by Tamara Hogan
She appreciated the effort, but all she could do was lean back against the seat and try not to cry. “Sure. Anywhere. Anywhere but here.”
***
“Hey,” Lukas said softly. “We’re here.”
Scarlett cursed as she blinked into the bright morning sun. NPR’s “Morning Edition” droned sonorously from the radio as Lukas muscled the big car around the last hairpin turn on the rutted logging road leading to the Sebastiani lake property, one hundred and fifty acres of pine-and-birch-treed privacy on one of the dozens of lakes strung along the border between Minnesota and Canada. When he reached their private road, Lukas stopped the car and slid out with a fluid shift of muscle that didn’t show any indication that he’d driven nearly three hundred miles in the dark with no sleep.
He left the door ajar while he unfastened the rustic fence blocking the entrance. As chilly air filled the car, Scarlett clutched the soft fleece blanket more closely around her shoulders.
She’d been to the Sebastiani cabin many, many times before. When they were teenagers, she, Annika, and Sasha had practically lived here for weeks on end, their most important goal being obtaining the ultimate summer tan. She’d certainly never been here alone with Lukas before, and suddenly the rustic surroundings were full of sensual possibilities.
Annika, I could really use some advice right about now.
Lukas slid back into the car with a swoosh of T-shirt over the seat. His nostrils flared. “You okay?’”
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s just that the last time I was here, Annika was with me.” She suddenly giggled. “Remember the time Annika fell asleep in the sun with her hand on her stomach? It took her days to even out her tan.”
“Too many memories?” he asked. “Do you want to go back?” Lukas’s hand flexed on the shifter, just as willing to turn around and drive five hours south as he was to continue on to their destination less than a minute up the rise.
“Keep going.”
Dragging his gaze back to the road, Lukas put the car into gear.
The thick canopy of leaves and branches scraped the roof as the big car bumped and lurched over the rugged dirt road. As the narrow road opened onto a cut grass clearing and the backside of a sprawling log cabin, a squirrel scampered by with its cheeks packed with food for the coming winter.
“Logs need to be restained,” Lukas muttered as he braked the car to a stop.
Scarlett shrugged, saying nothing. She liked the look of the faded logs. The cabin and outbuildings came by their weathered appearance honestly, standing stalwart against northern Minnesota’s long, brutal winters and hot, humid summers. Elliott Sebastiani had bought the land and built the cabin shortly after Dasha Sebastiani’s death, to help his children heal and to get away from life and death decisions, if only for a few days at a time.
Lukas got out of the car, popped the trunk, and extracted three grocery bags bulging with food. He’d let her sleep while he grocery shopped? Grabbing her purse, she dragged herself out of the car and scrambled after him as he unlocked the door.
“Rafe was here last weekend, so at least the place is aired out,” Lukas said as he walked into the kitchen and set the bags down on the scratched butcher block counter top.
“I’ll put away the groceries,” she offered. Time to start pulling her weight.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll go unlock the outbuildings.” He picked up a yellow kayak leaning drunkenly against the dining room wall, swung it up to his left shoulder, and carried it outside with him.
Scarlett dropped her purse on the dining room table and swiped open every cheerful orange cotton curtain to let the light in. The first floor of the cabin was basically two huge rooms—on one side, a multipurpose kitchen/living room/dining room, and on the other, a communal sleeping area furnished with a hodgepodge of beds bearing mismatched quilts. Above the sleeping area was a loft with two bedrooms, one used by Elliott Sebastiani, and the other by guests, or more typically, by her mother. Scarlett giggled softly. How long had her mother been sneaking across the hall to Elliott’s room while their clueless children slumbered below?
Her mother, not theirs. Her smile dimmed. Her subconscious was processing Annika’s death whether she wanted it to or not.
On a shelf near the door, battery operated lanterns, flashlights, bug spray, and sunscreen stood at the ready, and a menagerie of sweatshirts and coats in various sizes and colors hung on sturdy hooks. Good thing, too, Scarlett thought, because other than the underwear she’d presciently grabbed while she was at her apartment last night, she had nothing to wear but the clothes on her back.
