Larkspur Road (24 page)

“More convincing, huh? You got it.”

“And just where…are we going?” she gasped between long, dizzying kisses as he mounted the steps with her tight in his arms.

“I promised to show you the rest of the house. This is Grady’s room….”

Mia caught a one-second glimpse of a chest of drawers, and a sleeping bag and pillow on the floor of a good-sized room.

“We camped out last night,” Travis told her, striding past it down the hall. “Grady couldn’t wait to see what it was like to sleep here. And that’s a bathroom, and another bedroom, and this is the master bedroom.”

He carried her over the threshold of a huge, high-ceilinged space, cloaked in darkness but for the moonlight streaming in the windows. Perhaps it looked even larger without a king-sized bed to fill it, Mia thought, a little dizzy from the heat of his kisses.

There was no bed. No curtains. No furniture at all other than a low oak bench, a fireplace, and a wide-screen TV hanging on one wall. But a pillow and a much larger sleeping bag than the one in Grady’s room lay upon the hickory floor.

“Bed and armoire due tomorrow,” Travis said roughly, his gaze hot as he looked into her face. His boots scraped against the floor when he walked to where the sleeping bag was spread out and set her on her feet. “Maybe we should wait another day.” His mouth brushed against hers, lingering, tantalizing. “It’s a great bed, king-sized, leather headboard, good linens—”

“Oh, no, you don’t.” Her fingers curled through his hair. “Forget the bed. Forget another day. You and me, we’re doing this…now. I don’t want to leave,” she whispered. And smiled into his eyes. “And I don’t want to talk either.”

He laughed, then kissed her long and hard. He tasted like wine and desire, like strength and sex and
Travis
. His lean, rock-hard body felt like the stone gate to heaven as he swept his arms around her, and pulled her even closer. They kissed like two crazy people, all sparks and spice and lightning, their mouths not parting for even an instant.

Kissing her throat, he lowered her gently down onto the sleeping bag and then gazed at her with an intoxicating mixture of flat-out lust and laughter.

“Last chance. If you want to leave, say the word.” He was nibbling at her neck, his teeth scraping gently. “But you’d better say it fast.”

“Neither one of us is leaving. Neither one of us is going anywhere,” she heard herself say breathlessly as she grabbed ahold of his polo shirt and yanked it over his head. Then drank in the sight of that broad, hard chest, lightly matted with dark hair.

She kissed him again, long and slow, her hands exploring the taut bulge of muscles across his upper body. With just her fingertips gliding down, she traced the hard flat plane of his stomach. Need flowed through her, hotter than coals in a stove. His eyes, midnight blue in the silvered darkness, seemed to pierce straight through to her core.

“Two can play that game,” Travis said, his voice so deep and husky she shivered all over. He gripped her tan sweater, pulled it up over her head, and sent it sailing across the bedroom. In the process her hair clip came loose and her pale hair tumbled down past her shoulders.

“Yeah, what else have you got, cowboy?” she challenged him softly, giving her head a shake. As the slow grin she loved spread across his face all the way up to touch his eyes, she pushed him down on the sleeping bag and quickly moved on
top of him, both of them laughing as if they were kids again, alone in his bedroom at Sage Ranch, nobody else home, the door locked, and only the two of them, making crazy teenaged love atop his old green-and-blue-striped comforter.

Her mouth was so hungry for him, she could barely breathe. Her whole body was starved for him. She stroked her tongue against his and gasped when he hauled her down, pinning her tightly against him. Their mouths fused in kisses that were long and deep and fevered. Mia’s mind whirled with sensation as the last remnants of rational thought spun away into the shadows.

“Hey,” she murmured as he unclasped her pale, blush pink bra and flung it aside.

“Your panties go next,” he whispered, his mouth burning a path down the column of her throat.

“It’s a thong, for your information,” she gasped, working at the zipper of his jeans.

“Even better.” He licked her ear and smiled at her soft moan, then with a swift, deft move he flipped her over, making her gasp with laughter as he switched places with her, him on top, kissing her all the while.

