He winked, stepped closer. He was almost to the couch, his clothes strewn in a haphazard path behind him. Looking at her made him hungry all over again. And this time not for bread and wine, but for a taste of that sumptuous skin. He licked his own lips.
Yum.
Kay’s gaze traveled from his chest to his mouth and remained transfixed on his lips. Enjoying himself immensely, Quinn rounded the couch and slowly lowered himself beside her, his blue-jeaned thigh brushing against her stiletto heel. He watched the pulse at the base of her throat jump, felt a corresponding surge of blood through his body.
Tonight his goddess was going to come during intercourse. Tonight she’d be screaming his name in reverence.
He leaned across her legs, her knees hitting him midchest, the crush of fur against his nipples. He idly toyed with a strand of her hair, then oh-so-gradually traced his finger down her right ear.
She shivered.
Violently.
And closed her eyes. He watched the column of her throat work as she swallowed.
“What,” he whispered, “are you wearing beneath that coat?”
“Why don’t you see for yourself?” she invited.
His finger tracked a path from her ear to her cheek to her chin, then slid down that hot, hot throat to her collarbone, where he parted the fur coat, splayed his hand beneath it and found nothing but bare skin.
And he’d thought he had a raging hard-on before. That erection felt puny compared to this shaft of steel rising from him now. If he didn’t watch himself, this whole endeavor would be over in a matter of seconds.
He pushed his hand farther down, relishing in the feel of her silken flesh. He peeled back the coat, watched his man-size fingers glide over her smooth breasts. He inhaled as deeply as she when his thumb rasped over her nipple and he cupped the full globe, bent his head to kiss it, then looked up to meet her gaze.
Her eyes were glazed, her breathing thready.
“You look more delicious than red-velvet cake, sweetheart. I could eat you right up with my hands tied behind my back.”
“Oh, Quinn, you say the nicest things to me.”
“I mean what I say, Kay. I’m not a man who tap-dances around the truth.”
“And I love that about you.”
“Honesty can make a guy unpopular at times.”
“Not with me. I find it refreshing.”
“I find you refreshing.” His eyes gobbled her up. Strangely his heart felt too big for his chest.
“Nobody’s ever appreciated me the way you do.”
“By nobody, I’m assuming you mean that sorry son-of-a-dog you used to date.”
Kay nodded.
“Forget about him,” Quinn growled. “He was a jerk and he didn’t have any idea what a treasure he threw away. I appreciate you, darling. And don’t you ever forget it.”
“Don’t,” she said, her voice oddly choked, “be so nice to me.”
“Why not?”
“Because if you’re nice, I’ll want to stay, and we both know I don’t belong here.”
He said nothing to that because he wanted to beg her to stay. But Bear Creek had nothing to offer a blueblood magazine reporter from the most cosmopolitan city in the world. He could offer her no more than this. If Alaska hadn’t been enough for Meggie, who’d been born and raised here, how could it be enough for Kay? Most women, his sister included, considered Alaska a lonely place. He had no right even to ask her to stay. None at all. He was going to take what he could have and give her a night to cherish always.
“Let’s not talk anymore,” she said huskily. “Let’s just make love. Send me into orbit, big guy. I want to know what it feels like to frolic with the aurora borealis.”
Quinn wrapped his arms around her narrow waist, then leaned back against the opposite end of the couch and pulled her on top of him, until they were touching head to toe, her bare breasts flattened against his bare chest, the warm apex of her womanhood flush against the zipper of his jeans.
She let out a low, feral sound that inflamed him beyond measure. She nuzzled her face in his neck and whispered his name.
His hands skimmed down her luscious body, then back up again beneath the plush material of the fur coat. He kissed her throat, then licked and lightly sucked because he couldn’t get enough of the taste of her.
He rubbed her calves through the silky material of her stockings, and it was almost his undoing. He fondled the backs of her knees, then toyed with the garter at her thigh. His hands roamed higher, kneading the tight muscles of her compact tush until he was hot as a blowtorch and hard as the arctic tundra.
How was he going to last long enough to give her the pleasure she needed? The top of his head was going to blow off if he didn’t get some relief soon.
Kay writhed above him. “Quinn, you make me so wild. I never knew I could lose control the way I do with you.”
“Wild women wanted,” he murmured, repeating the tag line of his ad copy. He slid his fingers down between her thighs, found her wet and hot. “Are you wild for me, Kay?”
“Wild, savage, frantic.”
