by Rachel Grant
“I-I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions like I did.”
“I get it. I realize what it must’ve looked like. But please know, I’m not such a hound dog that I couldn’t even give you one night to come around. Sweetheart, at the core of my job is patience. It’s all about waiting for the right moment, the right shot. And you, Fiona Carver, are what I want.”
Even as he said the words, he hesitated. He wanted her. Yes. For today. Right now. But he couldn’t give her more.
Fiona’s mouth pressed to his, and he took what she offered. It was a sweet kiss as her tongue slid along his, deep, slow, and passionate. His erection pressed against her ass as she made a soft sound in the back of her throat.
They could follow this languid kiss all the way between the sheets. If he was correct about what he suspected was in the shopping bag, he could slide between her thighs and possess her completely, worshipping her as he’d promised.
But what of tomorrow? He would say goodbye and close off his heart to her. Would that be worse than never having her at all?
She pushed him back on the bed, then crawled up his body, straddling him. She rocked her center against his erection, and his mind went thankfully blank as her mouth found his again.
He wrapped his hands around her waist as she rolled her hips and their tongues met, stroking, tasting, exploring. Pleasure pulsed through him, radiating from each spot where their bodies met.
Fiona Carver was offering herself to him, without reservation. His hands shook with the glory of it, with the need to have her. Possess her. Pleasure her.
He tightened his hands on her hips and rolled, pinning her beneath him. His hips settled between her spread thighs, and it was his turn to control the rhythm as he thrust his hips, giving her a hint of how it would feel when he was inside her.
She groaned against his lips, her eyes closed as she tilted her head back, lost to the feel of him. “I need you, Dean.”
“I know, beautiful. I need you too.” He kissed her neck, trailing his lips down the vee of her shirt. He sat up, shifting his legs until he straddled her, then gazed down, taking in the sight of her splayed beneath him. His hands shook a bit as he slowly unbuttoned her top, revealing a satiny beige bra she must’ve purchased today. No longer confined by the tight sports bra she’d worn the last week, her breasts were fuller than he’d realized.
Tonight, he would explore and kiss and lick every perfect inch of her. Possess her like he promised. And tomorrow, he’d kiss her goodbye at the airport and close the door on the feelings that flooded him when he was with her.
“Take your shirt off, now,” she said as she stared up at him, her green eyes hot with arousal.
“Yes, ma’am.” He peeled off the long-sleeve T-shirt she’d purchased for him while he sat by Dylan’s hospital bed.
She made a soft, happy sound, like she was eating the best ramen noodles in the world, and ran her hands over his bare chest and down his abs. He leaned down and kissed her again, his tongue stroking deep as her hands explored his torso and back.
He’d spent so many hours thinking of what he wanted to do to her, he hadn’t considered what her touch would do to him. How her hands would feel somehow more intimate on his heated skin during foreplay because after all the holding and comfort, this was the first time they could show passion with touch.
He ran his lips over the tops of her exposed breasts. He wanted the bra gone, but at the same time, he wanted to draw out this moment. Tomorrow, all he’d have was a memory, and he wanted this to be one to savor. To call upon when he was on assignment and conditions were miserable.
Her hands cradled his head, and she pulled his mouth to hers and kissed him deeply, making more of those sexy sounds that lit him on fire. Her fingers stroked his beard, her nails lightly grazing his skin between whiskers. She lifted his mouth from hers, opened her eyes, and he held her smoky gaze. “Make love to me, Dean. Please. Now.”
All at once, his body stiffened. She could have just as easily said, Get inside me. Or even better, Fuck me.
But she didn’t. She’d used the one phrase that was like being dunked in a frigid volcanic stream.
What the hell was he doing? He couldn’t make love to her. It was the one thing he didn’t know how to do. Didn’t want to do.
But he’d been on the verge of doing just that. He needed to pull back. Disengage his emotions.
Sex. This was just sex.
All he could give her was tonight. A brief moment of ultimate pleasure. Fleeting physical release. Spectacular, no doubt, but still fleeting. She deserved so much more. She deserved a man who could be so much more. A man who would love her without hesitation.
He pulled back from the kiss and ran his lips over her forehead. “I can’t offer you anything more than sex, Fiona.”
She frowned, and her eyes widened. “Shit. I just—It was just a phrase. I was talking about sex.”
“I don’t think you were.”
“I want sex. With you. That’s all.”
Oh God. He’d brought her to his level. He didn’t want that for her. He wanted her to not fear giving her heart away.
“But, Fi. I care about you. And now . . . Shit. I don’t think I can have just sex with you. But I know I can’t offer you more.”
Making love to her, then walking away would be the worst thing he could do. For both of them.
She pushed at his chest. He sat up and gazed down upon her, seeing the confusion in her eyes. “Are you . . . turning me down?”
He closed his eyes, hating himself as he said, “I think I am.”
