Burn on the Western Slope (Crimson Romance) (28 page)

Breakfast in bed. She would add a man to her painting, holding a tray and stepping across the floor to his woman.

His woman? Though the painting idea was intriguing, the suggestion that she was his woman was … what? Where had the thought come from? Stretching her hands above her, her legs out along the bed, she yawned.

Right now, she’d do anything to be his woman. She’d never felt more content with life, like maybe she was finally in the right place, doing the right thing. That revelation terrified her. Good things always turned bad.

Something bothered him, but he wouldn’t say what. That was okay, he had a job to do and it was none of her business. She was only grateful that, once he touched his lips to hers, he didn’t bring his troubles with him.

The door squealed open. Reagan jumped and sat up, plopping against the mound of pillows.

“Hello, sleepyhead,” Garret said.

The painting in her mind didn’t include balloons. She gasped as his feet shuffled against the floor, an array of colorful balloons trailing behind him as he held a tray of food and a flickering candle.

“Happy birthday,” he said as he sat the wooden tray on the bed. The balloons were tied to the side and one red rose reached across the tray.

“What is this?” she asked, her mind a muddled mess of confusion and contentment. “It’s not my birthday.”

“Maybe not today, but it’s the first time I’ve celebrated it with you. Besides, it gives me an excuse to woo you.”

“You need an excuse?”

“Mmm,” he groaned as he leaned over and kissed the side of her mouth.

“Actually, my birthday is next week.”

“Ah. I knew it was coming up sometime soon.”

She didn’t ask him how he knew. He was an investigator after all. Or maybe she’d mentioned it. Either way, she took this as a sign he wouldn’t be available for her real birthday.

Still standing, he gave her a bite of muffin and she took it, nibbling his finger in the process. Garret had so many things to hurt over, but he was still an optimistic lover. Losing three friends so close to each other could not have been easy. She wished she could erase his past, his pain, but she chose not to say anything. If he wanted to talk, she would listen, but she wouldn’t broach the subject and worsen his grief.

She would do everything she could do to help figure out what happened to that necklace, and where it came from. She’d called Kyle, planning to taunt him with it if it was his. She wouldn’t admit it was missing now. She would threaten to file charges for fraud and theft.

He hadn’t answered his phone yesterday. But she would keep trying. The blizzard was over and the weather clear, but she didn’t want to leave yet. Garret promised he’d look into her money problem if she stayed and the bank had insured her account.

Garret pressed his knee into the mattress and crawled toward her. His eyes were bright and potent as the sunlight caught the maze of greens and blues.

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you,” he sang, a deep, smooth and throaty resonance that shook her to the core. As he came toward her, Reagan reached out to touch him, resting her palm on his scratchy sexy cheek.

Pulse pitter-pattering wildly in her throat as she tried to keep tears at bay, she knew in this instance that her heart was going to break when he left her.

And he would leave her.

• • •

Garret took Reagan snowmobiling, packing two backpacks full of gear and promising her a night she’d never forget.

They drove to a cabin skirted by trees and bordered by mountains. Too busy staring at the vista before her, she stumbled as Garret helped her from the seat.

“What is this place?”

“A fishing cabin.” Garret, guiding her by the elbow, sidestepped a boulder of snow without stumbling. She kept tripping over both feet as she trudged through the thick powder, sinking into the snow, then wrenching out each foot as if it were an anchor to dive down again.

Garret laughed as she gave up trying to lift her feet and she stayed there playing, burying deeper. “We’ll go snowshoeing later, then you won’t sink.”

“I’d rather see you sink,” she teased. “Inside me.”

“I plan on doing that,” he said as tugged her out of the snow and brought his mouth to hers.

As his tongue circled hers, she tasted a blend of snow, spruce, and dirt all combined to create a delicacy better than anything she’d find in the supermarket aisle. It was barely above zero outside, but her body hummed with a passion that left her panting and burning for breath.

Pulling away, he whispered, “We’ll finish this inside.”

White frosted the roof, pouring a thicker concoction on the deck bordering the house, but it wasn’t until she stopped on the deck and looked behind her that her wings soared.

