Bravo Unwrapped (18 page)

“B.J.
…” It was Buck's voice, soft and tempting in her ear.

She sighed and snuggled deeper under the covers.

“Wake up, you sleepyhead.”

Reluctantly, she rolled to her back and opened an eye. Buck's battered face loomed above her. She frowned up at him. “You look truly terrible.”

He grinned—or at least, he tried. With his cut lip, it was a lopsided attempt. “I may be ugly, but I feel great. Incredible sex will do that for a guy.” Last night, he'd followed through on the threat he'd made after their snowball fight. It had been a most delicious revenge. For both of them.

She suggested, “I'd stay away from young children for a few days, though. One look at you and they'll run away screaming, damaged for life.”

“Heh-heh-heh.”

“Excuse me?”

“That was the evil laugh of a sex-crazed monster.”

“Oh. Well. Consider me terrified.” She stretched and yawned. “What time is it?”

“Seven-o-two.”

“Ugh. Too early. Wake me up in an hour.” She tried to roll back over onto her side.

But he caught her shoulder. “I've got something to show you.”

“Can't it wait?” She yawned again, a big, wide one.

“Uh-uh.” He threw back the covers.

“Eek. It's freezing.” She looked down at her naked body. “I've got goosebumps on my goosebumps. Give me those covers…”

He shook his head and pointed toward the French doors. “Look.”

Beyond the glass, the sky was silvery gray, the clouds thick enough to obscure the rising sun. And that wasn't all.

She let out a cry of delight. “Hey. It's snowing.” Fat, white flakes drifted softly down. Goosebumps forgotten, she scooted up to her knees. “Oh, Buck. Just what we needed…”

He nodded. He looked extremely pleased with himself, as if he'd been personally responsible for creating the Christmas weather the
Alpha
feature required. “If it keeps up, Lupe can get a bunch of great exterior shots, right here in town.”

“Yeah. With the snow on the rooftops, and piling up along the front walk. That would be perfect.”

“It would, wouldn't it?” He caught her shoulder again and neatly rolled her beneath him.

“Hey!”

Nudging her legs apart, he settled between them. “There. Now,
that's
perfect.”

And he was right. She raised her hips to him, rocking, teasing him. His response was immediate and gratifying. She felt him tucked against her, growing longer. Thicker…

She whispered, “The sex-crazed monster rises again.”

He lowered his head and nipped a line of kisses up over the slope of her shoulder and across her collar bones. She moaned and tossed her head on the pillow—and he lifted up and away from her, going to his knees.

“Get back here,” she commanded, and tried to pull him close again.

But he resisted. “Always so impatient…” He looked down at her, his gaze burning a path along her naked body. Below, she felt herself growing wet already, felt the softening, the silky liquid slide between her thighs. He bent his head close enough to whisper in her ear, “I do love the taste of you…”

Had she really been chilly just a moment ago?

He nibbled her neck, then licked his way down her body in a zig-zagging path, pausing briefly to tease each nipple between his teeth, to dip his tongue into her navel and give the platinum ring there a tug. She moaned as he ran his wet tongue over the inward curve of her waist.

At last, he reached the neatly trimmed curls that covered her increasing arousal. She clutched his silky dark head as he parted her.

Within seconds, she was writhing and moaning. He caught the tight bud of her pleasure lightly in his teeth and he worked it with his tongue.

She went over the edge, just like that—a quick, hot ride to the peak and a swift, shimmery slide down.

He levered up over her body again and kissed her
on the mouth—a half kiss, really, as he was careful to use only the uninjured side of his mouth. She tasted her own wetness and excitement, and marveled how, even when he had only half a mouth to kiss with, he still managed to do a better job of it than any other man she'd ever known. She reached down between them to clasp him, but he moved his hips out of reach.

“Later,” he vowed, pressing a kiss to her throat.

She sighed. She loved to please him—and there was nothing like the feel of him inside her. “Wouldn't take a minute,” she coaxed.

