His Last Defense

by Karen Rock

  And he kissed her with all the longing that had been plaguing him since he’d laid eyes on her again.

  4

  DYLAN KISSED NOLEE with a hunger as fierce and edgy as her own. She’d waited so long for this—this man. This night. She’d dreamed of it. Fantasized. Practically wished upon a freaking star...a star that would lead him back north to her. But how long would he stay?

  She shoved aside the troubling thought, wanting to focus only on him, on this moment. His touch woke her dormant body, tingling and aware with a stinging, rushing need. For the first time in ages, she was warm. More than warm. Heat burned through her, chasing away the cold.

  He slid from behind the wheel toward her and she threw her knee across his lap and straddled him, the move automatic, her body remembering him instinctively. She felt his familiar, well-muscled legs against her thighs and the long hard length of his erection. Her mind grew foggy from passion and desire, chasing away coherent thought. Right now, all she knew was that she wanted to be close to him, held by him.

  Dylan threaded his hands through her hair and met her eyes for one blistering-hot second, his gaze raking over her intently. Her heart pounded at his sexy perusal. It seemed as if his guard had been stripped away and the emotion remaining was something frightening and thrilling at the same time.

  “So damn sexy,” he breathed, his voice hoarse. Fervent.

  Then his mouth landed on hers again and she forgot to think. His kiss teased her with a hungry quality that robbed her of reason so that she could do nothing but cling to Dylan’s broad shoulders. Covering her lips with his, he tasted her with the confidence of a man who knew her. Knew what turned her on, what drove her crazy. What left her overwhelmed and powerless with lust.

  She savored the familiar way their mouths merged and melded, the heat intensifying with each stroke of his tongue as he teased his way inside. Tipping her head back, he exerted more pressure over the kiss, the effect drugging her. Then he cupped her cheeks, angling her face to kiss harder, deeper.

  A light-headed sensation spun the world around Nolee and she wrapped her arms around his neck, holding on tight. Her fingers combed through the short curls at the base of his scalp. Soft, she thought hazily. Thick.

  Her breath stuck in her throat and she sat utterly still when Dylan released her hair to run his hands down her sides. In one swift move, he freed her jeans’ front closure. Then he cupped her bottom, fitting her to his groin. Sweet, hot, delicious friction. She nearly groaned aloud, desire building, air now hissing between her teeth. He edged her low-riding denim down her hips slightly, the warm air teasing her skin, making her ultra-aware of the tiny patch of flesh he’d just bared.

  The purring vent was no match for the fogged windows that insulated them, making this intense moment private. Intimate. The hard, thumping rock song that poured from the sound system pounded along with her erratic pulse.

  Her fingers grasped ineffectually at his jacket zipper, her hands incapable of making progress when his kisses consumed her. His hands stroked a hot path up her rib cage to palm her breasts through her coat, then spanned her ribs with his fingers. She arched against him and whimpered, a keening sound that didn’t begin to express the desperation now clawing inside. When her fleece provided a soft, thick barrier to his touch, he slid it off her body with hands now clumsy, shaking with the same hunger that gripped her. An electric current within sizzled double-time. It ignited a fire low in her belly.

  He delved deeper into her mouth as his kisses turned more deliciously aggressive. The wicked intent she sensed behind the wet mating of mouths thrilled her on a primal level, stripping away the need for anything other than raw, scorching sex that would leave them both gasping for breath.

  She tugged down his jacket zipper at last, needing to feel his body against hers, his hot, naked muscles against her hypersensitive skin. With fumbling touches, nerves buzzing, she eased it open and he shrugged out of it, his magnificent chest rising and falling against the thin thermal fabric of his shirt, their ragged breaths mingling. Fast. Urgent.

  She wanted every erotic act she knew he had to offer, and she wanted it now. She wiggled her hips against him to be sure he knew how much. His primal growl rolled right through her, strengthening her determination to simply enjoy the searing chemistry between them for as long as it lasted.

