by Nora Roberts
She glanced back over at Gull, laughed like a loon. “Just another lazy, hazy summer night. Look.” She jerked her chin. “She’s going down. The head’s dying. That’s a beautiful sight.”
AN HOUR shy of dawn, the wildfire surrendered. Rather than pack out, the weary crew coyote’d by the stream, heads pillowed on packs to catch a couple hours’ sleep before the mop-up. Rowan didn’t object when Gull plopped down beside her, especially when he offered her a swig of his beer.
“Where’d you get this?”
“I have my ways.”
She drank deep, then lay back to watch the stars break through the thinning haze of smoke.
This, she thought, was the best—the timeless moment between night and day—the hush of forest, mountain and sky. No one who hadn’t fought the war could ever feel such intense satisfaction in winning it.
“A good night’s work should always be followed by beer and starlight,” she decided.
“Now who’s the romantic?”
“That’s just because I’m dazed by the smoke, like a honeybee.”
“I dated a beekeeper once.”
“Seriously?”
“Katherine Anne Westfield.” He gave a little sigh of remembrance. “Long-legged brunette with eyes like melted chocolate. I had the hots enough to help her out with the hives for a while. But it didn’t work out.”
“You got stung.”
“Ha. The thing was, she insisted on being called Katherine Anne. Not Katherine, not Kathy or Kate or Kat, not K.A. It had to be the full shot. Got to be too much trouble.”
“You broke up with a woman because her name had too many syllables?”
“You could say. Plus, I have to admit, the bees started to creep me out, too.”
“I like to listen to them. Sleepy sound. Cassiopeia’s out,” she said as the constellation cleared. Then her eyes closed, and she went out.
SHE WOKE curled up against him with her head nested on his shoulder. She didn’t snuggle, Rowan thought. She liked her space—and she sure as hell didn’t snuggle while coyote camping with the crew.
It was just embarrassing.
She started to untangle herself, but his arm tucked her in, just a little closer.
“Give it a minute.”
“We’ve got to get started.”
“Yeah, yeah. Where’s my coffee, woman?”
“Very funny.” Actually, it did make her lips twitch. “Back off.”
“You’ll note I’m the one still in his assigned space, and you’re the one who scooted over and wrapped around me. But am I complaining?”
“I guess I got cold.”
He turned his head to kiss the top of hers. “You feel plenty warm to me.”
“You know, Gull, this isn’t some romantic camping trip in the mountains. We’ve got a full day’s mop-up ahead of us.”
“Which I’m happy to put off for another couple minutes while I fantasize we’re about to have wake-up sex on our romantic camping trip in the mountains. After which you’ll make me coffee and fry me up some bacon and eggs, while wearing Daisy Duke shorts and one of those really skinny tank jobs. After that I have to wrestle the bear that lumbers into camp. Naturally, I dispatch him after a brutal battle. And after that you tenderly nurse my wounds, and after that, we have more sex.”
She didn’t snuggle, Rowan thought, and charm cut no ice with her. So why was she snuggling, and why was she charmed? “That’s an active fantasy life you’ve got there.”
“Don’t leave home without it.”
“What kind of bear?”
“It has to be a grizzly or what’s the point?”
“And I suppose I’m wearing stilettos with my Daisy Dukes.”
“Again, what would be the point otherwise?”
“Well, all that sex and cooking and tending your wounds made me hungry.” She pushed away, sat up. “Twenty minutes in a hot, bubbling Jacuzzi, followed by a hot stone massage. That’s my morning fantasy.”
Rowan dug into her pack for an energy bar. Devoured it while she studied him. He’d scrubbed some of the dirt off his face, but there was plenty left, and his hair looked like he’d used it to mop the basement floor.
Then she looked away, to the mountains, the forest, shimmering away under the bright yellow sun. Who needed fantasies, she thought, when you could wake up here?
“Get moving, rook.” She gave him a light slap on the leg. “The morning’s wasting.”
