by T. S. Joyce
“We are and we aren’t. I’ll explain on the way.” He plucked her thick winter jacket off the coatrack by the door and held it out for her, waiting.
It was hard keeping up with his mood swings, but she accepted his help with her coat and then pulled on her gloves. Now she was good and ready for the short trip to the truck.
He led her out the door and down the stairs.
“Geez, overprotective,” she teased light-heartedly to lift the tension between them. “We’re just going to the truck.”
“False, we’re hiking.”
“Hiking?” Blaire blurted, her breath frozen in front of her face. “It’s freezing out here.”
Gentry didn’t say anything as he led her to a wide trail through the woods. There were tire tracks, so why the heck were they walking at nine o’clock at night? “Um, a wolf lives out here,” she reminded him, looking back longingly at the safety of the cabin. She’d left the main light on, and the soft glow was beckoning her back.
“You’re safe with me,” Gentry said without turning around.
He was hard to keep up with, though, and even with the traction of her snow boots, she was slipping on the layer of ice beneath the snow, but Gentry didn’t seem inclined to wait for her. Whatever survival-of-the-fittest nonsense he was pulling, she wasn’t playing.
Bending down, she scooped up a big handful of snow, packed it tight, and chucked it at him. When the snowball exploded against the back of his jacket, Gentry froze like a gargoyle.
He turned slowly, his eyes narrowed to little, green slits.
“I used to play softball. I was pretty good,” she bragged with a curtsy.
When Gentry stalked closer to her, bending smoothly to pick up snow, the cocky grin fell from her lips. “No, I was just playing. I just wanted attention!”
“You got it. You have all of my attention, Trouble. Why are you running?”
With a squeal, she high-kneed it off the trail and headed for the cover of the trees. A snowball hit her in the side, and she burst out laughing and made one of her own. He was jogging parallel to her through the trees. He looked like he belonged in these woods, while she was tripping on hidden tree roots every three steps or so. The forest echoed with their laughter as they chucked snow at each other and ducked behind trees. Gentry was fast, almost unnaturally so. One second he was twenty yards away, and the next he appeared from behind the towering maple tree she was about to hide behind as if he’d been there all along. With a remorseless grin, he plopped snow on top of her hair.
She gasped at the frigid sensation that trembled down her spine. “Gentry!” she exclaimed breathlessly.
“Mmmm,” he said, more of a rumble than a word. “I like when you say my name like that.
“Like what? Angrily?” she screeched, scooping more snow.
He stood there in the moonlight, legs splayed, dick huge and pressed against his jeans, with the most confident smile she’d ever seen on anyone. “Apparently, I find anger sexy.”
“That’s not how it’s supposed to work, Gentry!”
When she pelted him with a snow ball, he flinched but didn’t flee. He was laughing instead.
The snowball fight clearly over, she tossed him a fiery glare, which she was trying to hold because his smiles made her want to smile for some irritating reason.
“You still mad?” he asked from right behind her where he pressed his body against her back. His hand was in her snow-speckled hair, angling her neck to the side to give him access to suck her hard there, and ooooh, that felt so freaking good.
“Do you forgive me?” he murmured against her sensitive skin.
She’d never wanted a hickey in her life, but suddenly, she wanted one from Gentry more than anything in the world.
“No,” she said on a breath.
Gentry turned her in his arms and walked her backward, slowly, gripping the back of her neck with one hand and resting his other securely on her hip.
When her back hit a tree, Gentry turned her face and kissed her right behind her ear, right where she’d gotten a little heart tattoo at age eighteen when she had one of her only moments of rebellion.
“I’ve wanted to kiss that little fucking heart all day,” he whispered against her ear. “Has anyone kissed it before?”
“No,” she uttered helplessly. Why were her legs going numb?
“Good. It’s all mine then.” He kissed it again, let his lips linger, then dipped his affection to her neck. “Do you forgive me now?”
Blaire blinked slowly at the full moon through the bare tree branches above. “No?” The word came out soft, like a question. Why? Because it was a huge lie. He’d basically kissed her into a coma without even touching her lips, and he was now forgiven for everything he had done and everything he would do again.
Gentry’s chuckle was deep and resonated through his chest. He hadn’t put his jacket back on, and her hand was splayed over the perfect line between his defined pecs. She could feel his laugh, but not well enough, so she pulled off her glove with her teeth and let it drop to the snow beside them. And then she slid her hand under the hem of his shirt. He twitched and then punched out a slight breath when her fingers brushed the lowest of his abs.
Her hands were cold, while Gentry felt like he was running a fever. A sliver of worry washed through her. “Are you okay?” Maybe he was coming down with a cold or something.
Gentry responded by pressing his hips against hers and guiding her wrist up higher under his shirt. “Never been better, Trouble. Now you’re earning my forgiveness, too.”
“Your forgiveness,” she snorted.
“Who threw the first snowball?”
“Oh.”
His abs were like mounds of stone, but his skin was smooth and soft. Up, up, she pressed on, memorizing his body until she reached his chest. And there, he splayed her palm against his pec, right over his pounding heart. His breathing was deeper, his cheeks flushed, and his erection was so hard against her she forgot the cold completely. It was so easy to get lost in moments like these with a man like Gentry. No, not a man like Gentry. Just Gentry. She’d never felt so consumed by another person in her entire life. It was terrifying and beautiful all at once.
