“Cold?” he asked, and she nodded. He added another stick to make the fire hotter.
She squinted at her watch but in the uncertain light couldn’t make out the time. “What time is it?”
He must have already checked his watch, because he said, “Just after
.” They had been asleep a couple of hours, at least.
“Is it still snowing?” She was thirsty, so she sat up to take a quick sip of water, then swiftly snuggled back under the blanket.
“Yeah. There are three or four inches on the ground.”
Three or four inches wasn’t a vast amount of snow, but under the circumstances, it might as well have been a blizzard. They simply weren’t equipped to handle snow; they weren’t dressed warmly enough, plus the underlying ice made even the simplest task dangerous. And it was still snowing.
He lay back down, too, his back to her, the way they had slept in the basement, except now they weren’t cuddled together. Of course, the pad was barely wide enough for one, but there were other options.
She considered those options, wondering if she was truly ready to take such a step. She looked at the back of his head, at the shaggy dark blond hair, and the answer was a simple
yes.
Yes, she could very happily wake and see that head on the pillow beside her for the rest of her life. She wanted him. She wanted to explore the mysteries of who he was, what had made him, every complicated detail of him. She wanted to make love with him, laugh with him, share her life with him. Whether he was interested in taking on a widow with two children was something she would have to find out, but she knew he was interested in her on at least one basic level.
“
That was all. He rolled over and looked at her, his gaze crystal clear and direct. The moment stretched between them, a fine tension pulling tight every muscle in her body, which was humming with a need that silently asked and was answered.
He tossed aside his blanket and crouched beside her, reaching under her blanket to peel the silk long johns and underwear down her legs and place them on top of the piles of gear. Her sudden nakedness made her heart thunder in her chest, made her clench her legs together to contain the sudden jolt of heat and sensation. Abruptly she felt so aroused she was afraid she might come at his first touch. She didn’t want that, she wanted to feel him inside her, feel the deliciousness of hard strokes that built and built until she couldn’t take any more and broke.
On his knees beside her, he unfastened his pants and pushed them down. His penis thrust up and out, blue veins prominent and the head dark with engorged blood. She reached out to grasp him, and he caught her hand, the move so fast she saw only a blur. “No.” His eyes were narrow as he lifted the blanket and moved on top of her, kneeing her clenched thighs apart and pushing his hips between them. “I’ve waited so long to make love to you; I don’t want to come in your hand.”
She knew, oh, she knew. She wanted to relax but she couldn’t, her entire body was coiled and tense. Her legs clamped around him, pulling him to her. Her hips lifted, seeking, but the angle was wrong and his erection was a stiff rod between them, pushing and making her gasp with pain. He fought her grip, levering himself away far enough to get his hand between them while she desperately tried to pull him back.
“Jesus,” he said between clenched teeth. “Cate—God! Let me—” He dragged the head of his penis into place and worked it inside her, then pushed hard.
She heard herself taking ragged breaths, almost sobbing. It hurt. She was surprised by how much it hurt. She was wet and aroused, but almost locked with tension. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to buck him off and be rid of this hot, full, stretched sensation, and at the same time she wanted him to thrust hard and fast until this horrible tension was gone and she could relax again. Her fingers dug into his back, found his muscles as tight as hers.
He was sucking in deep breaths, too, his entire body shaking as if he were straining against some irresistible force. She turned her head and saw his fingers sunk into the web of branches beneath the pad, the muscles in his forearm standing out and quivering.
He made a raw sound, and pressed his forehead against hers. “If I move, I’ll come.”
If he didn’t move, she would die.
They strained against each other, desperately fighting to control the savage urgency that gripped them. She whimpered, feeling as if she’d been caught in some great vortex that was about to tear her to pieces, whirling her closer and closer to some unbearable destruction. She gave a small scream and her inner muscles clamped convulsively around him. Her sight dimmed, the world went away, and she began coming.
