Private North (9 page)

His arms tightened. “First, you’ll have to free yourself from my grasp.”

“Fine, but if we get caught the humiliation will send me from this house forever.”

He dropped his arms but made no move to leave our cozy spot in front of the fire. The hunger from moments before returned to his green eyes. “How the hell am I going to brush past you in the kitchen, or slide by you in the hallway, or sit across from you at the table without touching you? Maybe we could send my dad and brother off on a cruise for the rest of the break.”

“We could send him to the south of France. I’ll just tell my mom we needed to get rid of them so we could have wild, unbridled sex in front of the fireplace.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

I smiled down at him. “Being a normal warm-blooded girl, I can tell you that I could spend the rest of the day, hell, the rest of winter break, watching you strut around stark naked, but I think you should probably get dressed too.”

He sighed. “I guess.” He rubbed his stomach. “I just realized I’m starved too.” He pushed off the floor without the usual amount of breath holding. “My leg feels better after warming it by the fire.”

“Oh, I was hoping you were going to say that I made it feel better.”

He reached for my hand and pulled me into his arms. “No, you made every other part of me feel better.” He kissed me again. “Including some very special parts.”

“O.K. now you are sounding like a salesman. You’ve already made the sale, remember? But now that you’ve brought it up, maybe you should use a heating pad more on your leg. It seems like the cold, harsh weather outside would aggravate the pain even more.”

“Maybe. I’ll see if Dad has one. He has problems with his knee sometimes, one of those harrowing golf injuries.”

I lifted up on my toes and kissed his chin. “I’m getting dressed before this whole dreamy afternoon goes badly south.” I swept up his blanket and hurried down the hall to his room. I slid on my jeans and pulled on my sweater. Compared to the air surrounding the fire, the air in the rest of the house was quite chilly. I raced in my bare feet across the freezing wood floor to the comfort of my slippers, made even cozier by the fire.

A very breathtaking, very naked, Dalton leaned against the kitchen counter nibbling on a cold chunk of macaroni and cheese impaled on the prongs of a fork. “It’s like a noodle and cheese popsicle.”

“Don’t you think you should get dressed? Please.”

He sighed and put his
popsicle
on the counter. “I guess I’ll get dressed and then we can decorate that tree.” He used the counter and the wall for support as he headed to the hallway. He stopped and looked back at me. “I just had a great idea. Naked tree trimming party.”

I lifted my brow and pointed toward the hallway.

Ethan and Professor North had still not returned by the time we’d dragged up the boxes of decorations and placed the tree in a stand.

I tossed a strand of lights over the top branches. “I hope they didn’t have trouble with the car in this snowfall.”

“Nah, my dad is up to something. I know he had a good explanation for the guys in the black car but something is going on. Just not sure what. His whole mood seems off.”

I looked around the tree at Dalton. “So, it’s not just my imagination? I thought maybe he was just a completely different guy at home than in the classroom.”

“No, he’s definitely not acting like himself, and Ethan is acting weird too.”

I dragged the strand of lights around the tree. “What do you think it could be?”

“No clue, but I think my arrival has thrown a wrench into whatever it was.”

“Strange.” I lifted a fragile white snowflake ornament from the box and held it up. Tiny facets of colored glass sparkled in the light of the room. “It looks like your mom put a lot of thought and care into picking each ornament. This one is amazing.” I hung it on a branch.

“My mom loved the winter holidays. She’d start decorating long before Christmas. The house would be covered in ribbons and pine wreaths.”

I leaned over the box and lifted out a round circle of clay that had a tiny stick reindeer etched into it. The name Dalton was scratched in crooked letters beneath the reindeer. “Oh my gosh, this is so cute.” I held it up for him. “We never had stuff like this on our tree. My mom had some interior decorator friend create a theme for the tree each year. We never saved ornaments from one year to the next. Our tree always looked like it should belong in the entry way of the White House.”

“I made that in boy scouts.”

I laughed. “While I am very thankful for the boy scouts teaching you the all important skill of being prepared, I have to say that I just can’t see you sitting in a little uniform making picture frames out of macaroni noodles.”

“I joined for one thing and one thing only. I wanted to race in the soapbox derby. Our troop held a race once a year, and I really wanted to fly down the street in a homemade car. It was hard because I had to suffer through the meetings. I think the scouts would have much more long term membership if they allowed girls into the troops. Just saying.”

“Actually, you’re probably not too far off base there. So did you win the race?”

