by Cait London
Feeling rumpled and dirty, Jemma flung back the blanket and groaned when she tried to rise. He watched with interest as she struggled slowly to stand, stretching her aching body. “Need help?” he asked.
“Not yours.” She snorted and didn’t care what he thought as she grabbed her backside with two hands, walking stiffly to his expensive canvas-and-leather bag. Crouching painfully, she dug into the contents, tossed aside what she didn’t need, and retrieved Hogan’s clean T-shirt and jeans. She glared at Hogan as she flopped the clothing over her shoulder.
Digging into another bag, she tore away a washcloth, towel, and soap. Jamming everything under her arm, she grabbed a flattened-out roll of toilet paper and made her way to the stream. She groaned when she bent to pull a bucket through the water, filling it.
She shot Hogan another dark, warning look, and hobbled slowly off into the Hogan-free privacy she badly needed.
She took her time, cursing Hogan roundly and then returned to his light, “Feeling better?”
“Not a bit,” she lied, and ripped a flannel shirt from his pack. She jammed her arms into the sleeves and gingerly rolled them up. “If you’re expecting to send me packing, think again. We camped by streams when I was growing up. There wasn’t running water in those migrant cabins. I can take care of myself. All I need from you is— oh! Food!”
She took the turkey sandwich he’d just handed her and settled down on the grassy bank to devour it.
“I make you nervous, don’t I?” Hogan asked as he settled down beside her.
“Of course not,” Jemma lied, panic skittering up her back and radiating out to her trembling fingers as every cell of her body went on Hogan-alert. He smelled fresh, of juniper and pine, and grass, an intoxicating blend. “But you know what you did last night— you deliberately set out to make me drunk— rather to relax me. For my part, I only wanted to be friendly when I filled your glass That’s an old act, Hogan, getting a girl drunk. You were playing with me, seeing just how I’d react. You probably don’t even feel bad. Then, this godawful morning you forced me to run after you, and how you must have enjoyed the whole nightmare, Hogan Kodiak. I have never in my life ever chased a man anywhere. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Mmm, I truly am. I wondered what you’d be like, all relaxed, and now I know.”
He began to work his fingers through her tangled hair. The movements were seductive, calming, and just for a moment, Jemma gave herself to the luxury of Hogan’s soothing hands.
She wanted to push him away, but decided that she needed a bit of pampering. His hands were marvelous, soothing, and for his evil treatment, he deserved to wait on her. She ate the second sandwich and realized that now her hair was separated into two thick braids, and Hogan’s marvelous touch was massaging the taut cords at her nape. She rotated her head, rolled her stiff shoulders, and forgave him just a bit as he sat behind her, his legs running along hers.
He began to massage her stiff back, finding the knots and working them out; the warmth of his thighs along hers helped her strained muscles. He pushed her head down gently; her forehead rested in his hand as his fingers eased the tenseness in her neck. As she began to relax, she decided that each time he touched her, she came more easily into his hands, trusting him to treat her gently.
“You look like a child,” he said, close to her ear. “Like you used to. Sweet and wild.”
He caused her skin to tingle, her lower stomach to contract, and turned her body into one taut knot. Supremely sexy when he tried, Hogan could be devastating. Clearly, he was interested in Jemma as a woman, and that was terrifying.
She could handle him, she thought; she’d always controlled relationships. “Well, those days are long ago. I really needed my face cream, Hogan. You could have at least let me have time to pack what I needed. Sun ages, so does wind.”
“Here—” He turned her face, gently smoothing cream into her skin, his fingers slow and relaxing.
She closed her eyes, and realized that she was once again melting beneath Hogan’s ministrations. “More around the eyes.”
“Perfect, expressive eyes. Like flashing steel one minute, thunder and lightning the next, and glittering with laughter the next. Mmm.” He looked at her critically. “There is just a little line, right there. But it’s perfect. You’ll age well.”
“Only you would dare tell me I am aging. Put some more cream on there, and don’t tell me about one more line on my face. I miss my makeup,” she mumbled, too shy of this new Hogan.
