by Jill Shalvis
The Jeep was versatile and tough, taking the roads with ease. Or maybe that was Stone himself. He handled the wheel as if he’d been born with it. She watched his big hands, one on the wheel, one on the stick shift, not white knuckled like she was, but handling the job while remaining cool, calm and collected.
In easy control, as she would be in the ER.
Yet unlike how she’d be at work, he was also relaxed. Laid-back.
All the things she wanted to learn to be. “What’s next?”
He handed her another little piece of paper, which she unfolded.
Be patient.
Ha. “If I knew how to be patient,” she said, “we wouldn’t be doing this.”
“Wouldn’t we?”
She met his gaze, his clear and green, and so direct it was hard to take. He allowed her to see his affection, his need for her, the heat, and she found herself swallowing hard. “I meant, I wouldn’t be here in Wishful. I’d have hired someone for my dad instead of coming to help him out.”
“Would you have? Really?”
She blew out a breath. “No.”
He smiled and reached for her hand. “Hi.”
“Hi?”
“Hi to the real Emma. Now stop thinking so hard and look around.”
She didn’t want to, because she instinctively knew that she was vulnerable to him, but she did as he asked and looked around. They were surrounded by woods, deep, dense, overgrown woods, and she could see nothing but pine and Manzanita bush and—
And suddenly, with one last turn, it all fell away and they were on the edge of a cliff.
Looking down. And down. And down…
It was staggering. Heart-stopping. She’d never in her life seen anything like it.
“The Tahoe Rim Trail,” he said quietly, turning off the engine so that the air was filled with nothing but a bird’s cry, the hum of unseen insects, the light brush of a breeze.
He hopped out of the Jeep and she followed him, walking to the edge of the drop-off, where hundreds of feet below, she could see the huge expanse of Lake Tahoe, spread out like some magnificent feast for her eyes.
“This way.” He led her along a very narrow trail that had her huffing and puffing in two minutes flat while his breathing remained perfectly steady.
“I could have relaxed easier at a spa,” she said, huffing like a freight train.
“Consider this the Wilder spa, and you’ve booked the Stone Special.”
She gasped for breath for another few hundred feet. “I think I’m dying.”
“It’s the altitude.” He opened his backpack and pulled out a water.
“You came prepared.”
“Don’t look surprised. It’s my job.”
It was, she realized, not just to have a good time, but to be ready for anything. Like her job, his required him to have whatever they’d need. She might have just gotten in the Jeep without thinking much about their plans, but he’d put thought into it, as he did into every trip he made because it was up to him to be in charge.
It was odd to think of his work that way, to compare it to hers, even in broad scope. But it reminded her that when she’d first come here, she’d seen him as a mountain bum. How perceptions change. She couldn’t help but wonder, had his perception of her changed too?
He pulled a third piece of paper from his pack and handed it to her:
Stop over-thinking.
“You think you know me pretty well, don’t you?”
Smiling, he handed her another.
Go with your gut instincts.
He’d kept walking while she read that last one. She eyed him just ahead of her, moving along with an easy confidence that was so sexy he made her mouth dry. His shirt was stretching the limits at the shoulders, playing over the muscles of his back, half tucked into his Levi’s, which were all in themselves a gift to her eyes. The jeans were loose and low on his hips, nicely taut across his extremely fit butt, and emphasized his long, powerful legs. “Go with my gut instincts on what?”
He kept walking.
With a huff, she shoved the notes in her pocket, downed some water, and followed. “Are there people up here?”
“Not on this trail, it’s hard to find.”
“I think TJ could probably find it.”
Stone flashed her a grin over his shoulder. “He’s in Desolation Wilderness on a group trek.”
“Ah. A great date trail, then.”
“You’re the first woman I’ve brought up here.”
She stared at his back in surprise, and then tripped over her own feet.
“Careful. I have an in with the doctor, but she wields needles and knows how to use them.” When he stopped, she nearly plowed into the back of him. He shifted to the side and she saw that they were in a sort of rock alcove, once again looking down at the Tahoe Rim Trail but from a far more private, secluded spot.
