Crushing on Love (The Bradens of Peaceful Harbor, Book Four) (10 page)

“An alien?” he teased.

“If that’s what aliens look like, we mere mortals haven’t got a chance.”

He took her laptop from her, then laced his fingers with hers and led her toward the porch. His hand was big and rough, and as she had the other night, she loved the feel of it. Also like the other night, his conflicting messages confused her.

“Why are you holding my hand?”

“Because I have a feeling you’re in some weird competition with an alien and I didn’t want you tripping.” He placed the laptop and map on the porch and stepped closer. “And maybe because I liked holding it the other night.”

Her heart skipped, then skidded. She couldn’t take another roller-coaster ride. “You blew me off the other night. What if I don’t want to hold your hand?”

He released her hand, and she instantly regretted her comment.

“I didn’t blow you off,” he said gruffly.

“What would you call it?”

“Being careful.” He placed his hand on her hip, drawing her closer.

He felt so good, her resolved softened.

“Look, I know I’m not like the guys you’re probably used to. I’ll never be a city boy, and I have no interest in living life off the mountain.”

Her body ached to lean forward and press into him, but she forced herself to remain distant. “So?”

The genuine concern in his eyes caused the brakes she’d applied to slip again.

“Shannon, I can’t do this anymore.”

Her heart tanked.
Splat!
Right to the ground. “Can’t…?”

“Can’t fight it.”

Her breath left her lungs in one hard exhalation.

“I’m totally into you, Shan, despite the fact that I’m not racing to the bedroom.”

“I’m not trying to race to the bedroom, either.” It came out too fast and defensive.

“I don’t think you are,” he assured her. “But I think you’re used to guys who don’t slow down enough to think things through, or maybe I misread that. I’m not thinking clearly lately. The other thing I know for sure is that I cannot get you out of my mind. And trust me when I say I’ve tried to stop thinking about you.”

“And you think
I
dole out compliments?” She laughed softly, earning a sexy smile.

“I’m a dumbass, what can I say? It was unfair to say what I did the other night and not explain it. I’m sorry.” His eyes went serious again. “The truth is, I’m not looking for a hookup, and I’m not looking for a wife. I’m not
looking
for anything, which is why I’m trying to be careful with what’s happening between us. The sheer force of our attraction, the energy between us, has blindsided me.”

His eyes grazed down her body, and he held her tighter. She felt like the trees were closing in on them, heat and torment whirring around them, binding them together in a tense, conflicted bubble.

“It’s hell keeping my hands off of you in those skimpy shorts, when all I can think about is how your legs would feel wrapped around me.” He drew in a long breath. “Everything about you makes me crazy, not just your looks, but…You wear hiking boots with flashy
pink
laces, which are perfectly
you
and a world away from me. And knowing you don’t slow down enough to put on socks?
Christ
, Shan. I’ve spent a shameful amount of time wondering what else you don’t slow down enough to put on.”

She swallowed hard to try to stop her insides from revving too hard.

“We’re so different, but I can’t stop wanting you.” He stepped closer, and she stumbled back, hitting the porch railing. “I want to know so much more about you.” His hands slid down her hips, pressing into the sides of her ass. “More than just how you’ll feel lying naked in my arms.”

“Me too.” Her voice cracked. She hadn’t expected to hear any of this, no matter how much she craved it, and hearing him say all these sexy things made it hard for her to think, much less speak.

“But I’ve seen how making hasty decisions can hurt people. I don’t want that. Not for either of us. You need to understand why I’m not taking you in my arms and kissing you senseless.”

Her mouth went dry.

“Christ,” he muttered. “That look kills me.”

“Um…” She bit her lower lip. “Can we explore the kissing senseless part a little more?”

He lifted her hand and pressed his warm, soft lips to the back of it, stepping in close again. “I hope so, but hear me out, because the last thing I want is for us to have any misunderstandings and for you to be hurt.”