  Hoots and hollers erupted in the distance as customers exited the pub. An engine fired to life and then headlights whisked across the space before disappearing, tires spinning through icy snow.

  Alone again, she melted into his arms, collapsing against him, her hips grinding with more urgency. The warmth between her legs made her damp with want. He swept her hair to one side and his lips traced the side of her neck, then the hollow of her throat. Their breaths came shorter and then shorter still. Beneath his rapidly rising and falling chest, his heart thundered along with hers.

  Thick, steamy air settled on her bare midriff as he slid up the hem of her shirt. Never one to bother with a bra unless strictly necessary, Nolee delighted in Dylan’s string of appreciative oaths as he discovered that fact with his hands.

  “You’re mine,” he breathed, just as he cupped her breasts fully, taking the weight of her aching flesh in his hands. Her breath seized in her chest at his possessive declaration. Oh how that was true.

  Every atom of her being fired to his touch as if he held the key to turning her on, to winding her up this way. With slow deliberation he dragged his thumbs over both taut peaks. She practically convulsed with the sharp contraction of her feminine muscles when he tweaked them between his thumb and forefinger, at the same time nipping her lower lip between his teeth.

  His rock-hard thighs beneath her only added to the spiraling heat. The equally solid length of his arousal gave her no quarter in that direction, either. Not that she wanted any. His body provided an erotic cradle for her hips, along with the growing knowledge things were only going to get hotter.

  Nolee broke the kiss so she could simply look at the man in front of her. She touched his face, tracing a fingertip over his lips, up one cheekbone and then down. She smoothed the scar above his eyebrow and part of her relaxed. This was Dylan. He wasn’t a stranger but a familiar lover. A man her heart recognized, craved, dreamed of more often than not.

  Looking at him now, it was as if she was seeing him for the first time all over again—the stinging rush of attraction, the need to glimpse his smile, the desire to hear his laughter and, even more, to be responsible for it.

  Above all, though, was the yearning to touch him. So she did. She traced her fingers over the indents that defined each ab, each contracting, rock-solid plate, and he caught her fingers before they settled on his bulging groin.

  Her lashes lifted and she peered up at him, the fog of desire unraveling slightly at the edges. His sculpted features swam into focus. They looked sharp enough to cut someone. A muscle jumped in his clenched jaw.

  He ran a shaking hand over his short brown curls. When he spoke, each word emerged heavily. “I hope I’m not stepping on Craig’s toes here.”

  She stopped breathing for one suspended minute. “Craig?” Her strangled voice shoved past her heart, which had leaped into the base of her throat and lodged there.

  He stared at her gravely with unblinking eyes. “Craig.”

  “You—you think I would kiss you like that if I was with another guy?”

  His anguished eyes delved into hers. “You know why I might think that.”

  His quiet words fired through her. They reminded her of her anger when he’d caught his friend manhandling her and had jumped to conclusions. Dylan always assumed the worst. Given his critical parents’ abandonment, she understood why he would expect life’s letdowns. Back then, she’d been naive, thinking she was the exception from that view. Stupid to think the years might have changed him.

  Clearly, he was t
he same person. And so was she. It was the reminder she needed to steer clear of him. To be glad he’d be transferring from Kodiak soon.

  “If you think that about me,” she said through shaking lips, “then you don’t know me at all.”

  She threw off the hand he’d placed on her wrist, yanked down her shirt, flung open the truck door and hopped out, her fleece shoved under her arm.

  “Nolee!”

  She whirled. “What?”

  “Tell me you’re not taking out that boat.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Have you heard the weather predictions? They’re expecting record-breaking temperatures. Storms.”

  “So?”

  “You’d be a fool to go.”

  “Yep. That’s me.” She studied his familiar, handsome face then turned and spoke over her shoulder. “Always the fool.”

