Chapter Twelve
“Which one do you like better?”
Glory glanced up from her computer a few days after her hike with Rolf to find Trigg in her doorway, a jacket in each hand. One was mulberry, the other apricot.
“For what?”
“For wearing.” He came across and held each against her shoulder. “I would have picked this, but the purple is better. Try it on.”
“I’m working.”
“So am I. This is the sort of high-stakes decision my brother gives me. Picking next year’s colors.” He gave her a fake smile of joy, then with genuine enthusiasm said, “Try them on. This one has an inside pocket; that one has a hood.”
“What I’m hearing is, you’re not capable of making the decision your brother has delegated to you and you want me to do your work for you. Why is he so hard on you again?”
“I threaten him. Now, come on. You get to keep the one you like best.”
“Are you serious?” She pretty much leapt out of her chair at that and grabbed the apricot jacket.
It fit like a glove and, like the teal one she had passed over so stupidly last year, had the same flattering silhouette. She walked out into the dining room to check herself in the mirror over the bar.
“Now this.”
The mulberry was even better. He was right about it being a better foil for her skin.
“I love this feature,” she said of the liner that pulled down from the sleeves to make a fingerless glove, or folded over to form a mitten.
“Done. Thanks.” He tapped his thigh to call Murphy to heel.
She played with the zipper tab. “Are you being serious about me keeping it?”
“Keep both. Call it your consulting fee.”
Glory was thrilled and was wearing the mulberry the next afternoon when she arrived back from Haven. She bumped into Rolf going into the kitchen from the back parking lot.
“Where did you get that?” he demanded.
“Trigg. Why? Was that bad?” Her heart sank. She was in love with it.
“It’s fine.” He gave her a critical study, which didn’t really feel like he was looking at the jacket.
They hadn’t been alone or spoken much since the day at the hut. She was kind of avoiding him again, not sure what to make of the fact he’d gotten hard in the truck. Pure biology, she was sure, but it was still awkward. For her, anyway. They both knew. She’d been so startled by what she had realized was poking against her cheek, she’d given him a WTF face. She should have ignored it.
On his part, rather than be apologetic or dismissive, he’d looked her right in the eye. With heat.
Or not. She was writing her first original romance, start to finish, all her own words, starring people she had created. She was probably seeing the world through Pandora goggles, lusting after Rolf because her heroine was horny for Brock.
She didn’t dare raise her eyes off the matching logo on Rolf’s jacket. “This is, um, heavy.” She shrugged under the weight of her bag. “I want to put it in my room.”
It was a small lie. She had well-developed laptop-lugging muscles.
“I need to talk to you.” Rolf walked straight to his office, presuming she would follow him.
She almost wanted to go all the way to her room first, just to prove a point, but rolled her eyes and went to his office. It was on the way, after all.
She stood in the open doorway. He stood behind the desk, scanning its surface, then glanced at her like he was surprised she was there.
“Put it down.” He pointed to the chair.
Ugh. She entered the office and lowered the bag into the chair. “If this is about the schedule for retiling the bathroom showers—”
“It’s not. Fit mine in however it works. No, I’m thinking that since I’m only using this office in the morning and evening, we could share this space.”
“What?” Glory knew she shouldn’t argue. The busier the dining room grew, the fuller the pantry became. She was in the way and being squeezed out by dry goods. The lodge had two dozen rooms occupied by workers and contractors through the weekdays on a regular basis. This office would eventually be the management hub so the sooner she set it up as such, the better.
Something about sharing space with Rolf, even in a cross-scheduled way, made her jumpy, though. He made her jumpy.
He’d had a boner. With her on his lap.
“I thought you would need it until you have an office at the base. Wasn’t that supposed to be end of June or something?”
“Trigg is tasked with bringing in a portable work office by June thirtieth, but we have a satellite relay in the tent. I’m able to make calls and answer emails. I still need an hour at the desk here and there, but you could be in here the rest of the time.”
“I can wait until you have your own space.”
