pleasure.
Were those really memories? Or were they fantasies, her secret longings come to life in her imagination?
She finished making the bed and turned to face Joe, trembling. His eyes were wide and dark with an emotion that answered her questions.
“You’re remembering,” he said softly.
Chapter Sixteen
Clint Holbrook unknotted his tie and settled back in his chair, looking around his shabby hotel room with disdain. If he never had to chase Sarah to another backwater hellhole again, it’d be too soon. What was her fascination with places like this? He’d shown her a life of ease, where she wore beautiful dresses and expensive jewelry and wanted for nothing.
Ungrateful bitch.
He might have been in love with her once, he supposed, the way a sculptor might obsess over his latest masterpiece. Until he saw that the flaws in the marble would never go away, no matter how he much he chipped and polished.
She was what she was. No changing that now. This time, he needed what she’d taken from him. And then he’d be done with her. For good.
His cell phone rang. It was Prescott from the Jackson Hole Resident Agency. “Got something for me?” Clint asked.
“I’ve e-mailed the passenger manifests you asked for.”
Clint thanked Prescott and pulled out his PDA. He scanned the list of passengers flying between Jackson Hole and Reno over the last few days. One of the names caught his eye. It might be a coincidence, he thought. Not an uncommon name. But she’d flown to Reno the night before, and returned the next day. What kind of trip was that?
He made a note to find out where Melissa Blake lived. He’d give her a visit bright and early the next morning.
“YOU REMEMBERED where the sheets were kept.” Joe’s gray eyes glowed with a mixture of hope and fear. “You went right to the armoire. Tell me you remembered.”
Tears spilling down her cheeks, she nodded. “I remember this place. I remember you.” She flattened her hand against the center of his chest. His heart hammered wildly against her palm, matching beat for beat the pulse thundering in her ears. “I remember…this.”
He threaded his fingers through her damp hair, lifting her face toward his. “Yes.”
She put her other hand on his chest and smoothed her palms over his damp skin in slow circles, his hair rough beneath her fingertips. A strange certainty descended over her, easing the tremors rattling her nerves.
This was right. They were right.
She looked up at him through her tears. “We made love the first time right here. On the Fourth of July, after the big parade but before the fireworks.”
He smiled, his thumbs moving over her cheeks, dashing away her tears. “We heard the booming from the cabin.”
Laughter bubbled up in her throat as she pictured the scene so clearly, as if a cloudy glass wall standing between her and her memories had shattered, letting her see beyond. Though some pieces remained blurry, they couldn’t hide the truth from her anymore.
Not about Joe. Not about who he’d been to her. Who she’d been to him.
She remembered lying with him, naked and spent, as the first fireworks blast had rattled the cabin walls. “You dared me to go naked to the bluff to watch the fireworks,” she said aloud, slapping his chest lightly. “Cowboy Joe, who knew you had a naughty streak?”
He nuzzled her neck, his laughter tinged with wonder and relief, like a condemned man given a miraculous reprieve. “You certainly knew by the end of summer.”
Fire scorched her nerve endings where he touched her. She arched her neck, giving him better access. “I’m still missing quite a few memories,” she murmured.
He pulled back, which wasn’t quite what she’d intended. “So you don’t remember everything?”
The serious tone of his voice made her stomach knot. “Not everything. Does that matter?”
His brow furrowed with uncertainty, and she kicked herself for saying anything at all when he’d been doing such magical things to her throat with his lips and tongue.
Whatever she couldn’t remember, whatever had happened to end the idyllic summer she was finally starting to remember, she didn’t want it to destroy what was happening here between them.
“I remember enough,” she murmured, sliding her hand up his chest. “I remember…I remember you feeding me chocolate in bed,” she said.
The furrow in his brow disappeared.
“I remember that you can’t carry a tune in a bucket.”
His lips quirked. “I was told that serenading a woman was a very romantic thing to do.”
She stroked his jawline. “Only if you can actually sing. But I also remember that you’re a whiz with birdcalls. You taught me a few, right?” She tried one, the shrill call of the American dipper. It was about the only one she’d ever been good at, despite its difficulty.
Joe laughed. “I forgot how good you are at that.”
“I’m good at a lot of things.” She curled one hand around his neck and pulled him down to her, parting her lips for his kiss.
He resisted for a moment, his body tense, but when she brushed her tongue against his, he surrendered, his hands sliding down her spine to settle on her hips. He backed her toward the bed, she hit the mattress and tumbled backward onto the cool sheets, bringing him down with her. She deepened the kiss, demanding more.
He gave it to her in hot, maddening kisses that trailed down her throat and over her collarbone to settle over the lacy cotton of her bra. He suckled one nipple briefly through the fabric before pulling the fabric aside with a frustrated groan.
He laved her hardened nipple, sending fire streaking through her body from that single ignition point. She threw her head back against the sheets, sensations tangling with memories. His mouth on her belly, tracing a slow, heated path downward. His fingers moving between her legs, seeking, exploring, teasing until she cried out for him to end the sweet torment. For a moment, she wasn’t sure what was real and what was memory.
She felt his hand slide slowly over the curve of her hip. She caught it, pulling it between their bodies, urging his touch lower and lower. He drew back and gazed at her, a question in his eyes.
“Please,” she whispered.
A wicked smile curving his lips, he moved his hand beneath the soft cotton of her panties and slipped his finger inside her, his touch bold, sure and achingly familiar. He knew her, even more than she knew herself at the moment. The intimacy of his touch was proof of that.
He knew how much she liked being touched that way, she remembered, her head swimming with images and sensations from the past. He knew when to tease and when to demand, playing her like an instrument until her whole body sang. He’d always found new ways to bring her to the edge with just his fingers and his soft, hot murmurs of encouragement.
He hadn’t forgotten. She felt herself slowly coming apart beneath his touch.
“Is that good?” he whispered against her breast.
“Yes,” she moaned as he found a sensitive spot. It had been a long time, and her body responded strongly, hurtling toward completion with coltish eagerness. Her back arched when he pressed the knot of nerves beneath his thumb. “Joe, please-not yet-”
He rolled away from her and stripped off his jeans. She started to reach for him, but he held back a moment, his brow furrowed. “I didn’t really plan for this-but maybe we’re lucky-” He leaned over and opened the drawer of the nightstand.
She propped herself up on her elbows. “The condoms are in the other nightstand,” she murmured.