“Now you’ve baffled me.” She slid her finger into the waistband of his jeans and felt his abs flex.

“Hasty decisions,” he said, as if he were reminding himself what they were talking about. “Good intentions only go so far. People lie. They lose sight of priorities, or they have them all wrong from the beginning. It’s a fatal flaw.”

“Fatal flaw? Don’t we have too many flaws to count?”

“Yes.” His jaw tightened, and something dark passed over his face. “But you, my happy-go-lucky little butterfly, don’t live your life avoiding relationships because of them.”

STEVE KNEW WHAT he’d said was heavy, especially for a girl like Shannon, who saw the best in everyone, but he couldn’t take the chance that she might hope for something that could never happen. He moved her hand from his waistband and stepped back, giving her space to process what he’d said.

“I’ve been the popular guy, Shannon. The kind of guy you’re used to, who hangs out in crowds and at bars. Being in the middle of all that chaos, the gossip, the manipulations wasn’t who I wanted to be. Once I stopped worrying about that crap, like what people might think of me, and decided to follow my passion, I found what made me truly happy. Protecting this land and the wildlife on it is more than a job to me. A forest fire that wipes out hundreds of acres, an animal that dies from a poacher, those aren’t just bad days at the office. Those are tragedies to me.”

“I understand that,” she said empathetically. “I care about all of that, too. That’s why I went into biology and natural resources in the first place.”

“Then you understand why I’ll probably never be a live-in-town kind of guy, why I want to fight for the Cumberland land. There’s a natural order in nature. With people, any natural order is affected by things they do and sometimes by things they aren’t even aware of doing. A misread look, misplaced pride, a moment of idiocy.” He shot her a serious look and stepped in closer, finally giving in to the heat within him and clutching her hips. “Like when I pushed you to go out with Will.”

“Aha! So you admit you sort of pushed me into that but really didn’t want me to go out with him.”

He shrugged. “I’m human. Flawed. What can I say?”

“Chalk one up for me not misreading you.” She licked her finger and pretended to
chalk one up
.

“You’re insanely cute.”

She licked her finger and chalked up another point.

“It makes it really hard for me to keep from shutting up and kissing you.”

She licked her finger and held it up but didn’t strike a point. “I’m ready if you are.”

“There’s something else you need to know.”

She wiggled her finger. “I get it. You’re careful about trusting people. So? I’m trustworthy. I don’t see the issue. Now let’s get to the kissing part.”

He grabbed her finger and pressed a kiss to the tip of it. “Slow down. There’s the bigger reason I’m not kissing you senseless right now.”

“Bigger?” She licked her lips.

He couldn’t take his eyes off of her mouth. “Bigger,” he stammered. “And just for the record, be careful what you wish for. Even though I’ve been trying not to rush to the bedroom, I have no control there either. I know once we kiss, we won’t stop until we’ve taken
everything
from each other.”

She swallowed hard. “I like the not stopping part, too. You’re such a tease.”

He clenched his jaw to stifle a curse. “You’re killing me.”

“Then spit it out, Grizz. What’s a girl got to do to get a kiss from you?”

“Slow down, city girl. This is important because
you
are important.” He held her tight, fighting the urge to kiss her. “My lifestyle isn’t one many women want to deal with for the long haul. Especially not a woman like you.”

“But I lik—”

He shook his head, silencing her. He knew better than to try to placate each other with promises they’d never keep. “I don’t want to hear about how you love it up here, or how people change, or we’ll figure it out. We have an expiration date, Shannon.”

She scoffed. “An expiration date? That’s…”

“Realistic.”

“Okay. I guess you could look at it that way. But this is my body, my emotions, my choice.”

“I’m not arguing that it’s your decision. But a man
always
protects the people he cares about. That means I have to suck it up and slow down enough to think about how satisfying my own selfish desires might affect you in the long run.”

