Instant Gratification

  As if he could read her thoughts, his smiled faded. His eyes flamed.

  She flamed too, from the inside out, and when he leaned in close she had to bite back a moan.

  “You feel…amazing,” he whispered huskily, and without her permission, her hands glided up his sleek, strong back, over those amazingly reassuringly wide shoulders, to sink into his wet hair. “Same goes,” she whispered back.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.” Then he slowly lowered his mouth and finally, oh God, finally kissed her.

  She met him halfway, loving the feel of his warm hands on her body in the cool water, gliding everywhere, her waist, her back, her breasts, as if he couldn’t get enough of her.

  She couldn’t get enough either, responding the same way, running her hands all over him, opening her mouth for his tongue, letting her legs do as they’d wanted and wrap around him so that he could nestle his erection against her core. And rock.

  God. God, it felt so good she could actually feel her insides quiver. Her toes curled, and—

  He tore his mouth from her. She gasped in denial, and eyes closed, body humming, she tried to bring him back to her, even as she heard him swear roughly against her cheek.

  Then came TJ’s voice. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  TJ stood on the shore next to his Yamaha dirt bike, hands on his hips, looking pissed off.

  Well, hell, Stone thought. The guy had always had some pretty shitaceous timing, but this topped the cake. Stone tightened his arms around a squirming Emma and lowered the both of them further down into the water so that it lapped against their chins. Not that he wanted to cover the gorgeous, wet, mouthwatering body of the very hot woman in his arms, but she was for his viewing pleasure only.

  He intended to view. Then touch.

  Then taste.

  And he thought, given how she’d watched him strip, how her eyes had eaten him up in the water, how she’d been pressed up against him, panting for breath when he’d touched her, that maybe she’d had similar plans for him. Thanks TJ.

  Emma dropped her head to his shoulder. “I’m going to kill you,” she muttered beneath her breath.

  Gorgeous, wet, hot, and furious, and he sighed. How he’d not even heard TJ’s approach or the bike’s motor, he had no idea. “What are you doing here?” he asked his brother.

  “Your radio called me with your distress call.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, and when you’re alive? Answer your goddamn radio!”

  Still holding Emma, a little sidetracked by the way her breasts were pressed against his chest, nipples hard, Stone shook his head. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The radio? The thing we use to communicate? If you’re not dead or dying, you answer it after you send a distress call.”

  “I didn’t hear it.”

  “I can see that, but you’ve been sending out a distress call to me for the past twenty minutes. I raced my ass up here to save yours.”

  Emma, apparently having enough of this, jerked free of Stone and straightened. When she realized they stood in only waist deep waters and that she was in nothing but her bra and panties, she squeaked, slipping back down against him, sending blasphemous, black looks his way.

  Yeah, he probably deserved that. But he hadn’t expected to be interrupted, and by his own brother, no less. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he told TJ, playing a silent tug-of-war with Emma beneath the water. He had no idea where she thought she was going, but the only place to go to was straight toward his brother, who he intended to get rid of so Emma could try to kick his ass in private. “I’m nowhere near the radio, as you can see.”

  “It was going off like mad.” TJ pulled his radio from his pocket. “It’s still going off.”

  Huh? In the silence that followed Stone could hear it, the beep-beep-beeping of the receiver.

  TJ turned to their discarded clothes. Specifically Emma’s. He nudged aside her shirt, and then her shoes, both of which had been dropped…

  On top of the radio.

  Specifically the talk button.

  The radio stopped beeping.

  Emma looked up at Stone, horrified. “I did that?”

  “Mystery solved,” TJ said. “I can’t believe you were fucking around on duty. You wrote the book on protocol for us, remember? You made Cam and I swear not to—”

  “Excuse me,” Emma said stiffly. Both men looked at her. “For the record, he wasn’t ‘fucking around’. Not literally anyway,” she muttered, and stormed out of the water, a glorious, furious goddess in her underwear.

  TJ shot Stone a holy-shit look.

  In return, Stone shot him a get-the-hell-out-of-here look, which he knew damn well TJ received and understood, and yet the dumbass just stood there.