“My God,” she whispered, feeling like they were on top of the world. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Agreed,” he said quietly at her side, but when she turned to him, he was looking right at her.
“Stop.” She ran a hand over her hair. “I’m dusty and hot and icky.”
He smiled and grabbed her hand. “You can be the boss of your world all you want, Dr. Emma, but even you can’t tell me how to think.”
“I’m merely questioning your eyesight.”
“Twenty-twenty.”
“Ah.” She sipped some water. “Then you’re warming me up, thinking you’re going to get lucky up here in the middle of nowhere. Luckier than the last time you had me in the wilderness.”
He looked at her and slowly arched a brow. “You have it all figured out then?”
“Yeah. But let me assure you it’s not happening. My mind would be on all the bugs, and where they could crawl into, and you wouldn’t get very far with me.”
“Trust me, your mind wouldn’t be on the bugs.”
While her knees wobbled over the inevitable truth of that statement, he slid an arm around her. “I realize you like to be in charge, Emma. Always in control. But you’re supposed to be working on that. That’s what we’re doing here. Relaxing. Letting go.”
Right. Per the written instructions, she closed her eyes and actually heard him smile.
“You reaching for some patience?” he murmured.
“I am. And it would help if you could possibly shut it while I do so.”
She heard his low laugh, then felt him step into her. “Bossy,” he whispered. “Pissy, stubborn as hell, and…”
“And what? Annoying?”
“Well…”
“Always right?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
She snorted out an unexpected laugh and opened her eyes, catching a new light as it came into his, more than simple affection, more than casual fun. “Stone.”
“You’re beautiful, Emma.” He slid a hand around the back of her neck, stroking her jaw with his thumb. “Made all the more so because you don’t even know it.”
Things were happening inside her—besides just the physical response of his touch. She was softening, unveiling the real Emma, without her protective walls. It brought an edge to her arousal, and an odd sort of panic. “I don’t need pretty words.”
“No? Maybe I do.” A callused fingertip ran over her cheek, skimmed her ear.
She shivered. Pretty words, amazing touch…she was a goner. “Seriously, Stone.”
He was looking at her as if she was so important. And also as if he was amused. “I’m afraid of needles, Emma, which is ridiculous enough, but look at you. You’re afraid of niceness.”
“Am not.”
He let her have the lie, moving onto a devastatingly tender, gentle sexiness she had no defense against. “You have the most amazing eyes,” he whispered.
Oh, God.
“Yeah, and a smile that always puts one on my mouth as well, and a way of looking at me that weeds through all the bullshit and sees the real
me. You make me laugh, you make me think. You turn me on, Emma, in every way.” As proven when he settled his hands on her hips and pulled her into him so that she could feel him, fully aroused. “You are truly the most beautiful woman I’ve ever had the pleasure of kissing.” He kissed her then, and God his mouth. He made a sound deep in his throat and turned deeper into the kiss.
He had a way of making her feel like there was nothing but her, but them, and by the time he pulled back slightly, she wasn’t worried about bugs, but how fast she could get her clothes off.
Which was bad. Very, very bad. Her knees were liquid, her body revved for action.
“Your eyes are closed, what’s next?” he asked.
“Be patient.”
“And…”
“Don’t over-think it. Go with your instincts,” she repeated obediently. “But my instincts…”
“What are they telling you?”
To strip naked. “Nothing.”
“Liar,” he chided gently, looking at her from sexy, heavy-lidded eyes, his mouth still wet from hers, his hands—
God, his hands.
They were spread wide on her ribs, his fingertips almost brushing the undersides of her breasts.
“I blame the kissing,” she decided, her voice a little shaky.
“For…?”
“For me losing my head. Look, you need to back way up.”
He merely smiled and pulled her closer in, and somehow her brain got mixed signals from her body and went with the flow, which wasn’t good. Not good at all. She was going to miss him, miss him so damn much, and that thought wasn’t comforting. She’d miss his humor, his voice, how he made her laugh, the way he looked at her, everything. “Stone.”
