Stumbling a little, they moved to brace themselves against an aspen, kissing deeply, piercingly, hands roving. Tyler unbuttoned her coat, and she unbuttoned his. Then his hands were on her blouse, and Anna stilled, allowing him to unbutton each button in turn, until he sighed and pushed it away, then covered her breasts with his big hands. “You fit my hands exactly right, Anna,” he whispered.
She swayed at the pleasure he gave her, closing her eyes against the silvery moonlight, simply accepting the loving attention he gave, his hands against her breasts, and over, and on her tummy, his mouth on her lips, then her chin, her ear, and her mouth again. She found her breath moving far from her, and heard his, hungry and low, against her ear.
Slowly, he pushed the cups of her bra downward, until her breasts were uncovered in the moonlight, brushed with his fingers and the cold, and then his hot mouth was upon the tips, until her body trembled with the sensation of heat followed by the sudden lack as he moved to the other side, leaving the moisture of his mouth to cool the abandoned one in erotic contrast. Anna gripped his shoulders fiercely, crying out softly.
His nimble hands moved to her hips, and Anna felt her skirt begin to rise, felt the air touch the backs of her knees, then higher, on her thighs, then blow across the most sensitive part of her, and his hands were on her naked buttocks, his mouth upon her breast, and Anna clutched him to her. “Tyler!” she gasped. “You have to let me touch you, too. I can't stand it.”
He raised his head, his eyes burning. “Touch me any way you want, Anna.” He kissed her.
She slid her hands under his shirt, at last putting her hands on that smooth, supple flesh she had so long admired. She brushed her hands over his waist, and up his back, and slid them around to the buttons of his jeans.
And this time, he did not protest as she unbuttoned the worn denim, or when she slid her hands inside and found his hot and rigid flesh. It was his turn to still, to cry out softly as she stroked him. His turn to fall, lost in pleasure, as Anna touched him, and kissed his chin, and his neck, and his mouth, feeling his hands tighten against her bottom, then grow more hurried, stroking urgently.
With a soft, wicked laugh, she let him go, and put her arms around his waist. “It's too cold out here,” she whispered. “I think we have to go home.”
He made a wordless noise of protest, and captured her mouth, kissing her into a trembling frenzy. Anna eased away, pushing her skirt down. “Fair is fair,” she said, laughing, and, clasping her coat around her unbuttoned blouse, slipped away.
His low chuckle told her he was following. At the truck, he said, “I'm going to torture you for that, Anna.”
“Oh, I sincerely hope so,” she said, and climbed in, sliding across the seat to open his door for him.
He stood there looking at her for a moment. “God, Anna, you should see yourself. You look like Venus herself.”
She only smiled.
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Tyler felt drunk. Dizzy and alive and vividly happy. The drive up the mountain was too curving to take with anything except the utmost caution, but he managed it in record time. And at last, at last, they were home, and inside, and shedding clothes the minute the door was closed behind them.
Tyler grabbed her, holding her head with one hand to kiss her while he fought her coat from her willing shouiders with one hand and she fought his from his body. They stumbled and turned, and he tore her blouse in his hurry, unable to bear another second of waiting. She unhooked her bra, he discarded his shirt, their tongues and mouths joined. He kicked off his shoes, and she tossed away the bra, and they fell together on the bed, chest to chest, in an agony of want. He didn't bother with anything else, only shoved up her skirts, and freed himself, and plunged.
Deep.
He cried out at the same moment she did, both of them shocked at the pleasure of the joining. His breath caught in his throat, and he gripped her shoulders, looking down into her beautiful, vividly colored face. The luminous black eyes opened, and held his gaze as he began to move. He kissed her, and she clutched him tightly to her, and then there was only the furious power of their need, rocking and intense, limbs and lips and bodies entangled in the deepest, most intimate joining of his life.
And it was not only bodies, but hearts and souls and minds, too, all melting into some blazing, illuminating, light-filled melding. He felt himself nearing release and captured her face in his hands, feeling the sweat and heat and need between them. She opened her eyes and met his gaze, and he let himself go, shuddering and kissing and looking deeply into her soul, and he watched her eyes a moment later when she followed, her body arching, her head flung back, and he kissed her throat and felt her come apart.
And he knew that he was forever changed, from this moment forward.
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Anna lay in Tyler's arms limply, letting her heart rate slow, and her breathing return to normal, floating in the glorious sense of communion she felt with him in this moment, an attunement so pure and clean and satisfying that she felt no need of words. He shifted, pulling her on top of him, and they sighed together at the small aftershocks of pleasure it sent through both of them.
