“It’s that bad?”
“It’s pretty bad,” he said, feeling the weight of staggering debt that never seemed to leave his shoulders these days.
“What about your sister? Can she help? Does she blame you or anything?”
“No, Meg has her own troubles. I know why I was given up for adoption. My grandparents told me about my birth parents, gave me things that belonged to them. It’s not much, but it’s something. Meg has a void and all these questions and it hurts her a lot. That’s how she got into journalism. She’s been searching forever, even though she’s really scared what she might find.”
“Like . . . ”
“Yeah.” Neither of them wanted to say things like ‘rape’ aloud. “So she does her thing in Chicago and comes out every spring to plant a garden and spends another two weeks in the fall canning and freezing everything so I won’t starve. I want to save the ranch as much because it’s her home as mine, but she’d doesn’t feel like it is. She thinks there’s somewhere else she belongs. She understands why I feel as though I’ve let down our parents, people who were really good to us. She wants to help me hang onto it for those reasons, but not because she’s attached to it.”
“How did Crystal even think she had a stake in this land?” Liz asked with a baffled shake of her head.
He appreciated her being outraged on his behalf. Really did. As she’d said in the cottage, it was good to talk to someone who knew the players and the dynamics. She understood him in a very personal, thorough way, without the need for defensiveness or ancillary explanations.
“She was going to take Ethan,” he said with a defeated shrug. “I gave her a settlement in exchange for shared custody.” What else would any parent do?
Liz’s blue eyes flicked up to meet his. Something in them made his heart fall into the center of the earth. She knew. And she wasn’t sure if he did.
He flinched, blood turning to jagged cubes of ice. Looking out to the landscape that was pure and white, he forced the words through his dry throat. “It doesn’t matter to me that I didn’t make him. He’s mine,” he said, feeling like straight razors stood in his throat.
“And you’re the better parent. You are,” Liz said, squeezing his arm like she could force the words right into his bloodstream.
He barely felt it. He was hard all over, holding her off so he could hold himself together, hardly processing what she was saying.
“That’s why I didn’t tell you when Stella told me,” she said, voice so quiet he could barely hear her. “You were already in custody proceedings and Crystal had just told her. I thought about calling you, I did. But—”
“We didn’t even know each other! How would you know I was better for him?”
“The things I’d heard. Petra had been around you and thought you were great. She said Ethan was crazy about you. Seriously, those dogs over there are better parents than Crystal. But I thought about what it would do to Ethan to lose his Dad and I just couldn’t do that to him. It was in his best interest to let you fight for him and have a share in raising him, whether you knew his paternity or not.”
“Yeah, well, Crystal didn’t think so. She came here with that news, expecting it would make me drop my custody claims. I was about as close to hitting a woman as I’ll ever get.”
“Did she say who . . . ?”
“No. Some other transient on her pre-college tramp, far as I can tell. She honestly thought it could have been me, I guess, but she had him tested and it’s not.” He rubbed his face, hating to return to that awful time, but his sister was the only person he’d ever told and the secret was always there, eating a hole in him. It was cathartic to let it out for a change.
With Liz, who cared and understood and said he was good for Ethan, even though the consequences from what he’d done were damned hard to take.
“I went over to the Wolcotts, leased them a strip of land, went to the bank, got a figure together and took it to Vern. I laid it on the line, told him he’d brought her to me to raise that kid and I was holding up my side of the bargain. I said he’d better take his daughter in hand for once, or she’d be moving in with her kid. His retirement nest egg would be gone in a year.”
“Yeah, the men in that family understand the language of money, that’s for sure.”
“Given the way Nola and Crystal spend, you can see why.”
“That’s probably why Dean married me. I’m a hoarder when it comes to cash,” Liz said with a crooked smile. “I was furious when he made me quit doing nails. All those tips . . . ” She stopped herself, looked up at him and giving a resigned sigh. “We married jerks, Blake.”
“But we got a couple of great kids out of it.”
“We did. You’ve done a really good job with Ethan. Take credit. I don’t see him much, but he’s polite and thoughtful—”
“You send him money for his birthday and Christmas, Liz. Of course he’s nice to you,” he said dryly, trying to deflect from how hurt he was that he couldn’t lay claim to all of Ethan’s good qualities. Some of it was genetics that didn’t belong to him.
“I always send stuff to Stella’s kids,” she said with a shrug. “We had the girls together, which is another reason we’re so close. It never felt right to leave Ethan out just because of our divorces.” With a sly grin, she added, “And I enjoy a certain feeling of superiority, addressing his card to the ranch. Does Crystal ever think to so much as text Petra on her birthday? And she’s her real aunt.”
Across the open plan of the lower floor, the coffee maker hissed in completion. He ignored it, shaking his head at her.
“I worry about you. You look so sweet, but there’s a lot of passive aggression going on under the surface, isn’t there?”
“I carry grudges, it’s true.” She wrinkled her nose in self-disgust.
“Is that the reason you’re here? Spite?”
Her expression sobered and a light of anxiety came into her eyes. “No. I spent the night listing all the reasons why I shouldn’t think of you as anything more than a group therapy partner. Then, you met me at the end of the driveway and I thought, God he’s hot. I wonder when he’s going to kiss me again.” Her pretty mouth twisted in dismay at admitting that.