“I said I gave Trigg a deadline. I didn’t say he would meet it.” His mouth twisted with derision.
“You guys,” she muttered, crossing her arms and looking to the ceiling.
“What?” Rolf folded his arms. “He came to me four years ago and said he wanted to reopen this hill. I told him I didn’t want to run a lodge. I said that when he found someone to take on that part of it, we could get started. Four years it took him to find your dad.”
“Doesn’t he have an intense training schedule?” He was doing a bunch of dry land training around working. She suspected Trigg was mostly focused on hitting the podium as high or higher than his older brother at the same age and wanted to keep winning as long as he could. “When would he have had the time to find someone?”
“Are you defending him?”
“I’m stating a fact.” Her nose tingled as if she scented smoke or some other dangerous substance. She gave it a rub. “Plus, he’s like his dog. He only jumps on people he likes.” She meant her dad, but Trigg did make her laugh, same as Murphy. It was endearing.
Rolf was more like a wolf. Fascinating to watch, but liable to rip your throat out at the first opportunity.
The gleam of his stare turned so bronze and hard at her silly little joke, her heart began pounding in trepidation. A muscle pulsed at the side of his jaw.
“What? I stand by what I said in the hut,” she told him, chin high, as if she were Joan of Arc, ready to burn for her beliefs when she was trembling in her sandals. “I never had siblings. Whatever bone of contention is between you two, you both need to let it go.”
“Ha!” He looked away, shook his head. “Sure.”
“I give up,” she muttered, shouldering her bag and heading to the door, but couldn’t resist adding, “I just don’t think you should blame him for something your dad did.”
Silence.
She glanced back, expecting to see she was being sliced-and-diced by death lasers shooting from his eyes.
His eyes were narrowed and flinty, but unreadable. “Is that what he said? That I blame him?”
“No.” Shit. Now she was sorry she’d said anything. She really didn’t want to get between these two, especially if she caused unnecessary misunderstandings about something so personal. With a little sigh, she closed the door and set her bag by her feet.
“He told me your dad fooled around on your mom with his. That he married her right after your mom died. When you said the other day that you were still angry with your father, I took that to mean that was why.” She tried an apologetic shrug. “I shouldn’t be getting so personal, but I always wished I had a sibling. It frustrates me to see you two fighting all the time.”
His cheek ticked. “We’re competitive. Our father was the same, he just steered it into business. Other than our dad, Trigg and I don’t have much in common. I knew that the day he broke his skis in half and told me to fuck off because he wanted to board. Skiing is discipline and technical precision. Boarding is loose and wild. It’s probably a good thing he chose it, because if he was breaking my downhill records, I would be killing myself trying to stay ahead of him. Trashing the shit out of each other is our way of keeping things from getting physical. It’s not pretty, but there it is. Also, telling him he can’t do something is about the only way to get him to do it, so…” He lifted a negligent brow.
“So why are you still mad at your dad, then?”
“For Trigg. But mostly for dying,” he said, as if that was obvious. “The company wasn’t ready to lose him any more than I was. The wrong people were in charge, but I wasn’t ready to retire from racing. It was a fucking mess and then Trigg started on about this place, which I was thinking about selling at one point, we needed the capital so bad. Hanging on to it wasn’t easy and now we’re basically gambling everything on it again.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know what else to say. Did he realize he was confiding again? In her?
Maybe he did realize it, because he took a breath and touched the keyboard to wake up his monitor. “I’m going to answer a few emails, then head down to the base. Move in and set up however you like, soon as you want.”
“’Kay. Thanks.” She picked up her bag and walked up to her room, wondering why he was being so nice to her lately.
*
It was the longest day of the year. Rolf was walking around the lodge to the back entrance with Nate and Trigg, all three of them dragging their feet after helping pour concrete since half the contractor’s team had called in hungover after watching last night’s hockey final. They were filthy, sweaty, and thirsty.
The sun was still high and warm, despite it being six o’clock. Murphy diverted to the creek that ran into the pond. It was trickling so steady and inviting, Rolf was tempted to lie down in it himself.
