A Thrill to Remember (5 page)

She wanted to ask him what he was going to do next, but the words would not come. If her very life had been threatened she could not have spoken. She could do nothing but wait in suspended animation for the abracadabra magic that would break his spell.

And then he kissed her.

His lips were warm, soft and perfect. Damn, but the man could kiss. She moaned wantonly into his mouth. Not in a thousand years could Meggie have predicted the earth-cracking impact of Don Juan’s kiss or her body’s out-of-control response to him.

The excitement of pretending to be an accomplished seductress, the scintillating ego boost from Don Juan’s admiration, the titillating secrecy of their masks, the sexy hide and seek, the frank discussion of their sexual limits had dissolved into something much more primal than mere play-acting the very moment his lips brushed hers.

The friction of his kiss unraveled every firm lecture she’d given herself about protecting her heart and staying far away from bad boys. Because none of that mattered at this wondrous moment, when the baddest of bad boys was sweetly, tenderly cajoling her with the silky slide of his mouth across hers, taking time and care to draw her deeper, ever deeper into dangerous territory. Meggie had no defenses against his special brand of languid seduction and beguiling charm. And when he carefully eased her back against the trunk of the tall Sitka spruce and slanted her lips more firmly beneath his, she came utterly undone.

No way out. Absolutely none.

For support, she gripped his corded forearms, which were covered only by his thin shirtsleeves, and held on for dear life. Even though their masks rubbed together as they kissed, Meggie had no desire to remove the barricade and reveal herself.

She liked this experience—anonymous, provocative, daring.

This secrecy was what she craved. As Klondike Kate she was a bold, brash, seductive woman who knew lots of sexy tricks. As Meggie, she was an ordinary twenty-nine-year-old nurse who’d been dumped for a younger woman. She wanted to live this fantasy if only for a short while. Wanted to feel feminine and desirable again.

His eager tongue dipped inside to taste her, tormenting her with silken assaults that liquefied her knees and set her nerve endings tingling. Brazenly, she hunted for a more in-depth sampling of him. At the delicious flavor of man and shrimp and red wine, she shivered.

Ah, sweet lover, thy name is Don Juan.

She shouldn’t have been so surprised to find he was a man who took his time and did a thorough job. He kissed her with a scrumptious sleepiness, as if he possessed all the time in the universe captured in the flat of his hand. He seemed intent on exploring every indulgence her mouth had to offer, as if he was memorizing every nuance of taste and texture.

And perhaps he was, for Meggie was doing the same, committing every flavor, every smell, every touch to memory. In the days ahead, whenever she felt lonely or dowdy or depressed, she would take out this moment like a treasured photograph and mentally review it over and over and over again.

He pressed his hips closer, making her all too aware of his burgeoning erection, pinning her hard against the tree trunk. The smell of tree and man combined into an earthy, sprucy scent that sent voluptuous flourishes of sensation coursing throughout her eager body.

With his thumb, he traced her jaw, and her skin caught fire. His wide chest was pressed firmly against hers. Beneath the bustier, her breasts swelled and her nipples tightened and ached. His masculine thigh insinuated itself between her trembling legs and she felt his penis, covered by that tight stretch of black leather, grow even harder against the curve of her hip. Heated desire uncoiled deep within her parts most feminine.

She had never kissed a man with a mustache, and the hair on his upper lip was soft and smooth. She’d expected it to be bristly and uncomfortable. Their masks chafed together in a maddening way and she found herself wanting to rip away their disguises, but she was too afraid of what she might find. Too afraid he would no longer want her once the secrecy had been dispelled.

When he took the kiss even deeper, Meggie responded with an enthusiasm that terrified her. Never had she experienced a passion this all-encompassing, spontaneous and fierce. She had never with such careless abandon wanted a man. Not even in her most untamed daydreams.

What was happening to her, the woman who until tonight had never really cared that much about sex? Nothing had ever prepared her for this kind of concentrated, consuming hunger and desperate, painful need. She was flummoxed, stunned by the intensity of what was happening. Without even realizing it, she’d been searching for something to make her feel alive again, and now, here it was. With one explosive kiss Don Juan tapped into her secret yearnings and made her crave more. So very much more.

What had he done?

While her love-famished body wanted to find out where this irresistible delight might lead, her rational brain reminded her that she wasn’t the kind of woman who indulged in one-night stands. Neither a madam costume nor a single kiss, no matter how thrilling and mind-bendingly awesome, could change her into someone she wasn’t.

Sensing the shift in her mood, Don Juan slowly dragged his lips from hers. He was breathing heavily, his forceful blue eyes locked on her gaze, his mouth glistening wet from her moisture.

“You’ve stolen my control,” he murmured hoarsely into her ear. “And, I fear, my heart as well.”

