All for You

by Christi Barth

  Was there some swagger to his walk as he crossed over to pick up his drink? Damn straight. Because once he got to the bottom of the journals and weeded out that Lone Survivor, he’d write the best book of his career. The book he’d been waiting his whole life to write. The more he thought about it, the more certain Zane was—and the more excited he got. Not that he’d let on to these two.

  “They’ve taken on legendary status,” reminded Nathan. “Members in jail and under a restraining order or scattered to the four corners. This would be the biggest feather in your cap of all your prestigious professional achievements.”

  “Academic, too,” Jeremiah hastened to add. “In fact, this will undoubtedly raise your worth to the colleges.”

  Zane was pretty set with money. He wanted to work with students now, not hijack a school for extra cash. But there’d still be time for that. After. Because this idea had gotten its teeth into him. Now, more than just about anything, he damn well did want to write this book. This was a case of seeing the trap, and yet deliberately walking into it. The book would be lucrative and satisfying. He wouldn’t even have to travel anywhere. What more could he want?

  An image of Casey’s face sprang to mind. He couldn’t wait to tell her. Every time he brought up his work with cults, her interest in the conversation bottomed out. That was okay. But maybe she’d at least be thrilled on his behalf at the enormous amount of money Jeremiah was about to squeeze out of Nathan.

  “Gentlemen, I’m in.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Zane barely noticed the wide swath of lushly green vineyards gently sloping down to the lakeshore. His eyes were glued to the road, focused on getting back to Casey as fast as possible. Too bad he hadn’t been able to bring her along on the trip to the Sagamore. She would’ve loved it.

  Obsessed with precision when it came to facts, Zane refined his thought. Maybe she would’ve enjoyed it. Initially, she’d been nervous about the faculty party at Hobart. Acted more like he was taking her to hang out in the lion enclosure at the zoo rather than to mingle with some genuinely nice people and drink free booze. But she’d warmed up. Shook off trepidation and had a good time. Ended up in a long discussion with the provost over installing a green wall on a few campus buildings to raise awareness of sustainability issues. He’d actually had to tear her away in order to get to the more kissing part of the evening.

  Point being, as long as she didn’t get all in her head about only being a forest ranger—which was weird, because otherwise she was passionately proud of it, and rightly so—Casey seemed great in a crowd. So yes, he wished she’d come along with him.

  But what he didn’t know was if she liked the old-school luxury of a resort like the Sagamore. That’s the kind of thing that didn’t really come up in first dates. Or fourth dates, or even...God, he didn’t know what number they were up to. Which was pretty great. That they’d had so many he’d lost track. Or it just proved that he wasn’t a girl. ’Cause he couldn’t stand those women who celebrated the anniversary of the first time he opened the car door for them, or their first freaking shared cupcake.

  Zane wanted to find out what Casey liked. He wanted to know if she liked to vacation in the mountains, at the beach, or trekking across the Arctic on snow shoes. The answer didn’t matter. Since he was pretty much up for anything. What mattered was the knowing. Learning who she was, inside and out. What made Casey tick. What made her purr—although he was pretty sure he’d discovered that on Friday night when he’d kissed the back of her neck.

  It’d been weird not seeing Casey for days. Sure, he’d texted her funny pictures. On their first hike of the waterfalls she’d presented him with a tiny green pine cone. “As green as you look in those idiotic hiking clothes,” she’d teased.

  Staring down his nose, he’d replied in a lofty tone, “The lack of pit stains and tree sap on this shirt makes me no less manly.” Then he’d bent down to whisper in her ear. “You know you want my equipment.” The double eyebrow waggle Zane finished with had sealed the deal. Casey burst into laughter so loud it scared away the chipmunks they’d been watching.

  The immature pine cone—or conifer cone, as Casey corrected in her adorably earnest schoolmarm tone—was hard as a rock. Easy to keep in his pocket. Zane liked to rub the knobbly surface against his fingers. It was a constant reminder of how much fun that day had been. So he didn’t think twice about taking it to the Sagamore.

