Boom (26 page)

“You’re right. I do. I’m just a lot more cautious than you are.” Though, as she said it she was undoing his belt buckle, so maybe she wasn’t as cautious as she believed. But how could she react any other way when his sweet words had melted every last ounce of resistance in her?

“Maybe that’s my fault.” He helped her with the fastenings of his jeans until his hardening shaft was free, and after shifting around to get his wallet out, he gave her the condom packet to take care of him. “Maybe I haven’t done enough to convince you that I’m the man you can go all-in with.”

She was breathless as she slid the condom in place, loving how hot he felt against her palm. “This is going a long way to convince me.”

“You once told a whole room full of strangers what a woman will do for her man when she loves him, but I’ve never done the same for you.” His voice was taut with carefully leashed hunger as he helped lift her up so that she could slowly, smoothly impale herself on his stiffened flesh. She couldn’t stop herself from moaning on an expelled breath as he filled her depths until he was fully seated. “When a man loves his woman, he’ll turn himself inside out to make her happy. He’ll cherish her until she
knows
she’s cherished. He’ll never stop working on creating a safe haven for her and the children they’ll one day have, because even a king, if he’s smart, works his ass off to protect his queen. He watches for what makes her smile and for what makes her frown, and he never forgets the difference between the two. He’ll do whatever it takes to convince her that she’s his greatest treasure, and he’ll guard her with his every thought and word and action, because to lose her would be to lose his world. If she’s having a bad day where she’s feeling exhausted or sick or not pretty or whatever, it’s her man’s privilege to look her right in her gorgeous ice-chip blue eyes and tell her ‘I’m the luckiest man in the world to be with you, beautiful, and that’s a fact I’ll never forget.’
That’s
how I believe a man should treat his woman, so that’s how I plan on treating you for the rest of our lives.”

“Rest of our lives,” she repeated, rolling her hips to make sure she felt him right…
there
… and caught her breath when he ground against her.
Oh, yes
. “There you go, going too fast for me again, Boom.”

“I’m fine with taking it slow, if that’s what you need. You go right ahead and take the rest of your life to get used to us being together.” His hands tightened on her hips as he looked up into her eyes, mere inches from his, and in their dark depths she saw an infinite fire of passion mingled with that overwhelming confidence and determination she saw in him whenever he talked about Whiteout. “You’re not going to Seattle. Or Chicago. Or anywhere else. You fell out of the sky and into my lap, so that’s where you’re going to stay.”

His rhythm grew wilder as the pleasure ballooned, and suddenly there was no way to talk. That was okay; conversation could wait. Apparently everything could wait, if what he said was true. The rest of their lives was a long time, after all, so she’d take it one day at a time and not worry about the rest. For now, she gave into the pleasure that her man gave her, delighting in the knowledge that this time, love was what joined them together. As the ecstasy tensed to a maddening point before at last shattering in every cell, she doubted it could ever get any better than this.

Epilogue

(Eight months later)

“I don’t care how many Olympic medals he’s won, and I don’t care what TV channel he does commentary for now,” Mia said, harassed, as she sat behind a mountain of law books. Studying precedents wasn’t her idea of fun, but trying to do it during a massive international competition called X-Treme Mountain Games Summer Spectacular was just about impossible. “This guy, Antoine Gaudin, doesn’t have reservations for the Presidential Chalet, so I’m sorry to say there’s nothing I can do to help you, Otto.”

“He’s claiming he
did
book the chalet two weeks ago, but I don’t know how he can say that with a straight face. Not only was the chalet booked
months
ago by the people who are in there now, but the reservation on this guy’s phone is clearly for a standard one-room, and that matches what our computers say.” Looking woebegone, Otto rubbed a hand over his short hair spiked with so much product she was surprised his hand didn’t come away punctured. “I always liked Antoine Gaudin, you know? He can shred a half-pipe like nobody’s business, and his video games are the shit. But wow, in real life he sucks some serious ass.”

“Otto.”

“No, really, he
does
, Mia. He’s out there yelling at everyone behind the desk and acting like a total freaking diva. It’s like he won’t even consider the possibility that he failed at navigating a simple hotel website. No, somehow it’s
our
fault that his two-week old ‘reservation’ of the Presidential Chalet somehow got downgraded to an ‘ordinary’ room, where ‘ordinary people’ stay.”

On a nearby legal pad, Mia made a quick note to have IT run a diagnostic on their server as well as go through the reservation menu herself, just to be sure. “Has anyone else had a problem with their reservations yesterday or today?”

“Nope. Just Mr. Center-Of-The-Universe out there.”

Mentally Mia sifted through all the possibilities before nodding once. “Okay, here’s what you tell Monsieur Gaudin. While Whiteout Mountain deeply regrets this rocky kickoff to his stay here—”

“I don’t regret anything. Well, except that he’s here. I thought he was cool, but he’s a dick.”