Gull helped break out some of the paracargo so he could get to a breakfast MRE—and more importantly, the coffee. He dropped down next to Dobie.
“How’d it go for you?”
“Son, it was the hardest day of my young life.” Dobie drenched his hash browns and bacon with Tabasco before shoveling them in as if they were about to be banned. “And maybe the best. You think you know,” he added, wagging the bacon, “but you don’t. You can’t know till you do.”
“She gave you a few kisses.”
Dobie reached up to rub the burns on the back of his neck. “Yeah, she got in a couple licks. I thought when she started raining fire we might be cooked. Just for a minute. But we beat her back down. You ought to see Trigger. Piece of wood blew back off a snag he was taking down. Got him right here.” Dobie tapped a finger to the side of his throat. “When he yanked it out, the hole it left looked like he’d been stabbed with a jackknife.”
“I didn’t hear about that.”
“It happened after your team hightailed it toward the spot on the ridge. Blood all over. So he slaps some cotton on it, tapes it up and hits the next snag. It made me think, if I got cooked, I’d be cooked with the best there is.”
“And now we get to sit here and eat breakfast with this view.”
“Can’t knock it with a hammer,” Dobie said, and grabbed another MRE. “What’re you going to do about that woman?”
He didn’t have to ask what woman, and glanced over in Rowan’s direction. “All I can.”
“Better pick up the pace, son.” Dobie shook his ever-present bottle of Tabasco. “Summer don’t last forever.”
GULL THOUGHT about that as he worked, sweating through the morning and into the afternoon. He’d approached her along the lines he might have if they’d met outside—where time was abundant, as were opportunities to go to dinner, or the movies, a long drive, a day at the beach. This world and that didn’t have much crossover when you came down to it.
Maybe it was time to approach her as he did the work. Nothing wrong with champagne picnics, but there were times a situation required a less . . . elegant approach.
By the time they packed out, Gull figured all he wanted in the world was to feel clean again, to enjoy a real mattress under him for eight straight.
Hardly a wonder, he decided as he dropped down in the plane, women, despite their wondrous appeal, hit so low on his priority list most seasons.
He shut off his mind and was asleep before the plane nosed into the sky.
With the rest of the crew, he trudged off, dealt with his gear, hung his chute. He watched Rowan texting as she headed for the barracks. He went in behind her, fully intending to walk straight to his quarters, peel off his fire shirt and pants, get his feet out of the damn boots that currently weighed like lead. Everything in him pulsed with fatigue, tension and an irritation that stemmed from both.
If he was hungry, it wasn’t for a woman, or for Rowan Tripp in particular. If he was tired, it was because if he wasn’t knocked-out exhausted, he spent too much time thinking about her in the middle of the night. So he’d stop. He’d just stop thinking about her.
When she turned into her room, he went in right behind her.
“What do—”
He shut the door—and her mouth—by pushing her back against it. The kiss burned with temper, smoldered with the frustration he’d managed to ignore for the past weeks. Now he let them both go. The hell with it.
He jerked back an inch, his gaze snapping to hers. “I’m tired. I’m pissed off. I don’t know exac
tly why, but I don’t give a damn.”
“Then why don’t you—”
“Shut up. I have something to say.” He crushed his mouth to hers again, cuffing her wrists in his hands. “This has gotten stupid. I’m stupid, or maybe you’re stupid. I don’t care.”
“What the hell do you care about?” she demanded.
“Apparently you. Maybe it’s because you’re goddamn beautiful, and built, and manage to be smart and fearless at the same time. Maybe it’s just because I’m horny. That could be it. But something’s clicked here; we both know it.”
Since she hadn’t told him to go to hell, or kneed him in the groin—yet—he calculated he had a short window to make his case.
“So it’s time to stop playing around, Rowan. It’s time to toss that asinine rule of yours out the window. Whatever we’ve got going here, we need to hit it head-on. If it’s just a flash, fine, we’ll take it down and move on. No harm, no foul. But I’m damned if I’m going to keep slapping away at the spot fires. You’re in or you’re out. Now how do you want to play it?”
