Melting the Ice (11 page)

She scooped a delicate mussel from its pearled shell and slipped it between her lips. “If I do that, I get ravenous. Then I eat too much, overindulge and seriously regret it later.” She maneuvered another succulent piece of flesh from its blue-back shell and dipped it into the butter sauce.

He felt like that now, ravenous, mad with hunger, a rapacious need as he watched her lips, slick, lush with juices. He’d glimpsed that same dark hunger mirrored in her golden cat’s eyes. He sipped his wine, allowing it to linger on his lips, watching her lick the butter from her finger.

If he coaxed her gently, softly over the edge, tipped her into a blind, maddening swirl of need, would she overindulge? Would she suck him in with the same delight, the same fervor with which she was tucking into those firm, butter-drenched prawns? He’d gone way too long with this need. How long could a man turn a blind eye to the hunger that was devouring him?

He speared a piece of fish with his fork. Damn. She was driving him wild. It wouldn’t be so bad if he couldn’t see she wanted him, too.

She was watching him as she chewed. Their eyes locked, meshed. It was as if she was reading his thoughts, the words hanging unspoken, charged, shimmying with the candlelight between them.

He broke the silence. “So how’s your rib, are you up to it?”

She raised her eyebrows, almost choking on her food. “Up to it?”

He grinned, the serpent in his belly writhing. God, he was sure up to it. “Up to a hike tomorrow, to check out this hut on Powder Mountain.” Then he leaned forward, dropping his voice to a smoky whisper, words meant only for her. “Unless you had something else in mind.”

Her eyes caught the glint of the candle flame. He could see it reflected there, flickering, dancing gold, the dark coffee rims around the lighter amber of her irises feline.

She swallowed, said nothing. Just looked at him, her fingers playing gently along the stem of her glass.

The night air was crisp on her face as the water churned in warm bubbles around her limbs.

He was right.

This felt good. She was glad she’d relented and allowed Rex to persuade her to pick up a swimsuit at the Presidential’s boutique.

Her aches, mental and physical, melted away as she rested her head back on the lip of the tub and looked up at the night sky. A giant’s brush had flecked the heavens with twinkling gold. A gibbous moon hung heavy and huge just above Powder Peak. The mica shimmered silver off the top of Moonstone.

She sat up out of the water suddenly. “Oh look, Rex, a falling star.”

“A shooting star.”

“What’s the difference?”

He wasn’t watching the sky. His eyes were intently fixed on her. She sank back into the frothing water, conscious of his gaze upon her breasts.

“I have no idea. I would guess a shooting star goes up and a falling one goes down.” He laughed, the sound rich, baritone. It rolled over her, through her.

“There’s a sense of direction, purpose and future about a shooting star. A falling star, well, it’s time has come. It’s a has-been. No future.”

Like us.
She challenged the look in his eyes, the weighted meaning of his words. “Weird thing about the heavens, Rex, is it’s
all
about the past. Many of those stars up there, they’re long gone. What we’re seeing is their history, a beautiful explosion, a glory spent, yet the memories, the light of them still hurtles through space to remind of what once was. What will never be again.”

His eyes were suddenly serious. Deadly so. She saw the dangerous edge in them. And the hunger. “Hannah.” His voice, low, curled through her blood, raising the small hairs on her nape.

“What?” She could barely manage the word. It came out a throaty whisper. He was undressing her with those Arctic wolf eyes. He was taking off her bikini top, watching as her breasts spilled free of the thin fabric, buoyed by the effervescence of warm bubbles. It sent an electric thrill to her core.

“It’s not over, Hannah. You know that.”

She swallowed against the tightness in her throat. She could feel the throb of her heart in the warm water. His eyes were undressing her. Mentally, he was stripping her naked. She could read it in the feral set of his features, hear it in the depth of his breath. And it was insanely titillating. The wine must have gone straight to her head because she was powerless to resist the image. All she wanted was to make love to him. Now. Here in this tub. Under this sky, while people watched from darkened balconies of the hotel rooms above.

His eyes held her entranced. And she lost sense of the sky, the hotel, the lambent water of the adjacent swimming pool, the steam rising into the night air. All she knew was him, and her, cocooned in the hot froth of the tub. She was falling deep, mentally, physically, right into the moment, just like six years ago. And like that time, she was just as blinded, just as bewitched by the sheer male sensuality of the man inches from her near-naked body. This alpha wolf. This loner. His arms, thick and muscular, rested on the rim of the tub. The dark hair on his broad chest was wet. He had never had any intention of staying with her six years ago. And he had none now.

