Wild Heat (Northern Fire) (18 page)

Caitlin’s bubble of contentment burst when they got back to town and he dropped her off at the bed-and-breakfast.

“Aunt Elspeth wants to know when you’ll be by for dinner again.” Caitlin had learned Tack avoided dinner at the Knit & Pearl once tourist season hit and it was filled with guests. “What do you want me to tell her?”

“The first week of October.” He didn’t sound like he was joking or willing to compromise on that.

Still, she had to try. “Come on, Tack. Even full to capacity, we never have more than a dozen guests.”

“I spend all day with tourists. I’m not eating my dinner with them too.”

“You didn’t seem to mind them today.”

“I don’t. They’re my livelihood, but I don’t want my job sharing my dinner table.”

Caitlin did her best to hide her disappointment. After his invitation to join him that morning, she thought he was as interested in spending time with her as she was with him. Even if it meant putting up with a few strangers at the table.

Apparently, she’d been wrong.

It was hard to swallow the truth that while she’d finally admitted to a love that was never going away, he still saw her as a
project
and his current casual sex partner. She couldn’t forget that one.

“See you later tonight?” he asked, proving her thoughts.

She almost said no, but if this was all she got of Tack, she wasn’t giving up a moment of it. “Nine-fifteen like usual.”

He’d taken to stopping by to get her after Gran and her aunts were in bed. Last night had been an exception, but one she had a feeling wouldn’t happen often.

He brought her home around midnight. They’d gone a little later on a couple of memorable occasions, but sleep was as necessary as food to Caitlin’s healthy recovery. And she didn’t like the thought of Tack doing challenging and even dangerous hikes with too little sleep.

Come to think of it, now that the tourist season was in full swing, they probably shouldn’t meet every night.

She’d have to bring that up later because the van was already disappearing from the bed-and-breakfast’s drive.

“What do you want?” Tack demanded, leaning over her sweaty, flushed nakedness.

Kitty
did not
suggest what he thought she just had.

“It’s not what I
want
.” She glared at him, her blue eyes sparkling with annoyance despite the vocal orgasm she’d had only moments before. “Some of your tours leave at seven in the morning. That means you’re getting up closer to five to prep.”

“First, I prep my pack when I get back from a hike, not before going on the next one, so it’s always ready. Second, I get up at five-thirty every morning, regardless of what time my tours are.”

She winced. “That’s even worse. You’re not getting enough sleep even now.”

“So what?” He could sleep when he was dead.

“We need to limit our late nights to a couple of times a week. You probably already realized it, but it didn’t occur to me until earlier today.” She bit her lip, her expression thoughtful. “Maybe Friday and Saturday nights because you can sleep in the next day, or at least take a nap.”

Yeah, like either of those things were going to happen. He wasn’t going to bed in the middle of the day unless she was in there with him.

“And maybe Wednesdays.”

He tugged one wild curl. “Wildcat, you’re overthinking this.”

“No.” She shook her head, causing an interesting ripple effect down to her naked breasts. “This
isn’t
overthinking. It’s me watching out for you. You do it enough in the other direction; it should be a familiar concept.”

“You’re not getting any more sleep than I am.”

“You’re wrong. I take a nap before dinner almost every evening.”

He was actually relieved to hear that. She was still recovering, even if the strides she’d made in the last year were pretty damn amazing. “What does your family think about that?”

“It’s not all about what our families think,” she said fiercely. “Anyway, you don’t have to worry about it. My gran and aunts think I need a break from the tourists. They each have a time of day when the others cover for them so they can have solitude.”

“That’s good.”

She frowned at him. “For me, but it doesn’t help you.”

“I need help?”

“You aren’t getting enough sleep. Haven’t you been listening to me?” she asked peevishly.

“I admit, listening isn’t on the top of my priority list when you are lying naked in my bed.”

“We’re not on the bed.”

She was right. They hadn’t made it past the sectional in the great room. It was better than the time he hadn’t even let her get out of the cab of his pickup.

They’d made out like horny teenagers, and it was a damn good thing he kept condoms under the driver’s seat. He’d keep them in the glove box, but then his
aana
might find them when he was giving her a ride somewhere.

“Look, what if we compromise? You could take me home earlier, like ten o’clock.”

She was kidding, right? Forty-five minutes with driving time taken out wasn’t even going to touch the wildfire of desire between them, much less quench it.

“We might as well just have sex in the truck behind the B and B and then you can go back inside after.”

She looked like she was considering it.

“Hell no.” He stood up and lifted her into his arms. “I am not…just
hell to the no
.”

“Are we going up to the bedroom now?” she asked, sounding like she thought he was being the unreasonable one.

“No.” He was going to sex her ridiculous
compromises
right out of her head.

