Chapter 18
Trevor rounded the corner into the drive, and the cabin came into view. Olivia had done as he asked, letting the fire go out so there was no sign of their presence, and he felt his shoulders relax.
There was something nice about coming back to her. He liked the way she’d confronted him when she thought he’d drugged her, and the way she’d felt in his arms when they kissed. He wanted to fight with her again and do some more kissing, maybe even at the same time.
He stashed the snowmobile inside the garage, then looked up at the still-swirling snow. The blizzard would be their cover, erasing their tracks and wiping the slate clean overnight.
Keeping them safe.
And alone together.
He chastised himself for his thoughts about Olivia.
Whoever Gallant had been talking to was expecting the henchman back at Steele’s mansion tonight.
Whether Gallant returned on foot, injured from his fall off the cliff, or didn’t return at all, that meant Hawk and Olivia had just inched one step closer to Steele’s inner circle.
That should keep Hawk from thinking about Olivia’s sweet body, but it didn’t. He reached for the handle on the door of the house and found it ajar.
Hawk instantly went on alert, pulling out his knife as his mind raced to assess the situation. Gallant couldn’t have gotten here before him, if he had survived the fall, which meant someone else was at the cabin.
He flashed back to the man on the walkie-talkie.
You and Johnson.
Johnson!
Damn it, there was more than one of Steele’s men running around Warsaw Mountain, and Hawk had left Olivia alone.
He kicked open the door.
Something solid and heavy crashed into the wall beside him. He reached for it, recognizing the wooden barrel of a baseball bat and sliding down it to find his attacker’s hands, quickly capturing them with his own.
They struggled, and Trevor recognized Olivia’s all-too familiar scent. He used her hands to pull her toward him. “It’s me.” She continued to fight him. “It’s me, Olivia!”
She stopped wrestling. “Trevor?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, God.” She fell into his arms, wrapping herself tightly around his torso. “I was so scared,” she sobbed. “Someone was outside the window and I didn’t know what was happening and all I could think to do was grab the baseball bat.”
“Which window?”
“The back bedroom.”
He took off along the side of the house, his knife at the ready, and rounded the corner. Sure enough, fresh snowmobile tracks came close to the back bedroom window. His eyes scanned the horizon and the forest that bordered the house on three sides, but he saw nothing unusual.
He continued around the house. The tracks could very well be Gallant's. Not enough snow had fallen to completely bury anything since then, but they could also be freshly made by someone else.
Like Johnson.
He went back inside. “There are no new tracks out there. Just the ones from before.”
“Oh, gosh. I’m such an idiot.” She hung her head. “I thought I was going to die and you would come back and find my body.”
“Shh,” he whispered gruffly as she babbled. “It’s okay now.”
“I’m so glad you’re back. I was scared. I would have sworn there was somebody outside that bedroom window, and then the front door was open…”
“You didn’t do that?”
She shook her head. “No.”
Maybe those tracks were made more recently, after all.
She went into his arms, resting her head on his shoulder.
He rubbed his hand down her silken hair, his lips naturally moving to hers to soothe her with gentle kisses. “I’m sorry you were scared.”
“I thought I was going to die, and I was so glad that you’d been here with me, Trevor. That I haven’t been alone.”
He wanted to comfort her, wanted to pull her back into his arms like he had before. They’d already kissed once, which made it easier for him to do it a second time. He pressed kiss after kiss on her lips, each one gentler than the last. “I’m glad, too,” he whispered.
His eyes had adjusted to the darkness and he could see hers in the dim light, questions shining in their depths. He took her mouth once more, none too gently this time, in an all-consuming lover’s kiss.
She responded to him, kissing him back, and he twirled her around so that her back was to the wall, pinioning her there against him. He needed this, needed to feel her body against his and her mouth intimately melding with his mouth.
His hand reached up to her breast of its own accord, lightly cupping her there before he moved it back to her waist, but she took his hand back to her breast and squeezed it, and he kneaded her full, soft flesh as his hips bucked against hers.
He lifted his head, panting with the effort of holding back, even as she held his hips tightly to her. She was engaged to another man, a man she loved who — he was sure — she’d never knowingly betray.
