Chapter Twelve
But as he led Stacy across the parking lot to his door, he was struck by the shabbiness of the building, with its plain brown wooden facade and lack of landscaping. “It’s not fancy, but it’s home,” he said as he unlocked the door.
Farley trotted into the apartment ahead of them and headed to the kitchen to check his food dish. It was always empty this time of day, but he always checked.
Connor moved ahead of Stacy into the small living room, clearing a towel, a shirt he had worn yesterday or the day before and an extra parka from the back of the sofa and adding them to a basket of clean clothes he had brought up from the laundry room that morning.
He stuffed the basket into the hall closet, on top of a leaning pile of backpacks, a tent and a flattened inflatable kayak.
“Um, have a seat and make yourself comfortable,” he said, then darted down the short hallway to the bedroom.
He flipped on the light, gathered up all the clothes on the furniture and floor and shoved these into the closet, then straightened the sheets and pulled the comforter over everything. Not that Stacy was likely to see any of this, but if she did…
“Everything okay?” she called from the living room.
“Great.” He removed his parka and returned to the living room and hung the jacket on a hook by the door. Stacy had already hung up hers. She was seated on the sofa, Farley in his bed across from her.
“Come sit down,” she said and patted the seat beside her.
He sat, their thighs almost but not quite touching. “Are you hungry?” he asked. “I could heat some soup or something.”
“Maybe later.” She took his hand. “You have a lot of skis,” she said.
He followed her gaze to the wall across from them and the six pairs of skis leaning against the paneling. “Yeah, I guess I do.” There was a seventh pair in his locker at the resort. And maybe another in the back of the truck. “There are different pairs for different conditions.”
“That’s a lot of different conditions.”
“Some of them I just own because I like the way they look.”
“I’ve felt that way about shoes.”
They fell silent again. He shifted, moving closer. What was it about this woman that left him so off-kilter?
“Do you remember the night we met?” she asked.
“At the Trail’s End.”
“What did you think when you saw me?”
“That you looked like a woman who knew what you wanted.”
She laughed. “What did you think I wanted?”
“I was hoping it was me.”
She turned toward him and pulled his head down to hers. She had the softest lips, and soft breasts pressed against his chest. Such a fascinating contrast to the steely determination with which she faced almost everything else.
He slid the tips of his fingers beneath her fleece top, satiny skin cool to his touch. She pulled away and looked up at him, flushed and breathless. “Do I really frighten you?” she asked.
“Not you,” he said. “Only how I feel about you.”
She was going to ask him to explain. He didn’t like being a cliché—a man who couldn’t talk about feelings. But he had apparently missed class the day everyone else learned to be comfortable with emotions.
“I don’t know how to describe it,” he rushed to add. “Just…a little out of control.”
“Really?” She smiled. She slid her fingers beneath his sweater and along the waistband of his trousers. “Am I frightening you now?”
“No.” He moved closer. “That’s not the word I’d use.” He nuzzled her throat. “I wouldn’t use words at all.” Then he kissed her again and slid his hands all the way up to cup her breasts over her bra.
“Don’t stop now,” she murmured and unfastened the button at the waistband of his snow pants.
“You’re sure about this?” he asked.
She nibbled beneath his ear, sending a shiver through him. “I’m sure.”
He pushed her top up further and unfastened her bra. She moved beneath him, helping him undress her until they were both naked from the waist up.
Farley let out a loud snore, and she laughed. “Maybe we should move some place more comfortable,” she suggested.
He led her to the bedroom, where he switched on the bedside lamp and folded back the comforter.
“Condom?” she asked, and he took one from the box in the bedside table. The box had been there a while. How long before they expired?
“I’ll be right back,” he said and darted into the bathroom, where he verified that the condom was not expired, removed the rest of his clothing and brushed his hair.
When he returned, she was lying naked against the sheets, propped on her elbows. He had been right—she was a woman who knew what she wanted. All nervousness fled, banished by raw desire. He slid into bed and abandoned himself to the silken heat of her body wrapped around his.
She made love the way she did everything, he decided, with a focus that fueled his own intensity.
If he was a mystery she wanted to solve, she was new terrain he wanted to spend years exploring.
He wanted to study the way she moved when he passed his hands over her and memorize the pleased noises she made when he traced her curves with his mouth.