Then, like a beacon, paradise. Marvin, who had plenty of faults, but hospitality wasn’t one of them, had set out tables and chairs on the half-finished patio off the lounge.
Glory sat there, a glass of wine at her elbow while she traced the cap of a pen around her nude lips, gaze on the papers before her. She wore a summer dress, big white polka dots on pale pink. He was eye level with her naked calves and bare feet, both tucked beneath her chair, toes gently pointed on top of the sandals she had kicked off.
At what point he had become poetic about a pair of feet, he didn’t know, but they were the sexiest thing he’d seen in a long while.
“I think I just fell in love,” Trigg said.
Glory lifted her head, gaze striking into Rolf’s with a start and something else that she disguised in a blink as she took in the other men.
Sexual awareness. It rolled through him like a hit of schnapps every time he saw her, but this was the first time he realized it was the same for her.
He had read her reaction to him as a deliberate play when they’d first met. After their blowup, he hadn’t seen much of her to discern any reaction besides repulsion. She still seemed to be avoiding him, even though they had come back to speaking terms.
Seeing that vibration of desire quiver unabated in her lashes, however, gave him a jab of excitement, reciprocation, deep in the pit of his gut. Lower.
“Well, don’t you boys look fancy,” she said, using a neutral smile to cover up whatever was going on in that pretty head of hers.
“What are you doing?” Trigg climbed the scaffolding that stood on this side of the rail-less deck. “Writing in your diary?”
“What? No.” She closed her notebook, frowning with wariness as Trigg approached.
It was the tiniest undercurrent that might not have registered, but Rolf was staring right at her, looking for signs she reacted to his brother the same way she reacted to him. He used what was left of his strength to climb, get his feet on the deck, and stand.
“Fuck it,” Nate sighed from below. “I’m walking around.”
“Lemme read it.” Trigg jerked his chin at her notebook.
“What? No.” Glory gathered her notebook to her chest. Her posture grew defensive.
“You’re blushing.” Trigg gave a low chuckle. “What is it?” He made a feint for it, just screwing around, but Glory went even redder.
“Don’t.”
As Rolf approached, she shot him a look, but not as though searching for a rescuer. Tension increased around her eyes. Her gaze lumped him in with the other bully, full of persecution as she pressed deeper into her chair. Beneath growing hostility, he read real fear. The injury of betrayal. He’d seen something like it the morning over the coffee heart, when she had ripped him a new one. She’d been pushed hard enough, when she was already hurting, she had had to turn and fight.
“So sensitive,” Trigg teased, weaving like he was looking for an opening.
Rolf could have let her put Trigg in his place. He wanted to see her drop-kick his brother with a shin to the nuts, but such a wave of protectiveness rose in him, he nearly snapped in half. Teasing Glory was one thing. Hurting her was verboten.
“Grow the fuck up.”
His brother shot him a look, more for the tone than his words. Rolf was not fucking around and Trigg knew it.
Glory was looking down at her lap, where her book was protectively nestled. She was blinking fast, chin set. “You guys want beer?” Her voice sounded strained as she put her exit strategy in place.
“I got ’em,” Nate said, arriving with three longnecks, completely oblivious to the undercurrents as he sat down across from Glory. “Been meaning to ask you, can I put in for a room? One of the big ones, if it’s available.”
“Um, sure.” She cleared her throat and swiveled to pick up her wine, still on the edge of her chair, back straight. The red was fading from her skin, leaving her face pale. She still had a firm grip on her notebook. “We don’t have any corners, but there’s a middle one on the second floor. Do you need me to buy a cot for your son? We’ll have to get some eventually.”
“I’ll bring the bed he was using at my rental in Haven.” Nate scratched his stubbled beard, glancing at Rolf. “This way I’m not wasting gas driving into Haven unless it’s my night to have him.”
He could work longer hours, Rolf heard in that remark. Nate already worked a lot of overtime. Not for the cash, but to book extra time with his kid.
