The rain had slackened, but the thunderstorms picked up, grounding the choppers that had been brought in.
Today had been filled—every heartbreaking second of it—with trial after trauma.
One moment, we’d pulled three men from a half-submerged car, assuming them to be dead after being trapped for over thirty minutes, only to have them come out alive. The next, a man stumbles into the emergency center telling us his wife and two kids are trapped on a hill behind their house needing rescue. But we can’t rescue them because there are no roads to get to them and the choppers are grounded. We could do nothing except watch him head back out into the storm to get them himself, not knowing if or how we’d meet again.
But in the moments when it seemed like too much to process, my gaze would find hers and I’d remember what she said to me last night.
“I don’t care about being super. I care about being real.”
And so, we continued tirelessly because I refused to let myself be anything but strong. Anything but real. But now that our shift was done, it was hard to find any strength left.
It was hard to find anything except the desire to pull Shay into my arms and bury my face into her neck, my hands into her hair, and my body into hers.
I grunted as my fingers tightened against the smooth gnarls of wood framing my living room windows as I looked out into the desolate darkness of Estes Park.
I’d seen a lot from these windows since I built this house. But never anything like this. The destruction. The people forced from their homes. I almost wished the windows didn’t exist.
But even if I tried, instead of the horrors of the flood, all I could think of was the look on Shay’s face after she came out of that house yesterday.
As though she’d been flying for the first thirty years of her life and only now realized she had no place to land.
The feel of her against me, heart racing and clinging to me for safety. The look in her eyes later when I couldn’t stop myself from brushing back her hair as an excuse to touch her cheek.
I wanted to stay angry. Not because I really had a right to, but because I needed to.
I knew just how fucking easy it was to fall for Shay Covington. It had only taken hours. And now, I was stuck in a house—my house—with her for days. Anger was the only defense I had to keep my distance and to keep my heart from hoping—and inevitably breaking once more.
But yesterday made anger hard. Today, almost impossible.
The unbelievable emotions of the situation had opened the floodgates inside of me, I realized with a bitter irony.
All my fortitude was sucked up into the rescue effort, leaving nothing but the raw desire for her.
A desire that reflected equally and intensely in her eyes.
And yesterday, I’d also realized that Shay’s reasons for coming back to Estes Park weren’t simple because she couldn’t trust me with them.
And the knowledge should’ve sent me running.
It needed to.
Because to find out… to earn that trust… would put me back in the same position I’d been in six years ago—the one where I’d lost someone I hadn’t realized I’d needed.
My head tipped when I heard the shower turn off. Covered in mud and sweat, even just a sparing rinse was going to feel like heaven.
My generator had kicked on yesterday, providing the house with appliances, water, and heat—and putting it in the very slim minority of places with power.
Dragging in a deep breath, I walked toward the bedroom—and the waiting shower.
Rinse off. Go to bed.
Don’t linger around Shay.
I knocked gently.
“Yeah?”
I turned the handle and opened the door. “I’m just going to rinse and then we should head—” My voice strangled to nothing as I stared at the finest ass I’d ever seen.
Towel-drying her hair over her shoulder with her back to me, the woman of my dreams stood on the other side of the room next to my bed completely fucking naked.
Her eyes met mine and the desire that roared through my blood mirrored in her honey irises.
“You’re naked,” I said bluntly.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” she laughed, making no move to remedy the situation.
“You shouldn’t be naked, Captain Covington.”
My fists balled at my sides. I couldn’t stop my eyes from tracing along the smooth, pale curve of her back, the dip in her spine leading straight down between the two perfect globes of her ass.
“Well I don’t have any clothes here,” she retorted, turning just enough to punish me with a side view of her right breast. “And you don’t have to look.”
It took more strength than I’d used all day to force my eyes shut.
“Wear something—anything from the top drawer,” I growled.
I heard the towel thud to the floor and the soft pad of her steps across the room—and in front of me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you who I was that night,” she said.
We’d talked about a lot of things, but this, she’d stayed away from after my initial reaction to having this conversation.
A conversation it appeared we were about to have. My jaw tightened. I shouldn’t ask, but a man could only should not so many things at once.
“Why?”
She paused. “Because you looked at me like no one else had before,” she replied. “For so long I’d just been the girl too hot to be in the Air Force. I was always something to be conquered—a unicorn to be captured.”
My breath caught with the vague anger at a general mass of uniformed men who’d been unwilling to look at her as simply an equal.
“You looked at me like I was special—and not because of what I was. You didn’t look at me as some sort of trophy to win or obstacle to tackle,” she admitted and I could hear her voice thicken with emotion just as I sensed her come closer. “And I didn’t want to lose that.”
“I see,” I acknowledged with a drawn tone, reminding my eyes to stay shut and steeling myself against the desire that crashed against the shell of my skin holding it at bay.
The unsteadiness of her breaths moved over my skin like a wanting wind. Wanting more. Wanting me.