“Oh, Anna,” he breathed, his hands stroking his hair. “You're one hell of a woman, you know that?”
The words came through his chest, into her ear. “Mmm...” she said lazily, smiling.
His hands moved from her hair down her back. “I love the way you feel. Your skin feels like rose petals, and you smell like heaven. Like the way the ground smells when it's been really hot, then it rains.”
Anna lifted her head to look at him, amazed at the words pouring out of him. As if he did not realize, he touched her cheeks. “I love your coloring. Those black eyes and red cheeks.” His fingers grazed her lips, then slid down her chin. “And your breasts.” His gaze followed his touch, skirting the round of one bare breast, cupping the weight in his palm, and Anna found herself growing aroused by the simplicity of that touch and gaze together. “Your breasts are so sinfully sensitive. All I have to do is slip one finger, right over the topâ” he did, and the tip rose to meet him eagerly “âand there it is, ready for me, again.” He spread his hands around her rib cage, and helped her into a sitting position straddling him.
Anna tried to adjust her skirt, but he grabbed the fabric, and began to draw it over her torso. “Lift your hands,” he said, and Anna complied, feeling deliciously pagan and amazingly unshy as he drew the skirt over her head and tossed it away, leaving her naked. He dragged his hands over her body. “You're so gorgeous.” He touched her round belly, and slid his thumb between her legs, and Anna simply allowed it, taking pleasure in the sensual abandon that was on his face, making him look like a sleepily dangerous lion. “I think maybe now I'll torture you.”
Before she could react, he had turned her on her back. His jeans hindered him, and he held her still while he shucked them from his long, long legs, then straddled her. “What do you like, Anna, my sweet?”
“You, Tyler.”
He bent to kiss her neck. “You like this,” he said, suckling the tender flesh there. “And this.” He flickered his tongue over her ear. “But I wonder...do you like this?” He tasted her shoulder, her biceps, her inner elbow, her inner arm and wrist. He kissed her belly button and knees and bent to her toes.
And all of it, all of it, was exotic and rich and wonderful. He teased her unmercifully, with dancing tongue and clever fingers playing over her body in usual and unusual places. At last, he bent between her legs and let that skillful tongue rove and flicker and lave until Anna was shivering all over, arching against him with low, panting cries.
Then he halted and straddled her again, and Anna pulled him close, to take him into her mouth, and she teased him the way he had teased her, until once again they fell together, shouting in triumph at the eventual joining.
And the whole night passed in that way. They made love on the bed and in the shower. Standing in the kitchen, braced against the counter, lying on the floor in front of the fire in splendid, unashamed nudity. Tyler spilled brandy over her breasts and belly and licked every tiny drop away, and Anna spread him with chocolate, and they made love in sticky, laughing joy, requiring another shower.
Finally in exhaustion, they slept tangled in each other's arms, only to awake and make love one more time as day crept into the room, tenderly, slowly. Sore and still hungry, they simply lay together afterward in silence, as birds brought in the morning.
Chapter 18
“I
almost forgot,” Tyler said as they drank coffee the next morning, sitting on stools in the kitchen. He reached into his duffel bag and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “Yesterday, I spent some time with a friend of mine and we drew up a rough plan for the cabin.”
“Really?” She smiled happily. “Show me.”
“Well, I was just about to do that.” He unrolled the blue-and-white sheets on the counter, anchoring one end with a heavy stoneware pencil holder. “This is the original ptan.” he said, tracing the outline. “And this is our lot. Plenty of room, as you see.”
“Wow. How much land do you have up here, Tyler?”
“Almost five hundred acres.” He lifted his brows. “Enough to make our grandbabies rich, if they ever have a need. By the time they grow up, this land will be worth about ten times what it is now.” He drew his finger around the lot. “The meadow we sit in is about five and a half acres, but I put the house against the trees for wind protection. That meansâ” he unrolled a second sheet “âwe'll have to add on through the front. I thought maybe we could make the main room now into our bedroom, with the baby's room where Curtis sleeps now, and we'll add on this way.” He pointed out the generous dimensions to the front of the cabin. “A big main room, and a bedroom for Curtis.”
He felt as if he were babbling, and he hated the lump of guilt in his gut. Still, he reasoned, Anna would better like having a home of her own, not something that had been built for another woman. He would give her a house she could love in her own right.
She bent intently over the plans, and asked serious questions about the placement of windows and doorways, then finally leaned back on the stool. “It looks wonderful, Tyler. Will you be able to finish it before the baby gets here?”
“Easily. Once the ground thaws, I'll get Lance on the ground work, then I'll do the rest.”
