She grinned. He was sleeping now, wasn’t he?
Megan decided she better give him another few minutes, just to make sure he was in deep dream sleep. She became almost giddy with anticipation. Was Jack about to have the best damn erotic dream of his life, or what?
Five minutes later she carefully removed his arm from around her, got up on her knees facing him, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that he hadn’t bothered to put his long johns back on. Talk about a blatant invitation!
She crawled to the woodpile and tossed a few sticks on the fire, watching to see if Jack woke up. The fact that he didn’t gave her hope. She crawled back over to him, peeled the edge of the sleeping bag off his hip, and softly sucked in her breath.
He was so beautiful, so perfectly, ruggedly male. He had a series of raised scars crossing the left side of his ribs, which he’d told her were from an encounter with a young bear when he was twelve. And the ugly mark on the right side of his stomach just above his hip bone he’d said was a souvenir from his military days. Megan suspected it was a bullet wound, since she knew there was an even more wicked scar on his back, implying the bullet had gone clean through. There were several other gouges and nicks on his beautiful body—some substantial, some not—that spoke of a hard and at times death-defying life.
She was finding it harder and harder to stay angry at him for breaking her heart. After all, what would she have done if their roles had been reversed in Canada? How brutal might she have gotten if she thought Jack’s life was in danger?
Honestly? She would have done anything, said anything, to protect him because she had loved him that much.
“You look like you can’t decide whether to castrate me or jump my bones.”
Megan’s gaze snapped to his, and she had to smile. “I don’t want to castrate you.”
“That’s good.” He lifted a brow in inquiry. “So does that mean you were going to take advantage of me in my sleep?”
She nodded.
“I’m sorry for panicking earlier. Now that I’ve thought about it, I seem to recall my parents making love while my mother was carrying me. It got a bit bumpy on occasion, but I remember having this warm, fuzzy sense of being totally immersed in their love.”
Megan put her hands on her hips. “You can’t possibly remember something like that. You weren’t even born yet. Nobody can remember anything that happens before three or four years old.”
He propped his head up on his hand. “I think we remember quite a lot, only it becomes so ingrained in us that we simply don’t retain much of the details. I can still hear my mother singing to me. I remember how she smelled of cinnamon and vanilla, how she used to rock me for hours when I was sick, how she constantly flipped her hair behind her shoulder when it got in her way, since she wouldn’t braid it when Dad was around because he liked it loose. I remember every minute of my life from conception to nine years old like it was yesterday.”
Megan’s heart broke all over again, this time for a little boy who’d had his mother ripped from his life far too soon. She instinctively hugged her belly.
Jack suddenly flopped onto his back, throwing his arms wide. “You might as well have your wicked way with me. I promise not to wake up until it’s over,” he said, closing his eyes and letting out a loud snore.
Now? He expected them to make love now, after practically bringing her to tears? Megan crawled back into bed and snuggled up against him with a sigh. She was going to have to sit this man down for a good talk one of these days, and explain that sad tales of his childhood were not exactly a turn-on.
He gently pushed her shoulder. “Hey, I thought we were going to make love.”
“I’ve changed my mind.”
He pushed her again, a little harder this time. “You can’t just change your mind for no reason.” His pushing hand started caressing her arm. “I thought you were horny.”
“I was, until you started talking about your childhood.”
He was silent for several seconds; then she yelped in surprise when he gently spun her around, picked her up, and sat her straddling his hips. “I’ve had a wonderful life, Megan. And now it’s time we start making our baby’s childhood just as memorable,” he said, kissing her deeply.
Oh, what the heck. They were both naked, they were in a cozy little nest in front of a roaring fire, and Jack was obviously ready. So why not?
He started chuckling—while he was kissing her!—and Megan sat up with a growl. “Now what?” she snapped.
“I was just thinking this has got to be the longest foreplay in the history of our relationship.”
“Foreplay? You call the last hour foreplay?” She wanted to smack him, but she pointed her finger at his face instead. “You are one second away from taking another swim in the lake, buster. Do you think you can possibly stay focused for ten minutes so we can actually do this?”
“Ten?” he repeated in surprise. “All this work for ten measly minutes?” He grabbed her pointing finger, gently bucking her off him and turning so he was looming over her. “I’ll tell you what. You can have your ten minutes, but then I’m taking another…” He cocked his head in thought. “Another thirty minutes for myself.” He lowered his mouth to within inches of hers. “You want to go first, or shall I?” he whispered, inching even closer but not quite touching her lips, apparently waiting for her answer.
Megan reached down and wrapped her fingers intimately around him, grinning when he jerked in surprise. “I’ll go first.” She used her other hand to push his shoulder, sending him onto his back, and rolled with him until she was once again straddling his thighs. “Pay attention and see if you can’t learn a little something about foreplay, will you?”
“Yes ma’am!” he said in a half-shout when she started fondling him in earnest.
She lovingly tortured him for several minutes, until she could see beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead and the cords in his neck bulging. Deciding he was one second away from losing control when his hands balled into fists at his sides, Megan finally took pity. She wiggled forward until she was directly over him, braced her hands on his sweating chest, then gently lowered herself down over his shaft.