  With a sigh, Stone followed Emma out of the water. “So you drove all the way up here to chew my ass out?”

  “I drove all the way up here because I thought you’d fallen off a cliff. I thought you needed my help.”

  “I don’t fall off cliffs.”

  TJ gave him a droll look.

  “Okay, one time!” Jesus. “And that wasn’t even my fault. Look, we’re both fine, as you can see for yourself.” Stone lifted his hands to prove it. “Now go away.” He wanted to pull Emma back up against him—

  She stared at him in disbelief, her fiery temperament matching her fiery hair shining in the sun. “It’s our fault he’s here!”

  “Yes, but now he’s leaving.”

  TJ, not leaving, smiled, and when she stomped her way toward her clothes with her head held high, he picked up Stone’s shirt, and held it out to her.

  “Thank you,” she said loftily, snatching the shirt and pulling it on over the body Stone had been dreaming about for weeks. She wrapped her arms around herself and sent Stone another glacial stare.

  With a sigh, Stone glanced at TJ. “Thanks, man.”

  Emma picked up her pants, realized both men were looking at her, and snapped, “Turn your backs!”

  TJ obligingly closed his eyes.

  She looked at Stone, who looked right back. “Close ’em.”

  With a sigh, he did, then peeked. She was gathering up all the clothes including his, shoving them into the backpack, and then she got on her bike.

  With his stuff.

  “Uh,” he said, lifting a hand toward her. “Maybe we could—”

  She put on her helmet and rode off.

  TJ looked at Stone in his wet underwear and grinned. “Going to be a fun ride back.” He patted Stone’s shoulder, and whistling now, took off as well.

  Chapter 14

  The next day, Emma was over what had happened.

  Okay, not quite. She kept reliving the night before. Basically, she’d stripped down to her underwear with Stone.

  She’d wrestled in said underwear with Stone.

  She’d laughed. Hard.

  She’d lusted. Harder.

  If TJ hadn’t shown up, they’d have had sex right there in the water. She knew it. And worse, she knew that Stone knew it as well.

  He’d dropped her off with a promise that next time he’d tie up TJ before they set out for their fun, but she’d told him she’d decided fun should be off the menu, that she should really concentrate on what she was here to do.

  The end.

  He hadn’t argued with her but neither had he agreed, and she had the uncomfortable feeling they weren’t done discussing the issue.

  She’d gotten out of his truck—still in his shirt—and left him in nothing but his underwear, an image that was going to keep her warm all night.

  After a full day in the clinic, Emma stood upstairs in the living room, looking at her mother’s picture over the fireplace, and voiced the question that had been bothering her all day. “So is it really true that I’ve never really had to try at anything?”

  “You talking to yourself again?” Spence asked from the kitchen, where he was making dinner.
/>
  She looked into her mom’s eyes and sighed. “Yes,” she said. Because that was far less revealing an admission than the fact that she’d been hearing her dead mother’s voice in her head since she came to California. She joined Spence in the kitchen, hopping up onto the counter. “Do I never have to try hard at anything?”

  “Never.” He handed her a plate filled with the peppered steak he’d whipped up while singing along to her father’s old boom box. “Taste.”

  She did. “Oh, yeah, baby.”

  He smiled. “Right?”

  “I’ve died and gone to steak heaven. I’m going to need you to stay here with me until I can blow this popsicle stand.”

  He grinned. “I have something you can blow—”

  “Spence.”

  “Just saying.”

  She took a sip of the wine he’d brought, and then nearly spilled it when he tugged her off the counter and to her feet.

  “Good song,” he said. “Dance with me.”

  It was an Alicia Key power ballad, and right there in the kitchen, he pulled her in close, dancing like a pro, singing in her ear while he was at it—not like a pro—making her both laugh and sigh at the same time. He smelled good, felt good, and he rubbed his jaw to hers. He was like a security blanket. Familiar. Easy. “I’m glad you came,” she whispered.

  “Are you?”

  She pulled back and looked at him. “Of course I am.”

  “Then why are you keeping me at arm’s length?”

  “I’m not.” But she dropped her gaze to his chest, suddenly aware that she was doing that very thing, holding her arms a little rigid to keep him from pressing too close.

