Out of Bounds (14 page)

Celeste
certainly
thinks
so.

“A valid argument.”

She hadn’t been expecting him to agree with her. It took the pressure off and allowed her confidence to build. She could put herself completely at his mercy, but he wasn’t insisting.

She rose and fell, moving faster and faster. She ignored the burning in her thighs and used his shoulders to keep her balance. He kept his hands on her hips, guiding her as he began to lift up off the seat to meet every downward plunge. His jaw was clenched, but he held back, waiting for her to peak. The moment she did, he growled and took control of the pace.

He stood and pressed her up against the wall and drove his cock into her body with a hard rhythm. She hadn’t finished when he started to come. For a moment she was caught in the storm of sensation, held completely within its grasp. Once it ebbed, she felt completely spent. Standing was even questionable.

Tarak held her up and they both showered again.

“Your water bill is going to be outrageous.”

“It’s all snow melt. There are no city utilities here. Most of the homes up here have outhouses, and you’d better remember to take a rifle with you because there are bears.”

“Charming.”

He shut off the shower and offered her a towel. The moment the warm water stopped flowing, she hurried closer to the fireplace. The tiles had indeed warmed up, and she smiled as she wiggled her toes. A phone started buzzing in the office set off to the other side of the master bedroom.

Of course he had an office next to his bedroom.

“The closet on the right is yours. Make a list of anything you need.”

Tarak tucked a towel around his waist and braved the chill beyond the bathroom. For a moment she felt abandoned.

Please…

She shook it off, determined not to act like a lost little girl. Tarak answered the call, his deep voice poised and professional.

Well, whoever was on the other end of the line didn’t know he was only wearing a towel.

That little bit of knowledge restored her confidence. He wasn’t a man who let distractions into his private space. Their breakfast conversation made it clear she was the only woman he’d had in the cabin, and that spoke volumes about how deep his own feelings ran—even if she was unsure about just what feelings she harbored for him.

Well, she was there to discover the answer.

Sabra turned to look at the other side of the bathroom. A huge full-length mirror was capped on each side with doorways. She headed for the right side and the lights came on the moment she crossed the threshold.

It was a woman’s dream. The closet was bigger than her master bedroom. There were drawers and closet space and shoe racks and storage-space shelving. More than a dozen garments were hung up and she looked through them.

All
right, the professional shopper did know her stuff
. Most of the garments would fit her and they were also in flattering cuts for her figure. She opened one of the drawers and looked at the bras. Sabra couldn’t help but smile at the multitude of sizes. It took a woman to understand how tricky bra sizing was.

She selected one that was right and tried it on. Another drawer yielded underwear, and just like the bras, there was a selection of styles and sizes. Turning around, she tried to decide what to wear. There were soft, comfortable-looking tunics and leggings. A yawn caught her off guard as jet lag began to take its revenge. She tossed the bra back in the drawer and grabbed sweat pants and a T-shirt.

Back in the bathroom, she found a drawer full of toiletries. A quick pass with a hairbrush and toothbrush and she was wandering back into the master bedroom. Tarak was talking on the phone somewhere beyond the master bedroom double doorway.

She yawned again but hesitated before she surrendered to the need to lie down.

I’ve had sex with the guy like a dozen times!

Yeah, but there was still something very intimate about crawling into his bed.

It was a really nice bed though.

The sheets were flannel and cozy. The pillows were soft and plentiful. She pushed the comforters around and smelled one to discover they were silk filled. She smiled as she drifted off into sleep, happy to know she wouldn’t need an allergy med because they were goose down.

Tarak had enough of an effect on her; the man didn’t need to see her with a swollen nose.

***

Someone was holding her.

Sabra surfaced from sleep to wonder who had his arm draped around her waist.

Kevin wasn’t a snuggler.

But it felt really good. She turned and inhaled the scent of his skin, sighing when she recognized Tarak. She wasn’t really awake, didn’t want to be, but she wanted to feel him holding her. He pulled her closer and inhaled the scent of her hair. He tangled his legs with hers as he settled into the bed. Her cheek ended up against his chest and the beat of his heart filled her head.