“Dad helped me build an awesome car. We painted it dark blue with gold stripes. And it was fast, too fast. I was in the lead when a back wheel flew off and I fishtailed into a telephone pole. My mom came racing down the street in her heels, holding her purse and screaming, ‘my baby, my baby’.” He laughed to himself and grew quiet as he seemed to get momentarily lost in the memory. “The whole thing was pretty damn embarrassing.”

“Were you hurt?”

“Only my pride.”

“Your poor mom. She must have been so scared.”

“Yeah, she was always worried about all of us. Turned out that she was the one we needed to be worried about.” He glanced down at the box of ornaments in front of him. “I could bring a hundred other girls over here to decorate this tree,” he looked up at me, “and none of them would have been able to get a sense of how important these ornaments were to my mom. But you felt it with just one glass snowflake.” He paused and swallowed hard as he gazed at me. “And that’s what I’ve got, Auggie. Opinion changer or not. No sales pitch, no bull shit, just the raw truth.”

I fought back tears as I climbed into his lap and wrapped my arms around his neck. “What’s that movie line— ‘you had me at Sugarplum’.”

Chapter 14

It was good that I now had more time to work on the artifacts because I quickly discovered that concentrating on the task had become much more difficult with visions of a very naked Dalton floating through my head. And he’d been right. Meandering around the same house and passing through the same small rooms, all the while suppressing the urge to touch each other, was going to be nothing short of torture.

I pulled a piece from one of the three boxes marked New Kingdom and a flash of pale blue caught my eye. It was a long narrow shard that had come from a long necked vessel. Ethan leaned over my shoulder. “Apparently that pale blue color was all the rage in the New Kingdom.”

“It’s so subtle and so beautiful.”

“There have been studies done on it. Cobalt and traces of zinc and nickel perhaps. The Ancient Egyptians were chemists as well.”

“No modern science and technology yet their knowledge and skills seemed to have no bounds. Amazing.” I looked up at him. “How are things going with deciding on a permanent home for the gold bracelet?”

My question caught him completely off guard and I had no idea why.

“Uh— uh yeah the arm band.” It was obvious he was devising a quick and plausible answer. “Honestly, my dad hasn’t really kept me all that informed about it.” The one thing I’d learned about Ethan North was that the muscle in his jaw twitched when he was tense. It was twitching like crazy.

A quick subject change was in order. It was a subject of much greater interest. “Where’s Dalton this morning?” I asked casually.

His shoulders relaxed. “Not sure. He said something about gathering wood. I think he was going to ride out on the snowmobile to find kindling and fallen branches.” He laughed and I was glad I’d changed subjects. “He said something about a new found urge to have a roaring fire in the hearth.”

I turned back to the monitor to hide the blush in my cheeks. I picked up the blue shard of pottery. “I’ll input this piece and then I think I’m going to get dressed and take a walk outside. I’m not getting enough exercise, and with your dad’s fantastic cooking, I fear my bottom is going to grow to the size of this chair.”

“A walk sounds like a great idea. I’m going snowboarding this morning,” he said. “That snowfall last night left a hard to resist layer of powder on the slopes. Too much fun to pass up.”

“I don’t blame you for wanting to get out there,” I said with what was probably way too much enthusiasm. “You know what? This piece can wait. I’m going to get my boots and coat. Have a great time on the slopes.”

I hurried out and got dressed as quickly as possible. Chances were, Dalton had already left the shed on the snowmobile, but it was worth a try. And I really did need to get out and exercise.

The sky had cleared so the temperature had dropped. I kept my face down to avoid the biting cold. Ethan had been excited about the fresh snow, but I found that it made the trudge across the yard that much harder. Well worn foot paths had disappeared, and I had to blaze a new trail to the shed. I heard a clanging sound coming from the inside, and my heart raced ahead with the prospect of seeing him.

Dalton looked up from the workbench and smiled. “I see you’ve unchained yourself from the computer.” He lifted the ax, and the silver blade gleamed in the sunlight that seeped through the slats in the shed wall. “The handle broke off as I chopped down the tree. My dad’s not big on taking care of his tools. Looks good as new now.” He put down the ax and motioned for me to come closer.

I walked up to him. Heated tension filled the air between us. It was the same intense heat I’d felt in the kitchen this morning and in the dining room where we’d both pretended to be interested in our breakfast. He pushed to his feet, and without warning, he took hold of my waist and perched me up on the edge of the workbench.

Dalton stood between my thighs. He took hold of my face and kissed me softly at first and then with more urgency. His hands reached up between us and he unzipped my coat. His fingers were cold as he reached beneath my sweater.

I squirmed away from his touch. “Your hands are like ice,” I said breathlessly between kisses.

