Wildfire at Larch Creek
Page 9
And that easily, the two of them were moving Tim—a man she’d only kissed for the first time yesterday—into her bed with only a minimum of his help. He collapsed into it with a sigh, buried his face in her pillow, and settled back into sleep.
Without a word, Eva pulled Macy down and kissed her on both cheeks before leaving. As Macy was pulling the blackout curtains around her bedroom, Eva was crossing back around the house, wiping at her eyes.
She was crying? But she hadn’t looked sad.
Definitely Macy’s turn for a Stupid Day. Eva Harada was crying and smiling at the same time because she believed something that wasn’t true. They weren’t lovers; they didn’t have a future. All they had was a kiss.
Why was Macy the only one who could see that?
She finished darkening the bedroom and headed back out to her truck to clean up the mess. She was almost done when her father came up. At least there was nothing to be embarrassed about now.
“He make it back okay?”
Macy considered being frustrated that again there was no need to define who “he” was, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort.
“Yeah! Eva Harada helped me shove him into bed.”
There. That made it sound all respectable and on the up and up. She’d just ignore the fact that she was holding Tim’s long johns at the moment. She rolled them up as nonchalantly as she could.
“Out on his feet,” she continued, not overly quickly. It came out sounding right. “According to Hank Hammond, Tim has only slept about a dozen hours in the last twelve days. Turns out he just came off a big fire in the Lower Forty-eight.”
“Cottonwood Peak. That was a bad one.” Why was her father more informed about what Tim was doing than she was? She should be the one who knew what her…
Shit! She didn’t have a word for Tim anymore. Friend? Not after that kiss. Lover? Not that either. Or at least not yet. She liked the way that thought sounded though.
“You need anything?”
“Milk and eggs, but I’ll deal with that as soon as I clean this up.”
“Okay,” he leaned over and kissed her cheek before heading back around the house. “You may want to change your shirt before you go into town,” and he was gone.
Macy looked down.
A very large, sooty handprint was perfectly imprinted over the right breast of her white I (heart) My Helo t-shirt. A handprint that had been there the whole time her father had been talking to her…and Tim’s mom as well.
She closed her eyes and waited. Yep! No question at all. This was definitely her Stupid Day.
# # #
Tim had been out for twelve hours straight by the time Macy finally wound down.
She’d changed, washed her truck, gone grocery shopping, and done a load of laundry, both his and hers together—which had been surprisingly intimate. Lack of sleep last night finally caught up with her at about the same time as a total lack of common sense.
Macy came to on her feet, leaning against the door jamb of her own bedroom and looking down at the man asleep in her bed. She didn’t want to sleep on the couch, she always woke with a severe kink in her neck if she fell asleep while watching a movie or reading there.
Here she had a perfectly comfortable queen size bed with a beautiful man curled up in it.
Stupid Day.
By paying strict attention, she hadn’t done anything stupid since her father had left. Well, other than immediately stripping off the offending t-shirt the moment before her neighbor Jack Jamison had pulled his truck around the back, next door. At least she’d been wearing a bra, even if it had been a frilly black one rather than her usual white cotton. She wasn’t even sure how she’d come to be wearing it—this wasn’t her normal fare.
Now, the last daylight was wandering in the living room window, poking down the hall, and spilling softly through the door and over Tim’s sleeping form.
Stupid Day.
Thinking it over, there was one moment that hadn’t been stupid.
It had been strangely perfect.
Too exhausted to function, definitely incoherent, he had groped her breast. And while doing it, despite his condition, he’d said her name.
Not the nickname he had used every single time since he’d tagged her with it, but her own name. And it had sounded wonderful.
She decided to take courage from those two simple syllables.
Macy pulled off her t-shirt, the plain bra she’d switched to after a shower, jeans and matching underwear. She folded it all on the top of her bedroom dresser, took one last look at Tim to gather her nerves, and closed the door behind her.
In pitch darkness she slid in beside him.
After all, if a girl was going to be stupid, she should really go for it.
She could hear Baxter curl up on his bed just inside the door.
Much to her surprise, she fell asleep easily.
Chapter 9
Tim woke in pitch darkness.
Post fire. He knew the feeling, every muscle ready to complain if he moved unexpectedly; partly the workout of a fire, partly from sleeping in one position for a massive number of hours. Also, his body had that floating feeling of being desperate for calories.
But he didn’t usually wake from a fire with his arm around a woman’s waist. That came later, or used to anyway.
Nor was there any of the normal question about who was in bed with him, nobody on the planet felt or smelled like Macy Tyler. He just wasn’t sure how he’d come to be in bed with her. His mattress and sheets didn’t feel like his. That meant he was in her bed.
But the woman felt—well, now that he’d admitted to himself how much he’d enjoyed kissing Macy, it was safe to admit—incredible. In their sleep they’d spooned together, his other arm beneath her pillowed head, his face buried in her hair. That would explain the good dreams. He didn’t actually remember them, but it was impossible to have any other type in their current position.
