THOR (10 page)

Three years later

Luke

Olivia walks ahead of me and I hold back so I can watch her. She’s barefoot, her sandals dangling from one hand and she’s strolling along the water’s edge. She watches the waves breaking. The sun, setting over the Pacific, casts her face in a rosy glow. She’s content and pensive and tonight when I touch her she’ll reach out to me with a certain need that I understand because I’ve seen it before.

Olivia’s pregnant. Again. With our second child. I’m sure of it.

A month after we married, she started getting sick in the morning and we found out we were expecting. Eight and a half months later, Silas was born.

Our boy’s staying with Julia and Dad, while Olivia and I enjoy a few kid-free nights. I booked a stay at the Cape Astoria Lighthouse to celebrate our three-year anniversary. It’s something we do every anniversary and this one’s even more special to me.

I have my camera in one hand. This is the fourth camera I’ve bought since our first pregnancy. I guess I’m kind of hard on cameras but it’s probably because I take my camera every chance I get so I can capture moments like this. Lifting it, I call out to her. I have to shout to be heard over the crash of the waves.

She turns. Her long, beautiful hair swirls around her face and she smiles as I snap the picture. I look at the screen and think how this image is the moment in time before she discovers that another miracle is about to happen in our lives.

Pouting, she retraces her steps. “I’m starving.”

“It’s about dinner time. I should feed you.”

Cooking for Olivia is my favorite thing. Well almost. I love everything. Spending time with her. Teasing her. Loving her.

Ever since the day in the cabin when Trey came after her, we haven’t been apart. He was hauled off and in no time put away for a laundry list of crimes. Not just for assaulting my wife, but drugs and trafficking too. He’ll get released about twenty years after he’s dead. I’ll never forget seeing her trying to fight him off. I still wish I could get my hands on him. I’d tear him apart.

She pulls me from the savage thoughts when she slips her arms around me.

“The groundskeeper claims the lighthouse is haunted,” she says.

I wrap my arms around her. “And there’s a storm expected tonight.”

“Good thing we’re staying in tonight.”

I take her hand and we walk back to the lighthouse. By the time we make the twenty minute walk, dark clouds loom across the horizon and a distant rumble confirms the coming storm. The first, fat raindrops pelt us as we run down the stone pathway. The wind yanks the door from my grip. I lift Olivia into my arms, carry inside. I’m careful to duck down, because the door isn’t built for guys my height. I kick the door shut behind me and the slam echoes against the white-washed walls.

“I’m carrying you upstairs, Olivia.”

“It’s three stories to the bedroom,” she fusses. “I’m too heavy.”

“You’re perfect. If I were going for a run, this would almost be a good warm-up. Maybe if I carry you up a
few
times.”

“Bragger.”

“Lightweight.”

The house I bought Olivia is a Victorian with a wrap-around porch, gingerbread trim and a wide staircase. I love to catch her off guard, after Silas is asleep and haul her off to bed. Sometimes I’m romantic and carry her in my arms, but if she’s sassed me at some point in the day, I don’t give her romantic. I give her rampaging Viking.

This staircase spirals up, narrowing as we ascend. It would have been a little easier to toss her over my shoulder, but I need to be gentle with my baby-mama.

When we get to the top floor, the soft light of dusk has been blotted out by the storm. Weather changes fast around here, but that’s okay. Silas is having fun with grandma and grandpa. He’s safe and sound and I have my woman all to myself.

              Inside the bedroom, I set her on her feet and pull off my coat.

She gives me a coy look, pretending not to know what I want. “I’m hungry.”

It takes me less than a minute to have her jacket off and her sweater too. She’s wearing a lacy bra that cups her full breasts perfectly. I kiss the swell of her breast and flick the snap open.

“Luke.” She threads her fingers through my hair, holding me as I tease her nipples with my tongue.

Usually I linger, but she’s already making small plaintive sounds and undoing my shirt. I strip her down, shed my clothes and lay her back on the four-poster bed. I feel like some sort of feral animal. A barbarian claiming his war prize.

Her eyes shine with need as she rakes her gaze over me. I prowl across the bed, crouching over her and stroke my cock. Her eyes move to my erection and she let out a small murmur of arousal.

“Is this what you want, baby?”

“
Luke
,” she pleads.

I dip my head to kiss her. I cup her breast as I delve my tongue between her lips. Her kiss tastes like summer and honey and morning sunshine.

I’d like to linger there too, but already she’s parting her thighs, inviting me. Her breasts feel heavier in my hand, filling them just a little more than they usually do. Her body hums with new energy and hunger. I love that I know her body so well that I feel every change, even before she does.

