right choices before and she’d been wrong at almost every turn. This time she’d play along with the Feds, and hope for the best. What else could she do? She was tired of fighting when she never actually won.

  She must’ve dozed off after that, because the next thing she knew, the helicopter was landing with a shuddering bump, and she was suddenly surrounded by armed men snapping terse, clipped orders to one another as they hustled her off the aircraft.

  Fear kicked in, and she instinctively looked for Gray. He was still talking into his radio headset, but met her eyes and nodded. She couldn’t tell if the nod meant “You’re okay, go with them and I’ll be right behind you,” or “It’s over.”

  Knowing they’d said their goodbyes already and it wasn’t the time or place to ask for more, if she’d even meant to, she went with her escort. Moments later, she was staring into the trunk of a dark SUV, where her mother’s ceramic clowns were arrayed like a small army of terminally cheerful, red-and-white painted gremlins.

  “That one,” she said, pointing out a floppy-footed guy with green suspenders.

  “You’re sure?” The question came from Gray’s friend, Fairfax, who had hopped out of the SUV as they approached.

  “Positive. That’s the one Lee kept asking me about when he was holding me prisoner. That’s what he wants from me.” A stinking clown. There was irony there, she was sure of it. She just couldn’t see it through the heartache.