Chapter Nine
After the long day of hammering nails for the Hostlers’ new animal pen and then experiencing an insane amount of tension stemming from Ryan’s attitude with her and Chad both, Livvy slumped in front of the fire with the stool at her back for support.
Ryan had insisted on going hunting once they returned to the homestead, which was ridiculous with his leg paining him. But she wasn’t going to stop him, so she’d played with the goats and set the chickens free to forage in the underbrush around the place.
Finally, she’d called it a day and taken out some of the cornbread Lynn had sent home with her in her pack and called it supper.
Dusk was descending and she shouldn’t worry about Ryan. He’d made it clear he was a big boy and didn’t need anybody worrying over him. But that didn’t stop her from doing so.
Staring into the flames, she picked out shapes there as she was taught by some African villagers long ago. Premonitions, they said. Ancestors come to warn her of bad happenings or rejoice with her in good tidings.
That was on one of her first assignments. How long ago that seemed now, how far she’d come.
The previous day, Aiden had traveled up the mountain to report that her photographs were making their way through Wyoming and people were donating everything from cash to foodstuffs to assist not only the Hostlers but homesteaders around the state. He’d also told her that some of her landscapes had sold instantly—and he’d set up an account for the money in the local bank in her name.
She relaxed against the stool and counted how many times a certain flame licked at the log in the fire. Though the mundane activity didn’t distract from what she needed to think about.
In a few weeks, she was expected in Alaska. Counting backward from the date she was due there made her realize she didn’t have much more time here. She needed a few days to get down the mountain and secure a flight.
It also meant leaving Ryan.
Last night if someone had asked her about her relationship with the rough man, she would have considered saying she was staying with him. They’d been playing houses for many days and were getting into a comfortable yet exciting rhythm.
Today he’d shown her that his thinking hadn’t really changed. He was still the solitary man who didn’t want her around, and that cut her deep.
A snap of a stick made her look up to see Ryan through the flames as he crossed the dirt yard with a brace of squirrels dangling from his belt on a string.
She didn’t get up, only waited to see what sort of mood he was in. Broody, angry or both? Or would that rare glimpse of the smiling, joking Ryan come out to play?
He took the squirrels inside and she heard him washing. He hadn’t said a single word to her, and that felt like the biggest backhand ever. It was time to gather her self-respect and leave the mountain. Sticking around for a man who didn’t want her here was plain stupid.
And Livvy prided herself on being far from stupid.
She heard the cabin door close and a quiet bootstep behind her. She didn’t turn.
When a soft stroke of a hand against her hair sent goosebumps skating over her skin, she stopped breathing. He heart thumped like she’d just been chased by the bears Ryan and Chad spoke of but she’d never seen.
“I’m sorry.” Ryan’s words came softly. He sank to the stool she leaned against, and she twisted to look up at him.
His eyes were dark pools flickering with the occasional leap of light from the fire. “Can you forgive me, sweetheart?”
Setting her teeth into her lip, she stared at him. “I don’t know what to do, Ryan. You confuse me so much. It seems you want something different from what I think you really want deep down. But maybe I’m just imagining what I think you want to suit my own desires.”
He tapped his half-hand against his injured thigh and stared over her head. In the fading light, she wondered at how much his beard had grown since just that afternoon when they’d returned to the homestead.
Silence stretched. His expression was a mask, but she could see things happening behind his eyes. Finally, he stroked her hair again. “I’m asking you to forgive me for how I acted and the things I said. I need you to forgive me, Livvy.”
Her stomach dipped at the gritty tone of his plea. How could she resist that?
She turned to him, on her knees. A noise broke from him and he pulled her up and onto his lap. Her backside had barely skimmed his hard thighs before he stood with her in his arms and carried her to the cabin.
Inside glowed with candlelight and he’d lit the wood stove so it was toasty warm. Not that she needed the heat with his big body next to hers and her own fire licking at her insides.
“Ryan…” She shook her head at the romantic gesture. Here she’d thought he was just washing his hands or taking care of the squirrels.
His only answer was to brush a gentle kiss across her lips.
The gesture set the mood along with the candles. He carried her to the bed, laid her down and started stripping her. His touch tender, his kisses growing more passionate until they were both naked and he was throbbing between her thighs, poised to enter her.
“Come to me,” she whispered, heart overflowing with emotion.
He held back, staring into her eyes for what felt like an eternity. “I need you to accept me for who I am. I—”
“I do,” she said at once. He was brave and protective and generous with his time and possessions. He might get grumpy or withdrawn at times, and she understood it better than anyone since she’d seen some of the things he’d lived through in war.