He carried her down the hall to the hot tub and sauna room.

“You think this is a good idea?” she asked as he stepped into the water with her.

He’d prepped the hot tub earlier in anticipation of what he wanted to do. “Oh yeah.”

“The hot water is liable to put us to sleep.”

“What is it with you and sleep tonight? Trust me, neither of us is going to be
sleeping
.”

Her eyes flared with instant yearning and a sweet curiosity. “What are we going to do?”

“Relax and let me show you, wildcat. I guarantee it will be more informative than any explanation I can make.”

“And what am I supposed to do while you’re
showing
me?” she demanded.

She got frustrated when she thought she hadn’t participated enough. Eventually, Caitlin was going to realize that what mattered was mutual pleasure, not tit-for-tat touching.

“Enjoy yourself and turn me the hell on by letting me touch you any and every way I want to. Think you can do that, sweetheart?” It was a serious question.

After her past, he kept waiting for her to put a stop to the things he wanted to do to her, but she kept showing more and more trust. Trust
he
had a hard time believing in.

“Is that really what you want?” she asked.

“Yes. Very much yes.”

“Okay.”

He grinned, primitive triumph filling him. She brought out things in his nature no other woman ever had. He felt like a Cro-Magnon man who had just won the right to mate his chosen female.

She sucked in air.

“Kitty?”

“That look on your face.”

“What about it?”

“It’s really intense.”

Was this where she drew the line? “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know that,” she said with a good dose of
duh
in her voice. “It’s just really sexy. When you look like that.”

He kissed her because he couldn’t not, letting his hands roam over her naked skin from her collarbone to her toes and touching everything in between.

He was careful to keep his touch light between her legs. Water wasn’t as slick as her natural lubricant and it would be too easy to rub tender tissues raw.

His promise not to hurt her extended to not leaving her too sore for more lovemaking, even when they didn’t have the time to indulge.

She squirmed on his lap, moving enough that his semierect cock bobbed up in the water between their bodies. Her hand curled around it, her grip loose like she realized water wasn’t the perfect lubricant for a hand job either.

Good thing the waterproof lube he’d ordered online had arrived in his mailbox today. Even better the Amazon box looked like it could just as easily have had books in it as the sex stuff.

After long moments of the leisurely touching, his prick was hard as stone and it was time to move on to the next step in the seduction plan.

H
e reached over the side of the tub to where he’d put the red oblong flotation device he brought on excursions that took his hikers too close to water.

He dropped it into the water and then stood up with her.

She squeaked, grabbing on to his water-slick shoulders. “What are you doing?”

“Something I’ve been thinking about for a while.”

“Oh,” she said, her voice still pretty high pitched.

He laid her back in the water so her head and neck were supported on the float, her pretty red hair floating around her like silk in the water. She stared up at him, her sky blues filled with trust and confusion.

The fact she was feeling both surprised him all over again. She had no idea what he wanted to do, but she was willing to let him try.

“Do you have any idea what a turn-on it is that you’re willing to just let me have my way?”

“I know it made Nevin furious that I could never relax with him, not even in the beginning.”

“That bastard,” he spit out.

“Doesn’t matter anymore.”

She was right. Barston was back in Los Angeles and he’d screwed up badly enough that Kitty would never go back to him. Tack had a suspicion she wouldn’t ever return to California either.

He wasn’t convinced she’d stay in Cailkirn, but if she ran again, it wouldn’t be to the Golden State. Caitlin had a habit of identifying a place with the emotion she’d experienced there, more than she probably realized.

Dismissing thoughts that were better left for another time, he maneuvered her so she was floating freely, her breasts above the water, her legs open.

He guided her hands to either side of her head on the float. “Curl your fingers around the edge. I don’t want it floating away and your head dropping under the water at a crucial time.”

She laughed softly, doing as he suggested. “That would be bad.”

The reach arched her body, leaving her a bounty laid out before him.

And he planned to feast.

“How does that feel?” he asked her.

She gave a closemouthed smile, the expression mysterious and all woman. “Really free, like my body is weightless.”

“Now let’s see what we can do to make it feel something
more
.” He was going to remind her how much pleasure they got out of each other’s bodies and how ludicrous it was to think about limiting that.

He began with his hands on her breasts, the sight of
her
hands effectively trapped above her head increasing his desire in ways he never would have expected. Oh, he liked control, but the way she
gave
it to him was the real turn-on.

He played with her nipples, greedy for every little sound she made and reveling in how tight the buds got.

He wanted to nibble on them, but it wouldn’t work with him still standing. So he dropped to his knees, kneeling to the side of her in the water.

That was much better. In fact, it was perfect.

