Courting Trouble (28 page)

“I’ll get a fire started,” Cade said. He grabbed two logs and some kindling and lay all of it into the hearth.

Tulsa walked along the wall and gazed at the framed pictures of Montgomery men. This place oozed masculinity. She knew what she was doing here in this place with Cade. They were reliving shared memories and acting upon a shared fantasy. She walked back toward the front room where Cade knelt before the fireplace. She was okay with this. She wanted this, these moments with Cade, even if they were merely pinpricks of time on the trajectory of her life. If they couldn’t have each other for forever they could have each other for now. The fire crackled to life and with it warmth entered the room.

“That helps,” Cade said. He stood and turned to Tulsa. In the firelight she saw the boy that she had fallen in love with as well as the man she desperately wanted.

“You know, the case is over but that doesn’t change anything, it only—”

Cade placed his fingertip on her lips. His eyes looked into hers.

“I know,” he said. “We both know. I live here and you live there. You’re a McGrath and I’m a Montgomery.”

His eyes were serious. He pulled his finger from her lips and let his fingertip glide up the hollow of her cheek. His eyes followed the warm path left by touch.

“I want one night.” His voice was hoarse, rough with need. “One night to ignore all the obstacles. One night to be with you and hold you and love you. I want to wake up beside you.”

His fingers brushed into her hair and with the gentlest of pressures he brought her forward, their lips so close their breath intermingled, the weight of the heat between them, a banked fire that waited for just this moment. Cade licked his lips and looked at her. The tenseness of his want strung his body tight and Tulsa could feel the pressure to take her, to have her, that pulled her to him as if it was a power he could just barely rein in.

“This one night is worth all the pain of every other night that I won’t get to hold you or have you. Tonight we let the past go,” Cade said.

With his words, this edict, this final proclamation, his lips were on hers and the heat burst. The fire raced upward in her body—pulsing and humming to the rhythm of Cade’s kiss. His mouth consumed her. He pressed his lips onto hers with a barely restrained fierceness, a possessiveness that devoured them both. His tongue pushed into her, seeking and exploring. Her legs trembled and her hands grasped his back with a solid desire.

With a sense of her need, he pulled her sweater over her head. A gasp rushed through her as his hand reach down and unsnapped the front of her bra and cupped her breast. With a firm hand he pressed and kneaded. Her breath caught. Cade pulled his mouth from hers and leaned his head down; his lips took the tight bud of her nipple into the hot wetness of his mouth. White-hot heat shot through her limbs. His tongue caressed her nipple and a low moan eased from her throat. Heat seared through her body and pulsed to the V between her legs. His hand unbuttoned her jeans and shucked them from her body.

He pulled his lips away and in one strong motion he lifted her. His mouth found hers again and he carried her into the bedroom. He lowered her onto the bed and left her only long enough to start a fire in the bedroom hearth.

With the blaze roaring behind him, Cade stood over the bed and watched her. His eyes caressed every inch of her. She gazed at him and grew wetter with the hollowed look of hunger on his face. Her entire body was exposed to his hungry look.

He lifted his shirt and pulled it over his head. His hard-quilted muscles danced with the shadows and light and her body trembled. Cade reached forward and with one fingertip stroked up the inside of her calf. A slow and languid touch. Cade’s finger wound its way up over her thigh where her hips arched in anticipation of his touch—the touch she wanted—the heat pooling between her legs. She closed her eyes and forced breath in and out of her lungs, the pleasure and the desire swamping her, making her body tremble. The hot wetness between her legs begged for him to slip his fingertip under her panties.

The slightest pause just above the sweetest little spot between her legs. But his fingertip drifted upward across her stomach and to her breast.

Tulsa rolled to her side and reached for the button on his jeans and her hands unclasped each button. While he remained still his eyes never left hers. The blackness of his pupils devoured the blue of his eyes. She pushed at his jeans and his cock, long and hard, sprang free. Her hands grasped the top and her thumb ran over the head. Cade bent forward as if the pleasure of it was too much. She stroked upward and down as a thick and rhythmic breath came from him that mirrored the rhythm of her touch.

