Sleepwalker

by Karen Robards

  Chapter

  14

  Jason. Mick was still processing that when his mouth touched hers. It was warm and firm and gentle, kissing her lips with such tenderness that she was distracted from her grief and anger. Taken by surprise, with no real chance to think the matter through, she responded, the action tentative and careful but definitely a kiss in return. Then he murmured something, which she didn’t quite catch, in a thick, hoarse voice that made her pulse quicken, and he kissed her again. This time was different. This time his mouth slanted across hers with a fierce hunger that sent a rush of desire surging through her. His tongue slid between her lips, lips she hadn’t even realized she had parted for him, finding hers, possessing her mouth. The kiss made her light-headed. It made her hot. And it melted the hard, cold knot in her chest that the nightmare had left behind.

  Closing her eyes, she kissed him back. Just as fiercely as he was now kissing her, opening her mouth for his taking, claiming his in turn. Electricity surged between them, its intensity catching her off guard. Head reeling, she wrapped her arms around his neck and gave herself up to the sexy heat of it, dizzy with the taste of him, the feel of him, the excitement that was rising inside her. Her pulse raced, her loins tightened, her toes curled. Passion exploded between them like a firebomb, and she pressed close, loving the feel of him, loving how much bigger he was than she, loving how utterly masculine he felt. His broad shoulders and buff arms and all those wonderful firm muscles rippling beneath the sleek warmth of his skin whenever he moved were more intoxicating to her in that moment than the strongest booze.

  He was nearly naked, and so was she. The thin layers of cloth that separated them formed only the most insubstantial of barriers. She could feel the wide, firm curves of his pecs against her breasts, the steeliness of his lean middle against her stomach, the solid strength of his legs against hers. He was obviously turned on. Their bodies were so close they were practically fused together, and there was no way she was missing the hard bulge beneath his boxers. Just feeling it there against the silky front of her panties gave her a thrill, made her breath catch and her body quicken.

  He pulled back a little, pressing quick, nibbling kisses to her lips that made her surge closer yet and tilt her face up hungrily as she sought more.

  “I want you,” he whispered against her mouth, still in that thick, hoarse voice. The words caused an avalanche of delicious tremors to start up inside her, made her heart speed up until she could hear it pounding in her ears. He was already kissing her again, a deep, atavistic kiss that sent every last semblance of rational thought flying out of her head. She responded with her own exploding passion while her pulse raced and her breathing came short and fast and her body quaked and burned. She wasn’t a child, wasn’t a young girl with limited experience. She was a woman, and she knew her own body, knew what she liked, what she wanted.

  Usually she was slow to warm up. Not tonight. Not with him.

  “Jason,” she murmured experimentally when his mouth slid down to her neck and nuzzled the delicate cord beneath her ear. Even his name thrilled her, because it reminded her that this was new. The man kissing her senseless was a man she didn’t know at all. He was a stranger to her, someone she should by rights have been carting off to jail—yet his kisses made her so hot that suddenly the only thing she wanted in the world was to get naked with him.

  “Mick.” His hands moved down her back, pulling her closer still, as slow and deliberate as if he was memorizing her shape. She could feel the tension in his body, feel the rigidity in his shoulders and back and neck beneath her hands. He kissed her mouth again, deep, wet kisses that liquefied her bones, and as she kissed him back she slid her fingers up into the short, crisp hairs at the back of his head. His mouth slid to her ear, her neck, trailing fire everywhere it touched, and she arched her back and kissed the prickly area just below his jaw, moving deliberately against him in response. Her breasts swelled against his chest, her nipples hardening into needy little nubs that cried out for attention. Lower down, their bodies came together in a surge of heat, and the evidence of his arousal excited her almost unbearably. Sucking in her breath, she deliberately rocked into him, then was dazzled by the sheer pleasure of it, by the resulting undulating waves of desire that made her loins burn and clench.

  “Jesus, you’re turning me on.”