His close inspection caused her to turn away. She didn’t like anyone seeing too deep, and Hogan knew more than anyone about the shadows that haunted her. His lips drifted along her nape, just a brush of heat that caused her nerves to tense and shiver. In the next moment, he’d removed the flannel shirt. His big hands moved slowly down her back, finding the taut muscles and working them.
“None of this is fair,” Jemma muttered, surprised by the ease with which her body moved to the flow of his hands. “I’m in pretty good shape, and now even my toes hurt.”
“You truly are in good shape and very soft,” he returned in a drawl that lifted the hair on her neck. He circled her with his arms, drawing her back against him. He placed his cheek along hers, and murmured, “Deer on the other side of the stream? See?”
His head tilted, urging hers to turn toward the sight, again his body directing hers. “Oh, they are beautiful, Hogan.”
“Look below that fallen branch, into the shadows of the stream. Those are big juicy trout and we’re going to catch them.”
She tensed and started to rise, eager to learn. “Let’s hurry, Hogan, before they get away.”
She turned then, to look back at him, and found his face too close and too inviting. His lips brushed hers, and what she saw in his eyes terrified and enchanted her.
A fish leaped and plopped back into the water. Or was that her heart leaping, settling into a heavy, excited thud that rippled throughout her body? “What do you want?”
“You.” Hogan tugged her hand, unbalancing her, and she fell upon him. His hand slid higher, easing beneath the T-shirt, to close over her bare breast.
When she met his kiss, she turned slighty to trap him close and warm against her, to step into the magic. Hogan leaned back and eased her over his body. He cupped the back of her head, drawing her mouth down to taste and to tempt.
The heat growing between them seemed so natural, as if it had always meant to be, and there was Hogan, his lips soft upon hers, his tongue suckling hers, and hers tasting him. The hard rise of his desire against her bare stomach told her what he wanted, his hands soothing her, lifting her shirt away.
She’d never been touched like that, nor allowed the caress, despite marital sex that she’d wanted to end quickly. Her body moved against his, flowing into his hard planes as if she were meant to be with him.
Hogan easily turned her beneath him, a natural movement, his weight settling above her. She managed to lift her lids, to see his expression— dark, intense, heated— as he looked down at her. When she moved to cover herself, his hand drew hers away; his dark eyes were soft upon her, the tip of his finger touching her lightly and her breast hardened, aching. “You’re beautiful— perfect. Cream and dark rose...”
“Hogan?” she wanted to run, she wanted to— “Oh!”
When his lips closed upon her breast, gently tugging at her, Jemma almost cried out; her body tensed, a tiny explosion hitting her lower abdomen. They were on the sunlit blanket now, Hogan’s skin smooth beneath her touch, his mouth moving upon her, taking her other breast, caressing her.
His gentle bite shocked her, threw her hips hard against his. Jemma shivered, fighting the unexpected desire jolting her, and yet wanting more. Trusting Hogan, giving herself to the floating magic, she held him close, his hair dragging across her skin, tormenting her as he moved lower, a flick of his tongue sensitizing her navel, sending more shock waves through her.
She stiffened, protesting and then giving wa
y, as his hands moved within the jeans too large for her, easing them away. Hogan’s hands moved over her thighs, massaging them, caressing the backs as his mouth pressed low on her stomach.
Jemma pushed him away slightly, shivering, fearful of emotions that were flying away from her control. She hadn’t trusted, hurrying through marital sex, because it was expected, but Hogan was asking more, his hand cupping her, his fingers incredibly warm and coaxing....
Still trusting him, Jemma dug her fingers into his shoulders as Hogan held her there, high on that blinding pinnacle, shocking her. Then, flying into the heat and flashes of color, she cried out and melted slowly, slowly back onto the blanket beside Hogan.
She thought she heard his chuckle; she didn’t care, flopping her hand aside and lying in the aftermath of her riveting pleasure.
He turned her face to his, shaking it gently. “Jemma, open your eyes and look at me.”
“I can’t. Don’t make me do any more today. I can’t find my bones— I’m one, big, warm puddle.”