He pulled out his hands and looked down at them. “Hmm, I guess I should warm them up first.” I sucked in a gasp as he tucked them between my thighs. I wrapped my arms around his neck and sighed softly into his ear as he stroked his fingers against me.

I pushed against the pressure of his hand.

Dalton pushed the coat off my shoulders. The temperature in the shed bordered on freezing, but the searing heat spreading between my legs and through my body made it easy to ignore.

“Ethan went snowboarding, but what about your dad?” I asked.

Dalton pulled away his hands and mouth and I nearly fell forward off the bench. He walked over to the shed door and slid it shut and then returned to me. “Dad hates the cold. He rarely steps out of the house in winter.”

He looked down at my boots and jeans. “Damn this winter clothing.”

I reached for the top of his jeans and my fingers slid under the fly and popped open the buttons. “If we were in California, I’d probably be wearing a cotton dress . . . with easy to remove panties.” I pushed his jeans halfway down his hips. My fingers wrapped around him. His eyes closed as my finger traced the hot, moist tip.

“Shit, Auggie, you’re making me crazy.” His mouth came down over mine.

He felt thick and hard as my hand moved back and forth. A small moan of agony rumbled in his throat as I unwrapped my fingers. I hopped down from the bench and walked over to the stool. He watched me through heavy lids as I sat down. “Come over here, soldier.”

His green eyes darkened as he approached me. I pushed his jeans down farther, and as I took him into my mouth, his fingers tangled in my hair. My tongue and lips slid along his hot skin as my hand pushed him farther into my mouth. “Damn, Auggie,” he said hoarsely, “I’ve been hard all day just thinking about you.” My movements quickened, and his fingers tightened almost painfully in my hair. He groaned and shuddered with release.

His hands fell away from my hair and I peered up at him. His chest rose and fell as he stared down at me. “You are full of surprises, my sweet, little coed.” I stood and he took hold of my wrist. “I always return the favor.”

This time he reached for the button and zipper on my jeans. “It’s too cold,” I insisted, but I wanted it badly. Taking him in my mouth, tasting him and hearing him groan in pleasure because of it had made me want it more than ever.

“If there’s a will,” he said quietly. In one motion, he pushed my jeans and panties down to just below my bottom. The cold air felt shocking and thrilling all at once. “Turn around,” his voice was deep and rough with desire again.

He took hold of my wrists and braced my hands on the workbench. His hot breath warmed the side of my face as he came up behind me and his hands reached around me. His fingers slid between my thighs and they probed in the moist heat, teasing me with such skill that I had to keep from screaming out again. His long, thick fingers pushed deeper inside of me, and my hips moved instinctively against the pressure of his hand. I gasped as I suddenly felt his mouth on the bare skin of my bottom. His tongue caressed my bare skin and explored every intimate part of me while his fingers moved in perfect, delicious rhythm. I gripped the table edge and pushed hard against his mouth and hand. I turned my face to muffle the scream against my shoulder as my body splintered into a million trembling pieces around his fingers and mouth. My arms wobbled as I leaned on the table for support.

He took hold of me and I collapsed against him. “We’re supposed to be naked and tucked under a warm quilt in my bed right now, not standing in this freezing, dark shed,” he said.

“That does sound far more appealing than this, but I think we’re both pretty darn resourceful.”

He tightened his arms around me. “Hey, let’s go out to dinner tonight,” he said suddenly. “I know this great little steak place and the owner is a family friend. He’ll make sure to give us the quiet, secluded booth in the back.”

I smiled at him. “I’m not eating steak in the nude.”

He laughed. “No, it’s not
that
secluded . . . unfortunately. I’ll give him a call and tell him to reserve a table for us.”

***

I brushed my hair one final time and checked my reflection in the mirror. I’d shared every intimacy with the man, and, yet, I was nervous as hell about the date. It might just have been because dating back at the university had never seemed to be an intimate, romantic affair. Trenton always ended up inviting hordes of his snobbish friends along as if he realized he was too boring to sit with alone on a date. Or maybe he thought I was too boring.

More than likely, tonight’s extreme case of nerves came just from the fact that my date was with Dalton. Every part of me, physically, mentally and emotionally crackled with excitement when he was near.

I startled at the knock on my door. “Are you ready, Auggie?”

I took a deep breath, smoothed my hands over the rather snug fitting sweater dress and opened the door. He was wearing a navy blue sweater and his freshly washed long hair was combed back. He looked down at the dress and nodded with approval. “Nice.” He leaned forward and I could feel his breath on my cheek as he spoke quietly. “Hope you’re wearing some of those easy to remove panties underneath.” He straightened again.