He put one hand under her back to keep her up and lowered his head and took a rosy peak in his mouth, gently scraping his teeth across before sucking with a lot more force than he usually started with.

But they’d made love once already.

His efforts were rewarded by a soft cry. He wanted more of those needy, out-of-control sounds. Tack set about turning her on to the point of no return.

It only took a few strokes with his fingers coated with the waterproof lube between her nether lips, already swollen and sensitive from earlier, before she was saying his name with choking demand.

“You want something, wildcat?”

“You, Tack.” She looked at him with passion-glazed eyes. “I want all of you.”

Something in his chest tightened at her words. This was just sex, but she’d sounded…emotional.

Pushing aside what was undoubtedly just his imagination, he got the condom on and then spread the lube over his latex-covered dick.

Pushing inside her was like nothing else on earth and the angle he got because of her buoyancy in the water was fantastic.

His brain shut off as lust took over and he pistoned in and out of her grasping channel.

The water didn’t allow her to push back against him, though he could tell she was trying.

He curved his hands on either side of her hips, holding on tightly and increasing the pace of their lovemaking. She moaned out her approval, her entire body flushed with desire.

“I need,” she cried out. “Please, Tack!”

She needed just that little bit more of stimulation. The way she reacted, he knew he was touching her G-spot inside, but it wasn’t enough. If he let go to touch her clitoris, he would lose his hold for the forceful thrusts they both needed.

But she could let go of one hand and still keep the float under her head.

“Touch yourself,” he told her in a guttural tone he knew excited her.

Kitty’s mouth parted on a wail. “I can’t.”

“Sure you can, wildcat. Touch yourself and bring us both off.”

When her pale white hand moved over red curls darkened by the water, carnal triumph surged through him. She touched herself hesitantly at first, but pretty soon she was lost to sensation and her hand moved almost as fast as his hips.

They climaxed together, her clamping vaginal walls extending his pleasure, her very vocal cries telling him that the extra hardness he achieved just before climax enhanced her orgasm.

They soaked in the water afterward, him reclined in the water and her sideways on his lap again, her body lax against his.

“Not skipping some nights of this,” he vowed.

She didn’t answer, just turned her face into his chest.

Caitlin made an appointment for a Skype session with Dr. Hart, needing help in finding perspective on her love for Tack. She didn’t tell her gran or Tack about the planned session.

If it worked, Caitlin planned to continue her therapy because she wanted to be completely well. If Tack was ever going to give her a real chance, and that was a big
if
after their past, he wouldn’t do it if he thought she was still broken.

So, she couldn’t
be
broken. She had to be fixed and Tack couldn’t be the fixer. Caitlin had to do that herself if she wanted an equal relationship with him, even friendship.

“I’m doing better,” she told Dr. Hart after their initial greetings, and then the doctor asked about the effect of the move on Caitlin. “A lot better. It’s not perfect, but the move home has been good for me.” She’d even had a talk with her gran and aunts. They’d been very understanding when she explained about how she needed them to support her and the things that actually backfired.

Surprisingly it was her crusty aunt Alma who had been the most compassionate and least defensive, asking for specific instances and ideas of ways they could help her to feel safe and comfortable in her own home. How to make food not an issue between them.

And it had been going great.

“That’s interesting,” the lovely honey-blond woman with gentle eyes observed.

“What is?”

“That’s the first time I’ve heard you refer to Cailkirn as home. It was clear from things you said in our sessions before that is how you see the town, but you never gave it that recognition in your head.”

“No, I guess I didn’t.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“Because it would have been disloyal to my parents. Home was Phoenix.”

“Until you were six.”

“I had a hard time accepting that.” Then Caitlin shared all of the revelations she’d had while riding to the Skilak Lookout Trail.

Including her realization of the love she’d always felt for Tack.

“What does that make you feel about your years married to Nevin?”

“Stupid,” Caitlin replied without hesitation. “I should probably feel guilty, but I married him in good faith. He’s the one who set about destroying what feelings I did have for him.”

“I’m impressed.”

“Why?”

“That’s a big realization to make. You weren’t there before you left California either.”

“I never fit the LA mold.”

“You never felt you fit the mold your husband and friends made it clear they thought you should. Los Angeles is one of the most diverse cities in the country.”

“Not Beverly Hills.”

“In your experience.”

“You’re telling me it wasn’t California that was toxic for me but the people in my life.”

“That would be my supposition, yes.”

“And the anorexia?”

“How are you eating now?”

“I hardly ever skip meals and I haven’t come in under calorie goal in a while.”

“Since you started having sex with Tack.”

“Yes.” Did that mean she’d traded one crutch for another?

“You look like something about that bothers you.”

“Why did sex make such a difference?”

“Was it just sex?”