“
Otto
.” She gave him a look that everyone had learned meant she wasn’t in the mood to be messed with. And everyone—with the exception of Quinn and a few other alpha males of the Kingfisher clan—ran away from it. “While we deeply regret this rocky kickoff to his stay with us, the Presidential Chalet is already occupied by the sponsors of this competition.”

“Can I say
very important
sponsors? You know, to show Gaudin that he’s not?”

“No. Then you go on to say that, because we value Monsieur Gaudin and his business so much, we hope he’s willing to give us the opportunity to make him as comfortable as possible. How we’re going to do that is we’re going to upgrade his standard room reservation, and put him in a two-room suite all the way up on the concierge floor complete with his own personal butler, a service which will be gratis.”

Otto had been nodding until she got to that point. Then he jumped back as if he’d been poked by a cattle prod. “
Gratis
? Mia, he’s pulling a fast one on—”

“Furthermore, we’d be honored to offer a prestigious guest like the great Antoine Gaudin unlimited use of both the spa and the shuttle to and from Hot Ice Casino with some free-drink vouchers thrown in for good measure. We’re also going to give him anything else that his little diva brain can come up with, Otto, and do you know why that is?”

“Because we’re crazy?”

“Because until about fifteen minutes ago you idolized him, and so do a lot of other people,” she reminded him with a sigh. “Now that Monsieur Gaudin is a sports commentator, he has a platform where his opinion reaches
millions
. If he comes away from Whiteout feeling like he received crappy service, that could give us a wound we might not ever recover from, and I’m not willing to let that happen to Quinn’s dream. Are you?”

“No,” he mumbled, edging away from her desk tucked away in the far corner of Whiteout’s office area. “So, let me get this straight. I offer apologies because a monkey could navigate our online reservation site better than he can. Then I give him the best we have to offer to shut his diva ass up. Then, if all else fails, I ship him off to Hot Ice to get him roaring drunk with free drinks, and let Brody deal with him. Anything else?”

“That’ll do it, and thank you very much for handling this potential mess so well.” When Otto took off to undoubtedly choke on every word he had to tell his former hero, Mia gave up the idea of studying. There was simply too much activity going on in the main building to concentrate, and in all honesty she was dying to see how things were going.

Since Whiteout Mountain had opened back in December, in addition to being a huge success in the winter sports and hospitality business, the facility itself had hosted several splashy events. Local skiing and snowboarding competitions had already taken place there, as had an ice-fishing derby, a mega snow-sculpture contest near the end of the ski season in March, and they’d even played host to a toddler beauty pageant in the main ballroom at the beginning of summer.

Every time they hosted an event, the resort filled not just with event participants and their families, but also the media, and with each ensuing event that media pool grew. Mia suspected this was a result of Quinn’s policy to treat any member of the media—from the anonymous crew member in the satellite truck to the reporter in front of the camera—like royalty. That kind of superior service had members of the press searching for any excuse to come back to Whiteout. If that meant news crews from all across the region were covering something as dinky as the Honey Pot High School reunion they’d hosted a few months ago, that was cool with her. The media’s ever-growing adoration of Whiteout Mountain Ski Resort and Spa generated a ton of positive press, and since the resort was in its infancy, that was more precious than gold.

As much as he’d hated his time in the casinos, Quinn had learned how to work every angle like a master. Everything he did was smart when it came to making his ambitious vision for Whiteout Mountain a stunning reality.

When it came to handling her, he was even smarter.

Moving from a big city like Chicago to the secluded, sparsely populated mountains of Montana had been a definite adjustment for her. But it had helped that she’d already spent a week there and loved it, and as long as Quinn loved her, she didn’t hyperventilate too much over the massive changes going on.

But there were a few things she’d needed in order to settle more comfortably into her new life.

Because her relationship with Quinn had moved along at such a lightning-fast pace—so much so that it have given her the screaming meemies—she’d insisted on taking a step back from the intensity of living under the same roof. Unfortunately, since the housing situation in tiny Honey Pot wasn’t the greatest, she’d needed help in finding a place to live.

Eventually Quinn had managed to find a gorgeous, borderline-opulent furnished house to move into, which at the time had been surprisingly broad-minded of him. When she’d originally brought up the subject of living separately while they got to know each other better, he had fought furiously against it. Though his need to keep her close had filled her with the warm fuzzies, she’d stuck to her guns. For her own peace of mind, she’d needed to know that what they had was real, and not simply a matter of their close proximity forcing them together.

Quinn had argued—somewhat justifiably—that because of that close proximity, they now knew each other a hell of a lot better than a lot of dating couples. But as she’d worked at adjusting to the new rhythm of her life, she’d needed that mental cushion to find her feet. Sure, Quinn was only a couple miles up the mountain at Whiteout, but he had his space and she had hers, and as she settled into the new house, she’d finally felt like things had slowed down enough for her to breathe and take it all in.

