Alone With You (Cabin Fever Series Book 1)

by Lisa Ann Verge

  “Let’s go back now,” she whispered. “Let’s go to bed.”

  Then she slid her hand down his arm and grasped his cold hand, weaving her fingers through his.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Jenny drifted up from sleep. A finger of sunlight warmed her face. Early-morning light seeped through the blinds to chase the darkness from the room. She basked in it with a contented sigh, pleased to stretch out in this comfortable bed under cool sheets for a little while longer. She felt loose-jointed, limber, settled happy in her skin. She absently brushed a lock of hair off her cheek and her elbow hit something hard.

  She blinked her eyes open to find Logan looking down at her, watching her with an intensity that suggested he’d been watching her for some time. He rubbed his chin, where she’d accidently knocked him, rasping his fingers against the stubble. The morning light gilded him like a Roman god.

  “Morning, beautiful,” he murmured in a voice that sounded like a thousand pleasures. She must be dreaming the look in his eyes, so different from the pained wariness of the night before. Now he looked down upon her with an expression of easy familiarity. Caught in that hazy state between sleep and waking, she felt her whole body open to all the glorious possibilities his perusal offered. Her heart warmed from within.

  “Hey, you.” How unguarded he looked, not a trace of last night’s discomfort lurking in those eyes. “Did I oversleep?”

  “I don’t know what time it is.” He didn’t roll over to check his phone. He didn’t move at all. “I don’t care what time it is, Jenny.”

  She had a rigid routine to her mornings, but she didn’t feel even a tiny bit of reluctance about ditching it right now. The work she had to do in the lab could wait a little while longer. Hell, she could spend the whole day with Logan, just for the physical pleasures his smile promised. Still clinging to her senses was the scent of ozone and mineral rain on his skin last night, when they’d come in from the shed, stripped off their clothes, and slid their skins against each other under the cool sheets. They’d made slow love as rain pattered on the windows, and then sank into sleep entwined, his knee across her thigh, her legs between his.

  A gleam lit his eye, like he could see exactly what she was thinking. He pressed closer until their lips were a breath apart. Her throat tightened, her chest lifted, and every sense focused on the lips only a touch away from hers, and the intensity of his look as he did. Her thoughts flew away at the brush of his mouth. She lifted her head off the pillow, straining toward his kiss. Gentle waves of pleasure rippled from his touch, washing through her so intensely that she bent her knees at the sensations, curling up around her body’s core. They had kissed many times—had spent most of yesterday locking lips—but he’d never kissed her with such sweet restraint.

  This felt like a first kiss.

  His lips slid away to her cheek and then to her temple as he wrapped an arm around her and drew her close. She molded against the muscular bulk of his body, her head in the nook of his throat, her breasts softening against his solid chest, their legs wrapping around one another as if from muscle memory. She ran a hand up his hard pectorals and let her fingers rest upon the ball of his arm. She listened, holding her own breath, to hear his sigh as he buried his face in her hair.

  Her eyes drifted closed and words rose to the tip of her tongue.

  I love you, Logan.

  She held the words in, her lashes tangling in his hair. It was too soon for this. She’d known him for barely a week. They’d spent most of it in a sexual haze, until last night in the shed. She knew better than to be thinking about something as foolish as love, even if they had spent the whole day pleasing each other, and the evening sharing secrets. She was deluding herself, for hadn’t they both agreed that this relationship led nowhere beyond the present moment? She was losing herself now, drugged by sleep and satiation, enticed by the comfort she felt in his arms.

  She eased back, out of his embrace, as diplomatically as she could. His arms clung for a moment before he released her with a frown deepening between his brows. She swung away as if she didn’t see it, so she wouldn’t have to respond to his unspoken disappointment. Her white silk bathrobe hung on the closet doorknob. She stood up and seized it, thrust her arms into the sleeves to cover her nakedness. Knotting the tie, she flipped her hair out from under the collar.

  He said, “Where are you going?”

  “Not far.” She thought up an excuse quick. “The diaphragm. I have to take it out now.”

