“Why did you finally open up to me?” he asked against her hair. The muscles in his arms held her firm, and God that was nice.
“I don’t want to lose your friendship, Will.” She really, really didn’t.
“Lucy, you have to know by now that I don’t want to be your friend.”
Oh. She glanced up through her eyelashes, and his eyes burned bright, right into her. The atmosphere in the cabin shifted dangerously with the intensity of all that was William.
“You don’t want to be my friend?” she asked carefully.
“No.” His thumb rubbed across her lower lip, and the electricity between them rivaled the lightning outside. “That’s not what I want from you.”
“No?” she asked.
He turned her to face him. “I want more.”
Her heart tripped faster as his mouth got close to hers, near enough she could smell the raindrops mixed with wet earth on his skin. Thank God. Perhaps getting involved wouldn’t be so bad after all.
“You were so mad at me,” she said. In the intimacy of the space, only the two of them existed.
“I’m sorry I got angry.” He rubbed his hands along the wet fabric of her shirt, lifting the cloth as his fingers moved.
“You should have brought a map,” she mumbled.
He laid her back and moved above her before he lifted the edge of her drenched shirt, remarkably close to the waistband of her panties.
Her breath caught. Hells freaking bells.
All the reasons they shouldn’t be together suddenly seemed trivial. He was about to be her boss and he’d been total playboy, but right then she didn’t mind any of that.
“I’ll bring one next time,” he said on a low rumble.
“Bring what?” she asked, unable to concentrate on anything other than the water droplets on his damp lips. Lips that parted close to hers.
Less than a centimeter of space and she could kiss him again.
His eyes glazed over. “A map.”
Before she could say anything else, he kissed her. He ran his tongue along the seam of her lips and she moaned. She slipped her hand into his hair and opened for him. The crackling ozone outside had nothing on the two of them.
His fingertips grazed the edge of her thigh, sending goose pebbles all along her skin. As soon as his mouth met hers she went from chilled to the core to heated beyond comfort.
A groan slid from deep in her throat. Or his. Who could really tell at that point?
Had she ever been this turned on by a kiss? No, definitely not. Given the state of his…twitching rod…he was equally affected.
His lips moved against hers. Pressed harder. His tongue invaded her mouth.
For the first time she got it. It being that thing people always talked about as chemistry.
Sure, she’d dated. Even invited a few guys into her bed. But she’d never experienced anything like this.
So, they weren’t going to be friends. Okay. The intensity of his kiss made up for any annoyance of her failed friendship plan. The weight she’d carried all day disappeared as her body reacted to his touch.
He leaned back, barely breaking the kiss, their mouths only millimeters away from each other. His eyes flared with desire.
They were so, totally, not going to be friends.
Her hands bunched against his wet collar, yanking it impatiently to bring him back to her mouth.
All reason vanished from her synapses when his hands traveled under her shirt along her slick skin to the edge of her bra. He tugged the cloth down, the pad of his thumb brushing across her nipple.
She moaned again. Absolutely, couldn’t help it. The storm outside raged.
The door to the shack smacked open and a man, not William, cleared his throat.
Holy hell.
William stilled. Lucy pulled away.
His hand slid from under her shirt, and he turned quickly. Two men wearing raincoats with the Twin Lakes logo stood at the threshold holding fishing gear.
“This is a first,” the shorter man said, raising an eyebrow. “Wouldn’ta thought to use a pile of lifejackets for that.”
Chapter Seventeen
The men went off to the corner of the shack and the thrum of rain on the metal roof lightened. William reached for Lucy’s hand and hauled her beside him, tucking his arm around her shoulders.
“So, that happened,” she said under her breath. Her expression had gone distant, but he’d remedy that as soon as they got back to the cabin.
“Yeah, it happened.” He leaned to her and kissed her neck, intentionally rubbing his stubble on the soft spot beneath her ear.
She shivered.
The rain finally stopped, and he snagged the backpack.
“Ready?” he asked.
She peeked up at him. “I’m starving. Can we stop at the lodge and grab something quick for dinner?”
No. No time for dinner. He needed her alone. If he calculated correctly, he had approximately eight more seconds before he spontaneously combusted. Yeah, he would die right there on the life jackets.
Her stomach rumbled. She raised her eyebrows in an I told you gesture.
“Sure, we can go get dinner.” He forced a smile. After they ate, he’d initiate Operation Get Alone and Get Naked.
The men met his goodbye with grunts. “We’ll be sure to knock next time,” one of them muttered.
William held Lucy’s hand when they forged ahead into the post-storm mountain air. Aside from the waterlogged ground and the fresh after-rain scent of the forest, he would never have known the angry storm had blown through. They walked in silence, stopping at the edge of the lake. She squeezed his hand, shooting a pulse of desire into his veins.
“I was thinking we should head back to Confluence tonight.” She wriggled against his arm.
“What?” he asked.
“One more night isn’t going to expose anything else. What do you think? After dinner, pack up and head back?” She glanced at him expectantly.
Absolutely not. He only had a few more hours with her before they returned to the real world. No way would he give up that time. “Thought we’d stick around here tonight. Pick up where we left off.”