“You sure it’s okay to have him here?” Nate asked Glory. “We’ll probably take off and go fishing or something anyway. Really just sleeping here.”
“Devon is great about blocking off her work area, so it shouldn’t be a safety issue. And we already have children here,” she said, sending a pithy look toward Trigg.
“Come on, Glory. I was teasing,” Trigg said, trying to tweak a lock of her hair.
She sharply veered away.
“Kiss and make up,” he urged.
“I don’t like beards.”
“No?” Trigg swung a smirk to Rolf. He shaved maybe twice a year, wearing stubble all winter for sure and only shaving if he happened to go on a tropical vacation and his face was too warm in the sun.
“How do you feel about man-buns?” Rolf asked her, eyeing Trigg’s.
“Pass.”
Rolf tucked the wet mouth of his bottle against his smile.
When he glanced at Glory, she was staring right at him. Icily. She turned the same glare onto Trigg.
“What?” Trigg said.
The sound of cars leaving for the day crunched on gravel and the air carried the scent of barbecue as Devon’s crew began preparing their evening meals.
Glory drained the last of her wine. “You know what I like?” She set down her glass with a force that almost broke the stem. “Family values. Give me a single dad any day. Or night.” She blinked adoringly at Nate.
“Oh, for the love of—” Hard to tell if Nate blushed under that dark brown skin of his, which would have been funny if Nate hadn’t then said, “Don’t pull me into this. Not my horse. Not my race.”
Brilliant. Rolf blinked in a subdued wince.
Glory exhaled through her nose in the kind of angry snort horses made as a warning they were going to trample you to death.
“You are children.” She jerked her chair back with a screech. “Dinner in twenty in the dining room. Wash your hands.”
She wasn’t there when they went in and he didn’t see her for the rest of the night.
*
BLESSED WINTER – Chapter Four
Page 36, word count = 8958
I don’t plan on moving for a man again.
Why that stuck in his craw like a peanut shell, Brock wasn’t sure. He hid his consternation by unwrapping the gift from his father, already knowing what it would be.
“It’s kind of a joke.” He set the bottle of scotch on the coffee table. “My brother and I got into his good stuff once, when we were underage. He spent the next few years giving us a bottle each for Christmas, then he would make a big deal about how we were too young to drink. ‘What do we do now?’ he would say. ‘I guess your mother and I will have to drink your booze.’”
It had turned into something they all groaned over, but Pandora ate it up with the biggest smile on her face.
“He toasted each of us from our own bottle when we were finally legal. Now it’s a tradition that he gives us one and we usually have a toast on Christmas morning.” He hadn’t considered that he would be missing that when he had decided to go to Mexico instead of Hawaii. Now he was feeling the separation from his family, which was really dumb. He was a grown man.
“Do you want a drink of it now?” Pandora started to rise.
“No.” He stopped her. “No, I want to be cold stone sober if—Have you had another contraction since twelve minutes ago?” He consulted their scribbles.
She shook her head and stole a cookie, looking sheepish. Cute and innocent as the Who-girl in the Grinch cartoon.
In that moment, he still missed his family, but he was glad he was here, with her.
“Ready for another one?”
She slid him a conspiratorial side-eye and nodded.
He chuckled and gave her the kid’s book. It was more of a joke for his brother, since it was loaded with filthy language, but she loved it. She turned each page and read it aloud, laughing harder and harder as the child was urged to go to sleep with ever-increasing blue-peppered frustration. When she got to the end, she hugged it to her chest.
“We had to get rid of all my books when Mom joined Gary’s church. I was devastated. I was already missing my real friends and then had to leave my book friends at the thrift store. To be able to say this is my child’s book, and have it be this salty and inappropriate…”
Dang. He was making her cry again. He wanted to pull her onto his lap and cuddle her, but she blew her nose, then pointed at the paper.
“Contraction?” He hit the timer and they wrote it down when it was over. “They’re not very regular, are they?” He set down the paper and rubbed his hands on his thighs. His palms were sweating. “But that was almost two minutes long.”
“Tell me about it,” she muttered.
