“Oh yeah.” He breathed the words, his voice harsh as he continued to forge a path into her with every thrust.

  She’d never climaxed more than once with a man inside her and she was sure now wouldn’t be any different. In dreamy bliss, she reached down and caught hold of his ass cheeks and squeezed. He answered with his own groan, obviously liking it. He kept up the slow pace and as she relaxed excitement chased and caught her. She couldn’t believe it as the pleasure escalated with every thrust. Sweet sensations rose until she shattered once more, shaking in his arms and whimpering.

  He growled into her shoulder and thrust faster.

  As she gasped for breath, every pump of his hips brought her one step closer to yet another ecstasy. His fierce, rhythmic thrusts drove her wild. She was out of control and out of her mind, a pulsing, on-fire animal. A second later her body clenched around his thickness, rippling as orgasm shot her straight into writhing pleasure. She trembled, screaming into his shoulder as bliss tingled from deep inside her and made fiery paths to every corner of her body. Within one last hard thrust he exploded, a feral snarl coming from his throat as he trembled in her arms.

  He fell to the side, breathing hard. He pulled her close and wrapped those strong arms around her. She lay dazed as their bodies clung together in the aftermath. She floated in a heaven-sent state of mind. The beauty of it enthralled her and tears slipped from her eyes. Totally unexpected tears. She sniffed and wiped at her cheeks.

  “Hey, you all right?” His voice was a low rumble, the kind reserved for the most intimate moments.

  “Yes.”

  Embarrassed, Lena shifted from his arms, stunned by all she’d felt only moments ago. She glanced at the clock and realized it was eleven. She headed for the connecting bathroom and flipped on the light. She closed the door, grabbed her terry robe off the hook on the door and quickly wrapped herself in it. The mirror over the old-fashioned sink was unforgiving. Her hair stuck up everywhere, her normally pale cheeks were flushed. A silly smile touched her lips but faded just as quickly. She was flabbergasted. Knocked on her ass by everything she’d experienced in Rick’s arms. Amazement didn’t cover her feelings. She washed up and returned to the bedroom.

  Rick lay sprawled among the tumbled sheets, arms and legs spread. Her breath caught as she watched him. He was so damn gorgeous. No, that wasn’t the right word. It was too girly, too insignificant to describe Rick’s carved, dramatically muscled body. The symmetry, the rippling muscles, the pure, male beauty made her mouth water. His eyes popped open and his smile turned heated and wicked. He held out his hand. With hesitation, she walked to the edge of the bed and sat next to him. He took her hand and cradled it. The warmth, the calloused roughness, sent tingles through her body. How could he still affect her so powerfully?

  His eyes narrowed. “Hey, you all right?”

  “Yes. I…we…just…” God, here she was a grown woman and she couldn’t articulate.

  “Yeah, we did.” He looked amused. “And you’re amazing.”

  At least she didn’t blush but all her doubts rose.

  He frowned when she didn’t speak. “Lena, what’s up? You look like you swallowed a lemon.”

  She floundered. “Well, this was great. I mean, it was incredible, blow-my-mind stuff. I never…in purely physical terms the sex was—”

  “Hot.” His voice rumbled, husky with male satisfaction. “Best sex I’ve ever had.”

  “Really?”

  He released her hand and sat up against the pillows. His eyes were serious. “Being inside you was indescribable.”

  She couldn’t get enough air, as if she might go supernova again from the heat in Rick’s gaze. “I didn’t think sex like that was real.”

  “It’s rare.”

  “For you?”

  “Hell yeah.” His gaze landed on her mouth. “You’re incredible, Lena.”

  No man had never said things like this to her before. Her only two lovers, a student the same age as her in college and another therapist she’d met while getting her master’s degree, had been good enough lovers and eager to please. But that had only been sex.

  This… Well, this was another thing, an inferno salad tossed with emotional dressing.

  She wanted to analyze it with her clinical mind but found she couldn’t touch anything this personal without stumbling. Their sex had started tentative, a simple exploration based on mutual connection and need. Then he’d turned loose the animal in her. She’d come again and again as he’d heaped praise, sexually heated statements, whispered in her ear as he’d told her how much he needed her. God. Oh God it had been exquisite. But it was an interlude that couldn’t continue. She stood, ready to find an avenue of escape.

