by Jill Shalvis
“That’s my line to you.”
“I skied. It was amazing. No emergencies today, though.” Reaching up, he stroked away a long strand of hair poking out of her beanie and into her eye. “You didn’t get out?”
“Too busy.” Still was. Sasha, the other bartender, was sending her frantic help-me glances. “In fact, I’ve got to go,” she said very reluctantly.
“That’s too bad.”
She looked into his dark eyes and sighed. He didn’t know the half of it. “I’ll buy you a drink,” she said. “What would you like?”
His free hand came up, his fingers dancing over the side of her neck, lightly probing right over her sore muscles. “Are you hurting?”
The touch sent little shock waves through her system. “Just a little kink.”
He massaged it, applying a pressure so gentle that she wanted to drop into a puddle on the floor. “Oh, my God.”
“Good?”
“Extremely.” She bit back her moan and locked her knees to avoid falling to the floor. “Are you hungry?”
Cocking his head, he studied her with that dark, dark gaze. “You’re awfully good at that. Deflecting the pampering.”
“It’s my job.”
“I don’t want to be your job.”
“No?”
“It should be your turn for a little pampering.”
She laughed. “Not in my job description, unfortunately. I really do need to go.”
He caught her hand when she would have moved toward the bar. “Two days ago you made me an honorary member of your staff.”
“I did.”
“Maybe you could do the same right now.”
Her breath caught. “What job would you like?”
“You.”
The temperature in the room shot up, and Lily looked him over. For two nights, he’d played heavily in her fantasies. She’d already decided it’d been too long since she’d indulged in a nice—or not-so-nice—hot fling. “Have at it.”
His answering smile was the sexiest, wickedest thing she’d ever seen and nearly melted her bones. She wished, just for a moment, for her old, uncomplicated life.
“I’m just afraid it’ll have to be later. I have to get to the bar.”
When he followed her, sitting at one of the tables as she went behind the bar and began working, she couldn’t help feeling pleased. Work was a heck of a lot more fun when she had a great view. She brought him a beer as soon as she and Sasha caught up with the rush.
He tugged her down next to him, and she smiled. “Are you tired of being alone on vacation?”
“I’m not often by myself. I’m doing fine.”
“Search and rescue keeps you pretty busy, I imagine.”
“I thought so. Until I saw you. I think you’re busier.”
She laughed. “Not because I want to be, trust me. Tell me about your work. It sounds more interesting. You fly your own helicopter?”
“I own it with a partner. Wyatt and I both have other jobs, as well. He flies traffic reporters and I fly people with too much money to meetings with other people with too much money. It pays the bills,” he said with a shrug.
“It’s a lot nicer than paying them from behind a desk. How did you get into all this?”
“Coast guard. My father and both my brothers are military, too.”
She smiled. “So you live in quite the testosterone world.”
“Guess so.”
“And yet by the very nature of what you do, you’re there for others, saving them. Nurturing.”
He tipped his beer to his lips and took a pull.
She read the irritation in his expression and laughed. “Oh, sorry. I know a guy doesn’t want to hear the word nurturing in connection with his character. Don’t worry, Logan, what you do is incredibly dangerous and also sexy as hell.”
He ran a finger over the wet label on his beer. “Same goes.” He met her gaze then, hot and breathtaking.
With a low laugh, she stood up. “I’ve got to get back.”
He stood, too, and took her hand, squeezing it gently until she looked at him. “I’d like to see you later.”
There was nothing she’d like more. Maybe she’d been extra careful this year to fit the mold of resort manager and owner, too much so, but she needed something for herself. Never shy, she smiled. “Later sounds good.”
“Where do I find you?”
She looked at him for a long moment, her engine revving. “Down that stone hallway are the employee offices. Past that is another wing. My apartment is the second door on the right.”
He looked into her eyes, and when he didn’t say anything, she wondered if she’d jumped the gun. Maybe he hadn’t intended for them to rendezvous tonight at all. Or maybe he didn’t like aggressive women—
“Later seems too far away, but I’ll live,” he said softly and, with one last dance of his fingers over her throat, let go of her hand. “Tonight, then.”