“Emma,” he said sweetly.
As if he was sweet! “Okay.” She fisted her hands in his hair. “You know what? Fine. Have it your way. I’m going with my instincts.”
“I like the sound of that. What are they saying?”
“They’re saying we should have sex right here, right now.” She smacked a hand to his chest when his eyes flashed with triumph. “But you should know, we are not cuddling afterwards. Not this time. Not—” She’d been about to say ever, because she was leaving, and cuddling with him messed with her head big time, but he smiled soberly, whispered, “Shh,” and kissed her again.
Chapter 25
Ah, yeah, Stone thought. This. This is what he’d wanted, Emma melting in his arms, her tongue down his throat. Leaning back against the rock, he pulled her with him.
“You should know,” she murmured against his mouth, hands still fisted in his hair, wrapped around him like a pretzel. “This is just instincts talking. Not my heart.”
“Okay,” he said, hoping like hell that was just her trying to convince herself.
Behind them, the thick growth of pines protected them from the breeze. In front was nothing but a staggering view of Lake Tahoe and a three hundred and sixty degree view of majestic, rugged, isolated peaks.
A fact that Stone was most grateful for, especially the isolated part. He nudged Emma down onto their rock alcove, stroked a strand of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear and pulled her neatly tucked in shirt from her pants.
“Really?” She blinked up at him, clearly surprised. “So you believe me? That this is just sex?”
“Hell, no.” He shook his head with a low laugh. “It’s not even close. But I didn’t want to argue with you until I got you naked again.”
She choked out a laugh. “Stone.”
“Now see, I know that tone. It says that if I let you finish that sentence, we’re not going to get naked.” He gently kissed one corner of her mouth as he unbuttoned her top, then the other corner as he slid it off her shoulder.
She cupped his face between her hands until he looked into her eyes. “You know that I’m as good as gone. Tell me you know that.”
“Today?”
“No.”
“Then shh.”
In response, she nipped his lower lip with her teeth, and when he hissed out a pained breath, she soothed the ache by sucking it into her mouth, running her hot tongue over it as she shoved up his shirt.
He was goners. He slid his hands down the back of her pants, loving how she felt in his hands, loving how when he slid his fingers even lower, he found her hot and wet, for him. “Just sex, my ass,” he murmured in her ear.
“Speak for yourself,” she panted, tugging his shirt over his head.
Then she stopped his heart when she spread her legs a little to give him more access.
“It has to be just sex, because…” She stopped to moan as he stroked his thumb over her. “Because I’m leaving in two days. That’s all we have.”
With a sigh, he pulled his hands free of her and met her gaze, somehow managing to speak evenly. “So you’re not even so much as looking back?”
It was a tricky question, one that could have stopped the proceedings cold, but it didn’t. At least not her proceedings. She pressed her mouth to a pec and just breathed him in for a moment. “I’ll look back plenty.” She ran her hand up his abs. “You should know, I’m planning on taking something with me. A piece of you.”
“What?”
“Yeah.” She ran her mouth over his chest, a soft, light, erotic caress. “Your spirit. Your sense of adventure. Your loyalty.”
Unbearably touched, he slid his hands into her hair and lifted her face to his. “Emma.”
“You give yourself, Stone, to everyone you meet. Hell, you’d give a perfect stranger the shirt off your back. I’ve seen you do it.”
“You give yourself, too.”
“No. No, I don’t. My time, yeah, but that’s my job. Outside the hospital…” Her mouth glided over one of his nipples, and he quivered. “Outside the hospital,” she whispered against his flesh. “I’m closed off. I don’t give myself to my stepfather, never have. I don’t give myself to Spencer, much as I say I do. I don’t give myself to my friends. And I didn’t give myself to you.” She lifted her head. “Until it was almost too late.”
He could scarcely breathe. “What changed?”
“You. You offering your heart and soul to everything you do. It changed me. You changed me.”