“Can I tell you something?” he murmured, trapping her in that bright green gaze.
“You can tell me anything.” And she meant it. She wanted to know everything about this man who was pulling yet another of her heartstrings onto him.
“I’m taking you someplace that’s really special to me, to my family, and it used to be special to the people of this town. It’s called Winter’s Edge.”
Chills blasted up her arms, but it wasn’t from the cold. The way he’d said Winter’s Edge, so reverently, made her realize just how special the paintbrush gift had been. He was showing her a big part of himself tonight. Gentry was letting her in.
“What is it?” she whispered.
His heart pounded faster under her palm, and he gripped her hips. “It’s a bar. My dad left the place to me in his will. I haven’t been back to this town in years, but I have good memories. Some, anyway. Winter’s Edge is one of them. I grew up playing there, learning the business, working there when I was old enough. It was supposed to be mine.”
“Like the inn?”
“The inn is secondary income. My dad didn’t even make enough to float us on rentals at the inn, but Winter’s Edge was where everyone used to hang out.”
“What happened to it?”
“My dad died.”
“When?” she whispered.
Gentry scrubbed his hand down his face and swallowed hard before he answered. “A week and a half ago.”
“Gentry,” she drawled out, her heart breaking for him. Blaire didn’t know what possessed her to do it, but she stood up on her tiptoes and rested her cheek against his. They weren’t hugging, just standing there, touching faces, both of their breath shaking in the silence of the night.
There were no words that she could say to make this easier o
n him, so she waited. And waited. And when he finally did pull her into a tight hug, she did her best to blink back the moisture that rimmed her eyes. She couldn’t even imagine losing her mom. A week and a half? It had just barely happened, and Gentry had been walking around with all this pain, seemingly normal, and now she was starting to get a glimpse of just how strong Gentry Striker was. Not just physically—that had been apparent from day one. But he was strong emotionally in ways she truly respected.
“I went to Winter’s Edge earlier to see if it needed repairs. I didn’t think it would need anything, my dad loved that bar more than anything, but when I went inside, it looked like no one had been in there for years. And I don’t know what the fuck is going on in this town, Blaire. I came back, and nothing’s what I thought it was. I talked to my dad on the phone all the time, and he’d acted like it was business as usual, told me the bar was doing fine. But the inn is so far underwater, the bar hasn’t seen customers in God-knows-how-long, and I just want to leave and go back to my life, but I can feel it. I’m getting sucked in to whatever shit went down in Rangeley.”
“Is it dangerous to dig?” she whispered.
“Yeah.”
“Is that why you got in that fight last night?” she asked.
When Gentry released her and eased back a couple paces, she could see it in his eyes. The shut-down was here. “I’ve said way too much. More than I’m allowed. More than is safe. Come on,” he said low, offering his hand.
Her palm tingled from being suddenly detached from his warm chest, but he was offering her what he could. He had to shut down on her for whatever reason, but he was still allowing her touch, which after that intimate moment of sharing, she really needed.
So she smiled sadly and slid her palm against his, stooped to pick up her glove, then shoved it in her back pocket with the paintbrush.
They’d gone from laughter with the snowball fight, to molten lust, to having a huge, illuminating experience in the matter of half an hour. And truth be told, Blaire was stunned with the amount of emotion this man brought out in her. She felt alive again. She wasn’t just some ghost walking through her life waiting on the next day that would be the exact same as the one before.
For the first time, she dreaded going back to her life. It would mean back to the monotony, back to avoiding Matt in their hometown, back to trying to get on her feet. While here, she already felt upright.
But worst of all, in six tiny days, she would have to say goodbye to the man who was breathing life into her again.
Chapter Ten
The door creaked loudly as Gentry shoved it open. There was a pile of debris on the other side, keeping it from sliding easily, but he placed his thick-soled boot in front of it and made room for Blaire to go in.
“What’s that smell?” she asked, covering her nose.
“Raccoon.”
“Living?”
“Not anymore.”
Geez, she didn’t even want to know. It was so dark she could only make out the shadows of overturned tables and chairs.
When Gentry stepped out of the way of the door, it slammed closed, startling her. “Follow me,” he said.
Blaire held her hands out, searching for him or a wall or a freaking walking stick, anything. “Wait, I can’t see to follow you.”
In no time flat, Gentry had pulled her onto his back like a little monkey, and she giggled at how helpless she must seem because, apparently, Gentry had impeccable night vision. He didn’t bump a single piece of furniture on his way to the back of the bar.
He settled her on a chair that made her sneeze with the amount of dust, and then one at a time, he lit four old-fashioned lanterns on the bar top. “I’ll get the power turned back on to this place tomorrow. Someone cut the lines.”
What the hell was going on in this town? And what was Gentry’s father involved in before he died that got him targeted like this?
The lanterns made a world of difference once Gentry and Blaire righted tables and settled the lights on them throughout the room.