What would Lukas do about underwear?
Don’t go there. Scarlett snagged a sweatshirt at random, pulled it over her head, and went back to the family room, which was a mix of rough and luxe that suited the Sebastianis perfectly. A rust-colored cashmere throw lay over the back of the battered leather couch, and pieces of Rafe’s sculpture were prominently displayed on the fireplace mantel, covered in enough dust to make a museum curator gasp. A clear quart canning jar containing an arrangement of dried grass, cattails, and pussy willows sat on the coffee table next to a well thumbed Ellery Queen mystery novel. Bookshelves along the north wall groaned under the weight of haphazardly stacked books, CDs, DVDs, and board games. Framed snapshots elbowed for their share of the space.
Scarlett turned away from the bookshelf and went to the dining room. She couldn’t face the pictures just yet.
The previous weekend, Rafe had pushed all of the mismatched dining room chairs against the outer walls to give himself room to work, and pieces of wire and chunks of metal littered the newspaper-covered table. She wasn’t going to touch any of Rafe’s things—especially that scary-looking soldering iron—but she turned on the small boom box.
Her own voice. Her first CD, she realized with a sinking heart. The songs she couldn’t let herself sing. It was past time she put on her big girl panties and confronted them.
Leaving the player on, she checked the open kitchen shelving unit for supplies, glad to see dried pasta, jars of sauce, microwave popcorn, and cans of soup. On top of the refrigerator were two unopened bags of potato chips, and the ingredients for S’mores. No matter what Lukas bought or didn’t buy at the grocery store, they wouldn’t starve.
Someone, probably Rafe, had left half a package of Oreos in a Ziploc bag sitting out on the kitchen counter. “Bless you,” she breathed as she tore the bag open and ate breakfast over the sink looking out at the water.
She’d forgotten how relaxing it was here at the cabin.
And she’d forgotten that the family snapshots were scattered everywhere, without rhyme or reason. Here in the kitchen, a decorative grouping of items hung near the double oven: several antique kitchen utensils, a vine-laden tile that asked, “Want some whine with that?” and a snapshot of her, Annika, Sasha, and Rafe tanning down on the dock as teenagers, their chaise lounges slanted to maximize the angle of the sun.
The memory stung like lemon juice on a paper cut.
She tore her eyes away from the picture and put away the groceries Lukas had bought. No junk food, of course—just plenty of lean meat, fruit, and vegetables. He’d even bought dried fruit. What the hell for, survival? Scarlett snorted. While the cabin’s location might seem wolf-howl desolate—and yeah, in the middle of winter you definitely had to think about what you’d do if you got snowed in, or lost heat—there was a thriving tourist town less than ten minutes away. If push came to shove, all they had to do was hop in the car, and they could quickly have food, alcohol, tossed-to-order pizza, Internet access, shopping, cappuccino, and fresh bait.
After she folded and put away the grocery bags, she stood in the middle of the kitchen, at a loss about what to do next. If she was here with Sasha, or Annika, or as part of a larger group, she’d already have chosen her bed.
Scarlett bit her lip as she walked to the bedroom. The sexual tension between her and Lukas was thick enough to cut with a knife—and god knew that within
the last twenty-four hours they’d had each other left, right, upside down, and backwards—but it seemed presumptuous to assume that they’d share the largest bed in the communal bedroom, a queen-sized mattress which had been Lukas’s since he’d outgrown the others.
Would Lukas even want to share a bed with her?
Quit mindfucking it to death. Where do you want to sleep? She dropped her purse on Lukas’s bed. She was sleeping here; he could make his own decision.
The morning sun struggled weakly against the room’s west-facing curtains, and Scarlett crawled across Lukas’s bed to open them. Outside, the lake was glass smooth, and while a few stubborn red leaves still clung to the maples, most of them had fallen to the ground. She didn’t see or hear ducks and geese. They’d probably already packed their bags and flown south for the winter.
