by Jill Shalvis
shocked her, what he could do to her with a simple kiss or touch. If they ever actually got completely naked together, she’d probably go up in flames.
Hell, she might go up in flames right there, the way he had her up against the door. “I take it the meeting is called to order?”
“Yeah. Take notes.” He slid a hand down her back, her thighs, then back up again, pausing to squeeze her bottom with a rough groan before settling a hand at the small of her back to hold her close.
She wanted to wrap her legs around his waist.
“God, Harley. I’ve been on the edge for some time now, and nothing’s worked. Don’t ask me why or how, but being with you works.”
Yeah. Her, too. At least when their tongues were tangling.
“You have a way of getting beneath my skin,” he said softly, spreading his fingers wide on her lower back so that the very tips of them slid beneath the waistband of her pants.
“Something else we agree on,” she said a little breathlessly, extremely distracted by those fingers. “But you’re leaving next week,” she whispered, more to herself than him. “For Alaska. Two jobs in a row. That’s like three months.”
He put a finger under her chin and nudged it up to look into her eyes. “Maybe. And eventually you’re leaving, too. Colorado, remember?”
He was a wanderer at heart, and she was hoping to become one. “I remember.” When he nuzzled his face into her hair, she closed her eyes. “So what are we doing?”
“Not sure, but it feels damn good.”
“Temporarily.”
His mouth worked its way over her jaw. “Sometimes temporarily is all there is,” he murmured against her lips.
It wasn’t a question, but he was asking her something, and she knew what. “You think we could do that?” she asked. “Get involved, then walk?”
“We’re not asking me. We’re asking you.”
Right. He’d made a living out of temporary. But she never had. And yet with him, this…thing, this desperate needy thing, she didn’t want to walk away from, not yet. “I have been wanting to expand my horizons,” she finally said.
A heated smile was her reward, then a gentle bite on her lower lip, which made her gasp. Taking full advantage, he slid his tongue to hers.
The shuddery moan that drifted to her ears was her own, she realized, dazed, as he pulled her shirt from her pants so that he could get beneath to bare skin, both of them sighing with pleasure when he did. He hooked his fingers in her bra and gently tugged the cups down, rasping his thumbs over her nipples, groaning into her mouth when they hardened for him.
She would have collapsed to the floor, but he had a hard thigh between hers holding her up, which was a good thing, because then he shoved up her shirt, bent his head, and took her into his mouth.
Her head fell back and smacked the door. One of his hands slid up her back and cupped her head, protecting it as he worked her breast, teasing her nipple with his teeth, then sucking it between the roof of his mouth and his tongue, hard.
Plastered between his body and the door, she cried out his name, and her mind and body began a countdown to implosion. Her hands were all over him, reaching whatever she could, beneath his shirt, his pecs, his shoulders, his biceps, digging in when he nibbled his way to her other breast.
“God, Harley,” he whispered hoarsely against her skin. “You’re so beautiful. You taste so good. I want—I need—to taste the rest of you.”
He already had her writhing against him, so she was pretty much putty in his hands as he kissed her neck and reached for the button on her pants.
She needed her mouth on him, too. Now. Hell, at that moment, with him sliding a hand inside her underwear to squeeze a bare butt cheek, she’d have happily said yes to anything he wanted.
To everything he wanted.
Someone banged on the door right behind her head, and she nearly went into heart failure.
“TJ.” It was Nick. “The natives are getting restless.”
TJ took his mouth off Harley’s throat but left one hand on her breast, the other in her pants. “Give them another mimosa.”
“Another mimosa and you’ll be carrying them to their kayaks.”
His thumb brushed over her nipple, and she had to bite her lip hard to keep from making a sound. “Five minutes,” TJ told Nick, watching Harley’s face.
They heard Nick’s sigh, and then silence.
Harley hadn’t moved. She’d held herself still as need and panic pulsed through her veins instead of blood.
“Breathe,” TJ murmured, smoothing back her hair to press his mouth to the sensitive skin beneath her ear when she gulped in a breath.
He nibbled at her earlobe, his arms tightening on her as he continued assaulting her senses, one hand sliding farther into her panties. He had long arms, and she understood that was a bonus as he reached even farther, and then farther still. And when he found her wet and ready, he groaned deep in his throat.
“TJ,” she gasped when he slid one of those long fingers inside her. “We can’t—”
He added another finger, gliding them in and out of her, using the wet pads of those fingers to graze over ground zero.
As unbelievable as it was, she felt her toes curl. She was going to go over for him. “TJ,” she choked out, trying to squeeze her legs together to prevent it, but he had a thigh between hers, holding her open as he stroked her. God. “It’s your turn—I can’t—TJ!”