“I thought about calling you so many times.”
I jerked as though she’d struck me. “Don’t,” I commanded. “I need you to put some clothes on so I can shower, Shay.”
“And I need you to hear me,” she charged. “After I’m done, you can go back to being angry at me for it.”
I should’ve protested.
Hell, I should’ve turned around and walked out of the room to avoid hearing her truth.
But I didn’t because the part of me that wanted to know was greater than the part that wanted to run.
“I didn’t call you at first because I didn’t know what to say. And then, I thought, it doesn’t matter what I say—it won’t change what I had to do.”
Every word was like a mallet against my angry armor. What she didn’t know was that the armor wasn’t thick metal but only aluminum foil, readily crumbled and easily destroyed under the weight of wanting her.
“I had to leave for pilot training. And from there, I knew I’d be sent overseas—which ended up being to Iraq and then South Korea.”
Even though I wasn’t looking, I could see her. I could see the woman underneath the confident captain, knowing that she’d traded her heart for her dreams and her duty.
“You could’ve just said that,” I bit out, the hairs on my arm standing on end as I felt her shift closer.
I didn’t have to open my eyes to know she was still wearing nothing. The static electricity of desire pulled my skin to the heat of hers.
“You’re right. But that would’ve meant admitting we couldn’t work, which would’ve meant admitting that I wanted us to work. And that… that wasn’t something I was expecting.” She paused and then I felt her warm palm flatten against my chest.
“I never expected you, Log
an. I never expected that night. I never expected your kiss to make me want things I’d never put into the plans for my future… never expected how I felt about you. I never expected for twelve-thousand feet to change me in this way—to start my heart rather than stop it.”
My heart pounded, wanting to reach for her—wanting to press my lips to hers and drink her down like tequila, letting the sweet fire ignite my blood once more.
For however long it could last.
“And how you felt about me deserved no goodbye? No explanation?”
She was so close to me now I knew one deep breath would brush her nipples against my shirt.
“You deserved so much more than that, Logan—so much more that I couldn’t give you,” she confessed. “So, finally, I decided maybe it was better to leave you with nothing at all.” There was a heartbeat of silence. “Because getting over nothing is easier than getting over something.”
“And did that work for you?” I demanded.
“No,” she whispered. “How about you?”
My jaw turned to granite. My muscles clenched and my mouth salivated with the truth.
“Don’t lie to me, Logan.”
Fuck. She knew I wouldn’t.
My eyes snapped open, sticking to the sweet-honey need in hers. “No, it didn’t.”
And then my mouth crashed down on hers.
I told myself kissing her was better than having to answer any more questions.
But the truth was that kissing her was better than any fucking thing.
It had been six years since I’d spent a single night exploring the silken heat of her mouth… Six years since I’d memorized her confident smile, the intoxicating curve of her waist, and the taste of tequila on her tongue.
And I kissed her with a passion that had compounded every damn day for each of those six years.
Shay’s arms wrapped around my neck, her fingers making a home in the tangled strands of my hair. I groaned as her mouth opened underneath mine, sweeter and more delicious than I could’ve possibly remembered.
With a growl, my hands skimmed down over her waist and settled on the firm swells of her ass, pulling her tight against where my cock throbbed against my pants.
Fuck, she was so soft and warm.
I shouldn’t have given in.
I shouldn’t be kissing her, I thought even as my tongue reclaimed every inch of her hot mouth, dueling with her fiery tongue over its possession.
But I wanted to.
I wanted to forget that she left. I wanted to forget the six fucking years that no goodbye hadn’t made any easier. I wanted to mark her as mine—like a uniform she’d wear on her lips and a seal over her heart.
Belongs to Logan Daniels.
I pulled her tongue between my teeth, causing her to shudder against me. Her generous tits smashed against my chest. The hard peaks digging against my shirt and I wanted to taste them, too, but I couldn’t give up her mouth.
She moaned, rolling her hips against me in a way that made my dick thicken painfully, needing the kind of release it hadn’t had in a long damn time. My hands gripped tighter as I kissed her harder—deeper than was probably right, but she didn’t stop me. Instead, she sucked my tongue in farther.
Her soft, desperate mewls set off strings of desire dynamite in my cells—ripping me apart and setting my need free all at the same time.
She still tasted like tequila.
Not the alcohol, but the effect.
The enticing sweetness that altered your senses and made you crave more until more wasn’t enough… until more left you stranded and exposed, wondering when and how you got there, swearing you’d never touch the stuff again.
Until she’s standing naked in front of you.
“I need you,” she murmured against my mouth, catching her breath as my lips trailed over every inch of skin in their vicinity.
And I needed her.
After a day like today—
I froze.
Today. A sense of loss seared through me. The one scarred over so many faces as they were forced to leave their homes, some still missing family members who’d gone out the night before and never returned.
Today was a loss that couldn’t be stopped. A hurt that couldn’t have been avoided.
