As for her, careful had flown the coop. In fact, she was feeling as far from careful as she could get, practically writhing with need beneath his long, hard body.
Unconcerned with the state she was in, he ran a large warm hand over her throat, her collarbone…her breast, where he paused to play with the pebbled tip. “I love your skin.” He bent to suck on her neck. “So soft…”
His skin wasn’t bad either, all sleek and smooth and hard, and suddenly she blessed the bright daylight. She couldn’t stop touching him, running her hands over him, moaning when he slid a thigh between hers, spreading her, making room for him to lie between her parted legs so that his hard sex cradled against her core.
God, she wanted him.
His mouth between her breasts, he turned his head and slid his tongue over a nipple. With a gasp, she arched up into him, gliding her hands beneath the loose waistband of his jeans, squeezing his ass again, pressing him into her.
Obliging, he rocked into her, and she shivered. “Off,” she said, slipping her hands around to try to pop open his jeans so that she could get her hands on something else. He kneeled up, giving her access, and she hummed in pleasure as her fingers wrapped around him.
He was big and hot and velvety smooth. When she stroked him, he let out a sound that reminded her of a huge wild cat, like he was both growling and purring at the same time as he thrust up in her hands.
He tugged open her shorts, then pulled them and her panties off, tossing both over his shoulder. Pushing her legs apart, his hands slid from her knees to her inner thighs, caressing as he went, teasing her into a writhing mass of desperation.
“Easy,” he whispered, and then slowly, with devastating precision, outlined her with the pad of a single finger, back and forth until she was so wet and ready that she was crying out for him, begging. No easy way about it.
“Please,” she gasped, thrusting her hips up mindlessly. “Oh, please.”
He slid two fingers deep, and on his second long, slow, sure stroke, she exploded.
While she struggled to return to her senses, a couple of things hit her at once. Not only had she done it again, come without warning, she actually had a death grip on him, and her teeth were clamped on his throat. She was panting for breath, her hand still wrapped around his hot and pulsing length, mindlessly stroking him.
“Harley,” he whispered in a raw voice, and thrust into her hands, clearly close.
And then—her front door slammed—the worst possible sound that she could have heard in that moment.
“Christ,” TJ groaned, his face tight. His whole body tight.
Harley struggled to catch her breath. “You locked my door.”
“Yeah.” He rubbed his jaw to hers, his thumb brushing over her center again, making her jerk. “Maybe they’ll go away.”
“Harley!” Skye yelled from the living room. “I need you!”
With a low breath, TJ rolled off her to his back, flinging an arm over his eyes. “Fuck.”
Yeah. Just what Harley had hoped to be doing. She sat up to apologize, pulling TJ’s arm away from his face. His eyes were closed and he was chewing on his bottom lip, breathing hard. She ran a hand down his tight abs, but he groaned and caught her hand, stopping her. “I’m going to need a minute.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. I might cry, but I’m okay.”
“I owe you,” she said softly.
“I’ve heard that one before.”
“Harley!” Skye yelled again. “Who’s the guy?”
Harley held her breath. “What guy?”
“The one with you.”
“There’s no—”
“He left his shirt on the floor, inside out. Which indicates he was in a hurry, or otherwise occupied. Am I interrupting something good? ’Cause I can come back. How close to done are you?”
“Shoot me,” TJ muttered.
Harley’s gaze ran down his gorgeous, sinewy, tightly wound body, stopping where his jeans were completely undone, leaving little to the imagination. Her mouth watered. “I’ll do you one better,” she whispered. “I’ll shoot her.”
TJ rode home, a spectacularly uncomfortable thing to do since he was hard enough to pound nails. He entered his cabin fifteen minutes later and found Cam and Stone sitting on his couch, a game on his flat screen, his six-pack between them. “Girls’ night out?” he asked sarcastically.
“It’s called Wedding Evasion,” Cam said. “Katie and Emma are working on the shower.”
TJ raised a brow. “Katie and Emma together in the shower? And you’re here?”
“The wedding shower.” Cam narrowed his eyes. “Are you picturing Katie naked?”
“Yes,” TJ said. “With Emma. They’re good in the hot water together. Thanks for the visual.”