She hadn’t expected temper and force from him, which, considering she’d seen him take on three men with a ferocity she’d admired, made that her mistake. She hadn’t expected anything could stir up her juices after a thirty-six-hour jump, but here he was, looking at her as if he couldn’t decide if he wanted to kiss her or strangle her, and those juices were not only stirring, but pumping strong.
“How do I want to play it?”
“That’s right.”
“Let’s drown it.” She fisted her hands in his hair, yanked his mouth back to hers. Then she reversed their positions, shoved him back against the door. “In the shower, rookie.” She made quick work unbuttoning his shirt.
“Funny, that was first on my list before I got pissed off.” He pulled her shirt off as he backed her toward the bathroom. “Then all I could think about was getting my hands on you.” He unhooked her pants.
“Boots,” she managed as they groped each other. She dropped down on the toilet, fingers flying on laces. He dropped to the floor to do the same.
“This shouldn’t be sexy. Maybe I am just horny.”
“Just hurry up!” Laughing, she yanked off her pants, then stood to peel off the tank, the bra beneath.
“Sing hallelujah,” Gull murmured.
“Get naked!” she ordered, then, wiggling out of her panties, flicked on the water in the shower.
Crazy, she thought. A crazy thing to do, but she felt crazy. Another type of dragon fever, she decided, and turned to pull him in with her under the spray.
“We’re very dirty,” she said, linking her arms around his neck, pressing her body to his.
“And about to get dirtier. Let’s turn up the heat.” Reaching behind her, he clicked the hot water up a notch, then gave himself the pleasure of those waiting, willing lips.
Good, so good, she thought, the water on her skin, his hands spreading the wet and hot over her. Why deny what she’d known the first time they’d locked eyes? They’d always been heading here, to this. She ran her hands down his back, over hard planes, tough muscle, instinctively working her fingers over the knots tied tight by hours of brutal effort.
He moaned as she worked her way to his shoulders.
He fixed his teeth at the side of her neck, pressed his own fingers in a line down her spine, then up again until he found points of pain and pleasure at the base of her neck.
“Let me take care of this.” She poured shampoo in her palm, rubbed her hands together lightly as she watched him, then slid her fingers through his hair. While she rubbed, massaged, he filled his hands with her shower gel. The shower filled with the scent of ripe peaches as he glided circles, slow circles, over her breasts, her belly.
Lather foamed and dripped, frothing fragrantly between their bodies as he trailed a hand down, his fingers teasing, just teasing when he cupped her.
Her head fell back, and a low sound of pleasure hummed in her throat. Watching her absorb sensation, he gave her a little more, a little more until her hips, her breath picked up the rhythm.
Not yet, he thought, not yet, and made her groan when he turned her to face the wet wall.
“Gull, Jesus—”
“I need to wash your back. Love your back.” At the small of it, a tattoo of a red dragon breathed gold flame. He ran his lathered hands over her, followed them with his lips. “Your skin’s like milk.”
He indulged himself with the subtle curve of the back of her neck, exposed and vulnerable to his teeth and tongue, and when her arm hooked back to press him closer, he glided his hands around, filled them with her breasts.
So firm, so full.
He spun her around, replaced his hands with his mouth.
Not what she’d expected or prepared for. Never what she expected, she thought as her body quivered. The angry man who’d shoved her against the door should have stormed her. Instead he seduced. She didn’t know if she could bear it.
With steam billowing like smoke, he trailed that mouth down her body, until every muscle trembled, until anticipation and sensation squeezed to a pulsing ache inside her.
Then he used his mouth on her until the hot flood of release swamped her.
When she was weak, in that shivering instant where body and mind surrendered, he plunged inside her.
No seduction now, no slow hands or teasing mouth. He gripped her hips and let himself take, and take, and take. Need raged through him, incited by the harsh sound of wet flesh slapping wet flesh, the pounding beat of the water, the wild thrust of her hips as she gave herself over to what they fueled in each other.