But Shay?
Losing her was preventable if I didn’t have her to lose.
Her eyes searched mine, seeing the walls rising like the flood in front of her.
My fingers slid up to the silken skin at her waist, allowing myself a last, lingering second before I pushed her away from me.
I ignored the slash of pain—the one that made me feel like I was breaking all my rules.
Lying about how much I needed her.
Cheating us of what felt like it was meant to be.
And stealing away a chance at any future with her.
“I need to shower,” I said tightly. “And then we should rest.” The wounded look in her eyes mirrored the pain in my heart. “Tomorrow is going to be hell.”
I didn’t know what it was like to walk away from Shay Covington with something between us.
Losing her with nothing between us was hard enough.
I wasn’t willing to find out if something could be worse.
Yesterday, we’d still been able to make it to the emergency center in my truck, though the roads were getting worse. We’d spent most of the day working separately clearing out Rocky Mountain National Park of visitors. I’d gone out scouring the park with Bruce and Dixon, the two senior rangers, while Shay, Jessie, and Ethan shuttled any straggling campers and hikers hoping to ride out the flood on the mountain into town for temporary shelter.
There was no riding out this flood. Not if you wanted to come out alive.
It was a good thing I hardly saw her all day, I told myself. It kept away the conversation about the kiss we’d shared.
A distraction from the disaster, I’d termed it.
What was not a good thing was how she was still always on my mind, though I knew nothing too serious could happen to her or the other junior rangers while they bussed back and forth to the evac center. The rain was finally starting to slow, but the water was still coming.
It had a been a long day. And when we finally got back to my house, we could only manage a few short words about what happened and what to expect for tomorrow, devouring peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and then collapsing into bed.
The kiss wasn’t mentioned.
Except in every look. Except every time she brushed against me. Except in the tone of every other word as though normal conversation was just a Band-Aid over the gaping wound of desire that grew between us.
“I can’t believe how bad it got overnight,” Shay remarked, standing outside the garage and looking down toward the road.
Looking outside today, I knew the truck wasn’t going to make it. So, I grabbed my gas can and began to fill up the ATV. Noticing what I was doing, Shay opened up the back of my truck and began to move my rescue bags and first-aid kits to the smaller vehicle.
I didn’t respond, realizing it was ten-fold more difficult to take my eyes off her lips when she spoke with how much I wanted to kiss her again.
We climbed in our new ride and it shook to life.
The ragged rumble of the ATV cut through the tense silence between us as I navigated along destroyed roads—and off of them—to bring us back down to the Emergency Center.
“Why did you stop?” she asked.
The ATV was still moving, so she could only be talking about the other night.
I couldn’t have her. But I also was too ripped apart by how I felt to fight her any longer.
“Because this situation is temporary.”
The flood. Her being stranded. Our time together.
At some point, the waters would stop and the world would reconnect to Estes Park—a world that would take her away from me again.
“And I don’t want temporary. I never did.”
“Another rule?” she aske
d quietly.
“You know why I have rules?” I glanced at her as I slowed the ATV; the destruction this morning was far worse than we’d left it last night.
She shook her head and gave me an expectant look.
“My parents were in the oil business,” I began.
“I remember you mentioning something like that that night.”
“But not in a good way.” Her eyebrows shot up, so I kept going. I didn’t like sharing this story, but I was so torn open, there was nothing to stop it from coming out. “They lied. They stole. They cheated. They did whatever it took to keep the oil—the money—flowing.”
Her eyes were locked on me, always perceptive and processing, adding this information to the catalog she had for me inside her head.
“Sometimes, they destroyed lives. Many times, they destroyed nature in order to drill. To find new wells. More oil.” The words rolled off my tongue like the sticky black substance itself, thick and damaging, but necessary.
“Is that why you weren’t close?”
I remembered telling her very briefly in the tavern that night that, like her, my parents were also deceased but that I hadn’t been on good terms with them for years.
“Something like that,” I rasped hoarsely. There were some details of the story big enough to stay trapped inside me. “The worst wasn’t when they flat-out broke the rules. The worst was how most of the time, they lived in the gray area between right and wrong—the area where what they were doing was wrong, but the way they could frame it, the legal loopholes they could find, made it appear right.”
I slowed the ATV as the rocks and mud and tree branch remains thickened on the road, forcing me to slowly slalom through the wreckage.
“They did wrong—illegal things, but in a way that they could excuse themselves out of it.” My jaw ticked. “Wrong is wrong. There are no excuses.”
I glanced at Shay, realizing how the energy of her silence shifted from curious to frigid. She sat stiffly in the other seat, staring out the windshield and I could see her force a swallow.
“Shay—”
“What happened to them?” she turned and asked, wiping any evidence of what plagued her from her expression.
“A little over four years ago, their lawyer notified me of their deaths. An explosion on a rig they were inspecting in Grand Teton, Wyoming.”
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