“That’s good. ’Cause I’m going to have to make love to you now, darling, or go insane.”
HE WAS BEYOND handsome to her. Beyond strength and size and manliness. He was clean and raw and unspoiled. He was pure man and pure animal. He and his instincts, his ancestry, blended together against all the edicts of the polite society from whence she came, and Kay loved him for that.
His mouth claimed hers. Roughly, sweetly. He tasted of heat and wine and soul. He smelled of Sitka spruce, wood smoke and lemony soap.
The life she’d always lived to satisfy the needs of her civilized culture was erased, as he framed her face with both hands and stared deeply into her eyes.
The pressure in her very center that had been building night after night was coiled tight, waiting to burst forth again in sweet release.
“Straddle me,” he whispered, gently pulling his lips from hers. “I want you to be in control. You need it this way.”
She arranged her thighs on either side of him. She felt the hard bulge of his erection throb against his pants, against her bottom. Her hands fumbled frantically with his belt, unbuckling it and jerking it through the loops with a slithering swish. She grabbed for the metal button, but was trembling so hard she couldn’t free it from the buttonhole.
“Let me.”
She shifted, rising on her knees and leaning her right side into the back of the couch. He raised his hips, undid the button, tugged down the zipper and shucked both his pants and underwear at the same time, shimmying them past his hips.
Kay took it from there. Grabbing the denim and his long johns, she pulled the garments off his legs and tossed them aside. Panting, she returned her attention to him, and her eyes widened as she surveyed the long, hard length of him, getting her first really good look at his impressive package.
When she’d dubbed him Paul Bunyan that first day on the plane, she hadn’t been far off the mark.
She stared, openmouthed. “You’re incredible.”
“You’re not so bad yourself, sweetheart.”
“I’ve got to have some of that.” She swung her legs over his torso again, her body clenching in anticipation of riding his erection into oblivion.
“Wait,” he said in a strangled voice, and struggled to sit up.
“What?” She stared. Dazed, glazed, starving beyond measure.
“I don’t have a condom,” he croaked. “They’re back at my place.”
Her face broke into a smile as she slipped her hand into her pocket and produced a small foil packet. “Let me deal with this one, fireman.”
Then with the inexpert fumbling of a woman who’d researched and written about such tricks but never tried them herself, Kay scooted down until she was sitting on his knees. She placed the condom in her mouth, leaned forward and, after a few failed attempts, successfully rolled it over his shaft.
Quinn groaned and shuddered so hard she thought he was going to come right then and there. “Give me a minute, sweetheart.”
She sat up, watched his face as he fought for control.
“Okay.” He held out his hands to her. “Come back up here.”
With the fur coat slapping seductively against her naked behind, she straddled him once more, facing forward. Remembering all those sexy tomes she’d read, Kay curled her hand around his shaft and slid him into the length of her.
She spread her hot wetness across the head of him, then lowered herself, impaled herself just half an inch, no more, then pulled up again. She rubbed her yearning cleft all over his swollen end, then let him slide a little deeper. She pulled away again.
And repeated the steps several times until, desperately, he grabbed her around the waist and yanked her down hard until her tight, wet, warmth engulfed his flaming erection.
Simultaneously they hissed in their breaths as they were fully joined for the first time.
Quinn was rigid as a slab of marble beneath her, his hands spanning her waist, his face twisted in a grimace of pure pleasure. He penetrated her, filled her up, filled the emptiness that had been inside her for so many years. Filled her beyond her knowledge of herself. She had never been so physically possessed.
Peals of pleasure unfolded and sang through her blood. She moved with him as if she’d been doing it all her life. Moved as graceful as horse and rider. Up and down. Agonizingly slowly at first, getting her bearings, adjusting to the thickness of him. She stretched out on top of him, her legs over his, her face cradled against his neck. She rocked her hips, pushing lower and lower until her cleft pressed directly against the base of his shaft.
“That’s it, sweetheart, that’s it,” he encouraged. “Take charge. It’s your turn to be in the driver’s seat.”
She reveled in her ability to do this for him, and she gave a cry of joy at the mystery of her woman’s magic, which allowed her to accommodate his maleness. She sat up, squatted over him, feet planted precariously in the yielding couch cushions just outside his thighs, hands on his chest for balance.
In an instant she was flying. Riding up to the tingling tip of him, then pounding back down. Every smack of her bottom against his hips produced in him the most erotic groans she’d ever heard.