The chains of control shattered; madness broke free.
Through the haze of steam and passion he watched her eyes go blind. Still he drove her, himself, greedy for more until pleasure ripped through him and emptied him out.
She let her head drop on his shoulder until she could get her breath back. Might be a while, she realized, as she was currently panting like an old woman.
“Need a minute.”
She made some sound of agreement to the statement.
“If we try to move now, we’re both going to end up going down and drowning—after we fracture our skulls.”
“We’re lucky we didn’t do that already.”
“Probably. But we’d die clean and satisfied. I’m going to turn off the water. It’s going cold.”
She’d have to take his word for it. Her body still pumped enough heat to melt an ice floe. She managed her first full breath when he brushed his lips over her hair. She simply didn’t know how to react to sweetness—after.
“Got your legs under you?” he asked her.
“Steady as a rock.” Hopefully.
He let her go to reach out and grab towels. “It’s a sacrifice to give you anything to cover up that body with.” Before she could take it, he wrapped it around her, laid a warm, lingering kiss on her lips.
“Problem?” he asked her.
“No. Why?”
He trailed a fingertip between her eyebrows. “You’re frowning.”
“My face is reflecting the mood of my stomach, which is wondering why it’s still empty.” Which was true enough. “I’m starving.” She relaxed again, smiled again. “Between the jump and the shower bonus, I’m out.”
“Right there with you. Let’s go eat.”
She started to move past him to the bedroom, turned. “I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. You’ve got skills.”
“I also work well horizontally.”
Her laugh rolled out as she pulled out a T-shirt and jeans. “I think you’re going to have to prove it.”
“Now or after food?”
She shook her head as she pulled on clothes. “After, definitely. I’m in the mood for . . . Aren’t you getting dressed?”
“I’m not putting that stinking mess back on. I need to borrow your towel.”
She thought of the state of the clothes they’d both dragged off. “Just hang on
a minute. I’ll get you some clothes.”
“Really?”
“I know where your quarters are.” She breezed out, strolled into his room.
He kept it tidy, she thought as she pulled open a drawer. Inside spaces, too. She grabbed what she figured he needed, took another quick look around. When she noticed the photograph, she stepped over for a closer study.
Gull, she noted, with what had to be his aunt and uncle, his cousins, all arm in arm in front of big, bright red doors.
Great-looking group, she thought, and the body language spoke of affection and happy. In front of the arcade, which, she realized by what she could see of it, was a lot bigger than she’d envisioned.
She took the clothes back, pushed them into his hands. “Hurry up and get dressed before I start gnawing on my own hand.”
“Hurry up and get undressed, hurry up and get dressed. Orders, orders.” He sent her an exaggerated smoldering look. “Dominant females make me hot.”
“I’ll see if I can find my whip and chain later.”
“Ah, a brand-new fantasy to explore.”
“Don’t forget to call me ‘Mistress.’ ”
“If you promise to be gentle. By the way, I like the tat.”
“Good-luck charm,” she told him. “If I wear the dragon, the dragon doesn’t wear me. How about yours?” She walked around to tap the letters scrolled over his left shoulder blade. “Teine,” she said.
“It’s pronounced ‘teen,’ not ‘The-ine.’ Old Irish for fire. I guess if I wear the fire, it doesn’t wear me.”
“It just gets to try us both on from time to time. How’d you get that one?” she asked, gesturing to the scar along his left ribs.
“Bar fight in New Orleans.”
“No, seriously.”
“Well, it was, technically, outside the bar. I went down for Mardi Gras one year. Have you ever been?”
“No.”
“Not to be missed.” His hair, still damp from the shower, curled at the collar of the shirt he pulled on. “I was in college, went down with some friends. After the revelry, we hit a bar. This asshole went after this girl. Sort of like the asshole who hassled you, but this one was drunker and meaner, and she didn’t have your style.”