by Pamela Clare
Reece scooped him up. “Hey, buddy. I hear you went to see the dinosaurs a second time.”
Connor nodded. “Mommy let me put money in the saber-tooth tiger’s mouth, and he growled at me.”
“Did it scare you?”
Connor shook his head. “It’s a fake saber-tooth.”
“You’re a smart boy.”
“Mom, I’d like to introduce Reece Sheridan.” Kara shot her mother a warning look. “Reece, this is my mother, Lily McMillan.”
But her mother wasn’t watching Kara, her gaze focused instead entirely on Reece. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Senator.”
Reece leaned down, Connor still in his arms, gave her mother a kiss on the cheek. “The pleasure is mine. And please—just call me Reece.”
Kara could feel her mother’s hot flash standing four feet away. “They were just leaving, weren’t you, Mom?”
THE DRIVE to Estes Park lasted a little over an hour and took them up a winding canyon of evergreens, red rock formations, and little cabin-style inns. Kara had expected the drive to be awkward. But nothing was ever awkward with Reece.
At first they talked about skiing, both confessing to a secret passion for Telluride. Then they talked about how Reece had learned to cook from his father, who had insisted that a man without a wife was not consigned to a life of TV dinners. Then they talked about her mother, who had at the last minute asked Reece his sign. His answer—Scorpio—had clearly made her quite happy.
“Kara is a Cancer, you know,” she’d said, before Kara could shut the car door.
Kara had been mortified. But it didn’t seem to bother Reece at all.
“I think she was just trying to tell me that you and I are sexually compatible,” he said, taking his eyes off the road long enough to fix her with one of his lethal smiles. “But I already know that.”
Kara found it hard to breathe and felt warmth flood her body. “So sure of that, are you?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Sorry about last Friday.”
He glanced over at her. “Sorry for what?”
Didn’t he know? “Well, you . . . I . . . I enjoyed myself, but you didn’t.”
He chuckled. “That wasn’t your fault. And, sweetheart, if you think I didn’t enjoy myself, you’re wrong.”
They drove in silence through Estes Park, past gingerbread cottages and log cabins, past the Stanley Hotel with its alleged ghosts, toward Rocky Mountain National Park with its snow-covered peaks that rose like apparitions out of the darkness.
“Our property is bordered by the park on two sides, so it’s sort of like having the entire park as our backyard,” Reece explained as he slowed and turned onto a steep dirt road. “Hang on, darlin’.”
Kara understood now why he drove a Jeep. Even padded with snow, the road was rutted and rough. Her car would have gotten stuck or slid backward to the bottom of the hill. But Reece drove with confidence, carrying them up the hill with no trouble at all.
Abruptly the ground leveled, and Kara found herself in a glade of bare aspen in front of what looked like a very large log cabin. Firewood stood chopped and neatly stacked beneath a tarp next to the front door. A wooden deck wrapped itself around the side of the house toward the back. A stone chimney rose from the roof on both ends of the cabin.
“Here we are.” He stopped the vehicle, hopped out, and came around to help her to the ground.
The air tingled with cold and smelled of ponderosa pine, wood smoke, and snow. Beyond the branches of the aspen, stars glittered like ice chips in a clear velvet sky.
“It’s beautiful, Reece.”
“Thanks. Like I said, it’s my little slice of paradise.” He walked to the back of the Jeep, lowered the tailgate, and grabbed their bags. “It’s where I come to get away from the chaos of the Capitol.”
Kara hurried over to him. “I can carry that.”
He smiled, his teeth flashing white. “You can, but I’m not going to let you.”
He carried the bags to the door, unlocked it, flipped on the light, and then stepped back to let her enter.
If the cabin had been impressive from the outside, that was nothing compared to the inside. Kara gaped at her surroundings. “You built this?”
The wall to her right was of hand-hewn flagstone with a large glass-front woodstove built into it. Polished wood floors were covered by sheepskin rugs, the white fleece a sharp contrast to the dark of the gleaming wood. The space was divided between a sunken living room, with full bookshelves, a blocky sofa of butter-soft leather, a couple lamps, and a coffee table that looked hand-carved, and a dining room with a polished pine table and chairs. A bouquet of two dozen red roses sat in a crystal vase on the table, a gift for her.