  His hand found her breast at the same time as he whispered that in her ear. It was big and long-fingered and very male against her white tank, she saw as her lids fluttered open and she glanced down. Just the sight of it flattening over her breast made her insides melt. As it covered her breast her nipple thrust urgently into his palm.

  He tightened his hand. Mick sucked in air.

  Their eyes met. In the dim light, his were as black and shiny as jet. Mick couldn’t say a word. Her mouth was too dry. Her pulse raced, her breathing came short and fast, and her stomach tied itself in knots. She was burning all over, burning in places she didn’t even know she had, on fire with anticipation and need. He kissed her, and she closed her eyes and kissed him back, while visions of both of them naked and his hands and mouth all over her and his body coming inside hers danced like erotic sugar plums in her head. All the while his hand caressed her breast, her nipple, pressing and playing until she was moving against him with abandon and moaning into his mouth.

  “You’re beautiful,” he whispered, his voice rough around the edges. Mick ran her hands along his broad shoulders, stroked the flat planes of his shoulder blades, kissed his neck. As she did, she had a swift burst of insight, a moment that pierced with a clarity that should have been sobering to the steamy fog of desire that congested her brain, one of those moments she sometimes got when she knew she was facing a clear choice: stop this now, or be lost. Once again Mick opened her eyes. She did it deliberately, hoping to slow herself down, knowing where this was going, knowing that she really should not be making out with this guy, much less be teetering on the brink of losing every bit of good judgment she’d ever possessed and having sex with him. By sleeping with him she was going to be making a colossal mistake, jeopardizing her plans and her integrity and her reputation if it ever got out, which it probably would if she carried through with arresting him, as she intended, and he talked, which he probably would. She knew all this, saw it plain as day, and knew that even so she wasn’t going to call a halt because she wanted too badly to go where this was leading.

  The thing was, with him, there would be no second chance. This guy, this amazing combustible passion that had sprung up so unexpectedly between them, came with a shelf life. It was no longer going to be available after this one night.

  “This doesn’t change anything,” she warned him, her voice low and embarrassingly ragged. He was sweating slightly, because despite the frigid temperature in the shelter the space right around them had become blisteringly hot. His breathing was uneven. She could feel the rapid rise and fall of his chest. It was too dark to be sure, but she thought his face was flushed.

  He met her gaze again, and she saw that his eyes had gone all heavy-lidded and hot. Then his mouth curved in the smallest of smiles.

  “Agreed,” he said. Then he lowered his head and kissed her. Mick closed her eyes and kissed him back with the kind of heat that came with being totally, completely, mind-blowingly turned on. Her heart hammered as every last coherent thought in her head disappeared just like that.

  He cupped her breast, kissed her neck, then traced the neckline of her tank with his mouth while his hand slid down over her rib cage to edge beneath the hem. The feel of his fingers gliding up beneath her tank, over her bare skin, made her woozy with expectation and delight.

  That was when she heard it: the distant sound of a lawn mower. No louder than the buzzing of a bee, at first it barely penetrated her consciousness. Then it hit her with full force. Drone, drone, drone. Mick froze, eyes popping open, ears straining to reach beyond the confines of their shelter, as his mouth crept down over the thin cotton of her shirt and hi
s hand slid up to cover her bare breast. God in heaven, she didn’t want this to stop! But there was no mistaking that sound.

  “There’s something out there.” Voice urgent, she pushed at his shoulders. “Jason!”

  Slowly, reluctantly, he lifted his head, his eyes dark and sensuous, frowning down at her like her words didn’t quite compute. Then, in an instant, his face changed as apparently he heard the sound, too. It tightened and hardened, lover to warrior in the blink of an eye, and his muscles bunched and his hand came out from under her shirt and his eyes slashed toward his gun.

