Cat wondered just where Rory was taking her as he led her past the lake where he’d gone fishing that morning, through several yards of dense woods, and over a small pond and narrow stream. Eventually they reached an area where another cabin sat in the clearing.
It was obvious the place was in need of repairs, but where it was positioned provided a panoramic view of the mountains that loomed in the distance. It was a breathtaking sight, a perfect spot.
“Well, what you do think?” Rory asked, smiling.
The expression on his face was one of joy, accomplishment, and satisfaction—those were emotions a high achiever like Cat could easily recognize. Therefore she knew the answer to the question she was about to ask but inquired anyway. “Who does it belong to?”
“It’s mine. I bought it a couple of months ago. I’ve had my eye on it for a long time and thought it would never go on the market, but it finally did. The original owner, who was a friend of Peyton’s parents, died last year, and it took his siblings a long time to decide what to do with it.”
“Congratulations, Rory. That’s wonderful, and the view is beautiful from here.”
Rory placed his arms around her waist, bringing her closer, to him. “I think so, too. The time I spent in this area with Peyton made me want a place around here of my own. Come on and let me show you around.”
They spent the next hour or so walking around his property. He gave her a tour of the inside of the cabin and pointed out things he planned to do, changes he intended to make in the future.
When they came to the stream, Cat looked around, and her mind went into daydream mode. An image of a small child wading in the stream suddenly filled her thoughts. Her and Rory’s child. The image was so vivid and clear that it almost took her breath away.
“Cat, are you all right?” Rory asked, studying her.
She turned and looked at him. “I know this might sound crazy, but in my mind I envisioned a little boy playing in this stream. He was your child.” She decided not to mention the fact that she’d imagined him as being her son, too.
His lips curved, and for one long moment he met her gaze and didn’t say anything. Then he said, “That’s a possibility if I’m not too old to enjoy a child, but right now marriage and children are the farthest things from my mind. My top priority is expanding my business and getting this place livable, which means this will take up a lot of my time. I’m glad you’ll understand.”
She blinked. She had clearly missed something. “I’ll understand what?”
“The weekends when I’ll be away, working out here. It would be too much to ask for you to be inconvenienced while I accomplish the goal I’ve set of getting this place right before the summer.”
“When you’re out here working, where do you sleep? Back at Peyton and Lisa’s cabin?”
“No, it would be too time consuming and too much of a hassle coming back and forth through the woods with all the supplies that I have to bring with me. Usually I use one of the company trucks to haul my supplies and rent one of those pop-up campers to hook behind it. And I’ve gotten pretty good at putting up a tent.”
The thought of sleeping in a tent with him outdoors and under the stars sounded truly romantic, and there was no need to wonder why he assumed she wouldn’t want to share such an adventure with him. He’d made such a suggestion in the past, and she had turned him down. She sighed deeply, thinking that this weekend with him had definitely been an eye-opener of just how much she had taken for granted … as well as just how much she had lost.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to take an inventory of the things I’m going to need the next time I’m here to work on this place,” he said.
“No, I don’t mind.” She watched as he took a small writing pad out of his back pocket and begin jotting stuff down. Although he had brought her here and had shown her what seemed to be something that was very important to him, for some reason she felt as if she was being excluded from this part of his life. Before their breakup, he had shared practically everything with her, but that was when he’d had marriage on his mind and thought what they’d shared was forever.
She thought of her earlier vision and smiled. At that moment, she decided on a new goal and intended to do whatever it took to make her vision come true.
* * *
It was late afternoon when they returned to the cabin.
“Do you want to sit on the back porch, watch the stars, and eat a bowl of popcorn?”
The back porch was screened in to keep out pesky mosquitoes, and it provided a perfect view of the mountains and the lake. Last night they had sat outside on the front porch when the weather had been fine, but tonight there was a distinct drop in the temperature. “Sitting outdoors in the cold doesn’t exactly turn me on. How will I stay warm?”
He met her gaze. “I’ll keep you warm.” The look in his eyes promised more than just his warmth.
“Now, the thought of that does turn me on,” she said as her lips curved into a smile.
