by Carly Keene
Well, okay. I snuggle deeper into the afghan, licking bourbon off my lips. My teeth have stopped chattering. I yawn. The dog yawns, then lies down with his head on my legs. It’s nice. I might doze off.
Hot Mountain Guy shakes me awake. “Don’t go to sleep. You’re still in wet clothes. The hot bath is ready now. Can you get up?”
“Mm,” I say.
“All right.” He pulls the afghan off me and I make a noise of protest. “Get away, Max.” The dog makes a noise of protest, and I almost laugh. Mountain Dude pulls me to my feet and walks me to the bathroom. “Can you take your clothes off?”
I’d take my clothes off with him—for him—but not like this. Not now, when my fingers don’t seem to work and I can barely stay awake. He sighs. “Okay, then. I won’t look.” He starts pulling my clothes off, gently but firmly. Jacket, t-shirt. I have to hold on to the bathroom cabinet while he struggles with my wet shoelaces, then just tugs my shoes and socks off. Jeans unzipped, tugged down my legs. I’m not sure whether it’s the bourbon or him, but I’m warmer now. “Here,” he says hoarsely, “turn around and get your underwear off. I’ll close my eyes. Then get in the tub, okay? We gotta get you warmed up.”
I nod. He closes his eyes. I wrestle with my sports bra, and then shove off my wet skivvies. I go slow, but I get in the tub, not able to repress a sound of pure bliss. It’s almost too hot, but it’s perfect. My brain is working a little better now.
“You in?”
I peek up at him. His hand is over his eyes. “Yeah. Feels good.”
“All right. I’ll find you a few things to put on while your clothes are in the dryer.” He grabs my wet clothes off the floor. “Oh. Anybody I can call for you? Anybody going to be worried when you don’t turn up?”
It suddenly dawns on me that I never told anybody I was going for a walk. “Um. No.”
“Ohhhkay,” he says, like I’m the stupidest person in the world. “Okay, we’ll talk later. Get warm.”
Then he’s gone, shutting the bathroom door behind him. I slip down in the tub, luxuriating in the wonderful feeling of being warm. My fingers and toes tingle as the circulation returns. It’s almost painful.
I let some of the cooling water out and run in some more warm. There’s a knock on the door, and then it opens to reveal Hot Mountain Dude holding a giant fluffy towel and some folded clothes in one arm, his other hand over his eyes. “Feeling better?”
“Much,” I say, putting my own arm over my boobs. Or as much of them as I can hide with one arm, anyway.
“Get out when you want, and I’ve got some beef stew for you.”
My stomach growls, and he laughs, teeth very white in that dark beard. Now that my body’s warm, it’s waking up. Like, everywhere. Between my thighs, even. I know nothing about this man, except that he’s saved me and he’s gorgeous, and something very primitive inside me keeps yelling MINE.
I want him. The heat outside my body has moved inside it, and I feel a shiver of heat all through my ladyparts, a trickle of moisture from my secret places.
Mine.
CHAPTER FIVE
Chapter 4
Weston
Her name is Cassie.
It’s all I can do to keep my dick from jumping in my pants every time I look at her. She’s in trouble, she needs help, she needs to be safe. She does not need me lusting after her like some crazed sex weasel.
I can’t help it, though. She’s beautiful. I managed not to look after I got her top off, but I saw her body before that, and it’s a curvy armful that needs to be appreciated by a man. Beautiful chestnut hair curly on her shoulders, and big brown eyes, and the loveliest pale skin. And yeah, a great ass over sturdy thighs.
The whole time I’m tossing her clothes in the dryer and getting out a few things for her to wear, I’m trying to keep from imagining her naked and losing every mental battle.
It’s not just that it’s been a long time since I got laid, either, or I’d be turned on by anything female. Some of the staff at the Observatory are quite attractive ladies, but I’ve never had this kind of reaction to any of them.
And it’s not that I have a savior complex, either. I spent a couple of summers in college lifeguarding, and over the years that I’ve been a ranger, I’ve rescued plenty of pretty girls from various predicaments, from snakes to lakes.