  “Fucking snowmobiles,” he growled. Having already come to that conclusion herself, Mick started wriggling out of the sleeping bag like the foot of it was on fire. As she freed herself, the icy air hit her like a blast from a freezer, raising goose bumps everywhere in an instant, but as she scrambled to her feet she was in too big a hurry even to grab for her clothes. Snatching up her Glock, she leaped toward the gun slot even as he, having also just extricated himself from the sleeping bag, grabbed his gun and joined her. It was dark there inside the deer stand, but not so dark that she could not see fairly well. Standing there in nothing but his boxers, the guy was totally ripped, she noticed as her gaze ran over him, and she registered once again, just in passing, how very hot he was. Then she saw that he was looking at her, too, realized that she was wearing only her tank and panties, and gave a fleeting thought to how ridiculous they both must look standing there in their underwear holding guns.

  “Maybe it isn’t them,” Mick breathed as he slowly, carefully, eased open the gun slot.

  “Maybe.” But the look he shot her was as unconvinced as she felt.

  Seen through the narrow window of the gun slot, the forest was bathed in a ghostly gray light. Dawn had obviously broken, but no sunlight had yet penetrated the trees. Sometime during the night the snow and sleet had stopped, and snow now covered everything. For as far as the eye could see, the ground was sheathed in a pristine white blanket that had yet to be disturbed. The only interruption to all that white was the charcoal outline of the leafless trees and the occasional solid splash, from a fir, of a green so deep it was nearly black. Even the evergreens showed color only here and there. Like the rest of the world, their branches were weighted down with a heavy, disguising layer of snow and ice.

  “See anything?” he asked, peering through the slot.

  Looking out, too, standing so close to him that their arms brushed, which both generated an electric awareness of him and made it the only halfway warm spot on her body, Mick shook her head. “No.”

  But the droning sound was still unmistakably present.

  The gun slot they had opened by silent, mutual agreement was the one facing the gravel road, because it was from that direction that the sound had seemed to come. It took Mick a minute of intent staring into the gloom, but then she spotted it: the lozenge-shaped outline of a snowmobile gliding into view. Her heart lurched. Oh, no, she thought, but there was no mistake. The headlight was off, and no searchlight was visible. Clearly, on the ground it was light enough for the driver to see. The snowmobile was on the gravel road, just cresting the hill she had noticed last night when she’d watched the search party’s headlights appear over it. Even as she watched it glided closer, moving slowly in the direction of the lake.

  “There.” She pointed.

  He grunted in response, his gaze, like hers, glued to the approaching vehicle.

  Two figures were on board. It was impossible to tell more, or to even try to identify them, in the dim light.

  It didn’t matter: Mick knew these had to be more of Uncle Nicco’s men. Her pulse picked up the pace, and her chest constricted. What were the chances that the snowmobile was there for any purpose other than looking for them?

  She had a terrible epiphany. “Now that it’s getting light they’re sure to spot the deer stand.”

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Agreement was apparent in his face. He turned away from the gun slot.

  “Get dressed,” he threw over his shoulder.

  Mick didn’t have a problem with that, because, besides being scared to death all over again, she was freezing, so cold already that she was shivering and her teeth were chattering. In the corner, the stove had all but burned out. The faintest of charcoal-y smells hung in the air—too faint to be detected beyond this small space, she prayed—but only a few orange sparks now showed through its grinning mouth. If it put out any heat at all, she couldn’t tell, and she had a nostalgic moment in which she flashed back to the warmth of the sleeping bag. Of course, a lot of that warmth had had more to do with the man she’d been sharing it with and her reaction to him than any property of the bag itself, but that was something she put firmly out of her mind. Despite the cold, she didn’t move away from the gun slot, however: somebody needed to keep watch. Judging from the wind puffing in through the window, the previous day’s storm might have been over, but the low temperatures continued unabated. That plus the droning sound acted as an excellent motivator: whatever was coming, she didn’t want to face it in her underwear. He was already taking garments down from where he’d hung them, feeling them to check for dampness, and thrusting those he deemed worthy at her. Mick took what he gave her, dropped the assortment on top of the sleeping bag, put her gun on the floor within easy reach, and started with first things first: her socks.