She leaned forward and kissed up the long, thick shaft, the veins swollen and thick with pleasure. She looked at his face through her lashes as his fingertips made circles in her hair. His face was encased in shadows of desire; his lips parted as his breath came in jagged bursts. She felt him, the need in him for her to take him deep within her mouth, to plunge over his cock and suck, and yet he held still. His thighs trembled under the want, and still she lapped at the head, flicked with her tongue, stroked with her hands—the pressure and touch growing faster and deeper; then when she felt the guttural growl come from him, she plunged her mouth over his cock and took him. She sucked hard and long, stroking him from the base of his shaft to the tip. Cade let loose a low moan. His well-muscled stomach pulled upward as he still bent over her, his hand on the mattress holding him steady. Then in one quick motion, he placed both hands over her cheeks and pulled her away.

“I can’t take that right now.” He gently pushed her onto her back. His solid, thick body was over her now, his cock hard between them. He was on all fours and she reached for him to stroke him, but he bent his head to her breast, sucking and pulling his lips, then moving down over her belly, his hard cock slipping away from her reach. His tongue trailed over her to the edge of her panties. His fingertips danced around the edge that lay in the crease of her leg. Her hips arched high and pressed against him, wanting the pressure of his touch, the sweet release of his cock. Slowly he pulled her panties away from her. He split her legs wide with his hands and lay over her. She felt his breath on her as he parted her. His lips roamed over the inside of her left thigh, the hottest of breaths, the tiniest of pauses, a hint of what might be satisfaction, before his lips touched and teased the inside of her right leg.

Her body arched in rhythm, wanting him. His lips descended again and this time there was the pause and then the searing heat that pulsed through her as his tongue found her hot nub. First he flicked at her, drawing her hips up wildly, and then his mouth covered her as he sucked. His fingers found her and pressed up and into her as his tongue massaged her, drawing her out, forcing her over and over so near to the edge, until her body convulsed and shattered.

Then his mouth was off her sweet spot and covering her mouth, his cock driving into her, the thick, hard shaft filling her and pushing her and splitting her as her mouth took his, and his tongue entwined with hers. Riding higher and harder and further, his body pressed into hers until there was nothing between them, nothing but them together, only them, and they shattered together into millions of sparkling pieces.

*

Cade woke. The room was filled with cold. He rose and placed two logs on the fire. He slipped back into bed and gazed at the creature beside him—Tulsa. His heart felt full. His emotion deeper than just a desire that he’d spent a lifetime trying to deny. He reached out and brushed his fingertips along her cheek. A tiny smile curved her lips and her eyes fluttered open. In the darkness, with the firelight, her eyes sparkled.

“Hey, you,” Cade said. His fingertips played in her hair. A sleepy smile lazed on her lips.

“I was having a really good dream that involved you and a hunting lodge,” Tulsa said, her voice soft with sleep.

“Not a dream.” He returned her smile and pulled her closer with his arm. He needed her closer, the heat of her, the scent of her, the want of her. He took a deep breath, needing her to fill his lungs. “This is as real as it gets.” With his words the smile eased from her lips and was replaced by a more serious look. A look that seemed to turn toward the impermanence of this moment. This want between them that withstood heartache, battles, death, rumors, time, and distance.

“But only for tonight,” Tulsa said, her breath heavy after her words, as though she wished the thought to be different.

“I want more,” Cade said, his voice strong yet soft. The idea of Tulsa in his life again took root.

“I’m not sure how that would work.”

Cade pondered her words, turned them over in his mind. Finally he said, “We don’t need to be certain of how it would work. We just need to know that we want to try.”

Tulsa’s gaze dropped away from his face as though she couldn’t get her mind to surrender to the thought. The idea that they could surmount the obstacle that still lay between them. The obstacle that stood like an impenetrable mountain, the obstacle of Connie and Hudd. Their beliefs were so fundamentally different as to what had happened that night.

“I don’t want to be held hostage by what happened. I don’t want to lose you again over a tragedy from nearly two decades ago. Neither one of us can make guarantees about the future, but we can agree to try.” He tilted her chin up and caught her gaze. “Can’t we at least agree we deserve to try?”