This was part of the game, she reminded herself. He didn’t really mean that she’d stolen his heart. Nor did she want him to mean those words. This was about animal attraction, pure and simple. She wasn’t prepared for anything else.

To prove her point, she took his hand and lifted his index finger to her lips. In deliberate, measured increments, she slowly took his thick, round digit into the recesses of her mouth.

He groaned. Loudly.

The searing wet velvet of her tongue had him writhing. Oh, she was wickedly good. His cock bulged against his pants and he feared the seam was going to split right open. He couldn’t stand this torture a minute longer.

She looked up at him. Caleb watched her irises grow dark as velvet emeralds and her pupils widen with stark, desperate desire. She wanted him. Savagely.

And best of all, she didn’t know that he was the wealthy, unattached Bear Creek bachelor. She didn’t want him for his money or what he could buy her.

A surge of fire sped through his veins. Her bare thigh brushed his leather-covered one and he heard her hitch in her throat.

Unable to let the moment pass without indulging himself in one of his milder fantasies, he raised his hand and gently glided his rough fingers along the outline of her chin, relishing the soft smoothness of her feminine jaw, wondering what her cheekbones looked like beneath that sexy red-feathered mask.

They were face-to-face and chest-to-chest. A shadowy expression of pent-up passion clouded her gray-green eyes.

He reached up to touch her hair, his fingers almost trembling from the tension that was building layer upon layer, but she blocked his hand with hers.

“No. Don’t,” she said.

“Why not?”

“It’s a wig.”

“What color is your real hair?” he asked, aching to dispose of the wig and plunge his fingers through her sleek locks.

“Let’s not ruin the fantasy.”

“All right.”

He cradled her in his arms, all the while plumbing her ripe, rich mouth. She responded in kind, sending the flames of his libido higher and higher with each flick of her fiendish tongue. Her fingers traced enticing circles over his face and along the edge of his mask. He could feel the steady drubbing of her heart. He stared down into her eyes and felt himself falling, falling, falling.

Playfully, Klondike Kate bit his bottom lip and growled low in her throat, sending his control shattering into a million pieces.

“I need….” she whispered, and that was all she said. It was all she needed to say because he understood her perfectly.

“I know.”

His arousal matched hers. Their intrepid game had generated a craving in him he feared might never be sated, and he knew without words that she felt the same way.

Her lips parted and her eyes remained transfixed on his as if she were mesmerized. Slowly, she lifted her hands and softly traced her fingertips along his mouth. Her feathered touch triggered a reaction in him so potent he was ready to explode. As the real Don Juan most assuredly would have, Caleb took advantage of the situation and surrendered to his basic male instincts.

He kissed her again.

Soft, slow and sweet. Gently, tenderly. He knew if he didn’t approach this with care, his control would be shot.

Easy. Take it easy.

But what an almost impossible task it was not to slake their desire with rough, spontaneous pleasure.

“The skaters’ cabin,” she whispered.

“What?”

She nodded toward the clearing. “I saw a skaters’ cabin near the pond. This time of year it’s sure to be empty, and far more comfortable than the forest floor.”

He stared at her, incredulous. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Bending down, she retrieved her fallen purse, tucked it under her arm, then raised her head to meet his gaze.

“Take me,” she said.

HE SCOOPED HER into his arms, carried her through the forest and into the clearing.

It felt like a dream, a fantasy, a fairy-tale romance.

Without the happily ever after ending, of course. But that was okay. She didn’t believe in happily ever after anymore. What she believed in now was living in the moment.

She wanted wild, mind-blowing sex and lots of it. She wanted to prove once and for all that she was not a lousy lay. She wanted to explore, experiment and enjoy. She wanted to reach for and achieve her maximum potential as a woman.

His boots clattered on the wooden steps to the cabin. Giggling, she reached out to open the door and he carried her over the threshold like a virgin bride—cherished, treasured, prized.

The cabin, which would have no electricity until the pond froze over for the winter and Caleb or one of the other naturalists brought over a generator from the ranger’s station, was awash in darkness.

Don Juan set her on her feet and put out a hand to steady her. Even with moonlight slanting across the wooden floor, she could barely make out the shape of a sofa pushed against the wall. Then he closed the door behind them, smothering all light and plunging them into blackness so thick Meggie caught her breath. The utter darkness disoriented her. It was too dense, too absolute.

His heady masculine scent enveloped her, drowning out the musty, stale cabin smell. Leather, oranges, cinnamon, licorice and a bracing woodsy aroma. His large hand tightened around hers and he slowly waltzed her toward the sofa. They knew they’d arrived at their destination when their shins brushed against the vinyl material. He eased her down on the seat, then let go of her hand and stepped away.

