by Zoe Chant
All or nothing. That’s how she dealt with everything, wasn’t it? And Caine had been clear that he didn’t want to be nothing.
And she didn’t, either.
So she’d grabbed the bottle of champagne out of the bag, hunted down some flutes—which hadn’t been hard, the cottage was clearly meant to be a romantic getaway even if Caine had been treating it more like a teenage boy’s rec room, emphasis on the “wreck”—and now here she was.
Caine hadn’t said anything. He was just standing in the door, his blue eyes fixed on her, and Meaghan had to clamp her hands on the edge of the table to stop herself from grabbing both glasses and swigging them down. All or nothing could mean all the champagne for herself, right? And, ideally, passing out immediately.
Except that would probably require more than two glasses of champagne.
Maybe I should jump out the window and hide in the wood shed until he forgets I was ever here.
“I hope one of those is for me.” Caine’s voice was soft, with deep undercurrents that caught at Meaghan’s heart.
Or maybe not.
Meaghan let out a short breath and with it, all the tension that had been building up in her neck and shoulders. She picked up both glasses and walked over to Caine, feeling slightly light-headed.
“That depends. Is it safe to go out there again?”
Caine winced. Adorably. Meaghan’s heart fluttered. “Just don’t look in the hall cupboard.”
“You even remembered to take your shoes off this time.”
“I learn. Slowly.” He took one of the glasses. “Just to check: shoes off for houses, but leave them on in restaurants and shops?”
“Scrape the soles off before you go in, but yeah, most places around here have wood or concrete floors so they can mop up the mess. Speaking of scraping, what were you doing out there?”
Caine’s cheeks went faintly pink. “Ah. Trying to wipe up some of the dirt I tracked in earlier.”
She waited.
“With a rug.” Caine groaned. “Why am I telling you this?”
“Don’t they have vacuum cleaners in the city?” Meaghan teased. He groaned again, his throat bobbing in a way that made Meaghan’s insides tighten.
She raised her glass hurriedly. “Cheers.”
“Cheers,” Caine echoed, and clinked his glass against hers.
They were as close as they had been when she grabbed him under the trees that afternoon. She’d been red-hot with righteous rage, so turned-around and upset her head had felt like it was about to explode, and now…
Now, she was red-hot for another reason. And if her head was about to explode it would be from nerves and anxiety and—and—
Caine was watching her expectantly. Flustered, Meaghan took a sip of champagne. The bubbles hit the soon-to-explode feeling in her brain… and melted it away.
“To kidnappings gone wrong,” she toasted, and took another sip.
Caine laughed. “To kidnappings gone very, very right,” he retorted, and this time, Meaghan’s full smile escaped before she could rein it in. “If I keep saying it, maybe one day I’ll convince you,” he proclaimed.
One day, Meaghan thought. She tucked the words away in her heart.
“Good luck with that,” she said out loud, clinking her glass against his again.
“Thank you. I expect I’ll need it.”
“Hey!”
Caine grinned at her, and then his expression softened. The way he was looking at her… no one ever looked at her like that.
“Meaghan,” he murmured, “today has been… Words can’t describe it.”
The tight, hot sensation inside Meaghan flared. “Crazy?” she said.
Some part of her still didn’t believe this was really possible. Turn it into a joke and you won’t get hurt.
“The best sort of crazy.” Caine shook his head.
“Miserably cold and uncomfortable.”
“Once I got out of the dog box, things improved.” Caine gazed at her from under lowered eyelids, but there was a hint of mischief in his warm, inviting look.
Meaghan licked her lips. “Frustrating.”
“…In some ways.”
Oh God. She couldn’t endure this for another second.
Meaghan wrapped her arms around Caine’s shoulders. The heat of his skin burned through his too-small shirt. His hands found her waist, strong and hard. His face was less than an inch from hers.
She hesitated for one heartbeat, and then Caine moaned something wordless and pulled her closer and she pressed her lips against his.
