by Megan Crane
“I love me some strategy,” Templeton drawled. “But what’s important is the fact that there’s an emotional component to this. It’s not some random drug bust. You’re putting on a good show, but I can tell that your cousins got to you.”
She made herself smile. “I’m choosing to view them as a warm-up. The way to dip my toe in before jumping into the ocean for a little polar bear dip, like we do up here in the frozen north.”
Not that she, personally, had ever flung herself into frigid water for no apparent reason.
“Kate. It would be weird if it wasn’t emotional.”
“I’m not denying that there’s an emotional component,” she said briskly. Knowing full well that she would absolutely have denied it if she thought she could do so convincingly. “I’m wondering if it makes more sense to use that emotion or not. Do we let my father think he’s winning whatever game he imagines he’s playing? Or do we sidestep all that and let you go in instead?”
“Why, Trooper. Be still my heart. Are you voluntarily brainstorming with me?”
She tried to frown sternly at him, but the way her mouth twitched probably ruined the effect. “I don’t mind letting my father think he’s rattled me if that gets us what we want.”
“I do.”
And there it was again, that intense connection between them, so strong she could almost see it shimmering there above the coffee table.
“You were the one who suggested we look into my family,” she said. “I could have told you that turning over these rocks would lead us straight to the worms.” She pulled in a deep breath. “I don’t know, maybe it’s healthy. Otherwise it all festers there, doesn’t it?”
“The past is just the past.” Templeton’s gaze was intent on hers then. “It’s not healthy or unhealthy. It happened. It’s over.”
“We’re all steeped in our past all the time, Templeton. The past makes us who we are. I have to think it’s better to poke at it every now and again, to make sure it’s a scar and not an open wound.”
“If things hadn’t started blowing up in Southeast Alaska, you wouldn’t have touched your family with a ten-foot pole.”
“Maybe not in person.” Kate felt her gaze narrow as she looked at him. “But this conversation is starting to feel less about what I did, or might do, and a little more about you.”
He shrugged. “I don’t look back, Trooper. Ever.”
“Right. You’re a shark. If you stop swimming forward, you die.”
“Do whatever you want.” And Kate was fascinated that he grinned then. Bright, easy. And, without a doubt, completely fake. “All I’m saying is that one of us is a prickly, uptight, lonely trooper who’s gotten so used to being all alone in this world that she thinks it’s a virtue. And the other one is me. Which one of us do you think is healthier?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He got to his feet in one of his typically, absurdly powerful displays of offhanded might and ease, ran a hand over his head, and let out a booming laugh.
“Right,” Kate said, doing a fair approximation of his drawl. Because it was obnoxious. “Mr. Don’t Look Back, the Past Has Fangs That I Must Outrun at All Costs, is the epitome of healthy and well-adjusted. But nice try.”
Templeton let his gaze move over her, as if he was trying to decide what to do with her. Or what to say, and she braced herself because she knew that whatever he did, it would be a weapon—
But he only shook his head. “I’m going to go see if I can rustle up something a little more filling than a can of soup for dinner. Why don’t you stay out here and think about whether you’re talking to your father because it’s the right move—or because you don’t know how to play well with others.”
“Super well-adjusted,” Kate murmured. “Not taking your ball and going home, or anything like that.”
“Keep it up, Trooper,” he advised her, and she was sure there was something dangerous in his gaze before he turned and headed for the kitchen. “And I won’t feed you.”
But he did, of course.
Kate expected him to be surly about it, but that wasn’t Templeton’s style. He produced a hearty dinner of lamb chops and spinach he liberated from the freezer, mashed potatoes from a box, and even a bottle of wine.
And instead of sitting there, sullen and broody with his nose out of joint, he regaled her with stories of Alaska Force adventures. He was charming. Funny. He certainly knew how to tell a story. But when all the food was gone and they were sitting in the cozy little kitchen that felt like a home, even if it wasn’t theirs, all the laughter subsided and Kate gazed at him across the one glass of wine that she’d taken care to nurse, not drink. Because she certainly didn’t need a repeat of the last time she had a few glasses of wine around him.
“That’s a strange look,” Templeton said.
“I’m wondering why you felt you needed to put on a performance tonight.”
She expected him to argue. To huff and puff and tell her she’d been imagining things. But instead, that mouth of his crooked up in one corner and made her short of breath.
“Everybody likes a little dinner theater,” he drawled. “I figured we could take a break from discussing the Holiday family. You’re welcome.”
Kate was keenly aware that these kinds of conversations with Templeton were dangerous. He was dangerous. All of this was woven through with that highly charged thing that hummed between them and felt a lot like inevitability, and it would take very little to blow it all up.
Very, very little.
She did the dishes instead. She washed and Templeton dried, another thing they seemed to fall into as if they’d choreographed it, but without saying a word.
