Off the Map (Winter Rescue #2) (16 page)

He waited, though, his cock throbbing against the tight heat of her entrance, taking a moment to gaze down into those oversized brown eyes that hid nothing, gave everything away. “I’ve loved you from the first moment I saw you. I hope you realize that. You’re this loud, beautiful, whirling, dangerous
thing
that burst into my life, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do with you. I still don’t, to be perfectly honest.”

She wriggled against him, driving his already throbbing erection toward madness. “Well, for starters, you could fuck me.”

“Hold still, would you? I’m
trying
to be romantic here.”

She squirmed harder—every part of her body that was soft and tempting working its magic. “It’s so empty inside here. So hot and lonely.”

“I’m not going to do anything to you if you don’t lie still and let me tell you about my feelings.”

“I hate feelings. Can we go back to yelling at each other and making out in angry hallways?”

“I love you.”

She made the sound of a buzzer. “My vagina is closing for business in five…”

“I’m sorry for not believing in you before.”

“Four…” Her legs began closing around him.

“I’ll let you DVR over anything you want from here on out.”

Her eyes flashed in interest at that one, but she still began her slow, agonizing clamp on his cock. “Three…”

“I promise to fill your life with as much noise and drama as you want.”

“Two…”

“And I want you to know how much I appreciate you coming out here to help me find Mara. If we don’t find her—” His voice cracked, and he had to take a deep breath to start over. “If we don’t find her, I may need your help wading through the wreckage. I don’t deal with loss well. I never have.”

“We’ll figure it out,” she promised. “Together.”

Neither one of them cared about counting after that. He pushed into her slowly, savoring the tight fit of a body he knew so well, enjoying this moment of slow, careful lovemaking in ways he’d never imagined before. Burying himself in this woman was always a pleasure—whether it was the explosive sex after a fierce battle of wills or a more casual Sunday morning quickie—but he’d never experienced this before.

Carrie was everywhere all at once. Even though she remained pinned underneath him, her body rolling against his, he could smell her, taste her, feel her moving up into his heart and lodging there.

He lifted her leg in a move he knew she enjoyed, driving himself deep inside, eliciting a sharp cry of pleasure.

“Oh, Scott, yes.” She arched her back and angled herself to allow him even more penetration. He loved that position—her breasts jutting, her body open—and groaned as he sank in once more. “Exactly like that.”

But he stopped and held perfectly still, all of his senses on alert. “Did you just…?”

“Beg you to keep going? Why, yes. Yes I did.” She rocked her hips until he had no choice but to resume his activities. Her cries became frantic and more pronounced, his own body tightening with the anticipation of release, but he stopped once again, dropping a hand over her mouth.

“Be quiet for a second. Did you hear something?”

“Be quiet?” She struggled up on one elbow. “I’m about two seconds away from an orgasm, and you want me to pipe down?”

“It can’t be.” He reached down between their bodies, his fingers finding her clit and flicking it in a way he knew drove her crazy. She released a sound somewhere between a moan and a howl, and that was when he heard it again.

A faint sound, a crack against the wind, almost like a dog’s bark. And it wasn’t the low, familiar timbre of Jenga on the scent.

“Carrie, I think I hear something.”

“Is it the guys?” She scrambled to sit up. “Come on—if they’re back, we can go on the search.”

“No. No, it’s not the guys.” He swirled his thumb against Carrie’s body again, eliciting another one of those unearthly sounds he cherished because they belonged to him and him alone.

She dropped her head back with a groan. “You’re a tease, you know that?”

“I need you to come for me, Carrie. Right now.”

“I’m
trying
, but you keep interrupting me.”

“No—I mean it.” He moved against her, every muscle in his body taut, his cock throbbing, his blood coursing, his heart so full it almost hurt. “I need you to give me everything you’ve got.”

“You already have it all, you idiot. You always have.” Still, she followed his directions and gave herself over to him. For the next sixty seconds, he allowed himself to think of nothing but Carrie—her pleasure and her beauty, the way she held nothing back—until her orgasm ripped the sounds from her throat and drew his own release forth.