He hated himself in that moment, hated himself for lying to her and wanting her anyway. He couldn’t sleep with her while she didn’t know who she was. He cupped her jaw with his hand and opened his mouth to speak.
“You’d better not say we shouldn’t do this,” she said, pressing her head against his head, her chest against his chest. “We don’t have to sleep together, Hawk. Just be with me for a little while.”
Trevor closed his eyes, sensations and temptation pulling him through the darkness.
When she touched her lips to his once more, he exploded.
His hands moved down, circling her neck and teasing her with his grip before reaching for the hem of her shirt and pulling it up to expose her voluptuous breasts.
That was the word for her. Voluptuous, with curves like the fierce waves of the ocean that begged to be fitted against him.
You swore you’d never take advantage of her.
Damn it, he knew that was a mistake the moment he’d said the words. She sucked lightly on his neck and his muscles clenched as he became overwhelmed with the desire to lower her to the floor and sink into her sweetness, to love her body with a ferociousness born of hot, slick lust.
He lifted his head from hers, nearly growling with the effort it took to do so. “We should stop.”
“I don’t want to.” She went up on her tiptoes and kissed him with her full, tantalizing lips.
Every taste of her made him crazy for more, and he raked the gentle softness of her upper lip with his stubbled face, knowing he was scraping her and loving how she moaned out loud when he did it.
She would be an amazing lover, able to take his passion in kind, and he squeezed the flesh of her ass hard with both hands. She lifted one leg around his waist, pressing her most intimate spot against the fly of his jeans, and the heat of her sex radiated through his clothing.
“Tell me to stop, Livy,” he ground out coarsely. “Tell me you want the life you can’t remember more than you want me, or I won’t be able to stop myself from fucking you.”
She threw her head back. “I don’t care…”
“Think!” He held her face, one hand on either side as he stared into her eyes in the near-darkness. “Is there someone you care about. Someone you…love?” He swallowed against the strain in his throat, the strain of his cock against his jeans. “Don’t let me ruin your life so easily, damn it.”
Olivia’s eyes went wide and her leg dropped to the floor. “What do you mean?”
“I didn’t tell you everything I know.” He ran a hand through his hair.
She crossed her arms. “You’re scaring me.”
“You fell on your left side when you were thrown during the accident. Your hand was swelling up, and I had to take off your ring.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the diamond engagement ring, holding it out to her.
She stared at it. “I’m engaged?”
“Looks that way.”
Out with it, Hawk.
He swallowed hard. “Your shirt said Bride.”
Her head shot up. “You knew I was engaged and you didn’t tell me?”
“I wanted you to remember on your own.” It sounded indefensible when he said it out loud.
Hell, it is indefensible.
She took the ring from his hand. “It didn’t keep you from kissing me.”
“No. It didn’t, and it should have. I’m sorry.”
She turned away.
He forced his feet to be still and his arms to remain at his sides when they wanted to go after her, reach for her. It was better this way. He had no right to this woman, no claim to her body or mind.
“You promised,” she said quietly. “You promised you’d never take advantage of me.”
“I know, and I’m sorry.” He hated himself in that moment. He was the lowest of the low, the bottom of the barrel. “It was inexcusable.”
“If we’re being completely honest, I suspected,” she said.
“That you were engaged?”
“That I wasn’t free to be kissing you, yes.”
He pursed his lips. He should let it go at that, but his mouth opened of its own accord. “Then why did you?”
She turned around to face him, her eyes dark. “For the same reason you did.”
They stared at each other, the tension between them like the tightest wire. He swore he could still feel raw passion between them, as if her knowledge of her life outside of these walls changed nothing about their lives inside of them.
What would she do if he kissed her again? Would she push him away or pull him in tightly against her? He hated himself for even wondering, but the pull of sexual attraction would not be denied.
He cleared his throat. “I need to get the furnace working, or we’re going to freeze to death tonight.”
She nodded. “And I should find us something for dinner.”
He moved for the basement door, then stopped and turned around. “Are you sorry it happened, Livy?”
She acted as though she didn’t hear. She was just standing in the middle of the room staring into space, the ugly ring on the tip of her index finger.