She withdrew her hand, her fingers gripping the key tightly, her breath stuck in her throat.
You’re really doing this, Anna? Really really?
She slipped the key into the lock and, closing her eyes for a split second, pushed the door open.
Joseph watched the woman from the lodge step through the doorway into the hut. He stood frozen, not from the sinking temperature of the winter air, but from sheer, dumbstruck cowardice.
A threesome.
He’d never had one before. Rob had. More than once Rob had ended up in a bed that wasn’t his own with two women. Tonight wasn’t two women though. Tonight was him, Rob and a woman he’d been attracted to the second he’d seen her in the lodge last night.
He couldn’t do it.
He slid his stare to his best mate. Rob leant one shoulder against the doorjamb, studying him. He knew there’d be no contact between them both. Without saying it, there wasn’t any doubt about that. They were both strictly hetero, even if they did love each other as only mates could. And he’d been starkers around Rob too many times to be hung up about what his friend thought of him standing so near without any clothes on. But this…
Is it really Rob you’re worried about, Hudson?
No, it wasn’t. He’d never been one for one-night stands. Sex was too…too—fuck—too personal. It was a connection of more than just body. What if he couldn’t…what if it didn’t…
A jerking spasm in his pants made him snort out a quick laugh. Okay, that answered that question. He was as hard as ever. His dick strained against the lining of his snow pants with such insistent force he was surprised it didn’t tear the material. He’d sported an erection almost as hard this morning in the cafeteria just
watching
the woman now inside the hut. The thought he might actually touch her, hold her, make love to…
He drew in another breath, his lungs burning as icy air streamed into his body. His balls rose high and he knew they were firm and swollen. Ready.
Bloody hell, he wished he was back in Australia. Listening to the company’s insurance director drone on again.
No, you don’t.
He stared at his best mate, mouth dry.
Rob cocked an eyebrow. “Do I need to say it, Hudo?”
He shook his head. “Don’t.”
For a moment, he could almost see the words “I dare you” forming on his friend’s lips. And then a strange stillness passed over Rob’s face, an unreadable light flickered in his eyes and he nodded. A single, simple nod. “Okay. But don’t do this for me, Joseph,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically serious. “Do it for you.”
Joseph frowned, the words puzzling him. Since when had Robert Thorton ever backed down from laying down a dare? What was going on here? What was going on with Rob?
Before he could say anything, Rob gave him one of his patented grins, dimple creasing into existence on his cheek, and swiveled on his shoulder until he disappeared into the hut.
Joseph studied the doorway, dragging his hands over his face and through his hair. He pulled in a deep, slow breath. “Fuck it,” he muttered. “It’s getting cold out here anyway.”
Two steps into the cabin and he realized something wasn’t going the way he suspected.
“Shit, shit, shit.” The woman—damn, he really needed to get her name—was stamping her foot beside the tall and ancient heater in the centre of the surprisingly large cabin. She swung her foot, the toe of her boot connecting with the steel heater with a solid
thunk
.
He shot Rob a quick look, raising an eyebrow in a silent question.
Rob laughed, obviously enjoying himself. But then again, when
didn’t
Rob enjoy himself. The bloke was a walking advertisement for being high on life. “It seems we can’t get the heat on.” He paused. “Well, not
this
way anyway.”
The woman stopped her baleful glare of the uncooperative heater and turned it on Rob. “I’m about two seconds from radioing Wolf Creek command and having you taken away in cuffs, you know that, don’t you?”
Rob laughed again, zipped up his jacket and tugged his beanie from his pocket. “How ’bout I go get some wood.”
Joseph snorted before he could stop himself, the expression on Rob’s face telling him the wood his mate most eagerly sought had nothing to do with trees.
Bloody hell, Hudson. You got the mind of a teenager at the moment.
He watched his friend leave, the bang of the door closing a sudden and daunting reminder he was alone in the cabin with a woman who made his dick harder than…well, harder than wood. He shuffled his feet, feeling ridiculously stupid. “Err…”
“The emergency gas reserves seem to have evaporated,” she said, flicking her eyes at the heater beside him. “Which means the pilot light won’t ignite.”