But he couldn’t take out his attitude on her or his friends. However, she’d given him a swift kick in the pants and then he’d surprised her with a romantic interlude to make it up to her. Relationships worked that way, didn’t they?
She wrapped her legs around his bulky body and drew him into her a slow inch at a time, their gazes locked all the while. When he sank completely into her, his eyelids fluttered.
“Livvy… Fuck, sweetheart.” He claimed her mouth and body simultaneously.
* * * * *
Ryan’s body was screaming for him to move. But he wanted to take it slow, dammit. Make it last.
He stared into Livvy’s eyes, shiny with desire, and withdrew slowly from her body. A soft moan left her like a slam of invitation to his muscles. No, he wasn’t going to rut like an animal and reach his roaring end in a minute like he wanted. He was going to make this good for her.
No, the best.
Skimming her hands over his shoulders, she arched up for his kiss. He kissed her with extreme slowness, winding his tongue around hers again and again until they were both panting and his cock throbbing inside her.
She tore from his kiss. “Ryan!”
He thrust back into her, doing slow pushups while watching her beautiful face contort in bliss.
God, he’d almost lost her with his harsh words and dickhead act. Deserved to, anyway. Acting like she didn’t mean anything to him at all was one of the biggest mistakes of his life other than failing to keep her one hundred percent safe from that grenade blast.
He stroked the backs of his knuckles across her fine jaw and sank into her again. He definitely didn’t deserve the way she was looking at him, though since she’d shown up on his mountain, he’d learned things about himself. With her, he was different. She brought out the best in him.
Part of him wanted to keep her by his side, to share his quiet life. But she deserved better and after her success with fundraising for homesteaders—and in such a short time—the world deserved her.
The exquisite heat of her body wrapped around his cock fired all his cylinders and he had to move or combust.
He jerked his hips. She cried out. He kissed her, she answered with a sultry moan. Each plunge of his cock had his balls clenching and his heart swelling. He had no idea what the answer was when it came to Livvy but right now, he was having his moment, something to remember on the long, cold, lonely nights when she left him.
She clutched at his shoulders, head thrashing on the pillow as her pussy clamped down on him. “Ryan… yes! I’m right there. Kiss me.”
He slammed his mouth over hers, angling his tongue deep as a throaty cry left her and her body convulsed around him. The liquid heat of her orgasm sent him rocketing to the top, his grip on control gone.
Without releasing her mouth, he churned his hips, aware of each contraction of her pussy as she continued to come.
“Fuck. I’m coming,” he growled, exploding in a series of grunts and gasps, his heart wedged somewhere around his throat.
Small shudders rippled through Livvy as he continued to slowly pump in and out of her. He didn’t want the moment to end.
Leaning upward, she brushed a kiss across his lips. Her touch was overflowing with emotion. Or maybe that was his heart.
Looking into her eyes, he found both were true.
“Livvy—”
She flattened a forefinger over his lips, hushing him. “Don’t talk. Not tonight.”
His heart flipped as he took her meaning. We’ll deal with what’s to come tomorrow. Let’s have one more night.
Wrapping her tight to his chest, he rolled to settle her atop him and began seducing her all over again. One night would never be enough and after acting the way he had, he didn’t deserve her long sweet kisses.
Right now, she was in his arms and willing to overlook the worst parts of him. Maybe she saw something worth fighting for, but… Hope was a useless exercise for a man like him. He lived alone, he’d die alone.
For now, he’d give her every bit of good inside himself until he could figure out how to let her go.
* * * * *
The brisk walk to the Hostlers’ homestead without Livvy felt odd. Ryan was so accustomed to her at his side, wondering at the birds flitting through the underbrush or the glimpse of elk antlers before the animal took off in the opposite direction.
Ryan’s brain was crowded with too many moments to count. His last sight of her had been in sleep, her hair in wild red waves that seemed to lick like flames over her bare shoulders, and one curvy hip had been turned upward, beckoning him to grab it. But it was best he face the Hostlers on his own.
Freckles walked at his side, and since they’d started helping the family, the trail had gotten crushed down and widened. He glanced down at the dog. “You seem to spend more time at my place than your own.”
It dawned on him that Freckles had made Ryan’s place his home and just enjoyed the visits with his first family. How had he fallen in love with a woman and a dog in the same month?
Battling the warm sensation in the vicinity of his heart, he stepped onto the Hostlers’ land. Their dog barked and Freckles took off, long legs stretching to meet her.