For a moment he wondered if it was okay that he was here, and then the rest of his brain woke up. He hadn’t been in any condition to care where he’d slept, or have any say in it that he’d remembered. It was her choice to be here beside him.
He had a leftover Stupid Day thought that he should let her sleep. But no, that day was behind him now. He wasn’t going to think about yesterday or tomorrow. He was going to think about the woman in his arms.
Tim began moving his hand over her, belly, hip, thigh, hip, waist, up to her arm. She wasn’t only here with him, she wasn’t wearing anything; neither nightgown nor t-shirt.
She had made him an offer, made by a childhood friend grown to a beautiful woman, to choose whether to accept or reject.
He dug his nose into her hair again and breathed her in.
That choice didn’t even count as one of Macy Tyler’s trick questions.
# # #
Macy could practically hear Tim thinking. She’d woken the instant his breathing changed, trying not to change her own breathing as he woke slowly and reacted to the choices she’d made for him.
That single long tantalizing stroke of his hand down and back up her body had been electric. His hands were callus-rough and Tim-gentle; even with such a simple gesture, no one had ever touched her quite like that. It felt as if he wasn’t just appreciating a female form, but the woman inside as well. Her.
She knew his choice the moment he buried his face in her hair and she wanted to get up and do a happy dance.
And a case of jitters slammed in with it. What had she done? This was Tim Harada. Her closest childhood friend, her romantic hero from every girlhood fancy, and in town for only five more days. How long had they slept? It might even be four days by now.
Don’t think, Macy! Don’t think! The orders didn’t do much good. Her stupid brain wouldn’t shut up. She didn’t want a one-night stand, nor a four-night o
ne. And she didn’t want a long-distance relationship. She wanted to come home and find Tim waiting for her and—she was a hopeless dork. They didn’t have a relationship. They didn’t…
Tim stroked his hand once again over her bare midriff.
She should have worn a t-shirt.
His fingers trailed up her hip.
A t-shirt that reached her knees.
Down her thigh and returned just as slowly.
And sweatpants. And armor. And been in a different bed. In a different country. On another planet in another—
“Shh,” Tim’s soft whisper as he reached up to stroke her hair sent a wave of quiet over her racing thoughts as if he in turn could feel her thinking.
Macy tried to breathe, with very little luck; it caught hard in her throat.
“You sure, Mace?”
She was here, wasn’t she? Which meant she’d been sure at some point even if she wasn’t now. Since she was a total train wreck at the moment, she’d trust to her earlier decision. Unable to speak, she nodded.
Again he began his slow inspection, his hand sliding up between her breasts, brushing her cheek, tracing the edge of her breast only on its downward journey.
Everywhere his hand traveled, it was as if those rough calluses were peeling off a thin layer that had existed beyond her skin. A layer that, when removed by this touch, left her more exposed than any mere removal of clothes. It was…cleansing. As if Tim’s touch stripped away layer after layer of the uncertain girl and revealed more and more of the confident woman she had spent her life trying to be.
You are confident, she told herself. And with each newly stroked nerve ending sighing with contentment, it became more true. She rolled just enough to press deeper into the spoon against him, and hook a leg backward over his.
He seemed so fascinated by her hip. She rested a hand over his, not to guide, just to follow his exploration.
“Not a lot of curves on this girl,” she confessed.
“The curves don’t make the woman,” he whispered then finally scooped her breast to nestle in his palm. “These are some very nice curves you have, Miss Tyler.”
“But they certainly aren’t Sally Kirkman-esque.”
Tim stopped fondling her for a moment, then huffed out a breath of surprise. “Wow! Haven’t thought about her in a while. Any idea what she’s up to?”
Macy considered the angle of attack of her elbow on Tim’s gut, but it wouldn’t be as hard a blow as she’d like to deliver.
“What?”
“First,” she managed through gritted teeth, “it’s rude as hell to discuss one woman while you’re fondling another. Second, you were in love with her all through high school and you don’t know what she’s doing?”
Tim bit her lightly on the shoulder.
Macy did her best not to take any pleasure from it and failed miserably.
“Second, we weren’t in love. And, first, I’m not the one who brought her up.”
Macy tried to struggle free.
All her wriggling achieved was to roll her over until she was face-to-face with Tim and the hand that had been cradling her breast was now scooped over her butt, but kept her just as firmly anchored in place. She wished she could see him, but the blackout curtains were still in place.
“Would you care to explain how you can be lovers for four straight years and not be in love?”
“Easy, we weren’t lovers. At least not for most of it.”
There had to be more offensive men than Tim Harada, but at the moment she couldn’t think of one.
“Sally bloomed early,” Tim sounded as if he was talking about the weather.
“Yeah. Hard to miss that,” she’d been the envy of every single girl in school.
“Nobody missed that. Nobody in our classes, nor her brothers or father.” Tim’s low voice took on a growl that spoke of exactly what kind of attention she’d been receiving.
