Body Heat (Vintage Category Romance) (4 page)

No running water. Great…

That’s when she noticed how nicely his broad shoulders tapered down into thin hips and a quite nice ass. He left the stove and stepped across the room to a chest of drawers, pulled on an undershirt and a green plaid flannel-shirt over that. Blaire was suddenly disappointed. She wanted to inspect him a little longer.

He changed his socks and laced up ankle high
work boots over them, and then straightened. He looked like he’d just stepped off a magazine page advertisement for one of those old cigarette company ads—rugged and devastatingly handsome. Definitely Alpha male, through and through.

Yes, Darian MacGlenary had aged well.
A little rough around the edges, scruffy beard and shaggy hair and all, but overall, he had aged quite nicely.

Then he
pointed his gaze directly at her. “Going out for wood.”

Shit. He knew she was watching him all along.
Blaire nodded, pulled the covers back a bit, and then called out, “You are Darian MacGlenary, aren’t you?”

His gaze held hers for the briefest moment before speaking to her in an almost gruff tone.
“That who you’re looking for?”

She paused a minute before answering.
“Yes.”

“
Why?”

“
That’s between me and him. Or you, if you’re MacGlenary.”

“
I see.”

Blaire was tired of the games.
“Are you him or not?”

It took another minute for him to answer.
“Maybe.”

Then he turned and left.
He was MacGlenary, she was certain. He was being as mysterious about himself, as were all the others. She just wasn’t sure why.

Blaire glanced around the cabin.
His humble abode consisted of a one-room log cabin, no electricity, she imagined, the bed, an arm chair, a rough-hewn table with two chairs he probably made himself, the fireplace and wood burner, and a small variety of other furnishings and necessities scattered about. Definitely a man’s home, Blaire thought, for a woman would definitely insist on more of the amenities of life. Like a bathroom.

Heavy
footsteps reverberated on the porch outside the front door, and she decided to feign sleep. She was a bit sleepy. And tired. The hike in had taken it out of her. So she justified the need to roll over on her left side and close her eyes. For just a short while.

Her last thought
was how she could figure out what made Darian MacGlenary tick. What made him the way he is?

****

A cold front had settled over the hollow during the night, leaving a fairyland of frost in the woods surrounding the cabin. Darian hoisted an armload of split wood to his chest, saw his breath fan out around his mouth as he exhaled, and lumbered for the cabin. Upon entering, his gaze immediately settled on his bed and the pixie in it. She had turned her back to him and drawn the covers up over her shoulders. He could barely see the top of her strawberry blond head.

Darian grumbled under his breath and kicked the door shut behind him.
She flinched just a little under the covers as it made contact with the frame. He made his way to the fireplace. A few moments later, after bringing the dying fire back to life, he then started another in the wood burning stove so he could make coffee. And in a little while, breakfast.

He wondered if she was hungry.
Probably. She’d been walking around in the woods nearly all day yesterday and he doubted she had any sense to pack her anything to eat. She needed rest, but her body needed nourishment as well, so he’d let her sleep for a while, and then he’d wake her for something to eat.

So he sat, drinking his coffee, watching her sleep.
Or what little he could see of her anyway. What thing brought her to him? He guessed he’d find out it due time. He’d been rough on her, he admitted. Rude. Not telling her if they’d slept together, not telling her his name, but he had to be noncommittal. He needed to feel her out slowly.

Feel her out slowly.

He hardened at the play on words, thinking of his tortured night. His dreams had held an erotic bent to them throughout the night. He’d only wanted to warm her, to save her life. And as he lay beside her, just before he drifted off to sleep, he’d patted himself on the back for his ability to separate himself from his emotions. He was doing what had to be done, just as he did all those years ago when he worked as an EMT. That was what he was trained to do, separate the emotions from the task at hand. And he did it well, except the one time….

Darian shook his head and again looked to the woman.
He had tried to do that last night, but admittedly, he had failed. He hadn’t intentionally noticed how soft her skin was, how small her back was with his huge arms wrapped around her, how fragile she felt, how vulnerable. How good she smelled. And how his body responded holding her.

He
’d tried to hide it from himself, but his body
had
responded. Not just the physical arousal but the deep internal arousal of passion and desire. The sizzling heat rose in him—the instinctual desire to protect, to care.

When he woke to the feel of the soft mound of flesh beneath his fingertips and her peaked nipple in his palm, it was almost more than he could stand.

And after four years of celibacy, no doubt it was more than any man could stand.

But Darian knew it was more than that.
He’d broken one of his golden rules and had begun to care and that’s where he’d made the fatal mistake. Emotions and feelings lost him something so precious once and he didn’t care to experience that again. He’d cared too much and it nearly devastated him. It wasn’t about to happen again.

Not for anyone. And particularly not for a stranger.

Dammit.

Darian rose and paced the room.
He didn’t care about her. He didn’t even know who she was. All he cared about when it came to that woman was whether she’d let him pin her hips to his bed for about an hour. He’d vowed once he’d never care about anyone again, but using her for sex wasn’t caring, it was using. And if she offered, he might damn well accept.

A soft moan escaped from underneath the covers behind him.
Darian slowly turned, set the coffee mug on the table, and looked to his bed. He watched as the blankets and quilts were flung back in disarray and she turned over on her back and moaned again. Her arms flailed out to the sides and the sheet slipped down around her waist exposing her small breasts. Darian sighed and then gulped in a huge breath.

He stepped closer and looked down upon her
; then carefully, trying not to touch her, lifted the sheet back over her breasts. His gaze never left her face. Still breathing deeply, he reached out, and promising himself just this once, he touched her cheek with the back of his fingers. That was when the alarm bells went off inside him.

