Impact (Wild Men of Alaska)

by Tiffinie Helmer

  “This isn’t good for your arm.”

  “I’m feeling no pain in my arm. But there’s a serious ache farther south.”

  “Skip—”

  “Just let it happen, Wren.”

  He leaned down, paused as he looked into her eyes, and then kissed her softly, his lips a perfect fit over hers.

  She shuddered and leaned into him. This was like coming home. Oh, how she missed this. Being held by him, loved by him. The rich earthy scent of rugged outdoors, cool ocean breezes, with a hint of salmon berries infused her lungs as she breathed in his essence. How did he smell the same after so long?

  The heat of him seduced her closer. He groaned and breached past the seam of her lips, his tongue hot and devastating as he deepened the kiss. He pulled her into his hardness, ground against her and groaned again. His breath became choppy, his fingers digging into her hip as though he needed to be part of her.

  Blood surged in her veins, and she became a dizzy. Her breath caught as his hand slid up and under her sweatshirt, bypassing her layers, and finding her skin.

  Heat, delicious heat infused her body, killing any chill she had left. She wanted to feel that heat everywhere. Get naked with him and—

  Wait a minute. What the hell were they doing? His shirt was wet against her front. He was kissing her, more like devouring her, and they hadn’t seen each other in five years.

  Her hands came up and pushed against his chest, creating a little space to break the kiss. “We can’t.”

  He met her eyes, his unfocused, clouded with desire. “Yes, we can.” He leaned in to kiss her again. She pushed harder against him. His eyes narrowed and cleared a bit as he took a moment to study her. “It’s the dude, isn’t it?”

  “Dude?”

  “The contractor dude you’ve been seeing.”

  Stunned, she relaxed her hands until the words connected in her muddled brain. “Contractor? You mean Christopher?”

  “Yeah, him.”

  She pushed out of Skip’s hold. “How do you know about Christopher?”

  “I know a lot of things about you.”

  “H-have you—” No, he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. “Have you had me under surveillance?”

  He looked guilty as hell.

  “For-for how long?” She slapped his good arm when he didn’t answer her right away.

  “Since you were released from jail.” He shrugged his shoulder as though her slap had stung. “Actually, the whole time you were in jail too.”

  “You’ve been spying on me for the last five years?”

  “When you say it like that, yeah, it sounds really bad.”

  “It is bad. It’s restraining order bad. Why? Why would you do that?”

  “I sent you to jail—”

  “No, you didn’t. It was my fault. My consequences. I broke the law.”

  He took a step toward her. “Wren, it killed me to send you there. I had to know that you were all right.”

  “So, what, you’ve kept tabs on me since I was released to make sure I wasn’t using again?”

  “No. Yes. Kinda.” He shut his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck. “Shit. This is all coming out wrong. I had to give you space to work through your rehab, get clean, stay sober. But I had to know you were okay. I couldn’t lose hope.”

  “Hope?”

  “That someday we could be together again. Then you started taking up with the contractor dude, and I thought you were over me and moving on with your life. I had to stop that.”

  “Stop me from moving on with my life?”

  He clammed up, rolled his lips over his teeth and refused to continue. It was her turn to narrow her eyes.

  “So you laid in wait until you thought I was ready? Ready for you to come charging back into my life to pick up were we left off?” Her tone continued to rise. “Where we left off was me standing over you after I shot you with your own gun.”

  Chapter Seven

  “So we have some relationship issues to work out. An apology wouldn’t be out of order either.” He rubbed the upper shoulder of his broken arm, where the bullet had grazed him. Maybe if he acted like he was in pain, she’d cut him some slack. It wouldn’t be much of an act with his aching broken arm. “That bullet really hurt.”

  “I sent you an apology.”

  “One your therapist probably told you to write.”

  “It was part of the program.”

  “You were still angry with me.”

  “Yes. I heard you went to the judge and testified against me. I’d already pled out. You made sure I was sent to jail.”

