by Cindy Dees
Liam caught sight of Sloane’s expression and took a quick step toward her to restrain her. She was a mama bear on the warpath.
Sloane’s voice was deadly calm as she turned toward Anna and enunciated carefully, “How long has Chloe been crying?”
“Several hours, ma’am.”
“Hours?” Sloane echoed ominously, turning a murderous glare on Carol.
The older woman waved a dismissive hand. “You always did spoil the child too much. You have to let them cry it out and learn to take care of themselves.”
“That explains quite a bit about my ex-husband,” Sloane replied acidly. “What part of ‘she nearly died last week and is still recovering from a life-threatening illness’ didn’t you understand, Carol?”
Ivan’s mother had the good sense to take a step back from Sloane. Liam balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to intervene and block Sloane from whatever violence she intended. Thankfully, the fact that she was holding Chloe tightly in her arms seemed to deter Sloane from doing anything ill-advised.
Chloe looked absolutely wrung out by her crying jag, and neither of the Durants seemed to have the least remorse for having put their granddaughter through the trauma.
Rather than risk Sloane attacking her ex in-laws and potentially jeopardizing her custody of Chloe, Liam stepped in front of her and said to the Durants, “I’ll be filing a statement with the court on the condition the child was in when recovered by the custodial parent. I imagine you’ll be hearing from Ms. Colton’s attorney shortly. Until then, the child stays with the mother. Is that understood?”
Carol and Niall both nodded quickly. Too quickly. Carol had been truculent when they arrived, but now she was folding up and swallowing any protests far too easily. What in the world was going on with those two? They acted guilty as sin. But of what? Did they have something to do with that SUV jumping the curb and nearly killing him and Sloane?
His suspicion meter was climbing fast. What the hell was going on with the entire Durant family? He followed Sloane outside and gripped her elbow firmly to help her down the slippery sidewalk. She climbed into the truck, still holding Chloe.
“Don’t you want to put her in her seat?” he murmured, surprised.
“Just get us out of here,” she replied under her breath.
He complied, and when they were several blocks away from the Durant estate, well out of sight of Carol and Niall, Sloane murmured, “Okay, you can stop now, so I can pop Little Bug into her car seat.”
Ahh. Sloane didn’t want the Durants to know that Chloe’s car seat was installed in his truck, which would indicate that he and Sloane knew each other personally and had traveled up to Denver together. Cautious, but probably a good call. At a minimum, the Durants weren’t nice people. At worst, they were somehow involved with the danger swirling around Sloane.
She climbed in the back seat with her daughter, whom she quickly strapped into her safety seat. “I’m going to stay with her back here. She’s had a rough night and doesn’t want to let go of me.”
“I don’t blame her,” Liam answered grimly. “Where to? We can spend the night here in Denver, or I can drive you home and have the hotel send your stuff back to Roaring Springs for you.”
“Home, please,” Sloane replied. She sounded nearly as exhausted as her daughter. But then, confronting the Durants had to have been stressful for her, too.
Both Colton women fell asleep quickly in the back seat of his truck, and Liam drove carefully, vividly aware of the precious cargo on board.
He pointed his truck toward the front range of the Rockies, and the roads went from bad to terrible. After about an hour of crawling along at a snail’s pace, he pulled into a rest stop to get chains out of the storage box in his truck bed and put them on his tires.
When he climbed back into the cab of his truck, he was surprised to see Sloane awake and sitting in the front seat. “Hi, Sleeping Beauty,” he murmured.
She smiled sleepily at him, and his insides tightened almost painfully. With her hair messy and her eyes warm and soft, she was almost too much for even his formidable self-control. A need to pull her into his arms, kiss her senseless, have her straddle his hips again...maybe in less clothing for both of them...
Nope, nope, nope. He had to banish such thoughts from his mind before they turned into action. They had to stay apart until her stalker was caught. He needed to get on the road again and furthermore, he needed all of his attention on driving.
“How’s Chloe doing?” he asked.
Sloane’s expression hardened. “Wiped out. She’ll sleep like the dead after getting so worked up.”
“Poor kid.”
“I have half a mind to sue to revoke their visitation rights,” she muttered.
“Do it. I meant it when I said I would be filing a police report on the incident.”
“Thanks. But don’t expose yourself to ethics inquiries by going to bat for me.”
“Hence the need for us to cool it until this mess is sorted out once and for all.” It was thoughtful of her to worry about his career. But he was determined to get Ivan Durant and his crazy-ass parents out of her life once and for all. He started the engine and eased back out onto the snow-covered highway.
“I thought Ivan and I were sorted out for good,” Sloane muttered as he merged onto the mostly deserted roadway. “Will this nightmare never end?”
“Be patient. Things will work out for the best,” Liam said encouragingly. He reached over and squeezed her ice-cold hand briefly before putting his hand back on the steering wheel.
They’d only driven a few moments before she said nervously, “Are you sure we should be driving in this weather?”
“I just put chains on the tires. I can’t go fast in them, but I’ve got plenty of traction now.”
“I don’t know. When we get up into the higher elevations the snow and the visibility are going to get worse. Maybe we should just find a place to stop for the night.”