His control broke and he braced over her, his whole body surging, flexing, thrusting, pushing so deep she screamed again. He shook with the force of his climax, shook and cursed and groaned so harshly the sounds seemed to tear from his chest.
Slowly, so slowly, he collapsed onto her.
She became aware that he was incredibly heavy, for someone who looked so lean. And he was hot, his body heat counteracting the frigid air creeping into their little enclosure. She was still clutching at his back, and she forced her hands to relax. They slid down his back, brushed over the smoothness of his bare buttocks.
Her cheeks were wet. She didn’t know why she was crying, and she really wasn’t; she was gasping for breath and trying to slow her galloping heartbeat, but the tears kept leaking from her eyes. He kissed them away, nuzzled her temples, her jawline, and finally settled on her mouth. She felt the stickiness of his semen leaking out of her, but he didn’t withdraw even though she could tell that he’d softened. Staying inside her saved time.
The second time was much, much slower. She came again, but though he got hard, he couldn’t climax, and he didn’t seem to care. He just kept moving against her like the ripple of wind on a lake, riding her to a third climax before she begged him to stop. She was going to be sore and she suspected he would be, too, but still she hated that moment when their flesh separated, and she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out in protest.
They managed to clean up, using some of the bottled water; then he pulled up his pants and with a groan collapsed back onto the sleep pad, pulling her down on top of him. With both blankets over them and sharing their body heat, she was much warmer than before and quickly dozed off, to waken when he shifted beneath her.
She touched his face, loving the stubble that scraped her palm, loving, too, the way he pressed a light kiss to her palm before closing his eyes again.
“You stopped blushing,” she murmured, tracing her fingertip over the curve of his upper lip. Suddenly the subject seemed important. “Why did you stop blushing?”
He opened his eyes, his gaze steady on her face. “Because you started.”
She
had
blushed around him lately; she’d been so confused by the abrupt change in her feelings for him that she’d felt completely unbalanced.
“When you moved here,” he said, “I knew you weren’t ready.” His quiet voice wrapped around her like a touch. The snow outside had muted all other sounds except the gentle crackling of the fire, and his voice. “You were still in shock from losing your husband, still grieving. You had a wall around you that didn’t let you see me as a man.”
“I saw you,” she protested. “You just seemed so shy—”
A faint smile quirked his lips. “Yeah. The whole town got a kick out of watching me blush and stammer like a schoolkid when you were anywhere around.”
“But that was—From the very beginning? Three years ago?” She was surprised. No, she was astounded, and completely shocked. She couldn’t have been so totally oblivious, so blind to something a thirteen-year-old would have noticed.
“From the first time I saw you.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” She felt indignant that everyone else knew and she’d been completely in the dark.
“You weren’t ready,” he repeated. “There were only two men you addressed as ‘mister’—Creed and me. Think about it.”
She didn’t have to think about it. The truth was there like a highway billboard. They were the only two truly eligible men in Trail Stop—Gordon Moon didn’t count—and she had firmly put them at a distance.
“When you called me by my first name, I knew the wall was down,” he said, lifting his head to kiss her.
“
Everyone
knew.” She couldn’t get over that.
“Not only that—uh—I guess I have another confession. Your house didn’t need that much work. They would sabotage it, do things like cutting a wire or loosening a pipe fitting so you’d have a leak, just to throw us together. They thought it was funny to watch me fall all over myself if you spoke to me.”
She stared at him, trying to decide whether she should laugh or get angry. “But—but,” she sputtered.
“I could take it.” He smiled at her. “I’m a patient man. And they were doing what they could to get us together. They didn’t want to lose a good handyman.”
Okay, now she was completely at sea. “Why would they lose you?”
“I’d been out of the Marines a month when you came to Trail Stop. I was cruising around the country, not sure what I wanted to do, and I came to visit Creed. He was my commanding officer in the Corps, and we became friends. He got out…oh, eight years ago, I guess, and I hadn’t seen him since, so I looked him up. I’d been here a couple of weeks and was getting ready to move on when you moved in. I saw you, and stayed. Simple as that.”
