Chapter Two
Ginger
Ellis Duncan is such a pain in my ass. Too bad he’s also hot as sin. Those broad shoulders. That solid back. Those forearms, thick like the trees surrounding us. He’s been the leading man in my many fantasies for years.
When I was fourteen, I made a fool of myself, throwing myself at my brother’s best friend, begging him for my first kiss. I’d had a crush on him forever. From the rumblings between my brother and Ellis, he was a kiss-master, and he could have my lip-virginity.
Only, he laughed in my face. Literally. Told me I couldn’t be serious and then watched as my lower lip trembled and my teenage heart shattered. I’d been such an idiot. When I ran away from him then, he’d called after me, but I’ve never looked back. Never wanted to look him in the face again. And for the better part of two decades, I haven’t had to see him often.
Sure, there was the occasional family party or holiday that Grant invited Ellis to attend. However, Ellis rarely took up the expensive offers. He was busy running his granddad’s lumber company. I was so proud of him. He’d been lost as a teen, wanting something bigger than our hometown, but not certain college was his path. He hadn’t needed higher education in a traditional sense. He had life experience.
Now, he owned Duncan Lumber, his legacy. Too bad it meant his business involved cutting down trees.
I’m an environmental attorney. My job involves protecting the very forests where Ellis’s lumber might come from. The irony was always a quandary for me.
Another thing about Ellis: he always challenges me. Like telling me he knows I can’t roll on a log or toss an ax. He doesn’t know anything about me, and nothing spurs me on more than being told I can’t do something.
So, I’m not at all surprised when I balance on a downed tree trunk in a lake, wearing cloth gym shoes, khaki shorts, and a blouse made more for an office than the woods. As I face off with another woman, I watch her feet, moving mine in time with hers, thankful for years of dance lessons. I hold my own, forcing the buoyant trunk one direction and then the other. My competition has clearly done this dance a time or two, and my legs are aching, but quitting is not in my repertoire. With fancy footwork I predict a four count as she shuffles one-two-three, but then she doubles back on four.
I slip, my backside landing hard on top of the log before I awkwardly rolling into the cold morning lake.
I bob upward with a sharp screech. My shoes, shirt, and shorts are ruined for the day, and I hadn’t thought to bring a change of clothes. Hadn’t considered I’d be joining in any logger games until Ellis challenged me.
Fucking Ellis.
A sudden splash behind me has me glancing to my left where a large head bursts above the surface followed by broad shoulders. His hair slicks back, turning from streaks of silver and sand to jet black. With one broad stroke of those powerful arms, he’s upon me.
“Are you alright?”
“Dammit, Ellis.” I blame him for my entry in this contest, and my loss.
He swims closer, tugging me toward him and out of the way as the person manning the event extends a pole to my opponent, who is still standing fresh and dry, on the saturated trunk. With the extended pole, the guide draws her and the log toward the dock.
“Up.” I point to the bobbing trunk.
“What?” Ellis stares at me, those deep brown eyes wide.
“Get on that fucking log, Ellis.”
He blinks once. Blinks again. Then the corner of his mouth crooks upward, and I catch a glimpse of a dimple hidden beneath his thick beard. The one that always did me in as a girl and still makes me woozy as a woman.
“When did you get such a dirty mouth, Ginger?” He chuckles, the sound deep and rich.
Since a week ago, when—I cut off the thought. I will not think of him today. Today, Grant wanted me to have fun. To let loose. To bury my broken heart beneath beer, brats, logs, and a lumberjack. That last one wasn’t really on my list, but Grant was obnoxious like that. Sometimes, I swear he forgets I am his sister and not one of the guys.
“Up.” I point again in the direction of the log before swimming toward it.
“That isn’t how this works,” Ellis calls after me but I ignore him, trying to pull myself up on a rolling cylinder.
Murmurs begin from the crowd gathered near the lake.
“Up. Up. Up.” A cheer erupts for the crazy lady attempting to climb up a water-logged trunk.
Suddenly, two hands come to my hips and lift me like I’m a delicate flower. Unladylike, I spread my legs and straddle the log before glaring at Ellis treading water.
“You really want to do this?” His bushy brows crease.
“Get up here.” I point toward the opposite end of the thick trunk.
“This is unprecedented,” the person manning the contest states, then shrugs and reaches for his beer on the railing of the dock.
Ellis hops up on the log with the grace one would not expect from someone with such bulging arms and solid thighs. The trunk rolls slightly, forcing me to lay flat a second, circling my arms around the thick mass, holding on tight to avoid falling off again.
Soaked to the bone, I cautiously stand as Ellis holds out both his arms to balance on the log like he’s an expert gymnast. When I’m fully upright, his eyes widen. His mouth gapes. Glancing down at myself, I get a good look at my see-through shirt, a frilly number more fit for a business meeting than a lumberjack festival. My khaki shorts are ruined as well, plastered to my hips and backside like a second skin. My shoes are trashed, but suddenly, I don’t care a wink.
