Hot to Touch (Kimani Romance) (10 page)

E
mma grimaced and readjusted her pack.

Her feet hurt like hell and her back was beginning to burn from carrying the backpack for the last hour. Although Shane had carried the heavier pack with most of their gear, she was more than ready to take a break.

Despite that, she pressed on, excited for the opportunity to view a historical fire and gather information for her article. But more than that, she was eager and more than a bit anxious, wondering what it was about the place they were headed that held significance for Shane. And she was more than sure that it did hold some value for him.

“Just over this bridge is the trail that will lead to the
site,” he told her as she was hoisting the pack higher on her back.

“Want me to take that for you?” he asked, with concern in his eyes as he looked down at her while she readjusted the backpack.

“I got it,” she replied, smiling past her fatigue, trudging on as they continued along the path.

When it dropped quickly, ending at a long, roped-off bridge set above a small creek, Shane turned back around to face her. “We’re almost there. There it is, over there,” he said, pointing.

Just beyond the bridge, where he was pointing, she spotted a clearing that would take them to their final site.

After crossing the old, wooden bridge, Emma kept glancing over at Shane, feeling the tension shrouding him grow thicker the closer they got. When they finally reached the site, Emma drew in a deep breath, a strange sadness overwhelming her. Unlike the land along the path leading up to the site, this area was barren, with its straw-colored grass and hollowed-out remnants of trees, all of which were evidence of the extremity of the fire’s devastation long ago.

Oddly burdened, Emma allowed her pack to drop to her feet, and with a heavy heart lifted her camera to take several shots.

She didn’t know Shane had come up behind her until he spoke. “Over there is the cabin that still stands. The only one that survived the fire. Come on, I’ll take you over there.”

Placing her camera back in her backpack, she
followed him the short distance to the burned-out cabin.

Shane removed their gear from his back, placing it near the rotted steps, and turned to Emma.

“This was the first place that Kyle took me, right after I passed the test, the day after I became a jumper,” he began. Although he was looking down at her, it was as though he wasn’t really seeing her.

He turned away, looking off to the distance. “The fire grew fast. It was so fast that the West Yellowstone jumpers had to call in reinforcements.”

Emma’s brow wrinkled. She knew the story. And because of the dates, she wondered about the significance for Shane and his friend, both having been too young to actually have jumped the fire.

He turned to face her again, seemingly guessing her thoughts from her expression. “No, he didn’t jump it, but it was there that he became a man, he told me. Come here,” he said, reaching out for her to take his hand.

He sat down on the feeble steps to the old cabin, stretching his long legs out in front of him, and Emma followed, sitting close, turning toward him.

“Kyle came from a long line of firefighters and smoke jumpers. His grandfather was one of the first smoke jumpers in the West, in Montana. Kyle’s father belonged to the first group of men to start the station here in Wyoming. This was the last fire his father jumped. And he was here to witness it.”

“Oh, Shane…I’m sorry for your friend.”

Emma leaned into his body, sympathetic to the sadness and remorse in his voice for his friend’s loss.

Shane glanced down, offering her an absent smile. “It was hard for Kyle. He was only ten at the time, and it was the first time he’d managed to convince his father to watch him jump. His father’s chute didn’t open correctly, and the secondary one came out late and the wind had changed direction and blew him into a burning tree. The jump line wrapped around his body, and he couldn’t cut it before it was too late. Kyle witnessed the entire thing.”

“Oh, God, that’s awful!”

Shane sighed. “Yeah, it was. His father was everything to him.” He turned to face her, and she wrapped both arms around his waist.

“When Kyle brought me here, it wasn’t to share a sad story. It was to tell me that this was the place where he became a man.”

“How so?”

“They’d gotten his father down, and after air-evacuating him out, he lived long enough to say goodbye to both Kyle and his mother. Kyle made his father a promise that he would do the same thing his father did, the same thing as his grandfather. He promised to protect those who needed him.”

Emma remained silent, her arms still linked around his waist as he spoke.

“Part of that promise was to continue their family’s dedication to fighting fires. The other was to take care of his mother.

“He knew my own story, but Kyle was never one to
preach. He never was one to tell a man how to
be
a man. He led by example. Both as a man and a jumper.”