He was close to jettisoning off the edge of reason. She heard it in his voice. Not yet. Not yet.
She stopped, then turned carefully, keeping him embedded inside her as she moved. She leaned her back against his chest, begged him to reach around and caress her breasts. She pulled her legs together on top of him and squeezed, the muscles of her thighs and buttocks effectively became a velvet vise around his manhood.
“Kay,” came his muffled, garbled cry, and she felt an awesome sense of power. “I’m about to come.”
“Hold on. There’s more.”
She knelt over his hips and leaned forward. She knew for him this was an incredibly erotic position. He had a spectacular view of her bouncing bottom. He could actually watch himself slip in and out of her.
Instinct urged her to quicken the pace, and soon she was thumping him so hard the couch vibrated. Soon, it seemed, the whole room was vibrating, singing with heat and energy and the dark pulsating power that emanated from the frenzied meeting of their bodies. Kay worried crazily that the small room couldn’t hold the blizzard force of their grappling union.
“Unforgettable,” Nat King Cole sang for the umpteenth time.
Kay felt both exalted and afraid. Her body was a glorious temple and he, Quinn, exalted her.
And that’s when she flew apart.
A tingly, heated buzz that started inside the deepest, wettest part of her and rushed forth to encompass every nerve ending, every cell.
She came. Hard.
It was explosive. The twisted emotions of a lifetime came pouring out of her. The frustration, the shame, the avoidance of intimacy all evaporated.
She was laughing, she was crying. Tears streaked her face, giggles shook her body. She’d done it! She’d had an orgasm during intercourse! She felt like the queen of the world. And Quinn was her king.
I’m not frigid, Lloyd. I’m not. You were wrong. So damned wrong about me.
She gasped, slid off him, turned around and collapsed against his chest. She’d always hoped it could be like this. Hoped and wished and prayed.
He wrapped his arms tightly around her, tenderly kissed her forehead, then brushed his fingers through her sweaty hair. “There, there, sweetheart. You did good.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, tears still choking her voice. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
QUINN FELT PROUDER than he had the day he had scored a hat trick to beat the Ketchikan Freeze in intramural hockey play-offs. He had done it. He had helped Kay achieve the orgasms she so deeply deserved, and he had still managed to hang on to his control. He hadn’t come, and he wasn’t through with her yet.
But for the moment, he lay basking in his accomplishment, her head resting against his chest, his fingers entwined in her hair, her scent all around him, her sweet taste in his mouth. He lay listening to “Unforgettable” play on and on, past the time when the station should have signed off the air. But he wasn’t about to get up and break this wondrous spell.
She’d taught him so much in a short period of time. How to be patient and tender and understanding. Unwittingly she’d shown him how to be a good husband, skills he would need when he found his life’s mate. By teaching Kay about her own body, he’d learned serious self-control. He’d also learned to put her needs ahead of his own. He felt grateful for these lessons and forever indebted to her.
She was an extraordinary woman.
As he lay watching her breathe, he began to kiss her. She roused and met his gaze with a lusty gleam of her own.
“More?” she asked.
“Don’t you know it?”
She purred deep in her throat. “Come here my burly bear of a man.”
He treated her to more foreplay, then when she was once again fully aroused, he moved her around and entered her from behind, his belly against her back, one hand kneading her breasts and the other steadying her pelvis.
Kay flung back her hair and cried encouragement. Her frenzy excited him. Harder, faster he moved, driving deeper into her willing body.
When she said, “I can’t bear any more, Quinn. I’m going to shatter into a million pieces,” he knew the time had come. A second climax was upon her. He slipped his hand from her breasts to her protruding nub and rubbed with a gentle, ceaseless caress until he felt the beginning of her contractions.
“I’m coming, Quinn!” she cried.
He groaned.
Nothing had ever sounded so beautiful. Nothing had ever galvanized him as much as those words. Her cries pushed him over the edge, and he let his body’s streaming heat launch him into oblivion.
Afterward they lay spent and content, suffused with well-being. They slept briefly. When they awoke, they talked of the sensations of their bodies, their physical desire for each other. Both avoided speaking of something deeper, of the emotions they were experiencing but afraid to express.
They reinvented kisses, warmed by the rhythmic blending of their breaths. No one had ever kissed like her. Kay’s mouth traversed erotic areas he never knew he possessed—the nape of his neck, a sweet section of skin on the tender side of his upper arm, the back of his ear. He returned the favor, licking and nibbling in unusual spots.