She heard Lukas down on the ancient railroad tie dock, winching the fishing boat into the water. He must have left some clothes in the sauna, because he’d changed from the khakis and pressed oxford he’d worn to dinner the previous night to a pair of jeans that were clearly his, worn nearly white at the stress points. The ratty U of M sweatshirt was stretched beyond structure at the neck, waist, and armbands, and his hair was lashed into a ponytail.
She wanted to lift the waistband of that sweatshirt with her teeth, and wash his cobblestone abs with her tongue.
Lukas’s head whipped toward the cabin.
Busted. Rather than duck, she stayed right where she was, kneeling on Lukas’s bed. The air stilled as they stared at each other.
Finally, he moved.
***
Indecision and lust battled within him in an epic tug-of-war. Scarlett was exhausted, and the dark shadows under her eyes had haunted him for most of the drive up north. The last thing she needed was for him to fall on her like a lust-crazed beast. But her voice called to him, tugged at him, even though her mouth was closed. Had she finally found a way to burrow directly into his brain?
It must be the boom box, he thought with one of his few remaining brain cells. But then jealousy gashed its teeth. What the hell had Rafe been working on that he needed to channel such sexually charged inspiration? From Scarlett?
Hell.
If you’re going to get jealous of every man who fantasizes when Scarlett sings, you’re in for a lifetime of hurt.
Up at the window, Scarlett smiled a Mona Lisa smile, and then backed out of sight. She might as well have grabbed onto his dick and pulled. She had to be on his bed, where he’d spent far too many nights trying to ignore the flame-haired girl sleeping across the room.
His legs quickly ate up the ground between the dock and the cabin. The screen door snapped closed behind him like a trap.
Scarlett came out of the bedroom to meet him wearing a faded Sorbonne sweatshirt that was four sizes too large.
She was so beautiful.
She’d opened the curtains, and sunlight blazed into the room, setting each strand of her hair crackling with fire and bleaching away the shadows under her eyes.
He drew his index finger along the sweatshirt’s frayed neckline. “Is this Rafe’s?”
She shrugged, unconcerned. “Probably.”
First things first—getting his brother’s clothing off her body. Lukas tugged the sweatshirt up and over her head, taking her sweater with it, leaving Scarlett wearing only yesterday’s jeans and a delicate lace camisole. It was a confection of lime green, hot pink, and bright purple, and it clung to her cupcake breasts like butter cream frosting. As he licked along the lacy border, he felt her hands fumbling with his ponytail until his hair loosened and spilled. She tugged his head to her erect nipple, and made a demanding sound deep in her throat that shivered up his spine.
He could only obey. As he suckled her through the silk, it was all he could do not to just bite down to see if her mandarin taste would spark into his mouth. But when he let her feel the edge of his teeth, her nipples pebbled even harder.
I need to have her. “I need to have you,” he said aloud, wincing as soon as the Neanderthal words left his lips.
Scarlett cruised her eyes over his face, his body, and arched a brow. “Same goes.”
His breath hitched at the thought of being… had. But he had to throttle back, keep his head. This was going to be all about her, he thought, even as she brought their torsos together and lifted her mouth up to his, dragging the dampened silk and lace against his sweatshirt.
There were too many layers of fabric between them. He wanted to feel that silk against his skin. Separating his lips from hers with a groan, Lukas set her back and whipped off his own sweatshirt and T-shirt. She shuddered. With desire, or with the cold?
Lukas quickly crossed to the fireplace, mentally thanking Rafe for restocking the kindling and logs before leaving last weekend. He built a fire, impatiently feeding it until it sparked and blazed. Behind him, Scarlett’s mandarin essence ripened to mango.
Christ, he could get drunk on her taste alone.
Rising from his crouch, his shoulder blades brushed up against bare legs—yards of silky, bare legs. She’d undressed for him. He smiled when he saw her thick white ankle socks. How far had she gotten? If he tipped his head back toward her body, would his hair tangle in her luscious bush?
With a hitch in his breath, he did it—and brushed against even more silk.