A slow smile elevated Blake’s mood, until all he could think about was how hot she was.
“I still think I’m too old for you. For whatever this is,” she muttered, scowling toward the window.
“You’re not.”
She kept her mouth flat with consternation as she eyed him as though unable to make up her mind.
“I’m going to kiss you again now,” he told her, scuffing closer and opening her arms from across her chest, catching her hands to set them behind his back before he found the indent of her waist with his own. “Are you going to say no?”
“No. I mean—” She drew back a little. “Was that a trick question?”
“It was. Are you going to kiss me back?”
“Yes,” she whispered, breath scented with mint as he covered her mouth with his own. And she did, shyly at first, but they were a potent mix. Within a few seconds, they were kissing deeply. She moved her arms up around his neck so her lithe body leaned into his. Her understated curves tantalized him as he stroked the firmness of her back from hips to shoulders and down to her buttocks.
Damn. He couldn’t resist and felt up her ass, liking the way she fit in his hands. Liking the way she wriggled her hips into his and rubbed herself against his growing erection, making him ache.
Her fingers went into his hair, she opened her mouth to him. His control began to fray. He found himself searching beneath the edge of her sweater for warm smooth skin, making a husky noise of satisfaction when he found it.
“Oh God, Blake,” she broke away to moan.
“I know,” he muttered, kissing her neck, trying to pull himself together. Fighting the desire to cruise his hands up her front and fondle her breasts.
“Do you have condoms?”
“What? Shit, are y
ou serious?” He straightened.
She widened her eyes. “Aren’t—Did I misunderstand—”
“Hell no. No. Yes, I have some. I just didn’t take for granted I’d use ’em. Not this soon, anyway.”
“Am I being slutty?”
“No! And yes, I want to.” He motioned to his bulge.
“Because we really don’t know each other that well.”
“We’ve probably shared more with each other than we’ve told another soul. I have.”
She seemed to waver and his libido started to weep. The shred of gentleman left in him tried to rally.
“I said no obligation last night and I meant it, Liz. Even though you’re from the city and, you know, you’re a cougar,” he teased with a tug on her dark hair. “I didn’t just assume you’d want to climb the stairs with me. But if you’d like to, then I would love to show you my collection of condoms before they expire.”
She gave him a flat look that didn’t seem to find his turn of phrase the least bit funny. “You’re appealing to my streak of frugality? Knowing I can’t let anything go to waste?”
He released his sudden attack of tension with a laugh of relief. “Was that underhanded of me?”
“Completely,” she said with a haughty flip of her hair. She turned to the stairs that rose from the center of the room to the loft. Climbing them, she paused midway to say over her shoulder, “I was going to buy some myself, but I recognized the girl at the till from Skye’s last night. That was too weird, letting her see me buy condoms after we left together.”
“Welcome to a small town,” he said wryly, having encountered similar problems countless times in his life here.
“You know why else I didn’t buy them?”
“Why?”
She turned at the top of the stairs, bending a little to level her point right between his eyes. “Because I’m cheap!”
He laughed, watching her saunter away to the short hallway that led to the bedrooms. She pushed in Ethan’s door enough to note that it was not the master, checked out Meg’s room with a brief glance, then entered his bedroom and stood with her hands on her hips.
“You, sir, have a big box labeled ‘Taxes’ in the bedroom. Are you out of your mind?” She picked up the box off the dresser and carried it out to the floor of the loft.
“I thought we came up here for another reason, but if you want to rearrange furniture . . . ”
“Do you want the best sex of your life? Then trust me, you don’t want those sorts of vibes in here.” She dusted her hands and looked around. He caught her around the waist before she could move away again.
“Did you change your mind?” he asked when she stiffened.
“No, I’m just really nervous and want it to be good—”
He kissed her.
Chapter Four
‡
I’m old, she wanted to say, but she didn’t feel old when he kissed her. She felt twenty-three and so loaded with sex hormones she was going to explode. And even though the voice in the back of her head was saying, You are cheap and slutty, and she suspected she’d regret this later, she knew she would regret it more if she never went to bed with him.
She might have rushed him, but he didn’t rush her. They kissed for a long time, hands getting to know the other. He was really solid and he seemed to like her butt a lot. His caresses made her wiggle into him, liking the feel of his hardness against her stomach and lower. It had been a while for her, a very long while. Even longer since she was really into a guy on a physical level like this. God, he was hot! She was starting not to care that daylight poured through the windows.
In fact, she was dying to see more of him. Working her fingers between them, she opened his shirt, pulling back as she spread it. His torso was gorgeous, with muscled pecks and flat abs and just enough hair to tell her he was all man. Stroking light hands over the living wall he made, she felt his muscles twitch.
“Ticklish?” she asked, then gave him a gentle scrape with her nails.
He grabbed her wrist. Something feral and sexy flashed in his eyes. “If you’re trying to make me slip the leash, it’s working.”
The heat between them ramped several notches.
She rubbed his crotch with her free hand, inciting him. He caught that one too.