He was shaking and sated, panting from the exertion of loving this woman, but that didn’t stop him from rocking back on his knees, frantically grabbing for his clothes. “Holy shit. I think you might have—”

Her eyes grew wide as she, too, heard the bark sounding from a distance. “No. It can’t be.”

He fumbled with the zipper of the tent, only half-dressed but frantic to get outside. It wasn’t possible. Finding his dog couldn’t be as easy as letting himself love Carrie with everything he had.

But it was. And it could. And there, at the edge of their camp, barely visible against the swirling snow, was Mara.

Chapter Ten

Both Mara and Jenga lay curled up in Scott’s lap when the rest of the team returned from their search.

Carrie’s reaction to seeing the dog appear on the fringes of their camp, her hesitant tail wagging, her poor body matted with ice and clumps of snow that had to add at least ten pounds to her already burdensome walk, had been to burst into tears. And then promptly get dressed, because her nipples had been about to snap off.

But these guys? Exhausted and cold, coming in after a four-hour march in the wilderness? Smart-asses, every last one of them.

“You knew where she was this whole time, didn’t you?” Ace fell to the ground, his body making a lumpy, misshapen snow angel. “Bastards.”

“None of the work, all of the glory. Typical.” Max dropped his pack with a sigh.

“It was the north trail, wasn’t it?” Nate swore, but his beaming face counteracted his vehemence. “I knew we should have started there. Always go with your gut—I have such a hard time with that one.”

“Carrie found her,” Scott said, smiling. He’d been smiling nonstop for the past hour—it alternated between a huge grin that lifted her up off the ground and sent her flying, and a quieter, inward-directed calm she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen before.

Peace.
That was peace.

She patted the side pocket of her parka, where Voodoo Scott and Hairball Mara lay comfortably nestled together in the warmth of her body heat. She’d taken a moment to shove what remained of the hairball inside the doll’s broken chest cavity. It probably wasn’t necessary—from the way Mara kept whimpering and licking Scott’s face, and the way Scott kept allowing her, it seemed pretty clear they had no intention of letting each other go—but Carrie wasn’t tempting fate. Not again.

“Carrie did it? You weren’t walking on that ankle at the time, were you?” Ace looked up from his spot on the ground. “I told you—elevation and ice packs. We still need you to fly us home.”

She was glad the cold made it impossible to blush. “Oh, I wasn’t walking.”

“It was the funniest thing,” Scott said, and she could hear the mischief in his voice. Playful and gruff, just like a puppy. “Remember the other night at the poker game, when I said she makes that sound—”

Carrie squeaked and ran over to his side, prepared to slap a hand over his mouth, but he was ready for her, and he ducked so she would have to go through his pack of animals to get to him.

“Are you seriously hiding behind your dogs right now?”

“You wouldn’t hurt poor, neglected Mara, would you?”

She turned to the rest of the team, all of whom were watching them with varied levels of interest and amusement. “Don’t listen to a word he says. Mara came to us. She was drawn by the sounds of the camp.”

“You mean she was drawn by the sounds of you howling.”

“I do
not
howl, you jerk.”

“Mara thinks you howl.”

“It’s more like mewling. I’m a kitten. A sexy kitten.”

Scott’s eyes—those dark, sleepy windows that pulled her in and made her feel whole—flashed, and she shut him up the only way she knew how. With a kiss.

In the background, she could hear Max and Ace and Nate heave a collective sigh as they began the monumental task of packing everything back up so they could head home again. They were getting really good at this discretion thing.

“You should go help them,” she said as soon as Scott let her go enough for her to catch her breath. “I need to mentally prepare to get us out of here. I want to make my last flight count.”

Scott frowned. “You don’t know that it’s the last one. There’s still time.”

He sounded so concerned—not for the dangers of the wind, but for her future—she couldn’t help but tease his lips back into a smile. “I think I’ll be okay either way. You aren’t the only one who learned a little something about himself out here.”

It was true. This could very well be the last flight she ever took, but she no longer felt as if her world would crack open if that happened. She was a good pilot, yes, but she was also a good leader, a good rescuer, a good friend.

Flying wasn’t family. These guys were.

