Gold Fire

by Starr Ambrose

  • • •

  Dinner was pleasant. Being with Matt was pleasant. With Jase she always felt like a tightly strung instrument, vibrating at every word or touch, but Matt made her feel relaxed. Even afterward, riding in his sporty Mercedes with the top down, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes in contentment, enjoying the warm night air. The soft purr of the engine and the breeze playing with her hair lulled her as Matt shifted gears with smooth efficiency on the steep mountain roads. She didn’t even open her eyes to see where they were until they came to a stop and the engine was silent.

  She turned her head, taking in the artfully placed boulders near the entrance to a modern condominium. Pine and aspen trees crowded close, giving the unit the sense of seclusion that made the Pine Hollows unit popular with their single guests. Surprised, she looked at Matt. “This is your place.”

  “I thought you might like to see it.”

  Even if she’d been naive enough to take that at face value, the steady burn in his gaze would have told her he’d brought her here for more than a tour of his new condo. He waited quietly as she considered the implications of taking their relationship to a new level. For such an important turning point, her decision felt deceptively anticlimactic. “I’d like that.”

  He smiled and reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. She waited for the expected shiver of delight from his touch, but felt only a sense of satisfaction at her decision.

  That had to be a good thing. They’d gone right past the shivery, tingling phase to a sense that intimacy was the next logical step. It was a sign of maturity that she wasn’t dizzy with passion. She wasn’t a kid bent on proving something, and this wasn’t a wild impulse.

  She was going to have sex with Matt Flemming. It was possibly the smartest decision of her life.

  Chapter

  Thirteen

  She was glad he didn’t go through the pretense of showing her every room. He walked directly to the living room bar and said, “Look around if you want to. Would you like something to drink?”

  “No thanks.” She’d had wine at dinner, and any more alcohol might dull her senses. She wasn’t going to make love with the perfect man and remember part of it as a pleasant blur.

  Matt drank from his glass, then set it down on the coffee table and joined her by the French doors. “Nice view,” he murmured, not looking outside. Taking her chin in his hand, he tilted her face up and kissed her. She relaxed into it, parting her lips and tasting whiskey as his tongue slipped across hers in a sensual dance. His mouth moved from her lips as he kissed her cheek, nibbled her earlobe, then swiped his tongue inside her ear.

  Goose bumps raced across her shoulders. They might actually qualify as tingles, if that’s what she was looking for. She wasn’t. She’d decided that was for unexpected passion, the kind that sneaked up on you when you didn’t expect it. She expected passion tonight. The hell with Maggie’s tingles.

  She ran her hands over Matt’s chest, then slipped her arms around him as he kissed her again. His hands found her hair. “I’m glad you wore it down,” he said, letting the strands slip through his fingers the same way her stylist did when contemplating layers. “It’s sexy.”

  She almost told him that down seemed to be the consensus, then realized she was picturing Jase touching her hair as he left her table, his voice low and intimate as he told her that he liked it down. She didn’t want Matt to ask who else had told her that. She didn’t want to think about Jase at all.

  To distract herself, and because she hadn’t done it before, she ran her hand through his hair and watched it fall back with barely a strand out of place. Jeez, even his hair was perfect. Medium length, with several shades of blond. With his mother’s background in modeling, she wondered how he’d escaped the runways. He would have been ideal for it. Maggie’s comparison to a Ken doll had been apt—well-dressed, handsome, and . . . plastic?

  No! Not Ken at all. Matt was real and warm, with desires that would never have occurred to Maggie’s Ken doll when she’d made him kiss her Barbie.

  Desires Matt wasn’t shy about expressing. His hand slid down her back to caress her butt, giving it a firm squeeze. “You have such a great ass,” he growled in her ear, and used his grip on it to pull her closer. His other hand slid down, too, both of them pressing her into the erection that snuggled against her lower abdomen. He moved back and forth, his heavy-lidded eyes watching her as he moved suggestively. There was no doubt he was aroused by her, and couldn’t wait to do something about it.