The kiss made her skin thrill. An electric pulse shot from her lips to between her legs, shocking her with her own sudden need. Then Caine’s lips were moving against hers with more wordless murmurs, and his tongue slipped out.
Meaghan gasped. Caine was pressed close against her. She’d never kissed anyone her own height before. They fit together like they were made to do this, her curves melting against his hard muscles. She wound her arms around him, reaching up to run her fingers through his hair.
It was perfect. Wonderful. The best—
“Ow!” Meaghan hissed with pain as a muscle in her shoulder spasmed.
“What’s wrong?” Caine’s hold on her turned from strong and needing to delicate in a second.
“My shoulder—ow. My neck.” Meaghan lowered her head carefully, wincing. “It’s just a cramp. It’ll be gone in a minute.” As soon as the mood is totally ruined.
Caine ran his fingers gently down her neck and moved on to her shoulders. Meaghan barely managed to bite back a moan. “You’re so tense.”
“It’s been a long day.” Meaghan winced again and closed her eyes. “Week. Month. Months.”
“Since Halloween?” Caine lifted her chin with one finger and Meaghan opened her eyes. “I have an idea that might help with that.”
“It just needs a bit of heat and—”
“A massage?”
Caine’s voice did things to her. Meaghan took a deep breath.
“That would be… nice.”
Caine’s eyes looked hot. They shimmered, like the air above a hot sidewalk in the summer.
“It’s still freezing in here,” he said, his voice achingly enticing. “It won’t warm up for ages yet. But it’s a beautiful night, and there’s a hot tub on the balcony upstairs.”
Meaghan stepped out onto the balcony, wrapped in a huge fluffy gown that had been hanging up in the master bedroom.
Caine had showered first and she’d followed, because the last thing either of them wanted was to clog up the hot tub with dog hairs. Meaghan had spent most of her shower straining her ears through the roar of the water. Her breath had shivered as she heard Caine’s footsteps on the stairs, and moving through the master bedroom. The click of the balcony door.
She had almost managed to convince herself that her breath was hitching from the pain in her neck until she walked through the balcony door. She stared at the clouds of steam rising from the hot tub.
And at Caine.
He was sitting with his arms out over the sides of the cedar-wood tub. Water lapped at his chest. Steam wreathed around him and gathered in tiny drips on his skin.
It must have been the heat that was finally banishing the sick, pale look from his cheeks. His lips were red and hot-looking against the dark shadow of his stubble.
Meaghan felt hot, too, a sweet, liquid heat that poured through her veins, pooling low in her belly and between her legs.
This is really happening, she thought, licking her lips and remembering the feeling of Caine’s lips pressed against them.
All or nothing.
“Close your eyes,” she demanded, and Caine’s eyes snapped shut. Meaghan took a deep breath.
Argh, it’s cold. He’s going to open his eyes again and I won’t even have made it to the tub. I’ll be standing right here, a full-body popsicle.
She took one tentative step forward, then another, careful to close the door behind her. Caine’s eyebrows twitched a
s it clicked closed, but he didn’t open his eyes.
One more step took Meaghan to the edge of the hot tub.
She stopped again, long enough to convince herself that his eyes really were closed… and just to look at him.
Every time she took her eyes off him, part of her thought, No, surely he’s not as mind-numbingly gorgeous as you remember him being, and then when she was looking at him, he was so distractingly charming and annoying that she could almost ignore his looks.
Now, she was absolutely proving to herself just how unbelievably handsome Caine was.
Her breath caught in her throat. Mind-numbingly stunning, yes, but that wasn’t all. Sitting there with his eyes closed, Caine looked like she’d never seen him before. Almost… vulnerable. She could see all the fine lines around his eyes, the delicate pulse in his temple. The dark shadows around his eyes that told of interrupted sleep and long-term exhaustion.
And the expression on his face, patient, still… and hopeful.
Meaghan squeezed her own eyes shut, dropped the robe, and stepped slowly into the hot tub.