They murmured to each other, lips muffled against breasts, throats, bellies. Neither of them spoke of the future or the past. Nothing existed but now.
They held each other, cuddled and spooned. They pulled the fur coat over their naked bodies and reveled in their new discoveries. Both were happier than they had ever been. Or so it seemed to Quinn.
SOMETIME AROUND FOUR in the morning, a steady pounding on the back door roused Kay from deep slumber.
“Hey,” she whispered, poking Quinn gently in the ribs. “Someone’s outside.”
“Quinn,” a woman called. “Are you in there? Is everything okay?”
Quinn grunted and sat up, blinking and yawning. His disheveled hair stood in spikes all over his head. “I feel like I’ve been trampled by Kong.”
“There’s some woman outside, knocking on the door,” Kay said.
“Tell her to go away.” He grinned. “I’ve got more woman than I can handle right here.”
She pinched him lightly on the arm. “Don’t get cute.”
“Hey!” He rubbed the spot where she’d pinched, pretending it hurt. “You’re vicious.”
“Quinn!” the woman at the back door demanded. “Open up this minute or I’m gonna get J.C. to knock down this door.”
“J.C.?” Kay clutched the fur coat to her bare breasts.
“Sheriff’s deputy from over in Haines. But don’t worry. Even though it’s only five minutes by plane from here to Haines, it’s eight hours by road. She’s just making idle threats.
“Hang on, Meggie,” Quinn called, searching the floor for his clothes. “I’ll be right there.”
He dressed, then pulled open the door, Meggie tumbled inside.
“My gosh, Quinn, what happened? Did you fall asleep or something?” Meggie shivered and stomped snow off her boots. “I just got back from taking Liam and Candy to the hospital. I drove by the station and saw your truck was still here and the Wagoneer, too. Then Mack called me and said that on his way home he had the radio tuned to KCRK and you were playing ‘Unforgettable’ over and over again. So I came here to see what gives.”
“How’s the baby?” Kay asked from her place on the couch.
“Oh,” Meggie said, apparently noticing her for the first time. “You’ve got company.” She wiggled her fingers in greeting. “Hi, Kay. Listen, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”
Grinning, Meggie started backing up.
“You didn’t.” Kay returned her smile. If her mother had taught her nothing else, it was how to make the best of awkward situations. “The baby?”
“Oh, they stopped Candy’s contractions. Looks like Liam Junior’s going to stay put until May, the way he’s supposed to.”
“That’s great news,” Kay said. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“I’ll just be going now.” Raising a hand to her face to hide her expanding grin, Meggie turned and rushed out the door.
“Guess we surprised her,” Quinn said. While she and Meggie had been talking, he had given Nat King Cole a rest and signed off the radio station.
“Guess so.”
He held out a hand to her. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s go home.”
LATER, IN QUINN’S four-poster, king-size bed, Kay lay looking up at the ceiling and listening to the reliable sound of his steady breathing.
He was sleeping on his stomach, one arm thrown around her waist, one leg pressed against hers. She loved that he wanted to touch her. Loved it and feared it.
Because as his body heated hers, his kindness, his tenderness, his unselfishness melted her heart. How had she grown accustomed to him so quickly? How had she come to anticipate his touch, to listen for the sound of his voice, to long for the flavor of his unique taste?
And how would she adapt when this was all gone? How could she ever be satisfied with her lonely New York apartment now?
He’d worked hard to give her a most precious gift. He’d held his own orgasm at bay, pushed his own needs aside for her. She’d never known a man like that. In fact, she had secretly doubted such men existed outside the pages of a romance novel.
But here he was. The man who’d taught her so much about herself.
Oh, the things he’d taught her.
Kay smiled into the darkness. His lips had branded her in the most private of places, marking her as his own. And she’d not only let him, but begged him for more. He knew her body inside and out.
All she wanted to do was bask in the afterglow, revel in the glory of their lovemaking. But she was afraid of her escalating feelings for him. Worried that she might be falling in love.
You can’t fall in love with him. It simply isn’t prudent. He’s from a different world. And besides, it’s not really love. You’re just infatuated. Grateful to him because he gave you the one thing that had eluded you for so long.
Sexual fulfillment.
No! her heart cried. It’s not infatuation, it’s something deeper, something more meaningful.
But her troubled mind, which for too long had been indoctrinated in staid thinking, wouldn’t let her indulge such nonsense.
