by J. H. Croix
“I can’t come again,” she murmured in a ragged gasp.
I held still, staring into her passion-drowsed gaze. “Come for me.”
I clung to my control, so, so close to the edge of my release. I dipped my head and pressed kisses along the side of her neck. I nipped at her earlobe, savoring when she arched into me like a cat, letting out a ragged whimper.
I teased my fingers in a slow circle where we were joined, glancing over her. I felt it when she trembled and rippled around my shaft.
“That’s my girl,” I murmured when she moaned.
My name was a tattered cry, and I felt her climax coming. Drawing my hips back, I slid into her again, savoring her keening cry as I shuddered. I finally let go, my release breaking as if a dam had been opened, crashing through me so hard I lost my breath.
It was all over then, but for the feeling of being cast ashore after a storm as I fell against her. Rolling quickly to my side, I wasn’t ready to lose our connection, so I was relieved when she rolled with me. Straddling me, she rested against my chest, and I could feel the warm gusts of her breath against my shoulder.
My heart was stumbling in my chest, emotion threatening to overtake me. I’d come to terms with my heart—I loved Nora, and I didn’t want to lose her again. Yet even facing that truth hadn’t prepared me for how it would feel to be intimate with her when I knew it.
I’d meant what I said earlier when she said I was always in control. I’d never been in control with her, yet I’d been able to fool myself into thinking I was. She’d slipped through the walls I’d built around my heart, and now they were nothing but piles of broken kindling. I felt exposed and raw and was relieved she didn’t seem inclined to talk at the moment. All the same, I would’ve been devastated if she were to pull away.
I slid my fingers through her silky hair, my heartbeat gradually slowing, and a sense of calm settling inside me, finally. When I felt her lift her head, I thought I was prepared, that I wouldn’t let the tears that had threatened moments earlier take over. I wasn’t a man who cried easily. Perhaps I’d known if I ever fell it would be hard to keep the depth of my emotion at bay. Nothing could’ve prepared me for this, though.
She rose up, and I opened my eyes, shifting slightly to prop some pillows behind my back with one arm. Sitting astride me, she looked like an earthy angel. Her dark hair was falling around her shoulders, half covering one of her breasts. Her lips were kiss-swollen and pink, and her dark eyes, like rich espresso, blinked at me.
We stared at each other, and my heart began to kick hard again, making a racket in my chest. I saw a worried flicker in her eyes, and I hated it, hated the hurt she carried. Most of all, I hated that I actually added to the hurt she already held inside. I let my hands slide down her sides, then over the sweet dip of her waist.
“I love you.”
She blinked again, her eyes going wide and her breath catching in a startled hitch in her throat. Her eyes flicked down, and she spread her palm on my chest. I knew she could feel the unsettled rhythm of my heart under her touch, and I didn’t care.
When her lashes lifted again, she looked bashful. “I’m not ready to say that,” she said carefully.
“I know,” I whispered.
What she said next surprised me. “But I feel it.”
We regarded each other quietly, and I slid my hands up her waist again and back down to rest on the silky smooth skin of her thighs. “Can I stay tonight?”
When she nodded, I felt as if I’d won something big. Yet I knew this was only the beginning of proving her wrong, proving she could trust me now when she couldn’t before.
Chapter Fourteen
Nora
Flynn stood at the kitchen counter, eating cheese like everything was perfectly fine. I had to admit, even though I loathed to do so, my mood was better after my night with Gabriel several days prior.
I hadn’t planned it that way, but it turned out I needed to go to Anchorage for several days to run errands for the resort and pick up some construction materials. We had this idea to build a viewing platform near the main lodge where moose and other wildlife often passed through.
When I heard my brother Grant grumbling about needing to go, I jumped on it. As much as I’d savored my night with Gabriel, I was bordering on panic. Finding an excuse to be out of town for a few days bought me some time to gather myself emotionally.