“I’m right here, willing to do this. I want you, but you’re putting on the brakes. I came here to get out from under my family’s thumbs, to find myself and make my own decisions, and if I want to fall in bed with you, it’s
my
decision.”

“I’m trying to protect you from getting hurt. Do you think it was easy to walk away from you when the
only
thing I wanted to do was take you in my arms and show you how I feel about you? Do you think it’s easy to keep my hands off of you right now and say any of this?”

He swept an arm around her waist and pulled her against him, watching her eyes widen and then darken at the feel of his arousal.

“I don’t want to be your cross-country rebellion hookup. I only sleep with people I care about, and I care about you enough to ask you to slow down and think this through with me so we don’t regret it later.”

“Is that what you meant when you said I was asking the wrong guy if all relationships had to lead somewhere? Because you don’t do hookups?”

“I don’t do casual sex.”

Her brow wrinkled, and she searched his eyes. He knew she saw the sincerity in them.

“You’re not my rebellion hookup. Cal could have been. Heck, Will could have been. Either of them would have probably jumped my bones if I had let them, so I’m pretty sure I could have gotten that out of my system without you if that’s what I was looking for. Which I’m
not
.”

“Just the thought of them touching you kills me,” he ground out.

“Exactly. I
am
thinking, Steve. I want to be with you.”

He held on to that with the strength of a giant but needed to know she’d thought this through and understood their limitations. Hell,
he
needed to hear it again.

“This is what it is, Shannon. Limited.” His words came faster, heated. “No matter what either of us may hope for later, our lifestyles are too different. With the Cumberland deal looming, I don’t even know if I have room in my life for a relationship. I don’t want to hurt you. A few weeks of pleasure is not worth that. We go in with our eyes open or we don’t go in at all.”

She banged her forehead to his chest. “Can’t you just be one of those guys who doesn’t think past this second?”

“Not with you. And you don’t want that. Regardless of your sexual bravado, you’re a sensitive, sensual woman. You want to be loved, not used. I see it in your eyes.”

She didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. He saw agreement in her eyes, felt it in her fingers tightening around him.

“I won’t make promises I can’t keep. I know with complete certainty that being with you will be like stepping into heaven, and if you feel even half of what I do, then when you leave we’ll both be falling into hell.” He paused, letting the truth settle in. “I won’t promise you the world, Shan. I can’t. I won’t promise you any more than these few weeks.”

She pressed her hand to his chest, and he cupped her cheeks, tasting her desire on her breath, seeing it in the darkening of her eyes.

“Once I get my first taste of you, there’s no turning back. I need to know we’re both on the same page. No fantasies of my giving up the mountain to get lost in your world, or you changing or giving up what you love to get lost in mine. No dreams of a house in suburbia with a white picket fence and two point five children.”

“Who are you trying to convince?” she asked breathlessly. “Me or you?”

He gazed into her eyes, and the truth came easily. “Maybe a little of both.”

He brushed his lips over hers. “I have to kiss you now.”

The sexiest, neediest “Yes” sailed from her lips.

“Same page?”

“Same page,” she whispered.

As their mouths came together, he tried not to think about what was going to happen in a few weeks when she went back to her life and he was still on the mountain, wishing she’d never left.

THE FIRST TOUCH of Steve’s lips stole Shannon’s breath. He kissed her unexpectedly slowly and tenderly. With each slide of his tongue, he tightened his hold, taking the kiss deeper, claiming more of her. As the cool night air sailed over her heated flesh, his tongue searched and swept, seducing her with its perfect rhythm. He grasped the back of her head with both hands, holding her right where he wanted her, angling her head so she opened wider for him. He took the kiss deeper, probing hard and erotic, then soft and sensual, making her entire body clench, then melt, then clench again. He kissed her like he’d studied and practiced, honing the craft of kissing for this very moment. He kissed her like he never wanted to stop—and she hoped he never would. He nipped at her lips, licked them, sucked them into his mouth, until she was mewing and moaning in a deliciously delirious state.