Now he had both Stone and Cam snarling at him. Good. Their moods all matched perfectly. TJ kicked Stone’s feet off the coffee table so he could get to his own damn couch, and plopped between them, grabbing a beer.
They watched the game in silence.
“That second Alaska trip is a go,” Stone said at the commercial. “Six more weeks gone. If you want it.”
“I want it.”
Stone lifted a brow.
“What?” TJ asked him.
“I thought maybe you’d want to stick around, seeing as you’re doing something with Harley.”
“I’m doing what with Harley?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
Keeping his gaze on the TV, TJ took a pull of his beer and said nothing. Yeah. He was doing something with Harley. He just wasn’t sure what exactly.
He knew what he wanted. He wanted her. In a bed, for longer than a single orgasm.
But he also wanted more.
Since that “more” happened to fall in a pretty big gray area, he hadn’t been able to define it. “The game’s back on.”
They were silent until the next commercial. Cam spoke first. “Heard you gave the Harley quite a ride.”
TJ snapped threatening eyes in his brother’s direction, and Cam let out a sly grin. “Oh wait, you were on your Honda and with a Harley. Sorry, man. My mistake.”
“You’re a dick.”
Stone put a hand to TJ’s chest to hold him back and shook his head at Cam like he was shocked at his stupidity. “You’ve been sitting on that one, haven’t you? Bet you practiced that one in the mirror.”
Cam grinned. “Too good to pass up.” He looked at TJ. “You and Harley stop sniffing around each other and do the deed?”
“I’m going to kill him,” TJ said conversationally to Stone.
“Can’t. We’re triple booked this week, remember? We’ll lose clients.”
“It’d be worth it.”
“Let him earn his keep first,” Stone said, and when Cam opened his mouth, Stone simply covered Cam’s entire face with his hand and shoved while keeping up the conversation with TJ. “If you still want to kill him after he brings in the dough this weekend, I’ll help you.”
CHAPTER 20
Harley and Skye shared the last of the ice cream on Harley’s porch as the sun sank below the horizon.
“So,” Skye said. “You and TJ.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“He looked hot without his shirt.”
“Yeah.” Even more so with his low-slung Levi’s unbuttoned, revealing his—
“Is he as good in bed as he looks?”
Yes. “Not talking about it, Skye.”
“Okay but tell me you nibbled on those abs ’cause I want to nibble those abs. Our dead aunt Trudy would want to nibble on those abs.”
“Skye!”
“Right. Not talking about it.” She pouted. “But if I had a guy that hot, I’d let you drool over those abs.”
“Can we talk about something else? Anything?”
“Oh, come on. It’s not fair. You have all this…excitement in your life. I’m just trying to live vicariously through you.”
Harley turne
d and stared at her sister in utter shock. “Excitement? My life?”
“Hey, I’m not the one becoming a fancy biologist marching through Desolation, harboring the sexiest single guy in all of Wilder in my bedroom, naked to boot.”
“Half naked,” Harley corrected, but suddenly she realized Skye was right. Her life didn’t suck nearly as badly as she’d thought.
“So are you really going to co-guide that kayaking trip for Stone?”
Harley licked her spoon as she tried to find resentment over having to take the trip, but the truth was, she couldn’t wait to get back out there. “Yeah. I’m going.”
Skye fell asleep on the couch, hugging the pillows, looking young and vulnerable. Harley covered her up with a blanket and went to bed—where she dreamed about a certain gorgeous Wilder with magic fingers and mouth.
She woke up before dawn and put in several hours at her laptop processing data and getting caught up so she could head out the next morning on the two-day trip for Wilder Adventures. Then she eyed the pile of unpaid bills still stacked there, waiting to be paid. She wasn’t the only one who needed this trip. Her bills needed it, too.
If she still had a job with Nolan, she was due to work two half shifts on the weekend, so she needed to ask him if she could postpone those. He hadn’t returned her call yet. It was too early to try him again, plus she didn’t know what to say, so she called the lodge to deal with her other problem. Katie answered with a crisp, sweet “Good morning, Wilder Adventures.”