  “Jenny?”

  Drawn to the questioning tone of his voice, she paused in the doorway to the bathroom and glanced over her shoulder. Logan sat up, the sheet sliding down to expose the crunch of the ripples of his abdomen.

  He ran a splayed hand over the indentation of her body in the bed. “Come back after.”

  She wanted to say yes but couldn’t. She should say no, but didn’t. Right now, she felt soft and open and vulnerable, as readable as a child’s picture book. She didn’t want Logan to read her mind. After that kiss and the cozy embrace that followed, chaos was swirling in her mind, churning up fantasies. About how lovely it would be to bring Logan to the department cocktail party for the opening of the semester, how she should fly with him to New York to introduce him to her mom and prove to her dad that she was capable of meeting a good man. She wondered if Logan would drop his toothbrush into the cup that held hers at home, keep a shaving kit in her apartment bathroom, and leave a crisply-ironed shirt in her closet. Her future was running miles further than her better sense and she just couldn’t keep up.

  “I think,” she said, bracing against the doorway, “that I’d better catch up with my work in the lab today.”

  “Don’t.” Logan swung his feet off the bed.

  Her head spun as he stood up in front of her, in all his naked glory. “Don’t…what?”

  “Don’t hide from me.”

  I’m not hiding. How could she hide? He was standing right in front or her, revealing every cut muscle, and she was wearing nothing but a thin layer of silk. She tried to act casual, pushing away from the doorjamb. “We can’t have hot sex all the time, tiger.”

  “I’m not asking for sex.” His gaze dropped over her body. “I know you’re sore.”

  She squeezed her thighs together, felt a faint bruising, and remembered how gently he’d made love to her last night, after he’d felt her flinch. But that was about shared passion, not love, which was now growing at the center of her mind’s storm. Her heart had made that leap with lightning speed. Her better sense struggled to swat it down.

  “I also know you well enough,” Logan said, stepping closer, “to know when you’re making an excuse.”

  She stared beyond him at the art-festival print over the bed blurring in her sight. “I do have work,” she insisted. “I haven’t even found the third species John mentions in his paper.”

  “Then we’ll find it together.” He lifted his hand as if to touch her, and then dropped it in reconsideration. “We’ll go back to the park today, bring lunch.”

  The idea was tempting, stirring up images of the two of them alone in the woods, a delicious combination of business and pleasure. She tugged on the ends of the bathroom tie, willing her weakness away. Of course she wanted to spend another day with Logan, but that would mean getting to know him better, and giving him plenty of opportunities to read her runaway mind, if she couldn’t convince herself this was foolishness.

  Logan leaned in and pressed his forehead against hers. “You promised me a week, Jenny.”

  His nearness was like a shot of grain alcohol. “Promised?”

  “The week has only begun.”

  “Logan.” She felt as thin as a sheet of glass, and just as likely to shatter. “I just…need a moment.”

  “That’s not what your eyes are telling me.” He pulled away, touched her chin, and lifted her face to meet his. “When I first saw these eyes, I pinned them as the color of ice tea, icy-cool. Later, when I teased you into a fighting mood, I
thought—single-malt scotch, smoky and secretive and packing a hell of a burn. When I first made love to you, I saw the color of a Long Isand Ice Tea, shots of liquor chilled—fire and ice, potent enough to knock me out. But right now, your eyes are as impenetrable and bracing as hot black coffee.”

  Her voice felt shaky in her throat. “You must be thirsty.”

  A corner of his lips twitched. “Only for you.”

  Only for you.

  “Don’t hide in the basement lab.” He settled his hands on the either side of the bathroom door, trapping her in an embrace without even touching her. “Don’t hide from me, as I nearly did from you until last night.”

  She trailed the tie of her silk bathrobe through her fingers as her heart sprinted in place. Is this what Logan had felt like last night, when she’d poked and prodded at him, asking so many personal questions?

  “Jenny.” A muscle in his check flexed. “I’m knocked to my knees, too.”

