“It was just a matter of time,” he said, veering away from the flail of her arms, “before I would have noticed we were sitting right on top of it”
“If I hadn’t said anything,” she argued, “we’d have been looking all day—”
“Not on your life—”
“Isn’t that like a man,” she gasped, “taking credit when none is due! Admit it, Dylan, admit that I was right.”
“It was certainly wise of you to point out—”
“No, none of that!” she exclaimed, waving a finger in front of his face. “Say it. Say, ‘Casey, you were right.’”
“Hey, you weren’t the only one—”
“What, is it a genetic defect? A man can’t admit when someone else is right?”
“Okay, all right.” He caught a flailing arm and softened his voice. “Casey, you were right. One-hundred-percent right.”
Then, after a silence, they laughed, both of them, aloud and to each other. They laughed, her hand caught in his, as the gray mist of mid-morning hazed down among the trees…and it was as if a great tense spring had unwound between them.
He watched the spread of her smile and thought that he preferred her like this—open, bright-eyed, alive, full of teasing. He hadn’t heard her laugh in days. Since before that morning in the cove when he’d been so foolish as to sink his soapy fingers into her hair and taste her lips. There had been ease between them before—a sweet and new friendship—an easy, simple partnership; and standing here now in the wet litter of a wild forest, he wanted that easy friendship with her with a new and sudden fierceness.
As soon as the thought formed, another came hard upon it. For no sooner had the laughter started than it began to fade. Her fingers tensed, then curled in his. The bright light in her eyes mellowed into something different, a soft gleam that spoke not of easy friendship and simple partnerships, but of a relationship far deeper and far more dangerous.
Around them the rain pattered on the leaves and dripped off the pine needles to scent the air with sap and resin. It seemed that they were so very alone. So very far from civilization. Yet he knew they either stood on public ground, or they’d drifted into one of the large privately-owned estates in the Adirondacks that he’d gotten permission to cross. Any moment now, they could run into a park ranger or a private groundskeeper.
Yet, under these pines he felt as primitive, as primeval as the old forest around them. He wanted to strip off her clothes and make love to her on the wet forest floor.
The tight coil that had so swiftly unwound tensed up between them just as quickly.
There would be no easy friendship with this woman. Dylan knew, staring into those amber eyes, that nothing would be easy between them again. Yet before them lay two weeks of hard travel, alone, with no distractions but each other and the voyage; two weeks of telling himself that he would play the gentleman because she’d made her choice. She’d rebuffed him at the cove, for reasons he still did not understand, reasons that had something to do with a mysterious husband.
What the hell was he thinking, anyway? Friendship and sexual attraction were a potent, dangerous mix. That problem had gotten him married twice before, and exploded in his face. The last thing he needed was to make love to a woman he admired and enjoyed spending time with. The last thing he needed was the makings of another wife.
He didn’t think his ego—or his heart—could take another ruined relationship. He didn’t think he could start dreaming of home and family and watch the image implode before it could be realized.
He dropped her hand. He tightened his own hands into fists. She was staring as still and silent as the oak at her back while rivers of emotion flowed through her eyes. Moments passed, marked only by the patter of rain.
From the distance came a rumble of thunder. Around them, the patter of rain intensified.
“Come on,” he said, hearing his own voice hoarse and tense. “We’d best get the tent up before the storm hits us good.”
IT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN. Casey felt it in her bones, in her blood. They were going to make love—tonight.
They. worked in an uneasy silence, tapping in the tent poles and stretching the tarp over the frame of the tent, while the mist-turned-to-rain turned into a steady downpour. Casey fussed with the packs in the canoe longer than she needed to, standing knee-deep in water and delaying the moment when she would have to bend under the flap of that tent and be alone inside it with Dylan.
