He gave her an impatient look. “You’re not helping.” His hand came toward her face and she felt her nerves rising to the surface of her skin, welcoming his touch. He skimmed her lower lip with his thumb and she caught her breath, her entire body flushing with heat.
Closing his eyes, he released a soft groan. “I’m married.”
Stunned, Poppy went cold as she gathered herself to move away. But then his hand clamped around her upper arm and he was gazing at her again with those burning, hypnotic eyes. “I lied,” he said. “I’m not. I’ve never been.”
“Why would you say it then?”
He forked his free hand through his glossy hair. “I shouldn’t touch you. I want to—devil knows I want to—but I wouldn’t be good for you, Poppy.”
“What if I don’t want what’s good for me?” she whispered. “What if I want...” Her face felt as if it were on fire. “Bad. To do something just a little bit bad.”
Ryan’s eyes rolled heavenward. “Didn’t you just eat a boatload of sugar and butter? Isn’t that bad enough?”
“You’re the one who said cookies aren’t what I need.” In another life she’d be horrified at the way she was practically begging this man to take her to bed, but that life seemed far away and Ryan was so close...so gorgeous, and sexy, and...inevitable.
Her reward for over five years of celibacy.
Her recompense for the destruction the storm had wrought.
Her one night.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said.
“You’re looking at me just the same,” she pointed out. And wasn’t that heady stuff?
He closed his eyes. “Damn it,” he muttered. “It’s always something. Fucking March.”
“Well,” Poppy said, “if that’s the case, how can it be March without the—”
And before she could get out the final word, he kissed it right off her mouth, his lips locking on hers, his arms banding around her and lifting her onto her toes and into the wide, rangy strength of his body.
There was no resisting. She didn’t want to resist. She only wanted him, to feel his heart against hers, to feel his muscles against hers, to feel his skin against hers. A seamless meld of man and woman.
And it was seamless.
From kiss to caress.
From kitchen to bedroom.
From clothed to naked.
They were on the bed together and he was over her, around her, moving her arm, her leg, so he could tickle the palm of her hand with his tongue and trace erotic pictographs on the back of her knee. Aware she was under the touch of a master, she didn’t try to keep up, she only tried to keep silent so she wouldn’t reveal her utter lack of sophistication with breathless pleas and stuttered gasps.
Ryan murmured against her skin, not words, just sounds of appreciation, and Poppy was steeped in need for him. But she rode the yearning like a bird might surf an air current, floating on top of it, not daring to dip down or dig in. Terrified, really, to find there might be depth beneath this desire for her one-night stand.
When he mounted—condom on, no discussion of that, either, thank God—she lay splayed beneath him, orgasm already coiled and ready to spring. As he pushed inside her, her hips lifted into his. With tightly closed eyes, she rocked into sensation, reaching for release, but not daring to hold the man who gave it.
When she shattered, he was just an instant behind. After, he rolled away and she stared into the dark as she heard him pad to the bathroom. Nothing had changed, she told herself, as her heart continued to drum as hard as the hail had on the roof. In the morning she’d be back to being Mason’s mommy and Ryan Harris would be out of her life.
CHAPTER SIX
HE’D BE GLAD to let Poppy go, Ryan thought the next morning, dressing by the foot of the bed that still held her sleeping figure. Sure, he’d lost the battle and crawled under the covers with her, but that didn’t make her yet another of his March mistakes. Today, he’d drive her back to town, drop her where she wanted and then...
And then he didn’t know what he would do.
There was still plenty of time left in the month for disaster.
But it wouldn’t involve Poppy, and for that he was grateful. In the soft morning light she stirred, and he stopped buttoning his shirt just to watch her come awake. Her hair, the honeyed brandy mass of it, was rumpled and the covers came nearly to her small, straight nose. He’d rarely closed his eyes during the night, and several times considered rousing her for a second round. But then in some corner of his world-weary heart he’d found a tenderness he’d thought eradicated long ago. He couldn’t bring himself to disturb her sleep.