  She glanced up into steady green eyes, ringed at the pupil in gold. Her ribs tightened. A weakness shuddered through her. Control was an illusion, but even that was slipping out of her hands.

  “We’ve got a week.” He pulled away and cupped her face. “How about we take it one day at a time?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Witchity-witchity-witchity-witchity-wit. Which-is-it-which-is-it-which-is-it.

  Yellowthroat, Logan thought, clanking the mouth of his beer against his teeth and lifting the bottle to suck down the dregs. He leaned back in the dappled shade of a tree and listened again

  Pit-r-ick. Pit-r-ick

  Tanager, he noted, searching for the bird in the tree Jenny identified as a big leaf maple. No sooner had he found the brilliant red head amid the greenery than his gaze drifted down again, down, across the blanket he’d carried to this shady little glen in the hopes of coaxing his woman into sharing it with him. But Jenny wasn’t sprawled there, at least not yet. She was a dozen feet away, leaning over the banks of a trickling little brook, raising her tight, round bottom above her heels as she bent over. She dropped a few drops of a blue solution into a test tube of river water, and then tapped the tube to mix it. She held it up against a color chart and marked the results in her laptop beside her, covered in plastic against the dripping moisture of the Pacific woods.

  When the lady worked, he thought ruefully, the lady worked. She had the fierce concentration of sunlight through a magnifying glass. It had taken the two of them most of the morning to find the plant she’d been searching for. She still hadn’t stopped with her tubes and bags and solutions yet. She hadn’t even paused to eat her sandwich, which lay wrapped and abandoned upon the picnic blanket.

  He turned his focus away from that tight backside, wondering if she could sense him ogling. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that she was ducking his attention, but he couldn’t be sure. She did have a tendency to lose track of time when she worked. He’d witnessed that before. She forgot about food, weather, puddles, mud, everything, for hours at a time. He understood the coping mechanism, they had that much in common. He just didn’t like the idea that he might be one of the problems she was hiding from.

  He tilted his head back against the moss coating the tree-trunk, looking up beyond the wind laughing in the leaves. Everything had changed since yesterday. For the life of him, he couldn’t pinpoint when the shift had happened. It might have something to do with a deep and dreamless sleep, and the fact that he’d woken refreshed for the first time in months. Whatever the reason, he sure as hell wasn’t ready for a relationship, hadn’t expected it to happen. He couldn’t blame Jenny for being conflicted about what was developing between them, when it had taken them both by surprise.

  He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, to pluck at a loose thread on the picnic blanket. The timing was all wrong, he thought, as his gaze drifted back to her again, the slim waist, the tight ponytail. Watching her work was difficult on so many levels. He envied her concentration, her dedication to the pursuit of knowledge, her confidence and enthusiasm. It made his gut hollow to witness how it once felt to have purpose and meaning, instead of spending all his time goofing about, drinking beer, and carving knick-knacks in someone else’s shed.

  Jenny rose to her full height and wandered to the patch of weeds that were John’s much-sought-after plant species. With some kind of tape, she lifted pollen from the flowers and tucked the samples into a plastic bag. Sitting here like a bump on a log, watching Jenny add a little bit to the world’s scientific knowledge, he felt as worthless as dirt.

  “Phew!” she said, approaching where he sat on the blanket. “It’s so muggy today.”

  “Yup.” He watched a drop of perspiration slip down her throat and disappear under the neckline of her tee-shirt.

  “Is that for me?” She nodded to the sandwich as she tossed a baggie full of pollen samples atop her rucksack. “I’m starved.”

  “All yours,” he said, zipping open a refrigerated pack to pull out a bottle. “The water is still cold, too.”

  She dropped to a sitting position, crossing her legs under her, as she unwrapped the sandwich tucked into it with enthusiasm. He adjusted his sitting position as he watched her. Jenny ate with her lips. They puckered around the opening to the water bottle every time she sucked a sip. She used her teeth to scrape crumbs from the pillowy pink flesh. She even tore off bits of the sandwich and lifted them to her mouth individually, tugging the smaller morsels with a purse of lips. Even when she chewed, her mouth was impossible to ignore.