He glanced over at her in surprise. “It’s okay, Sloane. You don’t have to be afraid—”
He broke off, swearing under his breath. Of course. Her parents had died in a car crash in a blizzard. She had to be scared stiff. “I’m sorry. I forgot. I’m an insensitive bastard. I’ll pull over at the next town and find us a room.”
“I’m sorry I’m such a wimp,” Sloane confessed.
He snorted. “You’re a lot of things, but a wimp is not one of them.”
She shook her head in disagreement, and soft waves of dark hair drifted around her face. She looked like a fey creature, perched nervously on the seat beside him, peering out into the swath of snow in his headlights.
It took about a half hour, but an exit sign loomed abruptly out of the dark, announcing a small town coming up in a mile. Liam eased off the highway onto the exponentially worse exit ramp and slid all the way down it, in spite of his chains, which meant he was driving on sheet ice. He barely skidded to a stop before the intersection at the bottom.
Sloane gasped beside him, gripping the center armrest like she thought the passenger door was going to fly open and the blizzard would suck her out. He let out a breath of his own and then told her, “We’re okay. You can breathe.”
“That skid... I thought we were going to go off the road. Maybe off a cliff. Die...”
“There are no cliffs, sweetheart. We’ve descended into a valley, and everything around us goes up, not down. We’re safe, okay? You can relax. I’ve got this. I’ve got you.”
She didn’t relax, but she did nod once at him. At least she seemed to be breathing again. He eased forward toward a small town laid out along a single narrow road at the bottom of the steep valley.
He found a motel and pulled into the parking lot, praying there was a room at the inn for the night. “Stay here with Chloe while I check this place out.”
Sloane nodded a
nd he stepped out into nearly knee-deep snow and slogged inside the office. Liam rang the bell on the counter and a white-haired man came out of the back, blinking in the sudden light.
“Can I help you?” the man asked.
“I’m hoping you have some rooms for the night. Two, ideally.”
“I’ve only got one room left.”
“Any chance you have a baby’s crib we could use?”
“That I do have.”
Liam debated quickly. Sharing a room with Sloane promised all kinds of dangerous temptation. But no way was he taking her back out on the highway given how terrified she was of dying in a car crash. Liam handed over a credit card, and in a few moments, the gentleman passed over a key attached to a plastic paddle.
“I’ll have that crib at your room in a jiffy. If you’ve got a little one, you must be exhausted traveling at this time of night.”
“That’s no lie.”
Liam walked in his own footprints back to the truck and drove down to the room on the end. He helped the proprietor carry a folded crib through the snow and set it up inside the small, plain, but spotless room. A quick towel-off to dry the snow from it, and Sloane was able to lay Chloe down gently. She secured blankets around the munchkin and tucked Snuffles into the toddler’s arms.
Silence fell around them, the deep silence of a snowy night, with no cars moving outside, just the quiet hum of the heater and the wind blowing through the pine trees beyond the motel.
It was cozy, just the three of them in this quiet oasis from the storm. If he used a tiny bit of imagination, Liam could imagine them as a family. It was a seductive illusion: the woman of his dreams, the child he’d always dreamed of having—
Careful, Liam. None of this is real.
But God, he wished it was.
“I don’t have any pajamas,” Sloane observed in dismay.
“My luggage is still in the back of the truck.” He jogged outside and carried in his bag, opening it briskly. “Here. Borrow one of my T-shirts. On you, it’ll make a decent nightshirt.”
Shyly, Sloane took the white cotton shirt and disappeared into the bathroom. When she emerged, he gulped, and suddenly the room felt overly warm. Her legs—correction, her sexy, smooth, bare legs—looked fantastic emerging from the bottom of his T-shirt.
As for her chest... He gulped again. The soft cotton clung to the curves of her breasts, revealing almost more than it concealed. A need to cup that tender flesh, to rub his thumbs across the nipples he knew to be so responsive to his touch, very nearly overcame him.
Dare he succumb to temptation?
After all, nobody could have possibly followed them here. There had been no headlights on the highway behind them after they’d left Denver and climbed into the mountains. The occasional snowplow and only a handful of other vehicles had been on the roads. No one had followed them down the exit ramp, and no one could possibly perform surveillance on them at this random, isolated, out-of-the-way motel.
For tonight, they were safe.
Sloane crawled into bed while he kicked off his boots and stripped off his jacket, tie and dress shirt, left over from their dinner date. He grabbed the back of the neck seam and yanked his T-shirt over his head. As his face popped clear, he caught Sloane taking in his chest and flexing muscles appreciatively.
“Keep looking at me like that,” he warned, “and it won’t be sleeping we’re doing tonight.”
Her mouth curved up into the sexiest smile he’d ever seen because it was aimed at him. Sweet baby Jesus. She didn’t have sleeping on her mind, either.
Suddenly, his fingers were clumsy as he unzipped his fly, pushed his jeans down to his ankles and impatiently yanked his feet clear of the denim. As he reached for the waistband of his boxers, Sloane leaned over and turned off the lamp beside the bed. Darkness cloaked the room. Only a faint slit of diffused light came in between the curtains, a distant streetlight reflecting off the bright white of the snow outside.