They both moaned, the sound mingling with the crackling fire to drift off into the stillness of the night. “Oh God, that feels good,” she whispered, moving slowly as she adjusted to the fullness, then quickening the tempo. “It’s been way, way too long,” she ended with another moan.
His hands went to her hips, his fingers gently kneading her flesh as he slowed her motions, moving his own hips to alter his angle and depth. His actions increased her pleasure, and Megan tilted back her head and closed her eyes, savoring the feel of him moving inside her. He brought one hand to her feminine center and used his thumb to caress her sensitive bud while he continued to guide her gentle rocking.
“Go on, sweetheart,” he softly petitioned. “That’s my girl. Go visit our beautiful place.”
Megan felt herself tightening, spiraling inward, deep into the depths of the magical place he always took her. She crested with a shout of release, her entire body convulsing in waves of blinding heat. Time stopped and the physical world receded as she floated in a wondrous landscape of colorful, energized light.
“Come back to me, Megan,” she heard from a distance. “That’s it, sweetheart, come back so we can go there together.”
Megan suddenly found herself back in Jack’s embrace; he was stroking her hair, gentling her with soothing whispers as wave after wave of energy continued pulsing through her.
“That’s my girl,” he whispered in her ear. Megan realized he was sitting up, she was still straddling him, and he was still embedded deeply inside her. “Was it as beautiful as ever?” he asked, calming her with caresses to her body and tender kisses to her face.
“You weren’t there with me.”
“I’ll go with you next time, I promise.”
He lifted her off him, then turned them both until she was lying on the sleepin
g bag. Kneeling between her legs, he pulled her backside up onto his thighs, and Megan realized that the baby wasn’t in his way in this position.
He slowly entered her, his gaze locked on her face with such intensity, waves of heated awareness washed through her again. “Beautiful Megan,” he whispered, slipping deeply inside her, then pulling nearly out, then sliding even deeper. “I see our magical place every time I look in your eyes.”
She reached out, wanting to hold him, but he took her hands and set them over her head, wrapping her fingers around a fir bough. “Lie still,” he tenderly commanded, grasping her hips, “and let me watch you blossom. I’ll go with you this time, I promise.”
He set a gentle and thoroughly mesmerizing rhythm, and Megan felt herself focusing inward again, sensing she wasn’t alone this time. Jack definitely was present; she could feel the power of his energy threatening to take her into a storm of such intensity that she cried out.
“Shhh,” he soothed, even as he quickened his pace. “You can let go, sweetheart. You’re always safe when you’re with me,” he said, touching her intimately as he continued his gentle assault. “Come with me,” he commanded, thrusting deeper.
The storm he had conjured sucked her into its swirling vortex, and Megan was suddenly floating through a wondrous landscape of shimmering light. And this time Jack was right beside her as they explored the beautiful world together. The colors were intensified tenfold, the warmth more penetrating, the sense of wonder intoxicating.
“We can’t stay,” Jack whispered, cupping her head in his hands and kissing her deeply. “We’ll come back again soon, I promise. But you need to sleep now.”
She reluctantly let him lead her back, not wanting to leave such euphoric beauty where she felt so warm and safe—and so loved. She yawned, cuddling into his embrace.
“That’s it, little one, let me hold you in my arms. Dream with me, Megan, and let me introduce you to our son.”
She snuggled against him with a sigh of profound contentment. She didn’t know how he did it, but every time they made love, he carried her off to this beautiful place that existed only when she was with him, and then she would wake up in his arms, feeling utterly and completely loved. It had happened the very first time they’d made love, and had only intensified over the next month. If she didn’t know better, she might wonder if Jack really did possess some sort of magical power that…
A beautiful woman suddenly stepped out of the shimmering ether, carrying a baby in her arms.
Chapter Seventeen
It was just breaking dawn when Megan opened her eyes to find herself wrapped up like a mummy in the sleeping bag. The fire was roaring, her clothes were in a pile beside her, and Jack was nowhere to be found. He’d left a beer bottle full of water next to her clothes, along with a power bar—which meant he’d had at least one more stashed someplace yesterday.
Megan squirmed free of the sleeping bag and sat up, only to scramble back under the covers when she realized how cold it was. She reached out one hand to her clothes, sighing in relief to find that Jack had set them by the fire to warm up. She pulled everything under the sleeping bag with her, then contorted in every position imaginable while getting dressed.
She was panting by the time she slipped into her boots and stood up. Not bothering to put on her ski suit yet, she headed behind her favorite tree to take care of business, then hustled back to the fire and slipped into her suit. She grabbed the bottle of water and power bar and headed toward the lake in search of Jack.
She spotted him standing beside his snowmobile, his feet planted wide and his hands on his hips. And though he was a fair distance away, she’d swear she could see a look of disgust on his face. She took her time walking out on a snowpack hard enough that she barely sank in, eating the power bar and drinking water that tasted faintly of beer.
The closer Megan got to him, the more her heart raced with the memory of last night. He looked…he looked…oh damn, she had fallen in love with him all over again!
“Good morning,” she said when she finally reached him.