“Yeah. My father and I built it over a period of years while I was in college.” The look on his face was one of unmistakable pride. He crossed the room, grabbed a box of matches, opened the black steel door of the woodstove, and set the flame to old newspaper. In a matter of seconds, wood crackled and flames danced. “Make yourself at home. There’s champagne in the fridge. I’ll just carry our bags back to the bedroom.”
Something inside Kara clutched at the word bedroom. Feeling nervous, she slipped out of her shoes so as not to track in snow and mud, then wandered into the kitchen, retrieved the champagne, and began to search for glasses.
“To the left of the sink.” His voice startled her.
She gasped, whirled about, champagne in hand, and found him leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his chest.
“Don’t tell me you’re nervous.” He closed the distance between them, took the bottle from her, and set it down on the counter.
She started to answer, but his lips had already closed over hers.
CHAPTER 14
* * *
SHE TASTED sweet, her lips soft and pliant. But it was the little feminine sound she made in her throat—something between a sigh and a squeak—that sent a jolt of lust shearing through his gut and pushed him over the edge. He took one shuddering breath, inhaled her scent, and when his mouth came down on hers again, the kiss was hard and hot.
Blood roared in his head as he crushed her against him, forced his tongue deep into her mouth, and pressed her back against the kitchen counter. Already her impatient hands groped beneath his sweater, tugging at his T-shirt, pulling it out of his jeans, seeking his skin. He returned the favor, sliding his hands beneath her shirt over the silk of her skin to cup her breasts through the irritating lace of her bra.
Not good enough.
“Damn!” He broke the kiss, sought the clasp of her bra, found it between her breasts, and released it, taking the soft weight of her breasts into his hands. Her nipples were already hard and pressed greedily into his palms. He circled them with his thumbs, felt her body jerk, then ducked his head and took one puckered bud into his mouth.
Her hands clenched in his hair, and she gasped, a sound that sent a pulse of ragged heat to his already rigid cock.
He slid his hands down the smooth skin of her belly, unbuttoned her jeans, then slipped his hands beneath the denim, expecting to feel the silk of panties. To his delight there was only the bare satin of her skin. She was wearing a thong. “Jesus, Kara!”
Cupping and kneading her bare ass, he trailed kisses from her breasts down her belly, then dropped to his knees, her hands still twined in his hair. Black lace covered the dark triangle between her thighs, the musk of her arousal an irresistible invitation.
A dozen thoughts collided in his mind of all the things he wanted to do to her, but one stood above the rest. He yanked her jeans down her legs, tossed them aside, then nudged her trembling thighs apart.
Kara was under a full-scale sensual assault, unable to think, barely able to keep up with the onslaught that was Reece. Knees weak as jelly, she felt the humid warmth of his breath on her inner thighs, then cried out in shock as he ripped off her thong and the slick heat of his mouth closed over her.
“Oh, Reece! Oh, God!”
> His strong hands clasped her buttocks and forced her hips forward, as his tongue tormented her, painting slick circles, probing, penetrating. The sensation stunned her, and for a moment she struggled to stay in control. But then his lips closed over her clitoris, and he suckled her.
She cried out his name, her breath coming in ragged pants. She was drowning in sensation, unable to keep her head above water, unable to do anything but ride with the intensity of it. Then, somewhere between bliss and oblivion, she felt him push a finger, then two, inside her slippery heat and stroke her aching center, thrusting deeply.
Orgasm flooded through her like a riptide, one brutal rush of ruthless ecstasy, tearing a shocked cry from her throat, plunging her helplessly into the abyss, leaving her to float, breathless, in a warm, liquid sea.
There was no doubt that if Reece hadn’t been supporting her from beneath she would have fallen to the floor. She felt him slide up the front of her body, felt his fingers twine in her hair to force her head back.