She smiled. “Really? You're a pretty talented guy, aren't you?”
He lifted one wicked eyebrow. “Very.”
“Indeed.” She crossed her arms and leaned over the plans again, sucking on her bottom lip in a way he recognized as meaning that she was biting back her words.
“What's bothering you about the layout?”
She took a breath. “I don't want to interfere with your life-style choices, Tyler, but do you think we'll ever have electricity? I can live without a lot of the comforts of the world, but I miss being able to watch movies. And I'd like to have music sometimes.”
“Fear not, my lady,” he said, lifting a palm. He pointed at notations at the bottom of the plans. “This means we have to hire someone to lay the lines from where they stop, about three hundred yards down the mountain, all the way up here to our humble meadow.”
Her happiness tugged at him. “Oh, Tyler, that's wonderful!”
“I'll let you give me my reward later.”
She chuckled. “Gladly.”
The birdlike screech of the cellular phone went off, and Tyler picked it up. It was his mother. “Just thought you might appreciate a little warning,” she said. “Anna's family is on their way up the mountain to see where she lives.”
“Are they driving on their own?” He didn't like to think of them on that road.
“No. Lance is bringing them.”
He hung up. “Showtime, kid. Your parents are on their way to examine your abode.”
Anna groaned, covering her face. “Now I have to be reprimanded. Ugh.”
“You'll get through it.”
She rolled her eyes. “I guess.”
With a sense of surprise, Tyler realized he felt completely comfortable with Anna this morning. And more than that, there was an odd, light sensation in the region of his chest that, upon examination, proved to be simple happiness. It made him smile, and he leaned forward to plant a kiss on her mouth. Not a kiss of hunger or need or anything else remotely sexual. Just a kiss. Just because.
“That helps,” she said.
“Yeah?” He did it again, and put his hand on her belly. “How's my girl this morning.”
“Never better.” She covered his hand with her own. “You know, if you keep up this grinning and laughing and joking, you're going to completely ruin your reputation as a grizzly loner.”
He lifted his brows and kissed her once more. “It was getting to be an old song anyway.”
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Anna heard the truck on the road a half hour later and, wrapping herself in a light sweater against the cool wind, stepped out on the porch to wait. Tyler, never one to waste time, was using a metal tape to set stakes in the softening earth in front of the cabin. He straightened and waved as they drove up. Lance and Anna's brothers both ambled over to him, and they fell into the manly discussion of foundation requirements and construction materials.
Curtis, too, had returned with them, and he ran to his father's side. “What ya building?”
“A new bedroom for you, Slick.”
“Oh, boy! Can I help?”
Olive, dressed sensibly in sturdy walking shoes and jeans and a layering of coats, followed more slowly. “Anna, this is beautiful!” she cried, gesturing around her. “You must be so happy!”
Anna relaxed. She ambled down the steps to give her mother a hug, realizing that all she ever really wanted was their approval. “I am, Mama.”
“Good.” She nodded. “It would be better if he was Italian, but he's a nice man, Anna. You found one who will take good care of you.”
“Now, Mama, look at that man and tell me he would be better as anything but exactly what he is.”
Olive made a show of looking Tyler up and down, her lips pursed approvingly. “Like a movie star.”
“I always thought he looked like a prince,” she said. To her mother she could say all that she had kept to herself, all the foolish things that had moved her, and Olive would understand. “Like a lost prince, who was bewitched by some evil spell.”
Olive's eyes glittered. “And you rescued him,” she said, smiling.
“I think I did. Imagine that. Meâa princess.”
“I need to walk. Can we? I get so stiff when I don't get my walks.”
“Sure.” She gestured. “It would be best if we stuck to the road, but most of the snow is melting now.” She called out their intention to the others, and pointed down the road.
“Why don't you show her the point?” Tyler suggested.
The point was the place where they'd seen the wolf, and Anna shook her head. After a few days, her mother would adjust to the lower oxygen levels in this air, but until then, the altitude would be too much for her. “Too hard right now. We'll just walk a mile or so down the road and back.”
He hesitated. Anna thought he was going to add something, but he did not. Curtis broke away from the group. “Can I come, Mommy?”
Anna looked at her mother. “Do you mind?”
“No, no. Please come with us.”
The boy ran forward and then back up the road, always in sight, but always on his own private quest, too, so they were free to talk. “Go ahead and get it all out now, Mama,” Anna said when they were out of sight of the cabin. “I know you have some things to say.”