He nodded, wishing to hell he could think of something intelligent to say. For Pete’s sake, he owned Australia’s most successful camping and outdoor equipment and supply business. He should be able to talk about pilot lights and gas heaters until the cows came home.
“Tell me, when
did
you two decide it would be a good idea to come to America to go snowboarding?”
He smiled at the abrupt and almost caustic question. Leaning his board against the wall, he slid his sleeve up his arm and looked at his watch. “About thirty-eight hours ago.”
She laughed, the first real joyful sound he’d heard from her since she’d arrived out of nowhere and led them to safety. “Thirty-eight hours.”
“Yep. We touched down and checked in last night.”
She shook her head, tugged her gloves from her hands and stuffed them into her jacket pocket. “Which tells me one or both of you has lots and lots of money. More money than sense, I’d guess.”
Joseph gave her a puzzled frown. “Why do you say that?”
“It’s peak ski season. Every room in every accommodation from here to Utah is booked out. Unless you’ve got serious dollars, there’s no way you’re getting a room with just thirty-eight hours notice.”
“Is it a problem one or both of us is loaded?”
A dawning smile stretched her lips, and his cock, still rigid in the confines of his snow pants, gave a little spasm. Damn, that was a gorgeous smile. The corners of her mouth curled first, creasing the sides of her lips just a little, before her teeth—perfectly white and even—came into view, followed by a tiny little crease just between her eyes. Eyes, he hadn’t failed to notice, a very piercing, very sexy shade of grey.
“Ahh,” she said, nodding as she moved away from the cold heater toward a bench under the shuttered window on the far wall. “That explains what loaded means.” She leant her butt against the bench and folded her arms over her breasts. Joseph felt his cock jerk again. Such a simple action, but it made him horny as a bloody dog. What would it feel like to place his hands on her breasts and cup them? Squeeze them gently?
“So, you’re the one with the money.”
Her question, delivered in the form of a statement, sent a rush of warmth to his face. He hated talking about his money. True, he had a lot of it, a bloody lot of it, but it didn’t define him.
“And Rob is the one without the sense,” she finished, the smile on her lips curling wider. She titled her head to the side, crossing her ankles in front of her. “Yeah, I can see that.”
Despite himself, Joseph grinned. His cock lurched again in his trousers, enjoying their tête-à-tête almost as much as he was. He liked her dry wit. And her accent. A drawling caress of vowels and consonants that made him wish she’d say his name.
“I guess I should ask your name,” he said, removing his own gloves and shoving them into his back pocket. “I should at least know who to address the thank you card to.”
She laughed again, and Joseph decided there and then he could seriously become addicted to the soft, throaty sound. “Anna McCarthy. Your local saver of lost Australian lunatics, yeah, that’s me.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “All Australian lunatics? Do you get many here?”
Her direct grey gaze leveled on his face, a small smile playing with her lips. Lips he wanted to kiss. Soon. Real soon. “No, you’re my first. But depending how it goes tonight, I might have to find some more to save.”
A low growl rumbled in Joseph’s chest at the idea of Anna McCarthy saving any other Australians but himself. “Hmm,” he said, “I think you’ll find saving Aussies is an exhausting, sweaty business.”
She cocked her own eyebrow, the finely arched line of dark blonde hair moving up her forehead with smooth ease. “Is it now? Then perhaps I should take it slow to start with? Saving too hard and too quickly at this altitude could be hazardous to my health, is that what you’re saying?”
Pulse pounding in his ear, dick so hard he thought it was about to explode, he held her gaze with his own. “Too hard and too fast definitely not the way to begin. Slowly, steadily. An exploration of the terrain, followed by a well-executed penetration of the area, that’s the way to begin when saving an Aussie.”
Her lips parted and Joseph could see the ragged way she drew breath into her body. “Then after the beginning it gets hard?”
He unzipped his jacket and shucked it off, placing it on the seat beside him as he took a step closer to her. “It’s already hard. Very hard.”
She swallowed. “Hard is good. I’m always up for a challenge. It’s why I like saving Aussies so much.”
“Glad to hear that,” Rob said, stepping into the cabin and swinging the door shut behind him. He looked at them both over the armful of broken branches and twigs he held against his chest. “Wait. We’re talking about sex, aren’t we?”