“Why, Dean? It was just a . . . slip of the tongue. I’m meeting you on your terms.”
“I don’t think it was a slip.” He opened his eyes again. “You don’t do flings. This isn’t the time to start.”
“Shouldn’t that be my decision?”
“Of course. But I also get to make decisions about my body. And I’m afraid I won’t be able to walk away from you if we make love. And I don’t want that. I don’t want a relationship. Ever again. I’ve always been clear on that.”
The light in her green eyes dimmed, and she took a deep breath. She was hurting, and he’d caused it. He hated being the cause of this amazing woman’s pain, but it would only be worse later if they continued on this path.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She pushed at his thigh, which still straddled her hips. He shifted his weight, freeing her to move from under his body, putting some space between them. “I guess I understand. We both need to protect our hearts.” She rolled to her side and curled into a ball.
He ached, seeing her in that position. But he couldn’t waver in his resolve. Not without doing more damage. “We do.”
“Is this goodbye, then?”
“I don’t really know.” He touched her back, running a hand down her spine.
She straightened and rolled over to face him. “Will you hold me tonight, one last time?”
He lay down beside her and pulled her to his chest in the same way he’d held her the last several nights. “Oh, sweetheart. I want that more than anything.”
For the sixth night in a row, they crawled into bed together, but this was the first time they shared an actual mattress. And this time, the bed was big enough that they didn’t need to hold each other close. But he held her anyway.
He drifted off to sleep holding her tight, wondering how in the world he’d find the strength to let her go with the dawn.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
As stated in the beginning, Chiksook Island and all the cultural, historical, and geological features described in this book are fictional. This of course includes Mount Katin and the meteorite, Kanuux̂, as well as the lava tubes and caves explored by Dean and Fiona. The World War II ruins are based on what can be found on other Aleutian Islands, including but not limited to Adak and Attu.
Likewise, I have created a fictional village whose residents play an important role in the story. When writing characters whose cultural h
istory and affiliation is different from my own, my goal is always to provide respectful and meaningful representation. If as a reader you were surprised to learn of the World War II incursion into the US in the Aleutians or the internment of the Unangas during the war, you might appreciate exploring the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association (APIA) website at www.apiai.org, where you can learn more about the Unangax̂ people’s past and present.
The navy project that sent Fiona to the Aleutians in the first place, while fictional, is something that may be in the works in the near future. The US Navy is indeed looking at the Aleutians and the Alaska coastline for future submarine bases as global warming opens up a new Northwest Passage through the Arctic Ocean.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Enormous thanks to Kelly, an Alaskan archaeologist and fangirl who was extremely helpful in describing field conditions and protocol for projects similar to the Chiksook EIS presented in this story. Kelly provided fantastic, interesting, detailed, and accurate information. Mistakes and misrepresentations, whether due to error or fictional license, are on me.
Thank you also to Patrick Barnard, PhD, for answering my very random and sometimes rambling geology questions. I am solely responsible for any incorrect geologic data or descriptions in this story.
Thank you to environmental planner, biologist, and avid birder Doug Lister for helping brainstorm ways to get my fake ornithologist to Chiksook and selecting gray buntings as the ideal species for “Bill” to search for.
Thanks to Darcy Burke, who was my first sounding board for most—if not all—of the key plot elements that shaped this story.
In addition to Darcy, Toni Anderson, Gwen Hernandez, Jenn Stark, Annika Martin, Julie Kenner, Serena Bell, and Kate Davies were rocks of support as 2020 hurled new, unfathomable challenges our way. Thank you, ladies, for helping keep me sane. I hope I was able to offer you even a fraction of the support you gave me.
Huge thanks to my agent, Elizabeth Winick Rubinstein at McIntosh & Otis, for your endless support over the last decade. This book wouldn’t have been written if not for you.
Thank you to Lauren Plude, my editor at Montlake Romance, for making Fiona and Dean’s story possible. It’s a thrill and a joy to be working with you!
Thank you to my children for being the amazing people you are. One of the rare blessings of social distancing was getting to spend more time with you both.
As always, thank you to my husband, US Navy archaeologist David Grant, who makes sure I get my NHPA and NEPA details right. Every moment I spend with you, I’m living my best life.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rachel Grant is the USA Today bestselling author of the Flashpoint series and the Evidence novels. She worked for over a decade as a professional archaeologist and mines her experiences for story lines and settings, which are as diverse as excavating a cemetery underneath an historic art museum in San Francisco, surveying an economically depressed coal-mining town in Kentucky, and mapping a seventeenth-century Spanish and Dutch fort on the island of Sint Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles. In all her travels and adventures as an archaeologist, Rachel has found many sites and artifacts, but she’s only found one true treasure: her husband, David. Rachel Grant lives on an island in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and children. For more information visit www.rachel-grant.net.