Her eyes fluttered open. She lay still for a second, orienting herself, Ryan guessed, then her head rolled on the pillow. She frowned at the empty place where he had lain.
He cleared his throat. “Over here.”
Her gaze shot his way and their eyes met. Another of her blushes flagged her cheeks. “Good morning,” she said, sitting up a little. Her palm kept the sheet anchored above her breasts, damn it all.
“Back at you,” he answered, then forced himself to turn to the closet to find his shoes instead of diving onto the mattress and finding her supple, naked body in the tangle of bedclothes. “Sleep okay?”
“Sure.”
When he turned back around, shoes now on his feet, she was still looking at him. “That’s good,” he replied. Her gaze followed his movements as he strapped on the watch that he’d left on the bedside table.
“You’re...you’re really not married?” she asked, a little hesitant.
“No.” He grimaced. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“I’m still not quite sure why you said so last night.”
“Last-minute attempt at being a gentleman, but I failed.”
“Oh, I have to disagree.” Her dimple peeked out and her gaze dropped. “You were very much the gentleman last night.”
That part was going to haunt him. He had been so careful with her. Though he’d wanted to taste, to touch, to do everything and anything to her sweet body, he’d sensed an inexperience in her that had caused him to hold back. Sure, he’d kissed her, caressed her, made certain she’d got off, but he’d kept the moves mellow, the sex almost soothing, any wildness checked.
“How many men have you been with?” he heard himself ask.
Her brows came together over that cute nose. “I’m not telling.”
Some imp prodded him to prod her. “Let me guess then. Seventeen.”
“No! Just—” Her mouth primmed. “Not that there’s anything wrong with seventeen.”
“It’s a good number,” he responded, pulling open a drawer. The stack of socks inside went into his open duffel.
“Is that how many women you’ve been with?”
He had no idea. “Men don’t keep count.”
“Well, why would you think I do?” she said, her voice taking on a tinge of outrage.
“You don’t?” He glanced over at her.
She’d found a T-shirt of his and had pulled it over her head. Now she climbed out of bed, the hem of the shirt skimming the tops her thighs. He hoped his tongue wasn’t hanging out. “Or are there too many to track?”
“I... My... You...” she sputtered, temper coloring her face brighter. Her arms folded crisply over her chest. “There’s just been one before, all right? Happy now?”
He nodded, satisfied with the information he’d goaded out of her. It should put his regrets to rest. More she couldn’t have handled. Being the likely first to—
Shaking his head, he hastily cut off that runaway train. Imagining new-to-her positions and activities wouldn’t make it easier to let her go. And for all he knew, her first lover had been inventive and adventurous, coaxing from Poppy—
Ryan kicked out
of his head yet another incendiary thought and rolled the tension from his shoulders. “I’m going to let Grimm outside and then start breakfast,” he said, and stalked out of the room.
A half hour later she strolled into the kitchen, smelling of her shampoo and wearing jeans, a white peasant blouse and a pair of clogs that were a crazy-quilt pattern of colors. A piece of pink yarn was tied around the end of her braid.
Ryan froze, fighting the crazy urge to snatch that fuzzy length of thread from her hair and wind it around one of his belt loops, a public proclamation that he’d had his hands in that hair, that he’d kissed the mouth that was the same bright shade as the yarn. That it was he, as a matter or fact, who had kissed the color onto it.
“Ryan? Are you okay?”
Her voice got him moving again, and he handed her a glass of orange juice. He was going to be damn glad to drop her off and with it this unwarranted and unwanted possessiveness.
They both were quiet as they readied to leave the cabin, Grimm at either Ryan’s heels or Poppy’s. She was in cell contact with her chain-saw-wielding pal, and as she’d predicted, the road was free for travel by late afternoon. They emptied the leak-catching containers a last time, locked the cabin, then loaded their bags, Grimm and themselves into the car.