He was programmed to roam wild.

Like Mac. Like her father.

And he was right. It wasn’t over. Not yet. It lived hot between them.

She narrowed her eyes, pinning him with her gaze. “Let’s finish it, then, Logan. Once and for all.”

“Do you know, McGuire, that your eyes are the color of an African cat and right now, they’re just as wild. Just as dangerous.”

She wanted to look away. Couldn’t.

“One hell of a challenge to look a cat like that in the eyes.”

“What do you mean?”

“A hunter who comes face to face with a lioness, looks into those eyes, he needs nerve.”

“For what?” She attempted a laugh. It came out hollow. “To raise the rifle, kill her?”

He raised his hand, reached forward, cupped the side of her face. “Yes. McGuire.”

She shifted back slightly. “The cat’s no match for the gun, Rex. He’s a coward, the hunter.”

He dropped his voice to a low, gravelly whisper. “No.” He edged closer. She could feel his thigh, all hard muscle, alongside hers, under the water. “A hunter, foolish or arrogant enough to get that close to the lioness, is left with two choices. Shoot, or try to walk away.”

“She’d kill him if he turned his back and walked.”

“Exactly…but he couldn’t shoot.”

Something huge and indefinable welled up in her chest. “He walked? She killed him?”

His voice was raw, rough and naked male. “Mortally wounded. The hunter was left half a man.” He was closer now, his lids low over the glitter of his glacial eyes.

“Why, Rex, why?”

“Why what, Hannah?” The low timbre of his words, the purling tone, licked over her, sucked her in as he bent closer. She could feel the warmth of his breath in the cold night air.

“Why’d he hunt the lioness?”

“He was hungry, Hannah. A hunger determined only by destiny. He had no choice.”

“And…and her?”

“She haunts him, still. Her eyes. In his dreams. Always.” His breath was now warm against her ear.

She could hardly speak. Her words came out a hoarse whisper. “Rex…what do you want from me?”

“What I want, Hannah McGuire—” the left side of his mouth dipped in a wicked, lopsided grin “—is to pull this little string here.” She felt his hand on the bikini strap at her back. “Pull it and free those beautiful firm breasts of yours.” A shiver marched up her spine.

He lifted her hair back from her neck and allowed his lips to whisper against her bare, damp skin. The mountain air was cold, the water warm and she shivered under the touch of his mouth. The contrast of temperatures set her nerves on edge. She was trembling. He teased her lobe with the tip of his tongue while he slipped a hand under the wet fabric of her bikini top and found her nipple erect. He moaned. Deep. The sound so primal. Hannah felt cold reason swallowed by hot lust, by blinding, throbbing need.

“Rex…”

“Shh.” His eyes were heavy-lidded, deep and darkened pools now. He brought his mouth down onto hers, stealing words, crushing her lips, invading her with the roughness of his tongue, his taste male, wild. She was drowning, yet exquisitely aware of the churning bubbles tickling her limbs as they floated to the surface to be released into steam as they met the cold night air.

She was without logic, without choice. She met his hunger with her own, tasting him, letting her tongue slip, mate and dance around his, feeling his teeth, the inner seam of his lips. She had a need to wrap him in her legs, take him, suck him in and feed her deep inner yearning.

She splayed her hand wide on his chest and ran it down the fine ridge of dark hair, down into the water, down his hard belly, pressing, urgent. He groaned and deepened his kiss.

A deep splash jolted her out of her haze.

Someone had dived into the pool next to the hot tub. Waves churned the water into an oily dance, black against gold in the night as a lone swimmer cut through the pool in a graceful crawl.

Rex cleared his throat, the lids of his eyes still thick with desire, his voice husky. “I think we are no longer alone.”

Hannah quickly pulled the fabric of her bikini top back into place. “I…I think I’m going to call it a night, Rex. I’m not thinking straight. I’m tired. Very tired.” Her body, her heart had just won a round with her head. Again. And she just did not have the resolve to fight it. Or even begin to understand it.

She stood up and reached for her towel and the thick white terry robe provided by the hotel.

She half expected, half wanted, him to reach out and yank her back down into the warm foaming water, into the dangerous whitewater of their relationship. She pulled the robe around her and tied the belt, tight. She walked, brisk and erect, into the hotel and made for the elevator without looking back.

He didn’t come after her.

