Her qualms dissolved as if they had never been as his lips took hers in a devastating kiss of possession. She fell into it, threw herself headfirst into the torrent of emotion that poured from him.
She had felt hollow without him, but no more. Kurt filled the empty spaces inside her.
Certain now that she had done right by coming here, Chelsea flung her arms around him and gathered him close, as close as they could get without coupling right there in the hallway. His kisses filled her, filled all the nooks and crannies in her heart and mind with all that he was, and everything they could be together.
She had taken a gamble on love and won.
Breathless, she moaned as their lips drew apart, with Kurt’s chest heaving as if they were back in thin air. He brought her arms back down to her sides as her head spun, searching for a lucid expression to convey the meaning of all the emotions she was experiencing. Kurt beat her to the punch with a basic line. “God, Teddy, I needed that.”
“Me, too, though at first I was simply glad I didn’t seem to have broken another of your rules. And delighted you didn’t turn me away.”
“No more rules. We go with the flow.” His large hand cupped the side of her face and tilted it toward his. “Besides, how could I do that? We’re equal partners.”
He brushed her lips with his, and talk ceased till they came up for air again. “Just minutes before you arrived I’d made a decision to book a flight and call you to say when I would arrive. The last few months have been filled with contractors, builders, decorators, plumbers—you name it. They ran me off my feet wanting answers to this, that and the other, yet I’ve never felt more lonely or empty in my life.”
“Boy, do I know that feeling. I’ve sprinted from one tense situation to another, but you were all that filled my mind. For a while I just held my breath hoping you wouldn’t send the money back. And then the partnership papers arrived and the reports and I was able to breathe again.” A sigh ripped through her that started at the soles of her feet as she willed herself to fill him in on the crucial events she blamed for keeping them apart. Although it was difficult to think while the heavy weight of his ardor pressed hard against her belly.
She wanted him. He wanted her.
But Chelsea also needed all the extraneous business dealt with, needed to clear the muddy waters so that none of it spilled over onto the important agenda of the day—she and Kurt making beautiful love. She began rattling off the facts. “I may have to go back to the U.S. to appear at cousin Arlon’s trial. Actually, they might need both of us there, unless he does a deal with the prosecutor. Either way, I hope he’s in jail a long time.”
For such a long time she had felt lost and unhappy. Now Kurt just kissed the tip of her nose and made her smile as he told her, “That’s music to my ears. Whatever you want or need to do, from now on we do it together. I couldn’t stand another excruciating, long span of time like the last few months have been.”
“Then you’ll be pleased to learn Maddie got cousin Arlon good. I don’t how she managed it, but she had the number of his Swiss bank account, so all the money he embezzled will eventually go back to Tedman Foods.”
Chelsea poked a finger through a gap between the buttons of his shirt, just to touch him.
It wasn’t enough—she had to get the telling over so she could get him out of his clothes. “And I’ve sold all my shares in the company. Father will be turning in his grave, but I decided I wanted a life, and if I had to come to New Zealand to find it, I would do whatever it took.”
He looked down after she contrived to unfasten one shirt button and was starting on the next.
“I guess I should have known the misery wouldn’t last forever. From the first day we met, I discovered you’re a woman who knows what she wants and goes for it. I promised you a tour. What do you want to see first?”
Before she left the States she had made a vow never to keep anything from Kurt again, the way she had before. Honesty had a lot going for it.
“I want to see your bedroom.”
“You read my thoughts.” He put an arm around her shoulder, pulling her close to his side, and they walked down the hallway as though they were joined at the hip, looking into each other’s eyes. “Mind if we stop by the kitchen on the way?”
Chelsea pursed her lips and blew him a kiss. “As long as it’s in the same direction as your bedroom.”
“It’s right about here,” he said as the corridor formed a T and they turned right. Molly was in the kitchen helping a man dressed in typical chef’s clothes—checked trousers and white jacket. “Hey, Hemi and Molly, I’d like you to meet the other half of my team. This is Chelsea Tedman.” He turned his head to murmur in her ear, “Soon to be Chelsea Jellic.”
Her jaw dropped, but he just grinned and asked Hemi, “Would you like to open a bottle of that bubbly you have cooling for me? And I’ll take two champagne flutes with it. That’s to go.”