Then she turned on her side, wrapped her arm around his body and her leg between his, anchoring him until she could catch her breath and do— do something to him.
“Rat,” she accused drowsily, drifting pleasantly.
At sunset, she helped drag fir branches to cover the bent young trees that served as a framework for Hogan’s sweat house. “You’re exhausting me. We’ve already cast for hours. My arm is falling off, and I didn’t catch a thing, and then you had me clean those fish.... Oh, I’m never, never going to get the feeling of those scales off my hands, and guts.... Why do fish have to have guts? And so many of them everywhere?”
Repulsed by the memories of guts and more fish guts, Jemma shivered. “Hogan—wet flies, dry flies, hatches, spinners, leaders— it’s all too much. Now I have to understand bugs and their life cycles— the almighty hatch and nymphs. There is no way that a fish can be that selective about what he eats. And I do not like looking into a fish’s eyes and knowing that he’s my next meal. They are slimy, Hogan.”
Hogan bent to take a quick kiss, one of several that had taken her breath away since he’d touched her so sweetly. When she stopped talking, stunned by the quick, knowing kiss, he grinned and placed his hand on her head, waggling it and then tugged one of her braids. “Fun, huh?”
When she tried to hit him with a branch, he sidestepped, raising his hands. “I give up.”
She blinked at the boyish, playful man in front of her. “You’ve been rotten all day. What’s wrong?”
He had frowned, tilting his head to one side and listening intently. “Bear. A big one.”
Jemma almost leaped into his arms, and Hogan drew her tight and safe against him.
Then his mouth was on hers, not sweet and tender, but demanding, slanting to take her breath away. This wasn’t the gentle lover of the afternoon, or the stoic, stormy man she’d always known. This was a man who wanted everything from her, who would demand everything.
Jemma fisted his hair, damning him and herself, trying to hold on to reality, when magic was taking her flying.
“Are you afraid?” Hogan asked roughly as he picked her up in his arms and carried her toward their bedrolls.
The sunlight glittered between their faces. Or was it magic?
“I should be afraid. I’m not.” This was Hogan, who’d always been safe, whom she had always trusted. Now he was the man she wanted to share her body, to give and to take pleasure. “Are you going to give me one of those marvelous massages?”
He eased her onto the bedroll and stood straight, stretching his arms high. Her body rose slightly, aching for his, and she waited for him to come to her arms. To gather all that powerful body into her keeping—
“Nope,” he said. “I’m going to tie flies and try to better match the hatch in this area.”
She stared at him, her body humming with the need to be stroked and touched by Hogan’s hands. She wanted to feel that wonderful mouth upon her skin. “I suppose that would be the thing to do, since we’re up here to teach me about fly-fishing and camping, right? Tie flies to match the hatch?”
His grin flashed in the dark. “You don’t have the patience for this, Jemma. You want to hurry to the finish line without enjoying the prework.”
She struggled to her feet She’d wanted Hogan’s hands on her, she’d wanted to kiss him and feed upon him—
“ ‘Prework’?” She regretted the frustration in her voice, but then she’d never been hungry for a man before Hogan.
He lifted his eyebrows. “A good fly fisherman knows how to tie lures. You want to know all that, don’t you?”
She knew he’d deliberately jumped subjects, waylaying her, taunting her. Twenty minutes later, Jemma wrapped the blanket around her and sat staring off into the night. “I don’t want to talk or think anymore about fly-tying now. Everything is too tiny and too precise. I just wanted to learn how to fish, not how to build bugs.”
“Good, you’re thinking now,” Hogan said. He put away his supplies and closed his tackle box. “Maybe you’d better rethink this fly-fisher-woman television-thing.”
“I can’t. The money is too good. But I may have to put a different spin on it. I’ve always been able to find a way to get the things I want, Hogan. I was thinking about that reflexology—the massage you did for me. If I got good at that, Les might not notice I was missing the finer points of fly-fishing.”
“Uh-huh. Find a way around this,” Hogan said with a dark edge to his tone, drawing her roughly up and into his arms.