Chad appeared, ax in hand and wood shavings clinging to his pantlegs and boots. “Didn’t expect ya,” he said gruffly.
Ryan pushed out a breath. “Came to apologize for my behavior yesterday. It was wrong of me and I didn’t mean it. I hope you’ll overlook it and we can start again.”
Speaking the words didn’t cost him nearly as much as he thought they would. They rolled off his tongue and lightened the burden on his shoulders.
Chad brightened and thrust out a hand. Ryan took it, grasping and squeezing. They shared a smile and nod before releasing hands.
“If the offer to help at my place still stands, I’d be happy of it. When you’re ready of course. No hurry.”
Chad’s grin spread. Ryan knew the Hostlers enjoyed giving back, even if it was to share their meal or send home an extra chunk of cornbread. “Be happy to. Will you stay and have some oatmeal? Lynn’s got some on the stove and some honey and wild berries to add to it.”
Ryan shook his head. “Sounds delicious but I’d best get back. I left Livvy sleeping.”
“She’s a hard worker, your woman.”
He opened his mouth to say she wasn’t his. But in all ways that mattered, she was. She shared his hearth and his bed. She worked and played alongside him. And all he did was try to think up ways to get her to leave. What the hell was wrong with him?
“She works hard at everything she does,” Ryan said. “I’ll just stick my head in the cabin and say hello to Lynn and the boys if that’s all right.”
Chad gestured to the cabin and Ryan did that, somehow waving off Lynn’s hospitality to have a cup of coffee and some breakfast and avoiding the boys’ excited chatter.
After he was deep in the woods on the trail home again, Ryan picked up on some bear sign. Nothing unusual. But the closer he got to his homestead the more it made him nervous. Why? He’d seen bears around here all year long, had known when he staked his claim on this part of the mountain that he’d be sharing the land with the animals that had lived there first.
Because he also found evidence that Livvy had just walked through this direction too, on her way to the edge where she could sit and meditate or take photographs of the sun rising over the land.
Ryan placed his feet in her tracks and let her lead him to her. He threw out his hearing, listening for her steps or the rustling of bushes as she walked through. But he heard a soft mewling noise that could only come from Livvy.
He rounded a bend in the path and spotted her, crouching, staring at something hidden among the leaves. He couldn’t make out what it was but Livvy’s camera wasn’t at the ready, which he found unnerving.
Heart pounding, he opened his mouth to call out to her, but just then a small nose poked out of the bush Livvy was staring at.
She spoke softly, and the animal thrashed a bit.
It was trapped somehow, feet entangled in the underbrush, maybe in some vines or jaggers.
A forceful stomp on the ground made Ryan glance up to see the momma deer giving a warning. But Livvy wasn’t deterred from helping the baby. She reached both hands into the bush and yanked off two handfuls of leaves.
What the…?
Ryan watched in awe as she used the leaves as gloves, a barrier between her and the fawn. When she reached into the bush to help the trapped animal, the mother bleated.
“Be quiet, momma. I’m just helping your baby.” Livvy’s voice carried clearly back to Ryan.
She worked for a minute and then gathered more leaves. Keeping her scent off the fawn was something not everyone would think of. Livvy was so damn savvy and bush-ready, it shouldn’t shock Ryan but it did. She knew so much, right down to the fact that laying her bare hands on a fawn would mean the mother would turn it away and it wouldn’t survive.
One small foreleg broke free of the bush. Then another. Finally, the fawn broke free and stood on the path, wobbling. Livvy’s body language spoke of her joy—the slope of her shoulders, the way she held her head. Ryan wished to hell he could see her face, because she’d be smiling.
“Go on,” she urged the fawn, who just stood there dazed for a minute.
When Livvy lifted her camera slung around her neck, the fawn took off and the mother deer intersected it, leading it away to a safe spot.
Half turning, Livvy looked back up the path toward Ryan. He stepped out. She waved at the place the deer had disappeared.
“Did you see that?”
He nodded and came forward to meet her. “You aren’t even startled that I’m here.”
“I heard you coming. No wonder it takes you so long to hunt if you walk like that through the woods.”
He should be insulted by her words, but he found himself chuckling. “I wasn’t out to hunt. I was coming from the Hostlers’.”
Her blue eyes widened, the blue so deep he could fall into it and never surface. “You did?”
He nodded. “I apologized and they offered me breakfast.”
She smiled softly. “Typical Hostlers’ style.”
“Yep.”