Standing behind him, Scarlett stroked her chilly, clever hands over his shoulders and chest, and traced the downy trail of hair leading to the waistband of his jeans. Her silk and lace camisole slipped against his skin. “You’re wearing too many clothes,” she said, her voice shivering into his ear as she tugged at his fly.
The buttons slithered open, and Scarlett’s guitar-calloused fingertips burrowed under the elastic waistband of his snug boxer briefs. Strumming his length, she dipped her head to the crook of his neck and nibbled.
He thrust heavily into her hands, once. Twice. Jesus. If he didn’t slow this down, it would be over before it began. “Let me get these off,” he said.
She stepped back so he could wrestle out of his boots, jeans, and briefs.
“Stop right there,” she said suddenly. “Let me look at you.”
Taking several crucial steps back from the crackling fire, he obeyed. Waited. He shifted his weight impatiently, almost feeling her gaze stroking his butt.
Finally he shot her a look over his shoulder, and she twirled her forefinger in the air, giving him permission to turn around. Before she could treat his twitching dick to the same ogling she’d given his ass, he closed the distance between them. The scraps of candy colored silk she wore were in his way. Lukas edged his big hands under the hem of her camisole and drew it up her narrow torso, felt her breath snag as he avoided her breasts and lifted it over her head.
Shadows from the fire flickered over her pearly skin. He lowered his mouth and traced the shifting patterns with his lips and tongue, skimming over her shoulders and collarbone before taking a meandering route between her breasts.
When he finally licked her pebbled nipple, she clutched his head and held him against her breast. “Don’t move.”
Moving was the very last thing on his mind. When he leaned in, latched on, and suckled, she rose on tiptoe, clutching at him for balance. Before she could entirely right herself, he nudged his foot behind hers and tipped them onto the worn, leather couch in front of the fireplace. He lifted his head for a moment and stared at the picture she made, with her torso arched over the arm of the couch, breasts kicked up into the chilly air, her neck bared, and her hair waterfalling over the edge.
“Lukas,” she moaned, removing her hands from his head to clutch at her own breasts. She mindlessly arched off the leather, bumping her crotch against his mouth.
Jesus. Covering her hands with his own, he buried his face in the fuchsia silk and wallowed.
Lukas half-expected to be dragged from the dream any minute now, waking lonely in his bed with his dick in his hand. But no, that was the couch leather rasping against his bare sk
in as he shifted over her. Those were the narrow elastic bands of her panties snapping in his hands. That was Scarlett, spreading her legs for him as he whisked the scrap of silk out of his way.
The firelight turned her pubic hair to flame. He covered her mound with his hand, threaded his fingers possessively through the soft decoration. Her taste already effervesced on his tongue, and he hadn’t touched her with it yet. Lukas closed his eyes momentarily, and then parted her with his big fingers. Her soft, pink center glistened with dew, and when his fingers slicked over her slippery center, Scarlett moaned, cupping his cheek with her hand.
His mate was ready to take him. Lukas thanked the universe for the snarled genetics that allowed him to experience her as no other man could.
Her hands latched onto his hair. “Lukas?”
“Hmm?”
She shuddered as his response vibrated against her most sensitive skin. “Don’t stop. Don’t… leave.”
You’ve got to be kidding. “I’m not going anywhere.” Against his will, his hips flexed against the leather, trying to get some relief for his aching dick. He had to please her—now—because once she got her hands on him, he’d be a goner.
He held her in place as he licked and teased, taking endless minutes to respond to her every twitch and moan. When he finally gave her the firmer touch she craved, she crossed her cotton-clad ankles behind his head to hold him in place, her nails scratching against his skull. Her body clenched, gathering itself under his mouth and tongue.
She exploded with a sharp cry that rattled the windows in their frames. His vision went gray around the edges as he frantically inhaled, lashing himself to the mast to ride out the storm.
***
When Scarlett opened her eyes, Lukas sprawled over her, leisurely suckling on her hipbone like he had all the time in the world. Even though he outweighed her by more than two to one, his weight felt oddly comfortable, like a favorite blanket.
She swiped at the damp hair at his temples. “Hey.”
He lifted his head and smiled. “Welcome back.”