“I’m not exactly the dainty, scoop-me-up type. I’ve seen you wince when you straighten your legs after being cramped in my truck. I thought it might kill the mood a little if you picked me up and blew out both knees in the process.”
“Boy, I’m feeling all manly now.”
She smiled. “I kid because I care.” Then she did the darndest thing. She lifted up on her toes and kissed the end of his nose.
He just didn’t know quite what to make of that. Or the fact that he kind of liked it. Liked the idea that anyone would ever consider bestowing such a tender gesture on him.
“What?” she asked, her smile fading.
“Nothing, it’s just—” He paused, grinned, shook his head. “You kissed me on the nose.”
“I know.”
“No one has ever done that before.”
Rather than looking chagrined, or worse, embarrassed, she tipped right up on her toes and did it again. “Well, they should. It’s a very cute one.”
“Guy noses aren’t cute.”
“Yours is. Now, are we going to stand out here debating your general cuteness or lack thereof? Or are we going to head back to my nice, warm cabin and—” She stopped then, her cheeks finally flushing.
He couldn’t help it. A gentleman would have covered for her, allowed her to save face. But then, no one had ever accused him of being one of those. “And?” He threw in a Snidely Whiplash eyebrow wiggle for effect, which made her laugh and swat him on the chest.
“And, I’ll race you there, Mr. Knees of Steel. Then you’ll find out.” Using her edge of surprise, she slipped right from his arms and darted around him, dancing easily down the dock and onto terra firma. Bagel, whom he’d completely forgotten was even there, leapt up—or as much as he was able—barked twice, and took off on a lumbering lope after her.
“Now, wait a minute,” he said out loud. To no one apparently. “What just happened here?”
“Better hurry up,” came her voice, from up the path. “Last one back gets to walk Bagel in the morning!”
He took off at a dead run. Not because he didn’t want to walk the damn dog. But because “in the morning” had all kinds of promise written on it. He’d ice his knees later.
Much later, if he was lucky.
“You shouldn’t be running through the woods in the dark,” he called out.
“It’s not dark. I can see,” came her voice, floating back at him from somewhere ahead. “And stop with the lame excuses. Cheater.”
He smiled at that, so busy focusing on her, he didn’t even notice the ease with which he fell right back into the routines of the past. He’d run these paths often when he was little. Hard to remember what he’d been in such a damn hurry about back then, but as kids, it seemed they were always running.
When he got older, he used to run the paths in the wee hours when his father would come home drunk. It served the dual purpose of getting him out of his father’s immediate reach and working out his anger at the same time.
He caught up to her as she was rounding the back side of the main lodge building. He looped his arm through one of hers and used their momentum to swing her neatly off the path and up against the lodge wall. He followed, pinning her there, breathless and laughing.
Her eyes danced in the moonlight. “Took you long enough.”
He had no choice but to kiss her.
Her laughter quickly subsided into a series of soft gasps as she let him take her. He was beyond thinking about what was smart, and what was supremely stupid. He wanted her. He’d always wanted her. And, right that very moment, she wanted him back. That was all that mattered.
He pushed her up higher, and she took the unspoken cue, wrapping those gloriously long legs of hers around his hips. He wasn’t sure whose groan of appreciation was loudest when he finally settled his weight between her legs. Her thighs tightened against his hips, and he moved against her until he thought they’d both go mad.
“Cabin?” she managed.
“Not sure I can walk that far,” he said. Or that he’d ever get his jeans off. At this rate, she might have to cut them off. It was a sacrifice he was willing to make.
A long whining sound cut through the night. Mac looked down to find a very forlorn Bagel sitting at his feet, looking confused. “We’re scaring the children.”
Kate tightened her hold on his neck and looked down over his shoulder. “Bagel, it’s okay.”
The dog thumped his stub of a tail and shifted closer, until he was all but glued to Mac’s ankle. He looked up worshipfully and whined again.
“You’re not exactly helping me out here, buddy.”
Kate turned Mac’s chin back to her. “You’re doing just fine,” she said, pulling him down to kiss her once again. “Bagel needs to learn to share. It’s all part of growing up.”
Mac was feeling intensely grown-up at the moment. He hitched Kate up higher on his hips, making her gasp and him groan in frustration. “Hold on.”
“But—”
“Just hold on.”
He moved away from the wall, making her cling to his neck and hook her ankles behind his back. “You really shouldn’t—I can wal—”
“You can do a lot of things—I’m well aware of that—but right now you can hold on.” He wrapped his arms around her back, keeping her molded to him, then kissed her until he was staggering slightly as he closed the remaining distance to her cabin stairs.
“Yeah, I—I can hold on,” she said, then slid her fingers into his hair and kissed him again.
He banged them both up the porch stairs and slapped through the screen door, pausing long enough to push her up against the wall next to the front door and indulge in another long kiss. Bagel started barking, and they both said, “Bagel, hush,” at the same time, then laughed.
Kate slapped her hand around behind her until she found the doorknob and twisted the door open. Then they both half fell, half staggered into the cabin. He actually wasted a second thinking the little kitchen table looked like a pretty good surface, but it was still covered with the remains of dinner…and Finn’s report.