  “If they’re patrolling the forest and we leave here, they’re going to see us sooner or later. Or at least our tracks,” she said, doing her best to keep the tension she was feeling out of her voice. “There’s no way to hide them.” The socks were dry but cold. Having put them on, she reached hurriedly for the next garment in the heap: black sweatpants, she discovered as she picked them up. A frowning glance told her that her flannel pajamas lay in a crumpled heap on the floor near the stove. “These aren’t my pants.”

  Which didn’t stop her from jumping into them. “Your pants didn’t dry. Lucky I brought those from the boat.” He had his own socks and pants on, and was zipping up the latter as he spoke. He had moved so that he could keep watch out the gun slot, too. Like her, she thought, he liked to keep the enemy in sight. “You’re right about the tracks. This snow’s too deep and sticky to even try to brush them out. Especially when it gets lighter, they’ll be as obvious as a road map. They’ll lead those assholes right to us.” Buckling his belt, he grabbed a garment from his pile on the sleeping bag. “Remember the plan you came up with last night?”

  Mick had the sweatpants on. She’d had to pull the drawstring around the waist as tight as it would go and tie it in a giant bow, but still they rode her hip bones and swallowed up her legs. Only the elastic at the ankles kept them from dragging on the floor. The good news was that they were thick, and once the chill was off them, they would probably be warm.

  “Wh-which plan?” Her teeth were chattering now. At the moment, the pants just felt cold. Grabbing for the next item in her heap—his thermal tee, she saw as she picked it up and frowned—she tried to remember, even as she briefly segued off-topic. “This is your shirt.”

  Looking at him, she saw that he’d pulled over his head the ratty gray sweater that had formed the outer layer of their pillow. He clearly meant to wear it against his bare skin.

  “You need it more than I do,” he replied, emerging. “That tank’s so skimpy you might as well not be wearing a shirt at all.” He thrust his arms into the sleeves and pulled the hem down over his honed midsection while his lips quirked with sudden humor at her. “Not that I’m complaining about the view, you understand. But you could probably use a second layer.”

  Mick ignored the “view” comment, just as she tried to ignore the knot that had formed in her stomach as she’d cast another glance out the gun slot to gauge the snowmobile’s progress: it was scooting down the gravel road, moving slowly but inexorably closer.

  “Are you talking about the whole me marching you out of here at gunpoint and yelling for help thing?” She was already working out
the possibilities of how that might turn out for them as she pulled his tee on over her head without further discussion as to who needed it more. For just an instant, as her head was swathed in soft black waffle weave, she was engulfed by his smell. The faint scent seemed to be a combination of soap and deodorant and man and was evocative enough to bring to her mind a whole kaleidoscope of images of the passion they had just shared.

  Her body tightened, and she felt a reminiscent fiery tingle. But as soon as she realized where her mind was lingering, she jerked it to other, more urgent matters. At the moment they had bigger fish to fry: survival trumped sex.

  “That’s what I’m talking about. Sort of.” He pulled the hoodie over his head, then zipped the golf jacket up over it, while she shrugged into his coat. Buttoning it up, she did a quick check to make sure the pictures were still where she had put them—they were—then looked out the gun slot again.

  The snowmobile was almost even with the birch. Mick’s heart beat faster just watching it. Looking carefully all around, Mick saw no others.

  “There’s only the one, I think,” she said. Nodding agreement, he passed her her boots, and she stuck her feet inside.

  “I imagine they’ve split up, with each patrolling a section of the forest.” He pulled his own boots on as he spoke. “That actually works for us. Given the snow, I don’t think we’re going to be able to get past them, at least not easily. And even if we did, they could pick up our tracks and follow us at any time. So here’s what we’re going to do.”

  Mick listened with growing respect as he told her what he had in mind.

  “That actually might work,” she said when he was finished. “Maybe.”

  He grinned. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” His gaze swept the shelter. It was still shadowy and gray inside, but it seemed to her to be growing brighter with every passing second. “You ready?”