Instant Gratification (12 page)

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.

T
he 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 liv
ing 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 when they’d heard his truck start and take off.

“Dammit.” She sighed. “He must be just off a hike or something. He wanted Band-Aids. Which means he’s hurt.” And hot and sweaty. And sexy. “
Dammit
.”

“You said that already.” Spence watched her grab her black medical bag. “So you’re really doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“Falling for a big, tough, outdoorsy guy with more testosterone in his pinky finger than most guys have in their entire body.”

She shook her head. “I’m just going to take him Band-Aids, Spence. And see how badly he’s hurt.” With that, she walked out the door, Spencer’s knowing gaze following her.

She didn’t catch up with Stone until she pulled into the driveway at the Wilder Lodge. As she hopped out of her dad’s truck and moved toward his, she found him leaning back against his driver’s door, arms and legs casually crossed. Eyes inscrutable. Expression closed.

She looked him over carefully, her heart stopping at the napkin wadded in one of his hands.

There was blood on it.

She took another closer look, then eyes narrowed, stepped right up to him so that they were toe to toe and pulled off his baseball cap.

Bingo.

The wound on his head was bleeding, and she went up on tiptoe to study it closely. “Dammit, Stone.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Can we go inside?”

“It’s nothing,” he repeated.

“Inside.”

“Fine.” He straightened, shoving his hands into his pockets. Gesturing with a jerk of one shoulder in the direction of a trail next to the lodge, he started walking. She followed him past two small cabins and up to the front of a third. He opened the door, then gestured her in ahead of him.

His place, she realized. He flicked on the mudroom light. The entry opened to a living room which was dimly lit by the
single light by the front door, but she could see exposed wood beam ceilings and gorgeous distressed oak wood floors. There was a large comfy looking couch and several chairs facing the biggest TV she’d ever seen, and beyond that, a huge sliding glass door leading out to the black night.

Using only the mudroom light, he moved to the couch and plopped down, kicking his booted feet up onto the coffee table next to an SLR camera and a tool belt.

A study in contradictions. “I can’t figure you out,” she said.

“Ditto.”

She took her bag off her shoulder, set it at her feet, then crouched down to open it up.

“Don’t bother, I’m not letting you re-stitch.”

Glancing up along the length of him—
and up
, because damn, the man was tall—she wished he’d turn on another light. Especially since his broad shoulders blocked out the glow from the mudroom, casting his face in shadows. “I’m just going to disinfect and put on one of your standard medical go-to’s—a Band-Aid. Okay?”

He said nothing, so she flipped on a lamp herself, then pulled out antiseptic and a gauze. Bending over him, she wiped away the now drying blood. “You know, you ought to think about buying stock in Band-Aids.”

He said more of his loaded nothing. She put on a steri-strip, then straightened and sighed. “Okay, listen. There’s nothing going on between me and Spencer. At least not in the way you’re thinking.”

His eyes cut to hers. “Not that it matters, but your definition of nothing is interesting, considering I saw you playing tonsil hockey with him.”

“You saw him kissing me. He was proving a point.” At his raised brow, she raised one of her own. “That our chemistry is no longer there. How did you get hurt?”

He lifted a shoulder.

“Let me guess. You went to Moody’s and once again got beat up by three women?”

A corner of his mouth quirked, and he let out a breath. “I helped TJ on a climb, and as it turns out, our client is an idiot.”

“You should probably try harder to weed those out in the selection process.”

“We do try, but sometimes they get past us.”

“Huh.”

He slid her a look. “Hey, even you have to treat the assholes of the world.”

“Yes, but I don’t have to put my life into their hands. What happened?”

“We were roped together and he screwed up on a grip. Kicked me in the head as he fell. He’s lucky that I have fast reflexes and caught him anyway, or we’d both be bleeding. Or dead.”

She stared at him. With those surfer boy good looks and that throwaway charm he exuded in spades, she kept forgetting how easy it was to underestimate him.

She’d underestimated him.

Because no matter how much he looked like a slacker, he was nowhere close. “I’m really not sleeping with Spencer, Stone.”

“Anymore.”

“Anymore,” she agreed. “I’m not sure why I feel the need to tell you this, but it’s the truth. And, as long as I’m opening a vein, I’ll tell you I haven’t had sex in nine months.”

“Long time.”

“At about the six month mark I stopped missing it.”

“How is that even possible?”

“I’m a girl. We aren’t programmed to think about sex 24/7 like guys do.”

“We don’t think about it 24/7. It’s 20/7, max.”

She smiled wryly. “I keep telling myself it’s not nearly as good as I remember it.”

He tugged her down to the couch with him. Those broad shoulders of his blocked out most of the light. His eyes were very dark. “It would be with me.”

Oh boy.

He shifted closer, then closer still. “Tell me one more time why you were kissing Spencer.”

“To see if there was a spark.”

His hands settled on her arms as he slowly but inexorably pulled her up against him.

He looked at her mouth, his eyes heavy and sleepy, and she shivered, anticipation racing down her spine, branching out into all her good parts, of which there were many more than she remembered.

Way more.

She could feel his hard chest against hers, the easy strength in him as he held her. He was still looking at her mouth as he dragged his teeth over his bottom lip, like it was taking no effort at all to hold her, but plenty of effort to hold himself back. “Do you feel a spark now?” he asked silkily.

If she felt any more sparks, she’d burst into flame.