Not wanting to think about any of that at the moment, he turned them toward the other doors leading from the main room.
“Left,” she said, reading his mind.
“Bagel, stay,” he said, groping for a piece of chicken from his salad as he passed by the table and tossing it in the general direction of the dog. “I hope you don’t mind, but his education is going to stop here.”
She reached down behind her and opened her bedroom door.
Mac kicked it shut behind them.
“No,” she said, kissing the side of his neck. “I don’t mind at all.”
With the door shut, it was fully dark, but his eyes were still more adjusted to dark than light, so he easily spotted her bed. Every aching step from the dock to right here, he’d thought of throwing her on the bed, following her down and going to it with the same abandon they’d started all this with.
Now that he was here, standing by her bed, the soft glow of moonlight filtering through the window just above the headboard, so seductive, so inviting, looking down into her face, turned up so willingly to his…he faltered.
It was completely ridiculous. Her thighs tightened around him, her fingers dug into the backs of his shoulders, and she continued raining hot, sweet kisses along his jaw and down the sensitive skin of his neck. His body clamored to get on with what it was all but howling for. Release, in the most primal fashion possible.
Only, now that he was standing here…
Kate’s kisses slowed, then stopped, as she apparently caught on to his hesitation. “Donovan?”
He stilled. That name. Whispered so intimately. It should have jerked him the rest of the way out of this fantasy he’d foolishly indulged himself in. Instead, it did the exact opposite. Coming from her, only from her, it sounded…just exactly right. Which made no sense, none.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Everything.
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She unhooked her ankles from his back and, arms still wrapped around his neck, let her feet slip to the floor. “Something slowed you down. What is it?”
“I don’t know,” he said, never more honest. “I’ve wanted you forever. I want you right this second more than I’ve let myself want anything in a very long time. But—”
She tried to smile, smoothed her fingers along his cheek. “If you’re worried I’ll expect some kind of—”
“No, no, that’s not it. I just—” He shook his head. Idiot! What in the hell was wrong with him? The words came, and he let them, figuring it was the only way to make sense of it. “Maybe I’ve wanted it too much, for too long. I mean, I never thought we would, never thought I’d see you again, but I don’t want this to be some kind of retroactive—” He stopped again, shook his head again. “I don’t know. I don’t know what this is.” He looked her in the eyes. “But, what I think I do know, what you should know, is that it won’t just be a casual roll in the hay. Not for me.”
And right there was the raw, stunning truth of it. Shocking, really, since he’d never come up against that particular problem before. And sure as hell hadn’t expected to here, now.
“Maybe it’s the past getting tangled up in this, I don’t know,” he said. “I just don’t know.” He pushed her hair from her face. “And I think I need to. Know, that is. Before we…before I can…or should…” He trailed off, feeling like the biggest fool on the planet. “I’m sorry. I’m making a mess of this. I know this isn’t what you want to hear right now, but—”
“Shh. You don’t know what I want,” she said gently. “You couldn’t, because I don’t know either. I’m guilty of a little fantasizing myself. I’ve wanted you for a long time, too. And yes, I’m surprised my desire for you has only grown with distance and time. I don’t know if it’s the boy I still want, the memory of that, or the man you’ve become. To be honest, it’s probably a little of both. I’m not sure what that says about me.”
“It says you’re just as caught up, as confused, as I am.” Which was a major relief. And also that much more terrifying. And did nothing whatsoever to ease the immediate situation. If anything, it served only to intensify his need further. “We should figure things out before we—”
“Or maybe we should just not think everything to death. We’re adults, we’re unattached, we want each other. Maybe it can be that simple.”
He drew his thumb across her bottom lip, making her body quake. A soft moan escaped her lips. “You really believe that?”
She closed her eyes and dropped her chin, resting her forehead on his. “No. I don’t know. I wish it could be, though.” The silence grew as they stood there, holding on to each other. Finally, she laughed a little, and looked back up at him. “You should have taken me on the dock. Now it’s complicated.”
He smiled a little. “It’s always been complicated. Nothing was going to change that.”
“You’re probably right.” She kept her arms looped around his neck, kept her body meshed to his. And since that was right where he wanted her, he didn’t do anything to change that.
“So, let me ask you this.” She toyed with the collar of his jacket. “Are you proposing we just cease and desist? Because I’m thinking the attraction isn’t going to stop just because we think it would be too complicated to act on it.”
His mouth twitched. “So, you’re saying we have to be slaves to the passion? That we can’t rise above it, control ourselves, and behave?”
She nudged her hips against his, making the very rigid length of him jerk hard in response. “Doesn’t feel much like you want to behave.”
No. No, he didn’t. At the moment, he wanted nothing more than to let loose his inner Neanderthal. But she didn’t have to know that. More than she already did, anyway. “I didn’t say it was what I wanted, just that maybe it was for the best.”
“Best for who? Whom? Whatever.”
“You. Me. I don’t know. You’ve got a tough situation to sort out here, and I—my life isn’t here anymore. And I don’t want it to be.”