  “Come here.” His soft command surprised her. He sank down onto the bed again, lying flat.

  He clasped her hand and gently tumbled her onto him. Her robe parted and she lay plastered to Rick, nakedness to nakedness. Moist heat flared to life between her legs. Her thighs bracketed his hips and his hard cock nestled between her legs like a hot blade.

  “What are we doing?” she asked.

  Rick’s big palms spread over her bare butt. He squeezed gently. “Well, I’m doing my damnest to seduce you.”

  “It might be working.”

  His smile spelled seduction, persuasion that promised to steal her senses and make her his. One look from those eyes already had the power to make her do things she never thought she would.

  Heat left his eyes. “You’re frowning.”

  She tried for humor. “Damn it. I didn’t want you to see that.”

  “I’m pretty good at reading faces. Just ask my brothers. Always could tell when they were lying.”

  Come on, Lena. You’re a counselor. Figure it out.

  “Doesn’t mean you know what I’m thinking,” she said.

  “No.” Chagrin covered his face. “Would I like it if I did know what you were thinking?”

  “Maybe not.”

  His palms slid up to her waist then back down to her hips and butt in a warm caress. She shivered in delicious appreciation as he circled her back in a solid embrace. Her gaze traced his face, appreciating his features and noting little things here and there she’d never seen before. A small scar dented his skin above his left eyebrow. His nose wasn’t quite straight. Incredible green striations ran through his eyes.

  “You’re patient with me,” she said.

  “Why does that surprise you?”

  “Men are usually interested in getting to the point ASAP.”

  “Guilty. But I don’t think rushing you for answers is going to get me anywhere, is it?”

  His patience made her crazy. “Too bad you’re not unreasonable. It would give me a damn easy excuse to tell you to leave.”

  Creases formed between his eyebrows. “All you have to tell me is to leave. That’s all. What’s going on in that head of yours?”

  She sighed, exasperated with her tongue-tied, befuddled state. “What do we really know about each other?”

  “Not a hell of a lot.”

  “Isn’t that… Doesn’t that make you wonder why we ended up in bed?”

  “I know why we ended up in bed.” His eyebrows waggled. “You’re an amazing, brave, beautiful woman with smarts that are so sharp it scares me. There’s a heat between us I felt since I first saw you again.”

  She drew in a slow breath, her mind awhirl from what he said. “Okay, so we have physical attraction. You’re a brave, sexy, intelligent man who makes me crazy sometimes.”

  One of his thick eyebrows quirked upward. “Sexy, eh? No woman’s never called me that before.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Nope.”

  He drew her into a lingering kiss. She threaded her fingers into his short hair.

  Once up for air, she said, “Stop trying to distract me, Rick.”

  “Man, if I’d known that’s all it would take to distract you, I’d have kissed you earlier.”

  “You’re a smart aleck.”

  He laughed. “So?”

  “We’re not… We have all these quirks and not much else in common.”

  In that crazy-making way, he kissed her cheek and his warm breath teased her. A swift tingle filled her loins.

  She fought the urge to give in and jump his bones. “Rick?”

  “Shit, Lena, are you trying to find an excuse to say this was a mistake?” His voice went to a deep masculine rasp.

  He shifted under her and his cock nestled more firmly between her folds.

  “Not exactly,” she said.

  Liar.

  Again his hips shifted and she sucked in a breath as arousal ran like swift water through her.

  “You want me to say this was nothing more than sex?” he asked.

  Yes. Yes. Because it was true. Wasn’t it?

  “No. Of course not. I don’t just hop into bed with any guy.”

  He snorted. He trailed one finger lightly along her hip and she shivered in delight.

  “I’m flattered and glad,” he said. “Glad I’m not just anyone.”

  She drew in a long breath. God, she kept screwing this up, moment by moment. She was stumbling miserably.

  “Shouldn’t we quit while we’re ahead? You and I aren’t exactly compatible.” She needed to speak the truth.

  That would do it. He’d release her and leave. Nope. His arms slid around her waist.

  “Is this some sort of crazy psychobabble technique you learned in shrink school?”

