Sierra Seduction (9 page)

Urging her onto her stomach, he stroked her pussy, bringing her desire back to fever pitch and drawing her moisture back toward her ass. The thought of doing something forbidden made her cream flow even more.

“We don’t have any lube, but, baby, you’re a wet, wet girl.” He eased a finger in past the tight ring of muscle, gliding it in and out, then added a second. “You’re sure?”

“Don’t make me wait.” She lifted her hips toward him and dropped her head onto her folded arms. “I want you.”

“I want you too. More now than ever before.” The tip of his cock rubbed along her crack and her pussy, so sweet, so hard, so…

So pushing at her ass, so much bigger than his fingers. A place no man had ever been. She parted her lips to change her mind, to tell him to fuck her cunt, but then he toyed with her clit, circling, rubbing and her passion sent her bumping back.

“Now!”

He shoved his thick cock past the ring of muscle into her ass, stretching her so she couldn’t think. It stung, it hurt…it felt
so
good. Val stopped and held in place, but she moaned.

“Nooo, don’t stop.”

He pinched her clit and she screamed, incoherent syllables trying to express her pleasure as her orgasm flowed over her and he pushed all the way in, his groin against her ass cheeks, his balls bouncing against her pussy.

“I don’t…know why I never did this before.” She panted, thrusting back to take him, wanting him as deeply inside her as he could go, wanting to take him in and hold him forever. But soon…just as she began to ache, hot liquid filled her, oozing out around his cock when he pulled
it back and fell to the sleeping bag at her side.

She rolled over and took his hand, kissing his fingers. “
This won’t be the last time.”

Not the last time.
Mickie’s words chilled his blood. She’d offered him her first time and he’d been fool enough to walk away. Now she’d given him her last first and he should be wise enough to know better than to make that mistake twice. He’d lost the right to protest anything before yesterday, when he witnessed a woman who looked familiar traipsing over the trail below him.

But he’d do anything to make sure to keep his future privileges intact. Yes, his career climb had fed a certain part of his ego, but how long did he have to keep proving himself to…to himself?

Val pulled a squeeze bottle of soap from his pack and a collapsible bucket and moved down to the water where he filled it from the chattering creek and returned to her side. Tenderly, he cleaned away the evidence of their afternoon frolic from her skin and his, aware the shadows lengthened and soon their sunny spot would lose its warmth.

Mickie sat up and stretched. “We need to find a better spot to camp, this little valley is going to be a wind tunnel when the evening breeze kicks up.” She moved to stand, but he laid a hand on her arm. Her gaze questioned.

“Soon. We can climb back up. I saw a good place over the next ridge where we can set up the tent. But first let’s talk.”

The beginning of the promised wind brought the aspens above them to noisy life, but their beach remained warm and she nodded. Val sat legs spraddled and pulled her to sit between them, resting against his chest, while he leaned against the rock behind them. A chipmunk raced by on the boulders on the other side of the water and paused to chitter at them.

“He’s scolding us,” she said.

“Probably me.” The cry of a hawk cut through the afternoon and their visitor disappeared into a crevice. “I
’ve made a lot of mistakes.”

Mickie traced idle circles on his bare leg. “Val, everyone makes mistakes. I tried to force your hand way back when, hoping if you…if we made love, I could convince you to change your mind and stay.”

“If we had…” He stilled her touch and patted her hand. “Tickles. If we had, I might have stayed.”

“And that would have been a huge mistake, see? You would have hated me for thwarting your dreams.”

He finger combed her hair, pausing to work out a leafy twig which he held to his nose, inhaling the sharp herbal scent. “High for sage up here.”

She shrugged. “I picked it up somewhere. But do you understand? Your refusing me was the smart thing to do. I know that now.”

He ached to his core for the woman he should have spent his life with. The woman who’d taken him to the highest sexual peak he’d ever experienced. Sex with Mickie was everything he’d thought it would be and more. He’d gladly die buried in her sweet pussy. “I’m not so sure, but I can’t go back.”

“And your family, you can’t regret your girls.”

“No, my daughters and my grandchildren are the light of my life. I want you to meet them.”

“Sure,” she murmured. “
But once you go back, you’ll be busy again. And I understand that. This is our time. We agreed.”

Her sad tone increased the pain in his chest. Men died of heart attacks in their fifties all the time. Was this what it felt like?

Leaning her over his arm, he bent to kiss her, easing the pain. “I’ve made a decision. For years I’ve worked day and night, barely found time for my girls or for the mountains. And when I did hike, I treated the peaks as conquests. Notches on the bedpost of my life. Lots of expensive electronics and fancy equipment, up as quickly as possible, take a picture and back to my desk. I am successful.”

“I always knew you would be.” Her lips curved up in a smile so sweet, he had to kiss her again. “We can’t talk if you keep kissing me.”

“You’re right.” He straightened her to rest against him again and wrapped his arms around her, resting his hands on her abdomen fighting to keep them from sliding farther down to her sweet heat. His cock twitched again. No other woman made him so hard with just a kiss. “You are a big distraction.”

She rubbed her head back and forth, irritating his nipples, and he growled.

She giggled.

“Seriously, stop it or I will have to spank you.”

“Another first.”

His dick hardened at the thought of her naked over his lap and since she was already almost there… “No. I have a lot to say. Please let me get it out.”

She stilled. “I’m sorry. Go ahead.”