“We shouldn’t do that again,” she said without any conviction at all.
She wasn’t making this easy. “Why’s that?”
“You’re about to be my boss. Any more touching would be…unprofessional.”
“Unprofessional?” He quirked an eyebrow. She hadn’t thought it was unprofessional when she’d outlined a map of the Twin Lakes resort on the roof of his mouth with her tongue.
“We won’t be able to work together if that keeps happening. Let’s have dinner, check the video, and forget this happened. It’s logical.” She nodded in agreement with herself.
“To be clear, your plan is to forget this happened?”
“Yes.” The word sounded more like a question than a statement.
“Here’s my plan. I’ll buy you dinner, and we’ll go back to the cabin. When we get there, I’ll do this.” He dropped his fingertips to her hips. She held her breath, right on cue.
“Then I’ll lean forward and kiss your neck.” He illustrated by brushing his lips against her sensitive skin.
She gulped, and her hands gripped his biceps. “That’s nice. You could do that some more.”
He grinned, letting his lower lip skim her jawline.
“When I’m done, I’ll put my mouth right about here.” He touched his lips casually to hers.
She shivered. “What’s next?”
“Then, I’ll slip my hand right here.” He demonstrated over the cloth of her shorts, moving his flat palm against the denim. She made a strangled noise and drew closer, her breath coming more quickly to match his own.
“Would you like that?” He said the words against her mouth.
She nodded. “Yes.”
He let out a relieved breath. “When we’re through, we can discuss logic and what happens next, yeah?”
�
�You’re impossible,” she mumbled.
He lifted his hand to her waist and chuckled. “So, you’re telling me there’s a chance?” He kissed her briefly and wrapped his fingers with hers as they made their way to the lodge.
…
William would die a slow death at the hands of Lucy. She took her time over dinner, laughing and clearly savoring their time together. He should’ve enjoyed himself, too, but his mind looped their plans for the rest of the evening on replay.
“You ready to head back?” He trailed his finger over her knuckles.
“We haven’t ordered dessert.” She tucked her hand in her lap. “We might as well indulge since we’re heading back to Confluence.”
“We aren’t going home tonight.” He shook his head. Not a chance. “Order dessert to go? Eat it at the cabin?”
He sent a silent prayer that she’d agree.
She scowled at him. “The ice cream will melt.”
“Then get the carrot cake.” See? Easy.
Her nose scrunched up. “Seriously? No. I don’t believe in vegetables in my dessert.”
She had a point.
Her ice cream sundae came, and she ate slowly. Each time she ran the spoon against her tongue, he nearly groaned aloud. He was fairly certain she didn’t understand the power she wielded with flatware.
She popped the maraschino cherry in her mouth and, holy hell, was she sucking on the damn thing? He swallowed the guttural growl that threatened. “Let’s head back, yeah?”
One last lick, and she dropped her spoon.
“Yeah. I’m stuffed.” She stretched her arms over head, giving him a front row view of her breasts tight against the now dry T-shirt.
He had lost his mind. Poof. Gone.
Given that any semblance of coherence disappeared at the cherry, he couldn’t be sure, but it seemed he dragged her back to the cabin like a caveman.
“Seriously, what’s the rush, Will?” she asked when he threw open the door.
If he were an evil cartoon villain, he’d be rubbing his sinister hands together.
She stopped abruptly. “Wait, you didn’t use your key?”
“The door wasn’t locked.” He turned the handle to show her.
“I locked it when we left.” She was adamant.
“Luce, we were both upset. It was a mistake. No harm done.” All this talk of doors and locks put a serious kink in his evil genius plan.
Her face paled. “No, you don’t understand. I’m sure I locked it.”
He gave her a reassuring squeeze. “Wait here. I’ll go in and check it out.”
“I’m not waiting out here alone.” She stuck close beside him.
When he flipped the switch, lights flickered on. Normally, he wouldn’t think anything of the way they wavered. But with Lucy freaking out, the subtle dim and flare gave off a seriously creepy vibe. She gripped his back pocket, and subsequently his ass, as she shuffled with him through the cabin. “We were both upset when we went out. I’m sure—”
“I could’ve sworn I locked it.” She paled and crossed her arms around herself protectively. He preferred where her hands had been before.
“You’re my girl now. I won’t let anything bad happen.”
Her eyes got wide. “I’m your girl?”
“Thought we established this on the trail, at the boathouse, and again by the lake?” He kissed her forehead. “Let’s see if anything’s missing.”
They’d planted a few pieces of jewelry and several hundred dollars throughout the room. It didn’t take more than a few seconds to realize the cash had been lifted. He shouldn’t have been excited, but his instincts clicked on high alert and he went straight to the cameras.
“Should we call the police?” Lucy asked, checking the lock on the door for the second time.
“Not yet. We’ll check the video and then we’ll talk to management.”
“We should check on Sarah and Max. See if they’re missing anything.” Lucy crossed her arms across her chest and rubbed at her shoulders.
He gave her his best not-a-chance look.
“Or we could just do it your way.” She helped set up the computers to run the video. Three clicks and…
“It’s that front desk lady.”