“Katie, it’s me. I sort of need a new employment application, I got…something on the back page and—”
“Yes! You’re going to forget Colorado and stay here.”
“Actually, I won’t know if I even got the Colorado job until spring.”
“But TJ said you’re a shoo-in for it.”
“Well, I hope that’s true. But in the meantime, I’m filling in with you guys as needed.”
“Oh, you’re needed. I’ll have another application out and ready for you.”
“Thanks.” Harley drew a breath. “Listen, about the kayaking trip…”
“Not much to tell yet. The departure date’s only tentatively set for next week. TJ’s waiting on the client, and on some sort of special permit he needs to get on to a parcel of private land because this time they’re going to be climbing some peak that—”
“Whoa.” Harley shook her head. “I meant tomorrow’s trip. What are you talking about?”
“We just took on two big Alaska trips. TJ’s going to take both. One is a partial kayaking thing. I thought that’s what you were talking about.”
Okay, so TJ was usually gone more than he stuck around. She knew that. Everyone knew that.
And yet she’d allowed herself to forget. “He mentioned he might be leaving.”
“Yes.” Some of the smile went out of Katie’s voice. “But then again, eventually so are you.”
Right. Yes. Yes, she was.
Katie was quiet a minute. “Harley, I know you two have been…different lately. Closer.”
Harley found she couldn’t get her throat to work, so she nodded, which was ridiculous, as Katie couldn’t see her.
“You know,” Katie said very quietly. “I’m going to step out on a limb here and give you some advice on the Wilder men.”
“Not necessary.”
“They’re big and bad and strong,” Katie said anyway. “Mind and body. You know that. They’re tough, capable, and…well, sexy as hell. You know that, too.”
“Katie—”
“But they’re also a little slow on the uptake. It’s not their fault really. They barely had a childhood, and certainly had no softness in their lives. I mean they had Annie, but hell, she’s as tough as they are.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Harley said. “I grew up with them. I know—”
“Do you? Do you know that if you want him, all you have to do is tell him? Because he grew up where there was no unconditional love, where being cared about was rare. You’re going to literally have to hit him over the head with love, Harley. And to do that, you’re going to have to put yourself out there.”
“I—”
“I mean you have to step on the edge of the cliff, toes hanging off, and take the plunge. It’s the only thing he’ll understand.” Katie’s voice gentled. “I know it seems terrifying, especially for you. You’ve been through a lot, too, and you’re careful. You like to think things out. Hello, you’re a research specialist, it’s what you do. But in this case, all you need is faith. If you make the jump, he will catch you.”
Harley swallowed the huge lump in her throat. “That seems like a huge leap of faith.”
“Trust me, it’s worth it.”
Harley closed her eyes and let herself pretend for a minute that it could be that easy. “Fact is, we’re soon to be geographically incompatible, so really, there’s no leap to make.”
“Honey, there’s always a leap to make. Just think about it.”
After promising to do just that, Harley disconnected and cleaned up her table. Not wanting to wake Skye, but feeling restless, she opened her front door, planning to sit on the front porch with a mug of tea.
Instead, she stared down at the large plastic bag with a big green bow on it.
“Is it Christmas?”
Harley turned and faced a groggy-looking Skye, who smiled sleepily and took the mug to sip for herself. “Yum. Who left you the present?”
“Don’t know.” Harley sat next to it and pulled off the small folded piece of paper taped to it. The paper was notepad sized and imprinted with WILDER ADVENTURES across the top. In pen was TJ’s unmistakable scrawl. He’d written:
Your own magic bag of goodies.
“Bag of goodies?” Skye took another sip of Harley’s tea. “Think it’s full of sex toys?”
Harley choked out a laugh.
“Because if it is, wow. And I bet he knows how to use all the good stuff, too.”
“Skye!”
“What, you think the guy doesn’t know his way around a sex toy? Please. He’s a walking orgasm.”
Harley felt her face heat. Yes. Yes, he was.
Skye arched a brow. “Something you want to share with the class?”
What could Harley possibly say? That every single time he’d gotten his hands on her she’d gone up in flames with embarrassing, horrifying, shocking ease?
Skye pulled her lips inward as if greatly amused. “You’re blushing.”