  Zane posed the cone on top of the railing at the veranda bar, with the immensity of Lake George behind it. On the edge of the hot tub in the middle of a towel. Balanced on a golf tee on the putting range. And even centered beneath a croquet hoop. He texted the photos throughout his time away. Despite how jam-packed with tourists he knew her weekends to be, she always responded immediately. His favorite had been her last take on the exchange: another green pinecone in a nest of lacy red panties with the message Christmas came early this year.

  A few hurried texts in no way made up for how much he’d missed Casey. It surprised Zane. He’d been coasting along thinking that a variety pack of women would help him get over the divorce. Rebecca’s betrayal and cheating, specifically. And it had worked, for a time. Been a heck of a lot of fun, too. He’d never expected that he’d feel whole again, and three times as manly, by putting all his efforts and a big chunk of his heart toward a single woman.

  It wasn’t the plan. Now was the time to get serious about a new job, not a new relationship. But from years of researching, he’d learned that the facts came first. If they didn’t follow your hypothesis, you had to throw it out the window and follow the direction of the facts. Fact: Casey made him happy. Fact: Casey made him so happy, he didn’t want to be with anyone else. Fact: he’d missed her so much he was jumping out of his skin. Fact: he needed a new plan.

  Zane slammed on the brakes hard as he rolled up Casey’s driveway. There was no time for finesse. No time to grab his laptop case from the trunk. A desperate lunge for the bag in the backseat, and he was out of the car.

  In place of a lawn, Casey had a valley of low ferns in her front yard. So instead of taking a shortcut, Zane stuck to the flagstone path. The teal door looked cheery smack dab in the middle of the Adirondack log cabin. But he was looking at the matching frames on the windows, hoping for a peek of her. No such luck. There went the fantasy he’d indulged in on the plane of her waiting for him on the porch steps in just those red lace panties.

  Zane banged on the door. Nada. Weird, since she was expecting him for dinner. After knocking again, he tested the knob and eased open the door. The rich scent of some chocolatey amazingness welcomed him, but still no Casey. He followed the aroma into the kitchen. Finally. There she was, at the stove, swinging her hips back and forth to music he couldn’t hear. Lifting the heavy, silken weight of her hair, Zane dropped a kiss on her nape.

  And got an elbow to the gut for his troubles. Only fast reflexes got his foot out of the way before she smashed down on his instep. Then she tried to flip him onto the floor. In karate, size didn’t matter. It was all about utilizing momentum and leverage. She had the element of surprise and the momentum, but Zane had enough years of experience to tuck sideways and break his fall. Oh, and the presence of mind to hook his fingers in the fabric of her long tank dress to drag her down with him.

  As he landed, Zane rolled flat on his back. He banded an arm across Casey’s hips to pin her to him. “In the future, I’m more than satisfied with the traditional ‘hi honey, I’m home’ as a greeting.”

  “Zane. Oh.” Casey yanked out her earbuds. They plopped onto his chest. “I didn’t hear you.”

  “I think that’s obvious. Either that, or you’re really pissed I left for the weekend.”

  “I wasn’t thrilled about it, but work’s work. No different from when I have to stay late during tourist season.”

  Her response sounded normal enough. But it didn’t explain why
she’d greeted him with ninja moves instead of a sultry smile and maybe a French maid costume, at best. “You want to tell me why you went all Mortal Kombat on me?”

  “You want to tell me how you got out of my move?”

  Zane loved the way she’d shoved the challenge right back at him. Didn’t mean he’d roll over, though. “You first.”

  Her lips tightened for a second. Then she looked away, as if there was actually something interesting on the wide pine planks of the floor. “Dawn insisted years ago that I learn self-defense.”

  “Yeah?” It still didn’t ring true. Explained the knowledge, but not the attack-dog mentality. “My mom insisted I learn to play the piano. But I don’t attack everyone who walks in my front door with the Moonlight Sonata.”

  “I’m a woman. I live alone. Safer to attack first and apologize later.”