Adrenaline went through him each time she had one. He kept thinking, this is it. It wasn’t, but soon the contractions would come quicker. Then this pretty, sensitive, wronged woman was going to deliver a baby. Somehow, he would have to get her to a hospital and then what?
Then she would raise her child all by herself because she had no one else to help her.
“Are you signed up for a moms’ group or anything?”
“I went for coffee with a couple from my prenatal class, but… They’re nice, but one was married to this tech guy. They’re so rich even she admits it’s obscene. The other one was kind of obsessed about wearing your baby and attachment. I kept thinking she would judge me when I had to put my baby in daycare so I could go back to work. I didn’t feel like I fit with them so I haven’t met with them since.”
Men had it so easy sometimes. Their playing fields were sports and careers. Things you could at least try to control or achieve. Raising kids shouldn’t be competitive. You coped with whatever came along, however you could.
“You open another one,” she insisted.
He revealed a board game with questions about survival.
“Is that a joke gift, too?”
“No.” He laughed. “Mom knows I like games. Look, it says ‘Ages eight and up.’”
“Oh. Sorry.” She bit her lips, hiding a grin. “I didn’t expect that about you.”
“I thought it was weird that you knit,” he admitted.
“I also make jam and jelly.”
“Really.” He sat back, arm along the back of the couch. “We know who’s going to win the survival game in the long run, then, don’t we, Miss Home Preserves?”
“Do you want to try some? Jelly, I mean. I’m kind of hungry.”
“Sure.” He had a feeling she was putting off opening her last present, savoring the anticipation. She was going to break his heart with this subdued excitement of hers—she really was.
She already had, if he was honest.
They made toast and eggs, coffee for him and fresh tea for her. Cooking with her was as easy as it had been the last time they had bumped into each other in her small kitchen—except this time she took up all the room.
When she sucked a breath through her teeth, he quick-stepped to record the contraction, then took over rubbing her back. “Big one?”
“Strongest yet.” She looked up at him, anxious. “I’m really glad you’re here, Brock. Thank you.”
She looked so sweet and vulnerable, he wanted to cup her face and kiss her. Not hot and randy, but soft and tender. Well, maybe hot and randy. He was doing his best to ignore how gorgeous her breasts and ass were, all round and abundant. She smelled fantastic and he was a sucker for long hair. He wanted to loosen hers and stroke his hands through it.
She was looking at his mouth. Her gaze then went down to the middle of his chest, shy, before she looked up into his eyes again. Inviting.
He went for it. He cupped her face and lowered his head—
*
Knock, knock, knock.
Actually, it was closer to pound, pound, pound.
Glory was basking in a rare afternoon of writing in her room. Devon had had to turn off the electricity and her father was holding court in the shrubs out front of the lodge, raking the gardens and complaining that he didn’t care how pretty a blue spruce tree looked. Their frosted blue-green needles were a literal pain in the ass to work around.
With her desktop computer down, she couldn’t do payables so had stolen away to her room, where her laptop had a full charge. It was a cool day, overcast, but she had cracked her window because it smelled so good to let in the fresh air.
“I need Trigg,” Rolf said from the other side of the door, sounding really grim.
What had the dumbass done now?
“He’s not here,” she called. They were the first words she’d spoken to either of those idiots in two days.
Rolf pushed open her door and strode in.
“Hey!” She stood up and snapped her laptop closed.
Rolf gave her one sharp glance, head to toe, making her wish she had on more than a pair of thin bamboo shorts and a baggy T-shirt without a bra. Then he strode into the bathroom, even peeked inside the toilet closet, and came back to check the exterior door, which was locked from the inside.
“Wow.” She folded her arms, as much as to hide the shadow and poke of her nipples against the white cotton as from astonishment. “Who I have in my room is none of your business, F. Y. I.”
The way he dipped his chin and gave her a low-browed glare set her back on her heels.