I smiled slyly at him. “How do you know I’m wearing any at all?” Never in my life had I flirted so brazenly with any guy, but I couldn’t help myself with him.

His green eyes widened with the possibilty.

“I’m kidding. It’s already cold as heck wearing a dress, and I’m not that daring.”

“I guess we’ll have to work on that,” he said. He swept his arm in a half circle to motion me out of the room.

“My dad lent me his car, but he seems pissed that I’m taking you out. I got
the lecture
. I’m twenty-three and I’ve been in battle and I got
the lecture
.”

I glanced over at him. “What lecture?”

“About how women are people and that they should be treated with the utmost respect. He acts like I drag women around by their hair and beat them with clubs.” He stopped suddenly and pushed me up against the wall of the hallway. His mouth drifted over mine. “I told him I would never treat Auggie with anything but respect.” His knee pressed between my thighs. “Except, at the moment, I can’t stop thinking about those panties, or the lack thereof.” He kissed me softly before stepping back.

In that short span of time, he’d flustered me completely. He continued down the hallway, and I peeled myself, dazed and light-headed, off the wall. “Sometimes, I think respect can be overrated.”

It had taken nerves of steel not to jump into Dalton’s lap the moment we left the driveway. We could barely keep our hands off each other. As we pulled into the restaurant parking lot with windows so fogged no amount of defrosting could clear them, it occurred to me that I’d never had such a profound physical reaction to anyone else . . . ever. My mind kept falling back to the worry that this was all just physical. Dalton was stunning to look at and his sex appeal was undeniable, but I’d never been one of those shallow girls to fall for a guy just because he was hot. I wasn’t completely sure what it was about Dalton that had me so starry eyed, but it was there.

Dalton turned off the car. “It’s a good thing my coat is long.” He reached for the door handle but then stopped and looked over at me. “I think you should become more daring.”

“What do you mean?”

His gaze drifted down the length of my dress. “The hem of that dress reaches the middle of your thighs.” He looked over at the restaurant. “It’s a short walk to the door and I assure you it’s warm and cozy inside. Take them off.”

“What?” I asked incredulously, but, truthfully, the thought of it thrilled me.

He leaned over and kissed me. “Please.”

I needed no further coaxing. He watched as I reached under my dress and slid my panties off. I tucked them quickly in my purse. “The last thing I need is to leave them inside your dad’s car.”

He stared at me in a way that made me want to lift my dress and straddle his legs and he knew it. “Let’s go.”

We stepped inside the small restaurant, and instantly, I felt nervous and self-conscious as if everyone was looking at me, knowing that I’d just walked in with no underwear. Instinctively, I took hold of Dalton’s arm to ease my nerves. I glanced around. It had not been my imagination. We had drawn a great deal of attention, but quickly, I realized that it wasn’t me and my lack of undergarments that had caught the other patrons’ attention— it was Dalton.

“Dalton!” an elderly man called from across the room. He wiped his hand on his apron as he scurried through the dining area. He was completely bald but he sported a thick goatee. His brown eyes sparkled with admiration as he reached Dalton. They hugged.

“Rocko, this is August Stonefield. She’s one of Dad’s students at the university.”

The man’s smile was even more welcoming than the gleam in his eyes. He took my hand and shook his head at Dalton. “You always have had an eye for beauty.” He patted my hand and released it. “Where is that purple heart, Dalton? You promised to bring it in to show me.”

Dalton looked uncharacteristically shy. “Yeah, some day, Rocko. So is our table ready?”

“Of course, of course.” Rocko smiled slyly my direction and then turned back to Dalton. “The quiet one in the back.” He winked at me as he took our coats. We followed him through the homey little dining room that was filled with white linen covered tables, dripping candles and vases brimming with fresh flowers. The fragrance of hot bread, steaming onions and steak filled the air. The other patrons nodded and grinned with admiration at Dalton as he walked past their tables. Rocko showed us to a small booth that was somewhat hidden from the rest of the dining room. A vase of pink roses sat in the center of the pristine, white table cloth. Rocko turned over the wine glasses that were set out. “I will bring you our best bottle, on the house, of course. It is not every day when our hometown hero comes in to dine.” He walked away.

I reached forward and took hold of Dalton’s hand. “I have to go put on my underwear.”

“Why?”

“Because of sweet, old Rocko,” I waved my hand around “and the flowers and expensive table cloths and the homey atmosphere. I feel like I’m sitting naked on my grandmother’s doily covered couch. Plus, I’m sitting with not just any guy but the
hometown hero
.”