“No, Anna. Yesterday, I might have. But today, I see you found the life you wanted all those years when we didn't listen to you, and it makes me happy.” Her eyes held a suspicious sheen of moisture when she looked at her daughter. “It makes me sad, too, because I'm not going to be seeing you the same way I see everybody else, and I miss you. My grandbabies won't know me so much, you know?”
Anna took her hand. “I know. I'll do my best, I promise. We'll visit as often as we can. Money isn't a problem.”
“It's a good family,” she said. “But it's not the same.”
“I know.” But there was no changing certain facts.
The sun was fierce on their heads, and Olive pulled off her hat. “There's one thing, Anna.”
Anna watched Curtis fall to his knees in the muddy mess off the road, putting his face very close to something on the ground. She chuckled. “Wonder what he's looking at. ” -
“Anna.”
“I know. We didn't get married Catholic.” She sighed. “There wasn't time right then, but he has promised to take classes with me, so we can have a real wedding in the church.”
“When are you going to start?”
Anna looked at her. “Good question. The sooner the better. I'll talk to him about it. I promise.”
“And you're going to raise the baby the way you should?”
“Yes. Curtis, too.”
“Oh, that's good! Very good.”
Curtis had been right in front of them, but Anna glanced over and didn't see him. Unalarmed, she said, “Where did Curtis go? Did you see?”
“No.”
“Curtis! Where are you?”
No answer. A fist hit Anna's gut. She let go of her mother's arm and rushed forward. “Curtis! Answer me right now.”
Still nothing. Sometimes he played the “invisible” game, and she'd warned him repeatedly that it wasn't to be done outdoors, or when she called his whole name. Remembering, she called, “Curtis Forrest, answer me right now.”
He popped out of the trees, a blond imp. “I found my angel mommy's house. Come see.”
Angel mommy? Anna frowned. Was it a tomb or something? “Maybe we'd better not. Let's just keep walking.”
“No. It's pretty.”
Anna looked at her mother. “Hang on. I'll be right back.”
There was a faint path in the dry grass, and Anna followed it to where Curtis stood. “How far is it?”
He took her hand. “Not very far at all.”
The path snaked through the forest for about fifteen yards, and ended at a meadow. “See?” Curtis said, pointing. “Mommy's house.”
Anna simply stared. She recognized Tyler's craftsmanship immediately, in the carved wooden shutters and the elegance of line and the thick half-log siding that matched the cabin on the hill. She tugged on Curtis's hand. “Who lives here?”
“Nobody,” he said, as if it were obvious. “But I got the key. You want to see?”
“Let's go back and get Grandma first.”
“Okay.” They hurried back the way they had come, and Anna called, “Mama, you have to see this!”
They waited for her to catch up, then went back to the meadow, with its astonishing view of Red Creek. “Oh, my goodness!” Olive gasped.
“Come on!” Curtis cried, running ahead. He clomped up a wooden deck that faced southeast, a direction Anna recognized would provide optimum heating and cooling. Such things were important in the mountains.
He reached under a rock and came up with a key. “See? I remembered.”
“Have you been here lately, Curtis?” Anna asked. There was a strange sense of warning in her gut, something that she should be noticing but was just out of reach.
“Gramma Louise showed me it.” Sticking his tongue out, he struggled to put the key in. His voice dropped to a whisper. “My daddy wasn't s'pposed to know.”
Anna took pity and took it from him, squatting down to his level. “Did your daddy build this house?”
“Yep. It's his bestest house ever.”
“Are you sure he won't mind if we go in?”
He looked unsure, and Anna made her decision. “Maybe we should just look in the windows until we ask him.”
“No. Please? I wanna go in.”
Olive nudged her. Sotto voce, she said, “We don't have to tell him. I want to see.”
The truth was, Anna was dying to see the inside, and she allowed herself to be persuaded. She fit the key in the lock, and the door swung open easily, without any telltale creaks that would mean no one had been here in a long time. Her heart pinched.
She stepped inside, a hollowness deep within. With sorrow she saw how beautifully designed it was for comfortable family living, and for minimum ecological impact. The windows on the south wall were enormous, and Anna was sure the site had been selected with both the southern winter sunlight and the view of the valley in mind. The windows to the north were small and high. A generous kitchen, with cutouts for a stove and fridge, and the outlets behind them illustrated plainly that it had been wired.
Curtis ran from room to room, his feet clunking on the plywood subflooring, and the sound struck Anna's nerves with thuds of doom. Wandering blankly from room to room, she saw in every loving detail the grace of Tyler's wood art.
It was not especially large. A big central room with big windows and access to the deck, the efficiently planned kitchen, a bathroom with a tub, and three bedrooms. The largest also faced the valley.