“Good. Let’s go inside and take care of that popcorn.”
An hour or so later they lay curled up together on the daybed under several blankets, eating popcorn and watching the stars. It was a beautiful night, and good at his word, Rory was keeping her warm. His body was generating plenty of heat, in more ways than one. The rush of sensations that just being near him evoked was hot, and the only time she experienced such intensity was when she was with him.
“What time will you leave tomorrow?” he asked.
His question reminded her that tomorrow would be their last day at the cabin. “I’d like to leave as late as possible,” she said honestly. “I love it here.” She shifted positions and turned in his arms. “What time are you leaving?”
He leaned over and caressed her cheek. “Not until after you do. I want to spend every moment that I can with you.”
“Oh, Rory,” she whispered, touched by his words. She framed his face with her hands and at that moment, nothing could stop her from kissing him. Desire rose within her instantly, and she slipped her tongue into his mouth. He automatically took control, eagerly, hungrily making a need within her pound like a physical ache.
He pulled her to him, letting his hand caress her bottom, molding her to him, and then his hands moved to slip under her blouse and close over her breasts, stroking them lightly.
“Rory.” His name was again whispered from her lips, and she shuddered from his touch.
“Come on, baby. Let’s go inside and heat up the place.”
* * *
The moment Rory closed the door behind them, he pulled her into his arms and began kissing her like tomorrow didn’t exist.
And maybe it didn’t.
She knew that the affair he had offered her that first night was totally unacceptable. There was no way that she could share a “no strings attached, no expectations” type of relationship with him. She wanted attachment; she wanted expectations. Point blank, she wanted him as a permanent fixture in her life, but he didn’t want her in the same way, which was no one’s fault but hers. The reality of that meant that this weekend would be all they had together. He might not know it yet, but he would before she left tomorrow.
Not wanting to dwell on what she would be losing, she turned her complete attention back to Rory and everything he was doing to her. She really had no choice. He was a master at creating desire within her, igniting emotions and pleasing her beyond her wildest dreams. He was her Mr. Satisfaction. Only he could drive her to the point of no return, and as always, she was a willing participant.
Rory felt his control slipping as he carried Cat into the bedroom. Tomorrow would be their last day at the cabin, and he should be telling her the truth instead of making love to her, but a part of him still wasn’t sure just what Cat wanted. He knew he had said things to make her think, but had it been effective? Did she actually believe him when he’d said that he wanted only a “no strings attached and no expectations” relationship? And if so, would she fight for something more or accept whatever?
Dammit, he wanted her to fight, come out kicking and screaming that that wasn’t what she wanted and he could take his offer and shove it. So far, she wasn’t doing that, which made him think she was okay with his offer. He didn’t like the thought.
He clenched his jaw in disappointment, knowing she would leave tomorrow, willingly accepting a noncommitted relationship between them.
“Rory, I want you.”
She wanted him. Never had she said that she loved him. He’d just assumed, like a lot of people, that she had. But now he wasn’t sure. He needed to hear it but doubted that he ever would. “And I want you, too,” he whispered as he placed her on the bed.
He had told her he loved her that last night, and she’d told him she didn’t want his love. But if she only knew just how much he wanted hers. For him, love, wanting, and desire were tied into one. Each time he made love to her, he was loving her. Each time he kissed her, he was loving her. For him, love extended to the physical as well as the emotional.
And tonight he wanted to take the physical as far as he could. He wanted to make her want him as much as he wanted her. He wanted to make her love him as much as he loved her.
He told himself to slow down when he began removing her clothes, but he didn’t want to slow down. There was an urgency that was driving him, making him impatient, sexually aroused to the point where he had to be inside her. The hungry heat that was accumulating in his gut was almost driving him to the edge.
Once he had removed all her clothes, he tackled the chore of removing his own. In no time, he was standing by the bed totally naked. “Ready or not, baby, here I come,” he said huskily, climbing back on the bed.
“How many times … will you come?” she asked softly, stretching back, shifting her hips and giving him a good view of the area between her legs.
“I’ll come as many times as you want.”
“Promise?
“Hell yeah.” And then he leaned over and kissed her with wild abandon, a primitive need.
