Silver and Spice

morning to say hello to her friendly local bear. Or cougar. Or wolf. Very nice.

Anne knew she couldn’t live here in a thousand years.

Chapter 10

Jake draped an arm over her shoulder, brushing a kiss on the crown of her head. “You like my ghost town?”

“It’s beautiful. Like a corner of the world no one has ever seen. I can see why you love it, Jake. The peace and privacy…”

His chin nuzzled the top of her head. “Now let’s not panic until we see Coeur d’Alene, shall we?”

Anne stiffened. “I wasn’t panicking,” she protested. “If you want to spend the rest of our two weeks here, it’s fine with me. Really it is, Jake…”

“You’re fibbing.” He turned her slowly to face him, and locked her in a loose embrace with his arms on her shoulders. “Know how I can tell? Even when you tell a little white lie, that pulse in your throat works like a jackhammer.”

Perhaps. Anne flashed him a rueful smile that gradually died. She could feel a different mood sweep over both of them, like the tick of a clock in the night. Jake was close, more than close. The sun was bearing down on both of them, and she could smell the sweet grasses and tangy pines, and Jake, the warmth of him. His eyes held wanting, and his finger slowly touched the errant pulse in her throat. “A few days here and there…you’d like Idaho on that basis, Anne. Not to romp and stomp like a weekend backpacker, but because you-like me-need a haven from time to time. I didn’t buy this particular piece of land for its silver, or its real-estate value. I bought it for its silence. But as for living here permanently-you don’t need to lie. You’ve never needed to lie-not to me.”

“I thought…it mattered to you,” she said gently.

He shook his head. “I’ve been trying to tell you for a very long time that there’s only one thing that matters to me.” His look said, You, Anne. She closed her eyes, feeling his fingers ever so gently thread through the loose coil at the nape of her neck as his mouth came down on hers. His lips tasted so sweet, so warm and smooth. She heard his indrawn breath against her mouth as her long silken tresses cascaded into his hands. The light-headed feeling that surged through her was partly real and partly a lush feminine fantasy taking on life. Jake seemed to catch fire when her hair was unbound.

The caution of years slipped from her. Her hands swept over his hard forearms and shoulders, memorizing them. Bittersweet emotions reverberated in her soul. She’d come with him…to find answers she already knew. A place she couldn’t live in, a lifestyle she just couldn’t accept…and feelings that just wouldn’t die. Her fingers shifted to the front of his shirt. One by one, the buttons loosened. Her lips touched down, each time; first on his throat, then in the curling mat of hair on his chest, then over his heartbeat…

“Anne,” Jake murmured.

She paid no attention. Jake was new each time; that was part of it. Never mind that they’d known each other ultimately before; he was still new to her, all over again. Every single time, she was surprised at the breadth of shoulder, at the haphazard spray of hair on his chest, at muscles that never showed beneath his clothes, at ribs that led down to a ridiculously lean waist; she had wider hips than he did, though she was slim. His flesh turned warm under her fingertips; that always surprised her.

He captured her wandering hands, forced them around his neck, and his lips sealed hers with fierce, delicious pressure. She nearly drowned before he let her up for air. “You’re in a hell of a lot of trouble, Anne,” he informed her huskily.

Now that she’d known from the day they’d met. A faint smile touched her lips as she lifted her face. How could it possibly be so hot on an autumn day? Sunlight washed over Jake’s jagged, familiar features, for a moment mesmerizing her. He was working the buttons at the back of her blouse, one by one. Silently, she reached up to unfasten the tiny clasp of the silver necklace, and folded the precious gift carefully into the pocket of his chamois shirt. She took extra care as she pushed the shirt from his shoulders. In a moment, her blouse joined his shirt on the grass, and the sun-stroked warmth on her bare shoulders.

She was vaguely aware that they were standing in an open meadow. She even tried to mention the fact, but Jake’s lips sealed hers to silence. His sweet, silken tongue claimed the intimacy of her mouth, all the sensitive dark corners. The taste-Jake’s taste-was a drug, different from any other drug. She rose up on tiptoe, as his fingers unclasped her bra, roughly removed it, and so very gently, so very possessively, claimed one swelling orb in his hand. Her sanity slipped another notch. Her breathing changed; one heartbeat became two, then three. Oddly confused, she buried her lips in his shoulder, and felt a slow, hot shudder possess his body.

“Anne,” he warned hoarsely.

So, Jake, too, was suddenly aware they were outside-not a convenient place at all, not at all what either of them had intended. Yet a sudden thread of desperation laced through her bloodstream. Never to touch him again? Never to know him again? Anne, being Anne, knew this was the precise time to buy a plane ticket for home. So obviously it must be someone else unbuckling Jake’s well-worn belt, pulling it through the loops on his jeans…

His hands made a game of slowly chasing her skirt down over her silk-clad hips, then slowly pushing the half- slip down, then her stockings and panties, and then there was nothing to chase but flesh, and he played that game, too. By the time they were both naked, years seemed to have passed, years of playing those languid, lazy games. Anne’s knees felt weak; it was so much easier to sink down.

The long, tall grass yielded beneath her weight, making a strange bed; a silky blouse for a pillow, crinkling jeans under her back, sun-warmed earth and grass beneath her calves. Sunlight flashed in front of her eyes, and the flickering gold leaves of the trees. Jake’s face, grainy and tan, was just above her, his eyes savoring the fevered brilliance in hers, the slight trembling of her mouth, the glow of sun and desire that seemed to heat her skin. “I could look at you forever,” he murmured.

But he seemed to have sweeter tortures in mind. Slowly, he rained light kisses along her ribs and navel and the inside of her arm, the underside of her chin, settling finally on the hollow between her breasts. The creamy globes were swollen, aching, waiting, and her whole body trembled when his tongue lapped first at one nipple, then the other.

She stroked his length in turn. Slowly. Her fingernails lightly scored his skin; then her gentle hands kneaded the flesh of his shoulders, his back, lower. Her fingertips could reach the backs of his thighs if she arched her whole body just so, if she moved her lips just so, if she flattened her breasts against his chest, nipple to nipple…

Jake sucked in breath he never seemed to let out again, his mouth hovering over hers. “Anne.” His kiss was hard and almost rough, and then there was another, and another. “If by some remote chance you’re harboring a hope that we’re going to make it to the motor home…”

A terrible idea. She eased one leg between his in answer, sealing him closer. The sun made her eyes ache, and she closed them. Urgency seemed suddenly to claim them both. Their mattress of jeans and silk was gone; they were rolling over and over in the grass, grass that smelled so sweet, that tickled them as it crackled and yielded under their weight. She seemed to be a part of the earth, giving and warm, rich and fertile. Somewhere nearby was the gurgling stream, and the sun kept beating down…

He took her, a sharp, welcome intrusion into the most private part of Anne. She wrapped her legs around him, her fevered green eyes intense on his. The power of her own feelings frightened her; her need and love for this man were open, and she was suddenly aware of the impermanence of their love, the illusiveness of their future. Then his lips captured hers, locking out the bitter and leaving only the sweet.

She’d made love with him before; it had been glorious, yet never like this, like a strong wind that would have its way, all the wild, fierce rush of a storm, all the gentleness of a breeze. Jake was so tender, teasing her higher, and all around her were the crushed grasses and the smells of autumn and sun and earth. The sensations seemed magnified, sweet and primitive, special. Then they were gone, and there was only Jake. The world could have been spinning in circles, but she knew only Jake. Desire ripped through her like a sharp, desperate pain, a rhythm gone too far to stop, a ruby-red promise of something she so frantically needed and could never have named or asked for…