“And you think dancing around this, and pretending we don’t want to drag each other’s clothes off is preferable to just giving in to it, enjoying ourselves, then going on with life as it happens? I’m a big girl, Mac. I can handle disappointment. If that’s what happens. Who knows, we might go to bed once and find out it’s not all that we thought it was cracked up to be.”
So, he was Mac now. He should have been pleased. Why he wanted to hear her call him Donovan, in that breathy little voice, he had no clue, anyway. “Do you really think that will be the case? And if it is, then things will be that much more awkward, trying to help you sort things out here, dancing around each other.”
“Like it wouldn’t be a juggling act either way.”
“At least the other way, there will be no regrets. No one gets—”
“Hurt? No regrets? Speak for yourself. I might have a few. Like not taking advantage of what might be my only opportunity to—”
“Have sex with your teenage crush?”
She didn’t flinch. “Maybe. I’m human after all.” She grabbed his belt loops and tugged him full up against her hips, moving on him when he surged against her. “But this is no teenage crush now. I’m very adult, as is the desire I have for you, who happens to have grown up into a very desirable, very adult man. Give us some credit for being able to take what we want, get what we need, and figure the rest out later.”
He took her hands from his belt and held on to them. “Maybe you can. And maybe I could. I have. In the past. With other women. But…not with you, Kate.” He stepped back, his body resisting the action with every beat of his heart, but he did it nonetheless. “Not with you.”
Her eyes widened. “I can’t believe you’re really going to stick your head in the sand.”
“At the moment, I’m going to stick some other part of me in a very cold shower.”
She lifted her hands in disbelief, then let them drop to her sides. “You’re really serious.”
“I really am. I’m sorry.” And he was. Sorrier than he’d ever been. But what he felt at the moment was relief, not fear that he’d just made a big mistake. Which told him it was the right thing to do. He stepped farther back, before he changed his mind.
“So…now what? We pretend that there’s no screaming sexual tension between us and just go about our business?”
He smiled briefly. She was direct. He liked that about her. “We try. At least until we know more about what’s really at stake here.”
And he wasn’t talking about the case. The idea that he was worried he was getting emotionally involved should have been the douse of cold reality her raging hormones needed.
Not so much, as it turned out.
“I already know all I need to know.” She turned away and paced across the small room, then stopped abruptly, her back still to him. Even in the dim lighting, he watched as her shoulders slumped a little, and finally felt the twinge of the regret he’d hoped not to feel.
“I believe there is a cold shower with your name on it,” she said at length, quietly, but with no overt recrimination in her voice either. Weary resignation was more like it.
He took a step toward her, then checked himself and walked to the door instead. He paused, looked back at her. Her face was still averted. “It’s not for lack of want. But because we’ll want too much. Or I will, anyway. And while you’d probably never disappoint me, I can guarantee I’d disappoint you.”
Chapter 12
Kate woke to the sound of rain pattering on her roof…and somebody drilling. Groggy, she sat up and pushed her hair out of her face. Bagel raised his head and looked hopefully at her. “Not yet, buddy. Give me a minute.”
What was that racket? Who the hell was drilling at—she squinted at her bedside clock—seven o’clock in the morning?
Then the fog cleared and she remembered. She flopped back onto her pillow and stared unseeing at the ceiling. In her mind�
�s eye, she pictured him, walking toward her on the dock. Pulling her into his arms. Then later, catching her on the path, both of them laughing as he pinned her against the lodge wall. The feel of him, strong, hard, sure, moving between her legs. All but dragging each other into her bedroom…
She squeezed her eyes shut. She really didn’t need to start what was sure to be a challenging day reliving that particular rejection.
Bagel whined.
“Yeah, yeah.” She slid her legs off the bed and dragged herself upright. “I know how you feel.” She wasn’t mad at Donovan, not really. He hadn’t been playing games. He’d been sincerely confused, trying to do what he thought was right. Odd that he thought he’d disappoint her in some way, when he seemed to have a stronger sense of himself and their unusual dynamic than she did. Maybe that was part of his problem, too.
She reached down and scratched Bagel behind the ears, sending him into a sigh of wriggling ecstasy. “See? I can make you happy.” She heaved one last self-indulgent sigh and got up. He was probably right anyway. It probably was better, or at least smarter, for them to leave well enough alone. She talked a good game about them being consenting adults who could do what they wanted, when they wanted, but he might have had a teensy point there, about risking wanting more. Wanting too much.
What was important was getting her camp up and running. Her camp. And she wanted that more than anything. Better not to dilute one want with another. Especially one as potent as Donovan MacLeod.
He would do his job here and go back to Virginia, or on to his next Good Samaritan mission, and she would launch her camp and fulfill her dreams. They both would, it seemed. Just not with each other. She let out a short laugh. See? He was right. She was already thinking about a future apart, which meant that somewhere in her subconscious, she’d at least contemplated the idea of a future together. Which was completely impossible. Youth Camp Director meets Secret Mission Man. Yeah, like that was ever going to work.
She recalled what he’d said about this place, of his past never being any part of his future. So that was two strikes, in case anyone was counting.
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