Chapter Three
Anna held her breath, trying—in vain, she realized—to slow her heart rate down to something close to normal. Her pussy throbbed and pulsed and generally carried on in the most disturbing of ways, telling her in no uncertain terms she was horny. Damn horny.
She swallowed again, her mouth dry, her throat thick. The sexual tension mounting between her and Joseph Hudson hadn’t abated a bit with Rob’s unexpected arrival. No, to the contrary, the moment he’d entered the cabin and made his presence known, she’d almost come there and then.
She studied both of them, knowing one of them was going to make the first move.
Joseph.
Her gaze slid to the taller man, her pulse quickening when she looked at him. Damn, he was stunning. He made Brad Pitt look ugly. Not just tall and lean, but broad shouldered and slightly scruffy, the bristles on his jaw and chin adding to the overall charm, the messy tumble of sandy-blond hair falling over his forehead heightening that charm until the crotch of her panties were sodden.
Oh boy, Anna. You got it bad already.
The loud thud of branches hitting the floor made her start, and she blinked, her gaze snapping to Rob just in time to see him remove his gloves and step over the pile of dead wood at his feet to close the distance between them. “Let me begin to show our appreciation for saving us,” he said, his fingers skimming her cheek as he cupped her jaw in his hand.
A flutter of disappointment danced in her belly for a brief moment, like a hundred butterflies had suddenly taken flight, but she forgot it as soon as Rob’s lips brushed hers.
The kiss was gentle and yet, at the same time electric. His breath mingled with hers, the tip of his tongue touching the inner edge of her bottom lip, a slow caress charting a path deeper into her mouth.
She parted her lips, meeting his tongue with hers, her nipples growing hard, her pulse racing away from her.
Oh…
She’d been kissed before. Many times, in fact. As far as looks go, she knew she’d been generously smiled upon. But there was something about the Australian’s kiss…a delicate passion she hadn’t expected. Almost sad.
The notion made her heart quicken. She moaned, the sound vibrating softly in her throat only to be swallowed by Rob’s kiss.
He slid his hands up into her hair, his fingers tangling in the strands, her ponytail preventing him from doing anything more than hold her head. It didn’t matter. At this point, the feel of his lips on hers, his tongue on hers, was enough to make her pussy weep.
“Ah, fuck.”
The growled curse scraped at the heated desire rolling through her. She pulled away from Rob’s kiss, her gaze moving to Joseph where he still stood at the chair. He stared at them both, his nostrils flaring, his jaw clenched tight.
“Think we need to get some heat happening quickly,” Rob murmured, his hands slipping from her face as he turned back to his friend.
Anna nodded, unable to find anything to say. Her body ached for more, set alight by Rob’s simple, tender kiss. And yet, it was Joseph’s hands she hungered. Joseph’s lips she wanted to taste next.
God, woman. You’re a—
The sound of Rob unzipping his jacket squashed the unsettling thought and she turned away from both of them, sucking in a long, shaking breath. Resting her hands on the bench, she stared hard at the old maps of Wolf Creek pinned to the wall before her.
Be sure you know where this is going, Anna. Be certain before you commit.
“Why Wolf Creek?” she asked, needing to hear something apart from the rustling sounds of the two men behind her moving about. She didn’t know if they were undressing, rearranging the cabin’s meager furniture or preparing to reenact the Battle of Gettysburg, although seeing as they were Australians, that was unlikely. The battle of…of…damn, did Australia even have any battles?
You’re babbling in your head. Do you know that?
“There’s a Wolf Creek in Australia,” Rob answered, his voice calm, relaxed. “Well, a Wolf Creek Crater. Thought we’d see the reverse of ours over here.”
“The snowboarding’s better here though,” Joseph continued, his voice almost a facsimile of Rob’s. Almost. “Not as rocky. Or dusty.”
Rob laughed. “Or hot.”
Hot. Anna touched her hand to her throat at the word, her skin flushed beneath her fingers. Was it hot in here? Or was it just the surreal situation she’d found herself in?
“That oughta do it.”
A dull clunk followed Rob’s statement and she turned around, surprised to find them both standing beside the heater, stripped of their jackets and holding out their palms to the heater’s flue.