“You know we have all day, right? Maybe don’t make me lose it right this second.”
They had today, but not much more than that. Part of her urgency was fear. Performance issues, body issues. She didn’t examine any of it too closely. She knew she wanted to feel him inside her and wanted to get past her self-consciousness to the good part. But pathos stalked her. This was a fling, and it already felt too fleeting.
Which really scared her.
“Are you going to take all day?” she taunted.
He pushed her hands behind her back, lightly knocking her into his naked chest, filling her brain with his clean scent, recently showered and smelling of fresh laundry. She mentally called bullshit on his not expecting they’d come up here and grinned at the knowledge he’d been thinking about her when he’d dressed this morning.
“What’s the matter, Liz? Feeling like you’re not in control?”
Her stomach took a nervous swoop, while her pulse tripped into a faster pace. He was looking right into her eyes, so deeply she couldn’t look away, and it was too intimate. He was already a lot further inside her than she’d let anyone see in a very long time. Maybe ever. She closed her eyes to resist him.
He set his mouth on hers in retaliation, working with restrained passion to inflame her. She moaned involuntarily and tried to touch him, but he didn’t release her wrists. Instead, he manacled them in one of his big hands and used the free one to explore under her sweater.
She drew in a sharp breath at the callused roughness of his hands smoothing her waist, climbing her ribcage, not bothering to undo her bra, just pushing it out of the way. The abrasion of his thumb pad across her nipple made her whimper and jerk in muted protest at how sensitized he made her.
“Accept it, Liz,” he said, dragging his wet mouth down to her neck near her ear. “I’m going to take my time. I want it to be good, too. So good we’re screaming by the end.”
“Dirty talker,” she accused, barely able to speak, composure hanging by a thread.
“Oh, we’re gonna get dirty, Liz.” His hand slid down to pop the button on her jeans. Lowering her fly, he pushed his hand in the space between her satin undies and the tight fit of her jeans, so his palm pressed where she ached to be rubbed. At the same time, he pressed her trapped hands into her own buttocks, forcing her into his touch. “Like it?”
She bit her lip, agonized at how blatant he was being, but excited too. Rocking and squirming in his hold, she grew more and more stimulated by the pressure of his hands and the constriction of her own.
“You’re wet. I think you do like it,” he whispered. His fingertips pressed silk deep against her damp center, teasing her.
“I do,” she whispered back, voice tight. The delicious friction pushed her past worrying about anything except letting the sensations escalate.
“Can you come like this? I wanna make you come so bad. With my mouth, with my cock.” His fingertip snaked past lace into slick flesh and found her button.
“Oh God,” she moaned. “That feels so good.”
And just like a couple of teenagers, he got her off with just his hand down her pants. She turned her face into his chest and sucked a hickie onto his skin above his nipple and shuddered with climax without him even inside her.
“You’re killing me,” he growled, keeping his hand against her throbbing mons, but releasing her wrists to take a handful of her hair, tugging just enough to pull her head back and kiss her before her breath was back.
She rubbed him, working to open his pants, pushing her own hand into the pocket of heat to find the hot damp length that twitched under her sure touch. He was a nice size. Very nice. And so hard she clenched both her hand and her inner muscle
s with anticipation as she sized him.
Their tongues tangled, and he removed his hand from her pants to lift her sweater off and away, popping her bra and making her step back so he could skim it away.
The one good thing about small boobs, she’d learned, was that they stayed reasonably pert. As he threw off his shirt and pushed down his jeans, he kept his gaze on her bare breasts and the male approval in his dark brown eyes filled her with glittering warmth.
With a jerk of his chin, he ordered her, “Take off the rest,” as he peeled off his socks and dropped his boxers, then straightened in a shameless display of his thick erection.
Wriggling her jeans down, she kicked them away, snagging her socks with a finger, then curled her toes against the cold floor. She’d cheated and kept her panties, but that wasn’t what he was staring at.
She covered the tattoo just below her navel. “That’s . . . ”
“I know who it is,” he said, voice turning tender as he came to cover her hand without trying to remove it from where she protected the calligraphy. He grazed her eyebrow with his lips, the caress tender and comforting.
Oh hell, the sex she could bear, no matter how much intimacy he demanded, but his sweetness defeated her. She opened with gratitude and an aching need to give as much as she was receiving. When she kissed him, it was flavored with deep emotion, something that made them slowly close their arms around each other and hold on. The depth of feeling turned their sexy romp into a meaningful coming together. Her self-consciousness fell away along with her defenses. She wanted to share herself with him. Completely.
When he drew back enough to look into her eyes, the question in them broke the final seal on her heart. She stroked her hand down the side of his face and rose on her tiptoes, answering, yes. Yes.
They moved naturally to the bed, like one being with one thought. She lay back and watched as he took her panties, his gaze hot on her skin, but more than admiring now. Revering.
His hands flowed up her limbs as he joined her, opening her legs with a natural ease between them that felt like a lifetime of familiarity. He paused to kiss the name over her womb, then climbed a little further to lave her nipple.
Blame the Mistletoe (Montana Born Christmas Book 1) Page 4