  So much for cutting him some slack. “There wasn’t any other way I knew that would get you off the drugs.” He reached out to take her hand, but she linked them behind her back. His attention was caught by her breasts as the action lifted them front and center. God, she had beautiful breasts. What he would give if she let him...

  The scowl on her face deepened. This wasn’t helping his cause either.

  “Wren, I’d tried everything, but nothing worked. You were going to kill yourself if something drastic wasn’t done.”

  “Sending me to jail almost killed me.”

  That tore his attention away from her generous breasts. “What are you talking about?” Dread settled into his stomach. He’d had people looking out for her, keeping tabs, reporting back. He hadn’t heard of anything life threatening happening to her inside.

  “Nothing.” She turned away from him.

  He grabbed her arm and swung her around. “Tell me.”

  “Get your hands off me.” She yanked her arm free of his grasp.

  “You didn’t mind them a few minutes ago.”

  “A few minutes ago I was out of my mind with cold and hunger.”

  “You’re still cold and hungry.”

  She growled. “Would you quit twisting my words?”

  “Then be honest with me, and tell me what happened, damn it.”

  “I almost ended it, okay.”

  “What?”

  She ran a hand through her hair, wincing as she brushed the bump on her head. “It was too much. The withdrawals, the confinement, not having you—it was just too much. One night, I tried to hang myself with the sheets from my bed.”

  He sucked in a breath as his heart missed a beat. “Why wasn’t I told of this?”

  “Probably because it didn’t work. I’m still here, aren’t I?” She arched a brow and folded her arms across her chest.

  Well, shit. He remembered that look all too well. He shouldn’t have reminded her that he had spies in the jail reporting back to him. Maybe if they ate, figured out a way to warm up this busted plane, she’d be a little more open for sharing, talking. He wasn’t going to get anywhere with her and their relationship if he didn’t at least try.

  A gust of wind, heavy with sleet, shook the plane. He shivered, realizing he still had on his wet shirt and his pants zipper wide open. He really needed the use of his other arm. To hell with his zipper. It didn’t bother him to be hanging out. But the shirt needed to go.

  He struggled with the buttons, one-handed.

  “Oh, for hell sake.” Wren brushed his hand out of the way. “You’re more work than a two-year-old.” She quickly freed the buttons of his shirt. She didn’t spare him a glance as his naked chest was revealed.

  That was an ego buster. He’d worked hard on his body since they’d been apart. Building muscle had been his focus, that and his job, which the muscle came in handy for. And she didn’t even look. He had pecs, damn it, and abs.

  She helped him peel the shirt free from his good arm and then carefully inched it over his broken one. She didn’t pause in what she was doing until the fabric fell away from his bullet-grazed shoulder.

  She gasped, her fingers lightly tracing the area where her bullet had cut into him.

  “See, I told you there was a scar,” he softly murmured, enjoying the delicate touch of her fingers on his cold skin.

  Her eyes narrowed to slits.
/>   Shit, he said the wrong thing again.

  “You chose this scar and it’s not a scar. It’s a tattoo. Of a wren.”

  And here he thought she’d appreciate the gesture.

  “It’s a sight better than the ragged scar you left me with. It was damn hard to explain at the gym that my girlfriend shot me. If I’d gotten it in the line of duty, that would have been different. So I got the tattoo to camouflage it.” And it hurt a hell of lot worse than the bullet had.

  “Of a wren?”

  “Well, yeah. It was your mark, after all. Your brand.” He shrugged. “I liked it. Seems poetic in a way. Like you’re always with me.”

  She briefly met his eyes, hers showing surprise and maybe a little wetness. He couldn’t tell for sure since she bent to rummage through his bag, yanking out a dry shirt. She found another button-down one, which would be the easiest—if not warmest—to get into with his broken arm.

  He wanted to look into those expressive eyes again. “Wren.”

  “Can we get you dressed so that I can eat something?”