No, it’s just this one. And I’ll tell you, seeing her snuggled up before the fire with Max’s head in her lap was maybe what did it, because suddenly I could see her living here, happy, with me.
Cassie.
I push the thought of her naked in my bathtub out of my brain for the forty-seventh time, and give the stew a stir. I make some hot herbal tea, then I toast some biscuits and spread them with the farm-fresh butter I got from Willie Maude Gentry last time I was at the farmers market.
I hear the water gurgling down the bathtub drain, and my imagination shows me beautiful Cassie naked and pink, drying that lovely skin with my towel. I have to palm my aching prick and tell it to calm the fuck down.
When she comes into the living room in my clothes, my socks flopping off the end of her feet, she shivers. “Brr. It was so warm in the bathroom.”
I shiver too, from knowing that she’s bare under my clothes, and move quickly to get my mind off it. “Sit down there in the chair by the fire, and cover up with the afghan, okay? I’ll bring you some stew.”
She cuddles under Nana’s ripple-stitch afghan, sighing at the heat of the fire. The hot air coming off it moves tendrils of her red-brown hair. I bring a tray and set it on her lap, and Max comes over to put his head on her thigh again.
She laughs at him and rubs his houndy ears. “Good dog. You found me, didn’t you?”
“Was it just Max who saved you?” I ask, handing her a soup spoon. “Were you headed anywhere in particular when he started barking?”
“No,” she says, looking surprised. “Damn, this is good stew.” She licks her lips, which I have suddenly noticed are pink and full and lush, in contrast to the purple tinge they had earlier. “No, I saw a faint light which I guess was this house. I kept looking for the resort, because I figured it would be lit up, but I couldn’t see it anywhere even after I went to the top of the mountain.”
“It’s two ridges that way,” I say, pointing. “A good six miles, maybe closer to seven.”
“I walked that far?”
“If you came from the resort, you did. Where were you planning to go?”
She shrugs, still eating. “I just went for a walk. The marker said it was two miles. I figured I could do that in an hour.”
Most people should be able to do that. At least it explains why she was so unprepared. “But you didn’t file a hiking plan with the front desk?” She shakes her head blankly. “Or tell anybody else you were going walking?”
She shakes her head again.
“Did you have a map?”
She swallows a bite of biscuit. “I had my cell phone. It has GPS.”
I facepalm. This could have been so bad. “Sweetheart . . . you know that cell phones don’t work this close to the Observatory, right?”
There’s a silence while she chews beef stew, and her eyes get big. She doesn’t answer.
“You didn’t see the signs all over saying that this is a Radio Quiet Zone? Like your cell phone won’t work and you can’t get wifi?”
She looks guilty. “Um. The desk clerk said they had wifi at the resort.”
“Yeah, just at the resort. It’s special equipment and runs on a super-low frequency in a very narrowly defined location, so it doesn’t mess with the Observatory’s findings.”
More silence. It shouldn’t surprise me. So many tourists come through the area not realizing that the Green Bank Observatory isn’t a look-at-the-stars observatory. It’s a radio observatory: basically, it looks for radio waves that indicate star “signatures,” stuff that indicates novas or black holes, stuff like that. It also would pick up any repeated sound waves that might indicate other life form
s attempting to communicate with Earth, so it’s like an alien telephone.
Should we ever need such a thing, of course.
I spend three seconds wondering what might have happened if Max hadn’t been alert and found this woman in the middle of a snowstorm. She might have gone on wandering through the night, until she froze. I shudder at the possibility, and get up. “I’m calling the resort to tell them you’re safe.”
“I thought phones don’t work around here?”
“Landline.” I dial the resort’s number, and tell the desk clerk who answers that if they’re missing a guest named Cassie Hudson, she’s at my place.
“So it is like the 1920s around here?” Cassie asks, running her finger over the bottom of her empty bowl and licking it. My dick leaps to full and painful attention.
“We have landlines and wired internet, so not exactly. But no cable TV, either. 1970s in a time warp, maybe.”