I’m more flabbergasted by Ellis’s appearance. His T-shirt is seer-suckered to his broad form, leaving little to the imagination across his chest, abs, and waist. And I’ve had an overactive imagination about him for most of my thirty-six years. His shorts are also suctioned to him and outline his—
Whoa!I quickly glance away and the log beneath my feet rolls. My arms flail and Ellis takes the movement as a signal that we’ve begun. His feet move casually, making the slippery trunk twist and turn, and I work double-time to keep up with his large flippers. Eventually, I find a rhythm, matching his, mirroring him.
He goes left. I go right.
He rolls right. I rock left.
Back and forth the water-laden trunk spins.
As my legs begin to burn again, I hyperfocus on the soaked log beneath my feet.
“Are you done yet?” Ellis calls, sounding bored, like he isn’t exerting an ounce of energy.
The tension only spurs me onward, forcing me to dance side-to-side, like I’m an Irish clog dancer.
“You’re going down, big boy,” I holler.
A deep chuckle drifts to my end of the log, but I don’t glance up; instead, watching his feet expertly rotate the lumber beneath our feet.
“There’s only one way I’m going down on you.”
The sexual innuendo has me snapping up my head to gape at him, my eyes wide, shock smacking me in the face. The last time someone did that I—
With a heavy thud, I hit the lake again, smacking my side against the water this time with a sharp splat. Before I can surface, two hands catch me and lift me above the waterline. Without thinking, I grab his shoulders and wrap my legs around his waist.
“Now are you done?” He smirks. And I’m aware his large palms are cupping the backs of my thighs.
“That was so fun,” I cry out, tipping back my head and laughing, the sound almost foreign to my ears. I’m cackling at the sun like I haven’t laughed in a long time. A truth that hits a little too close to home.
When was the last time I chortled like a loon?
When I look at Ellis, he’s smiling wide, white teeth gleaming. His dark eyes match the glistening trunk nearby. He twists, like he intends to float on his back, stretching out one arm while keeping his other hand on the back of my thigh. Suddenly, I’m straddling him, like he’s a buoyant log, and I’m hitching a ride back to shore.
Between my legs is evidence of what I tried to ignore while Ellis stood tall and strong, opposite me, in his soaked clothing, showing off every dip and ripple, and solid piece of his body.
Trying to ignore it is like pretending a rattlesnake isn’t at your ankle, seconds from a deadly bite. Ellis is long, thick, and firm against my core.
I shift, the fiction against a sensitive spot suddenly like a live wire in water. Zap!
Ellis hisses, squeezing my thigh harder. “Don’t move,” he grits.
My brother is standing on the edge, laughing his head off, while holding a beer in one hand. A rather thin looking towel drapes over his shoulder. As we reach the ledge of the lake, a drop off without a proper beach, Grant holds out his hand to help me up while Ellis gives me a strong shove, almost flinging me out of the water. I collide with Grant, knocking his beer which spills on me, adding to my discomfort in my ruined clothes.
Stepping back, I want to snap at my brother, but Ellis stands behind me, sandwiching me in between both men. He reaches for the towel over my brother’s shoulders and tugs it free. I spin to face him, forcing my brother to step back.
“Hey, I need that.” I cross my arms over my wet shirt. Ellis’s gaze drops to my chest before he quickly looks away, finding something once again off in the distance that fascinates him like he did when he first saw me earlier.
I’m still a little kid to him. Perpetually Grant’s younger sister.
“I need it more.” His voice is rough, strained even, as he wraps the thin material around his waist, covering his soaked shorts. The dark color is more protective than the sheer whiteness of my blouse but what he’s actually covering is more apparent.
Ellis Duncan has a boner.
Did I do that to him? My head snaps up, hoping to meet his eyes, only he still isn’t looking at me. Instead, he expertly twists the towel at his waist and then reaches behind his neck for the collar of his tee and tugs it forward.
Good God, is there any move sexier?
And is there any man sexier than him?
My heart stops. My pulse races. If I weren’t already soaked through to my skin, I’d be wet between my thighs.
Ellis Duncan is a chiseled god of a man, with subtle hills and valleys of muscle accentuated by the rivers of water streaming over his tan skin.
And now he’s standing shirtless, in what appears to be only a towel, like he’s fresh from a swim . . . or a shower.
Squeezing my thighs together, I pray I don’t combust in front of him because I’m enflamed and desperate to run my hands along his abs, and my mouth along his pert nipples, erect from the cold water and matching the peaks of mine. I could carve my name in his skin with how tight my nips are and how heavy my breasts suddenly feel while I admire him.
He clears his throat and my gaze leaps upward, meeting those dark, haunting eyes.
“We should probably find you a towel as well.”
“You could have been a gentleman and let me have that one,” I point at the terrycloth around his waist, but my finger is aimed at the thickness just below the waistline.
“If I weren’t a gentleman, you’d have bigger issues.”
On the tip of my tongue is a question. How big? Instead, I swallow back the retort. I’m not here to get laid although I’m hungry for the act. Eager to be touched and tasted and tossed around like only a large man like Ellis’s size could handle.
But it won’t be Ellis.
It won’t be any man any time soon.
I’m still too fragile inside.