“Oh, my, God.”

The house was situated on a cliff that overlooked the town from miles below. Buildings, barely perceptible, hung under a thin layer of clouds.

“We better go in before we catch pneumonia,” Garret said, the wispy trail of his breath like smoky vapors in the air.

“But it’s beautiful out here.” She’d grown used to a numb face and numb hands.

“The cabin is encased in windows. You can still see everything from indoors.”

He wasn’t joking. Windows lined the backside of the cabin, looking out into a frosty stretch of hills and craters. Trees punctuated the downward slopes, and icy peaks of white jutted upward, baring no vegetation. She was closer than ever to heaven, but the terrifying grandeur could be misinterpreted for hell.

As they dusted the snow from their outfits and unzipped each other’s riding suits, Reagan forgot the view, she forgot the cold, she forgot everything but Garret.

• • •

Garret pierced a marshmallow with a stick and handed it to Reagan to situate into the fire. As she did, it melted, much like her heart melted right now.

“This is what romance is made of,” Garret said as he slathered chocolate over graham crackers.

“Hah,” Reagan teased. “What do you know of romance?”

Garret’s eyes glowed in the firelight. He positioned the graham crackers on a plate and set it beside the fireplace, added melted chocolate and marshmallows between two crackers, and split half with Reagan.

“I know plenty, even wrote the owner’s manual.”

The fire sighed as he stoked the flames, generalizing Reagan’s warm fuzziness.

“There’s an owner’s manual?”

“Oh yeah.”

Reagan bit on her s’mores and sipped on a glass of red wine, the taste igniting the passion she was already feeling inside.

“You have the set-ups here,” Reagan said. “Marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate, and wine. You’re prepared for this, aren’t you?”

“Consider it a late Valentine’s and early birthday, all rolled into one.”

“Oh, you mean I shouldn’t expect this for my next birthday?” she taunted. She didn’t expect to see him during her next birthday but tried not to think of that.

He’d arranged the room while she changed into something more comfortable. By the time she came out of the bathroom after heavy primping, he had the fire roaring, the food prepared, and a blanket spread on the floor.

“Is this left over from your last romantic encounter?” Reagan asked.

Reagan could never tire of hearing his deep chuckle or seeing the crinkles under his eyes and around his mouth when he smiled.

“Not unless you count a night with Chayton. We did roast marshmallows and wieners though. This is the cabin we came with our dad to fish. We’ve never brought a woman up here. It was considered taboo.”

“Taboo? So why me?”

Garret topped off their wine and leaned closer toward her. His breath swaggered across her cheek with warm confidence, as if it belonged. “It’s time to break that chain. Let go of old ghosts.”

“How will Chayton feel about that?”

Garret shrugged and swept his thumb across her neckline. Heat tunneled through her, tingling her toes and igniting the tips of her fingers. “He’ll get over it, I imagine.”

“Are you trying to seduce me?” she asked, her breath raspy as she curled her fingers through his hair, as if that would ease the prickling he’d lit in her limbs.

“Of course,” he said. She tasted the wine from his breath and her head spun as if drunk from breathing him in. “Is it working?”

“Not the least little bit,” she lied. “Takes more than wine and strong words for me.”

“What does it take?” He stole her wineglass and placed it next to his on the mantel, as if in coupling. She was jealous. Their wine glasses were closer together than they were.

His breath moved against her mouth, never fulfilling what it promised. He flicked aside her hair and brushed the buttons of her top. She combed his hair with her fingers and opened her legs, wanting nothing more than to take him in.

“Is this any closer?”

“Not even.”

“Not even close?” he asked.

She could only let out a murmur when his lips barely graced the lobe of her ear and traced the edges with a light caress of his tongue. His fingers skimmed her neckline, along her collarbone, and down to the crevice of her breasts.

“What about now?” His voice boomed across her skin. She felt, more than heard, his question.

“You’re learning,” she said. She opened her eyes, grabbed her wine, and gulped. She tried her damnedest to look bored, certain her performance was pitiful. Her eyes wanted to roll in the back of her head with the giddy warmth of seduction. “Slowly but surely.”