Blaire stood in the middle of the cluttered area, and her heart ached for Gentry all over again. He wore a business, get-crap-done face as he upended chairs and stacked them against the side wall, but he’d said this place meant something to him, and there was no way seeing an old haunt torn up like this didn’t hurt.
Determined, she gave a silent promise that he wouldn’t have to clean this place up alone. For the next six days, she would help. Something deep down inside told her Gentry needed this place to be okay again for his father’s memory.
Blaire checked her phone, which thankfully got a signal in here, and turned on her favorite playlist. And while the music was going, she and Gentry went to work. There were clean rags and cleaning solution in a case behind the bar, so she scrubbed the layers of dust off the bar and disinfected everything behind it until her arms shook. There wasn’t a single bottle of liquor left in the cabinets that lined the wall behind the counter, but on the floor were piles and piles of glass. Someone must’ve been sending a mighty big message to break all this expensive liquor instead of stealing it. She swept the shards into a big orange bucket, and then went to sweeping the rest of the bar as well, which took long enough that Gentry had patched and painted a shredded wall by the time she was done.
He'd apparently picked up supplies, because the area near a small stage was stacked with sheetrock, nails, tools, paint, drop clothes, caulk guns, and more cleaners. There was even a sander for the wood floors as though he meant to re-stain them, and when she looked at the wooden boards closer, she could see why. Someone had broken out a few of the windows, and the weather had gotten to the floors. Pity, because they were probably originals.
“I don’t know if they can be saved, but I don’t really have the money to replace them right now,” Gentry said, as if he could read her mind.
“Well, they already look a little better now that they’re clean,” she said hopefully.
“You know that little cabin beside yours?”
“The dilapidated one?” she said, pulling the paintbrush from her back pocket. It was getting really late, and she was tired, but she wouldn’t stop until he did. Gentry needed this.
“Yeah, that’s my favorite cabin on the property.”
Blaire scrunched up her nose. “Really?”
“My dad never got around to rehabbing it, so it got rented the least during the busy season. So me and my brothers would hang out there sometimes. It was like our clubhouse.”
“How many brothers do you have?”
“Two.”
Blaire frowned. “Did they come to your dad’s funeral?” AKA—why the heck weren’t they here helping fix up his father’s place?
“No. I’m waiting on them to spread his ashes.”
“Are you the oldest?”
“I feel like it sometimes, but no. I’m the middle. My brother Asher is older by a year, and Roman is younger than me by a year.”
“Busy mom.”
Gentry handed her a cup of dark brown paint and smoothed out the drop cloth under him with the toe of his boot. “My parents wanted a lot of kids. Dad came from a big family and wanted the same. He wanted me and all my siblings to always have someone to depend on.”
“Like a pack of Strikers,” she teased.
But Gentry jerked a startled gaze to her, the smile gone from his face. “What do you mean?”
Blaire frowned. “Why are you being weird? I mean like a hoard of you. A gaggle. A herd? I dunno, pack just felt right for the joke.”
The corners of Gentry’s eyes tightened as he gave his attention to dragging his paintbrush down the corner line again. One of the lanterns was running low on fuel and flickered a bit, casting his face into shadows. She was staring, but couldn’t help herself. His profile was perfect.
He licked his lips like she’d seen once on a cologne commercial, then cast her a quick glance. His eyes churned with something hungry. “You like what you see, Trouble?”
�
�Yep,” she said honestly.
His lips curled back in a feral smile that somehow looked right on his face. Gentry was a wild man. She could see little peeks of it in the way he carried himself, the way he walked, and the way he didn’t favor his injuries from yesterday. She could tell from the wicked glint in his eyes and the way his nose twitched like an animal when he was riled. Like now.
“You smell good,” he said, his voice low and gravelly.
“Like mango? It’s the lip gloss.”
“Like mango and more.”
She frowned. “Shampoo? Deodorant?” He must have a very good sense of smell for those things.
“Dangerous little kitty,” he murmured, pulling her in front of him and pressing her back against the wall. “You make me want to tell you things.”
“My deodorant is called powder fresh. Does that give you a boner?” she teased.
“It’s not your deodorant I care about right now, Trouble.”
He cupped her sex, and her response was an instant bowing of her back against the wall. She inhaled sharply.
Gentry pressed a fingertip into the ‘easy access’ hole like a little poontang-seeking missile. “I like the smell here better. I can tell when you want me.”
“All the time,” she murmured mindlessly.
“I can tell,” he rumbled, teasing her with his lips. “Makes me want to eat you, kitty.”
Chills rippled across her skin, raising the fine hairs all over her body. The way he’d said that… It was one part threat, two parts pure sex appeal. Dangerous Gentry.
Her body was shaking bad from adrenaline, nerves, or maybe both. Gentry didn’t seem to mind, though. He only smiled wider in the moment before his lips pressed against hers.
It was gun-powder meets flame. It wasn’t a gentle kiss, or a questioning one. This was hard and focused. He sipped at her lips so hard his teeth scraped her, lifting another wave of chills over her body. His body pressed her against the wall, trapping her, but she felt nothing but safe. She wanted this, wanted him so badly. Not just fooling around this time either, she wanted all of him.