by Jessa James
Sure, the tension between us for the past months hadn’t been anger, but simmering chemistry, which decided to boil over last night. There was definitely something between us, something more than just sex.
But she tried to leave you, asshole.
Clothes dry, there was nothing I could do about her shirt. And I didn’t really want to. I loved the fact that she was wearing mine.
I had tried to keep myself busy making coffee and breakfast earlier that morning, but nothing helped. She was like a magnet and I couldn’t stop wanting her. Even now I knew her panties were in the dryer and she wore no bra and I could see out of the corner of my eye her breasts sway with every rut and bump of the damn dirt road on our way in to town.
Did she have any idea the affect she had on me?
A few minutes into the drive, Anna leaned back in her bucket seat and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I tried to leave this morning without saying goodbye. It’s just… complicated. I don’t want a relationship, I don’t need anything mucking up my chances of getting out of Alaska. Don’t take it personal,” she added with a short glance in my direction. I perked up at the comment. Getting out of Alaska.
“Where are you going if you leave Alaska? Don’t you have family here?” I asked, eyes focused on the bumpy, pothole-covered dirt road.
“No, my dad died last year,” Anna mumbled sadly. “I figured you knew since he’d been the one to make deliveries before me. I have no reason to stay up here, aside from our house. I’ve tried to sell it, but no takers yet. Once that sells, I’m out of here,” she told me, her gaze on her intertwined fingers in her lap.
“I didn’t hear about your father. I’m sorry,” I said and let the quiet fall over us for a second.
“Thanks,” she whispered and we both settled into a comfortable silence for the rest of the drive. My brain didn’t shut off, though, as I thought about this fiery, beautiful woman who wanted to leave Alaska. Who wanted to leave me and run headlong into the chaos and noise I’d been running from for the past year.
Alaska, my middle of nowhere cabin, had become home for me. But as I tried, unsuccessfully, to ignore the passionate woman sitting next to me, I wondered how long that would remain true if she left Alaska, and me, behind.
When we arrived at the mercantile, Anna stomped inside excitedly, my clothes on her all rolled up and oddly adorable. She’s so low-maintenance, I marveled as I walked in behind her. My thoughts flew back to Victoria, to the manicures and constant hair styling. To the thousand dollar purses, to the nursery bedding. To the baby.
Nope! Not going there, Simms. Focus.
I shook off the memory and the sting that came with it and looked around the store.
I grabbed a basket by the front door and worked my way down the first shelf. I grabbed a few things I knew I needed, that I didn’t need to pay Anna to fly in. Peanut butter, toilet paper, magazines, the usual. I didn’t know how fucking boring Alaska was until I’d lived here for a few months. Now, I never underestimated the value of a good magazine.
I heard Anna’s voice at the back counter, clear as a bell. She talked in a gentle, familiar way, like she knew the person. As I approached, I heard her ask the clerk about his arthritis. The older man asked questions about her in turn, and they gossiped for a bit over other townies.
By the time I got back to the counter, I’d added only one other item to my basket and I smiled in anticipation of Anna’s reaction. She turned and watched me approach, and her eyes trailed from my boots to my forearms, exposed by my rolled-up sleeves. They lingered in all the right places and I grinned when her gaze finally reached mine just to make sure she knew that I’d noticed.
“Well? Any luck?” I asked as I leaned against the counter. The clerk smiled kindly at me, an old man with fisherman’s skin, rough and weathered. “Sorry, sir, but we don’t have the floater she needs for her craft. It’ll have to be flown in from Anchorage, and that’ll be a few days.”
Anna groaned, clearly unhappy about this turn of events. I bit my lip to keep from smiling, but failed miserably.
“It would appear we are stuck together for the week, Ms. Jackson. Is there anything you want to pick up? I’ve got a few staples, but feel free to add to the basket.” Right on cue, Anna peeked into the basket, where her eyes fell on the large box of condoms I had placed right on top. She rolled her eyes and made a very unladylike noise in the back of her throat. I chuckled as she stomped off down the food aisles and I unloaded my loot on the counter.