Unfortunately, that time also freed me to stew over Flynn saying something to Gabriel about us. My mind replayed my conversation with Gabriel the following morning, yet again.
“He told you what?” I’d asked.
Gabriel eyed me, and I hadn’t missed the cautious look in his gaze. “He’s the one who asked me about you. You know I wouldn’t say anything if he hadn’t. I couldn’t exactly lie. He’s my friend, and you’re his sister.”
As I’d stared at him, I felt caught between my conflicting impulses. All this time, we’d tried to keep our friends-with-benefits arrangement private. I was the one who’d demanded my family not know about it. Yet when I’d told Gabriel I wanted more, he was the one who said he didn’t want to screw up his friendship with Flynn. He’d claimed it was too complicated. That was only one of his excuses. The other was that he could never be serious. It just wasn’t something he could do, or so he’d said.
A part of me wanted Gabriel to want to talk to Flynn. For his feelings for me to be so powerful that he had to break down and tell him. Yet my strongly ingrained need for privacy rose up forcefully. The need to control what my brother knew about my personal life.
I’d looked up to Flynn for my entire childhood. After our mother passed and he came home, I’d been a teenager awash in a confusing jumble of grief and anger. To have him show up and basically function as a father had been hard on us both. Both of us could be stubborn. Years had passed since then, and I felt differently. With maturity and context, I could look back and laugh a little at how much we’d clashed. Now, we could even joke that I’d been his practice for Cat.
“You’re gonna break that coffee mug if you keep holding on to it that hard.” Flynn’s voice broke into my train of thought.
I glanced at my hand to see my knuckles were white where they curled around the mug. I lifted my eyes to his and shrugged. I eased the tight curl of my fingers and set the mug on the counter. I opened my mouth to speak before pausing and glancing around. The kitchen at the resort was the heartbeat of this place as far as staff went. At any given moment, any one of our friends or family members could come traipsing through here. Considering my feathers had been ruffled over Flynn’s intrusion into my privacy, I didn’t want to deal with someone else appearing in the middle of this conversation.
Nothing but quiet reached my ears, so I turned back to Flynn. “Why the hell did you talk to Gabriel about me?”
My brother held my gaze steadily. With a subtle quirk of a brow, he shrugged. “Because I felt like it. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Anger and defensiveness twisted inside my chest. “I can take care of myself, Flynn. I don’t need you interfering in my life.”
“Interfere? What the fuck, Nora? You’re my sister, and Gabriel is my friend. I’m not trying to get in the middle. I’m just not sure I trust him not to hurt you. He already has.”
“He’s one of your closest friends. How can you say you don’t trust him?” I wrapped my arms around my waist, gripping my elbows.
“Oh, I trust him, generally speaking. He’s just not known for making a commitment. To anyone. You haven’t spoken to him in months. Which, I have to say, has been impressive,” he offered dryly.
Unbothered by my anger, he snagged another slice of cheese off the tray sitting on the counter, waiting calmly for my reply.
I hated how calm Flynn was. He was always calm. The only time he wasn’t was when it came to Daphne. I resented his calmness, and I didn’t like admitting it, but a tiny corner of my heart was envious of what he had with Daphne.
As the oldest, Flynn had always
seemed removed from the chaos my father created for Grant, Cat, and me. He was Flynn’s stepfather, and so somehow, Flynn seemed separated from the emotional tumult. By the time I was old enough to think more clearly about my father, Flynn was off in the Air Force. Then he reappeared after our mom died, the one stable force in our lives. Thick in the midst of my grief over her loss, I’d had to deal with my annoyingly calm and steady older brother. We’d clashed for a while with things finally settling down in the past couple of years.
“I can take care of myself,” I muttered, feeling the heat burning on my cheeks.
“I know you can take care of yourself, Nora,” Flynn returned, still freaking calm. “I’m assuming if your feelings weren’t hurt, you would’ve actually been speaking with Gabriel these last few months. What happened anyway?”
“How do you know anything happened?”