Emma held her breath, feeling the tension in his body.

“See, I never thought I had been man enough for my own mother. After my father left, my mother had to work two jobs, and in between those times, I rarely saw her.”

He stopped, drawing in a breath. “And when I did, nine times out of ten she had a glass of scotch in one hand and no time for me. I hated her. I hated her for bailing out on me like that. I hated her for a lot of reasons.”

He stopped talking. Emma wondered what it must have been like for him, her heart aching for the boy he once was.

“I started getting in trouble. A lot. Guess I thought bad attention was better than no attention at all. Skipping school, stealing…” He stopped, and Emma nodded, remembering when he told her the first night they were together about the trouble he got into as a young man. She hadn’t known at the time it had started earlier in his childhood, believing his behavior started when he was in foster care.

“Eventually my trouble got the attention of the school social worker, and the state took over. They placed me in foster care after coming out for a home visitation.”

“What happened to your mother, exactly?” she asked. “Doesn’t it require a lot to put a child in foster care?” She’d thought the death of his mother had been
the reason for him entering the system. “How did she…die?” she asked, as gently as she could.

“The time they visited, Mom was passed out on the sofa, bottles scattered around her and the house in shambles. One look around the house, dishes piled in the sink, clothes all over the place, and me looking like the thug I was turning into and I was immediately taken from her on the spot,” he answered, his voice clipped.

Emma closed her eyes and leaned against him, trying to lend support in the only way she could.

“It was supposed to be temporary. Turned out it was permanent. She never came to visit while I was there. They said she never returned the calls they sent, either. It turns out the minute I was taken away she took off. A few years later I was notified that she’d died.”

“God, baby…baby, I’m so sorry…”

“It’s okay.
I’m
okay. But it took me getting into a hell of a lot of trouble to wise up. And that was because of Kyle. For a long time, as far back as I could remember, I thought I hadn’t been ‘man’ enough to help my mother. I hadn’t been what she needed, that somehow I was responsible for my dad leaving and for her dying.”

“You were only a child. You weren’t responsible—”

“I know that now. It just took me a long time to understand it. It took an even longer time for me to believe it.”

As he spoke, his voice low, telling her how, when Kyle brought him to Sweetwater Trail and shared his story with him, Shane finally realized that it wasn’t
his fault. How at that moment he realized his life was his own and that what he chose to do with it was up to him.

“I guess it’s where I kinda laid to rest some of the old ghosts,” he finished.

Emma struggled with the feelings his tale had stirred, struggled with her own ghosts, the ones that made her feel much as he had.

The feeling that she wasn’t good enough.

He turned to her. She swallowed hard, seeing the pain in his eyes. “I’ve been alone my whole life, Emma. With the exception of Kyle…the jumpers. I’m not sure I’m looking for anything else. Anyone else. You deserve someone better than me. Someone who can—”

She placed a finger over his mouth, halting his words.

“I’ve been alone my whole life, too, Shane.” She turned away from him, swallowing down the emotion that threatened to overwhelm her.

“I’ve enjoyed being with you. Making love to you. And when our time is over, well…”

He pulled her back around to face him.

“You deserve more than that, Emma. You deserve someone who can love you. Someone who can take care of you, give you what you need.” His worried gaze traveled over her face, and Emma forced a smile on her mouth.

“Let’s just enjoy the time we have now. I learned a long time ago that nothing is promised beyond today. I can take care of myself.” While she spoke the confident
words, she didn’t know that she was trying to convince Shane of the truth of her words as much as herself.

He started to speak again but stopped and nodded. Standing, he reached a hand out, and Emma placed hers within his and he brought her to her feet, keeping their fingers intertwined, hands linked.

Emma stared down at his hand, feeling the warmth and the slight roughness, along with the tingling she always felt whenever he touched her. Then she looked up at him, seeing a truth reflected in his light eyes. A truth that told her that his feelings were more involved than he was willing to admit. A truth that told her he wasn’t ready to let her go, despite his attempt to try.

Arms wrapped around each other, they turned and silently headed back up the trail.

“H
ey, you,” Emma whispered softly. Filtered light and shadow shifted along the sculpted planes of his face, her mouth inches from his. “I was just dreaming about you.”