  “Emma,” he said gently, and tipped up her face.

  She met his eyes with hers, then let out a breath. “I don’t know.”

  “Is it me? Or you?”

  “Neither. Me,” she amended. “I don’t know.”

  “Emma.” He ran a finger over her cheekbones. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you that I didn’t come here for purely altruistic reasons. I came to see if we could combine the friendship with more.”

  “Oh, Spence.” He made her heart hurt. And her stomach, because suddenly she was afraid she’d lose him. “We’ve been there, done that.”

  “Never seriously.”

  Her breath caught, and she backed out of his arms, turning off the music. Through the window and the glass in the upper half of the back door, it was pitch black dark, the way only a Sierra night could get. Needing to busy her hands, she flipped on the porch lights. “Spence—”

  “I know.” He leaned back against the counter, watching her carefully. “It wouldn’t work. I’m getting that. It’s just that all this time I thought it was me holding us up, but I can see now that it’s you.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. You like having me in your life but not having me. I liked it too.” His gaze, dark and solemn, met hers. “Past tense.”

  “What changed?”

  “Thirtieth birthday.” He shrugged. “Cliché, I know, but it’s true. I want more, but you still don’t do more. It’s not in your nature.”

  “Wait.” She shook her head. “I don’t give more? You mean you don’t do more.”

  “No, I give plenty, usually to too many women at one time, who then get pissed and dump me. You, you don’t give anything of yourself.”

  She was still just staring at him when he smiled and leaned in, kissing her temple. “Don’t look so stricken, Emma. We all have our faults.”

  “Yeah.” She let out a breath, not exactly sure he’d gotten hers right. She gave plenty. Ask any of the patients she saw. Ask any of her bosses. “It’s damn California,” she decided. “It’s being here.”

  “Well, if that’s true, then hopefully you won’t be staying here too much longer.”

  “I wish I knew. My dad’s being…elusive.”

  Spence nodded. “And while you’re here, you’re very…preoccupied.”

  “Yes, I know. I actually think business is starting to pick up.”

  “Yeah, actually, I meant with the expedition guide.” He paused. “Stone Wilder.”

  “What?” She laughed, but it sounded forced. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Face it, Emma. There’s something there.”

  “Yes, it’s called irritation.”

  He looked doubtful. “Uh huh.”

  “It’s true. We…” Turn each other on. “Irritate each other.”

  “And…?” He sipped his wine and watched her over the glass.

  “And nothing else is important.”

  “Really.”

  “Really.”

  “Huh.” Spence set down his drink and pushed away from the counter. “It used to be, Emma, that I could do this…” Leaning in, he kissed her on the lips. “And we’d end up in bed.”

  Her heart panged a little. Dammit. “Oh, Spence. I—”

  “No.” He set his finger against her lips. “It’s okay. You’re thinking of someone else now. I’ve certainly done it to you plenty of times.”

  “I’m not—”

  “No?” His smile was just a little sad. “Then tell me if you feel anything when I do this—” He kissed her again, not softly and definitely not sweet, and she went still, utterly still, willing herself to feel the same shiver of excitement she’d felt the night before with Stone.

  Nothing.

  She opened her eyes and lifted her head, and met the sharp green gaze of the man she’d been thinking about, who just happened to be standing on the other side of the door, visible through the glass. “Stone?”

  “See?” Spencer’s eyes were still closed when he sighed. “You’re thinking of him even as I kiss you.”

  “No. I mean Stone. Here.” She pulled out of Spencer’s arms and opened the door, but Stone had already turned away and was halfway down the back stairs. “Hey.”

  He wore a baseball cap, sweats, a torn t-shirt and a scowl. The material was damp and plastered against his torso. He stopped and faced her, the air between them heavy and awkward. “You’re busy,” he said.

  “Not in the way you think, no.”

  “Look, it’s no big deal. I was just coming back through town and thought I’d stop by for Band-Aids. I’ll get them when I get home. Carry on.”

  “Stone.”

  He jogged down the rest of the stairs and was gone.

  “Well, that went over well,” Spence said from the open doorway