Cat kissed him back with the same urgency, desire, and exigency. It was as if something within her snapped, and with a strength she didn’t know she had, she lifted her body, shifted, and pushed him down in the bed beneath her. She looked down at him, saw his surprised expression, and gave him a heated grin.
“That was some move.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet, Mr. Dawkins.”
And then she leaned over and kissed him, in all the ways he had ever kissed her. She heard him moan. Or then again, it may have been a growl. Either one was acceptable, as her tongue continued to take charge of his. Deciding that her fingers weren’t busy enough, she reached down and grabbed hold of him and felt his entire body tense when she did so. But she intended to keep his mind occupied with their kiss and move things up a notch and let her tongue wallow in the wet heat of his mouth. And when she heard him moan again, she knew she had succeeded.
Now for taking care of what was down south, her fingers gripped his hardness, his bare flesh, and gently squeezed, loving the feel of the thick width, texture, and length of him. He shuddered in her mouth, and the sensations that act evoked made the womanhood between her legs pulse. But she knew her satisfaction would come later. Right now she just wanted to concentrate on his.
She released his mouth, kissed the side of his neck, then went to his chest and licked the flat nipples until they hardened. She heard the growl in his chest as she moved her mouth lower, wanting to do something to him that she had never done before.
When he realized what she was about to do, he grabbed hold of her shoulders to stop her. She lifted her head and smiled. “No, I want to do this. I need to do this. Let me.”
He held her gaze for a long moment, then leaned upward and gave her a gentle kiss on her lips, and the moment his lips touched hers, she knew he was giving her his consent. She tightened her hold on him and smiled at his sudden sharp intake of breath.
Unbearable pleasure rose inside Cat as she began placing kisses on the hard plane of Rory’s stomach, slowly working her way lower. She felt his fingers tightly grip her shoulders when she moved closer and breathed on his rigid shaft. And when she took him into her mouth, she felt his body shift, his hips lift, and a low, primal sound escape his lips.
And then she let her mouth go to work, kissing him in a way she had never kissed another man, letting her mouth pleasure a part of him that had given her so much pleasure.
“You got to stop,” he whispered huskily.
She shook her head.
A tortured cry was wrung from him. “You’re killing me.”
She didn’t stop what she was doing. The erotic frisson of mouth and tongue had him moaning words she’d never heard out of him before.
“Why? Why are you doing this?” he forced out between choppy breaths.
She pulled back, licked her lips, and looked at him. Cat knew at that moment she had to tell him the truth. “Because I love you.”
He stared at her; the intensity of his gaze made her tremble, and before she could blink, he had leaned forward, flipped her over, shifted her body beneath his, and spread open her legs. And before she could draw her next breath, he thrust inside her.
“Rory!”
Her body shattered into a climax the moment he entered her, but he kept thrusting in and out, extracting another orgasm out of her. And then another. Spasm after spasm racked her body, and all she could do was tremble as wave after wave of pleasure hit her, took her under.
“Cat!”
It seemed those same waves were carrying Rory under, and with one final thrust, he exploded deep within her. And the one thing that stood out in his mind as his body rode the sensation was that the woman he loved had told him she loved him.
* * *
Several moments passed before Rory felt air fill his lungs again. Shifting his body off Cat, he rolled over to the side then leaned down and gave her a slow smile. “Did you mean what you said?”
She knew exactly what he was asking. “Yes, I meant it.”
He kissed her gently. “You don’t know how much I needed to hear that. You’ve never said that before.”
She reached up and wiped sweat off his forehead with her fingertips and said, “Then maybe I should have. It would probably have saved me a lot of pain and heartache the past twelve months.”
“There’s something I need to say. Something you should know.”
Something inside Cat panicked. If he was going to tell her that he was sorry but he didn’t love her, she didn’t want to hear it right now. “Please, let’s not talk anymore. Could we just savor the moment? We can talk in the morning. I want tonight for action and not talking.”
He stared at her, and a smile creased his lips. “Whatever you want, sweetheart.”
“Okay,” she said, pushing him back and crawling over him. “I want to be on top this time.”