As we piled the bags of basic goods into the back of my truck, I heard Anna’s stomach growl. I chastised myself as I realized she hadn’t eaten much. I’d cooked breakfast, but she’d barely nibbled on a piece of toast. She hadn’t complained, but I knew that wasn’t her way. She was a challenge, an enigma I would be forced to unravel until she trusted me to take care of her.
I wanted that trust. I wanted her to feel safe enough to complain, to rant and rail and cry, but knew I’d have to earn that place in her life. Victoria had handed me everything on a silver platter, made me believe she loved me. But I was smarter than that now, and I knew a woman’s heart had to be earned.
Hunger bubbled up in my own stomach as I turned to her.
“We should go run by the cafe real quick, get some food before we head back.”
She nodded and we walked, shoulder-to-shoulder, to the only thing that resembled a restaurant in this podunk little town. They only served a few things and all were excellent. I just learned the first time I came not to ask what kind of meat was in the pot roast. It never was beef. Sometimes it was moose, sometimes caribou. When we entered, everyone turned to stare and when they saw Anna, a handful came over to ask her how she was. Not me. Her.
Anna answered their questions gracefully, with jokes and gentle ribbings all around. I felt a slight tug in my chest as I watched her around these people who obviously cared for her. And she obviously cared for them.
So why is she leaving?
She asked after everyone’s spouses, kids, grandkids, random aches and pains. The entire small cafe talked as we sat in our booth and I, once again, felt a slight pang at the sense of community, of friendship. I’d been here before, but I’d been the outsider and hadn’t received this kind of reception. Still was. It had been a long time since I had been around people, much less a group that actually gave a damn about each other. I missed it and that surprised the hell out of me.
I’d spent years in corporate boardrooms, building my teams, tackling a seemingly impossible task together. I loved that aspect of building something from nothing. And I’d let one woman, a woman—I realized now—I barely knew, wreck me and make me doubt myself in a fundamental way.
With Anna, I never stopped to think long enough to doubt myself. She made me uninhibited, spontaneous and a little out of control. She made me feel alive and challenged me in a way Victoria never had.
I lost myself in thought while Anna told one of the older ladies that she would help the woman move some of her furniture around when Anna stopped by with deliveries next time. Then an old guy across the cafe started talking to his friends about how everyone had helped another resident raise a roof the weekend before. So few people lived in this town and yet they helped each other any way they could.
Was this how it was, back in Seattle? Had I simply forgotten?
The fog covering my emotions lifted as if the need to isolate myself became less as I sat next to this woman and her neighbors. A little bit of the drive that I feared Victoria had crushed out of me sputtered back to life as I soaked in the friendly, supportive atmosphere, the tightly knit group of people had all known each other for years.
Anna turned away from her friends, her fellow townies, and refocused her attention on me. My breath stilled a bit at the sight of her green eyes as they glanced toward me. She smiled briefly and ordered for both of us when the waitress came.
“What?” she asked when I kept staring at her. “You don’t like caribou hot dogs?”
&nbs
p; I gave a slight shoulder shrug. “Never had them.”
She grinned and pulled a course, white napkin from the dispenser that rested on the table next to the salt and pepper shakers. “You’ll love ‘em. My favorite.”
In my previous life, that would’ve never happened, a woman ordering for me. In this life, I began to see that there was no way around Anna’s impetuous behavior. She was completely unpredictable, and I loved it. She made me feel alive. Which brought me full circle.
“Why are you leaving Alaska? Won’t you miss it?” I wondered. Perhaps asking her in a diner full of friends wasn’t the best place, but I wanted to know. Why would she leave behind everyone she knew and loved?
I knew why I had left Seattle, but Anna? She was different. She belonged. These people weren’t just acquaintances or employees, they were friends and neighbors. Family. They cared about her.
She took a moment and collected herself, waiting to respond until after the waitress dropped off our drinks.