They tore off each other’s clothes, Travis taking his time when she was nearly naked, slowly, so slowly sliding the tiny lavender wisp of her thong down her thighs and tossing it across the room in the opposite direction of her bra.

“I’ll have you know that’s a very expensive piece of lingerie to be throwing around,” she said, her hands fisted in his hair. “I ordered it from Victoria’s Secr—”

“I’ll buy you ten more. Or maybe you should just stop wearing any.” He braced himself above her, his eyes glinting into hers with humor and tenderness before his gaze drifted downward from her flushed face and warm amber eyes to the creamy beauty of her breasts. “You’re so beautiful, Mia.” His voice thickened. “You’re perfect. You always have been. I’ve missed you. Missed
this
. The way it feels when we’re together.”

“Show me.” Pulling his head down, her mouth clung to
his again. Heat fluttered through her as the kiss grew even hungrier. “Travis,” she whispered, “show me how much.”

“Baby, I intend to. Don’t you worry.” Eyes gleaming, he shifted lower, and his mouth found the pebble-hard peak of her left breast.

Mia had been planning to tell him to hurry up and show her, but the words died away in a wordless moan as his clever tongue stroked and circled. Licked and kissed and nipped. Ever so slowly teased.

Her eyes drifted closed. She didn’t want him to hurry. Lost, melting, her body pulsed with an aching pleasure.

Travis took his time. She realized with a rush of heat that he
wanted
to drive her wild, and oh, he was succeeding. He nibbled hot kisses and licks down her stomach, then went lower still, past her hips to taste the sweetness at her center.

She could barely breathe as he nuzzled her, flicked his tongue over her, caressing and teasing as if they had all the time in the world….

“Tra…”

She forgot his name. She forgot her name. She forgot everything but the feel of him stroking her with his tongue, with his fingers.

He took his time with her, making her writhe, making her moan as a keening pleasure roared inside her until slowly, ruthlessly, he sent her flying over the edge, dizzy and crazy and soaring through space.

She was still gasping when he surged up over her, dark, rugged, handsomer than the devil himself. His eyes burned into hers as she clutched those broad shoulders.

“I…want you…need you…inside me, Travis. All of you, n-now,” she gasped, her fingers sliding down those muscled arms, her body straining, aching for more of him. For all of him.

“Ah, Mia, baby.” He reached toward his discarded jeans and yanked out a condom, his eyes burning with equal parts lust and laughter. “I can handle that.”

“I just bet you can,” she gasped raggedly as she wrapped her legs around him, pressed kisses across his broad chest and neck, and opened herself to him, heart, body, and soul.

Travis filled her, his blood roaring in his head, in every part of his body. As her hips began to thrash, he drove steadily, deeper, and harder as they fused together. He breathed her in, watched her damp, flushed face, felt his body ignite at the glazed need in her beautiful eyes. He saw something else, something wild and soft and giving. Her gaze was locked on his, the center of her amber eyes darkening as she cried out and clutched him, nails scraping down his back.
Mia
. He lost himself in her, in her deep hot sweetness. Lost himself again and again and again.

The rest of the world disappeared. In a nearly empty bedroom in a cabin in the woods, filled with two people, a sleeping bag, and the glimmer of the moon, he made love to the woman of his dreams.

And after he finally sank down on the sleeping bag beside her and cradled her in his arms, he stroked her hair and made her laugh with the only words either of them spoke for a long time.

“Now, that gives a whole new meaning to the expression ‘coming home.’”

Larkspur Road was dark and silent by the time they returned. It was almost ten o’clock and no lights shone from Mia’s house when Travis turned the Explorer into her driveway. He immediately glanced over at Ellis Stone’s home where light still glowed in two of the windows. The boys must still be watching Indiana Jones or playing video games, and Ellis was probably awake, too, waiting for them to go to sleep.