  Damn, he was in deep.

  He waited until she was on the last crust when he slipped close to her and kissed her delectably full mouth. Spicy brown mustard, the smokiness of ham, burst on his taste buds. She sputtered and leaned back, laughing.

  That sound was the strongest aphrodisiac.

  “Hungry, are we?” She covered her mouth as she finished chewing.

  “For you.” He leaned in again and licked a breadcrumb off her chin. “Ravenous.”

  Her whisky eyes danced under the dappled light. “Sandwich first,” she said, as she popped another bite in her mouth.

  “Eat quick.” He grinned. It felt wolfish. He really was a greedy bastard, when it came to making love to this woman. “It’s been too long since I’ve touched you.”

  He ran a hand up her side, waiting for consent in her eyes before he cupped her breast through the cotton of her shirt. He found the nub of her nipple with his thumb and ran a circle around it until he felt the nub rise up beneath her bra. He watched her face as she swallowed down the last of the sandwich with a gasp and groped for the bottle of water. A hazy mist of pleasure clouded her eyes, like a drop of water in a crystal glass of scotch.

  “Off,” he whispered when she finished eating, tugging her tee-shirt, pleased to see both nipples poking against the fabric.

  “Not necessary,” she said, wiping a drop of water from her chin as she set her bottle aside. “Just the shorts.”

  He shook his head. “I want you naked.”

  “There are public decently laws, Logan.” She glanced around the clearing. “We can keep disrobing to a minimum.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Her smile wavered as she contemplated possibilities. “Anyone could pass by.”

  “The only creatures around right now are the birds. We’re three miles from the park entrance and haven’t seen a hiker in hours.” He lifted the hem of her tee-shirt, exposing a stretch of taut belly above the waistband of her shorts. “In all your years of field research, you’ve never gone skinny-dipping? Or made love naked in the great wide open?”

  “No, actually.” She wrinkled that lovely nose and frowned. “Not even once.”

  “Glad to be the first.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t get too cocky about it.”

  He tugged the shirt harder. “Are you going to let the sun touch all your glory, Jenny?”

  Hesitation hovered on her face. Why the reluctance? She was free enough wit
h nudity when alone with him at the cabin. She seemed comfortable in her gorgeous skin. Whenever he’d coaxed her into hot sex, she’d been a willing and enthusiastic participant. But here, in a public place, risking public viewing, she wouldn’t meet his eye. It was an excuse, he thought. The sex itself, that’s what was troubling her, after their kiss this morning. Only one day had passed, but they were no longer two consenting adults enjoying mutual sexual stimulation. There was a lot more thrumming between them now. He couldn’t come up with any other explanation for her sudden shyness, this vaguely-panicked muting of her usual enthusiasm.

  He let go of the hem of her tee-shirt to tug on the waistband of her shorts. “All right, just lose these.”

  “Oh,” she said breathlessly, uncertain.

  “Ditch the shorts,” he said, leaning in to whisper in her ear, “and I’ll pull the blanket over my head to cover us both.”

  The skin at her neck turned a shade pinker. Her knees bobbed as the implications sank in. She chewed on her lower lip for a moment, and then, with a catch in her throat, she leaned back on the blanket to flick open the button of her shorts.

  A half an hour later, mutually satisfied, they lay beside each other, the edge of the blanket pulled over his hips. Raking his hands through his hair, he tried to ease the pounding of his heart after the powerful orgasm she’d just given him. He glanced at Jenny, lying on her belly, a wicked light in her eye, still bearing the radiance of the sexual satisfaction he’d given her. The sweet perfume of her sex lingered on his lips.

  He couldn’t take his eyes off her, looking so soft and vulnerable and relaxed and happy. The endorphins were kicking in for him, too, he felt the drift of his excitement into a lingering peace. But there was more to this satisfaction, now, it came with a compulsion to make her happy. He wasn’t worth her time, his life was on hold, and he hadn’t expected this. But he knew he had every intention of holding on to her, and seeing if this could work.