Sure enough, the front desk clerk who had checked them in appeared on the video rummaging through their bags and pocketing the cash he’d left inside the pockets.
“Looks like we got our evidence.” Lucy grinned at the woman stealing from them on the screen.
Will’s phone beeped from the table where he’d left it behind. He ignored it.
Lucy jerked her chin to the table. “You should check that.”
“Probably.” He reluctantly released her and snagged the phone. He grimaced. Twenty-three missed calls, ten messages. “This might take a minute.”
“Don’t mind me.” She smiled weakly and waved him away.
“It’ll just take a second.” He winked at her.
While he wanted nothing more than to shut out the world and drown in Lucy, he patiently returned each message.
A second turned into an hour, and an hour into two as he put out fire after fire. Lucy had fallen asleep on the bed ages ago. Given the way she yawned and how quickly she’d fallen asleep, he didn’t wake her after his last call—as much as he’d wanted to.
Instead, he poured over the spreadsheets covering the table. They outlined the financial benefit of the upcoming acquisition with the Colorado Springs station. The trouble was, the benefit was all for Crestone. A lot of people in Colorado Springs were about to find themselves out of work.
He scrubbed a hand over his hair. His gut told him it wasn’t the right thing to do, but the money definitely talked.
“Hey.” Lucy dropped her feet over the side of the bed.
He glanced to her and grinned. “Hey.” The ridiculous panda bear nightshirt she wore skimmed her thighs, the cupcake cherry directly over her nipple.
“Thought you were asleep.” He kept the words neutral. He wanted to lift the edge of that panda bear. Unwrap her slowly. Taste her.
“I was. What’s all this?” She gestured to the papers covering the table.
“This…is my empire.” He shook away the corrupt thoughts of what lay underneath the cupcake.
Lucy leaned against the table.
He stared at the cherry on her shirt.
When she crossed her arms, the cherry stretched tight over her breast, taunting him.
He took her in, all of her—her face scrubbed free of makeup, her hair in a messy bun on top of her head, the ludicrous panda that skimmed her bare legs—legs he wanted wrapped around him. She seduced him without even trying.
His chair scraped across the wood floor when he stood. Moving in front of her, he placed his hands on both sides of the table to frame her there.
“What’re you doing?” she croaked.
“You.” The rough word grated his vocal cords.
“Okay.”
He felt that one word straight in his gut.
“Tell me you don’t want this, and I’ll back off.”
“I want this, too. I’m just worried you’ll regret it. That it’s a bad idea.”
He kissed her—peppermint toothpaste and desire on her lips. “I won’t regret this, and sometimes the bad ideas are the best ones.”
“You just made that up, didn’t you?” She ran her lips along his collarbone, her hands settling on his torso.
“I did.”
He cradled her face between his hands. “I confess…the things you do to me, Luce. I want you. Now.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re everything I’ll never deserve.”
Her expression softened. “I confess I want you, too. Tonight. But this can only be temporary.”
He touched his lips lightly to hers. “Then I guess we’ll just have to make our time count, won’t we?”
“You’re going to be my boss.”
“Not tonight. Let’s take this day by day, see wher
e it goes?”
“Okay.” She pressed her mouth to his. They opened their lips in unison, tongues gradually demanding more until he throbbed with the need for release.
She broke the kiss. “Your rod’s twitchy again,” she said, breathless.
“Yeah?” He lifted her to the table. “I’d like to say something witty, but I’m busy right now.”
“Do you want me to fall on you like that rooster? I can even make a cock joke.” The vein in her throat pulsed as her heart pounded. She opened her thighs around him so his thick erection pressed into the softness of her core.
“Absolutely not.” He leaned to suckle the cherry at her breast through the fabric. She pushed her body closer, offering more, claiming everything.
A moan escaped from the back of her throat.
He lifted his head and moved his fingers under her shirt to her nipple to tug the wet flesh. She groaned and pressed harder against his pelvis. The layers of cloth meant nothing as she rubbed against him until he nearly finished right there. Her breath quickened, and he tore his mouth from hers. “Bed,” he said over her harsh gasps.
“Wha—?” Her pupils were totally liquid, confused.
“Let’s go to the bed.”
…
Lucy tried to focus on William, but she couldn’t. The arousal he’d built inside her overwhelmed any sense of reality.
The high of their encounter began to crumble around her. “Drawer.”
He pulled her from the table.
As they approached the bed, he abruptly turned and lifted her in his arms. He lowered his mouth to the crest of her breasts, nuzzling her as she moaned. Instinctively, she wrapped her legs around his waist in some kind of primal dance.
Sex had never been such a craving before. Clearly, she’d been doing it wrong.
His mouth crushed against her lips with an intensity she’d never experienced, and he nipped at her lower lip with his teeth. It should have hurt. Strangely, it was…sensual. Heat, pleasure, and sin.
She weighed nothing as his tongue continued searching. She gripped her ankles around his back, hanging on as he explored every inch of her lips and mouth.
Somehow they reached the bed and practically fell to the sheets. His torso aligned with hers. He peppered whisper-soft kisses over her face and down her throat, stopping at the curve where her neck met her shoulder.
The Honeymoon Trap Page 14