  She might be far from inexperienced, but she couldn’t go from zero to oh-baby in one minute flat. “Matt, what’s your hurry?” she asked, smiling to take the edge off and at the same time wondering if it might be better to let him see her discomfort. She’d expected him to be a little smooth and more subtle.

  To her surprise, he chuckled in her ear, immediately slipping his hands around to frame her hips as he stepped back, separating their bodies. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I’ve just wanted you since I first saw you. And I want to make it last. I want to savor every inch of you.”

  Perfect might be an inadequate word for this guy.

  He leaned close and nibbled at her ear again. “You know you want me, too,” he whispered.

  In theory. Which made it all the more puzzling that the circles his thumbs were making over her nipples weren’t doing a thing for her. There was no reason why a gorgeous hunk of man who was admittedly hot for her couldn’t coax her into arousal.

  She was concentrating on feeling some excitement stir in her breasts when one of Matt’s hands dropped to her thigh and found its way under her dress. It rose fast, his goal clear, and without thinking she pressed her lower body against his so he was forced to detour to her butt. He squeezed hard as he rubbed against her, and the feeling that tightened her stomach and twisted in her gut had nothing to do with arousal.

  Matt’s thumb stopped moving and his hand dropped from her backside. He gave her an impatient look. “What’s wrong, Zoe?”

  “I don’t know.” She tried smiling but doubted it came off well. She wasn’t good at faking emotion. “I guess I’m nervous.”

  “You don’t look nervous. You look scared.” And he looked annoyed.

  “Don’t be silly, I’m not afraid of . . . you.” She was going to say sex, but suddenly she didn’t feel comfortable thinking about being naked in bed with Matt.

  Which was ridiculous. They’d be great together. He respected her mind. Wanted her body. He was gorgeous. Handsome. She swallowed hard and looked down. Impressively aroused.

  Her stomach did an unpleasant flip.

  She took another step back, and wiped her palms against her dress. “Look, I don’t think I can do this, Matt. I’m sorry.” His face hardened into an expressionless mask. “I don’t feel well,” she added weakly. It wasn’t a lie. In fact, she felt more upset every second.

  His brows pulled together. “You don’t look well. Maybe it was something you ate.”

  “I think it was.” Now, that was a lie. The Peak would just have to take one for the team, because she wasn’t about to tell Matt that he was the one turning her stomach. More precisely, it was the thought of him putting his hands all over her. Her reaction was confusing and annoying, but she knew it was true. She had to get out of here before she demonstrated just how sick she felt all over his carpet.

  It must have been obvious. “Are you going to throw up? The bathroom is down the hall.”

  “I think you should just take me home.” Her voice even had a convincing quiver.

  He grabbed his keys and ushered her out of the condo, keeping a wary arm’s length away as he helped her into the car. She was already starting to feel better now that sex was off the table, but she playacted all the way home, holding her stomach and offering a sickly smile when he looked her way. When that made her feel too guilty, she leaned against the door and closed her eyes, withdrawing into her pretend sickness so she wouldn’t have to meet those beautiful blue ey
es and wonder what the hell she was doing.

  The perfect man and the perfect opportunity—how often did that come along? Maybe never again. But apparently she wasn’t meant to have perfection, because she knew without a doubt she would never be getting into Matt Flemming’s bed.

  She let him help her to her door, and slipped inside with a mumbled good night. He caught the door before she could close it. “Are you sure you’ll be okay? I could stay awhile.”

  If her sickness looked convincing, it was from mounting guilt. “I’ll be fine. If I need anything my sister and brother-in-law are just a mile away.”

  He looked doubtful, and part of her wondered if she’d lost her mind, throwing away such a good guy. At the same time her hands trembled with the urgent need to get him out of there. “I’m sorry,” she said again, and pushed the door shut.

  She leaned against it until her hands stopped shaking and her stomach settled down. Then she took a long shower and tried to wipe away the fantasy playing in her head of a man’s hands caressing her as his mouth savored every inch of her body, because the hands and mouth she pictured didn’t belong to Matt Flemming.

  • • •

  Jase rarely heard from Jennifer outside of work, so when she called, he knew it was a come-fix-it call. A closet door this time. The kind of thing she would have asked her husband to fix if he’d been alive. That was exactly why Jase needed to be her landlord.