He laughed then, a wonderful, rough, sexy sound. “A little anticipation only makes it all the sweeter when the moment finally comes.” He sat and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “And I have somewhere I want to take you. I'm afraid if we don't get going, the snow could be a problem.”

“Going, where?”

“Today, I want to show you the family gold mine.”

“Gold mine?”

“You're gonna love it.”

“Er, just one tiny question.”

“Ask.”

“If the snow could cause problems getting there, what about coming back?”

“We'll manage.”

“You say that with such confidence.”

“B.J. Trust me.”

“No sensible woman trusts a man who says ‘trust me.'”

“Make an exception, in my case.”

“Hah.”

“Listen. We'll be fine. The road's pretty good most
of the way, a lot of it unpaved, but well-maintained. It only gets iffy the last few miles.”

“Oh. Good to know.”

“I swear it to you. Not a problem. Brand told me he had extensive work done on the roughest part of the road just last summer. And we've got four-wheel drive. Plus, I happen to know that Ma has a set of chains to fit the SUV.”

“Why do I find myself nodding my head? I have to be crazy….”

He winked at her with his good eye. “Sometimes crazy is the best way to be. You're going to love this.”

 

Buck told her that the mine was called the Red Robin. The mineral rights to the Red Robin had come down from Chastity's side of the family. Brett, Brand and Bowie took turns doing the yearly work necessary to hold on to the rights. And there was a cabin—a cabin kept in good repair, stocked with canned goods and plenty of wood for the stove.

“I'm thinking,” Buck told her, after they'd both showered and dressed, “that we could stay overnight. Picture it. Just you and me, in a cozy cabin, with a double bed and a blazing fire…”

It was probably a sign of how far gone she was on him by then, that the idea actually appealed to her.

She asked, “What about Lupe?”

“Uh-uh. Not part of my plan—and she doesn't need to go, anyway. She can stay here, get some snowy location shots around town. And fly back to New York tomorrow.”

“But we might be able to use some pictures of the mine and the cabin—I mean, the mine is part of your history, right?”

“Ma has piles of old pictures of the Red Robin. We'll go through them before we leave on Friday. You can take your pick.”

Well, now, what could she say to that? After all, it would be a lot more romantic with just the two of them.

She could see Buck now, naked in the firelight….

Yes. Oh, definitely.

They packed a duffel bag with the clothes they'd need and Chastity let them raid her pantry for supplies. Buck's mom also provided muffins, fruit and two thermoses: one with coffee for Buck and the other filled with the hot, spicy herb tea that B.J. had recently taken a liking to.

By eight, they were on the road. They sped east on the highway, the big, fluffy flakes of snow coming down thick and steady, slanting at the windshield, gathering in the corners as the wipers shoved them out of the way.

About five miles from town, they turned off onto another road and began climbing in a series of switch-backs, snow coming down thick and steady, and also dropping in globs from the trees that hung over the road, making wet, plopping sounds as it hit the windshield.

After a half hour or so, Buck turned onto yet another road—still paved, but only wide enough for a single vehicle to travel at a time. Not that the lack of room to pass mattered. They saw no other cars. The trees grew closer, inching in nearer the road. They drove in shadow, the lacing of thick pine branches overhead providing a certain amount of cover from the thickly falling snow.

The pavement gave out. For a while, the dirt road
was reasonably smooth. But eventually, the going got pretty rough.

Buck said, sounding pleased, “Now, we're getting somewhere.”

They bounced along. He steered the SUV clear of the gullies and potholes as best he could, but there were too many to miss them all.

And it got worse as the road got steeper.

“Almost there,” he told her, as the engine revved high, carrying them up a last, nearly perpendicular stretch of chuckholes and boulders.

The engine labored scarily the final twenty yards or so from the crest, but ultimately, with a final lugging surge, the wheels hit the top and the vehicle leveled out onto a flat space, an area still pocked with potholes, but wide enough that Buck could turn around. He backed, and rolled forward, passing the steep road they'd just climbed and driving along what amounted to a wide ledge, with the face of the mountain on one side and a steep drop-off on the other.