Hogan had never used his strength to hold a woman before, never taken a woman’s mouth with raw hunger and need. But then he’d never felt the lash of jealousy before, raised by the thought of Jemma touching another man...
Jemma’s hands dug into his back, her arms holding him tight, her mouth as hungry as his—
He hadn’t needed in his lifetime, really needed. Now, shaken by his desire, Hogan grasped for his control and found Jemma, moving into him, hot and warm and passionate, burning away everything but the need. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and lifted her mouth to his. “Hogan?”
Hogan eased her away, shaking his head. “I didn’t want— Not like this.”
She stared at him for a heartbeat, then hit his chest with both fists. “There are just times, Hogan, when contemplation and meticulous patience are not wanted.”
Hogan ran his hand across his taut jaw. “You’re angry.”
“Wrong. I’m good and mad. I’m tired, I ache, and I can’t figure out what’s in this for me, except a few good massages. Did I ask for ‘prework’? Did I? I know the mechanics, Hogan. I know there is something between us.... We’re adults. I thought we’d get it over with and continue with our lives.... I trust you. I know you are a meticulous man in your relationships and not a bed-hopper. It’s just something that is on the desktop now, and we’re going to have to deal with it and get it out of the way.”
She paused, then added slowly, as if pinpointing a reminder, “There is Simone, you know.”
Hogan tensed as though slapped; she’d reminded him of another relationship without the passion and tenderness he’d felt with Jemma. And now Jemma’s clinical assessment of adult needs burned him, because that was exactly the basis of his relationship with Simone. “Just like that? ‘Deal with it.’ Is that how you think of lovemaking, Jemma-sweetheart? Rush-rush, hurry-hurry, get-it-over?’’
Jemma took a deep steadying breath and looked at the fiercely angry man tearing away his clothes and glaring at her. “Now, Hogan—”
“You’ve always been difficult, Jemma. Let’s try for a little class, shall we?” Hogan reached to remove the single small hematite stud in his ear. The gesture was masculine, abrupt, a dismissal of a personal irritant he didn’t want, as he flung it into the campfire. The removal of that earring seemed shockingly intimate to Jemma, as though he’d tossed away civilization and the rules between them.
She’d seen Hogan retreat into his shadows when pushe
d too far. She’d never seen him truly angry, his emotions exposed. The rigid set of his naked, beautiful body spoke of his anger as he turned and walked into the stream. Using soap, Hogan cleansed himself quickly, returning to the grassy bank, to quickly wrap a towel around his hips. He stoked the fire, studying the flames as he crouched beside it, ignoring her.
Then, suddenly finding her in the night, studying her, Hogan said, “It’s your choice. I won’t hurt you. I’ll treasure what we do, I’ll keep you safe, and I’ll tend your needs. I want you, Jemma. I want to be in you, by you, over you, under you. I want to feel your body take mine, your heart beat against mine. I want those gates wide-open like they were a moment ago. I won’t settle for anything less... and I’ll be true to you. I ask that you do the same.”
The declaration was too tender, too sweet, and tipped her over a frightening edge. He’d asked for a commitment of body and soul that she’d never given anyone.
She’d always been in control of relationships— Relationships? She’d been married, a bargain that suited her.
Heat burned through her, the need for Hogan wrapped tightly inside her body. But he was too dangerous! Warning bells clanged amid the chatter of chipmunks and birds calling. “I don’t know how to do this. Not with meaning. You terrify me, Hogan. You’ll always want more. You’re too intense.”
The fire crackled, sparks arcing off into the night as Hogan stared at her. “You want a business arrangement. I’m not made like that. Not now, with you. I enjoy textures— your skin against mine... scents— Your scent is very erotic, Jemma, I’d know it anywhere... Your taste— I want that and the rhythm of your heart beating against mine, that trapped little frantic heart, the dark glitter of your eyes when your body is heating for mine, waiting. I want that wide-open fierce passion, unleashed and just for me.”
“You want everything.” Jemma feared giving too much of herself; she’d already lost pieces of her when her family died.