What a turnup for the books. This was the first time she had been proposed to in a kitchen in front of an audience, albeit an unknowing one. The best thing about it was Kurt had done it off his own bat, with no prompting from her.
“Down to the end, last door on the left,” Kurt said, following her holding two champagne flutes in the curve of his palm, while his right hand held a newly opened bottle with a faint alcoholic mist wafting from its neck.
“Did I mention I’ve started the ball rolling on the memorials to Atlanta and Bill? My lawyer is handling the details. I thought it was better left to a professional, though I’ve named Bill’s old college for the scholarships.” She stopped and turned in front of the door he had indicated. “I thought Colorado for the climbing school. Not Aspen—it’s too trendy. But whatever they come up with, the final decision will be yours.”
“We’ll decide together. Now open the door.”
The well-oiled hinges swung the door silently open. Chelsea stopped and stared, with Kurt right behind her. She felt the heat radiating from his body and ached for his hand to cup her breast as it had the night they first met at the tavern.
“What do you think? Does the master suite live up to your expectations?”
The blue-gray tones of the high-end soft furnishings blended gracefully, and the dark wood of a highboy added a touch of hard masculinity that stopped the soft colors overpowering the huge room. “It far outstrips any expectations I might have had. This room, the whole house, is beyond anything. I fell in love with a rough-looking mountaineer and ended up with a cultured man whose taste exceeds my own.”
Kurt laughed and the glasses clinked in his big hand. “Teddy bear, I depended on an interior decorator to get it all right. I must admit she was worried that the colors I chose for this room were too cool. But now you’re here I know I picked them to go with your eyes. And we both know that when you and I get together we produce pure sexual heat. Go on in now. Take a closer look.”
In the large mirror above the huge bed, Chelsea noticed her refection glow pink. She wandered about the room touching things, admiring pictures as Kurt poured them both wine. “I’ll have your luggage brought through later. You’re not going to need any clothes for a while.”
“Promises, promises.” Chelsea quirked a grin at him as she turned away from the large French windows that opened onto a secluded sheltered loggia. The far view was of the snow-capped mountains, the point of Aoraki standing high above the rest. “I can see you chose this room for the view.”
He handed her a champagne flute filled with pale gold liquid starred with bubbles. “That, too, but mainly because this is the largest room, and after years of living in a tent most of the time, I wanted room to spread.”
She took a sip of wine. The bubbles tickled her nose and she gurgled, “I hope you have left me some wardrobe space. I don’t travel light.”
He took the tall glass flute from her hand and set it down on the nightstand. “I remember. Don’t worry. Everything in the master suite is perfect now. All it needed was you.”
She reached for his shirt and pulled the edges apart, too impatient to fiddle with fastenings. The buttons popped, the material ripped—very satisfying sounds, for they laid his chest bare to her heated gaze. But she closed her eyes as her palms encountered the lean muscles that were all she remembered. She sighed in appreciation. “Mmm, I want you naked.”
“I’ll race you,” he said, shrugging out of the remains of his shirt.
It was bright daylight outside, a far cry from the poorly lit shelters they had made love in before. Even in the Peaks Hotel the lighting had been dim, but now she faced him flaws and all with the mountains behind her. That hadn’t changed.
Kurt swept her off her feet, an arm under her knees. When she was with him she never felt too tall or ungainly. Together they made a perfect couple.
As he laid her on the soft comforter she looked into his eyes, saw them black with passion—for her, for the moments ahead—and said, “Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I’ll marry you.”
He came down onto the bed beside her and began tracing the shape of her breast. “You’ll need to take me in hand, Teddy. Only five minutes since I proposed and already I’ve taken your answer for granted. It’s just not good enough, for I love you more than life itself. More than the mountains.” He sighed as his mouth latched on to her breast. His breath was hot against her skin as he suckled her, and the sensation proved her memories weren’t false, weren’t just products of her lonely imagination.
She clasped the back of his neck, holding him closer as heat spiraled inside her. While she was able, she huskily whispered a few words. “Not to worry. I’ll make sure you’ll never be able to take me for granted again.”
She clung to him as the sensual heat they produced skyrocketed out of control. “I love you, Kurt,” she told the only man who had had the courage to take her to the top of the world.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7108-5
STRANDED WITH A STRANGER
Copyright © 2005 by Frances Housden
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