“Christ, I love the sound of my name on your lips,” he murmured, kissing said lips, taking her lower one between his teeth and tugging just enough to have her hiss out a breath. “Say it again,” he demanded softly as he gently but firmly stroked her, and when she helplessly complied, moaning his name, he smiled roughly against her. “Yeah, like that.” He grazed her nipple again, watching from beneath hooded eyes as hers drifted shut in pleasure.
They flew open again when he dropped to his knees.
“Wait! What are you—”
“Just relax. This will only take a few minutes.” When his hands tugged her pants to her thighs, her hands went to his hair. She meant to tug him up, even tightened her fingers in the silky strands to do so, but then he pushed her thighs open as much as he could with her pants at half mast. “You’re so wet,” he whispered, and glided a thumb over her, opening her up for him.
“TJ,” she managed, but then he leaned in and kissed her, there, using his tongue in the exact right rhythm her body needed.
He knew her body better than she did.
It should have shocked her, but she couldn’t obsess over that at the moment because he was making slow stroking motions, holding her hips still for his ministrations, his mouth hot as he sucked and bit, feeding her into a desperate frenzy, and she felt her body tighten, felt every single muscle clenching in sweet agony.
His hair was falling over his forehead as he gave her his fierce, full attention, and unbelievably, as she watched him, she felt the first shudder hit her. “TJ,” she cried out, shocked, overwhelmed that he’d been able to get her there again, right there on the edge.
“You taste as good as I thought you would.” Then he sucked her into his mouth, nudging her right over that edge, and she exploded.
She was halfway back to earth when the knock came again.
“Goddammit, TJ!” came Nick’s hushed voice. “Annie’s going to kill one of those silly girls if you don’t hurry! She’s blaming Not-Abigail.”
“Coming.” TJ cocked his head up at Harley, grinning at the double meaning.
Harley was still leaning against the door, unable to move. TJ righted her clothes for her while she just stood there breathing like a lunatic, shaky as hell. When he’d finished, he leaned into her again, forearms flat on the door on either side of her head, and with his mouth against hers, smiled, eyes warm. “Hi.”
Her lids felt heavy but she managed to look at him. “Hi.”
His hips were pinned to hers, pushing against her so that she could feel every solid inch of w
hat was waiting for her, if they ever got that far. “I can’t believe you—that I—” She closed her eyes again and shook her head, desperately trying to slow her racing heart and put a thought together. “I’ve never been like this, you know. Never have been able to—”
“You’ve never come with a man before?”
Her eyes flew open and she met his steady, patient gaze. “No, I have. Of course I have, I just…not this easily.” She squeezed her eyes shut again. “It’s a problem.”
He frowned as he ran his thumb along her jaw. “Problem?”
“Every time you touch me, I…” She grimaced.
He smiled. “Come?”
“Yes!” She took a drag of air. “You have to stop that.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“You have to! It’s your turn!”
His eyes darkened. “Ever since you told me about that night at Long Lake, I’ve racked my brain trying to remember it, trying to make sure I didn’t hurt you, that your first time was memorable, and I can’t.” He shoved his fingers into his hair, standing there, arms up, taut and strained. “It’s been killing me.”
She gaped at him. “So is that what this has been? You trying to make it up to me?”
He didn’t answer but she saw the truth in his gaze, the soft regret, the heat and desire, and even more devastating, the affection, and it did the unexpected.
It softened her.
For once he seemed unable to read her. He was quietly watching her, and when she didn’t speak, he rubbed his bristly jaw to hers. “Are you okay?”
Funny, but she was. Maybe even better than okay. Sure, this probably was going to end in heartbreak, but that was for the future. She’d always lived for the damn future and she was tired of that. For once she was going to live in the moment.
And enjoy every single second of it.
At least for the next week anyway. Putting her hands to his biceps, she turned them, pressed him to the door, cupping his face to brush her mouth over his jaw. She was trying to find the words to tell him how okay she was, that he had nothing to make up for, but found herself distracted by how his body felt held between the door and hers, how deliciously hard he was.
Everywhere.
Her hands slid down his chest and he groaned. She kept moving, over his belly, heading for gold.
“Goddammit, TJ!” came Nick’s voice through the door. “I’ve been out there alone for fifteen minutes. Those girls have grabbed me at least twice, and I think Annie went looking for her gun.”
“Fuck.” TJ let out a long, shuddery breath and straightened, jaw tight. “Ready?” he asked Harley.
“I am.” She glanced down at the huge bulge in front of his cargoes. “But I don’t know about you.”