“Don Juan?” Fear and excitement in an invigorating combination charged through her.

Nothing.

She inhaled shakily. The vinyl was cool and slick against her barely clothed bottom. Meggie strained to hear sounds of him moving. A whispered breath, a creaky floorboard.

“Are you still there?”

Nothing.

Then from out of the ether, a heavy hand settled on her right knee.

She jerked.

Because she could neither see nor hear anything, the hand seemed disconnected, detached, the touch of a phantom lover straight from some erotic hallucination. Warm fingers crept up her knee to her inner thigh.

She tensed, with anticipation or apprehension; she couldn’t really say which. The feelings surging through her were electrified, distorted by the sensation of both time and place suspended. Nothing felt real, and yet at the same moment her body hummed with heightened intensity that channeled all her focus to this minute stroking of her skin.

The hand continued, moving upward to skim over her bustier to her waist, and finally stopping to lightly caress her tormented breasts through the stiff lacy material.

No more!

She couldn’t tolerate idly waiting. She had to participate in this exquisite teasing. Palms extended, she reached out for him and found his chest. She hissed in air when her fingertips grazed bare, muscled skin and she realized he’d discarded his shirt. Her fingers sank into the soft tuft of chest hair, and the strangeness of his body heightened the dark fantasies revolving through her head.

The texture of his skin, the sculpted configuration of his musculature felt alien but oddly right. She and her unfamiliar lover were alone—in the dark, deep forest, in a deserted cabin. Her normally taciturn body had become wickedly willful, silently begging for more mystery, more suspense. She knew neither this man nor her new self that his caresses had unearthed. And she liked the indefiniteness of it all.

Her hands roamed, learning this different man by the sense of touch. His flesh was damp and hot beneath her palms. The heaviness of his breathing filled her ears, and as she kneaded first his chest and then his shoulders, she felt his fingers work the numerous tiny hooks at the back of her bustier.

Meggie explored him thoroughly, touching here, there, everywhere.

She sensed the raw energy pulsing through his pores. He untied the cape from around her neck. She felt the bustier fall apart in the back, experienced the blaze of his hot, wet mouth as he planted it on her sensitive shoulder blade.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” he asked. “To lie with me?”

He was giving her a way out. She was eternally grateful for his consideration, his kindness in fact heightening her desire for him.

“I’m sure.”

“I would hate for you to have regrets.”

“No regrets. I promise.”

“What would you like?” he whispered. “I want to please you.”

“Being with you and playing this game pleases me.”

“I need more information. I need specifics.”

“Like what? I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Where should I touch you? And how? Soft? Hard? Slow? Quick?”

“Anything.” She moaned softly and arched into the curve of his body. She wished to sample it all. “Everything.”

“You are an adventuresome woman.”

“Thanks to you, I am now.”

She shivered at the wonder of what was happening. An electric power gushed between them, a vital power strong enough to light the whole of Alaska. They needed neither lamp nor torch. Their passion gave them the vision to see each other as they really were.

Open, vulnerable, ready.

“Where shall we begin?” he whispered.

“Kisses. Lots of kisses.”

“Hmm.” He pulled her onto his lap so that she was facing forward, her bare back flush against his naked chest, her legs astride his leather-clad thighs. “A very good start.”

And then, for what seemed like an eternity of bliss, he kissed her. Brief, velvety kisses on the back of her neck, over her shoulders, down her spine. She tossed her restless head back and he kissed her jaw, her ear, her throat.

He shifted her position, turning her around until they faced each other in the darkness. The sizable bulge in his pants grew harder against her silk-covered womanhood as he planted long, moist kisses on her lips, her chin and the hot pulse throbbing at her collarbone.

Lower and lower he roved, moving her for comfort as he went. First kissing, then licking and at last gently nipping a trail from her neck to her nipples and down her rib cage to her smooth, flat belly. She ended up with her back on the vinyl couch cushion and his taut male body positioned over her, one leg planted on either side of her thighs.

Meggie groaned. “No fair,” she whispered. “My turn to tease you. What do you like?”

“Talk dirty to me,” he whispered. “Tell me exactly what you’d like for me to do to you.”

“Oh, my.” Meggie felt the color drain from her face. She wasn’t sure she could be that boldly uninhibited.

Dull in bed.

The mean-spirited words rang in her head.

Do it. Tell him what you want.

Meggie panted, short and hard, at the thought.

“Tell me,” he insisted in a commanding tone that curled her toes.

“I…I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know how.”

“Open your mouth and say the words.”

She hesitated.

“What are you afraid of?”

“That I won’t do it right,” she confessed.

“Why would you think that?”

She shrugged.

“Let me guess. Some jerk you’ve been with has misled you about your desirability.”