Her pussy is wet and swollen with arousal. If I licked her now, I’d have her coming inside a minute, and as much as I love that, I want her coming on my cock.

I sink into her, claiming her. She’s wild even before I’m inside all the way, writhing, panting and making the sweetest sounds of need. If I wanted to be kind, I could flip her over and ease her down on my cock. I’d let her ride me, but as much as I like to spoil my wife, I’m not feeling indulgent, just yet.

She lifts her legs and clasps me with her silken thighs. It’s an invitation, a plea for more, but I’m going to take a little more time.               Her fingertips dig into my shoulder. She’s sucking in deep breaths and shaking with need.

“
Luke
…”

Aside from flashes of lightening, the room has grown dark. Rain lashes the windows.

Small mewling noises come from the back of her throat. The sound always unleashes some primitive force in me. I clasp her hips and drive into her. Hard. And she meets each thrust, clinging to me as I take her like some beast let off his chain. She arches beneath me and screams my name. Her voice echoes against the walls and with a snarl I follow, my climax ripping through me.

I roll over taking her with me and she lies over me, draping herself over me. I love that moment, after making love to Olivia, where we lie together, barely speaking, just trying to let our breathing and heartbeats return to normal.

After a few moments, she speaks. “I have to tell you something.”

I smile. “Sounds serious.”

“It might be.”

“Go ahead. I’m listening.”

“I’m craving mangos.”

A craving for mangos is as good as a little pink line. I close my eyes and I picture her with a baby bump. God, I love that.

“You almost never crave mangos.” I pretend not to know what she’s talking about.

“Sometimes I do.”

“Oh?” I ask.

She lifts her head and gazes at me. “Don’t you remember? When I was pregnant with Silas. All I wanted were mangos the first trimester?”

I stroke her hair. Taking a swath I coil it around my finger. “That’s right. Mangos. So you think you’re pregnant?”

She gives a breathless laugh. “Maybe. I don’t know. We haven’t been trying to prevent it and we’ve certainly been doing a lot of the thing that leads to it.”

“True.”

“Would you be okay with that?”

I release her hair, roll her to her back and kiss her lips. The kiss is soft and unhurried. I leave her lips and kiss her jaw, her cheek and pause to kiss the corner of her mouth. I brush my lips toward her ear.

“I’d love another baby, Olivia,” I whisper.

She wraps her arms around my neck and we lie in silence while the storm unleashes its fury.

“If it’s a girl, I might name her Alice,” she says.

“Alice, after your grandmother. I like that.”

I’m not one for naming kids after family members, but I love Olivia’s grandparents. They’re crazy about Silas. Yeah…a little girl named Alice would suit me fine.

“I’ll bring you some dinner,” I say. “Julia picked up some take-out for us.”

I slip on my boxers and go down to the kitchen.

The lighthouse is from 1872. It was restored five years ago and much of it was left as is, but the kitchen is up to date. Stainless steel and marble.

I grab a few bottles of water and some sandwiches from the deli. It’s casual, but the idea of coming here wasn’t to spend time cooking.

I grab a cutting board and a paring knife. I take a mango from the fridge and peel and seed it. Mangos are fuckers to cut up, but I got pretty good at it during our last pregnancy. After I slice it, I put the pieces in a dish and return upstairs.

When I get back, Olivia has lit some little candles and the room glows. She’s standing by the narrow window, dressed in my t-shirt. It’s miles too big for her and she looks pretty adorable with the sleeves hanging to her forearms. She always swipes my shirt after she has her way with me. She always says my shirts smell like me and that’s why she steals them.

Gazing at the dish of mangos she draws a sharp breath, and her lips curve into a beautiful smile. We go back to bed to eat. She picks at the sandwich. I wish she’d eat more. Running around after Silas has kept her a little on the slender side, but she finishes off every bit of the fruit. Neither of us says much. Tendrils of lightning continually dart across the sky, sometimes striking the ground. Thunder crashes, and high up here in the lighthouse, perched on the rocky shore, the show is dramatic.

Later, when the storm rolls past, I put out the candles. The night is still. Moonless. Peaceful. In the distance the surf crashes. I tuck Olivia next to me. When I set my hand over her tummy she places hers on top and we say good night like we always do.

“Goodnight, Tart,” I whisper.

“Goodnight Thor,” she whispers back.

THE END

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Author’s Note: All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to other real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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Chapter 1

The landing gear lowered, sending a jolt through the jump seat. Savannah Michaels closed her eyes. She could feel the plane descending. Her fingernails dug into her palm. Sweat trickled down her spine and made her uniform cling to her back. The plane touched down with hardly a bump but still drew a small murmur of alarm from her. She gripped the armrests and tried the counting trick the counselor taught her.