“My mom died when I was four, a snowmobiling accident if you must know. I don’t really remember her, but Dad was crazy about her. He and I flew deliveries and packages all over after she died. He taught me how to fly and that plane on your dock was his. He died a year ago, like I said. Died in his sleep. Doc said it was a heart attack.”
She took a moment and paused, clearly upset at the memory. I considered jumping in to apologize but she took off again.
“After Dad died, I just started thinking, ‘What’s the point?’ You know? What’s the point of me being here, doing this, when I don’t have any reason to stay? I could finally get out of here. Go see the world. Travel. Start a new charter business somewhere new. I could do a lot,” she finished, her eyes misty. “I’ve been taking business and management classes online to finish my bachelor’s degree. I’m hoping that, when I do finally leave, I can start my own charter business flying tourists around. Maybe even manage a small airport. But without the money from selling Dad’s house, I can’t leave yet. Soon, though,” Anna added quietly. She almost smiled, but then seemed to remember that this little show-n-tell session was all thanks to me asking.
I was stunned. I hadn’t realized she was so eager to leave, that so much thought had gone into her master plan. College. Selling her home. Those were big risks for someone with no support system, no family to fall back on. I just assumed she was a twenty-four-year-old girl who dreamed of Big City lights. And here I was, wrong, and quiet as a damn tree stump. I shook my head and cleared the thoughts. I coughed before I finally found my voice; I felt like the World’s Biggest Dick.
“Anna, I’m sorry. I had no idea it was like that. Please forgive me for being such an ass,” I leaned forward and stroked her hand. She jerked it back and I felt a little rubber band snap in my chest, a physical sting from her rejection.
“Yeah, well, what’s your story, Jack? How did a city boy like you end up in nowhere, Alaska hiding from the world?”
Anna’s eyes were lit with curiosity, and I started talking before I could sensor the words. I took a deep breath and decided to tell her everything. I hadn’t cared what people thought before, but now, I wanted Anna to know the truth. Needed her to understand.
“Well, just over a year ago I sold my latest startup and moved up here from Seattle. Made a pretty penny on it but lost most of it on my ex. She told me she was having my baby… but she lied.” I paused and took a deep breath.
I looked at Anna quickly to see if she was smirking because I’d been so stupid to let Victoria take advantage of me, but instead I saw the same regret on her face that I had felt when she told me her story. She wasn’t judging me, not yet.
“Her name was Victoria. We were dating, she got pregnant, and I always wanted to be a father, so…”
“You married her.”
“Stupid, right?” I ran my hands through my hair and plowed ahead with the gory details. “We’d been married almost a year when her ex showed up one day, demanding a paternity test and a hundred grand.”
“Oh, God.”
I grinned, but knew the humor didn’t reach my eyes. “Well, I don’t know if God had anything to do with it, but the test came back and I wasn’t daddy anymore. I lost my baby girl and my wife in one day to some asshole investment broker I’d introduced her to at a corporate party.”
“Jeez, Jack. She was a bitch. I’m so sorry.”
“The worse of it was, I sold my startup so I could be with her and the baby, bought all the baby stuff, even bought a ‘Dad car’ to hold the car seat. I loved that little girl. Her mother was difficult and, to be honest, I didn’t love her like I should have. But I did the right thing. And then I found out… she was sleeping around on me and the baby wasn’t actually mine.” My breath stuttered in my chest and I took a big gulp of my soda to hide my moment of weakness.
Anna’s small hands reached across the green laminate table and she gripped mine fiercely. “Jack, I’m so, so sorry. I had no idea, I’m the asshole for always being such a bitch to you. I can’t believe you never told me, even when I teased you all the time…” her eyes misted over again and I reached over to stroke her cheek.
“It’s okay, really. You deserve to know and it’s time I told someone. I came to the cabin for a quick vacation and didn’t leave. I just fell in love with Alaska, and I haven’t been home since. I keep lying to myself, and everyone else for that matter. I told my family I stay up here because I’m not ready to invest in another startup, that Alaska is just too relaxing. But that’s a lie. I’m just not ready to face my memories back in Seattle.”