Kate blamed the house. The fact that it felt so cozy, so lived in. A real home, unlike any of the places she’d lived in over the years. And there was something about being here with Templeton that tugged at her. The fire was so warm, the light was so bright, when there was all that darkness and ice fog outside.
The man had made her dinner. Twice. And had made her laugh, because he could and because there had already been a little too much nastiness.
Kate wished he would grab her. Make a pass. She knew what to do with that kind of overtness. It was kindness that she didn’t know how to digest. It was the fact that he was good to her for no discernible reason except that, beneath all that danger and skill he wore so casually, he was actually the good man she’d been sure he couldn’t be back when she’d met him in Grizzly Harbor for the first time.
And even thinking that did things to her.
They’d eaten late, which meant it was the easiest thing in the world to excuse herself when the dishes were done and hustle straight up the stairs before she was tempted to sink into all that heat he generated. Before she gave in to all those strange sensations that swirled around and around inside of her and made her imagine that heat like his could swallow her whole yet not burn.
She was sure she would drop off to sleep in an instant after such a strange and emotional couple of days. But instead, she read on her phone until late. She heard Templeton come upstairs, then the door across the hall from hers open and shut.
Kate slept fitfully when she finally closed her eyes, falling in and out of anxious dreams that she knew were about her family, though none of them appeared as themselves. It was all faceless monsters and frightening beasts. And when she woke in the morning, she was annoyed that she hadn’t had one of those deliciously wicked dreams about the man across the hall instead.
She went downstairs, not surprised to find that the lights were on and a fresh pot of coffee sat there, already brewed. She wondered if Templeton slept at all or if he simply waited, like that Chuck Norris joke. She suspected the latter.
She poured herself a cup of coffee and was getting around to asking herself if she should be alarmed that there was no sign of him when the front door opened and
he shouldered his way in, bringing a blast of frigid air with him.
“Still the ice fog,” he told her.
She made a noise in commiseration, because the weather meant there would be no run today unless they went out and found a gym with those boring treadmills. It also meant they would be stuck here until it got warmer.
And with no way to work off all your excess nervous energy, a voice inside her said. Unless . . .
But she couldn’t go there. Particularly not this early in the morning.
“All flights are still grounded,” Templeton said, which she’d expected. “It doesn’t look like you and I are getting out of here anytime soon.”
“Stranded in the interior. My favorite.”
Templeton shrugged out of his cold-weather gear. Then he started toward her. And her heart did that thing again. That low, hard kick filled with a slow, drugging heat, in time with the way he moved.
“This gives us extra time to determine the best strategy to take.” She was pleased with how professional she sounded. How pulled together, when she was still on her first cup of coffee. “The reality is that my father was in a prison cell and therefore couldn’t possibly have personally blown anything up or killed that poor man. Much less attempted to assault or abduct me. We’ll have to wait for Oz’s confirmation, but I think we’ll find that none of my cousins were in the area, either. I would be very surprised if Liberty and Russ took any excursions. And I’d be shocked if Will did much of anything.”
“Fair enough.”
“That means someone else is out there, either doing my father’s bidding or, like Russ and Liberty, interpreting my father’s old wishes to suit themselves.”
“Did you stay up all night thinking about this case?” Templeton asked.
And she’d been so busy congratulating herself on her professionalism that she’d somehow failed to notice how close he’d gotten. He was standing next to her at the counter. Right next to her. She kept expecting him to reach past her and help himself to the coffee he’d made, but he didn’t. He only looked down at her.
All too-dark eyes, those wicked brows, and cheekbones for days.
“Yes,” she lied, and met his gaze as blandly as she could. “I allowed myself some time to process the family emotions it all stirred up and then tried to look at it more analytically. Didn’t you?”
“No, ma’am,” Templeton said, in that drawl that she could feel all the way down into her toes, so much so that she had to curl them to keep from shuddering. “I was much more focused on picturing you naked. Again.”
“Wh . . . what?”
She heard herself stutter and would have slapped herself, but she was still holding her coffee mug. Something she remembered only when it nearly slipped out of her suddenly nerveless fingers.
Templeton reached over and gently eased the mug from her grip, then set it down on the counter.
“I think you heard me.”
“What I heard was so inappropriate that I’m sure I must be mistaken.”
“Threaten to shoot me again,” he suggested, grinning slightly. “It’s hot.”
And then he bent his head, snaking one arm around her to haul her toward him, and crushed his mouth to hers.
This time, there was even less build than before.
It was instant immolation.
The shock exploded into need, longing, and the kind of full-body yes that had Kate shooting up on her toes, wrapping her arms around his strong neck, and kissing him like her life depended on it.
He picked her up, high against his body, so it was the easiest thing in the world—and somehow natural—to wrap her legs around his waist. And she understood the benefits of a man like him, built huge and powerful, because he held her as if she weighed nothing at all. He broke the kiss to tilt his head back as he carried her out of the kitchen.