Though the rain had stopped, the clouds were low. It didn’t hamper their progress to the turnoff, but once on the highway they discovered that stretch of winding roadway wasn’t as easy to traverse. They must have been traveling through the clouds. The mist would suddenly lower, surrounding the car, cocooning him and Poppy, and forcing him to slow to a crawl. Around a sharp turn the foggy conditions would ease, until they took another and found themselves once again in near-blind conditions.
He kept the steering wheel in a tight grip, peering through the windshield, his eyes narrowed. “Shit,” he muttered, as he almost clipped a Falling Rocks sign that sprang up out nowhere. “I don’t like this.”
“It’s not my favorite, either,” Poppy admitted. “I always find it unnerving.”
Yeah. Unnerving. Unsettling. Understatement.
Ryan shot a glance at his passenger, noting her fingers were clasped together in an anxious knot. “Hey.” He reached over and briefly folded his own hand over hers, transferring warmth to her cold skin—once again succumbing to the strange need to keep care of her. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
But as they continued toward Blue Arrow Lake, he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was. The ghostly mist, the way it made the trees appear, then suddenly disappear again, was wigging him out. When he finally let Poppy go, she would be swallowed up by the stuff, gone from him forever.
What was the big deal? he asked himself. You don’t really know her. She doesn’t even know your real name.
He could at least do something about the first. “What will you do?” he said.
“About...?”
“A place to live, your car, the cabins.”
“Oh,” she said, in an offhand tone. “That.”
Trying to put a brave face on things, he guessed, sneaking another look at her. She was playing with the ends of her braid and staring out the window. “You’re going to your brother, right?”
“Mmm.”
“That’s where I’m dropping you.” He wanted to make sure she was safely delivered into someone’s hands.
“I’ve had a change of plans. If you’d just let me out at the Chalet—it’s the big restaurant in the middle of town—I’ll make my way from there.”
“Poppy—”
“My cousin’s coming through. I’ll be fine.” She shifted in her seat. “What about you?”
“Me?” He shrugged. “I’m not sure. Probably head back to L.A.” Anabelle and Grant had been due to leave the lake house that morning, but in case they’d attracted some press attention that might be sticking around, he’d be better off staying clear of it. Maybe he’d drive south, find a way to bury himself in the Grand Canyon—but this was fucking March, which meant he might literally find himself buried in the Grand Canyon.
A disturbing sense of relief came paired with the idea, followed by an immediate stab of painful guilt. Ryan couldn’t do that to his parents. To Linus.
“Oh!” Poppy shot up in her seat, drawing his attention. “That reminds me.” She dug into her purse and pulled out a wad of bills. “Here. You paid in advance, remember? For four weeks.”
“I’m not taking that,” he said, thinking of her damaged cabins, the crushed back end of her car. “Leave me the cookies and we’ll call it even.”
“Ryan—”
“The cookies.”
She gusted a sigh. “How about this? I’ll keep the cash for now and apply it to your account. You’ll have a balance when you decide to come back and visit sometime.”
He looked over at her.
Her eyebrows slammed together. “I’m going to get those cabins into shape. You’ll see.”
“I’m not doubting that.”
“Oh.” She was silent a moment. “You mean you’re not coming back to visit.”
“Look, Poppy. I—”
Her hand went up. “I get it, I get it. Don’t worry that I think...that I thought last night meant anything, Ryan. You’re entirely the wrong kind of man for me.”
“That’s right.” She needed someone who had an open heart and normal emotions on a year-round basis, not a guy who was frozen from April to February and dangerously messed up for all of March.
“It was just a casual hookup.” One of her hands made a little whooshing gesture that he caught out of the corner of his eye. “In a week I’ll have forgotten your name.”
She didn’t know his name. Funny, how that irritated him now.