“Yes,” Tulsa whispered, a tentative smile curved onto her face. “We can agree to try.”

A solid hope encapsulated Cade’s heart and then he pulled her close, determined to never let her go.

*

When Tulsa woke the next morning, the spot beside her was cold. Sunlight streamed in through the windows. She glanced around the room, but she was alone. She heard the muffled sounds of Cade’s voice in the other room. His tone rose and fell, but she couldn’t make out the words. Once he was finished on the phone, she heard his heavy footfalls until he stood in the doorway.

“You’re awake.” He stood stiffly, one hand on the doorjamb, the other still holding his phone. His posture didn’t match the passion, the emotion, the vulnerability that had charged between them the night before.

“And cold,” Tulsa said. A shiver chased up her spine and she pulled the quilt tighter around her naked frame.

“I’d start a fire but…” His eyes met hers. “We have to go.”

She didn’t ask why—his stance, his demeanor, his hard eyes, all indicated that whatever the reason, their leaving was a must and her knowing why was irrelevant. Tulsa slid across the rumpled sheets until her feet touched the cold floorboards. Cade had been honest; last night he’d said he wanted only one night. One night to be beside her, to love her, to wake with her—and he’d had all three. His words of a possible future together had been fantasy. A fantasy fueled by pheromones, and sparkling stars, and lust, and the darkness of night. Now he stood alone on the other side of the room, already clothed. He turned away from her and faced the window, as if embarrassed by the vulnerability of her nakedness.

She reached for her underwear and jeans. A heavy feeling pulsed through her; she was neither embarrassed nor ashamed. She was a grown woman who wanted sex with him, who cared for him, but perhaps in the slimmest of moments she’d hoped, thought, that there was a chance to overcome the boulder that still lay between them. His cold look and solid stance, the way his eyes darted toward the door, longing to be free of this moment, told her that her slim hope had been an impossible dream.

“It’s my dad,” Cade finally said, as though the word “dad” caused a knot to form in his throat. “He’s in the hospital again. That was Wayne. Last night—” Cade ran his fingers through his hair. “It was a stroke and I just… I guess I feel like I should have been there.”

“Will he be okay?” Tulsa stood and slid her jeans up over her hips. Gone was the stoic coldness of Cade, replaced by a worry that hung in his eyes.

“They’re not certain yet about the physical and the mental impact. They’ve got him medicated.”

Tulsa pulled her sweater over her head and slipped her curls out of the collar. “You want me to come with you?”

Cade looked up and the tentative questioning in his eyes was her answer. He wouldn’t have to ask out loud.

“Okay then,” Tulsa said. She remembered the promise made in the darkness of the night, her promise to try to get past the obstacles, the barriers between them, and that included Hudd. “Let’s go.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The man who’d torn her life apart appeared so harmless in his hospital bed. Even in sleep, half of Hudd’s face lay withered and limp. The muscles beneath the skin were no longer tethered to the synapses in Hudd’s brain. His breath was slow and steady. One hand rested on top of the covers, misshapen and turned inward, a useless and lifeless claw. Life seeped from Hudd like the slow oozing of sap from a sickened tree. She waited while Cade and Dr. Bob spoke in the hall. Tulsa inched closer.

Hudd’s eyes fluttered open and his gaze skittered around the room, bouncing from bed to ceiling to window and finally his gaze settled on Tulsa.

“Connie?”

Tulsa pulled her coat closer. Her chest tightened; she was unnerved by yet again being called by her dead mother’s name.

“I’m not—”

“Connie.” Hudd’s gaze sharpened and roamed over Tulsa’s face.

Tulsa straightened her spine. This man, this old man, had nothing on her anymore. Outside the tiny mountain town what Hudd believed meant nothing.

“You sure as hell look like her.” Hudd’s voice ground out, low and raspy. “Little bit more polish. Not nearly as rough around the edges, but a McGrath is a McGrath. Got her hair.” Hudd narrowed his eyes to slits. “Got the rest of it too. I see it—there in them green eyes of yours—that temper. You may have learned to quell it, but that McGrath temper doesn’t go away easy.” The side of his face that still moved pulled up into a mean grin.