She tugged her pack out of the tight space between keel and seat, then heaved it onto her shoulder. With one reddened hand she struggled to pull the tarp tight over the floating canoe. The water lapped against her knees, but she hardly noticed it anymore. She hardly noticed any discomforts—the water soaking her hair, the chill of the coming storm, the blackness of the sky. Her senses, her body were numb to all but the man waiting in the bent.
It is going to happen…tonight.
She told herself that she couldn’t do this. Dylan was a stranger. She’d made Charlie wait two years before she had let him lure her into the back seat of his father’s car, and by then they were all but engaged. She couldn’t just climb into that tent and let Dylan touch her body so intimately, after only a week or so of knowing him. She just wasn’t the type to have a fling with a stranger.
It was embarrassing how little experience she had in a situation like this, a woman of her age, in these days. She’d taken lovemaking seriously all her life—she’d never even had a casual affair. But Dylan had had two wives, and was lighthearted enough about the divorces. He was an experienced man and she was nothing but a nervous half-virgin, for goodness’ sake.
She should be thankful for that, at least. Dylan would want nothing but a fling, and that was more than she could handle. Any more serious relationship was simply too terrifying to contemplate.
Then the flap of the tent flew open and he stuck out his head to yell above the rain. “C’mon, Casey, the heavens are going to open any minute now.”
“I’ll…I’ll be right there.”
The flap fell down. She finished tightening the tarp and curled her fingers around the strap of her overnight pack. She took a deep, cleansing breath and looked up, past the shooting trunks of the pines, to the ferment of the blackening sky.
I’m not ready for this. The rain pattered on her skin. It’s going to happen…tonight.
Dylan was rubbing his hair briskly with a towel when she splashed into the tent. He didn’t raise his head when she entered. He’d thrown on a fresh, dry shirt, but he’d neglected to button it. She tore her gaze away from his washboard abdomen.
She tossed her pack into her corner, crouched down and started peeling off wet clothes. With her back to him, she peeled off each layer and tossed the wet garments into a corner. When she got to her T-shirt and shorts, she lost courage and seized a towel.
She draped the towel across her shoulders and showed him her back. She could hear him breathing as she wiggled out of her bra and shimmied out of her underwear. She could feel his gaze upon her wet hair, upon her back. The nylon floor of the tent chilled her buttocks. She fumbled, one-handed, in her pack, seeking fresh undergarments. She waited for him to approach. Wondering when his shadow would fall over her…when he would kneel behind her…when she would feel his lips on her skin…on her breasts.
She curled her hand over her undergarments. Then, awkwardly, she slipped one leg then the other into her panties. She shimmied them up, rising to pull them over her buttocks. She could hear every rustle he made. She jumped at every catch in his breathing.
She squeezed her eyes shut. When was he going to touch her? She didn’t know whether she dreaded his approach or anticipated it; emotions roiled in her body, too many and too confused to sort. She slipped the straps of her bra over her arms and leaned forward, fumbling with the clasp. Her breasts tingled, felt heavy in the cups. She couldn’t seem to clasp it and finally, she whipped off the bra and tossed it aside.
Still, he didn’t move. She sensed his stillness
behind her. She heard his intake of breath when the towel slipped off one of her shoulders as she was reaching for a dry T-shirt. She yanked the T-shirt over her head, then, with nervous hands, she snapped the towel off her shoulders and buried her wet head in it.
She pressed her fingers into the towel to stop them from trembling. Her whole body was trembling. She didn’t know how much more of this she could take.
Then she heard the sound of playing cards being skillfully shuffled.
She twisted around and lifted the towel. She met his gaze across the glare of the hanging lantern. He looked weary. Vaguely amused. And full of the knowledge that this was going to be a difficult afternoon for both of them—yet again.
“Let’s see,” he said, shuffling the cards from one hand to another. “Where did we leave off? Two-to-one in gin rummy—my advantage. Feel like making it three out of five?”
She let the towel slide to her lap. His gaze drifted to her wet hair, then down. her body, only to skitter back to the cards in his hands.