Hot water enclosed her. She could feel every ache and pain and knotted muscle in her body start to ease as heat hugged her limbs. Meaghan sat back, resting against the smooth wooden side of the tub, and a slight moan escaped her lips.
“Can I open my eyes yet?” Caine breathed.
Meaghan glanced down. The water covered her breasts… but it was just water. Water, that famously transparent liquid.
It’s not like you’re the only one who’s stripped naked, she told herself. You’re naked. He’s naked. That’s fair, right?
Unlike earlier, when he was mostly naked and you were wrapped up in your snow gear. Really, to be fair, you should be the one who—
She cut that thought off sharply, and not just because the moment her brain had thought the words ‘he’s naked’ her gaze had started slipping downwards.
Well, that’s a relief. The light from the bedroom was reflecting off the water, and combined with the dark night, everything beneath the surface was hidden in shadows.
“You can open your eyes,” she said, and a tingle of excitement went up her spine.
Caine’s eyelashes fluttered. His eyes glinted, the irises almost swallowed by the deep black of his pupils. And he didn’t immediately smirk, or make a nasty remark about her broad shoulders or stretch marks, or leer at her chest… he looked at her. Straight into her eyes.
So she kissed him again.
Her kiss before had been brash, like leaping off a cliff without looking. This one was more careful, even though she knew there were no rocks waiting for her below. She wanted to do this right; she wanted to explore every movement of his lips and tongue. She slid one hand up to rest on his cheek and brushed her thumb against his dark stubble.
By the time their lips parted, she was panting. Caine rested his forehead against hers.
“Turn around,” he murmured.
“What?”
“Your neck’s still cramped.” His hand came to rest on the knot she’d been trying not to strain. “I told you, you need a massage.”
Meaghan turned around slowly.
“Rest your head on your arm. Like that. So you’re not tensing up.”
Meaghan did as Caine said, lying her arm on the side of the tub and resting her forehead on it. She let out a slow breath. “This already feels better.”
“Just wait.”
Caine started on her shoulders, gently at first, then pressing his thumb into the knottiest muscles and slowly, determinedly massaging them out. By the time he reached the twanging muscle in her neck, Meaghan felt like she was melting into the water.
“Watch out,” she murmured urgently as his fingers swept towards the sore spot. “That’s—”
“I know.” Caine slowed down. “It needs special attention.” His fingers smoothed over the tight muscle, gently easing it. Meaghan sighed. “Is this from dog-sledding?”
“No. Old injury. Never really came right.”
“What did you do?”
Well, he might as well know what he’s getting himself into. “Threw myself off a wall trying to keep up with the cool kids. Broke my ankle, but no one noticed the whiplash until my neck seized up so much I couldn’t turn my head.”
“I guess going all-or-nothing doesn’t always work out.”
Meaghan snorted. She braced herself for a jolt of pain, but it didn’t come. “I’d say it has about a ninety-five per cent strike rate, yeah.”
Caine’s fingers paused. She felt his breath on the back of her neck, somehow hotter than the warm vapor whirling above the water.
“Seems like a lot of risk for a small chance of reward.”
Meaghan’s shoulders tensed. She breathed deep, forcing them to relax.
“I do it because the rewards are always worth it,” she lied. “Especially—mmf.”
Caine chuckled. “That got it?”
His hands lifted from Meaghan’s shoulders and she straightened up, stretching her neck and shoulders tentatively.
“That feels so much better. You’re a miracle-worker.”
Caine smiled smugly. “I may be a mannerless city slicker who doesn’t know to take his shoes off inside, but I am good for some things.”
Meaghan’s mind immediately leapt to some of the things he might be good at. A shiver of ridiculous excitement prickled across her skin. “Really?”
“Want another demonstration?”
Meaghan was almost panting. “Yes.”
Caine took her face in his hands and kissed her again.
Meaghan melted into his touch. Kissing Caine was everything a kiss should be. His lips were soft and warm, the scratchy stubble around them a delicious contrast. She kissed him harder.
