Cherry Adair - T-flac 06 (23 page)

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

She snorted.

People milled around them in the lobby, but it was as if they were in their own private little bubble.

"Why are you so skittish around me, Lily?" he asked softly. "Have I ever done anything to make you think I'd take advantage of you? Or done anything you don't want me to do?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Skittish?"

"Like Cosmos."

Lily just stared at him. "Oh, please. You're comparing me to a
mare
? How flattering. And I suppose you think you're the man to break me to bridle?"

Oh, he'd like to
ride
her, no doubt. But as to the other… "No. I'd never break you."

She looked up at him, humor now glinting in her eyes. God, she was pretty. "But you consider yourself a stud, don't you?"

"Now who's being flattering?" he teased. "I wouldn't exactly call myself a stallion."

"I didn't say
stallion
," Lily pointed out with a laugh. "But now that you mention it, you consider yourself the biggest, baddest stallion of all, don't you? Fortunately
I'm
totally immune to your charms."

"So you've mentioned. About ninety-nine times." He reached out and gently brushed her cold cheek with his fingertips. "Wonder who you're trying to convince?"

Eleven

The room was utilitarian, clean and warm. They each, rather symbolically, Lily thought, dumped a duffel bag at the foot of each full-size bed. "Dibs I shower first," she said, swamped by the overwhelming need to lie down and close her eyes. She pulled off her fur hat and tossed it onto her bed. Derek did the same.

And they stared at each other.

Lily realized, with frighteningly little alarm, that she was trapped between the two beds, a desk at her back, and a very large, very potent Derek Wright just two feet away.

"Go for it." A wicked gleam lit his eyes and a small smile curved the lines of his mouth. He stood far too close. Damn him. He wasn't going to back up.

"Go for what?"
Him
?

"That shower?"

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Right. The shower. She'd just called it. One look into his eyes made her forget everything.
Oh boy
. This was going to be harder than she'd thought.

Lily tried to look away, and found she couldn't. "Oh, yeah," she whispered. "Shower. I'm looking forward to it." His blue eyes were almost black as he observed her. God. Those x-ray eyes again. And, God help her, she was sure she felt the heat of his large body through both their sheepskin coats.

Ridiculous, she assured herself. Pure fantasy born of serious sleep deprivation. But her pulse pounded in places she hadn't felt a pulse in years, and her breasts tightened.

She'd woken in the early hours of this morning cradled in his arms, her head on his shoulder, his warm breath ruffling her hair. She pretended to be sleeping when she sensed he was awake.
Coward
. Instead of jumping up and beating him out of camp and getting on the trail early, she'd lain there in his arms.

Content to drift and dream.

Now hours and hours later, it was as if they had gone directly from the snug, warm intimacy of the tent to this pristine, well-lit bedroom.

Holding her gaze, Derek slowly started unbuttoning his coat. He had beautiful hands, Lily thought. Broad palms, long fingers… Her mouth went dry, and her throat closed up with longing. She wanted his hands on her. God help her, she wanted his mouth on her, too. Her brain was frostbitten. Why else would she even think like this?

Lord, it was hot in here! Lily started unbuttoning her own heavy coat, realized what that might look like and stopped, her hand on the top button.

"Think I'm going to jump you?" he asked silkily, a wicked glint in his eyes.

Unconsciously she licked her lips as he shrugged off his coat, unveiling jeans and a heavy-knit navy blue sweater. He tossed the coat on the bed beside him. His chest was broad and solid. He smelled of damp wool and man, and Lily's internal organs did the happy dance at the delicious combo.

She looked up into his smoldering blue eyes and shook her head. "Don't be ridiculous. Of course not."

She was losing her mind here. This was Derek Wright, for God's sake. A woman, a sensible woman, didn't hold the gaze of a cobra moments before it struck. She shot it or ran like hell.

There was nowhere to run. Her gun was in the duffel at the foot of her bed. Three feet behind Derek.

"I need to go to the bathroom," she lied rather desperately.

He smiled knowingly. The rat. "You went downstairs."

Lily scowled. "So what? I have to go again."

"Fine. I'll go down and see what I can rustle up to eat while you take care of business." He didn't move.

"Any preferences?"

"Lots and hot."

Unfortunately, "lots and hot" could refer to a number of things that had nothing to do with food. Besides, she had something a lot more immediate to contend with than hunger. How had he gotten so close? The
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

room was small but it suddenly felt like a closet.

Of course he
was
enormous. Tall, broad—Oh, God, and they were supposed to sleep in this room? The beds were only a few feet apart. She couldn't do it. She really couldn't.

Lily was willing to bet there wasn't a woman alive who could survive a night with Derek Wright and walk away unscathed. Physical impossibility. Even a
nun
would find herself tempted and Lily was no nun.

Her body swayed toward him. As much as her instincts urged her to press closer, self-preservation ordered a retreat. Now if only there was somewhere to go…

It was as if he could read her mind. Oh, Lord, she hoped he really couldn't. "Okay," she said and winced at how loud her voice sounded, even to herself. "You get food, I'll take a shower—" She inhaled sharply and blew the air out in a rush. "Then we'll get some sleep and hit the road bright and early."

"Uh-huh."