Then, about a week after she’s moved in, she’d stumbled across an old prescription cough medicine bottle with Quinn’s name on it in the master bath. That was when she’d realized Quinn had moved her into his temporarily unoccupied house—a house he’d move back into once Whiteout Mountain’s grand opening had wound down.

So, yeah. The man knew how to handle her like a pro.

As it turned out, the plan of living separately and going on dates like “normal” people hadn’t gone off like she’d imagined. Either he managed to keep her with him up at Whiteout’s Presidential Chalet, or he’d stay overnight with her, and that was something she could never complain about.  Then, a couple weeks after Whiteout Mountain Resort officially opened to the public, it occurred to her that while they were both working around the clock—somewhere along the way she’d become part of the resort’s staff to smooth over problems at all hours of the night—they’d fallen back into the routine of living together.

And it was wonderful.

Once she’d realized that, she’d stopped fighting the inevitable and just went with the flow. She’d enrolled in the University of Montana out of Missoula to finish her law degree, and Professor Brockman had been invaluable in helping her transfer her credits from Northwestern and gave her an excellent letter of recommendation. Like everything else, going to law school was different out West than what she was used to. She did her studies online three days a week, while on Mondays and Thursdays she made the five-hour round trip into Missoula to physically attend whatever had been deemed mandatory. When she first enrolled, she thought she’d never adjust to such an unusual way of studying, but again she found herself falling into her new normal with surprising ease.

Or, maybe it just seemed easy because Quinn was with her every step of the way, telling her he had no doubt she could achieve anything she set her mind to.

It was amazing what she could accomplish when a good man had her back.

That good man kept things hopping. As the ski season wound to a close in late spring, they’d thrown a private party to celebrate their first successful season. Much to her surprise, he’d stolen her away amidst the festivities and led her out onto the resort’s main viewing terrace. There, as a rare Aurora Borealis silently painted the sky with rippling waves of green and yellow, he’d kissed her while slipping a ring onto her finger. Her gasp of shock had broken them apart; they’d been so crazy-busy with Whiteout Mountain’s grand opening, starting school and making room for each other in their lives that her brain hadn’t traveled that far down the road yet.

But Quinn’s obviously had, and when she’d done nothing but stare at the knockout solitary diamond ring on her finger, he’d begun to curse a blue streak. It was finally her turn to shut him up with a kiss, laughing all the while. She couldn’t do anything else but laugh, because she was so happy, and because she’d never seen her man so uncertain.

As adorable as it had been, she never wanted Quinn to be uncertain when it came to her. She wanted to be the one thing in his world that he could always count on.

So she was.

The moment they’d rejoined the party, Jase had boomed out from across the crowded room, “So, did you ask her? What’d she say? Wait, doesn’t matter. Just hogtie her and drag her to the altar. It’s more fun for us that way.”

The Kingfishers would never be known for their subtlety.

Once that hurdle had been overcome, she again thought things would slow down, but by that point she was starting to grasp that “slow” wasn’t a speed that Quinn understood. He’d told her he had every intention of “getting hitched” before the first snow flew, and up in the high country she’d learned that meant the end of summer. The extreme sports competition going on now was the last event of the summer season before their wedding next week, and she still hadn’t made it down to Honey Pot to do the final fitting for her wedding gown. Daria texted her approximately every twelve minutes to offer a running commentary on her ridiculous hunt for the perfect maid of honor dress, her complicated travel plans and her hope that she, too would fall out of the sky and into the arms of a yummy, long-haired, tattooed, successful, sexy beast of a man.

Daria was the only thing that kept her laughing when it came to the general shenanigans of the wedding party, because she’d all but given up on wrangling West, Dev and Jase into formal wear. It had been hard enough getting Quinn to agree to it, but the threat of letting her inner Bridezilla out to rampage had nipped his protests in the bud. West, Dev and Jase didn’t have to live with her though, so they were proving to be a tougher sell.

Another wedding-related problem she hadn’t foreseen was Brody. While Quinn had mended fences with many members of his family, the rift between the two brothers was as wide as ever. Unlike Jase, who had a damn fine explanation as to why he’d done a disappearing act on Quinn, Mia had never heard the reason why Brody had cut his younger brother out of his life when Quinn had left Kingfisher Corporation. She knew that wound was still there, though both men went on with life like nothing was wrong. Their mother, Elise, stressed over it constantly, but ultimately it was up to the brothers to fix whatever it was that had broken between them.

But Brody’s absence in the wedding party was painfully obvious.

She spied Olivia and Thomas at the doors leading to the back viewing terrace. Through the glass doors she could see Whiteout Mountain, a brilliant blue sky and a ton of scaffolding, temporary bleachers, an array of lighting, a couple camera booms and a raised judges’ stand along with throngs of crowds. Currently the resort’s main attraction was the BMX half-pipe contest going on in the converted snowboard half-pipe. It looked like total suicide to her, but Olivia and Thomas looked singularly unimpressed to see guys flying through the air like they thought gravity was optional.