Captain Marshall’s voice came over the loudspeaker. His deep baritone always soothed her frazzled nerves at the end of a flight. There was something about the timbre of his voice. It both comforted and aroused her. She shouldn’t think about the captain like that, but couldn’t help it.

Her response to him was almost as bad as her anxiety about landing. When she’d asked the personnel department to switch her itinerary so she wouldn’t have to fly with him, the woman had acted like she was crazy. “
Honey, usually we have girls trying to get
on
his schedule.”

“Welcome to Jackson Hole, ladies and gentlemen,” Captain Marshall said. “We’ll be at the terminal in two minutes.”

He always sounded so reasonable and kind-hearted when he spoke to the passengers. With her, though, he was gruff and unfriendly. When she said hello to him, he always growled. His gaze would drift over her body and have her thinking of filthy things in no time. She wondered how his big hands would feel cupping her breasts, how his lips would feel pressed against hers, how his powerful shoulders would feel under the palms of her hands.

She’d only been working for the Mountain Resort Airlines for a few months and she couldn’t afford to upset any of the big shots. Jack Marshall owned something like ninety-five percent of the stock, so she tried to avoid him at all costs. He could make trouble for her. Big trouble. In so many ways. Jack Marshall had pulled strings to get her a job on the airline and both of them knew she needed to show gratitude.

Jack didn’t need to work. He had plenty of money. Stock, real estate, oil. He’d been out of the service for six years and in that time he’d taken a small inheritance from his grandfather and turned it into fortune. But he still flew for the airline he started because he loved being a pilot.

“It’s going to be brutal out there,” said Heidi, one of the other flight attendants. “Usually we don’t have to deal with blizzards this early in November. Makes me appreciate our Texas winters.”

As if on cue, a gust of wind buffeted the plane and a low murmur of worry moved through the passengers. Savannah waited for the plane door to be opened by the forward team. She went to the two small children sitting at the back of the plane, a brother and a sister coming to Jackson to visit their grandparents.

She didn’t always have kid-duty, taking care of the younger passengers who flew alone, but she enjoyed the kids when she did. Last time she’d flown, she’d had trouble with a couple of drunk male passengers. One of them tried to run his hand up her leg. She was grateful Heidi had been there to handle him. The seasoned flight attendant moved right in, cut off his liquor consumption and his attempts to grope Savannah.

Children were so much easier. Pretzels, sprite and a blanket and they were happy.

“Come on kiddos, we get to get off first,” Savannah said. “You two get special treatment since you were so well-behaved.”

When she got to the front of the plane, Captain Marshall waited by the door to see off the two children. At six foot four, his head almost touched the ceiling of the plane. He was broad chested and athletic. She’d seen him shirtless countless times and knew first hand there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. He’d kept up his Marine Corps exercise regimen even though he’d been out of the service for five years. If any man was made to wear a pilot’s uniform, it was her step-brother, Jack.

His mother and her father had been married for almost two years. From the beginning it had been tough. She and Jack had verbally sparred many, many times. He thought she was sassy and opinionated. She thought he was arrogant and opinionated. But when they were working together a tentative peace existed between them. The tacit understanding when they flew together was they didn’t know each other. No one would ever guess they had any sort of connection. He called her Miss Michaels. She called him Captain Marshall.

Jack’s airline company served wealthy clients who jetted between their homes in LA or Manhattan and the upscale ski resorts nestled in the Rockies. Aspen. Vale. Jackson Hole. Passengers liked the small personal touches that made the airline different from the bigger carriers. Jack liked his pilots to make a point of saying hello and good-bye to every passenger and children always got a little souvenir.

As Savannah and the children neared Jack, he took two airplane models from his coat pocket and gave one to each child. “You two kids are getting escorted by the prettiest flight attendant we’ve ever had.”

Savannah fought the urge to roll her eyes. This was part of the game they always played, where he acted like the charming pilot and she was supposed to keep her mouth shut and smile at anything he said.

“She mixed up a special drink for us,” the little girl said.

The captain blinked in surprise, his lips tugging into a smile. He lifted his gaze and held hers for a moment. “Is that so, Miss Michaels?”

“It was a Shirley Temple.” Savannah felt herself blush. “
Sir
.”

He held her gaze and then bid the two children good-bye. She ushered them out the door and down the stairwell. Icy winds cut her skin and the children ducked their heads against the brutal cold.

Inside the small airport, she found the children’s grandparents waiting. She handed them off, telling the elderly couple how well behaved the children had been. They thanked her and walked away hand in hand with the children to the baggage claim.

The rest of the passengers were disembarking and she waited till the last stragglers got off. Just as she was about to go back to the plane, Jack came down the stairs and across the tarmac, leading the rest of the flight crew. He carried her coat and pulled her suitcase.