  She refused to look at him as she inched the fabric carefully over his broken arm. But he caught the rapid blinking. Was she crying? Had he chipped through that icy shell she’d been encased in since they’d boarded this doomed airplane?

  Chapter Eight

  Why had he tattooed himself with a symbol of her? What kind of man does something that?

  She’d shot him.

  Didn’t he hate her for that? She hated herself for what she’d done to him. What did this all mean?

  And, damn it, why did he have to look so good?

  He’d been fit and lean before. Now he was mouth-watering. Her fingers begged to trace each definition in his rock-hard body. Did the man even have body fat? How could he with all that delicious muscle?

  Holy Mother of Pearl. She was toast.

  Something had to be stirred up between them, or she would have him for dinner. She wriggled the soft flannel shirt over his shoulders and faced him to button it up. She concentrated hard on the task at hand, not how enticing he smelled, or how his breath lightly blew wisps of her hair. He was the perfect height for her. His chin easily rested on her head. She missed how he’d tuck her into his side, and she’d snuggle her face in the crook of his neck.

  She finished the buttons and smoothed the fabric down his front without thinking. He sucked in his breath as her fingers brushed over the ridges of muscle on his stomach.

  She shouldn’t have done that.

  “Wren,” he groaned, his fingers brushing hair away from her face.

  “Oh, you need your boots tied.” She dropped to her knees and grabbed the laces before she did something really stupid and grab him. She thought he groaned again, but maybe it was the wind. She tied his Timberlines and glanced up.

  She shouldn’t have knelt at his feet.

  Her face was even with his gaping zipper and what was pressing hard through the opening. She closed her eyes and bit her lips before she could lick them.

  Or lick something else.

  What was wrong with her? It was like she hadn’t had sex... well she hadn’t had sex in a really long time. But sex with Skip would really fuck things up. And they were really fucked up to begin with. Hell, they were fighting for their lives. Unbuttoning his jeans and freeing that thick bulge wouldn’t help anyone.

  “Yes, it would,” Skip growled, reaching for her.

  Oh, no, she didn’t! Not again. She was such a mess. She couldn’t control her thoughts or what came out of her mouth. This was worse than the out of control feeling the drugs had given her. At least they had numbed. She wasn’t numb. She was a freaking live wire.

  She scrambled back like a crab and jerked to her feet.

  “Are you afraid of me?” Skip asked, his eyes ablaze with need. There was enough heat in his gaze to keep her burning all night.

  “Right.” She gulped.

  “You don’t want to be alone with me. Afraid of what I’ll do or what you’ll do?”

  “You are way off base here, buddy.” Hell, he was right on target.

  “Am I?” He inched toward her. She inched back. He smiled. She panicked.

  “Okay!” She threw up her hands as puny stop signs. “I need some space. I need to think.”

  “What’s there to think about? I want you, and you still want me.” His nostrils flared as though the realization impacted him deeply. Did he still care about her? How could he with all she’d done to him.

  She was no good for him. He needed a woman who was stable, competent. Who didn’t hurt people.

  She shook her head. “No. I want dinner. Food.” She’d used food as a substitute for sex the last five years and was damn good at it by now.

  Though she had a feeling it wasn’t going to work tonight.

  Chapter Nine

  “We’re sleeping together,” Skip said. “Get used to the idea. You’re not going to be able to keep the beds apart.”

  They’d torn the cushions off the seats—well mostly Wren since she had the use of both of her hands—and made a bed of sorts on the ceiling of the plane. The ceiling was sloped so the cushions slid together. Skip was perfectly fine with that. It meant she’d slide into him too.

  Wren glared at him, but he knew it was a façade. She wasn’t angry, she was scared. He knew she wasn’t scared of him. He wasn’t the kind of man who would ever jump a woman. He’d never take advantage of her. Unless she asked him to. Didn’t mean he was above talking her into being taken advantage of.