Now this was something more.

***

Her cell phone woke her.

It began playing the opening song from
Ride
of
the
Valkyries
from where she’d left her purse on top of her bag. Sabra sat up but bumped into someone on the way, smacking her head on Tarak’s chin and cussing.

“Exactly,” he agreed.

She covered her mouth like a kid. He rubbed a hand over his jaw and glared at her.

“So you cuss. I do too,” Tarak observed in a groggy voice.

Her phone had stopped but it started up again. “That’s my dad. I forgot to call him.” She looked at the clock. “Yesterday,” she groaned.

“You were out like a light.”

Tarak flipped the bedding back and walked over to her purse. He tossed her cell phone to her and headed into the bathroom. The sink faucet started running a moment later.

She drew her finger across the screen and pushed the redial.

“About time you answered.”

“Hey, Dad. Sorry.”

“You sound half awake.” Her dad honed in on the sound of her voice. “It’s past eleven.”

“I’m in a different time zone. It’s only eight here.”

“Is that so?” her father mused. “Now I know I’ve got a bad heart, but I don’t remember being senile.”

“You’re not, Dad. It was a very last-minute thing. I’m in Alaska at the Nektosha testing facility.” She tried to make it sound completely work related.

“Celeste might have mentioned something about that.”

Her cover was totally blown.

“Dad—”

“Don’t use that tone, Sabra Sunshine,” her father reprimanded her with his favorite nickname from her childhood. It was worse than her middle name because when he called her Sabra Sunshine, he was worried.

She hated worrying her daddy. “I’m fine.”

“Don’t tell me fish stories. I know a thing or two about falling hard for someone who is out of your category in life.”

“I know you do, but I need to see this through.”

There was a parental grunt of doubt on the other end of the line.

“Really, Daddy, I want to see if there is more to this.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “All right, Princess Sunshine. Just remember, call me anytime you need a plane ticket home. I want your word that you will get yourself to an airport and call me if there’s a problem.”

“I promise, but only if you tell me what the second doctor says about your heart.”

“Damn. You’re just like your old man,” her father grumbled.

“Take it or leave it,” Sabra warned. “But I think it’s fair to warn you that Celeste spills information my way too.”

“Damn,” her father grunted. “It’s a deal.”

“You’ll tell me, as soon as you know?” she clarified.

“Yes. You nosy child.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

She pushed the end button and looked up. Tarak was leaning in the doorway. He had a grin on his lips that looked almost bemused, until she looked at the rest of him. Every inch of him was solid and hard and completely bare. His expression tightened, darkening with hunger, but he held back.

“Get some jeans on. I’ve got something to show you, Sabra.”

“I like what you’re showing me right now.” His cock looked delicious.

His eyes narrowed. “Flatterer. Get dressed. It’s important, and I cleared my morning so we could spend it together.”

“Okay, I feel special.”

He shrugged but denied her any further details. She found jeans in the closet and cozy, squishy socks to keep her toes warm. Once she was dressed, she went back to the mudroom and put her snow pants on.

“Where are we going?”

He finished knotting his boot lace and offered her an unreadable expression.

“To my past.”

***

“The snow will be melting soon.”

Tarak was driving this time. The front of the Terrain Tank was a feast for her inner child. There was an interactive touch screen computer with access to the conditions around them.

“Damned storm rolled in right after I got here and made me wait to get you here.”

She turned to stare at him.

“I told you I couldn’t stop thinking about you, Sabra. I wanted you up here Tuesday.”

“You could have called.”

He was keeping his attention on the road, but she saw his knuckles turning white.

“I should have,” he admitted at last. “It was a risk I wasn’t willing to expose myself to. I wanted to see if you went back to Kevin.”

It was an admission.

“You have trust issues.”

He cut her a quick glance, but it was enough to curl her toes. There was a current between them, one that was so intense it shocked them both whenever they were close.