“It’s not,” she insisted, but her voice wasn’t as strong as she wanted it to be. She braced a hand on her desk and ignored the squiggling in her stomach that came of facing down danger. “And here’s another memo I’ll be posting to the bulletin board. I’m not a fucking game piece.”
“Damned right you’re not.”
She frowned. Did he not understand what she was talking about? She tried again. “I don’t deserve to be treated like a thing.”
“Agreed.”
“You don’t get to agree when you’re acting like an asshat, being nice to me to piss off Trigg!”
The look he sent her had her leaning back another degree.
This. Man. Coming into her room and sending scolding glares her direction? She made herself stand up straight and curled the hand on her desk into a fist.
“Well, you weren’t nice to me before, were you? But the minute he gives me a jacket, you give me your office, like you’re doing me a big, fucking favor.”
His eye ticked once, but he only planted his feet and folded his arms. “I would have given you a jacket. Ask me for any of our gear. It takes one call and it’s good advertising.”
What else could she say to that except, “Pffft!”
“The office was exactly what I said. I need to be down at the base during the day. There’s no reason you shouldn’t use it, but sometimes I still need it. That had zero to do with Trigg. Taking you up the hill to see the view… I know he offered to take you, but fuck it. He wasn’t there when you wanted to go. I was.”
“So you admit it. I’m just the prize in some competitive game between you two.” Wow. The difference between knowing and knowing was the difference between a stubbed toe and a shattered foot. “That’s gross, Rolf.”
He had the grace to look uncomfortable, mouth pressed flat, body tight as he stood there like a freaking mountain in the middle of her room.
“Trigg is the one who—”
“Your little brother started it?” she cut in. “That’s what you’re going with?” She was working really hard over here to stay at angry and not let on how badly he was undermining her composure. The pressure behind her eyes was climbing into her throat and her sinuses were filling up.
She still reacted to him every single time, despite the fact he was this monumental ass. “Look, I don’t expect you to like me or be friends with me or even be nice to me, but I do expect better than that kind of treatment. This isn’t fucking high school.”
“I like you.” He scowled, sounded surprised at the accusation.
“Oh, fuck off. I’m not stupid.” Or quick to forgive. “And it doesn’t matter because I don’t like you. Get out of my room.”
He was absolute granite after that, breaths slow and even, but audible, hissing through his nostrils.
She was a flat chunk of cardboard growing soggy and threatening to buckle. She concentrated on her own breathing and holding his gaze without blinking, eyes burning, doing her best to convince both of them she did hate him. Thoroughly and without remorse.
He turned and started for the door.
Her throat clenched.
He stopped, hand on the latch, keeping his back to her. “I’ve never fucked up this badly with a woman. I don’t know how to come back from it.”
She felt his words like a shock wave that left a ring in her ears. The dip between his shoulder blades flexed where his head hung, leaving a hollow at the top of his spine. She got to six before realizing she was counting her own heartbeats.
“You could quit treating me like I’m a fucking toy at the fair you have to win from your brother,” she managed. “That’d be a start.”
“I’m not fucking playing, all right?”
He let go of the latch and spun. The aggression radiating off him was scary, even though she somehow wasn’t afraid of him. One sideways look from him had the potential to scar her with the singe of a close shave, but she had the feeling his anger was targeted at himself. He still nearly knocked her off her feet when he spoke.
“Trigg might be flirting because he’s genuinely attracted. I don’t know. But whether he’s fucking around or making a serious play, he knows it pisses me off and that’s why he keeps throwing you in my face.”
“Because you don’t want him to win. Oh, I mean score.”
“Exactly,” he bit out.
“Do you hear yourself?” she cried. She could hear the hurt straining her voice and hoped he put it down to indignation. “What does it matter if I did sleep with him? Is your ego really that fragile? Or are you worried I’m going to try to marry him for the family jewels or something? I’m not interested in Trigg, okay? There’s no need to stomp in here like some patriarchal asshole, telling me I’m not good enough for him.”
Fuck her stupid eyes, getting all wet like this. She pushed the heels of her hands into her sockets, trying to stem the pressure.