Okay, challenged her brain. What if you are in love with him? There’s no guarantee he loves you back.
And even if he did love her back, she wasn’t the kind of woman he needed. A man like Quinn needed a practical wilderness woman. A woman who could start her own fires and bake sourdough bread. A tough sort of woman who didn’t turn blue in the cold and wasn’t scared of a tame moose. He needed much more than a lover. He needed a companion and a friend. But most of all, he needed a woman who wasn’t afraid of her feelings. A woman who could express her emotions and give herself to him wholly.
She could never be the kind of woman he needed. Never in a million years. If she’d learned anything from this adventure, she’d learned you have to be yourself. You can’t pretend to be something you’re not in order to please those around you.
She simply didn’t have what it took to make it in Alaska. And the sooner she accepted that, the quicker she could start getting over him. Because deep in her heart, she knew that if she let herself, she could fall madly in love with him.
THEY AWOKE around noon on Thursday. They’d spent the past few days in bed, barely coming up for air, packing a lifetime of sexual memories in four short days. Good thing she’d already completed the research for her article. Quinn made blueberry pancakes, and then they bundled up and took a frosty walk through the forest, both of them revved into overdrive with excess energy from the long nights before.
In silence they tramped through woods muted with snow. Overhead a pair of bald eagles soared. They stopped for a few minutes and watched the regal creatures wing their way across the sky.
Quinn took her hand in his, helping her to step over fallen logs and frozen creekbeds. He marveled at how small and delicate her hand felt in his.
When they reached a clearing, she pulled away from him, took a deep breath and looked up at the gray, cloud-strewn sky, awash in only a modicum of pale yellow light. Her elegance and private nature never failed to stir him on an elemental level. She was so damned self-contained.
Somewhere along the way—maybe it was living in a big city with so much stimuli to block out, or maybe it came from putting on a game face for the high-society crowd she came from—she’d learned the art of withdrawing quietly into herself. Just another facet of her personality that drew him to her.
He admired the graceful way she moved and the way her mouth tipped up at the corners when she was pleased with him. He adored the way she blushed so easily at things he said or did, and the way she’d tilt her head in his direction when she was listening to him.
Face it, he told himself, making love to this woman had been a gigantic ego boost. He would never have believed a wilderness man from Bear Creek, Alaska, could attract the likes of Kay Freemont.
Somehow he’d managed to have done just that.
But soon she’d be leaving.
Leaving him alone with this empty space in his chest. Quinn didn’t like that sensation. It made him feel helpless and vulnerable. And he hated feeling unprotected.
His emotions ran deep. So deep he was afraid to explore them. What if he actually spoke the word love?
You’d get hurt, stupid. That’s what would happen.
Kay was rich, well-bred, classy. She would never move to Alaska, and the notion of him moving to New York was unfathomable. It was best not to speak of his feelings, to deny them even to himself. Despite the fact he’d spent the better part of the past two weeks trying to get her to express her feelings, he was not going to follow his own advice. His best bet was to simply live in the moment and stop thinking about the future. He’d always been good at that.
Sometime soon he’d find a wife, and he’d forget all about Kay Freemont.
Liar!
He would never forget her. Not if he lived to be a 108. She was unforgettable.
The tune played in his head and, damn, if an odd lump didn’t rise in his throat.
“You look cold,” he said to her. “Maybe we should go back.”
“Okay,” she said simply.
Then for no reason other than he wanted to nurture her, Quinn scooped her up in his arms and carried her back to the cabin. He took her upstairs to the bed and undressed her. They made love again, slow and leisurely.
Later, when he looked down into her face, he saw tears glistening in her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Sudden panic gripped him. “Did I hurt you?”
She gave him a watery smile. “Nothing,” she whispered. “I’m just so happy.”
He kissed the tears away, understanding immediately what she was feeling. Her tears tasted of her salty happiness. The happiness tinged with sorrow that this thing between them could never be more than it was right this moment.
He was the rebound guy. The tonic that gave her the strength to go forth and face the world again after being cheated on by her boyfriend. He’d served his purpose. He’d helped to heal her. That was enough.
Besides, tourist season was fast approaching, and he had a lot to do to get ready. They were adding new rafting trips to the itinerary for the cruise-ship excursions, and he had signed up to serve on the mountain-rescue squad once a week. And besides, he had a wife to find.
“I better go,” she said. “I’ve got to finish my article. I checked my voice mail, and Judy’s already left six panicked messages.”