There was nothing tentative in the way she touched him or in her responses, eager and joyful and urging him toward more.
By the time he rolled on the condom and pulled her on top of him they were past speech, communicating with nudges and looks.
He groaned as she wrapped around him, then could scarcely breathe as she thrust against him.
Then she leaned over and planted the gentlest of kisses on his mouth, and he opened his eyes to look into hers.
“You doing okay?” she whispered.
“Never better,” he said and wrapped his arms around her.
They moved together, sometimes smoothly, sometimes awkwardly but always with the same goal in mind.
He kept his gaze locked to hers and saw there the same vulnerability and eagerness that had caught him by surprise when she had asked him to accompany her to the Trail’s End to look for protestors.
He watched her climax as it transformed her face, then closed his eyes and focused on his own release.
They lay together afterward, entwined beneath the comforter. He was spent but still so aware of her against him. He no longer felt out of control, merely a navigator of unknown territory, delighting in the adventure overcoming uncertainty about what lay ahead.
“Not too scary, I hope,” she said, and he wondered if she had read his thoughts. Then again, maybe she had seen through him all along.
“Not scary at all,” he said. He wanted to tell her that he wasn’t afraid of women.
That he had welcomed a lot of them—well, quite a few of them—into his bed.
But that didn’t sound like the diplomatic thing to say.
And this wasn’t about experience or inexperience.
Only the knowledge that part of his brain had recognized before the rest of him had caught up—the fact that Stacy was special.
Now she had the power to hurt him, something he hoped she never realized.
Stacy was deep in a dream of floating on a heated cloud. A gorgeous man was there with her, offering her chocolate. The man was Connor. And he was naked. She smiled and beckoned him to come closer.
Then loud, tinny music jarred her awake. She opened her eyes and stared into darkness, no sign of the gorgeous naked man or clouds or chocolate.
“Is that your phone?” a man asked.
“Connor!” She sat up, then pulled up the sheet to cover her breasts as cold air rushed over them. “What time is it?”
“It’s after midnight.”
The music had stopped, but as she groped for the switch on the lamp beside the bed, it started up again. She found her phone and checked the screen. “It’s my father,” she said and silenced the call.
The text alert sounded. She swiped up and read the message. You need to answer my call. The phone rang again.
“Answer him,” Connor said. “He’s probably worried you’ve been kidnapped by terrorists.”
“Hello?” She held the phone tightly to her ear with one hand and gathered the comforter more tightly around herself with the other.
“Where are you?” George demanded.
“I’m okay, Dad. I’m safe.”
“I didn’t ask how you are. I want to know where you are.”
She glanced at Connor, who was also sitting up, watching her. “I’m with Connor,” she said.
“Sorry to interrupt, but we’ve got trouble.”
“Dad?” She sat up straighter, heart racing. “What’s wrong? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. But there’s a Special Agent Damien Anthony who’s looking for you.”
“Anthony! What is he doing here?” The last time she had seen Anthony, he had been providing far too many details about surveillance he had done on a mobster’s girlfriend to a group of agents at the Denver office. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“He’s been ordered to assume control of the investigation. I take it he drove straight from Denver and started searching for you right away.”
Stacy couldn’t speak. Anger choked off the words. Anthony wasn’t going to wait even until morning before wresting control of this case away from her. She gripped the phone so tightly it was a wonder it didn’t shatter.
“What’s wrong?” Connor asked. “Is your dad okay?”
She pressed the phone to the blankets. “The FBI sent another agent to take over the investigation.”
“Why would they do that?”
She put the phone to her ear once more. “Why did they send Anthony?” she asked.
“He said someone from the resort called to complain that a man had died because the FBI wasn’t taking the case seriously enough. He said he’s here to take it seriously.”
“I am taking the case seriously!” Then she blushed. The declaration would have sounded better if she hadn’t been naked in Connor’s bed. But it wasn’t as if she would be out interviewing suspects at this time of night. “They can’t do this to me.”
“The Bureau can do pretty much whatever it pleases,” George said. “You can’t fight these people. But you can outsmart them.”
“How am I going to do that?” She kept her voice calm, though inside, she raged.
“We need to come up with a plan.”
She threw back the covers. “I’ll be right there, Dad.”
“No. Don’t come here. I’ll come there. Put on a pot of coffee. It’s going to be a long night.”