Macy felt a cold chill and shivered. Tim ran a hand over her back and it only left her colder.
“I was bigger than any of them, and with Mom’s martial arts training since I could walk, I was also more dangerous.”
Macy could barely whisper, “What did you do?”
“You want to hear this?”
She could only nod.
Tim took a deep breath before continuing. “I threatened to break one bone in all three of their bodies for each time any of them even touched Sally. That took care of the family anyway. The way I protected her in school was I became her boyfriend. At least to all appearances.”
“Sure convinced me.”
“That was the point, Mace. I found that it also saved me a lot of problems. You know how many girls in this town are only looking for a husband. I didn’t want that. I knew I was headed out. I didn’t know it was to fight fire in the Lower Forty-eight. But I knew I was leaving.”
And right there, Macy considered bitterly. That’s my goddamn problem. I’m here and Tim can’t wait to go again.
“We went everywhere together, but there was no real spark. We slept together after the senior prom and the night before she left for University of Virginia or wherever it was and I went to Colorado State. I remember it was as far away as she could get. We had fun in bed, but it was more like saying goodbye and thanks than anything else for both of us.”
Even though it was dark, Macy ducked her face against Tim’s chest to hide her flaming cheeks. She’d always been so jealous of Sally…no, envious. She, along with every other resident of Larch Creek, had totally misread Tim Harada. He’d been with the prettiest girl in high school not for her beauty, but out of friendship. Some kind of a mutual aid society.
His hand began once more tracing over her, from butt to back, up into her hair and returning along her side.
Was that what Tim was feeling for her? Friendship?
He raised his other arm, the one her head had been pillowed on this whole time, and wrapped it around her shoulders. Against her ear she could feel his bicep ripple with easy power despite the simplicity of the gesture.
“Is that what this is? Some sort of a thank-you-for-being-a-friend fuck?” The words were out of her mouth before she’d thought about them.
Tim used his grip on her shoulders to pull her back as if now he was the one trying to see her in the dark.
# # #
Tim almost wished it was just sex between friends. It would be easier that way. Have a good tumble in bed and be on their separate ways. But from the moment he’d woken with his arm around Macy Tyler’s waist it hadn’t been that at all.
Stroking his hand over her, he’d at first been looking for foreignness. For some strange, sick feeling of making love to your sister. Sally had told him a little of what it was like and she’d had to stop him from taking on her whole family that instant.
Instead, Macy had felt as if he’d always known she would feel that way. Every curve was a new discovery and at the same time somehow an old acquaintance.
“Well? Because if that’s all this is, Harada, let me tell you exactly what you can—”
He kissed her. Tim had never found a way to stop the barrage of words that Macy could unleash once she started, so he simply kissed her.
She continued to protest for several seconds and he did as she had done on the Ladd Army Airfield; he scooped a hand deep into her hair and simply kissed her for all he was worth. When she finally let go and melted against him, it was the best feeling. This was a kiss to get lost in, to wander through and find where the sparks of heat fired up in both of them.
They didn’t have to look far. There was a near-paralyzing energy between them.
His hands were still and simply held, pulling her tighter against his body, appreciating how the muscles in her behind shifted against his palm as she hooked one of those long legs over him. When had Macy grown such amazing legs?
“I hope you have a license for that kiss, Harada. It should definitely not be let out in public.”
“I don’t even get how you can speak after that,” then was surprised that he’d managed as well.
“It’s a gift I have,” Macy brushed a hand over his lips.
“Yeah, you never did know when to shut up, do you?”
To disprove his statement, and he knew that was the only reason she did it, she didn’t say another word.
Instead, she pushed him lightly on the shoulder until he was on his back and she lay beside him with one leg hooked tantalizingly over his waist. Then just as he had earlier, she began exploring his chest with sliding fingertips that would have tickled if her touch hadn’t been so sure.
Their entire first lovemaking was like that. Exploration, appreciation, and raw power. When she’d finally dug into a bedside drawer for some protection then knelt over him it had been as natural as if they’d done it a thousand times. And more powerful than when Sally had taken his virginity on prom night.
Maybe this still was Stupid Day because it felt almost as if he was losing his virginity a second time.
Sliding into Macy as she braced herself against his chest, her hair hanging down just enough to tickle his face, had centered his entire being on that single ring of soft heat slipping over him. When he was finally all the way in her, after they’d each wiggled their hips to assure they were as deeply together as they could possibly be, they stopped by unspoken mutual agreement to appreciate the sensation. Which was a good thing because the world was spinning on him and at the moment he didn’t want it to stop.
And then she’d rocked her hips and it got better.
He pulled her down to lie on his chest and kissed her.
The sensations were so big that neither spoke, neither moaned, neither made a single sound. Instead, alone together in a world of perfect darkness they lost themselves in the awe-inspiring awareness of their own and each other’s bodies.