“‘Course,” he continued, “I completely pummeled you in gin rummy. We could start over with that game, if you think you can take another drubbing.”
She stared at him as he shuffled, leaning so casually with one elbow on the ground and his long legs stretched out, his shirt hanging open, a half smile on his craggy face. Only his eyes showed the cost of this supposed casualness—blue and bright and hungry—and, but for a brief moment, hooded from her sight.
He wasn’t going to make a move on her. He wasn’t going to make love to her. Not for lack of desire—she could see that clearly enough—but for some other reason…. Some sweet and deferential reason; some kind and wary reason.
Something warm lit in her belly, a strange sort of heated glow that filled her so full that she couldn’t find the words to speak.
“So, what d’you say, hmm?” He held up the deck. “It’s the lady’s choice.”
She shook her head, slowly.
“No?” He split the pack to shuffle it again. “What, do you want backgammon instead?”
“No, no,” she murmured, feeling as if she were sliding down a slippery slope with no chance of catching herself from her own folly.
Oh, she was crazy. It must be the bad food. Maybe she was getting feverish from so many days in the damp. This was pure, unadulterated folly. She definitely, definitely was not ready for this.
Then she met his gaze and let herself tumble.
“Dylan… How about strip poker?”
8
THE CARDS SPRAYED OUT of his hands, flipped in a wild arc, batted against the roof of the tent, then rained down upon them. Casey’s words reverberated in the air. She sat steady amid the fluttering cards, her gaze fixed upon Dylan’s. A wonderful calm settled over her. Like the day she’d finally sold the house she and Charlie had lived in. A sense of letting go…a feeling of total freedom.
This is the right choice, she told herself, as Dylan pushed himself up from his reclining position. This is the right thing to do. Jillian was right. This must be part of the healing process. She was a grown woman in the 1990s, old enough to know the difference between love and sex. Dylan was a good man, a steady man—he’d just proved that to her. He would end this well.
But then all thought washed out of her head, for Dylan loomed across the space that separated them, knocking the lantern so that it swung wildly, shooting shadows across the tent. He raked his hand through her hair and yanked her head back. The rough calluses of his fingers scraped against her scalp.
Then he sealed her lips with a kiss.
This kiss bore no resemblance to that teasing, wet kiss of the cove. It was a kiss that spoke of hunger and little gentleness. She swayed with the force of it and braced her hands on the ground behind her.
When he finally tore away, he held her fast and said, “Say it again, Casey.”
She blinked up into those fierce Viking eyes and tried to stop her senses from swimming. “Wh-what?”
“The card game. What you want to play.” His fingers flexed in her hair. “Because once the cards get dealt, there’s no folding.”
“I’m not folding.” She straightened and curled her fingers around the edges of his open shirt. “I want to play strip poker,” she whispered, peeling the edges of the shirt apart, her heart racing at her own boldness. “Winner take all.”
Then she lost the capacity to breathe as she stretched his shirt wide. There was something innately dangerous about the sight of a man’s naked chest. Especially when the man involved was wide-shouldered, small-waisted, and finely chiseled—from the strong slash of collarbone all the way down to the none-too-gentle ripples of his abdomen. And so big. So dangerously big. So breathtakingly powerful.
She’d seen him without a shirt before. But never at such close range. Close enough to lean forward and slip the tip of her tongue over the hollow of his chest.
No sooner had the thought shocked her than she’d already done it. He tasted of rainwater. His skin felt surprisingly smooth, the whorls of gold-tipped hair soft against her lips.
He made a rumbling noise deep in his chest and clasped her upper arms in a tight grip.
“Cheater,” he accused as he set her away. “You’re not playing fair. You haven’t shown me your hand yet.”
Then, so quickly that it was done before she could think, he gathered her T-shirt at the waist and yanked it over her head. He balled up the shirt and sent it flying to the corner of the tent, and then she was sitting before him, naked from the waist up.
