This time when Celeste pulled him in for a kiss it was much less feverish than it had been before. She did it with intent instead of losing complete control of the walls she’d built up against him. This time, she was taking her walls down voluntarily instead of falling apart in the heat of the moment.
He let go of her wrists, winding his arms around her body again and pulling her back in to deepen the slow kiss. This was nice. She melted into him this time and ran her arms across his back, mumbling against his lips.
“Can we please just set up the tent before we both lose our minds in this? I don’t want a repeat performance of earlier. I want to do this differently…” Celeste wasn’t certain what she was talking about or doing, but she didn’t want another heated quickie out in the open on the side of a hiking trail. If she was going to repeat the same mistake, she was going to do it the right way this time.
Drake pulled away with a soft chuckle. “As you wish, Princess. Come on and we can get this done in a few minutes.”
The two of them worked as a team this time, setting up the tent poles until the tent was set back up. This time they cooked dinner together, working to make sure that everything was right while they watched the sun set down behind the falls. It was probably one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen in person. She didn’t know what she was getting herself into, but at least she was enjoying it for now. Celeste just pushed the doubts out of her mind. Tonight she was just going to live. She wasn’t going to let her job or the thoughts about what she was supposed to do and where she was supposed to be stop her from enjoying herself.
Those had been the things that got her into the worst predicaments since she’d come here. Her damned pride and ambition were useless if she couldn’t back them up with action, and tonight was going to be all about action. That was why she pulled him into the tent by one of his belt loops when the pink in the sky was completely gone and the two of them had finished eating. Tonight was a night for her to finally live a little instead of mourning the life she thought she was supposed to have.
“Get in here.” The two of them had to get down on hands and knees to get into the tent. It was small and low built for backpacking, and the two of them were in close quarters in here. Celeste intended to use that to her advantage. It meant that Drake had to crawl in over her to fit into the tight space once she’d sprawled out across the sleeping bags at the bottom of the tent.
Celeste tugged him back down to press her lips to his, her fingers working slowly at the buttons of his shirt as he moved into place, settling between her hips and just letting her do whatever it was she wanted. She placed her arms on his shoulders, slipping her leg around his and pushing him onto his back. She eagerly climbed up his body and straddled his lap, leaning down and pinning his arms above his head. A small giggle escaped his mouth, “Shut up.” She enunciated both words emphatically as she leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his.
The first time the two of them had been together, it was rushed, heated, and hungry. This time, she was going to take her time and enjoy every moment of it. What fun was absolutely breaking all of your rules if you rushed it?
The two of them moved together. Taking time in getting each other’s clothes off and into a pile at the edge of the tent. The night air was cold, but the heat of his body pressed against hers was enough to keep her from catching a chill. She shivered a little as he moved away, kissing a trail along her chest and down her stomach toward her thighs. When he pressed a kiss to her clit the shiver was replaced with a shudder that rolled up her body until she had to reach down for his shoulders to steady herself. He took his time doing that as well. Licking and exploring her body with his mouth until she was writhing beneath him and he had to hold her hips into place to keep her from squirming completely away.
She had to admit he was good at this, and she wouldn’t have known it from their first experience together. It had been good, but it was so fast. This time every move was intentional, and it was clear from the beginning that his intention was to make her climax as many times as possible before the night was through. He was making good on that intent because by the time he moved to kiss his way back up her body she’d already been a moaning mess, her body tensing and shuddering beneath his touch until she fell apart three times. She wasn’t certain she was going to be able to take much more of this, but when he settled himself between her hips and looked down at her, she used her legs to pull him into her out of pure instinct. Before she could fully pull him inside her he reached over and pulled a condom out of his bag.
He groaned as he finally entered her, his hands going to her hips to pull her up into him at the same time he pressed his weight into her body. She cried out softly while her body took a moment to adjust to being filled, and he finally spoke to her.
“I hope you know how sexy you are, Celeste, and it’s not just about the way you look. You’re smart and funny and you can take my bullshit with the best of them. I just want you to know that. I wouldn’t be out here shacked up in a tent with just anyone. There hasn’t been anyone for me for a long damned time, not since Vanessa, anyway.”
She looked up at him with a slightly shocked expression. That wasn’t what she’d expected to hear. She knew Drake was reclusive and kept to himself, but the two of them had divorced a long time ago. The fact that he hadn’t been with another woman in all that time was a bit of a shock, but it fit what she was learning about Drake’s personality.
“Shhh…” She pulled him down into the kiss, cutting off his confession, and focused her attention on the way their bodies fit together as the two of them moved together. There wasn’t any more talking, just the two of them getting lost in each other until they fell asleep wrapped up in a pair of sleeping bags they’d joined into one for the night.