"Seriously." She took a step forward, holding out both hands to ward him off just in case. "You food.

Me shower."

"Deal," he said, his gaze locked on her mouth. Suddenly she yawned, a huge, unaffected, jaw-popping yawn. Derek's laughter broke the spell. "Okay, go shower, then food, then a nice nap. Hit the bathroom, I'll be back before you know it."

That's what she was afraid of. As soon as the door closed behind him Lily rifled through her bag for clean clothes, then stumbled into the bathroom, legs still shaky and pulse pounding. She locked the door behind her, which provided a flimsy sense of security. Not that she imagined Derek would rudely come in when she was showering, but she also felt certain that if he was so inclined, a mere standard lock wouldn't stand in his way. There was something moderately thrilling about the thought. For just a brief second—a flash of a second, really—Lily imagined Derek kicking in the door, scooping her into his arms and carrying her to bed. In her mind's eye he was more dashing than Rhett Butler, and the scene way more erotic than the constraints of a 1939 film.

Chicken
, she scolded herself as she turned on the shower then stripped. So much for trying to become proactive.
That
had all the earmarks of a woman not willing to make a difficult decision, and hoping the man would take that choice out of her hands. Shame on her.

She shook her head at herself.

The hot water felt wonderful on her cold skin, but she didn't linger. If she stayed under the spray she'd be asleep in minutes. Her tired brain extrapolated from there. Derek would have to come in and haul her comatose body, naked, out of the shower. Lily wasn't sure she could resist him right now. Even if she was in a coma. Trust didn't come into it. Her body and her brain weren't in sync on Derek Wright.

He'd saved her life twice in as many days. Yet she still wasn't sure she could trust him. Unfortunately, she could deny it till the cows came home, but Derek turned her on. He always had. She touched her wet lips, remembering his kisses, and felt the tingle all the way through her body.

She purposely turned the stream of hot water to cold and yelped as the first blast struck her breasts and belly. "Take that, you dimwit," she whispered, but she turned it quickly back to hot again. She'd been in the
snow
with him for days, for God's sake, and that cold hadn't kept her from feeling the attraction. A
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

short blast of cold water didn't stand a chance. She wasn't immune to Derek's charm. And, God help her, she wasn't completely vaccinated to prevent reinfection either.

"But," she argued with herself, "why should I be so worried? So I want him. Big deal. Sex isn't a lifetime commitment, for pity's sake. It's just sex. Chemistry." Lily climbed out of the tub and grabbed a towel.

Was she that much of a coward? Derek couldn't hurt her emotionally unless she allowed him to. She put her foot up on the edge of the tub to dry her leg.

She was a mature woman.

Not a young girl.

She enjoyed sex.

It wasn't illegal to want a man when his—
her
—affections weren't involved. Was it?

She'd tried love. It hadn't worked out for her. So what? She didn't want to
marry
Derek. All she wanted was to sleep with him. Sex without love could—she assumed—be just as good as sex while in love.

Lily yawned as she dressed, another jaw-cracking yawn that brought tears to her eyes. She was torn, and all her instincts of self-preservation were in conflict as far as Derek was concerned. She wanted him, but she didn't
want
to want him.

Fact was, her chemicals were strongly attracted to his chemicals. Pheromones hard at work.

But you don't trust him, her brain reminded her.

Why, though? she asked herself. Sean had been the liar. She'd already established that. So why was she so determined to cling to some of those obvious lies he'd told her about Derek?

Because those lies were the only things preventing her from falling into Derek's arms and making a complete fool of herself. That's why.

All the things about him that attracted her, attracted legions of
other
women, too. And when a man was presented with a banquet, why make a commitment to eating one peanut butter sandwich for the rest of his life?

That was reality.

She had nothing to offer a sophisticated man like Derek Wright. The novelty of her would eventually wear off, and he'd move on to greener pastures.

"But on the other hand," she murmured, "I'm not
expecting
a commitment, am I? And if I control the situation, we both win. He wants sex. I want sex." Boy howdy, she wanted sex. With him. Only with him.

Right now she was a challenge for him. The one that got away. Lily suspected women rarely told Derek no. So she'd become his Moby-Dick.

Oh, God. Her brain was going to explode.

Too much thinking, not enough sleeping.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

That's all this was. Exhaustion overriding common sense.

She opened the bathroom door, expecting to see her nemesis, but the room was still empty. Her stomach growled long and pitifully, reminding her she was starving for more than just Derek's touch.

Walking to the window, she brushed aside the drape to look down at her team lying stretched out, sleeping in the late afternoon sun.

Volunteers and observers still milled around out there, checking in a few teams, inspecting dogs, drinking steaming mugs of coffee and apparently oblivious to the cold. It was freezing, but they didn't seem to care. Of course they slept well at night, somewhere enclosed and warm. And most of them traveled by snowmobile, vehicle or plane from checkpoint to checkpoint.

They should try a sled and team for real excitement, Lily thought, her gaze touching on each of her dogs.

She grinned as Dingbat rolled onto his back—legs folded over his barrel chest, mouth open, tongue lolling as he slept. She didn't need to hear him to know the little monster was snoring. Her Arrow and Derek's Max lay curled together, their doggie breath mingling over their heads.