  Instantly she stiffened but he didn’t let her go or appear surprised. Humor filled his eyes and that made her want to smack him.

  “Rick Frasier, that isn’t the way to keep a woman in your bed.”

  He grunted and even that sound sent sparklers of pure heat to fire to life in her belly.

  “Okay, have it your way, Lena. Sex isn’t the foundation of a long-term relationship. At least not all of it. I didn’t plan to hop into bed with you. I wanted to know you better. To understand this driving need in me to figure out what makes you tick. I heard things about you over the years.”

  “Rick, I don’t know what you heard but—”

  “You want the raw truth? I’ll give it to you. To be perfectly honest, I had a crush on you when I was a teenager. The few times I saw you around town I got horny as hell.” Rick’s eyes blazed with renewed sensuality. He stuffed his fingers into her hair and kissed her chin. “I had wet dreams about you. I wondered what it would feel like if we had sex.”

  Lena’s mouth opened in total surprise as heat flared in her cheeks. Not a word emerged. Her mind spun, wild arousal heightening as she absorbed what he said.

  “You know what I think?” he asked.

  She licked her lips. “What?”

  “I think you’re imagining things about me, about us together. You’re horny as hell, turned on as I am about how we fit together and the heat we make. It’s never happened like this for you and that scares you.”

  Lena recovered her voice even as she mentally screamed that he was right. “We may burn up the sheets but we’re too different. There are obstacles.”

  “Like what?” Challenge colored his voice.

  “Age, for one. I’m thirty-five. You’re twenty-nine. You live in Alaska. I live here. You’re often late and I’m always early. You’re rash and I rarely make leaps. You’re blunt and I try to be soft.”

  “Those aren’t insurmountable.”

  “Of course they are. I’ve counseled some local couples and one of them divorced because they couldn’t overcome huge differences.”

  “But the other couples didn’t divorce.”

  She drew in a deep breath. “I helped them work through it.”

  He shook his head. “But they had to make compromises. They had to discover they loved each other enough to stick it out, right?”

  “Right.”

  Damn the man. He kept saying smart-as-hell things and proving he had far more depth than she’d suspected. And she was ashamed for thinking otherwise and half turned on by every nuance he revealed.

  “I get it. You’re trying to talk yourself out of feeling anything. I really do understand. I did that too. At one time,” he said.

  Instead of arguing, she plunged into curiosity. “At one time?”

  “Oh no. You don’t get to analyze me.”

  He lifted his hips and the tip of his thick cock slid just inside her. She gasped as a wave of need surged.

  “Oh yeah.” He breathed the words, husky with longing. “You and I are different all right. I’m blunt and you’re soft.”

  With a groan he lifted his hips again and slid all the way inside her. With a moan, she absorbed the mind-blowing intimacy. She felt every inch of his thickness stretch her. She quivered on the edge of moving away from all that delicious manhood and telling him to leave before she sank further into insanity. Instead, she kissed him.

  Rick dove into the kiss with total appreciation. Buried deep in her sweetness, he lifted his hips and took her with a deep thrust. She gasped and sat up and lust shot through him like a rocket as her pussy clasped tight around his hardness. His breath caught. Would she leave their embrace and tell him to go? She’d been trying to all evening. Instead she lifted upward, caressing his cock with those tight walls. She sank down and Rick knew heaven.

  “Oh yeah,” he said, his gaze taking her all in.

  Her nipples were tight berries, her cheeks flushed and her lips parted. Primitive needs struck him in the gut and he lifted his hips again.

  She gasped. Hesitated. Started to ride him slow and easy. Oh Jesus yes. As she took him, she leaned over and kissed him. He welcomed her assertiveness, the wildness she’d shown him earlier. He loved her out of control and wanted more. She writhed upon him, each caress of her body stroking his cock in silky tightness. Body and mind soaked in thought-stealing ecstasy, he couldn’t hold back. He gave in to the craziness, powering upward repeatedly. She sat up again, her head thrown back, breasts bobbing. He clutched at the sheets and hung on for dear life as he fucked her. Her moans of pleasure and his mixed, an orgasmic sound that pitched higher and higher. He closed his eyes as the first wave hit him, his entire body stiffening and shuddering as he let go. A roar left his throat as he came inside her hot depths. A second later she matched him, eyes closed, lips parted as she whimpered and convulsed on top of him. As bliss passed over her face, Rick lived in the moment, his body satiated.