“Glory.” He so seldom said her name, it made her heart quiver, especially when he sounded like he was searching for what remained of his patience. “Are you really that stupid?”
She jerked her head up, lashes matted so she had to blink to see him. “What’s that supposed to mean? I know you’re not interested in me yourself. You made that pretty fucking clear.”
He didn’t say anything. He just stared. And stared.
She thought of the truck, when she’d sat on his erection all the way down the hill.
Her ears grew hot and her skin shrank so she was tight all over. The little flame of sexual hunger she couldn’t seem to douse flared and brightened, searing her middle like a brand. It sat there hot, hotter, hottest, imprinting him into the deepest part of her, so painfully intense she could barely draw breath. Her cheeks hurt, she was blushing so hard.
“You said—” she began in a wobbly voice.
“I know what I said.”
She shook her head. Folded her arms and stared out the window, eyes going blurry again. “You’re just trying to win against Trigg.”
He came close, each of his footsteps making her want to flinch. Run. All of her felt so raw and exposed, she could only stand very still for fear of whatever was coming and how much it would sting.
When his firm hand drew her jaw around, forcing her to look into his eyes, she only allowed it so she could let him see how much she hated him. This was not funny. It was cruel.
“I’m going to say this once more,” he said, thumb oddly tender against her skin while he was so serious her entire body juddered into a freeze. Even her breath failed to move. “I am not. Fucking. Playing.”
His thumb made another sweep across her jaw, leaving a trail of sensitized nerve endings.
She jerked back, away from his touch, and hugged herself harder, kind of scared she wouldn’t be able to keep her slamming heart gathered inside her chest. He didn’t back off, keeping her trapped against her desk as he stood there. Heat radiated off his body, threatening to give her a sunburn.
“I know better than to sleep with someone who is part of my professional life—”
“Could you please wait until you’re invited into my bed before you tell me how much you don’t want to be there? Twice,” she bit out in a ragged voice.
He swore under his breath, sighed. “Whether you invite me or not, it’s where I want to be. Constantly. We both think about it, Glory. Let’s name that beast and decide what to do about it, shall we?”
Fantasizing about sleeping with him versus actually doing it—She shook her head. Nope. Let’s not and say we did.
She averted her face again, afraid to move away from her desk because he stood so close. She might wind up touching him.
He pushed his hands into his jeans pockets, his gaze fixed on her face so avidly, she experienced flutters of panic. It took everything in her to keep from looking up, afraid he would suck her right into whatever it was he thought he was doing to her right now.
She looked at her thumb, fighting the urge to bite her nail.
“Look, if you need me to say I’m attracted to you, fine,” she muttered. “So what? Look who you are. You have a six pack and all your hair. Congratulations. You’re attractive. It doesn’t mean I want to fall into bed with you. That arrogance of yours is off-putting. Which would matter if you were remotely interested in me, but I don’t believe you are, so…”
“I know.” He swept a knuckle across her cheekbone and down to the hollow beneath her ear. It was tickly and light. Apologetic maybe. It left her blood feeling laced with champagne, fizzy and thick.
She didn’t move, gaze now snagged by the button on his shirt pocket. Paralyzed.
“I don’t waste time with head games. That’s why I said those things that day. Our lives overlap too much for a clean break if things go south. That doesn’t change the fact I want to sleep with you.”
She finally risked trying to read his expression and only got tangled up in shades of topaz. His dark brows pulled together a little as he held her stare. If she was an imaginative person, which she was, she would have thought he was revealing concern.
“I don’t get involved with women who wear their heart on their sleeve the way you do.”
“For God’s sake!” She looked away, fists falling to hit her thighs.
“I’m not saying it’s bad,” he chided. The backs of his fingers went down her arm and his gaze went to her chest. He drew in a breath as though he was making a super human effort in some way. “I’m saying I don’t know how to deal with it. I’m not a sensitive man. I don’t want to hurt you again.” His fingers crept all the way around her upper arm, thumb stroking her skin as he gently clasped her in his warm grip.