12
It had been a week since the two of them had set out on that hike, and four days since they’d come back. Drake hadn’t heard from Celeste since then. The first night might have been strained, but the next two were something like magic. He hadn’t been lying or blowing smoke up her ass when he’d confessed to her that there hadn’t been anyone in his life since he’d divorced Vanessa. He’d said he was done with women then and there when he signed the divorce papers. She’d been his high school sweetheart and moving on from there just seemed like something he didn’t have the heart to do. He’d gone and put all his eggs in one basket the way his grandmother had always warned him not to. He’d figured all his eggs were broken now, and he was pretty much useless for any woman. Drake had settled into his life at the ranch and at the brewery and put everything he had into it. That had been part of the reason he’d been so successful. There hadn’t been any distractions to keep him from doing whatever his business needed to be successful.
Then Celeste had walked into his life. At first, he thought she was just like Vanessa — gorgeous, ambitious, and bound to leave. That was why he’d pushed her away, why he’d written her off to the same page with all the other people he’d left behind in the city. Then the camping trip had happened.
He hadn’t expected any of that. He didn’t take women out into the wilderness only to lead them onto some goose chase that wound up with him sleeping with them. He’d only intended to give Celeste a hard enough time that she would go ahead and make the decision to leave and go back to Los Angeles sooner rather than later. Now, Drake was a goner. He was attached more than he would have ever expected out of someone he’d met only a week before.
Drake had tried to call her three or four times, but every time it went to voicemail. He had the pretense that there were some contracts he needed to sign to get into contact with her, but she hadn’t called him back. Instead, she’d had the secretary up at the law firm call him and say she’d have the contracts couriered out to the ranch for his signature.
He’d cursed under his breath when he heard that. She was sure as hell avoiding him now. He kept telling himself that it was better that she just went ahead and left now instead of waiting un
til he did something stupid like fall in love with his lawyer before she pulled the rug out from under him. Maybe she’d go back to Los Angeles and start up some kind of club with his ex-wife where they could commiserate about what kind a miserable bastard he was. She could figure out she’d narrowly escaped having a sorry son of a bitch in love with her and then they could go out and get manicures and spray tans or whatever the hell they all did with their free time back in the city.
Drake decided to give up trying to contact her after that point. If she wanted him, Celeste knew where to find him. She had his phone number, his email address and she could drive out the ranch if the urge hit her. If she just wanted to avoid him, then he wasn’t going to push her. He was just going to let her be.
Drake had taken to spending his evenings alone anyway with just a dog curled up around his feet while he watched whatever television had struck his fancy in front of the fireplace. It was the way he liked it. At least, that’s what he told himself. Tonight, he didn’t even bother with the television. He just sat in the recliner in front of the fireplace, studying the patterns in the flames while he downed one of the beers he kept the fridge stocked with. He thought he was clearing his mind of all the bullshit that had been going through it since they’d gotten back from the camping trip. Instead he just filled it with a bunch of what ifs.
What if he got of his sorry ass and went into Denver to find her? He knew where her office was and what her office hours were. He had every kind of excuse to go in to his own attorney’s office to ask questions about progress on his own damned contracts and job. It was getting to the critical point in this job, anyway. The two of them needed to make sure that all the paperwork went through perfectly to make sure that everything was going to work out perfectly. He had himself half convinced to do just that in the morning when the next round of what ifs hit him.
What if she didn’t ever want to talk to him again? What if she was just biding her time while she found someone to take over his contracts so she didn’t have to see him again? That would be just his luck. The first time he managed to open up to someone since Vanessa, and she was going to running off and leaving him too. That was just his luck.
Maybe there was something wrong with him. He had to be fundamentally flawed if he couldn’t manage this most basic of human functions with any kind of sense. It had been too long since he’d even tried to talk to a woman on that level, much less anything else. Of course he was going to screw it up. He’d talked himself back into leaving her alone and just letting Celeste live her life without him like she clearly wanted to do when his mind swung back the other way.
What if she was the perfect one for him? Maybe it didn’t matter that she was younger than him that she thought she’d rather spend the rest of her life in the city. Maybe this weekend had changed her mind about all of that. She could be looking for someone else to take over his contracts so that there wasn’t any kind of conflict of interest and she could just go into this without any worries. But if that were the case she might have just called or texted or emailed or even used the pony express to make sure he knew what she was up to. And there went his brain swinging back the other way.
He didn’t know how long he’d sat there in front of the fireplace swinging from one extreme to another, convincing himself that he needed to go into the city to go see her and then back to being sure that he ought to just leave her alone and not bother the woman any more than he already had. Drake was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t even hear the front door open or the sound of footsteps coming into the living room. He didn’t even register that there was someone else in the room until he heard a familiar voice behind him.
“The hell are you doing, Fulton?” It wasn’t the voice he thought he wanted to hear, but maybe it was one he needed. Sam Albertson might have been his attorney for all those years, but he was more than that. The two of them were friends. If he thought about it too much, Drake would have called him his best friend, but he tried not to think about things like that too much. That was how you got caught in one of these spirals he found himself in now. He needed not to think.
“What does it look like, Sam? I’m sitting here in the dark, drinking a beer, like any civilized man with too much on his mind. What are you doing here?” He stood up from the chair, moving to take the empty beer bottle in his hand to the kitchen.