“Hey, you. I was dreaming of you, too,” he answered huskily, before claiming her lips with his.

The kiss was the spark that led them down the heady path of carnal bliss. He layered the kiss with sweeps of his tongue across her mouth, slowly nibbling her lips in small biting caresses.

With a tight groan, he brought both hands to the back of her head, tugged her close and slid his fingers beneath her tangled tresses. Lightly massaging her scalp, he angled her head for a better fit.

Emma opened her mouth to his when his tongue
pressed against the seam of her lips, her tongue eagerly seeking his as their kiss deepened. Bringing her hands up, she ran them over the hard wall of his chest, trailed them down until she reached his stomach, stopping when she reached the soft thatch of hair below.

When her hands found what they had been looking for, she grasped his shaft in one hand, circling as much of him as she could with her fingers, groaning when he quickly grew too thick for her hand to contain him.

She whimpered against his mouth when he broke their kiss and pulled away from her, both of them breathing heavily.

“Shane…” Her protest was cut short when he brought her hands back up and above her head, grasped within both of his.

“None of that. It’ll be over before it starts. And I have plans for you.” The promise was whispered coarsely against the corner of her mouth.

Liquid heat eased down her leg. “Oh yeah? What kind of plans?”

With his free hand, he trailed his fingers down her body until he reached the apex of her thighs.

“Oh, Shane…” Her breath caught when he delved a finger between her dewy lips, swirling a finger around her clitoris.

Although the light was next to nonexistent in the dark tent, his bright blue gaze gleamed with the clarity of his intent shining from within. He brought his finger to his mouth and licked it clean of her essence.

She tasted so damn good.

Shane licked a line from the tip of her chin down the line of her neck and beyond.

When he lapped a rough caress across one long, taut nipple before trailing a scorching path across the valley of her breasts, her body arched high, a long hiss escaping from her lips.

“Shane…” she whispered, the throaty moan barely audible. “Baby, please…”

He released her breast and again covered her mouth with his, drinking in her protests.

“I want to make this perfect for you.”

When she placed her small hands on his face, he closed his eyes and turned into her caress. It was such a simple thing, the gesture.

Yet whenever she touched his face, framing it with her small hands, the move was so sexy and sweet at the same time that his heart constricted, the feeling almost painful in its intensity.

“You always have. Like no one else.”

The raw emotion, the sincerity in her voice, shook him even more.

He’d never felt for anyone else what he did for Emma. And he hadn’t a clue what to do with the newfound feelings. He had no experience in this area. Like a rookie on his first jump, he was a mass of nerves when he was around her. When she smiled up at him, her soft brown eyes filled with an emotion he was sure she was unaware they showed.

It was unfamiliar, raw and unlike anything he’d ever felt for anyone else. And it broke him down on levels he wasn’t ready to examine.

Back at the site he’d tried to break free, for her sake more than for his. The thought of hurting her when the relationship inevitably ended was intolerable to him.

She deserved more, more than what he thought he had to give, because all he could give her at this time was this and nothing else.

“Mmm, you make me feel so good,” she moaned breathlessly.

He slid down her body until his face was level with her breasts. Slowly he ran his fingers along her silky skin until he cupped her breasts, his thumbs brushing across their peaks, watching in lustful fascination, as each one spiked long and hard beneath his touch.

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” he replied, a touch of humor in his sleep-roughened voice before he lowered his mouth.

With near reverence, his tongue swiped out to bathe her nipple, rolling over the extended nub until she wiggled and whimpered beneath him, her hands tugging tightly on his hair as she pressed his face closer.

Every squirm, every shiver and moan was his reward. With no thought to his own needs, he made love to her breasts with his hands and lips.

He wanted her badly, ached to go deep, to bury himself inside her body until neither one of them knew where one started and the other began…he wanted to give her pleasure she’d never forget. Spread out in front of him, her beauty made his heart slam against his chest. He wanted to get her on all fours and penetrate
her completely, spread her soft thighs, slide deep inside and lose himself within her body.

He wanted to love her until there was no thought of another, so that no man would ever be able to compare to him. The thought was a selfish one, knowing their time together was short, but he didn’t give a damn. She was his. She always would be.