She knew the rewards weren’t worth the risk. They never were. But that didn’t stop her. It couldn’t stop her. Not even now.
Sorry, future Meaghan. She was riding a reckless wave of impulse and it had to break sometime, but if she was going to look back on this and hate herself then she was going to hate herself for the best damn kiss in the universe.
Meaghan pulled back to breathe, only far enough that their lips just parted, and Caine made a noise that tugged at her insides as he crushed her against him, the warmth of his lips turning to fire, his hands hot on her skin, and the wave was crashing down around her and—
“I’ve wanted to hold you like this since the moment I saw you,” Caine murmured against her lips.
Meaghan was soaring. The wave had broken, and she was flying far above it.
“Hmph,” she said. “I had different things on my mind.”
Caine chuckled silently, his shoulders shaking under her hands. “Like worrying about me passing out from hypothermia and the crippling weight of my own idiocy?”
He brushed his lips along Meaghan’s jawline. She closed her eyes, her breath catching as he bit gently down on her earlobe.
“I thought the universe must be playing some sort of joke. I finally track down the guy who’d been causing so much trouble and he turns out to be a gorgeous, half-naked man.” Meaghan tried to make it sound like a grumble, but her voice kept hitching as Caine’s kisses grazed down her neck. “And then you kept being so nice… I thought it had to be a trick.”
“I thought you hated me.” Caine kissed her collarbone.
“I hated how goddamn gorgeous you were. And how you kept being helpful when I was acting like you were the spawn of Satan. And how much the dogs liked you. And—” Meaghan’s heart began to pound. Stop talking stop talking stop talking. “—and when it turned out I’d gotten it all wrong and you didn’t run for the hills, I thought you had to be sticking around to get back at me somehow and—”
Caine cut her off with a kiss. When he spoke there was a protective growl in his voice.
“I stuck around because I wanted to spend more time with you.” His tongue teased her lower lip. “I would have admitted to being the whole ghost gang if I thought it meant you’d ke
ep me tied up in your truck.”
Laughter bubbled out of her. “You’d have been tied up in Jackson’s truck, not mine.”
“Nope.” Caine slipped one hand behind her head as he kissed her again, slowly and gently. “I would have run out of there, set a false trail to put the rest of them off the scent, and waited for you to find me.”
“Because I would have raced after you, even if the police were already on it?”
“No doubt.” Caine smiled conspiratorially. “And you would have done a better job of it.”
Meaghan half-groaned, half-sighed. “Again. No one’s going to thank you for encouraging me to always be throwing myself into other people’s business.”
“They’re lucky to have you around.” Caine’s voice dropped. “I’m lucky. Lucky you dragged me back to town and lucky you didn’t throw me out on my ass when you had to pay for dinner. And extremely lucky that your truck broke down.”
He took Meaghan’s hand. “I’ve had too much—work—breathing down my neck this year. Hell, I’m here, alone in the most festive town in America, at Christmas, because of a—a project.” His fingers tightened around hers, jerkily, as though they were reflecting his hesitant voice. “It took being kidnapped by a gorgeous woman to make me realize what I’ve been missing out on.”
Meaghan’s heart pounded so hard she was sure her whole body must be shaking. Caine’s eyes were burning into hers through the white vapor of their mingled breath and the steam coming off the water. The expression in them warmed her deep inside.
“I, um,” she said, her tongue tripping over feelings she couldn’t put words to. “I don’t have any Christmas plans, either?”
Caine’s expression cleared. Something like firelight danced in his eyes, and then he put his hands on either side of her face and kissed her. Water sloshed over the sides of the tub, but Meaghan hardly noticed. There were more important things to pay attention too. Like his lips. And the teasing flicker of his tongue. And his hands. And the things he was doing with his hands. Holding her. Caressing her. Sliding down…
Meaghan lost her balance. There was a moment of splashing, and water up her nose, and then Caine’s arms were around her. He pulled her up, crushing her against his chest.