  He hid the smile that split across his face with a cough. They’d worked hard in the limited light that was left. He’d found a flashlight among Jim’s survival gear and had it hanging off the exposed metal of the cushion-less seats. He’d also done his best to block the wind, rain and sleet, from coming in. With the plane upside down, the windows were low to the ground. Snow was already covering them, insulating the plane more from the elements. They had enough food to feed a wedding party, and the little village of Egegik, so they’d be fine for quite a while. Plenty of time for the Coast Guard to find them. Snow could provide water if they ran out of the four cases he’d brought along. Heat was the main issue.

  There was only one way he knew how to get warm without a fire.

  Time to play the injured card. Besides, he had to get Wren to calm down.

  “Wren, can we just sit? My arm aches like a sonofabitch. Are there any more pain pills? And I’d like some more of those candied almonds.” They’d torn open a bag of wedding almonds Wren had found in the groceries he’d brought back for his sister’s wedding. Wren hadn’t wanted to eat them, but he’d talked her into it since his sister would be really upset if they died out here because they wouldn’t eat the wedding food. The almonds had made a nice dessert after the deli meats and cheese in the cooler. He had a pretty good suspicion the wedding cake hadn’t survived the crash. His sister was going to be furious about the cake once she was over hugging and crying that they were still alive.

  Now if he could get Wren to stop fluttering around the damn plane. She was doing her best to stay as far away from him in the cramped space as she could.

  She turned and grabbed the first aid kit from the cockpit where she’d put it earlier. She’d been making a home out of this wreck, finding places for things, making everything as comfortable for them as she could. He understood the need, but now that it was done, she needed to conserve her energy and rest next to him where they could share each other’s heat.

  “I’m sorry, Skip. I should have thought about your arm. Here.” She shook out four pills and handed them to him, her arm fully extended so that she wouldn’t touch him.

  He enclosed his hand over hers. “I’m not going to jump you. Relax.”

  A blush flared in her cheeks. “Sorry.”

  “And quit saying you’re sorry. You have nothing to be sorry about.”

  “I have everything to be sorry about.” She tugged on her arm until he opened his hand. She dropped the pills into hi
s palm and offered a water bottle.

  He swallowed the pills to keep from venting his frustration. She needed to get over the past. She was a different person. More mature, less fractured. The strong woman he’d always known she could be. Why couldn’t she see that?

  “We need to shut off the light to save the batteries. So if there’s anything you need to do or get before we head to bed, you’d better do it.”

  “Bathroom,” she blurted out. “I need to use the bathroom.”

  Did she really, or was it another delay? Whether she did or didn’t, it was something he needed to address.

  “Okay, we’ll go together.”

  “I’m not peeing with you.”

  “Have you looked out there?” He pointed to the snow plastered windows. “It’s a blizzard. You’ll get lost.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I grew up here too. I’m not some cheechako you have to teach the ropes to.” She stopped, and her eyes widened. “Rope. I saw rope.” She held up a finger in thought. “Give me a second.” She sidled past him and climbed into the tail of the plane. “Shine the flashlight this direction.”

  He tilted the flashlight toward her and was rewarded as her sweet ass caught in the beam of light. He smothered a groan. He wanted that ass snuggled up to his—

  “Hey, could you be helpful here or what?”

  He jerked the flashlight beam off her becoming backside and shined it where it would actually help her. Geez, where was his head? Get it together man. She’s going to think you only have sex on the brain. It was the truth, but he should pretend otherwise. Women didn’t like to know the truth about men.

  “Got it.” She held up some frayed rope like it was a trophy.

  “What are we going to do with that?” Tie each other up? Another pump of blood headed south.

  “I’ll tie one end around my waist, head out there—” she paused and shuddered “—tie the other end to the struts on the plane so I can find my way back in the snow.”

  He liked his idea better. But hers was more practical though less titillating. “Good idea.” She beamed, and he suddenly wondered how many people, him included, had ever complimented her. Yeah, he’d always told her how beautiful she was but never how brilliant. But then she hadn’t done a lot of smart things in her life. So many people had relished pointing that out to her. Her father especially.