Hannah kicked off her slippers. She let her robe slip off her shoulders, and she climbed out of her wet bikini. She hung her bathing suit in the bathroom, took a fresh robe off the hook and walked over the hotel room carpet to the French doors, feeling the soft pile beneath her toes.

She threw open the doors, stepped onto the balcony. The stone was smooth and cold under her feet. She let her robe fall open. The night air kissed her skin with its frigid embrace. She wanted the cold. She wanted to clear her body and head of the hot passionate haze that had engulfed her.

She breathed in the mountain scent, feeling her nipples pucker tight against the night. Goose bumps prickled over her skin. She leaned over the balcony, looked down at the pool, the hot tub. She expected to see him there. He was gone. The swimmer was also gone. The surface of the water gleaming, unbroken. As if it had never been. As if a dream.

Then she gasped at the small sound that came suddenly from behind her.

Hannah’s throat closed in fear as hands grabbed her wrists, yanked them roughly behind her back. Before she could scream for Rex, her wrists were caught in the tie of her robe and bound behind her.

Chapter 10

“D
on’t walk out on me like that!”

Rex spun her around. “Anyone could’ve been waiting up here for you.”

Her eyes were wide with fear. She was naked under her robe. It splayed open, exposing her full, rounded breasts, nipples dusky, hard and tight. The sight stole his breath, his thoughts. His stomach swooped in a roller-coaster lurch, down, in a hot wave to his loins. Her hands were bound behind her back but it was him held prisoner. Her body trapped his eyes, drawing them down the imperceptible swell of her belly, down to the dark gold delta of hair at the apex of her thighs. Lean, long thighs.

He looked up, mouth dry.

Her lips were parted as she breathed, her breasts rose and fell as if from exertion. He’d shocked her. Yet a fine flush of arousal brushed her cheeks and those cat’s eyes were alight with an untamed fire. They ignited his need. It burned ferocious, hot and out of control, in the crucible of his belly.

His body screamed to take her at once, roughly, savagely, drink her in, feed on his years of pent-up need. He saw the same kind of need mirrored in the strange dark tempest raging through her gold eyes as she challenged him. He saw the way her eyes flicked down to the towel at his waist. And under her gaze he felt himself swell and pulse where he hung hot and heavy between his thighs.

He reached up, reined in his ferocious fire and gently cupped one breast, scraping the hard nub of her nipple with the pad of his thumb. He spoke against the lust thick in his throat. “God, Hannah, you’re beautiful.”

Her breath hitched as he pinched her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. He wanted to taste it. Suck it in. He came closer. Her lids flickered, low, her vision swimming. She was delirious, weak with desire. He could see her passion, and it fueled him.

Rex moved his hand up onto her neck. A small sound came from somewhere deep in her throat. He felt as if his knees would buckle under a wave of pleasure that ripped through him. He traced the aristocratic line of her collarbone and let his hand slip down between her breasts, down over her belly to cup the hot mound between her legs. She struggled weakly against the bond at her wrists.

But he didn’t free her. He slowly parted her, held her open, slipping his finger up into her heat. She was slick and swollen with need. Another dizzying wave seared through him. He plunged another finger into her core, moving, stroking, coaxing.

Her legs sagged. She moaned and allowed herself to sink deeper onto his fingers.

The world closed in on them.

“You want me, Hannah?”

She said nothing. Just held his gaze, lips parted, and rocked gently on his hand.

He swallowed an oath and swept her off her feet, carried her in from the cold.

He laid her on the bed, freeing her bonds. And his head swam with the vision before him. She was like an angel, like she had come to him in dreams. Her gold hair, damp, splayed out over the virginal white of the pillow, her tawny, dusky nipples, the dark-gold mystery nestled between her legs, was his for the taking.

She reached up and pulled the towel from his waist. He swelled free into her hands. Her soft hands worked with deft movement, stimulating, tantalizing, coaxing.

His brain unraveled with the sensation. It was so much better than he’d dreamed. His mind lurched back six years.

And he stopped.

Grabbed her hands.

“No.”

Her eyes were wide with surprise, her voice a soft throaty whisper. “Rex?”

He couldn’t. What kind of a man would do this to her? Hurt her like this. Again. He couldn’t stay. He couldn’t do this. There was no future. None.

Rex pushed her hands gently aside. “Hannah…I’m sorry.”

Anger, pain flashed in her eyes. She gripped his wrists, fingers digging into his flesh. “Damn you, you bastard.”