She fell into another burst of enjoying this particular part of her family, embracing the dogs and the man as one. Scott alternated between yelling at her to be more careful with his animals and refusing to let any of them move an inch out of his reach, his commands so loud she almost missed hearing Nate’s voice a few minutes later.

“You know, the more time I spend with them, the more I can’t decide if they hate each other or love each other,” he said.

“Oh, it’s love, bro,” Ace replied. “With those two, it’s never been anything else.” 

Epilogue

Scott hung up the phone and pressed his head against the window, enjoying the cool press of the glass against his forehead. After spending three full days living and breathing snow, his house felt like a sauna by comparison.

“How’d it go?” Carrie’s arms wound around his waist, her chin propped on her shoulder. “Is your dad coming over to join our
Die Hard
marathon?”

“Not this time,” Scott said, and stayed in place, letting the familiar sensation of Carrie’s embrace comfort him. “But Newman was over, and it sounded like they were enjoying themselves.”

“That’s good.”

Scott nodded. “I might go over there later. Just to say hello and maybe take a few cans of Ace’s cranberries.”

“That’s nice.” She hesitated. “Do you want me to come along?”

Yes. Wholeheartedly. Without reservation. “Would you?”

“I can’t think of any other way I’d prefer to spend Christmas than with your family.”

They stood that way for a few minutes, a portrait of unprecedented calm, taking a quiet moment before they returned to the living room where a loud, messy, nontraditional holiday celebration was in full swing. Ace and Max were out there reciting the entire movie by heart while most of the rest of the SAR team complained in the background. Lexie was reported to have dumped an entire plate of cookies on their heads.

When he and Carrie finally did pull apart, it was because the kitchen door swung open to let in a fluffy grey-and-white husky, diligent in her pursuit of her family even though she hadn’t fully recovered yet. Dehydration and exhaustion had stripped her of some of her natural exuberance, but Scott expected her to make a full recovery. Already, she was coddled to unhealthy levels and allowed to sleep in the bed with him and Carrie.

Well, not
all
the time. There was something seriously wrong with the way his dogs reacted to the sounds of that woman’s pleasure.

“Who’s the sweetest girl?” Carrie dropped to her knees and began bestowing Mara with a profusion of kisses. “Who wants to open her presents early?”

“I thought we agreed not to do presents,” Scott said. “You told me that the FAA letting you keep your license was enough. You wept tears of joy. You said nothing I could do would ever top your tears of joy.”

She flashed him a grin as she got to her feet. “Oh, don’t worry. I didn’t get
you
anything. This one is for her.” And then she proceeded to grab a box from the counter, lifting the lid to reveal a pile of garbage and discarded dust bunnies.

“What the hell kind of present is that?”

She didn’t answer him, just lifted out three small bundles of hair, which, upon closer inspection, were revealed to be twisted into some kind of weird shapes. “Mara, I want you to meet your new siblings. JoJo, Hijinks, and Rex.”

“Those aren’t her siblings, Carrie. They’re lumps of hair. And when the actual animals arrive, they’re my newest training puppies. Not pets.”

She continued ignoring him. “Do you want to keep the puppies, Mara? Should we make Scott keep the puppies?”

Mara wagged her tail in enthusiastic agreement.

“You’re spoiling her. One more week of this, and she’s going to be a useless contribution to our team.”

“I think he wants the puppies, Mara. I really do. I can hear it in his voice.”

He groaned. “Carrie—we are not keeping every dog that comes through here. I don’t care how many weird, crafty hairballs you and Lexie make.”

She finally looked up at him, laughter in her throat and on her lips. “Too bad it’s not up to you. You won’t have any say in the matter once—” she extracted something more from the bottom of the box, “—Voodoo Scott arrives!”

Oh, hell no.

Scott made a lunge for the battered doll—his chest bandaged with pink duct tape and nothing below the waist but plastic, skin-colored briefs—but it was too late. Voodoo Scott started rolling around on the ground with the hair, falling into declarations of ecstasy at his suddenly expanded family.

He wasn’t the only one to fall. Feeling left out, the living, breathing Scott also dropped to the ground, finding himself fully claimed by the enthusiastic kisses of the woman he loved and the dog he was determined never to let go again.