No man had laid eyes upon her body for years, and now she sat with her breath caught in her throat and the glare of the swinging lantern on her skin as Dylan touched her with his gaze so hungrily that her nipples tightened. He watched, a muscle flexing in his cheek. A blush crept up to tingle her skin.
“A pair of aces,” he murmured. “And me, with an empty hand.”
He filled one of his empty hands with the weight of her breast. He scraped his thumb, ever-so-lightly, against the engorged peak. She couldn’t help it—the motion was instinctive—she arched her back as the rush of sensation shot through her, which drove her breast deeper into the warm, moist palm of his hand.
When the blindness ebbed she found him watching her intensely, hunger plain in his eyes. And her body moved of its own accord, finding his hardness and warmth rising beneath the soft cloth of his sweatpants.
Then it came to her in all its carnal glory, what they were to do in this tent on this night. The expectation sent a whole new rush of sensation through her.
She did not reel back. She did not hesitate. In some distant part of her mind, she knew she should be shocked by her own boldness. It was as if some strange woman had taken over her body; she couldn’t believe the things she was thinking, the things she was doing, like right now, as she curled her hand tightly around his erection, and felt the pulse of pleasure shoot through his body.
When she spoke, her voice was but a whisper. “Haven’t you ever played five-card stud, Dylan? This is no empty hand—this is very definitely a straight.”
His teeth flashed in the light of the lantern, and he moved his mouth closer to hers. “And you, my bold Casey, have a royal flush.”
She managed a shaky smile. “I win, then.”
“We both win,” he murmured, as he dipped his face into her throat. “And the game has just begun.”
He pressed her down. Her spine softened as she sank to the slippery carpet of cards. It all rushed in on her; the welcome slap of his weight, the heat of bare skin grazing bare skin, the spicy-hot still on his tongue. She wound her arms around his shoulders. His lips met hers. Hard. Catching her gasp. And he worked her mouth and her tongue and her lips until she was starved for him, until she reached up to meet him with each kiss.
Then he broke the contact and she lay back, gasping for air and for something else, something much more substantial. He kissed her jaw and her throat, and lower, lower, to graze the stubble of his cheek against the peak of her breast
.
She clawed her fingers into his shirt, and wondered why she had waited so long for something that felt so right. So perfect. His head…it fit in her hands. He felt so warm atop her. Their naked skins slipped so sweetly, one against the another. It had been so long, but she knew she couldn’t write this intensity off as a sex-starved body screaming for release. Dylan with his tightly muscled shoulders and his hungry mouth made her want to do things—such wild, wicked things, and one thing in particular….
Then she lost all thought as the storm battered the walls of the tent and the rain pounded out a tattoo upon the canvas and they tossed their shirts and sweatpants and undergarments upon the nylon floor, and all that was left was the scent of pine and rain and the whisper of waxed cards slipping beneath their bodies.
And his hands, everywhere at once, probing between her legs without hesitation, without gentleness, and she pressing her teeth into his shoulder as the wanting surged.
The games were over, Casey knew that. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath, she couldn’t think. Amid the hungry swirl of sensation he lifted himself high atop her and she felt him, the root of him, throbbing against her thigh. She let her legs fall open, welcoming him, wanting him. Just as he was about to push into her a rational thought broke through the chaos of her senses and she jerked away.
“Wait. Oh, wait!”
He stilled. She lay there, staring at him while her breath came fast through her lips. He looked as dazed as she, as anxious as she felt. She struggled to her elbows and pushed up, away from him, away from that dangerous, pulsating strength. “Wait,” she breathed. “I’m not… We can’t… We have to… Oh, hell!”
She glanced toward her pack, just within arm’s reach. What was she supposed to say? She didn’t know how to do this. When she was last in this situation she was in the back of Charlie’s father’s car and she was seventeen years old. She made an awkward lunge for her pack and the protection it contained.
“Casey,” he said, slapping a hand on her hip. “I’ve—”
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