  Convincing Jennifer to rent the house he’d bought as an “investment property” was his only successful attempt to help Adam’s widow. It probably said more about the shortage of cheap rental properties in Barringer’s Pass than about Jennifer’s willingness to accept help. She’d been so stubborn about not taking a thing from him that he’d assumed it was because she held him responsible for her husband’s death. Not that he’d blame her. But she’d relented on the small house, and he’d been able to make sure the rent was in line with her income.

  She answered the door with a tissue in one hand, and he couldn’t miss the redness in her eyes. He was suddenly nervous, not used to seeing emotionless Jennifer looking vulnerable. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine.” She sniffed and wiped at her nose. “Just a cold. Come on in. It’s the closet in my bedroom.”

  He followed her to the back of the house, stopping at the bedroom doorway to stare. He’d been in every room of the house before, and seen all the modest, nondescript furnishings. The bedroom had changed. The bed looked like something out of a catalog, the mattress framed by a new brass headboard, and the puffy quilt piled invitingly with pillows. The dressers were new, too. Lacy curtains moved in the breeze, also new.

  Jennifer never bought new things. Even though he thought she deserved them, seeing her bedroom transformed made him uncomfortable. The bed she’d shared with Adam was gone.

  He cleared his throat. “You changed things.”

  “Oh. Yeah. That bed was pretty old, and the new one made the old furniture look even worse, so I ended up replacing everything. You know how it goes.”

  It might go that way for some people, but not Jennifer. He’d never met a more frugal person, denying herself luxuries to the point that Jase had wondered if she thought she didn’t deserve them. Apparently he’d been wrong. She had to have been saving for years to buy all this.

  “This is it,” Jennifer said.

  The bifold closet door was completely off its track and propped against the wall. “What happened?”

  “I was trying to reach something on the shelf and I fell backward into the door. I guess I knocked it off the track. I tried to put it back, but it’s too big and awkward.” She sniffed again and blinked several times.

  He looked at her closely, wondering if she was covering up an injury. “Are you sure you didn’t hurt yourself when you fell?”

  She looked away. “No, I told you, it’s just a cold.”

  He frowned, then looked at the closet, trying to figure out what she’d done. Removing a door like that from its track required folding and lifting it, an odd thing to have happened if she fell against it. He couldn’t imagine it happening any way but on purpose, yet couldn’t argue with the fact that the door was off the track. With a mental shrug, he set the door in position and lifted it, locking it back in its track.

  Jennifer gave a couple more sniffs and smiled weakly. “Thank you. I feel stupid making you come out here just for that. I probably shouldn’t have been digging into that stuff anyway.”

  “Why don’t you give it to me while I’m here, and I’ll put it back up there for you.” He was probably eight or nine inches taller than she was; she wouldn’t be able to do it without standing on a chair.

  She hesitated, glancing at what looked like two photo albums on the nightstand, then gave a trembling sigh. “Okay.” Picking the albums up as if they were fragile, she handed them to Jase.

  He couldn’t miss the silver script across the padded white cover: OUR WEDDING. He knew without looking that the second album was pictures from their honeymoon in Jamaica.

  Shit. She had been crying. Nine years, and the pain was still fresh. She clung to the memories, even though he wasn’t sure why she’d decided to reminisce today.

  Oh, hell. Yes, he did. This was July. They’d been married in July.

  His eyes met her reddened gaze. “Was it today?” he asked softly.

  She nodded, then lowered her gaze as if embarrassed to be caught reminiscing. “I don’t think about him most of the time,” she whispered. “Really, I don’t. But today would have been our tenth anniversary. I had to see the pictures.”

  Ten years. It stabbed deeply, and twisted. They’d been married only one year when Adam died. He knew in Jennifer’s mind they were still married. He didn’t want to forget his friend, but dwelling on his loss wasn’t healthy. Lately he’d realized just how unhealthy, keeping him stagnating for nearly a decade.