Livvy faced him, raised her camera and snapped a picture of his face.
He jerked. “What was that for?”
She lowered her camera. “I was taking a photograph of a good man.”
Words fled, he dropped his stare, taking in that she wore her weapon on her hip and was ready for any danger she encountered. If anyone was fit to survive this mountain, it was Livvy.
“I owe you an apology too, Livvy.”
“You already apologized last night.” At the reference to their night together, her lips parted in that sweet, seductive way that drew him right in.
He took a step closer and closed his fingers around her upper arms. “I’m sorry I’m so… edgy. I have no excuse.”
A tender smile lit her eyes before it even touched her full lips. “Forgiven. Now c’mon. The light’s right and I don’t want to miss it.” She grabbed him by the hand and led him through the forest to the mountain’s edge.
* * * * *
While Livvy sank to her favorite spot and zoomed in on a ridge where an eagle perched, she was aware of Ryan’s heavy gaze on her. She couldn’t deny the shivery, effervescent feeling inside her right now. After his bad moments, the Ryan Stone she knew and loved had shone through.
He wanted her to believe he wasn’t worthy of her affection. So many times the previous night she’d nearly slipped and used the L word, but she knew he wasn’t ready to accept her love. Not yet.
She snapped a few more photographs before lowering her camera, giving Ryan the side-eye.
“You don’t have to stop on my account,” he said roughly. “I like watching you work.”
For some reason, she was reminded of Alaska and how soon she’d be leaving.
Using his knuckles, he tilted her chin up to meet his gaze. “What’s that look on your face for? What are you thinking about?”
She exhaled. “Alaska.”
His lips drew tight across his teeth and his jaw firmed. She reached up to skim her touch over his five o’clock shadow. He caught her fingers, trapping them in his big hand and squeezing. The burning expression in his eyes made her suck in a gasp.
“I don’t want to talk about Alaska,” he bit off and kissed her. A hard claiming of lips that sent instant need between her thighs. She wiggled closer, and he gripped her ass hard, dragging her against his erection.
“Oh God,” she whimpered between plunges of his tongue in her mouth.
Suddenly, he jerked back. He searched her eyes for a long heartbeat, as if looking for something, and then pulled her on tiptoe and captured her mouth in a searing, toe-curling kiss.
She let him plunder her lips for too many minutes to count but soon realized he’d somehow stripped her pack and camera off.
“Dammit,” he grated out, nibbling her earlobe and unknotting her scarf. He pushed back to stare at her scar, throat working.
“Ryan, it wasn’t your fault. When are you going to see you saved me and didn’t harm me?”
He groaned and looked away.
She slid her arms around his neck, pulling him back down. “Opening up and letting that poison out is—”
He cut a hand through the air in a violent gesture. “It isn’t the grenade blast.”
“Then what is it? Talk to me. Tell me.”
He grabbed her shoulders and shook her lightly. “It’s you. Dammit, woman. I don’t want to talk about Alaska.”
They stared at each other.
“I have to have you.” He ripped off her outer layer followed by her shirt. Before she could react to what he was doing, he had her jeans down and his as well. Palming her breasts, he tweaked her nipples into straining points as he spun her to face the view and drew her back by the waist to fit his body.
His chest was hot iron against her back and his cock pushing at her folds in this new position they hadn’t yet explored made her bite down on her lower lip.
Reaching back, she grabbed his hip and pulled him into her. In one smooth glide, he joined them. He latched onto her neck with his lips, kissing up and down the scar that had torn them apart and also brought them together.
“I want you. I’ve always wanted you.” His gritty tone did things to her insides she couldn’t even describe.
He slammed into her, his cock stretching, burrowing deeper than ever at this angle.
“Ffffuck,” he ground out.
She answered with a throaty cry. She pushed back against his thrusts. Her breasts bouncing, hair swinging over her shoulders as he claimed her totally in his own primal way in an even more primal setting.
Small squeaks erupted from her as he reached a spot he never had before. She hung forward, head sagging as sensation rolled through her.
“Right there, sweetheart? Does that feel good?”
She couldn’t even respond. Her brain had disconnected permanently as her body short-circuited with ecstasy.
He reached around her hips and trapped her clit beneath his fingertip. Toggling it back and forth and alternating with circles as his mushroomed head tormented that innermost spot and he sucked on her neck—
She breathed in sharply as her release hit. Pounding into her. She squeezed down on his shaft three times and then four. Felt his hot spurts flooding her and losing herself to five more pulsations before she hung limply in his hold, his arm supporting her around the waist.