“Well, if I’m not mistaken we have a standing appointment to play cards with each other on Friday nights, but if you want to end that, then I’m sure my wife won’t mind me invading her at home spa session with being annoying as hell.” He laughed, and Drake shook his head. He’d forgotten what day it was, and the two of them had called things off last weekend so that he could go out on the hike with Celeste.
“Yeah, I’m getting older than I thought. I forgot, but no need for you to aggravate that poor woman any more than you already do, old man. Come on in the kitchen, and we can get this show on the road.” He finished his walk into the kitchen dropping the bottle he was holding into the trash before making his way over to the fridge to grab two more — one for him and one for his guest. Sam was already settling into a seat at the kitchen table and pulling a deck of cards from his jeans pocket.
Sam was older than Drake. He was already at the point of retiring while Drake wasn’t even close to thinking about it. It didn’t make much difference. He valued the older man’s opinion. He always had. There was a reason Sam was his attorney, and it hadn’t been because of the firm he worked for, even if they were one of the most respected law firms in Colorado. It had been because when he asked for the older man’s advice, he always got something he could use that made sense and that just seemed to work. Sam had a knack for always being right. It was simultaneously annoying and helpful. Drake wouldn’t have gotten his business as far as he had without Sam’s help, and he would have known better than to even try to move to Los Angeles if he’d listened the first time he got an opinion on the move. Maybe it was good luck that he’d showed up just now when Drake needed advice again.
Drake used the edge of the kitchen table to pry the metal top off the two bottles, setting one down in front of Sam and bringing the other one to his lips to take a long swig before putting it down on the table. Sam was shuffling and then dealing the cards when Drake looked up at him from the surface of the table.
“Alright Old Man, I’ve got something I needed to talk to you about any way, so I guess it’s kind of a good thing you showed up tonight.”
He could see the amusement in Sam’s eyes as he started talking. Sam made no secret that he enjoyed the younger man asking his advice. It made him feel a little superior to rub it in Drake’s face that he was always right, so he knew he was going to enjoy this particular session quite a bit.
“Let me guess. You did something stupid like go on a camping trip with a pretty little lawyer and got yourself attached.”
Drake rolled his eyes. Of course he already knew. Sam knew everything. He shouldn’t have underestimated his friend.
“How did you know?” Drake picked up his cards studying the hand he’d been dealt as his friend did the same, not hiding his amusement.
“I have my ways. Some of the old women at the office still like to hang out with my wife, and trust me when I say that you two are the talk of the office. They all knew you two took off for a camping trip, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, that poor girl has been wandering around the office distracted as all hell all week.” Sam glanced up at his cards at his friend across the table. “She put in her two week notice yesterday, actually. She’s leaving…”
Drake froze when Sam said the last two words. Leaving. It had been one of the myriad of possibilities that had gone through his head. She was leaving. She’d quit her job. He wasn’t certain what that meant, other than the fact that it meant she was leaving Colorado and probably headed back to Los Angeles as soon as she could manage to get her affairs in order here. Two weeks’ notice. That meant he had two weeks to figure out what the hell he was
doing.
“So go ahead and tell me how bad you screwed this up, Fulton, because she was bound and determined to make enough of a go at this job to get a promotion when she got here, and now she’s quitting without any kind of a job prospect to replace it. So, I’m just going to assume that whatever happened on your little camping trip had something to do with that.”
“Hell if I know, Old Man. I just…”
Sam cut him off as soon as he started.
“Don’t feed me that line of bullshit. You know damned good and well. So do I. I may not know all the details of what went down, but something went down. I can see it written all over your face, and from what I hear it’s all over hers too. You two went and caught feelings for each other, and she’s running away.”
“Or maybe I went and did something stupid, and she hates me so much she’s willing to quit her job so she doesn’t have to see me ever again?”
“You’re so full of shit, Drake. I hope you know that.” Sam had stopped with the card hand before the two of them had ever really begun. He was being dead honest. Drake knew this tone of voice almost as well as he knew his mother’s voice when he’d screwed something up. “You screwed up alright, but only because you haven’t gone to see her, and yeah, I know you’re going to try to tell me you called or texted or some other such foolish nonsense. She’s scared, and she’s running. A phone call isn’t going to be enough. If you knew what was good for you, you’d get your ass in gear and go see her before it’s too late.”
Sam didn’t even bother starting the hand or even taking a swig from the beer bottle before he pushed up from the table and started to leave.
“Where are you going, Old Man? You just got here, and it’s card night.” Drake protested, but the older man waved him off.
“I lost my appetite for beer and cards, besides it smells too much like bullshit in here for my tastes.” He left without another word, grabbing his deck of cards and the hat he’d left on the hook by the entrance before he made his way out into the night. This wasn’t the first time Sam had walked out of card night without playing a single hand. It wasn’t the first time he’d told Drake he was full of shit either. It was just the type of relationship that the two of them had. Though tonight, there was an extra level of irritation in his friend’s behavior because of Celeste.
Drake: A Rocky Mountain Romance Page 8