“Open your eyes, Kara. Look at me.” His voice was rough.
She did as he asked and saw an expression akin to pain on his face.
“Now taste yourself!” His lips, wet with her passion, closed over hers in a violent kiss, his tongue carrying her taste into her own mouth. Musky. Primal. Erotic.
He had remembered.
Instantly, she was on the edge again, hot, hungry, desperate for him.
They staggered like drunks out of the kitchen, locked together in a kiss, she wearing only her turtleneck and loosened bra, he still fully dressed. Then Kara felt the softness of sheep’s wool beneath her feet. They sank to the rug, still plundering one another with tongue and lips. She grappled with the infuriating buttons of his jeans as he forced her back, stretching himself out above her.
Then his hand pushed hers aside, leaving her to feast on the feel of his chest while he freed himself. His voice was a rough whisper. “I need you, Kara! I need to fuck you fast and hard!” Then he froze, groaned. “Damn! I need to go grab a condom.”
“No, you don’t. I’m protected. And I want you now!” She wrapped her legs around his waist.
He hesitated for just a moment, his gaze locked with hers, then drove himself into her with one slow thrust that almost made her scream. It had been so long since a man had been inside her, and it took a moment for her body to adjust to the thick, hard feel of him. And then he was moving, pushing himself in and out of her, the sweet, slippery friction already blossoming into gold.
Reece’s mind and body buzzed with lust. She felt so good—hot and wet and tight and perfect. “Sweet Jesus!”
Her eyes were squeezed shut, her dark hair fanned out across the white sheepskin beneath her. Little moans rolled from her lungs with each panting breath, moans that sounded like his name, like pain, like the raw ache of sex. Her scent, her taste was all around him, on him, in his mouth, her nails cutting into his bare shoulders beneath his sweater, her legs locking him tightly in place.
He balanced his weight on his left forearm, reached down with his right hand to cup her ass, and plunged into her again and again. He was on the brink, the claws of an orgasm already dragging at him. But first he wanted to see her face again, wanted to watch pleasure dance across it as she came, wanted to feel her climax against his cock. Holding onto the tatters of his control, he buried himself deep in her heat and ground himself in circles against her.
Her response was immediate. She arched beneath him, her moans frantic. “Oh, my God, Reece!”
And then she gasped, delight like a sunrise on her beautiful face, her inner muscles clenching him like a vise as she came.
With a groan, he rammed himself into her, his control gone. He couldn’t stop, couldn’t think, could only feel. And then he exploded. Climax scorched through him, white hot and blistering, burning him to ashes that hung for a moment in the stratosphere, and then drifted slowly back to Earth.
He had no idea how much time had passed as he lay on top of her, fighting to catch his breath, his mind blissfully blank. Slowly he rolled off of her, out of her, pulling her with him so her head lay on his chest. It felt good to hold her, to stroke her hair. “You hungry?”
After a few moments of silence, her voice drifted back to him. “Starving.”
THEY ATE dinner in front of the fire, lying on cushions like decadent Romans, Kara in her white silk bathrobe, Reece in a pair of black boxer briefs that left the rest of his gorgeous, muscular body open to her view. If she hadn’t been so hungry she doubted she would have been able to do anything but stare at him. But sex had left her ravenous.
Fortunately, Reece had planned for that.
Filet mignon. Roasted potatoes and fennel. Field greens with fresh feta. Raspberry mousse. Champagne.
Kara swallowed her last sweet-sour bite of mousse and moaned in appreciation. “This is incredible. You should open a restaurant. Chez Reece.”
“I prefer a more select clientele than I’m likely to get off the streets.” He picked up his champagne flute, his blue eyes smoky, his lips curving in a smile that sent her pulse skittering. Then he drank.
She felt the heat rise in her cheeks and shifted, almost uncomfortable under his sultry gaze. “Well, thank you for sharing your extraordinary culinary skills with me.”
He set the empty flute aside. “There’s more than one way of making love to a woman.”
Making love.
Is that what he thought they were doing?