The words left my mouth and I felt a huge rush of relief as the truth finally came out. My mother was the only one who knew and I was pretty sure that was why she hired Anna to bring my groceries. Had she been playing matchmaker?
Well, she’s going to be pissed when she finds out the woman of my dreams is leaving Alaska.
Yeah, this woman, this feisty, tiny little spitfire of a woman was the one I wanted.
We sat in companionable silence before Anna sat up a bit straighter, uncomfortable again.
“Jack… why didn’t you ever make a move before? All those times I delivered to you, I knew you were interested. At least in my tits and ass,” she added with a chuckle. “Men are forward up here. But you never did anything. That’s why I assumed you were neutered,” she laughed, but only to cover the insecurity I saw in her eyes.
“You don’t need anyone, Anna. I could tell. You are gorgeous, drop dead gorgeous,” I added as I looked directly into her fiery gaze. “You don’t need anyone to help you fly a plane, unload heavy coolers, chop wood… anything. You’re wholly yourself. And I mistook that for disinterest, so I didn’t make a move,” I finished as I leaned forward in the well-worn booth. “If I’d known how hot you’d burn, I would have dragged you to bed the first time I saw you.”
She blushed furiously and refused to meet my eyes. She fiddled with her silverware and she bit her lip, all while she kept her head down. “I have to be able to do all that because I’m on my own now. Do I want to do it all? Yes, but just so that I know I can. Do I want to do it all by myself forever?” She shook her head. “No, I don’t.”
What was she saying? She wanted someone to take care of her? She wanted me to take care of her?
“What made you…change your mind last night?” she asked timidly, which shocked me. Anna? Timid?
“I thought you were going to die, crash your plane into the ice cold lake. I don’t know what happened, Anna, you just woke me up. I’ve been asleep at the wheel for a while now, and something about you made me change.” She lifted her gaze and her eyes were soft and round. This conversation was getting way to heavy for caribou hot dogs. “Besides, I realized that I’d be rather upset if you died before I got to see the perfect tits you’re always trying to hide beneath those long-sleeved shirts.”
Anna gasped, pulled her straw from her drink, and threw it directly in my face. She giggled mercilessly as I leapt from my side of the booth and
dragged her out of her own. She stopped giggling and softened against me.
“Well, Mr. Simms,” Anna’s sultry voice echoed in my ear. “I do believe we have a few days until my parts come in. We might as well go back to your place make the most of it.”
“Let’s get those caribou dogs to go.”
I barely remembered the drive home. All I could think about was making the most of it.
Chapter Six
Anna
When we got back to the cabin, we barely made it inside before our clothes were ripped off and our lips locked in pure lust. For two days straight, Jack and I took full advantage of my circumstances. If there was some other part of the cabin to have sex in, Jack didn’t know about it. He fucked me against the cold wood-paneled walls, against the shiny oak floors, bent over his sleek granite counters in the kitchen. At one point on the second day, we attempted to crawl to the bedroom, but made it only to the plush rug in the hallway. We even did it in various positions I didn’t recall in the Kama Sutra. Bent over the chaise lounge in his master bedroom, laid across the beautiful stone bench in the shower, straddled on top of him on the desk in his study, on the swing that overlooked the water. I was worn ragged but always starved for more.
The entire time, I was in a state of constant ecstasy, one orgasm spilled into the next. We stopped only for food, and even that became it’s own kind of fun.
Jack whispered in my ear throughout our sex marathon and he worshipped me with his hands. He told me I was beautiful, that I drove him crazy. He paid attention to my body in ways that I hadn’t known existed, and he claimed parts of me no one else had. His attentions and affections told me he felt it, too. Whatever it was, it made both of us crazed for each other. I felt like an addict. I couldn’t get enough, and as soon as he was done with me, I wanted more.