“Baby, if I was any more ready, I’d bust out of my skin.” He closed his eyes. “Now don’t talk to me for a minute. I’ve got to picture somebody’s grandma naked.”
She heard the laugh burst out of her as his words bathed over her, infusing her with a power she’d never felt before. She’d never been sexually aggressive, so when she found herself reaching out and running a finger over his zipper, and the hot length beneath it, she shocked herself.
A sound of raw desire tore from deep in his throat. “Harley.”
She did it again.
With another one of those sexy growls, he grabbed her wrist and gulped some air in. “Not helping.” He opened the door and gently shoved her out in front of him. “Go.”
She looked at him over her shoulder, and he groaned again, squeezing his eyes shut.
She felt another surge of that power and confidence, and unable to hold it back, she smiled.
He took it in and helplessly matched it. “Killing me here, Harley. Killing me.”
CHAPTER 22
Outside, TJ and Harley helped Nick load up the coeds and all the gear.
“About fuckin’ time,” Nick whispered over the top of the truck as they tied on the kayaks. “Jesus, what the hell were you two doing in there?”
“Do we need to have the birds and bees talk again?”
Nick rolled his eyes. “But the closet? With Harley? Seriously, what is it with you guys?”
“Hey, I seem to remember you and Annie just last week in the snowcat.”
“That’s different.”
“Really? How?”
“Well…” Nick scratched his head. “We’re old married farts.”
“You just turned forty. Not exactly ready for the senior home.”
“Just trying to keep it interesting. Besides, Annie attacked me. It’s the pregnancy hormones or something. I can’t keep up with her. She’s like a cat in heat. She wakes me up in the middle of the night to—”
“Stop!” TJ covered his ears. “Christ. I do not want to hear this.”
Nick grinned, apparently over his mad. “What happened to the no nookie-on-the-job rule?”
TJ and his brothers had come up with that rule a long time ago, when they’d first started the business. No fucking around on the job.
Literally.
There’d been slip-ups, most notably Cam’s thing with Katie last year, but for the most part, the rule had kept them from being stupid. “Harley isn’t a client.”
At that moment, she came up beside them to help tie the kayaks down. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair a little tousled. Her shirt was still untucked.
Nick pulled her in for an easy, affectionate hug and sent TJ a long, level look of warning over her head.
Yeah, yeah. She was like Nick’s baby sister, and if TJ hurt her, he was dead. Got it. As for Harley, she was looking adorably flustered, and to TJ, sexy as hell. Just watching her fingers work the ropes reminded him of how they’d felt outlining his—
“I don’t understand why you need my help with this trip,” she said softly, gesturing to the coeds. “Looks like any guy’s idea of a wet dream to me, having those four Mountain Barbies all to yourself.” She met TJ’s gaze. “Explain it to me again?”
“I need you to protect me.”
Nick smirked, then smoothed it into a smile when Harley glanced over at him. As far as “protecting” went, Nick would go to great lengths to do exactly that for Harley. Hell, they all would, which reminded TJ that if he screwed this up and hurt her, there’d be a lot of people looking to strangle him. Specifically Cam, Stone, and Nick. And while he could take any one of them, he was pretty sure that against all three he’d get his ass kicked.
Nick drove them out to the trailhead at the start of the Snake River. The plan was for him to make a food drop at the halfway mark the next day, then pick them all up at the ending point in two days.
Katie had given Harley the trip details to read on the ride, though it was hard to absorb details when she was still quivering from what TJ had done to her up against the door in the closet—which she was absolutely not going to think about.
She forced herself to concentrate on the file. The trip was relatively simple. Kayaking. Two nights of camping. She was to record the trip with her camera, and maybe give out some wildlife facts while she was at it.
No problem. She was experienced enough for that. She could kayak to Mexico if she had to. Cooking might be a little bit of a problem, but hey, TJ knew going into it what her skills were. He could cook. She’d happily serve and clean up.
Simple.
TJ rode shotgun in the front seat next to Nick. He was slouched back, looking deceptively lazy and at ease as the girls chattered incessantly amongst themselves. He looked like he was breathing once every other minute or so, and maybe that’s what he had to do in order to survive the silliness coming from the back, lower his heart rate to hibernation level.
Lani and Tandy asked about the landscape and the river, and TJ opened a map and showed them the proposed route, passively pleasant and professional. But when Shelly and Kitty asked about him personally, like was he single, did he date college-age sorority girls, and what was his favorite drink, he didn’t respond.
Nick shot H
arley a glance in the rearview mirror, and Harley bit her lower lip to hold back her smile.
At the staging area, the girls pulled off their shorts and T-shirts, once again revealing their teeny tiny bikinis as they put on the protective gear that TJ and Nick handed out and insisted on