Jack started to say something, but when his gaze met hers he snapped his mouth shut without saying a word. Two flags of color appeared on his cheekbones. Megan took another bite of her breakfast to cover her smile. The man was actually blushing!
Over their lovemaking last night?
He was such an easy mark. “Do you think you’ll be able to get it up soon—I mean unstuck soon, or are we going to have to walk? Or,” she purred, “we could just cozy back up to the fire and wait for the cavalry to arrive.”
His cheekbones turned nearly purple. He walked around her and headed to shore, still without saying so much as good morning. Megan polished off the last of the power bar and gulped down the rest of her water as she grinned at his back. She was such a bad person, but really, a saint couldn’t have passed up an opportunity like that. Teasing Jack was easier than shooting fish in a barrel.
She stuffed the wrapper and bottle in her pocket and walked around his sled, eyeing it in sympathy. It was stuck up to its running boards in slush that had frozen solid overnight. They’d need a chisel, if not a blowtorch, to free the damn thing.
She turned in a circle studying the landscape, trying to figure out where they were, and realized she had absolutely no idea. She hadn’t been this far north on the lake in ten or twelve years. Megan started walking to the ledge sticking up through the ice, curious about where her sled had gone in.
She could see the tracks Jack had made dragging her out, the rope he’d used, and her helmet lying on the ice several yards away. There were more tracks indicating where he’d walked up onto the north side of the ledge, where the ice wasn’t weak. From there his footprints moved down into the water. She couldn’t see any sign of her sled, since the hole had skimmed over with a thin layer of ice, and she gave an involuntary shiver. Jack must have stripped off his clothes on the ledge, gone into that dark, freezing lake to get the dry sack, then scrambled back out and quickly dressed.
She really shouldn’t have teased him this morning.
There were other tracks going in and out of the hole, as well. Megan walked toward them, giving the ledge a wide berth, and stopped beside the carcass of a half-eaten fish. So, she’d been right, some…thing had been fishing. Something heavy. The impressions in the snow were deep, seven or eight feet long and about three feet wide, and if she wasn’t mistaken, some of them looked to be from a tail. She hunched down and touched the snowpack where what appeared to be a wing had brushed against it, then stood up and started following the tracks away from the hole.
“Get back here!” Jack shouted.
She turned to see that he was stopped halfway out to his sled, his arms full of the fir boughs from their bed. Had he just shouted an order at her?
“Excuse me?” she shouted back.
“I don’t need you wandering off and getting lost. Get back here and help me.”
She propped her hands on her hips. Oh, she was sooo glad she’d teased him this morning. “I never get lost!” she hollered. “And I don’t respond well to orders being shouted at me, either.”
He dropped the boughs. “O-kay then,” he said, his voice turning dangerously low—just like her father’s did when he was nearing the end of his patience. Somehow, no matter how softly her papa spoke, his voice carried an unreasonable distance, just as Jack’s did now. “Would you please come back here and help me get this sled out?”
Megan eyed the tracks leading out onto the lake, heaved a heavy sigh, and started trudging back to his snowmobile. He was mad at the sled, not her, and now was not the time to push him over the edge. Besides, the sooner they got home, the sooner she could ask Kenzie about the creature she’d seen.
But someday soon, she would have to find out what happened when a self-professed pacifist exploded. He could deny it until the cows came home, but Jack Stone was a warrior, and when warriors exploded…they rarely took prisoners. That’s why a smart woman learned the conseq
uences of going too far before she found herself married to one.
Megan stopped to pick up some of the boughs he’d dropped, and tossed them down with the others when she reached his sled. “Do we have something we can use to chisel the ice?” she asked, deciding to defuse the tension with a show of cooperation.
Good Lord, she was turning into her mother!
He took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves—even though it was likely only ten degrees out—then pulled a small hatchet from his belt. He got down on his knees and started chopping the ice along the running boards.
“Great. Do we have another hatchet I can use? Wasn’t there one in your saddlebag and one in the dry sack?
“I’ll chop, you watch for planes.”
Wow, a whole sentence. She was making progress. She plopped down on the fir boughs with a sigh. Since he seemed to be more in the mood for listening than talking, Megan decided to broach the subject of how they’d gotten into this mess in the first place.
“Um…about what we saw last night,” she said.
He stopped chopping.
“I think we should keep it to ourselves.”
He straightened to his knees, studying her. “Why?”
“Well…in the first place, nobody would believe us.”
“And in the second?”
“If they did believe us, then everyone in town would likely get all scared. And when people get scared, they sometimes do foolish things.”
“Like?”
Megan sighed. This wasn’t going at all well. “Like they might decide to hunt it down and kill it.”
“It,” he repeated. “Exactly what is it, Megan?”
She lifted her shoulders. “How would I know? I saw exactly what you did, and I swear, I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“Exactly what did we see?”
Okay, if he wanted her to spell it out, she would. “We saw what must be a long-lost descendant of a dinosaur. You know, like they think the Loch Ness monster is? Only our creature seems to be a cross between a ptero-dactyl and a…a large lizard of some sort. It can fly, so maybe it’s a winged reptile…or something or other.”
Secrets of the Highlander Page 18