Fuck
. She’s sick. And he’d been thinking about using her for sex. Where was his goddamned head!

He sat on the edge of the bed
and touched her forehead. Clammy and hot. Burning with fever. Quickly, Darian tucked the blankets around her once more, retrieved a T-shirt from his chest of drawers, and then slipped it over her head, finally allowing her a little dignity and him a little sanity. Then at the sink he dipped a cloth into the icy water he’d pumped earlier, wrung it out, and folded it into a neat rectangle. At her side again, he placed it over her forehead and knew it was the only thing he could do, besides being there for her.

He sat there on the edge of the bed for several minutes looking into her small, heart-shaped face, willing his body not to feel the emotion that was coursing through it or the panic that tripped down his spine and grabbed his abdomen.
He did not care for her, he reminded himself. He did not care. He did not care.

But it was a lie.

He’d begun caring about her the moment she’d turned those saucer blue eyes on him yesterday, before she melted at his feet.

****

Darian nursed her fever throughout the night. He kept her forehead cool with the damp cloth as much as possible while she sweat the fever out into the sheets. Even though she was semi-conscious, he managed to get some water between her parched lips from time to time. He flinched each time she incoherently mumbled at him, especially when she called out her lover’s name. What kind of a man was this Mastin, Darian wondered? What kind of man would allow her to go traipsing off into no-man’s land unprepared? A fool, he finally decided. An idiot. For he decided then and there if Pixie were his, he wouldn’t have let her go. At least not alone.

Pixie.
He didn’t know her name—she’d never offered it to him. But all night long as he cradled her body to his during her fever, stroked her cheek, dabbed her burning forehead with the cool cloth, he had to call her something. So Pixie it was. She reminded him of a wood nymph, like something out of a children’s storybook. A mythological sprite. Pixie. Her petite body demanded the name as well as her short, Peter Pan style strawberry blond haircut, the freckles sprinkled across her slightly upturned nose, and her eyes—blue as the ocean and just as wide and deep. And after four years of looking at nothing but trees and squirrels, she was a beautiful sight. But yet, he thought and smiled, as he brushed a short piece of hair from her forehead, she’d be beautiful just about anywhere.

The dark hours of the night passed and Darian swore he would not fall asleep again holding her, but he did.
This time, he lay on top of the covers with Pixie to his left underneath the covers, her head supported by his chest, one arm cradling her to him, the other laying across his chest, his fingertips gently grazing her cheek.

****

When Blaire tried to pry open her sleep encrusted eyes, she found it almost impossible to do so. She felt drugged, like she’d slept for days. Working one hand up from beneath the covers to her face, she rubbed a small fist over one eye and then the other, trying to will them to open. She sighed deeply and relaxed. Maybe she’d just roll over and sleep in today. That is the beauty of owning your own business, she told herself, you can sleep in whenever you feel like it.

Blaire tried to roll over, but couldn
’t. Something—or someone—was in her way. Alarm coursed through her body. Her arm rested on something other than a pillow and her head was definitely leaning on something harder than feathers. Slowly opening one eye, she stared at her hand and the slow and rhythmic rise and fall of the flannel-covered chest beneath it.

Oh no, not again.

Lifting her head only slightly, she looked at the sleeping man beside her. Darian MacGlenary. In his sleep he didn’t look so gruff. In his sleep, he almost looked rather…sexy. Fleeting stabbing icicles coursed through her. When, other than during the giddiness of adolescence, had she ever admitted to herself that a man actually looked sexy? Well, she guessed, now. She shifted so she could lean on her elbow and more comfortably examine the masculine form beside her.

He lay on his back, his bearded chin jutted forward, a small snore exited his slightly open mouth.
His was an aristocratic, aged face, so much different from the eighteen-year-old photograph. But he was incredibly handsome, even beneath the beard and the shoulder length black, gray-streaked, shaggy hair. Blaire studied his lips, full between the thick whiskers of his mustache and beard. Then her gaze traveled up to the prominent cheekbones beneath closed steel-gray eyes. She’d noticed his eyes right off, the first time she saw him standing by the cabin, for they looked cold and stabbing. But now, as he lay sleeping, his closed eyes rimmed in dark feathery lashes and bushy dark eyebrows, he didn’t look so frightening. In fact, Blaire thought, he almost looked almost…inviting. Warm, cozy and comfortable. And she suddenly felt all the world like snuggling into his side. It was hard to resist the flannel shirt, but he was sleeping—and he would never know.

But men aren
’t supposed to be like cuddly teddy bears. At least no man she ever knew. Men were all angles and planes and hard edges. Like Mastin. And to think of all the times she wanted as a little girl to curl into a warm teddy bear lap and be held and comforted—and wasn’t—she found it extremely difficult to stifle the urge to do so now. Because Mastin wasn’t a teddy bear daddy. Mastin was hardly a father at all.

Blaire let the arm supporting her head relax and as she did so, carefully placed her head in the crook of MacGlenary
’s shoulder. Without a lot of movement, she eased into the warmth of his side, trying to convince herself that he really didn’t feel that good. That she was simply cold and he was so comfortable. She ignored the warm feelings building with her. They didn’t exist. No man had ever made her feel warm inside.

Not that kind of warm, anyway.

She was simply tired. Her ankle pounded; her head hurt. Her skin was hot and clammy and cold and shivery all at once. And she didn’t feel like fighting any of it anymore. So she didn’t.

She
tightened the hold she had on his chest ever so slight, and burrowed deeper into his side. And just when she’d finally comforted herself next to him, he let out a huge snort, abruptly turned, and captured her firmly between his arms, pulling her into his chest.