  “Remind me never to throw you a surprise party.” He’d drop it. For now. But it was another unanswered question. He hated those. It made his brain itch. Zane hooked a foot around her ankle, just in case she had any mistaken urge to get up before he was ready. “What level belt are you?”

  “Aikido brown belt. You?”

  “Karate black belt.” He’d gone to his first class in high school, when Brent Menders tried to give him a swirlie just for—as far as he could tell—raising the grading bell curve in history class by acing a pop quiz. Zane had learned a lot from that episode: that he’d never give pop quizzes, or grade on a curve, and that if you didn’t position your thumb right, it could get broken when you threw a punch. But he got serious about leveling up on his belts once he started traveling as a grad assistant. “I get around to some unsavory places, meet people who aren’t always thrilled to have me poking in their business. It seemed prudent to learn how to defend myself.”

  “This is great. We can spar.”

  Zane nuzzled her neck. She smelled of chocolate and felt like satin against his tongue. “I think we already are.”

  She angled her head to give him better access. Softened her body to let it fully rest against his. But huffed and said, “One aborted takedown does not a sparring session make.”

  Guess her competitive spirit didn’t go to ground easily. Well, Zane had a way around that. “Can we do it naked?”

  Laughter rippled up and out of her throat. “Not if we do it at my gym.”

  “Probably for the best.” Zane knew it cracked her up when he bragged. And he couldn’t get enough of lying beneath her while she giggled. It made him feel bigger than the Colossus of Rhodes. Not to mention twice as hard as that hundred-foot-tall statue. “It’d be humiliating for you to lose just by freezing up in awe when you get a load of my full naked splendor.”

  More laughter. God, her face lit up like dawn breaking over the ocean when she laughed. And Casey’s hips shifted against him, as though searching out all that splendor. “I thought you were insufferably cocky when you proclaimed your mental brilliance. Now you’re using the word splendor to describe your body?”

  “Proper word choice makes all the difference in a conversation. Like I said about my mind—it isn’t bragging if it’s an irrefutable fact.”

  “You might be sure it’s the truth, but I’m still waiting for, um, full visual confirmation.”

  “That can be arranged. Later.” A thrust up and grind, just to rev her hotter with a preview.

  It’d been fifteen days since he first kissed Casey. They’d seen each other—and kissed, plus a lot more—almost every one of those days. Zane was beyond ready to get them both naked and get on with it. But he knew the best things were worth waiting for. Casey definitely fit into that category.

  “Right now, how about we go back and have a re-do on the greeting?”

  “Sure.” She drew the word out, then tilted it up at the end, as if asking a question.

  Zane curled his palm around her jaw. Thumbed across the apple of her cheek to gently stroke the soft contours of her pink lips. “Hi, Casey. It’s nice to see you.”

  “Ditto.”

  “I didn’t stop thinking about you the whole time I was gone.”

  “Me, neither. I dreamed about you,” she admitted, color flooding into her face.

  He liked the sound of that. Might even insist on a play-by-play re-enactment to see how it meshed with his waking fantasies about her. “Wanna make out?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Zane twisted from his core to roll her beneath him in one, swift move. Then he paused. Just...looked. Pink still flushed her cheeks. Anticipation sparkled her eyes. And her lips...yeah, that was enough looking for now. Zane bit her bottom lip and gently tugged. She responded by extending her tongue to lick the edge of his top lip.

  “Tease.” God, he was grateful for it. Women who took sex too seriously bored the pants right back onto him. Nobody should check their personalities at the edge of the mattress.

  “You started it.”

  He pressed his wrist into the small of her back, urging her to arch against him. Casey flowed up like water. Her hips pulsed once. His cock gave an answering lurch that tripped a moan from her. Zane locked his lips onto hers, tongue mimicking the motion of their hips. She tasted of chocolate and heat.

  It was hard to concentrate on the friction and slide of their tangling tongues. The shockwave of sensations from their kisses mingled with the goose bumps erupting on his back. Casey had worked her hand beneath his new Sagamore T-shirt to make long sweeps along his spine. The slow, undulating rhythm reminded him of a tide pushing against the shore. Or the way he’d move once he finally got inside her.