“That’s strange. Something’s wrong,” Mia said beside him, even as he scanned the other houses on her side of the street. He saw several lights gleaming from windows along the block. “I’m sure I left a light on in the hallway and the kitchen.”

“You did. I’m thinking it might be a power outage. Only it looks like it’s just your house.”

“Samson! He’s all alone in the dark.” Unsnapping her seat belt, she sprang out of the Explorer. Travis was already slamming the driver’s-side door and heading toward the porch, two long strides ahead of her.

“Why don’t you give me your key and wait in the car? Let me check this out first,” he said, easing open the screen door.

“No way. I’m going in with you.”

“Mia.”

“Here, open the door.” She handed him the key and waited, her face tense, determined. “Hurry, Travis—Samson…”

He sighed at the set expression in her eyes. And at the worry he saw there. “Stay close, then—right behind me.”

Even as he fitted the key in the lock, they could hear Samson barking—sharp, frantic yips from somewhere in the house, and he saw Mia stiffen.

The dog definitely wasn’t in the hall or the living room. The barking sounded distant and muffled and much more high-pitched than usual. Agitated.

“Travis, hurry, something’s definitely wrong,” she whispered as he pushed open the door to pitch-blackness.

“Stay right behind me,” he repeated, scanning the darkness ahead of them.

She watched him move toward the light switch in the hall, a big shadow moving with purpose. His entire body seemed to emanate a kind of dangerous power and subtle authority. As he flipped the switch the entry flooded with light.

They both blinked, swiftly scanning the living room, dining room, and what they could see of the kitchen and hallway. Nothing amiss. The only sounds were those harsh, desperate, near-hysterical barks.

“I have to find Samson!” she muttered, but as she started forward, Travis stopped her, his hand closing over her wrist.

“He’ll be okay for another minute or two,” he said in a low tone. “Follow right behind me now while I check the place out.”

As he edged forward, the dog’s high-pitched barks intensified to fever pitch.

This was nothing like Samson’s normal welcome-home bark—there was panic and alarm in the frenzied yaps. Mia fought back the urge to call out to him or to race ahead and find him. Her throat was so tight she could barely swallow as she forced herself to wait, shadowing Travis from the living room to Gram’s sewing studio and then the dining room. Suddenly, in the kitchen, he stopped so abruptly she bumped into him.

She gasped when she realized what had caught his attention.

The back door was wide open. Someone had smashed the window set into it and had no doubt reached in to open the lock. Shards of glass littered the floor she’d left spotless only a few hours ago.

“Travis…”

He spun toward her, gripped her arm, and spoke in that same low, calm tone she had to strain to hear. “Hang on. Don’t touch anything—the sheriff will have to dust for prints. We need to check the rest of the house, make sure no one’s still here. Stay close, okay? You all right?”

“I will be once I see Samson and we catch whoever broke in here,” she whispered furiously.

Travis nodded. “And we will. Come on.”

Grateful for the calm in his voice and for the cool determination she saw in his eyes, she followed him back down the hallway to her bedroom and adjoining bath.

There was no sign of anything being disturbed either there or in the smaller bedroom in the back of the house she used as an office during the school year. As they hurried toward the guest room—Brittany’s room—the sound of Samson’s frantic barking grew closer. Louder.

At the last second Mia couldn’t stand it anymore and bolted past Travis through the doorway, unable to wait another minute as she heard the dog going crazy on the other side of the closet door.

“It’s all right, Samson, I’m here,” she cried, yanking the
closet door open even as Travis barreled forward, cursing under his breath, and bracing himself for whatever—or whoever—else might be on the other side of that door.

But only the dog sprang from the small, dark prison, jumping wildly toward Mia. With a cry, she swept him up into her arms.

“You’re all right!” Her knees almost sagged with relief. Samson didn’t seem hurt in any way and he wasn’t whimpering. But he was plenty upset. His eyes shone wild and frantic in the gloom. He was shaking all over, squirming in her arms, licking her hands, her face.