“With the girls grown and Julia set for life, between her inheritance and our settlement, my responsibilities have eased. I came out here to think things over, to try to make sense of the mad race that was my life.”

“And have you?”

“I have a full wall of pictures of me on mountaintops on my office wall.”

“Okay.”

“All alone.”

She patted his leg and the sweet gesture broke the dam.

“I don’t want to be alone anymore.” The divorce stirred his dreaming soul and now, lying on a sleeping bag on a sandy beach while the creek burbled past, priorities shifted. “Julia left me for someone else.” He’d been surprised but far less upset than he should have been. “She said we were too old to keep living for other people’s expectations. We needed to find joy and she found it in this other guy.”

“Funny,” Mickie said, her voice tiny. “She didn’t feel that way the summer she spent ensuring you’d choose her over me.”

“No, she didn’t. But our relationship was always missing something and she left me for someone who didn’t live in a dream.”

Mickie tilted her head back to look at him. “A dream? Did she say that?”

“Yes. And I didn’t get it until I saw you again. Here. Now. You.”

Her eyes darkened. “I don’t know what to say to that. I’ve been busy, living my life, but you always held a piece of my heart. Silas knew that, but I don’t think he held it against me. He was a good man and I miss him.”

So much stood between them. A lifetime. “But we’re both free now and I want to see you again.”

“Other than your divorce, what has changed?” She lifted one of her hands to his cheek and he held it there, aching at her words. “You are a busy, busy man with your career and family. I’m busy too. With my career and my mountains.” Tears filled her eyes. “I think I can say good-bye to you. I’ve done it before. Sort of.”

He hadn’t even given her that back then. After rejecting her, he’d boarded the bus and left without… “No, we never said good-bye. And I never want to.”

“I don’t want to move to the city.”

“Mickie, I came
here to decide what I wanted to do. And I am going to step aside, give up my position as CEO.”

She stared. “You’re quitting your job?”

He chuckled. “I am the majority stockholder, so I won’t quit, precisely. I will move out of day-to-day operations. I want time! Time to take my grandchildren to the park, to visit with Mom in her wilderness, to relearn the heartbeat of the mountains. They aren’t something to be conquered. I’m sick of conquests.”

Her caressing palm encouraged him to continue.

“I’d rather take the gifts I’m offered.” He hesitated, choosing his words carefully. “A good deal of my work could be done via telecommute from here or anywhere. I would have to spend some time on the East Coast.”

She arched a brow.

“For the grandchildren.”

Her smile lit her face. “I think that sounds very sensible, so where would you make your home then?”

“With you.”

She paled and struggled to sit upright. “Val, I haven’t seen you in thirty-five years, we’ve spent one day together—”

“One incredible day and night.”

“I’ll give you that. But how can you uproot yourself totally, drop everything and come to live in my cottage, which you haven’t even seen
? Much less been invited to live in.”

He grabbed her and kissed her, putting every ounce of his hope into it. “We can build a bigger house, if we need one.”

“You’ll be bored. I work all the time.”

He kissed her again
, sweetly, putting his whole heart behind it. “When you are at the gallery or working on developing your pictures or whatever, I can deal with my work online. When you’re on shoots or scouting locations, I can come.”

“You’ll be a distraction.”

“Yes, hopefully.”

Her world spun, out of control. Sometimes when a dream came true, it landed like a house on top of a witch in Oz. With a bang, crushing things in its path. And when the door opened…her panic eased.

Out stepped the man who she’d loved unconditionally for most of her life. Gifts. Her eyes pooled with tears as the reality set in.

“If…if I say yes, if I let you in my life again and you decide it’s not for you, it may kill me.” The breeze picked up and she shivered.

His embrace enfolded her and he pulled the end of the sleeping bag around them, cutting off the cold air.

“I have made a lot of mistakes. But I never break a promise. I knew the marriage was over years ago, but I didn’t leave.”

“So if things don’t work out between us, you’ll just stay?”

“No, this time I offer
you
a gift. I offer you my heart, my love and my body. If you will have me, I will show you as much happiness—and pleasure—as you can stand.”

He stilled her reply with a warm brush of his lips.

“So, what do you say? Will you accept a lifetime with an older man?”

“I’ve always wanted to do some photo shoots on the Appalachian Trail.”

“Wonderful, let’s do that.”

Her spirits lifted with every word she, or he, spoke. “I’m also thinking there are probably a lot of handsome men of our age who would make a gorgeous series of photos. The
guy I saw through my lens today has inspired me.”

“I will be with you every step of the way as long as you make me one promise.”

His serious tone held her captive. “What is that?”

He dotted kisses on her shoulder and his hand drifted into her wetness.
“No more pictures of me alone on a mountaintop.”

Mickie
moved to straddle him and mounted his cock, driving him inside her . “No, we’ll be together in every shot, Scout.”

Dear Reader,

I so enjoy writing stories that take place in my own special heaven, the High Sierras
of California and Northern Nevada.
Sierra Seduction
’s location is the spot on the cover, photographed by my talented brother, some miles from our homes in Bishop, California where I have hiked many times with family and friends and, under protest, with my wonderful husband who objects to the fact that room service is unavailable when camping..

I’ve always found tents and sleeping bags under the stars more romantic than the finest hotel suite…something I share with the hero and heroine of this book.

Thank you for reading
Sierra Seduction
. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the story and can be found at
http://katerichards.wordpress.com
or
[email protected]
.

Take care,

Kate Richards