  As she lifted off him and lay at his side, she didn’t cuddle him as he hoped. A sinking sensation filled his stomach. Damn her. She was disengaging. He sat up and looked down at her closed eyes and, if he didn’t know better, he’d have said she’d fallen asleep in a blink. An ache centered within him that he’d never expected to feel. When they’d made love the first time the gut instinct to take her had bowled him over. The second time she’d overpowered him—he was a weak bastard. He’d never yearned so much in his life to understand a woman and to reveal his deepest thoughts to her. It blew every defense he had out of the water. Almost.

  He slipped off the bed and into the bathroom. He wished he understood her reluctance to talk to him. Wait. Yeah, he did understand her far better than she wished. Just because she shared her body with him didn’t mean she’d offer a peek into her soul. After he cleaned up, he returned to the bedroom. She was nowhere in sight. He hurried to find his scattered clothes and put them on quickly.

  He left the room. “Lena?”

  He found her in the living room, curled up on the love seat, bundled in an oversized red-checkered flannel robe, matching slippers on her feet.

  He reached for his coat and shrugged into it. “I’d better go.”

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  Her voice sounded small and part of him wanted to stay there and comfort her. He doubted she’d respond well to the idea.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Yes. Thank you for everything tonight.”

  “I’m glad we…” Shit, what could he say? Glad we hooked up? “I’ll see you Thanksgiving Day.”

  “Good night, Rick.”

  He left her house with reluctance and waited until he heard the door locks engage.

  Chapter Five

  Rick grunted as he slipped in the mud and did a face-plant right before a large tree in the paintball area. Luckily his faceplate kept the mud away but he also couldn’t see a damn thing. Mud splattered his paintball gear, his gloved hands, his ragged jeans. He wiped mud off his faceplate.

  Good thing he’d crashed behind a big tree. He jumped up and turned sideways, allowing the tree to provide cover. He popped out just enough with his paintball gun to get off a few shots and he heard one opponent utter a foul curse as his shots connected.

  All righty then, dude. Take it easy.

  Patrick made a real civilian move and got shot in the face. He too let out a healthy expletive. He was out of the game. That left Rick and his three brothers to play the other team, which was now down to two players. The way the two opponents took on Rick and his brothers you’d think it was World War Three. He mentally shrugged. Whatever. Rick liked archery and some of the men he knew that participated in 3D archery, target shooting and hunting took it seriously. He understood. Paintball gurus obviously felt the same way about what mattered to them.

  Rick made another move and barely missed shooting another opponent. He muttered a healthy curse under his breath then laughed at himself. He couldn’t blame the other guy for cursing. This wasn’t as easy as it looked. Still, he took advantage of everything he knew about combat. Yeah, he was a rescue swimmer but he’d learned how to fight. Though all in different branches of the military, Rick knew his brothers would back him up. He dodged, moved, darted and poured on the attack.

  So far the paintball session where his brothers were pitted against the other team had gone well. Rick’s military training along with his brothers’ assured they’d do well against the three civilians. At least that’s what Rick had thought until the clearly talented paintball opponents had started to kick his ass. His ego would have taken a dive if he’d cared.

  He knew his real problem. Distracting thoughts. Lena had him twisted into a huge pretzel. Sex with her had turned him inside out. Everything they’d experienced together had taught him he didn’t know a fuckin’ thing about sex. No, sex with her had blown the top of his head off and made him feel things he didn’t want to feel. Protective. Concerned. Affectionate. A huge respect for her. He couldn’t have slept with her if she’d been just a pretty face. He didn’t do one-night stands. But he also hadn’t lied about wanting her since he was a teen. He didn’t care if she was older than him. She was a beautiful, intelligent woman and he had a serious crush on her. Problem was, she didn’t feel the same about him. After their conversation at her house that night, he understood more than he wanted to that she didn’t want more than a one-night stand with him. He drew in a deep breath. Just as well. Sunday he went back to Alaska.

 

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