God, she hoped so. Her entire body hoped so.
7
AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER, Logan made his way through the common room. The fire was low but still crackling and popping. People milled around here and there: a few guys talking in a corner, a couple holding hands, another man and a woman—Lily’s aunt in fact—flirting on the couch in the late, quiet night.
He hadn’t expected to still be awake himself after three long, hard, exciting days on the slopes, but that had been before Lily had leveled him with her whiskey eyes and given him directions to her room.
At the startlingly open invitation, he’d been floored, flattered and, even now, aroused.
Three days into his weeklong vacation and he was enjoying himself more than he’d imagined possible, something he’d admitted to Wyatt before dinner when Wyatt had called to make sure he was having fun.
“You get yourself a ski bunny yet?” had been the first thing out of Wyatt’s mouth.
“The skiing’s good, thanks for asking.”
“Yeah. Good. Just tell me this…is she hot?”
Sizzling. “’Bye, Wyatt.”
With anticipation humming through him, he made his way down the darkened hallway of the employee offices and into a separate wing, where he came to a stop at the second door on the right.
He knocked, and when the door opened, Lily stood there looking at him with a surprise she couldn’t quite hide.
Had she thought he wouldn’t show? “Hey,” he said softly. “Too late?”
“No.” She let out a slow smile. “Not too late at all.”
Yeah, she’d definitely thought he wouldn’t show. Had there been that many broken promises, that many disappointments?
And why did that tug on the heart he hadn’t intended to engage?
She stepped back and made room for him to come in, then made a sound of frustration when her phone rang. “Excuse me.”
Her living room was small but comfy-looking, with a pillow-filled couch in front of a fireplace. There were pictures on the walls, landscapes of the Sierras and Lake Tahoe and some other intriguing vistas he didn’t recognize. She had a small kitchen off to the side, done in bold red and white, and then another door.
Her bedroom?
Phone to her ear, Lily paced in front of the fireplace. “Yes, Gwyneth, I bolted the bear box.” She listened a moment. “Well, wasn’t that nice of Aunt Debbie to worry about me doing my job. Look, do us both a favor and go to sleep.” She clicked the phone off and drew a deep breath.
Seemed his wild ski bunny was tense, very tense. And not such a wild ski bunny at all. “Nice accommodations,” he said, wanting to see a smile back on her face.
“Thanks.” She looked around. “I keep thinking I’ll buy my own place in town but I just love to be on site. I’m the only one who lives here full-time, since my grandma died last year.”
His gaze cut to hers, and he didn’t miss the quick stab of pain there. “You were close?”
“Very close—Damn it.” She went to the kitchen counter and picked up her
beeping pager. Reading the display, she put a hand to her neck and sighed.
“Trouble?”
“No.” She set the pager down and visibly shrugged it off. “How about your family? You didn’t mention your mom. You close?”
“She left us when we were fairly young.” He lifted a shoulder. “I don’t remember her.”
She studied him for a long, considering moment. “And as the oldest, you probably did a lot of the raising of your brothers.”
“Enough that even now they enjoy calling me Mom just to listen to me growl.”
She smiled, then turned from him and walked over to the fireplace. Crouching down, she took a stack of sticks from a pile and began to crisscross them inside the stone hearth. She still wore the hip-hugging jeans that revealed an extremely nice ass, her wipe apron, that soft, fuzzy forest-green hooded sweater that just barely met the denim and the matching beanie that was squashed down on her head, revealing long bangs in the front and a braid in the back. Casual. Sweet, even. But his reaction had nothing to do with sweet.
She lit a match, waited until the sticks caught, then added a log on top. Standing, she faced him again, fingers linked together. “Did you want a drink?”
“No, thanks.” He noted she was rubbing her neck again. “Are you ready, Lily?”
“For…?”