“I figured I’d carry you at some point or another,” he told her, his dark eyes gleaming. “And I do like to be right.”
“Shut up, Templeton.”
He laid her down on the soft rug in the center of the living room. And better still, came right down with her.
And then everything was heat and wonder. Her hands all over him, and his hands on her. Testing, tasting.
She stripped off his T-shirt, humming a little in joy and anticipation at the ridged muscles she exposed. Then she bent to the task of tasting each and every one of them. She thought she could have done that forever, but he lifted her after a while and pulled her shirt up and over her head, tossing it aside. Then sent her bra along with it.
And this time, Templeton held her above him. Then tipped her torso toward his mouth so he could get first one nipple against his tongue, then the other.
Sensation streaked through her, like a crackling live wire. She felt his mouth against her breast, and she felt the surge of heat lower still. Between her legs, where she melted and clenched and nearly threw herself over that edge then and there.
They both fumbled with each other’s pants until Templeton laughed, pulled her hands from his waistband, and put them on her own.
“Race me,” he said.
Kate won. But then they both won, because they were naked together.
Finally.
And for a long, beautifully aching stretch of forever, they just . . . reveled in that. Skin against skin. All the glorious differences in their bodies. The hard wall of his chest against the softness of hers, with the nipples he tasted like bright points of sensation between them. He moved his heavy, muscled thigh between her legs, and both of them groaned when his corded strength met the place where she was softest. Hottest.
And in some distant part of her head, she thought maybe she ought to feel self-conscious about the way she rode his thigh, but she didn’t. She couldn’t.
Because he kissed her again, and his hands were so big as he cupped her face that it was the easiest thing in the world to rock herself against him, then fling herself over that cliff.
When she shuddered back into awareness, Templeton was fishing a packet out of the pants he’d tossed aside earlier. Then he rolled protection down the steel length of him.
“You’re greedy, aren’t you?” he asked her as he crawled back to her side. “I like it.”
And that was a good thing, because she intended to go right on being greedy. She was still panting, but she pushed herself up and threw herself at him. She pushed at his shoulders, laughing when he toppled over, because she knew full well that if he hadn’t wanted to fall backward, she could have pushed against him all day to no avail.
“Lie back,” she told him. “Think of baseball or something.”
His voice was rough, deep, as she crawled on top of him. “I’d rather think about you.”
Kate’s hands were shaking. Or maybe she was shaking, inside and out. It was hard to tell.
She didn’t know if it was greed or something bigger, wilder. Her heart was still pounding, and she could feel her blood racing through her veins. And she didn’t think she would last the hour if she didn’t do this. If she didn’t make this mad, insane thing in her go away.
And there was only one way to do that.
She settled there astride him, then braced herself against his powerful chest with one hand. With the other, she reached down between them and wrapped her fingers as far around him as they could go.
“Look at me,” he commanded her.
And she couldn’t help but obey him. Her gaze snapped to his, even as she worked him inside of her. She saw the muscles in his neck go tight. She saw a wild glitter in his gaze, triumph and victory at once.
He had one hand on her hip and the other fisted in her hair.
And Kate knew with every cell and atom in her body that it was taking every inch of the formidable control this man had to let her do what she was doing. To let her take her time, settling her
body against his as she worked that length of him inside her, bit by bit.
And when they were finally flush, she was red everywhere, shaking, and even sweating.
And Templeton smiled.
“Good job, Trooper,” he said. “You want to go fast, don’t you?”
She wanted to answer him in kind, but she couldn’t seem to find the words. Her breath was a tangle, and she couldn’t seem to stop shaking.
“Take it slow,” Templeton said. “I dare you.”
She accepted the challenge.
He held her, but loosely. So she lifted herself, then settled back down on him.
And it was almost too much to bear.
Pleasure speared through her, an intense wallop that might have knocked her sideways if he weren’t holding on to her.
She found that the more she moved, the better it felt. Until she could roll her hips, slide herself against him, and it was like magic.
And all the while, Templeton talked.
As if he’d been inside her head for all those dreams and knew things she didn’t know about herself. For example, that she’d always wanted a man with a dirty mouth and a whole lot of wicked commands.
Each and every one of which she followed, because they felt good.
Because he felt good.
“Go on,” he told her when her breath was ragged and she was shivering against him. “Go over.”
That time, when she came apart at the seams, she shouted out his name. Or sobbed it, maybe.
And when she could think again, barely, Templeton was turning them over, coming up over her and taking both her hands in one of his. He stretched her arms up over her head, then grinned down at her, but it was a hard sort of grin, his face carved into a kind of heady sensuality that made Kate shudder all over again.
“My turn,” he growled at her.
And then he surged into her.
Once, then again, with a tightly reined ferocity that stormed through Kate. She arched up against him, her hips rising of their own accord to meet his.
And the rhythm he set was blistering. Beautiful.