“He said I was dull in bed.”

“Dull! You?” Don Juan’s vehement reaction warmed her heart. “You are anything but dull. Now talk to me.”

“I don’t have the guts.”

“Yes, you do. Let me hear you say it.”

Pretend you’re Klondike Kate. She’s not dull. Forget the past. Lose yourself. This isn’t really real. It’s just a dream. Play-acting.

“What do you want?” His low, husky Spanish accent dragged her into the fantasy. She could do this. She would prove that she was brave and exciting and wildly sexual.

Meggie swallowed. “Take off my panties.”

“That’s good. Very good.”

In an instant he slid the silk of her tap pants down her hips, past her knees to her ankles and then over her shoes. A blast of air cooled her heated flesh and she shivered.

“Now what?” he asked.

“Finger me.”

“Where?”

“Down there.”

“Down where?” She heard the teasing tone of amusement in his voice.

“You know.”

“Down here?” He lightly entangled his fingers in the curly hairs at the juncture between her legs.

“Lower.” She was panting so hard she could scarcely speak.

His three middle fingers slid over the slick mound of her womanhood and edged toward her aching center. One finger went left, one right, the other straight down the middle.

“Here?”

She nodded, breathless.

“Shall I go on?”

“Uh-huh,” she whimpered.

“Say it.”

“I…I…”

His face was pressed against her ear, his leather mask rubbing her cheek. She could see absolutely nothing; the darkness was as pure as her desire. Gulping, she squeezed her eyes tightly closed. The hypersensitive sensations spurring through her groin were incredible.

“You’ve got to tell me or it won’t happen.”

Say it, Meggie!

Oh, the risks she was taking, the things she was learning about herself.

Dull no more.

“I want to feel your fingers inside me,” she said, surprising herself with a strong voice of authority.

He obeyed, sinking his middle digit deep within her warm recess. Meggie gasped out loud and clutched his hair in both her fists.

“You’re so wet,” he whispered. “So hot.”

She tightened her muscles around his finger and his responding groan made her smile into the darkness.

He raised up to kiss her again, his body wedged between her and the back of the sofa, his mouth searching for hers as his inquisitive finger continued gently to investigate her delicate nook. When she arched her pelvis against his hand, he chuckled with satisfaction.

Stroking, rubbing, massaging.

The pressure built inside her like a balloon being blown up…and up…and up…to the point where one more expanse of air would cause it to explode.

Then he stopped and removed his hand.

Meggie cried out in despair. “Don’t torture me.”

“Do you want me to make you come?” he asked.

She pushed her hips higher and whimpered, low and impulsive.

“Tell me.”

“I want you to make me come. Please, please, please. Make me come now.”

Caleb’s ego soared. He tenderly sucked on her bottom lip while slowly moving his finger in and out, in and out of her magnificent softness. Her moans spiraled steadily, filling the empty blackness with her throaty, feminine noise until his ears rang with the splendid sound.

Her tongue thrashed against his. Her breasts quivered. Her hips undulated madly. And when he slid a second finger inside to join the first one, she momentarily stopped breathing.

Her entire body stiffened. He felt her hover on the edge, her muscles taut, straining. When he touched his thumb to her clitoris she let loose a high, keening sound of pleasure.

“Don’t…stop,” she begged, her voice muffled with the expectation of climax. “Oh, oh, oh…”

And then, in one shattering moment, she came.

Her muscles spasmed around his fingers, her buttocks arching off the sofa cushions. He’d never witnessed anything so lovely.

An indescribable emotion tightened his chest. He felt as much satisfaction as if he himself had climaxed. This was his purpose—to pleasure this beautiful woman and help her heal whatever demons it was that pursued her. For he knew without knowing how he’d come by the knowledge that she had followed him into the forest as a tonic for what ailed her. He was so happy that he had been able to give her this small respite.

She sagged against him and he held her close. He murmured sweet nothings in made-up Spanish, listened as her heart slowed from a racing gallop to a sedate pace.

He felt oddly sated, to the point that when she reached up in the darkness, cupped his chin and said, “Now it’s your turn.” He shook his head.

“No,” he said softly.

She pushed against his chest, struggling to sit up. “Why not?” she asked.

Caleb frowned. It had been bugging him for a while now, ever since she’d forgotten to speak in her Klondike Kate vernacular. Her voice sounded naggingly familiar. Did he know her?

“I would rather wait.”

He realized it was true. He had to see her again, and he feared if they fully consummated their passion he never would. But if he left her aching for more…who knew how long this game might last? Maybe, just maybe, she’d want to return for seconds.

“Wait?” Panic settled in her voice, obscuring the familiarity. “Wait for what? I don’t want to wait.”