  Casey expressed her passion in her soft touch, the way she constantly moved beneath him, the breathy way she urged him on with the almost purrs emanating from the back of her throat. Zane needed no urging. “Want more, gorgeous?”

  Bringing both hands up to frame his face, Casey deliberately opened her eyes to lock that forest-green gaze onto his. “Whatever you’ve got,” she challenged.

  Zane captured her wandering hands. They were too much of a distraction, would push him too fast. So he locked both wrists in one firm hand above her head. Used the other hand to trace a line down the underside of her bare arm, tracing the delicate blue veins to her elbow. Casey shivered. He kept going, all the way to where the armhole of her white tank pulled taut against the rise of her breast. From there, it was an easy sweep with his thumb to pull the stretchy fabric down.

  The late afternoon sun streaming in the windows pooled conveniently across her chest. Her bra was all lace, swirling patterns that in no way hid the change in color from her tan breast to the pale coral of her nipples. Zane’s breath caught in his throat. “You know you’re beautiful, right?”

  A moment of silence. Almost silence, rather, as the open windows let in the rustle of the breeze through the trees. “Not all of us are as self-assured as you.”

  “Casey, you’re a work of art. Soft, like gold, but laid over a strong core of platinum. With the glorious textures and colors of an oil painting. The delicacy of a spun sugar orchid. I could stare at you all day.”

  “I hope you’re going to do more than just stare.”

  “You interrupted before I could tell you what I’d like to do all night.” Zane lowered his head. Didn’t bother with any tentative licks along the edge of her tan line. No, he just planted his mouth right on the center and sucked. Hard. Hard enough that the nipple immediately pebbled into a rigid nub. Perfect. Zane pulled again, and then flicked his tongue quickly to push it against his teeth. The added pressure set her body to squirming beneath him.

  “That’s so good,” she whispered.

  Zane couldn’t answer. Not with a mouth full of the most perfect breast he’d ever tasted. With his teeth, he tugged at the wet lace, knowing the slight scratch of it would...ah, yes. Casey surged up, almost pulling out of his grip. Quickly he
switched hands on her wrists and moved to the other breast. Equal time was important.

  As though she’d read his mind, Casey murmured, “Hey, I want to be fair. Isn’t it your turn?”

  So weird. How come women never got how much it turned men on to pleasure them? “Trust me, I’m taking my turn.”

  Her brows drew together in the classic signal that she didn’t believe him. “Are you just trying to impress me?”

  “Buttercup, if I was trying to impress you, we wouldn’t be on the floor.” The braided rug provided scant comfort, as they’d only managed to lie across a corner of it. And he was on the wrong side of thirty to keep digging his knees into the wood. Casey was incentive enough to do it, but Zane would far rather at least have a bath mat beneath him, let alone a mattress. “I’m too eager to impress you with well-honed moves right now. Too hot to let your hands have free rein. All I’ve thought about for almost three days is just this. Getting to touch you and see you and make you writhe beneath me. That’s all I want.”

  Casey smiled. No, she beamed at him in a way that made his cock impossibly harder. “You’re a very easy man to be with, Zane.”

  Nice to hear. But he’d heard enough complaints over the years from ex-girlfriends, not to mention his ex-wife, to know that probably wasn’t entirely correct. “Or I’m just the right man finally with the right woman. That’s what makes it so easy.”

  The smile vanished from her face. “I thought we agreed not to get serious.”

  “We agreed to take our time and see how things develop. There’s no pre-stamped expiration date on attraction.”

  “We’re just having fun. This is just a summer fling.” The words stammered out in an almost desperate rush.

  “For now.” Her whole body tightened beneath him, and it felt more panicked than passionate. Zane let go of her wrists. This wasn’t the reaction he’d been going for with the spontaneous make-out session on the floor. He shifted to the side, leaving only one leg and an arm across her in a loose hug. “Look, I’m not proposing marriage.”