Neither of them was comfortable with it though.

The road was bumpy, but the Terrain Tank crawled through it like sand. The snow crunched but the sky was clear. The forest ahead of them had lots of trees which had already lost their coating of snow. The temperature displayed on the dash computer was a nice round forty degrees.

“It’s beautiful up here.”

He turned and grinned at her as though she were telling him his favorite spot could become hers as well. They drove on, passing trucks and other four-wheel-drive vehicles. Along the side of the road, teams of dogs pulled a sled by every so often, the dogs yelping as they ran through the two-foot-high snow.

“But it is sort of killing my ideas that puppies go with grass.”

He chuckled. “You might not want to say that around the locals. They take those dogs up onto the glaciers during the summer months to train them for the Iditarod. Most of them were born up on the ice.”

That explained the happy expressions on the dogs’ faces. Okay, maybe that was a stretch, but the dogs did look as though they were having fun. The few stopped sleds she saw had dogs that howled and pawed at the ground eagerly.

“Will it paint an ‘outsider’ label on my forehead?”

“Something like that.” He turned off the main road and the snow started crunching beneath the oversized tires again. “Don’t ask me how I know that.”

“That’s right, you said you were reservation raised. You mean the one in—”

“Arizona,” he finished with his attention solidly on the road. It was little more than a lane cut through the wilderness, and the forest wasn’t too keen on it. Young saplings were growing up on the sides of the road, trying to cover the cleared ground.

They kept going, and the grade increased, but the Terrain Tank handled it with ease.

“I’m beginning to see why you make these kinds of vehicles.”

“You’re actually spot on,” he answered. “Once I had the money to choose what I wanted to do with my life, I looked around for a need people would pay to fulfill. Around here, that’s rough and tough equipment that can take the environment on and keep going.”

“Like you.” It just slipped out, but she wasn’t sorry, because his reaction pleased her. His lips twitched up before he made a sharp turn and headed up an even narrower road.

“It’s been a while since I came up here.” His voice had become pensive. “Even longer since I wanted to share it with anyone.”

In the distance, the trees thinned out. Tarak headed for a huge clearing that had what looked like a ghost town from some Western movie in it. Piles of dirt and rock were covered with melting snow. A long conveyer belt ran along one side of the clearing, a broken-down earthmover sitting next to a pile of dirt near it. A few old buildings completed the site, the tin roofing rusted.

He pulled up and cut the engine. For a long moment, he gripped the steering wheel and stared at the earthmover.

“Liluye was Apache. She sold my ring and married another member of the tribe. “

Horror choked her for a moment. “What a cold-hearted bitch. But it explains the trust issues.”

“It was also a source of shame for her family.” He opened the door and climbed out. He stopped and pulled a rifle from the backseat and took a moment to make sure it was loaded. He looked up to see her watching him uncertainly.

“There’s some big wildlife up here in Alaska. If you’re staying, you’re going to have to learn how to fire one of these.”

“My dad taught me how to use a firearm.”

He gave her a skeptical look.

Sabra pushed her own door open and joined him in front of the Terrain Tank. He’d slung the rifle over his shoulder before he looked at the quiet buildings. But to him, they weren’t silent. She could see him listening to his memories as he looked around.

“This was a worn-out gold mine that Liluye’s grandfather owned. When we were growing up, he’d sit around and tell us about all the gold he was going to dig out of this ground when he got back up here. He always made an excuse to avoid doing that.”

Tarak began walking beside the long conveyer belt. The snow crunched under Sabra’s boots as she kept up.

“The whole family wanted me to disappear. They gave my name to military recruiters, but I wasn’t interested.” He stopped when they could see the roof of a small cabin. It was set up on pillars with a small, rough plank porch. The door was just as primitive looking.

“Her grandfather finally summoned me, and that meant I couldn’t ignore him, because he was my elder. Nartan went with me to see him. You might remember him from Angelino’s. We’re like brothers.”