My brother raised his eyes to the ceiling, letting out a slow, controlled breath as he leveled his gaze with mine again. “I’m not stupid, Nora. Maybe I didn’t pick up on it right away, but I eventually gathered you two had some kind of arrangement. I didn’t talk with anybody other than Daphne about it because I know how insanely private you are. I didn’t want it to turn into an argument between us. Then you stopped talking to him. Now, you’re talking to him again. Maybe I’m missing most of the details, but I can deduce that something happened.”
“So what?” I grumbled, annoyed by how perceptive he could be. Although I supposed it didn’t take a rocket scientist to notice something was up with Gabriel and me.
“Just tell me what happened, Nora,” he pressed.
“Nothing. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well, then why the hell did you start this conversation?” Flynn retorted, narrowing his eyes.
“Because I didn’t appreciate you saying something to Gabriel about us, which tells me that you had a conversation with him about it.”
At that moment, as bad luck would have it, my brother Grant came walking in the kitchen from the back hallway. His alert gaze landed on Flynn and me immediately, bouncing between us before he stopped beside Flynn, eyeing me warily.
Grant was a slightly younger version of Flynn. They shared the same dark blond hair and glacial blue eyes. Grant was a little lankier in build and a more easy-going guy than Flynn. He was always quick with a smile and a quip.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I mumbled, tightening my arms around my waist.
“Uh, okay.”
Flynn, because he was an overbearing ass sometimes, offered, “Nora is pissed at me because I asked Gabriel about them.”
Grant pursed his lips and nodded slowly. “Oh,” was all he had to offer in response.
“Don’t you dare talk to Gabriel too,” I said.
Grant glanced back at me. “I wasn’t planning to. I mean, I’ll kick his ass if he hurts you, but otherwise, I’ll leave it be.”
“Oh, my God,” I muttered as I turned and stomped out of the kitchen.
I crossed through the main room at the resort, angling over to the staircase and jogging up it quickly. I’d come over here for the yoga class. Last summer, we made arrangements for Gemma, a local yoga teacher, to come out once a week to teach a class to the guests. She also held one for the staff afterward. I walked along the wide hallway on the upper floor, passing the rows of doors that led into the guest rooms, slowing as I approached the rec room she used for her classes at the end of the hall.
Her soothing voice carried out to me in the hallway. Leaning my back against the wall, I slid my hips down to the floor and rested my forehead on my knees.
“Now, let’s start with one full breath. Breathe in through your nose, come up slowly and bring your breath all the way into your belly. Count to four and hold. One, two, three, four. Now, let your breath go on the count of four, three, two, one,” Gemma said to the class.
I breathed along with her instructions from the hall, trying to ease the anger and frustration spinning inside me. I hated knowing that Flynn was right. Obviously, I’d stopped speaking to Gabriel for a reason. Obviously, Gabriel still had the capacity to hurt me.
Yet I wanted him too much to keep him at bay.
At the sound of light footsteps approaching, I lifted my forehead from my knees, looking down the hall to see Daphne walking toward me.
She stopped in front of me, her perceptive gaze skimming my face quickly before she turned and slid her hips down the wall to sit beside me, mirroring my pose with her knees pulled up. She rested her chin on her hands folded over her knees and angled her face to look at me.
“What’s up?”
Daphne had this way about her. When she first arrived at Walker Adventures as a guest last year, I’d liked her immediately, although she came across as rather buttoned up and prissy, even prim at times. As I’d gotten to know her, I’d discovered she was fiercely loyal and kind, and she had a silly side that only came out around those who knew her well. She’d been through her own trial by fire when she lost her son to a rare form of brain cancer when he was only five years old. In spite of that, or perhaps because of it, she tended to charge at life, and she held those close to her in her embrace and was fiercely protective.
Flynn had fallen for her so hard, my poor brother had scared himself. I trusted no one more than Daphne to protect his heart the way she did. Her gaze contained a tender gravity, and I knew she would understand.