Though they appeared to have left the dense cloud bank behind, traffic picked up as they neared the town of Blue Arrow Lake. His SUV’s dash display reported the outdoor temperature as 50 degrees and beautiful people were in their places under the heaters at the outdoor cafés. Ryan thought he knew the restaurant she’d indicated, though he usually avoided public places where he might encounter any of the Hollywood crowd. Even they would stare and worse, if paparazzi were on their trail, the photographers wouldn’t hesitate to approach, cameras ready to take shots of the now-notorious Ryan Hamilton. He’d been such an idiot last year.
“Another quarter mile on your right,” Poppy directed, leaning forward in her seat. “We’re a little early for my meetup, but I’ll jump out and you can be on your way.”
“I’m not going to do any such thing,” Ryan said, turning where she indicated. The Chalet must be a popular eatery because the lot was nearly full of vehicles, luxury models arranged side by side like a dealership in Beverly Hills. A Mercedes backed out of a spot at the end of an aisle and he slid in.
He braked, and Poppy’s hand went to the door handle.
“Don’t go,” he said, clamping his hand on her thigh. At her look of surprise, he corrected himself in a hurry. “I mean, don’t go until you’re sure your ride is here.”
“I’ll be fine,” she assured him, then slid away from his touch to climb down from the passenger seat.
Of course, he climbed out, too, helping her remove her things, including the goofy dog who gave Ryan a disgruntled look when he clicked the leash to his collar. “Grimm,” he said solemnly, bending toward the dog, “you’re a good man. Take care of Poppy.”
“Poppy can take care of herself.”
Ryan ignored the crisp comment and ran his hands over the dog’s ears. “Watch out for Poppy. Keep the undesirables away from her.”
“If he was any good at that, you wouldn’t have moved into the cabin next door.”
She was in a mood. Straightening, he raised his brows at her. “So I’m an undesirable now?”
Shrugging into that scruffy army coat of hers, she
wouldn’t meet his gaze. “I wasn’t ready—”
“Oh, you were more than ready.”
Her gray eyes lifted and there...there was that blush he’d been hoping to make bloom. “Stop,” she said, though her dimple peeked out before she managed to flatten her smile.
Stop. He wanted to say that, too. Stop everything.
Don’t go.
“I’ll wait over there,” she said, indicating the sidewalk surrounding the restaurant. A cluster of people were jamming the exit to the place, causing some sort of commotion, but Ryan didn’t give it more than a cursory glance.
“Poppy—”
“Thanks for the ride.” She’d stacked her two suitcases in preparation for wheeling them off. Now she took Grimm’s leash. “I’ll...well, ’bye.” Her back turned and she headed away.
On its own, his arm lifted, his hand stretching to stop her. But she was already beyond his reach. Only his fingers made contact, leaving him with that scrap of bright yarn that had covered the elastic band binding her hair.
He stared down at it for a long, long moment.
Then he was loping across the lot, nearly getting plowed by a car that was forced to brake with a loud squeal. He thought he heard someone shout, and then someone else say his name, but he ignored everything except Poppy, who’d made it to the sidewalk and now balanced her suitcases against the stucco wall. She turned at the sound of the ruckus and as she noticed his pursuit, her face registered more surprise. Upon reaching her, his hands cupped her pretty face and he looked into her wide eyes—their color that gray mist he’d worried he might lose her in. He swooped in for a long, deep kiss.
* * *
UNBALANCED, POPPY CLUTCHED the back of Ryan’s sweater with her free hand as he dragged her closer. Of course she should be pushing him away, but his lips were so hot and then he plunged his tongue into her mouth in a wild frenzy of a kiss that evaporated her common sense. Her fingers loosened on the soft wool and her palm pressed against his hard muscles, anchoring her to him.
She was dizzy from lack of breath when he lifted his head, staring at her with that mystic’s gaze. If he’d asked her for the last beat of her heart, at that moment she would have given it to him.
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