Certainly, sex with Reece was like nothing she’d ever experienced. He demanded and gave everything, leaving her far beyond satisfied. When he touched her, his attention was focused, and his focus was total. He seemed to be right with her, through every breath, every touch, every tremor, as if he could feel what she felt, as if what she felt mattered more to him in that moment than anything else. That in itself was unnerving.
But not as unnerving as notions of love. The last time—the only time—she’d been in love, she had paid for it bitterly.
Reece pushed the tray that held their dishes aside, moved closer, and pulled her against his bare chest. “What did I say to make you frown?”
Was she so transparent? “Nothing. I—”
“Liar.” He kissed her forehead, one hand reaching inside her bathrobe to cup her breast, this thumb tracing insistent circles over her already puckered nipple. “I’m not like him, Kara. Whoever he is, I’m not like him.”
She ran a hand over his chest with its mat of golden curls and teased one flat brown nipple, desire already running hot in her veins. “No. No, you’re not.”
Then his mouth closed over hers, and she forgot everything but him.
HE HADN’T been able to get in through the sliding glass door, so he’d had to break a window. The bitch didn’t have an alarm system, so that made it easy. He’d busted the glass, unlocked the window, and then forced it open and crawled inside, his crotch itching with anticipation.
She was supposed to be home with her brat. They’d told him she was always home at night. But she wasn’t home tonight. That put a kink in things.
He was supposed to break in and force her to hand over the documents and tapes. The boss man didn’t care if he roughed her up a bit, and that was fine. He’d been looking forward to it. He liked hurting women, liked it when fear filled their eyes and they started to cry, loved it when they begged him not to hurt them, and cherished that moment when they realized their begging wasn’t going to stop him.
He rubbed the bulge in his pants, angry that he had missed his chance. Then he settled down to wait.
THEY LAY on the bed, limbs tangled, bodies languid, skin covered with a sheen of sweat, as orgasm faded into sleep. A fire roared in the glass-front woodstove and cast a warm glow through the bedroom.
Her head on his shoulder, Kara ran a finger down the furrow at the center of his chest, his breath warm against her temple. “Are you real?”
His hand skimmed over the curve of her hip. “Yeah. You?”
KARA AWOKE, her
face buried in Reece’s chest. His heart beat steadily in her ear, a strong, soothing sound. She rolled onto her back, the hard bulge of his bicep in the crook of her neck, and stretched, feeling as warm and lazy as a house cat.
“Good morning, beautiful.” His voice was deep and rumbling with just a touch of sleep.
She rolled onto her stomach, looked into his face, and felt her heartbeat hitch. He was so damned gorgeous. “Good morning, Senator.”
It was then she noticed the bed. It had been dark last night, and she’d been so lost in Reece that she hadn’t even looked at it. Its four posters were hewn from what had clearly once been aspen trees. The headboard and footboard were made of smaller branches interlaced and woven together. It was both rugged and beautiful—an apt reflection of its owner.
She reached out and ran her finger over one smooth woven branch. “Where did you find this? It’s beautiful.”
“I made it.” He rolled onto his side and rested his hand on the small of her back. “We had to clear some trees off the plot before we could break ground. It seemed a shame to waste them. I took four big trunks for the main supports and the smaller, suppler branches for the headboard. It took me most of a summer to get it right.”
“Is there anything you can’t do?”
He pressed his lips into her shoulder, and his hand closed over her derriere. “Well, right now I can’t keep my hands off your ass.”
They had sex in the shower, hands sliding over slick, soapy skin, then dried off before the fire. Reece made omelets with hash browns for breakfast, along with a bowl of sweet strawberries and a pot of freshly ground coffee. While Kara did the dishes, he went outside and chopped wood—which Kara watched surreptitiously through the kitchen window. What was it about a man doing manly things that put a woman’s hormones in a whirl?
Then, after pouring coffee into a thermos and packing some snacks into a backpack, Reece took her out to show her the property. The snow was deep enough to require snowshoes, which Reece had in a storage shed behind the cabin. Kara quickly grew accustomed to walking in them and had no trouble following Reece through the trees.