  Jase, Russ, and Jennifer all had to move on, but of the three of them, Jennifer was the least able. She’d been the type to build her world around a man, too clingy for Jase’s taste, but apparently fine with Adam. It hadn’t ended just because he was gone. Whenever she asked Jase to fix something that Adam would have done himself, it was like ripping off a barely healed scab, allowing the wound to bleed again. Every single time. She couldn’t hide it.

  He knew from experience that she didn’t want his sympathy, didn’t want to be held so she could cry it out. Didn’t want to be touched at all. All he could do was watch helplessly, knowing that if he hadn’t challenged Adam to that last race he’d be here today and Jennifer would be the happy young woman she used to be.

  Jase laid the photo albums carefully on the closet shelf and shut the door. The instinct to comfort her was strong and he stuck his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching out to her. “I’m sorry, Jen.”

  She nodded and wiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands. “I’m okay.” She took another dramatic, trembling sigh and lifted her chin. Her mouth firmed, a fraction of her strength returning. “I’ll be fine, Jase. Don’t worry. I know I need to let it go, and I will. I’m making changes, getting rid of the stuff I kept just because it was ours. Like the bedding and the dressers.” She allowed a tiny smile as she gestured around them at the room. “See? This time it only reflects me. Not flowery and delicate, but still feminine.”

  It was a good description of the light pinewood and the brass bed frame. He gave her an encouraging smile. “I like it.”

  She looked suddenly shy and hopeful. “Do you?”

  It wasn’t like Jennifer to ask his opinion. To ask anyone’s opinion. If she’d asked him whether she should buy a Ford or a Honda, he would have been stunned. Asking whether he liked her new bedroom furniture sent a bolt of panic shooting down his spine. He was suddenly reminded of her resentful attitude toward Zoe, and his feeling that she might be jealous. That he might be her first romantic interest since losing Adam.

  And that they were standing in her bedroom.

  Jesus, it was like
a perfect storm. The wedding album, the redecorated bedroom, and the door coming off its track, all reminding him of what she’d lost and the obligation he had to take care of her. If she’d wanted to drive home that point, she couldn’t have planned it better.

  The realization, unlikely as it was, gave him a chill. “Sure, it’s nice,” he said, suddenly anxious to get out of there. “Well, if you don’t need anything else, I have some, uh, some fish I need to clean.” He edged toward the door. “I left them on ice when you called, so I need to get back there now.”

  She gave him a bemused look. “Okay. Thanks for fixing the closet.”

  “No problem.” He got to the door as fast as he could without actually running, then trotted to the truck as if his imaginary fish might spoil if he lingered another thirty seconds.

  He breathed easier once he drove away, but knew he wasn’t entirely safe. They saw each other at the Rusty Wire nearly every evening. He’d have to be on his guard, making sure they were never alone before opening and after closing. He didn’t know what might make him less desirable in her eyes if she hadn’t already been turned off by his lazy do-nothing lifestyle, but he could at least be less available. Maybe she’d look elsewhere if he made it clear he was interested in another woman.

  And it just so happened that he was. Not that he needed an excuse to go after another of those scorching-hot kisses from Zoe. He’d told her what he wanted. She hadn’t raised any objections, and Zoe was good at objecting. If he could just get her to stop thinking and listen to her body, he could make her forget all about Matt Flemming.

  • • •

  Zoe could hardly concentrate at work. It was obvious that she felt better, and she knew Matt took note of it as soon as she came in Monday evening. He also couldn’t miss the fact that her hair was pulled back in a twist, as unsexy as she could make it. She did her best to avoid talking to him, and a few demanding guests made it easy. Some computer whiz kid celebrating his twenty-first birthday wanted his hot tub filled with champagne, a request David cheerfully dumped in her lap as he left. After a lengthy discussion with their sommelier and a very brief discussion with the kid’s credit card company, she approved it. Handling that was easier than dealing with the actress who wanted an extra queen-size bed for her two attack-trained Rottweilers, along with an in-room dog sitter while she went out for the evening. A volunteer for that one was hard to find, but the actress finally flashed enough hundred-dollar bills to convince a young man from security to expand his job description to include dog sitter. Zoe left him with a walkie-talkie in hand, just in case.