“Flynn and I had an argument. It might’ve been my fault,” I mumbled.
She blinked, her lips curling very slightly in a smile. “Or perhaps it was his fault. He does have that kind of—” Lifting her chin off her hands, she gave an airy wave. “You know, like a brother-knows-best kind of vibe. With me, it’s man-knows-best, and it can be annoying. Did you want to slap him? Happens to me now and then. Although I would never do that.”
A laugh rustled in my throat, and I leaned back against the wall, straightening my legs and rolling my ankles in circles. “I know you wouldn’t. He does know best, or he likes to think so. I didn’t appreciate him talking with Gabriel about us.”
“Ah,” she said with a sage nod. “I advised him against that. He said he felt it was necessary because he didn’t want Gabriel to be stupid.”
“Stupid?”
“Yeah, by breaking your heart again. If he did that, Flynn would be caught in the middle. He doesn’t want to make a choice between you and one of his best friends,” Daphne said matter-of-factly. She straightened her legs as well and removed an elastic hairband from her wrist. She continued talking while she slipped her fingers through her hair and twisted it into a ponytail. “Flynn loves you, and he’s worried that you and Gabriel sort of share similar baggage.”
I groaned and leaned my head against the wall behind me. “Great. So he’s talked to you about this too?”
She divided the ponytail and gave it a tug to tighten it. Dropping her hands, she looked at me again. “Of course. He tells me everything. He does have enough sense to know I won’t tell him everything you tell me, though.”
Shifting close to her, I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and gave her a squeeze before leaning back again. “You’re the best almost-sister-in-law I could have.”
Her cheeks went a little pink. “Same.”
“How about we discuss when you and Flynn are actually going to get married?” I teased lightly.
Daphne’s cheeks flushed even pinker. “I don’t know. I haven’t had time to plan it.”
“Well, we need to get to planning for Cammi and Elias.”
“Oh, I know,” she said slowly. “I am so happy for them.”
“Elias is so much more mellow these days,” I commented.
“Regular sex will do that,” Daphne offered frankly just as the door to the yoga room opened.
Gemma glanced down at us, her lips twitching with a smile. “Agreed.”
We burst into laughter as we stood. We waited while the guests left the room and then walked in. I put my shoes
away in one of the little cubbies Cat had set up. We all had our own yoga mats now.
Gemma’s honey-gold curls glinted under the late afternoon sunlight falling through the front windows. The days were getting shorter as we moved into autumn, but we still had sunshine in the evening for now.
“How many staff do you think will be here tonight?” Gemma asked as Daphne and I took our favorite spots off to one side in the front.
“Almost everyone showed up last week. Will Diego be here?” I asked.
Gemma shrugged. “I think so.”
Daphne laughed at my side. She was bent at the waist, her hands resting on the floor as she stretched her back, so her voice was muffled as she spoke. “Of course, he’ll be here. Then he’ll go home with Gemma. We’re gonna have to find another person to take his room.”
“Do you think Harley will stay?” I asked as Daphne straightened. I was referring to Diego’s little sister, Harley, who’d come to stay in the staff house a few months ago and had extended her stay several times since.
Daphne shrugged. “You know as much as me. Of course, she’s welcome to stay as long as she’d like. She’s been helping out with the website and everything.”
“I know. She’s made it look great. What do you know?” I asked, looking at Gemma.
Diego, one of the pilots here, had recently fallen for Gemma. “I’m not sure either. I don’t think Harley really has any plans, and her work is all online, so it works out for her to stay here.”
“Is she falling for someone here?” Daphne asked, looking around the room.
Gemma snorted a laugh. “I don’t know.”
As if conjured by our conversation, Diego came strolling through the door with Harley right behind him. He crossed straight to Gemma, stopping in front of her and running his hands lightly from her shoulders down to her elbows as he leaned down and pressed a kiss on her temple.
It felt as if we were interrupting a suddenly intimate moment. Harley called over, “Cut the PDA, y’all.”