She licks her finger again, and then sips tea. Reaches down and fondles Max’s ears.
“You can have more stew,” I tell her.
“No, I’m full,” she says. “It was just really good.”
“Are you feeling warmer now?”
“I feel great,” she says. “Except sleepy.”
“Do you want to go back to the resort hotel?” I check out the window; there’s maybe 7-8 inches out there. Doable in my 4WD truck.
She looks uncertain.
“If you don’t want to go out again, you can just stay. Here. With me.” Her eyes get big, and I rush to say the honorable thing. “I mean, you can have the bedroom and I’ll sleep in here, it’s fine, I don’t mind at all.”
“Can I stay?” she asks in a small voice, and licks those luscious pink lips. I get hard again, and to hide it, I step out to the laundry room to check on her clothes. Still damp.
“You can stay,” I say, trying not to let on that I want her to stay.
I want her so much.
CHAPTER SIX
Chapter 5
Cassie
His name is Weston.
He’s so beautiful.
There’s so much heat in those dark eyes when he looks at me. Josh the asshole ex-boyfriend never looked at me like that, like he wanted to kiss me from head to toe and back again. So yeah, right from the beginning there is this sexual vibration between Weston and me. The more I look at him, at the breadth of his chest and the hard curving rounds of his ass, the strength in his thighs and that heat in his eyes, the more I want him.
I’m leaving tomorrow. I’ve never had a one-night stand in my life.
But maybe that’s what I need.
When I got up this morning, I told myself my life was going to change. I was tired of being unappreciated, and I was ready for a new life to begin. It doesn’t seem like such a terrible idea to begin it with a little bit of fun. A new Cass. A Cass who deserves a good life.
I’m just not sure what I would have to tempt this incredibly sexy man, this gorgeous and caring and competent guy who can make stew and run a hot bath and be thoughtful and not even yell at me for being stupid. I’m a big girl, and I don’t have a job or even a plan for where my life is going.
I see the way his eyes skim over my body while he’s telling me I can stay, and I see the way his eyes linger on my breasts before coming back up to meet my eyes. He might be looking at my tits, but he sees me, too, and the trickle of moisture between my thighs becomes more insistent. Then it occurs to me that I’m getting his sweatpants wet at the crotch, and the thought is both embarrassing and completely erotic. I can feel the rub of his thermal shirt over my suddenly peaking nipples.
“Are you ready to go to bed now?” he asks, and then immediately turns his body away from me to do something in the kitchen. “I mean to sleep.”
“I’m ready to go to bed,” I say, and my voice is full of the air I can’t get enough of while I’m looking at him.
“I’ll get you aspare toothbrush,” he says, and his voice is gravelled, hoarse. When he comes to help me out of the big chair, I can see the bulge in his jeans, and I barely restrain a moan as I imagine setting him loose from those jeans.
In the bathroom, he rummages in the cabinet before setting a brand new toothbrush and a travel-size toothpaste in front of me. “There you go. Bedroom’s the next door down, and I’ll bring a couple extra blankets as soon as I finish putting the food away.”
I thank him, and our eyes meet in another one of those hot magnetic stares. He touches the side of my face, and I melt. He moves toward me, and I tilt my face up. Kiss me kiss me kiss me.
I feel his breath warm against my mouth, but no pressure. His breathing is light, fast. I’m waiting—and then he moves away from me, dropping his hand from my cheek and disappearing toward the living room without a word.
I want him so much. And I wonder: would New Cass really sleep with somebody she didn’t know?
I decide that he’s being too honorable and there’s no way that he’ll make a move on me, so I’d have to be the one making the move. And I’m not sure I’m confident enough for that.
The friction of my nipples against his shirt—Weston’s shirt!—and the dampness in the crotch of Weston’s sweatpants, rolled three times at the ankle, is swiftly telling me that I might not be confident, but I’d certainly be happy if I made a move and he responded.
I brush my teeth and look in the mirror, seeing my cheeks bright with color and my eyes sparkling. I look excited and glowing, even pretty. I remember the way he was looking at me, and I shiver in anticipation.