  * * *

  THE FOLLOWING EVENING, Nolee stretched her aching muscles. She’d spent the day retrofitting the Pacific Dawn’s crab pots for opilio and now dutifully stood behind a table laden with a variety of modern and traditional Alutiiq dishes, serving their community during the annual winter festival. The air was thick with smoke, fresh seafood and the occasional curse. Her stomach growled and she sighed with relief at the dwindling end of the buffet line.

  “Do you want an extra scoop?” she asked as she ladled soup into a stooped man’s outstretched bowl. He shook his head and smiled, his skin exploding into lines that radiated from his eyes and mouth.

  “That is enough.”

  She nodded and rubbed her low back. She needed rest. A hot soak to relax her screaming muscles. And an aspirin. Her brain hurt worse than her body. Her spirit? Flatlining. The Pacific Dawn needed more repairs than she’d imagined. With only eleven days left until inspection and the opening day of the regular season, she wasn’t sure she and her remaining crew members would have the boat seaworthy in time. To fill the impossible quota she’d promised her skeptical bosses, she couldn’t miss even one day of the regular opilio season.

  Making matters worse, she couldn’t stop thinking about Dylan. Last night’s kiss had shaken loose feelings she needed to keep locked down. It’d felt so right, so perfect to be in Dylan’s arms she’d almost forgotten all of the very solid reasons things hadn’t worked nine years ago. She’d made the right choice to let him go then, and she needed to steer clear now and focus on her career and her family.

  “Take a break.” Her Aunt Dai squeezed her arm and nodded in Nolee’s mother’s direction. Kathy Arnauyq sat at the end of a long folding table that had been mostly cleared by hustling volunteers. She was small, dark and intensely serious, her gray-streaked hair in a braid she’d pulled forward over her right shoulder. A young couple and their three boisterous children occupied the opposite end. “It’s time you talked.”

  Nolee bit back her sigh. Since losing her boat, she hadn’t dared visit her mother, unwilling to subject herself to a solid round of I-told-you-so’s. Tonight, though, she couldn’t put it off any longer.

  The chair scraped against the tiled floor when she pulled it out and seated herself opposite her parent. “Hi, Mother.”

  Kathy nodded as she toyed with the metal spoon in her empty coffee cup. Her neat, slightly sharpened features revealed none of the discomfort twitching through Nolee.

  “Did you get enough to eat? Because I could—” She cut herself off at the shake of her mother’s head. “Okay. What would you like?”

  “I’d like you to leave the Bering Sea and come back to Kodiak. Stop this foolishness,” Kathy said in the feather-soft voice that made others lean close and pay attention.

  Old frustration flared inside. “Captaining a boat is not foolish.”

  “A commercial boat.” Kathy’s hands were cool as she pushed a lock of hair away from Nolee’s eyes in a tender gesture that nearly brought her to tears. “They’re greedy. Taking more of the world than is needed. That’s not our way.”

  Nolee sighed. “No. It’s not.” She’d grown up being taught the value of subsistence living, a part of her tribal culture that went back thousands of years. What others might consider poverty, they believed to be a revered, responsible way of living. For Nolee, however, it’d been a relentless childhood of scraping by on whatever family members could toss their way. Their poverty had made them powerless, her mother’s precarious health preventing her from holding down a lasting job. “But I need to pay the bills. And where is your oxygen tank?”

  “It broke.” Her mother lifted a hand in greeting as a very pregnant woman shuffled by, her hand pressed to the small of her back, a child hoisted on one hip, another clinging to the hem of her long shirt.

  “Broke?” Nolee nodded to another of her cousins then turned back to her parent. “Is it getting repaired? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  Kathy wheezed. “I don’t want to bother you. Your Uncle Mak will help when he gets back from his truck route.”

  “I’m getting it repaired,” Nolee said, her voice firm.

  “With what money? You’ve lost your job. Now you’ll come home to me.”

  “Home? And where’s that?” The frustration of her mother not understanding Nolee’s choices roiled in her gut, souring each word, the taste so bitter she was sure that if she stuck out her tongue it’d be yellow. “Whose house are you living in now?”