“Oh, I want you, Hannah. Like nothing before—”

“You’ve taken me this far. Take me all the way…or has the great hunter lost his nerve? Is he not up for the kill?” She ran her hands down his belly as she spoke, reached between his legs, coaxing the hot life that pulsed there.

Hot ribbons burned, twisted through him. His vision blurred. “I…I can’t promise you anything, Hannah.”

Emotion glistened in her eyes but her voice was a low, throaty growl. “You think I’d be that stupid…twice.” She rubbed, teased. The blood left his head. “I know you won’t stay. I’m not asking for tomorrows. But I need this. Maybe we both need this. Maybe then we can let it all go, finish it. Take me, Rex. I know you want me.”

She opened her legs to him, her lioness eyes calling, bewitching.

His restraint snapped in that instant. He edged himself between her thighs, forcing them wider with his knees, and she reached up with her hips to him. Straining, urgent, demanding.

He rocked into her…slowly. At first just the tip, slipping in. Out. Then each movement plunged him deeper. She was slick, gilded and hot with need. She moved with him, rhythmically, fervently, the friction driving them both higher. He could feel the skin of her inner thighs against him, smooth. Soft. Firm. He drove into her, ground into her. Faster. She bucked under him. Wild. He came closer. Higher. He moved until they were slipping and slick with the heat. Until scarlet waves colored his mind and his nerves sang. Until he wanted to scream, mad and primal, like a conqueror of the night.

She seemed to sense he was on the tip. He could feel she, too, was poised, quivering on the edge. For an instant he paused. He looked into her eyes. They were open wide, dark and carnal. Then they swam blind, lids low, her moans animal. He watched her face as he felt her climax, wave over rippling muscular wave. He felt her erupt hot around that part of him buried deep in her. It was too much. He shuddered and burst into her, spilling himself in exquisite release.

The waves rolled deliriously over him and over him. He wanted nothing more than this woman. He wanted to shelter her, fight for her, love her. He wanted her to bear his children. The tide of thoughts that surged over him, through him, were not coherent but there as a primal need.

He understood need.

He had lived with it.

It didn’t mean it could be fulfilled.

He fell back into her arms. Spent, they lay in silence, the pregnant white drapes billowing softly in the cool night breeze.

When Rex woke, Hannah was nuzzled into the crook of his arm, her breathing soft and rhythmic. He lay there listening to her. His arm went numb, but he didn’t move. He didn’t want to disturb her. He didn’t want to face reality. He’d seen her pain. Things shouldn’t have come to this. It was his fault. Yet she’d blinded him.

They were destroying each other.

Hannah woke to the warm scents of bacon and coffee. She opened her eyes to a room filling with the yellow gold of morning sun, vaguely aware of a subtle throb between her legs. It had nothing to do with the slight pain in her rib or the stiffness of her limbs. Sex. It had everything to do with a night of hot glorious sex. He was a perfect lover.

But he wasn’t hers.

There was no way she could’ve halted what had surged between them. She had no regrets over their lovemaking. But he still wasn’t hers. At least this time she had no naive expectations. This time she
knew
he’d walk. And she would accept that, with pain. But could she accept that for her son, for their son?

She turned to find Rex watching her, his eyes, Danny’s eyes, catching the bright clear light of the morning. He needed a shave, but she liked the look. The dark shadow on his jaw offset the sharp whiteness of his teeth as he smiled at her, eyes creasing with warmth. She didn’t think she had noticed it before, that tender warmth in his smile. He was beautiful, in a rough and wild way, like these granite hills. Like the way he’d made love to her.

She couldn’t help but return the affection in his smile. “Good morning.”

“It is a good morning. Coffee?” He held up the pot.

“What, no tea? What have you done with the Brit in you?”

He paused, coffeepot poised above cup. “My dad was the Brit. An English army colonel. But my mother, she liked coffee. Good Italian coffee.”

He poured, steam curling.

He’d never spoken to her about his parents. “Your mother isn’t British?”

“Wasn’t British.”

He stirred in cream and sugar. It pleased her that he remembered how she took her coffee.

“My mother died when I was fifteen. She was Italian, a singer.”

He brought the coffee to her in bed. She accepted the cup, warm in her hands. His fingers brushed against hers. “I guess that’s where your dark looks come from.”
Where Danny’s looks come from.

He frowned, turned to pour a cup for himself. “She was dark, with olive skin. A gypsy at heart. I have my father’s eyes.” He turned them on her now. “People say he has cold eyes, that he’s a cruel man.”

She sipped, watching him over the rim of her mug. “Is he? Cruel, I mean?”