New Cass has a plan. I’ll invite him. If he says yes, it’s a gift. If it’s no, then it wasn’t meant to be.
By the light of the lamp on the table, I look around the small bedroom. The bed is big, but then Weston’s a big man, big all over. I shiver again at the thought of that big body pressed against mine, and pull the navy flannel sheets back to get into the bed.
Once in it, I’m shivering again because it’s not as warm as the chair before the fire.
I hear footsteps in the hall, and then water running in the bathroom. Clicky toenails come down the hall toward me, and I have to smile as Max pushes the door open with his nose and comes to sit right by the bed, looking at me with big pleady brown eyes.
“You must be used to sleeping here,” I say, and his tail thumps on the floor.
Weston knocks on the partially open door. “Maxie, get outta here. You and me are sleeping in the den.” He goes to the closet and gets more covers out of it. He puts a second down comforter over the one already on the bed, and gathers a wool blanket in his arm. “Is that enough? Are you warm?”
“I’m still cold,” I say, only slightly exaggerating my chattering teeth. “I think I need some more heat.”
“Oh,” he says, and looks at the blanket. “I’ll be okay with just the afghan.” He starts to put the blanket on top of the heap, but I put my arm out toward him.
“No,” I say. “I need you. I need body warmth.”
His eyes go hot and dark, but he doesn’t move.
“Stay with me?” I ask.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Chapter 6
Weston
“Stay with me,” she says, those brown eyes bright in the lamplight. She reaches her hand to me, and my cock jumps for the millionth time tonight inside my jeans.
“Cassie,” I say, so tempted. “Cass, if I stay that might be . . . dangerous.” That almost-kiss in the bathroom nearly did me in. It sure knocked out my self-control.
She tugs at my hand. “I know.”
I let her pull me under the covers. She’s right, it’s chilly in this bed but we’re warmer together.
Max whines. He usually sleeps on his mat by the bed, and he can’t figure this out.
“Down, Max,” I tell him.
Max whines.
“No, Max.”
Max whines.
“You’re not used to having girls in this bed, are you?”
I shake my head. “I’ve never had a girl in this
bed, actually.” To the dog, I say, “Max, go out.”
The dog sighs and pads, toenails clicking, to the hall. I hear him lie down. “Good boy.” I explain to Cassie, “I just built the place four years ago.”
“You built it yourself?” she asks, amazed. I can feel her relaxing in my arms. I’m not relaxed; I’m doing my best to keep my eager hard-on away from her.
“Yeah, with my brother Wyatt. It took us two years to get it finished, but I wanted it done right.”
“It’s beautiful,” she says. “Very simple, but clean and warm. Do you love it?”
“I do love it.”
She scoots closer, her breath warm on my neck.
“Do you want me to hold you until you’re warm?” I ask.
“No,” she says, and presses a soft kiss to my throat. “I want you to hold me all night.”
A wave of desire for her sweeps over me, and I clutch her harder. I need to make sure she understands. “Cass,” I say, my voice hoarse and low, desperate, “if I stay, I won’t be able to keep my hands off you.”
“I want to make love to you, Weston,” she says. “I could’ve died tonight, but I’m alive—because you saved me. I want to feel alive with you.” Her hand moves down my chest, gripping the waistband of my jeans, and I groan.
“You’re mine, Cass.”
“All of me,” she says, and it’s on.
Our lips meet in an explosion of sweetness and heat, her mouth just as delicious as I’d imagined. Our tongues dance together, our bodies warm each other. I stroke her hair, letting my lips trail toward her ear and down her neck. Her hands slide under my shirt to my back, pulling me closer to her. Those hands are cold, but quickly warming against my overheated skin, and I want them all over me. She tugs at the shirt, pulling it off over my head, and I let her.
Then I bend to her, kissing her hard and eagerly as her hands rove all over my chest, finding each muscle and curving around it, playing with my nipples and my belly button, tracing my treasure trail downward.