“What if I sang love songs in your ear?”

“That might work,” she teased. “But I doubt it.”

He traced his tongue across her ear and laced his warm palm behind her neck. He sang a deep, low vibration in her ear that drove fire to her core. She arched back her head, grateful for the support of his hand behind her neck, and bit back a cry.

He lowered her to the floor and into the blankets, that low hum still within her body. Her shirt and bra came off, her pants and panties followed, but he never really touched her, only brushed his breath and fingers against her skin and slid his eyes across her body in a scintillating dance. He kept singing; she wasn’t sure the name of the song but it felt sexy and right.

She arched her hips upward as he brought his face to the lips of her sex, but he didn’t touch. He kept singing, a deep and throaty song full of baritone and bass. His breath caressed her heated body, teasing her as he kissed the inside of her thigh and lightly trailed his tongue across her pelvis.

She cried out, arching upwards, needing more from him, needing his mouth on her.

She clenched her hands into fists in the blankets and closed her eyes, as if that would ward off the pain. “Oh, God.”

“I don’t know about you,” Garret said as he stopped and pulled away, “but I’m feeling seduced.”

She opened her eyes to meet his, the pull they held like the magnetism aligning the planets with the sun. Her eyes burned, heat spreading to her temples, down her throat and erupting in her core.

Garret watched her but didn’t move, didn’t touch her as she longed to be touched. Her heart pounded as she, feeling both powerful in her quest and powerless in her triumph, trailed her finger along the inside of her thigh. His eyes flickered as he watched her dip her finger in and out of her wet heat.

In and out. She moved her hips. He clenched his jaw. The look he sent her burned in all the right places.

She teased him as she stroked herself and when he was about to get up and come toward her, she removed her hand and crawled toward him. Her fingers trailed across his jeans and under his shirt until she unbuttoned his jeans and rolled them to his knees. Unlacing his shoes, she stripped off the jeans and smoothed her hands up his legs, across his hard shaft.

Her fingers didn’t linger. She’d tease him as he teased her. Without touching. She lifted his shirt and nipped his jawbone as she pulled the shirt the rest of the way off. When she brushed her lips across his face, bypassing his mouth with a mere breath, he seized her fingers. With slow, measured strokes, he sucked on the index finger she’d touched herself with.

She kept her eyes on his as she circled his shaft with her free hand. Up and down, up and down, she pulled away when he groaned. Pressing him into the blankets, she was finally the one on top, in control, and she didn’t intend to wait any longer.

The firelight played against the lines of muscle on his body. She’d never felt so erotic, so sexy, or so needy before. She rubbed against his hardness and then took him in her mouth until he flipped her around so he sampled her at the same time she tasted him.

The world spun, she wasn’t sure who she was or where she was anymore but that didn’t matter now. She might lose her heart to Garret, but it no longer mattered. Right now, nothing else mattered but her orgasm.

Chapter Nineteen

The next morning, Garret and Reagan watched the sun rise from the room of windows while they drank coffee and ate breakfast tacos. They cuddled on the sofa and watched as the fog slithered across the mountain, boiling across the peaks as it crept its way into the valley, plunging below their view. Orange turned to yellow. As the earth stretched, the colors turned more vibrant. Blue and purple.

With one hand, Garret sipped his coffee, holding onto Reagan’s with the other. Bundled together under his mom’s furry blanket, Reagan looked warm and content. He wanted to keep her that way, but he had so many things he needed to say.

He planned on telling her about Kyle. It was the only way he could know for sure whether or not she knew anything about his dealings. He’d brought her up here because she’d have to listen to him. She had nowhere to escape to and had to hear him out, no matter what.

If he got up the nerve.

He loved this, being together in the cabin, watching dawn metamorphose into day. Blue clouds rolled in like water and from this peak the entire town was viewable. One of the many reasons his dad had chosen this spot to build this room.

“I didn’t realize the town was so big,” Reagan said, as if their thoughts were bonded to each other.

“Yes, it’s bigger than it looks. From this mountain, you can see everything.”