He stirred his coffee and dropped the spoon onto the breakfast tray. He walked with his mug to the French doors and looked out at the mountain. “I don’t know if
cruel
is really the word. He was a damn fine colonel. One of the best. He wasn’t noted for expressing his feelings. He used to say to me, ‘Show your feelings, son, and you give people tools to hurt you.’”

Hannah cradled the mug in her hands. “Did that include showing his feelings to his son?”

He turned to face her. Eyes narrowed, jaw tight. “I never saw much of my father. I bore the Logan name but that was about all. My mother was good enough for a night of hot sex but that was it for the colonel. He already had a wife and four children when I was born. I was the bastard son, the family’s dirty little secret.”

Hannah’s chest felt tight. The words hit home. History was repeating itself in a way. A father, a family, were not part of the deal for Daniel Logan McGuire, either. Danny was her little secret.

Rex turned back to look out the window. “But he did his duty. For the colonel, it was always about duty. Never love. He sent the money regular as clockwork. Visited me from time to time. Never at Christmas or my birthday. I was like a tedious little chore, something that had to be seen to. Then he got mother to agree to send me off to a fine British boarding school. It was supposed to be in preparation for the career in the military he envisaged for me. I saw my mother for holidays. She died after my fifteenth birthday.” His tone was bitter, his words clipped. “From school it was expected I enter the military. I did.” He turned to Hannah. “There you have it.”

Duty.

She did not want Rex to be forced to do duty by his son. She wanted her son to have a dad, to have the genuine love of a father in the home.

Love, not duty. Not some tedious little chore.

Rex had told her he could not promise anything. She accepted that. But did she owe it to Rex to tell him? Did she owe it to Danny? Could she cope with the fallout? Could she cope with a life like Rex’s mother’s, like her own mother’s?

She didn’t think she could, but she had to make a choice. Soon.

Today was Wednesday. Danny was coming home on Friday.

She felt trapped, cornered. Nausea and confusion swept over her.

“Hannah?” He was talking to her. “Hannah, are you okay? You’re pale.”

She set the half-full coffee cup on the bedside table and pushed the tangle of hair out of her face. “I’m fine.” She looked into his eyes. “I’m sorry, Rex.”

“For what?”

“For what you went through as a child. I never knew.”

His face was suddenly wiped clean of emotion. Hannah suspected it was a trick he had learned early in life.

“It’s nothing. Some people are cut out for love and family. Others aren’t.”

She sat forward. “That’s not true.” She didn’t want it to be true. She yearned to reach out to the vulnerable little boy she knew must lurk deep within him. She wanted to comfort him, hold him, tell him everything would be all right. But the man’s eyes were once again as cold as Arctic ice. That little boy must sleep very, very deep within that man, she mused. Frozen in a protective shell. She wondered what it would take to melt it away. Or if anything could.

“Come, have something to eat.” He changed the subject, moving over to the breakfast tray and lifting the silver lid. The warm scents of food curled out from under it.

Hannah felt her stomach clench in response. “No, I’m not hungry right now. I just need a shower.”

She started to throw back the covers and make for the bathroom when she realized she was still buck naked. She pulled the covers back up over her chest.

Rex grinned, lines fanning out from eyes that held a mischievous spark. He was finding her morning-after modesty amusing. She could feel herself starting to bristle.

He could see it. He reached for her white terry robe hanging over the chair and brought it to her.

“I’ll see you in twenty minutes. Dress for the mountain if you’re still up to it.” Rex closed the door to the inter-leading room behind him.

Right. They were going up to Grizzly Hut.

It was around 10 a.m. when they made their way across the village toward the gondola building, the sun already warm. The day would be hot, but up high where the air was thin, over to the north, Hannah could see fine threads of gathering clouds.

Rex followed her gaze. “The weather today should be good, but there’s a front moving in. Weatherman said it could arrive early in the weekend, possibly as soon as Friday.”

Friday. That was when Danny was due home. Hannah felt a band constrict about her chest. Her time was running out.

They dodged through crowds of tourists gathering in the square, waiting for the clowns to start their acts. The village was getting busier, noisier, people flocking in for the long weekend, for the festival, for the conference.

So, thought Hannah, if the forecast was correct, it would rain on this parade. It would be the first time in years. White River had been unusually blessed with sunshine for at least the past four years over the long weekend that eased August into September, summer into fall. It was traditionally the last holiday fling before schools opened for the year and before locals knuckled down for the busy winter ski season.