“So don’t,” she suggested with a flash of irritation.
“Okay.” How did he make one word sound so dangerous? Like a dare. “You tell me what hurts more. Resisting or giving in?”
And now she was falling into an eclipse, staring into eyes that were golden and black at the same time, pulling her right out of herself and twisting her around so her body was in a sensual agony, tied up and yearning.
“Should we see?” he murmured, hands touching her with light sorcery, caressing her arm, caressing her throat, tilting up her chin.
She shouldn’t be this stupid, but she did hurt. All the time. With want…
His head lowered, slanted. His mouth hovered so she could feel the magnetic buzz of ions bouncing between their lips. When he nudged, made that first contact, her mouth stung, so hot and sensitized with anticipation she gasped.
He settled his lips over hers, hot and thorough. Confident. He kissed her in a way she had never been kissed before. This man held himself back with monumental discipline, she realized, because when he went for something, he went for it, and he was a force to be reckoned with. He claimed her with irresistible precision, mouth pressing hers open so the connection went from sweet suggestion to overwhelming passion in a single heartbeat.
She opened her mouth and let him in. Kissed him back with more offering than skill, not even hesitating. Compelled. If he was screwing with her—
Whatever she had consciously been thinking sizzled into nothing. She forgot how to form thoughts. All she knew was the feel of his lips against hers, smooth and firm, pulling just enough to make her follow him, then pressing to keep her sealed inside their world.
His hand slid through her hair to cup the back of her skull. His other arm went around her, broad hand slipping beneath her loose shirt to sit against the skin of her lower back, leaving a starfish of heat imprinted there. A shudder went through her, all of her muscles checking out and giving her body over to his strength. All she could do was lift her arms and cling around his neck, plastering herself to him while they devoured each other. Tongues came into play. His. Hers. She moaned, loving the swirling textures. Reveling in their blatant consumption of each other.
He was hard. She felt him against her abdomen and pulses of reaction hit her loins, making her want to grind against him. She wanted to do it already. Now.
As she realized how caught up she was, she yanked back, gasping.
He let her put some space between them, but kept his arm around her. His cheekbones were flushed above his beard, his eyes like liquid gold.
She hadn’t minded that beard, she realized, and wanted to stroke it with her fingers. She touched instead where the soft hairs had scraped against her chin, wondering how that rough-soft abrasion would feel against her stomach. Her thighs.
Her body reacted with a rush of heat and another pulse. She was very aware of the bed right there, while his eyes were halos of light around pupils the size of the moon.
“And that,” he said, accent thick. “Is why it is my business who spends time in this room.”
She pulled all the way out of his arms and pressed the backs of her fingers against her tingling mouth. His gaze was on her nipples where they stood up like little soldiers against her shirt.
Pull it together, she ordered herself.
“You’ve given me something to think about,” she said with a wan smile, desperately needing time to process this. “But I want to get back to work now.” She wasn’t going to be able to write. Brock kissed the brains clean out of her.
“Are you online? How?” He frowned. “Power’s down.”
“There are things I can do,” she prevaricated. “Pre-writing blog posts. You were looking for Trigg,” she reminded him, glancing at the door in a hint that he should use it. “Didn’t you need him for something?”
“I needed him to not be in here,” he said dryly and adjusted his crotch, casual in his need to accommodate his impressive boner.
Shake it off, she thought, aware of a tingle between her thighs that was more of an insatiable itch. She had to work like hell not to stare at his fly. With intrigue. Longing.
“But yes.” He took a deep breath and let it hiss out. “He’s supposed to be down at the base. The portable office arrived.”
“That’s only a couple of days late,” she noted.
“Yeah, but the pad’s not finished. I better get down there myself.” He didn’t move.
Be my guest. She hid her nipples behind her crossed arms again.
He wavered, gaze fixed on her mouth for two solid heartbeats. Then he nodded and started to leave.
He paused with his hand on the latch, glancing back with another flash of hunger. “We can take this up again any time. My door’s always open.”
Locks are on order, she started to say, but he was gone.