Naked, he slipped between the cold sheets and encountered Sloane’s warm, welcoming arms.
“We shouldn’t do this—” he started.
She rolled against him, plastering her body against his from chest to toes, her mouth capturing his and stopping his half-hearted protest. “We’ll have to be quiet so we don’t wake Chloe,” she whispered against his lips.
So much for his grand declaration of staying away from her until everything was resolved with whomever was stalking her. He could probably have predicted that they wouldn’t be able to keep their hands off each other. Which was actually kind of awesome...as long as they didn’t get caught.
“I think I can manage to be quiet. Can you?” he challenged her.
“You’d be amazed what I can do in the name of having you,” she replied in a bare breath of sound.
He gathered her in his arms, his hands roving across her back until he found the hem of his T-shirt and tugged it up, exposing the satin flesh and feminine curve of her back. His hands cupped her rear end, and she groaned into his mouth.
“Hush,” he breathed.
“Tease,” she breathed back.
“Oh, you have no idea.” All of a sudden, the idea of seeing just how far he could push Sloane without her making any noise turned him on harder than he could believe.
One hand resting lightly over her mouth, he commenced kissing his way down her neck, tracing the V-neckline of the T-shirt, tugging the fabric until one of her breasts popped free. He sucked at the exposed nipple, pebbled with cold and maybe desire between his lips. He swirled his tongue around the nub, loving how Sloane lurched, shoving her breast up into his mouth even more deeply.
He pushed the T-shirt up until it bunched around her collarbones, and then proceeded to kiss his way down her warm, velvety-smooth body. The shudder when he licked across the other excited peak of her breast, the stretch of her stomach muscles, the goose bumps that rose on her skin tasted sweet and sexy, innocent and hot, pure Sloane.
The tip of her tongue touched his palm over her mouth, and he jumped. It swirled erotically across his hand, licking delicately between his fingers. The thought of her tongue doing that to other parts of him caused the most remarkable reaction. His male flesh hardened until he could practically drill solid rock with it.
Fueled by the need to be inside her, to make her moan, to capture her moans in his mouth, he kissed his way back up her body, across the gentle swell of her belly, pausing for a moment to tickle her belly button until she squirmed impatiently beneath him, and then up the delicious valley of her breasts. Her skin smelled like bergamot and orange blossoms, and he inhaled deeply of her essence.
She tugged at his wrist, moving his hand away from her mouth, and then she pulled his head to hers, kissing him deeply, communicating without words how much she wanted him. The first time shyness was gone, leaving behind raw passion for him that he didn’t think he would ever get enough of.
He positioned himself between her legs and then paused, swearing under his breath.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered.
“My wallet’s in the back pocket of my jeans. Which are on the floor.”
She surprised him by pushing on his shoulders. He gave way, rolling onto his back as she rolled with him, sprawling across his body luxuriously. He grinned and fondled her behind as she hung half off the bed, groping on the floor for condoms.
“Ah-ha!” she crowed in a whisper. She pushed up against his chest, kneeling beside him. She tore open the packet and rolled a condom down onto his erection with slow eroticism that nearly undid him. Her hands were warm and soft, squeezing him with just enough pressure to make his hips buck a little beneath her.
She stretched out on his chest, plastering her mouth against his ear. “A girl would think you hadn’t had sex in forever, given how eager you are.”
He wrapped his arm around her waist and rolled over
, trapping her beneath him but being careful not to crush her. “Don’t tease me,” he growled low. “I’m of a mind to see just how much pleasure you can take without screaming out loud.”
“Is that a dare?” She grinned up at him in the scant light.
“Double dare.”
“You’re on, big guy. Bring it. Give me your best shot at a screaming orgasm.”
Laughing silently, he positioned himself and pressed home. Except it was his eyes that nearly rolled back in his head as the tight, slick glove of her body clutched his erection.
Truth be told, it was a bet he would have been happy to lose. But she had dared him. He had to at least try to drive her out of her mind. He set up a rhythm, much slower than he would have liked, only letting the speed and intensity of his thrusts grow by miniscule degrees. Sloane moved restlessly against him, and then surged impatiently, and yet he kept up the maddeningly slow pace. He was driving himself out of his mind, and he could only pray he was doing the same to her.
Her breathing became ragged and then devolved into light, fast pants. “More,” she demanded in a bare whisper.
“So impatient,” he chided.
In retaliation, she wrapped her legs around his hips, digging her heels into his thighs, and pulled him even deeper into the glory of her body. Not satisfied, apparently, she grabbed his ass with both hands and pulled even more tightly against her, seating him all the way to the hilt in her writhing heat.
She won. He surrendered. He plunged into her with abandon as she rose to meet him thrust for thrust. His breathing grew as ragged as hers, roaring in his ears. He buried his face in the pillow beside her, unable to contain his groans of pleasure any longer. For her part, Sloane buried her face against his neck, crying out against his skin.
Faster and faster their bodies joined, slapping into each other, the heat and friction provoking unbearable pleasure that ripped through him like a million volts of electric ecstasy.