  Kathy’s hurt expression filled Nolee with shame. “Why is a building important? We’re surrounded with love. Family. That’s what matters.”

  Her mother had a point, but somehow it’d never been enough for Nolee. Growing up, every part of her life had been so entwined with others in her extended family that she’d gone out of her way to establish her own identity, one that wasn’t so dependent on charity. Someday, she’d have enough savings to buy her mother a house and lift her from the abject poverty that kept her sleeping on family members’ couches. Especially now that her bad health, with her chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and her diabetes, was deteriorating further. “Not for me.”

  Kathy reached out and covered Nolee’s drumming fingers. “No, my restless spirit, you are your father’s daughter.”

  Nolee stiffened. Her white father had disappeared once he’d gotten “itchy feet,” according to family whispers, abandoning her and her mother when she was just an infant because he’d been bored. That—that was selfish. Not like her. She would never turn her back on her loved ones the way he had.

  The way Dylan had...

  “I’m nothing like him,” Nolee blurted out, stung. Growing up mixed race, she’d always felt as though she straddled two worlds, slightly off-balance, never sure where she truly belonged. Only Dylan had taken the time to really know her, to push and challenge her as an equal, someone worthy of respect.

  Her mother took her glasses off and cleaned them with the cloth of her shirt. “Yes. More than you think. He was independent, too. Didn’t want to rely on anyone but himself.”

  “I—I—” Nolee struggled to answer an accusation that hit home. Needing others was a weakness, and she’d always striven to be strong. “He left because he didn’t love us, Mom.”

  After sliding on her eyewear, Kathy peered at Nolee. “You can’t open your heart to love when you won’t depend on others.”

  Nolee squeezed the bridge of her nose hard between her thumb and forefinger. It felt like there was a band of pressure squeezing tightly around her skull, her thoughts knotting.

  If love meant relying on someone else, someone who’d probably let you down, leave, hurt you, then she wanted no part of it. The feel of Dylan’s arms around her returned, as did his passionate kiss, the memory as tender as a fresh bruise. She needed to stop pressing on it to see if it still hurt. Time to switch the heavy topic.

  “I’ve got another boat.”

  Her mother’s nostrils flared. “How?”

>   “My bosses have a big quota they need filled so they’re giving me another shot.” Nolee observed a woman at the next table, snapping irritably at a little boy. Nolee wrinkled her nose at him over the edge of her glass to try and make him feel better. He stared back at her, seemingly stunned, then broke into a toothless grin.

  “They’re taking too much crab.” Kathy’s angled eyebrows lowered until they met. “Wasting.”

  “There’s a market for them. Supply and demand.” Nolee stared into her mother’s unrelenting face, then softened. She would fulfill her family obligations, even if her mother didn’t feel she needed the help. “Forget it.”

  “The land and sea don’t belong to you.”

  “I know,” Nolee interrupted, all too familiar with the saying. “We belong to it. Why do you think I still live here?”

  “That’s not why you’re still in Alaska, Nolee.”

  Kathy’s all-knowing gaze leveled on her and Nolee dropped her eyes to the table, flustered. What other reason could there be? Her bone-deep connection to Kodiak kept her rooted here in her Inuit world. It had been the reason she and Dylan hadn’t worked out. Right?

  Suddenly, her mom’s breathing grew labored and Nolee rushed around the table to her, concern rising. She shouldn’t have pushed things. Nolee’s mother had done her best. Now it was her turn to do what was right, even if her mother didn’t approve of her methods.

  “I’ll get you a replacement oxygen tank tonight and stop in to visit before I leave next week. After that, I’ll only be able to call when I come to port to empty the tanks.”

  Kathy inclined her head and a stream of light shone in her piercing eyes. “Take only what you need.”

  Nolee nodded.

  Her mother was right. Respecting the world, others, herself, meant taking only what she needed.

  And the aggravating feelings that’d risen for Dylan yesterday were definitely not what she needed right now.