“You like that, baby?” he asked, his words warming her breasts as he stroked. Before she could stutter out a response, he opened his mouth wide and engulfed as much of her breast inside his mouth as possible.

Feeling a strange immediacy of the moment, he lifted his head and gazed down at her, seeing her as though for the first time. Or the last.

So beautiful. She was so incredibly beautiful. Her smell, her taste…everything about her was intoxicating to his senses, driving him wild with need.

With a growl, he grabbed her wrists again, placing her hands above her head and kissing his way down her body. Carefully, gently, as though she were a fragile piece of crystal, he separated her legs, lifting them until she was left exposed to his gaze.

He felt her body tremble beneath his touch as he feathered just the tips of his fingers across the springy curls that protected her entry. Releasing her hands, he fingered her moist lips apart, pressing a finger deep inside her body…

The rain falling against the tent became nature’s soft, sensual background music accompanying the sighs and moans within.

Despite the warmth of the sleeping bag, Emma shivered violently from his hot caresses. When Shane had brushed a finger across her mound, her breath hitched as she breathlessly waited for what he’d do next. She didn’t have to wait long.

When a thick finger slid inside her, a strangled cry erupted from her and her body arched away from the sleeping bag.

Her walls clenched and grabbed his finger as his lips laid claim to the nub of her femininity, stroking and kissing her until she grew dizzy, her cries of pleasure ringing out sharply in the tent as he made quiet, intense love to her.

Shane groaned against her folds. One long swipe of his tongue deep inside her, and her body detonated. Emma slapped her palms down, her body shaking so hard she could barely move, straining against the hold he had on her.

“Shannnnnne…” she wailed, her head on the sleeping bag, her heartbeat stuttering against her chest.

He didn’t release her until the last of her cries had died down to whimpering moans and panting breaths, hard tremors shaking her legs.

Strung out, her body a liquid mass, Emma was afraid to move. The slightest movement caused tendrils of sensation to curl throughout her body, one big mass of oversensitive nerves.

But he wasn’t done with her. The look in his eyes told her he had even more decadent plans in mind. She was lightheaded, dizzy, his touch intoxicating.

He turned, fumbling in the semidark tent in search of protection, and was back seconds later, covering her body with his.

He lifted her up, wrapping her legs around his waist slowly and driving himself deep inside her in one long plunge.

On and on he drove into her, his thrusts becoming wilder with every stroke until Emma screamed, passion exploding behind her tightly clenched eyelids. He reared back, digging his fingers into the skin of her legs, and delivered two more strokes before throwing his head back as the fall of rain became harder, the sound of wind and rain deafening.

“I love you, Emma. I love you!”

At that moment, she came, her cries of release blended with his stunning exclamation…both lost in the sound of the rain.

Their lovemaking had alternated between fast and raw, when he’d slipped between her legs and had her so hot and ready she climaxed within minutes, and long and sweet, with their undulating bodies and swaying hips in perfect rhythm, their lovemaking drawn out, deliberate and intense.

Whatever method, it hadn’t mattered; the result had been the same. Each and every time it had been mind-blowing, leaving them both breathless, satiated…and somehow still wanting more.

At one point she’d thought she’d heard him say he loved her. She adjusted her body, glancing down at him,
but he’d been asleep, his face nestled in the hollow of her throat.

In sleep, the lines that bracketed his mouth had appeared softer, making him look younger, vulnerable. Entranced, she’d continued her silent perusal of him, realizing it was the first time she’d seen him, even after the many times they’d made love, so…at ease. Even in sleep he always seemed aware, as though he never fully relaxed.

His eyes had opened and a ghost of a smile flirted around the corners of his mouth as he caught her perusal of him. Without a word, he’d flipped her beneath them, and rained kisses across her face.

Yet the peaceful, relaxed image of him had remained in her mind as they made love. She’d tucked it, as well as the other images of him she’d began to mentally store away, for a time to revisit later, when her assignment was over.

A time when she’d once again be alone.

She sighed, not wanting to think of when that time would come, realizing she had only a few weeks left at the station before they would have to say goodbye. Troubled, she tried to fall asleep, her body curling into his.