“I have your things, Miss Michaels.”

When he played this game he made it doubly hard on her to keep up the façade. But she had to. Her job depended on it. At twenty one, with no degree and no resume’, she needed to do everything she could to keep the boss happy. He handed over her coat and held on to the handle of her rolling suitcase. Heidi and the rest of the crew waved as they walked away.

Savannah nodded the direction of the other crew members. “Where are they going?”

“To their hotel. You and I are staying at The Montgomery.”

“The Montgomery…?”

He stared down at her with his usual irritation. It made her shiver and she wondered what she’d done to annoy him now.

“That’s right,” he said. “For once don’t argue with me.”

The normal protocol she adhered to was to speak to him as little as possible. He’d set that precedent, explained that even though he employed her, their relationship was professional. That code extended her living arrangements too. She rented a small guest house on his property in Salinas Pass. It had a separate entrance from the main house where he lived. She came and went without seeing him. They lived separate lives, for the most part, and when they had to interact it was almost always formal and impersonal.

Now, without warning he was taking her to a hotel? Alone? When had he changed the rules?

“Come on. I’m hungry,” he said.

She followed him wordlessly. Her job was a three month trial. He’d offered it when she was at one of her lowest points in her life, cut off without a penny from her father. It was no secret that she was a terrible flight attendant. Heidi and the others covered for her when she forgot drink orders, or airline procedures. They surrounded her like a protective flock of aunts.

Everyone always acted like flight attendant work was easy. Go over the floatation device procedures. Tell people to buckle up. Serve some drinks and food. And that was pretty much it. Or so they said. But it was hard. Tiring. People whined and complained. Sometimes they were rude. Other times they were overly friendly. Often there was turbulence and she would work hard to calm passengers, while she herself was terrified.

“You’ll get the hang of it,” Heidi liked to say. “At least you didn’t throw up this time.”

Then it dawned on her. Word had finally gotten back to Jack. She bit her lip nervously and wrapped her arms around herself. He was firing her. Her career as a flight attendant was coming to an end. She could almost hear her father’s cackle. She would never live it down. Her father and sisters would sit around the dining table and talk about how Savannah couldn’t even hold a flight attendant job, at an airline her step-brother owned.

Outside a town car waited. The driver took the luggage. Wind blew, icy and swirling with snow. It felt like small shards of ice hitting her skin and she was grateful when she climbed into the car.

“The Marriott, Captain?” the driver said.

“No, not this time. The Montgomery.”

“Yes sir.” The driver pulled away from the curb and merged with airport traffic. “I hear it’s for sale.”

“You heard right. I’m buying it. I closed on it last week. I want to spend a few nights there. Make sure there are no ghosts.”

Jackson Hole was lovely, her favorite of the resort towns the airline serviced. This would probably be her last time here, for a while at least. The pretty mountain town was the playground of the rich and famous. Everything was expensive in Jackson. How much would a hotel go for she wondered?

Jack was always thinking of new investments, so it didn’t come as a huge surprise he’d want something like a hotel. Her father loved real estate too, and she might even tell him about Jack’s newest acquisition if he ever decided to speak to her again.

Two months ago, her father had all but disowned her when she announced she wasn’t going to law school. Enraged, he’d cut her off without a penny, forcing her to quit college half-way through her last semester.

Jack had arrived at her apartment in Austin, offered her work and the artist’s cottage at the back of his property. She was about to be evicted so she agreed to both the work and the sweet little cottage. Some of her family knew she worked for him, but no one knew she lived on his property. She came and went as she pleased. The cottage was tucked away, so she hardly ever saw him. But if her father ever found out, it would be a scandal. His only advice about Jack had been for her to stay as far from him as possible.

That man’s trouble…

“Savannah.” Jack drew her from her thoughts. “Are you hungry?”

“A little.” His gaze was cool and domineering and the perfect control he always maintained worked on her in an unpleasant way. He was going to buy her dinner and give her walking papers. A wave of irritation swept over her. She wished he would just get it over with.

“Are
you
hungry?
Captain
Marshall.”

He took off his hat and tossed it on the seat next to him. His look darkened. “You better quit that.”

Her thoughts went to the heated place she always went to when she was around him. She smoothed her hands over her skirt. The man had every flight attendant’s attention, but as far as she knew he never pursued any of them. He was quiet, reserved, and held himself apart.

He toyed with her. Always. When he offered her the guest cottage, he’d given her a sultry gaze and told her his guest room in the big house was available too. The first time she’d flown with him, he’d brought her coffee in her hotel room and told her once they were married they’d have to take turns making coffee and serving it to each other.