On the corner of the stone mantel sat a basket, its contents catching his attention—not the green toenail polish or the People magazine, but the body lotion. Scooping it up in his hand, he held it out.
Lily stared at the lotion, then lifted her gaze to his.
“I’ll start with that kink in your neck,” he said.
The pulse at the base of her throat leaped. “And finish with…?”
He looked right into her eyes. “Whatever you want.”
Yum, said Lily’s body. Whoa, said her mind, but only for a moment, and even then she chose to shove it to the background. Whatever she wanted? He’d better be prepared because suddenly she wanted a whole hell of a lot, especially if he kept looking at her like that.
“You work so hard,” he said. “And tonight—” cupping her face, he tilted it up, running his thumb over her lower lip, making it tremble “—you seemed sad.”
“I wasn’t.” But she had been. Damn it, she had been sad and restless and lonely for reasons she couldn’t put her finger on, and it scared her that he’d seen it.
“You put so much of yourself into this place. Don’t let anyone take that from you, Lily. Not your sisters, not anyone.”
After only a few days, he’d seen. He’d understood. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but she couldn’t so she stepped back and turned away because this wasn’t going to be the easy, wild, forgettable evening she’d wanted. “This is a mistake.”
“Really? Then we’ll have to make it count.” He tugged her around, and then his mouth was on hers, devouring, sending her into frenzy-mode with one stroke of his greedy tongue.
Long before she was done, he pulled back and, still facing her, began kneading her shoulders, not even needing the lotion, showing the same talent with which he’d just kissed her stupid. By the time he dug in with his thumbs, she was putty in his hands, but she locked her knees. “Let’s spell this out.”
“Spell what out?”
“Exactly what we’re doing.”
“Which is…?”
“I thought it’d be sex.”
He let out a low, husky laugh. “Okay.”
She tilted her head up to see him. “That’s all this is? Nothing else?”
His eyes told her the truth. He wanted more. “Lily—”
“Look, that’s all I’ve got.” And though she’d told him she was fearless, that was one big, fat lie. This scared her. He scared her. “You’re only here for a few more nights so just be straight with me. No strings attached is what I’m offering. Simple. Now you say yes or no.”
“That sounds—”
“Honest.” She unzipped her hoodie sweater and tossed it to the couch, leaving her clad only in a snug, thin tank. She heard his abrupt intake of breath and figured the pale silk had snagged his attention. Maybe he’d say yes.
“Lily—”
“Yes or no, Logan.”
“I have no doubt we can make it count,” he assured her in a voice that had her every sensual nerve ending doing a twitchy dance.
“Yes or no?”
“Yes.”
She nearly staggered at the heat in his eyes. Maybe she had been sad earlier, stinging from the pressure she put on herself, including constantly proving that she was worthy of the responsibility she shouldered. Damn it, she deserved this, and knowing it, she took a step toward him.
Her pager went off yet again, but before she could react, Logan walked into the kitchen and picked it up from the counter. He opened her freezer and set it on the top shelf, next to a tray of ice cubes. Next he took the telephone off the hook. Then he looked at her, all tough and edgy and just enough of a stranger to boost her heart rate. “How’s that?”
“Good.” She loved the take-charge, dare-me expression on his face, and a shiver raced down her spine—one that had nothing to do with the cold, dark night and everything to do with the man standing in front of her.
When he opened his arms, she walked right into them. Kissing him was like waking up from a long sleep, slow and gentle at first, which lasted exactly until he slid his hand up and down her back, then beneath her tank top to touch bare skin. It was electrifying, and letting out a low moan, she leaned into him as the heat rose inside her.
It pumped off him, as well, and then it went wild and just a little rough, which was perfect for her because she didn’t want to think, she just wanted to feel. And feeling Logan, tough and hard against her, his muscles taut and quivering, went a long way toward ensuring that she wouldn’t have to think at all.
His arm hooked around her, lifted her right off the ground, giving her a foolish little thrill at the easy strength of him. His mouth was hot, his tongue insistent, the shock of it sending licks of flame throughout her entire body so that she vibrated. He wanted her. Not the resort owner, or even the wild woman she had a rep for, he just wanted…her.