“No. I love Tack and I finally opened up to the possibility of being with him.” Even though she had denied that vehemently at first.

“So, was it the sex that made it easier to eat or that you were no longer hiding from deep and powerful emotions?”

Understanding washed over Caitlin and she felt a huge grin take over her face.

Dr. Hart gasped.

“What?” Caitlin asked.

“I’ve never seen you happy, Caitlin. I agree wholeheartedly with you. Moving to Cailkirn, Alaska, was very good for you.”

The rest of the session was good, though Dr. Hart pushed Caitlin to dig deeper into her reaction to the town’s often voluble curiosity about her. They ended their video session with plans for another one in a week’s time.

Hope like Caitlin wasn’t sure she’d felt since before her parents’ unexpected and tragic deaths filled her with a glowing warmth. The weightlessness of realizing she no longer had to drag the chains that had tied up her emotions, both deep pain and joy, anymore was incredible. Easily as powerful and filled with mental pleasure as her time in the hot tub with Tack had been physically.

Tack left the cold coffee French press he’d ordered for Kitty on her desk. He’d printed off directions on how to make the best cup of coffee with it. He put them next to it, along with a note that told her it cut the acidic content of the coffee by sixty-five percent.

He knew she missed her coffee. The look of longing she got when she watched him drinking his was enough to limit his caffeine intake in a way
Emaa’s
chiding never could.

So, when Nik told Tack he knew a fellow Marine who had to go to cold-press coffee after coming home from his tour in Afghanistan because his stomach couldn’t handle the extra acid anymore, Tack had been determined to get one for Kitty.

She wouldn’t be here for a couple of hours and he had an excursion that left in thirty minutes. Which was for the best.

The French press wasn’t a big deal, not even a gift really. Not when it would make it so Tack could drink
his
coffee without feeling guilty.

But Kitty would get all weird about it. She was like that, treating the least little act of kindness like some kind of mini miracle.

She’d always been sweet about efforts other people made on her behalf. Even as a little girl, she’d been genuinely and honestly appreciative for her gran and aunts taking her in. Kitty’d never taken a gift or a favor for granted, but since moving back to Cailkirn, she took that to a whole other level.

He liked seeing her happy, but he didn’t want her making a big deal about this. Especially in front of Egan and Bobby. Tack would never hear the end of it from them. They already went around calling him
sweet
because of the way she’d responded when Tack bought that little under-the-desk heater.

Kitty was too used to California weather. While Tack had already taken to wearing short sleeves some days, Kitty was still dressing in layers.

When he’d overheard her mention to Egan she didn’t like wearing her tennis shoes in the office but that her feet got cold, Tack had known he had to fix that. She was his employee. Her comfort was his responsibility.

Her gratitude had been over the top, and now his brother and cousin teased Tack about being a
pushover
and
sweet as candy
.

But he hadn’t minded the way she’d expressed her thanks later that night. Not even one little bit. She’d grown increasingly adventurous the more often they made love and he enjoyed himself immensely because of it.

If he hoped for more of the same tonight…well, it wasn’t the reason he’d bought the coffee press, so that was all right.

Caitlin savored her first cup of coffee in ages. The smooth flavor surprised and delighted her. She’d never been overly fond of the strong underlying bitterness in some coffees; it was as if this method of preparing coffee had been designed just for her taste buds.

It wasn’t quick. She’d had to leave the grounds and filtered water cold-steeping at room temperature for twenty-four hours. But if she refreshed the water and grounds each day after she pressed the steeped mixture, she’d have coffee ready for her every morning when she came into work.

Coffee she could drink without stomach upset.

Tack’s gift had been so thoughtful, but she hadn’t been able to express her appreciation yet. He’d been out on a tour while she was in the office yesterday and they’d had to give up their nightly tryst the night before.

One of the bed-and-breakfast guests had had an asthma attack after spending the day hiking. Apparently the woman’s allergies were so intermittent, she’d forgotten to take an inhaler with her, and by the time she’d returned to the Knit & Pearl, she’d been in a bad way.

Her husband had been cranky with worry. Aunt Elspeth had gotten fluttery because of it, which brought out the dourest side of Aunt Alma. Gran had offered to take the woman and her husband to the clinic.

Caitlin didn’t want her grandmother sitting in the waiting room for who knew how long since the clinic was inordinately busy during tourist season. So, she’d insisted on taking the couple herself.

There’d been no question of sending them on their own. That wasn’t how the Grant sisters handled things.

It had been after ten when Caitlin and the couple had returned to the bed-and-breakfast. She hadn’t wanted to leave in case the woman’s allergies had a resurgence. Caitlin would be needed, and her gran and aunts would want to know where she was if she wasn’t in her room.