What was simple about it? “I thought you lived here! I thought you’d been here for years!” She was almost wailing, though she didn’t know why, other than because she felt like such an idiot.
“Nope. I’ve been here two weeks longer than you.”
She stared down at the tender expression in his eyes, saw the toughness and completeness of him as a man, the utter strength, and she wanted to weep. She opened her mouth, intending to say something important and meaningful, but the words that came out were neither.
“But I have a mouth like a duck!”
He blinked, and in complete seriousness said, “I like ducks.”
THEY WERE LYING ON THEIR SIDES FACING EACH OTHER, talking and kissing, letting the newfound sense of familiarity settle in. There was nothing they could do at the moment about the situation in Trail Stop, nowhere they could go. Snow was still coming down, but here, in this hole in the ground, there was light and warmth and a sense of completion. They couldn’t stop touching each other, each led by the desire to absorb as much detail as possible of the other.
Some scars might have bothered her, but not that particular one, because it meant she had two living sons. Cate put her hand over his, loving the tough, sinewy strength that could touch her so gently. “C-section. I carried the boys until eighteen days short of their due date, which is good with twins, but then I went into labor. As it progressed, the first twin, Tucker, went into fetal distress. His umbilical cord was caught. The C-section saved his life.”
“Yes to both questions.” She chuckled. “You’ve known Tucker most of his life. He’s been pedal-to-the-metal from the day he was born.”
“He is that,”
“Mimi shoulda watched me better!”
Cate had to laugh. “Not one of his finer moments, I admit. I’ve been so terrified since Derek died, afraid I wouldn’t do a good job raising them, afraid I couldn’t support them. Since our good neighbors were ‘helping’ you by sabotaging my house, I was actually considering cutting expenses by offering you free room and board in exchange for repairs.”
He laughed, too, shaking his head. “That’s the same deal I have with Neenah. Well, not the food. Food
was
part of the offer, right?”
“It was, but now I know the truth.” She kissed him, reveling in her freedom to do so. “You’ll do my repairs for free anyway, won’t you?”
“Depends. I prefer trade.” He moved his hand down to her butt, squeezing it to let her know just what sort of trade he preferred.
Something curious occurred to her. “Just how
did
you learn how to do all those repairs? You’d just got out of the Marines.”
He shrugged. “I’m just good with my hands, I guess. I signed up on my seventeenth birthday—”
“Seventeen!” She was horrified. Seventeen was…seventeen was a
baby
.
“Well, I finished high school when I was sixteen, and nobody wanted to hire a sixteen-year-old full-time. I didn’t want to go to college because I was too young to fit in. I didn’t fit anywhere, except the Marines. I got a degree in electrical engineering while I was in, plus I’m a master mechanic, and, hell, anyone can hammer some nails and slap on paint. What’s so hard about it? I’m reading up now on how to reenamel an old tub. What?”
He didn’t get it, she thought. He truly didn’t get it. She kissed him again. “Nothing. Just that you’re the handiest handyman I’ve ever met.”
“It’s not like jobs are thick on the ground in Trail Stop, and I knew I’d never see you if I went off to work somewhere and came home only at night. Besides, I like being my own boss.”
She knew what he meant. As stressful as it was being out on her own, at the same time, owning the bed-and-breakfast, and sinking or swimming by her own effort, was particularly satisfying.
He lifted his head, looking a little concerned. “Would it bother you, being married to a handyman?”
Marry.
There it was, the big word, the Big M. She had barely gotten her mind around being in love with him, and he was already moving to the next step. To him, though, this was nothing new; he’d spent the last three years getting accustomed to the idea. “You want to marry me?” she squeaked.
“I didn’t wait three years for you just for sex,” he pointed out with stunning practicality. “I want the whole enchilada. You, the twins, marriage, at least one kid of our own,
and
sex.”