My God, she thought with a low moan, that was so damn arousing. “Bedroom.”
But he held her there, high against him. He kept kissing her jaw, her throat, her shoulders, then her mouth again, and frustrated, she tried to drag him off to her bed to devour him back.
“Slow down,” he murmured, his hands sliding up her spine, beneath her shirt, then back down, cupping her bottom in his hands, squeezing. “What’s your hurry?”
What was her hurry? She needed him, damn it. Needed the oblivion she knew he could give her, now, now, now. Impatient, she yanked his shirt free of his jeans, then ran her hands inside, up his belly, over his pecs.
He shivered. “God, Lily.”
“I know. More.” To show him, she nibbled her way to his ear, bit down on the lobe hard enough to make him hiss, then soothed the nip with her tongue, all while trying to tug off his long-sleeved T-shirt.
He lifted his arms to oblige her, smiling roughly against her skin when she found another T-shirt beneath and groaned.
“Why are you wearing so many clothes?” she demanded.
“I don’t know, I won’t next time.”
When she got him down to bare skin, she couldn’t take her eyes or hands off his perfectly formed torso. “You’re so beautiful.”
He grabbed her face, holding her still for a hot, long kiss that made her yearn and burn all the more. Hell, she’d really thought to keep this light, easy, but there was nothing light or easy about how he drew her in and held her there, quivering, hungry, desperate. Entwining her arms around his neck, she kissed him back and felt herself slide into him, and then even a little deeper. She could feel him taut and hard against her, just as hungry and desperate as she, and it nearly made her pull back so that she could get her bearings and make sure he remembered this was supposed to be
just scratching an itch.
But his eyes were dark, so dark, and his mouth was wet from hers. His breathing was uneven. Harsh. But with a tenderness she hadn’t imagined such a big, tough guy could possess, he stroked his thumb over her still-damp lower lip and let out a shuddery sigh.
And her heart sighed, too.
Their eyes met, held, and the silence spoke volumes.
This was it. Tonight. Now.
She wanted him. She wanted him more than she’d admitted. To hide that fact, and her confusion over the depth of the wanting, she pulled him close, burying her face in the crook of his neck, inhaling him in, thinking he smelled so delicious she could gobble him up in one bite.
“You’re killing me here.” He took a deep breath as well, as if he wanted to take in her very essence, then nibbled at her throat, nudging his way beneath the strap of her tank to kiss her collarbone before he bit her shoulder. “Killing me.”
The fire was at her back, snapping away with strength now and giving off a delicious heat. Or maybe that was him. He tossed aside her beanie, unraveled her braid and sank his fingers into her beanie-head hair, bringing her face back up for another soul-searching kiss, until all she could think about was his touch and how it made her feel. His fingers danced over her throat, down between her breasts to just over her pounding heart. “You’re wearing too many clothes, too.” He traced the edging of her tank over the curve of first one breast and then the other. Beneath the thin material, her nipples had long ago beaded into two tight, aching buds.
“Mmm.” He cupped the small weight of both, his thumbs rubbing the tips while he kissed her slowly and deeply. Half gone, she went for the zipper on his jeans, the rasp of the metal echoing in her ears while he slipped her tank down. Beneath, she was naked, and a low, appreciative moan escaped him at the sight of her.
She slid her fingers into his opened jeans while he eyed the distance to the couch. He peeled the tank and the denim down her legs together, moaned at how wet her panties were, then tossed those aside, too.
And tumbled her to the fluffy couch.
With a breathless laugh she lifted her head to look at him. At the look on his face, the laugh backed up in her throat. No matter what she told herself, or him, this wasn’t going to be just quick and fun and light, but something more, something deeper. In quick denial of that, she kissed him so hard that she once again lost herself in the way he touched her, lost herself in the sexy growl he made low in his throat when she reached inside his jeans and wrapped her fingers around his hot, silky, thick length.