The ledge got wider—and then she saw it, through the driving snow: a shadow in the shape of a building, with a high-pitched roof and a chimney pipe. A simple structure of weather-silvered wood.

Rustic. Oh, yes. That would be the word.

He stopped the SUV, turned off the engine and leaned his battered face across the console toward her.

She kissed the uninjured side of his mouth, smiling against his lips. “I take it we're here.”

“Yes, we are. Let's get everything inside and get the fire going.”

 

An hour later, they sat at the pine table in the cabin on a pair of roughhewn ladderback chairs. A cheery
fire burned in the stove. They were warm and dry and filling their empty stomachs with the muffins Chastity had packed for them.

Buck watched B.J. as she nibbled a pumpkin muffin and sipped that spicy tea she liked. She looked happy. And completely relaxed.

He drank the coffee he'd brought. “See?” He gestured with his thermos cup. “Didn't I tell you? Paradise, plain and simple.”

She set down her cup and gave him one of those looks.

He asked, innocently, “What?”

“You really should have mentioned the outhouse when you were telling me about how great this place is.”

Buck poured himself a second cup of coffee before explaining, “It's not an outhouse, not technically.”

“Oh, no? Looks like an outhouse to me.”

“And see, that's where you're wrong. By definition, an outhouse is
out
—meaning away from the main building. If it were an outhouse, you'd have to slog through the snow to get to it. The facilities here are much more convenient than that.”

“Because the toilet's in a lean-to beside the back door?”

“That's right. A cinch to get in and get out.”

She let out a distinctly indelicate snort. “Buck. It's still an outhouse. A hole in the ground. A slivery slab of cold wood to sit on…”

He leaned across the table toward her and teased, “Whine, whine, whine…”

She pointed at the tub full of melting snow in the corner and then at the big pot of water on the stove. “And there was that other little detail you failed to
mention. You know, the one about how there's no running water…”

He sipped his coffee. “There's running water. Cold running water, anyway. In the summer.” He indicated the sink and the faucet arching over it. “But Brand shuts it down in early October so the pipes won't freeze.”

“And it's too cold out to try to turn it on again, just for overnight, right?”

“You got it.” He toasted her with his thermos cup.

“No running water,” she groused. “And an outhouse…”

“I thought I just explained—”

“I don't care what you like to call it, it's an outhouse as far as I'm concerned.”

She pointed at the Coleman lantern on the table between them. “Oh, and did I mention, no electricity?”

“Everything looks better by lantern-light.”

“You think so, huh?” She glanced around them, at the unfinished plank walls and floor, at the old stove and the iron-framed bed and the single battered bureau in the corner. “Believe me, I've been here before.” His puzzlement must have shown on his face, because she amended, “Well, not here, specifically, but other places so much like here, it's definitely déjà vu all over again.”

He understood then. “Roughing it with L.T.?” She nodded and he reassured her. “This will be much better.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“I plan to make it up to you for the lack of plumbing, the absence of electricity and the slivers on the toilet seat.”

“You do?”

“Absolutely.”

“How?”

“Guess.”

A smile broke across that kissable mouth of hers and their gazes caught and held. He knew she felt what he felt—that warmth and anticipation low in the belly. She fiddled with the fuel valve on the lantern between them. “You may be right about looking better by lantern-light. You certainly do. It lends a certain…glow to all those cuts and bruises.”

For that, he gave her the best grin he could manage—crooked, maybe. Puffy and black-and-blue on one side. But clearly enthusiastic. And then he reached across the rough surface of the table and rested his hand on her arm. Beneath her heavy sweater, he felt her warmth. He brushed his hand downward, then eased his fingers up under the cuff of the sweater, so he could rub her silky bare skin.

Her breath caught. She leaned closer, mouth soft, eyes shining. “What are you thinking?”

“That I can't wait to get you naked…”