Over the blender, his green eyes met hers and she felt a little zing. “All of them?” he murmured.
“Well, I’m still standing.”
He let out a small smile. “Ouch.”
“Oh, it’s not you. I’m taking a little break from…falling.”
He poured the margarita mix into salted glasses and handed her one, watching her closely. “Because…?”
She shook her head at the drink. “No, thanks, I’m a lightweight. And to answer your question, I’m taking a break because the last guy I dated turned out to be married.”
At that, he winced. “Yeah, we’re pretty much all assholes.”
“Not all.”
“All,” he said firmly.
“We’ll have to agree to disagree there,” she murmured, trying not to be mesmerized by those eyes of his, the eyes that seemed to see a hell of a lot more than she wanted him to. “But just because I’m not good at the whole dating thing doesn’t mean I’ve given up entirely. I’ll get back to it.”
“No one’s good at it.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She smiled. “I have a feeling you are.”
“Not me. I gave all that up.” He shifted away to hand out the margaritas and she figured that was it, the extent of their conversation; but when his tray was empty, he came back, smiling at her as he once again moved behind the bar.
And she had to ask. “You gave up sex?”
His mouth curved wryly. “Not on purpose. But as it turns out, it’s been a long dry spell.”
“Miss it?”
“Now that you mention it.” Shoving his shirtsleeves up to his elbows, he leaned on the bar, shifting close, shooting her a look of pure wicked trouble that shouldn’t have revved her engines but did. “Why? Are you offering to get me back on the bike?”
Something inside her quivered, but she hadn’t been born yesterday. She tore her gaze off his, but that meant soaking in his chest or his forearms, which were ripped with tough strength. His hands were as rugged as the rest of him, big and calloused and scarred. “Does that ever actually work for you?” she murmured. “That line?”
He chuckled softly. “Not in a damn long time, I can tell you that.”
Stone made his way behind the bar and looked at his brother. “You working your magic here?”
“Not with this one.” Cam’s gaze was still locked on Katie. “She’s immune to the Wilder charm.”
“Smart woman.”
Smart to steer clear? Was she really? Or, as she looked at the two brothers with their matching mischievous smiles, matching stun-the-brain good looks, was she being very, very shortsighted?
Several nights later, Annie dragged Katie out to Juniper Lake for ice-skating and a bonfire. It was a full moon, and the sharp, black outlines of the majestic peaks surrounding them in a full circle were enough to render Katie awestruck as they drove out on the narrow, curvy, almost nonexistent road. The high moon shined over the frozen alpine lake, but the best scenery was Nick, Stone, and Cam, skating as if they’d been born to it. “Look at them.”
“Yeah, they’ve been playing hockey for years,” Annie said, mistaking her excitement for dismay over their skills. “Don’t mind them.”
Nick flew past them so fast he was nothing but a blur, and for a moment, Annie stared after him with a look of such naked longing it hurt Katie’s heart.
Giving the chef a moment, Katie got her borrowed skates on and tested herself on the ice, eyeing Cam speeding around the lake.
Did he look good doing everything?
She thought maybe he did, then let her mind wander to what else he might look good doing-like her. Unbidden came the picture in her mind of him doing just that, stripping her naked one article of clothing at a time, smiling that wicked, naughty bad-boy smile as he worked his way down her body with his tongue-
And just like that, her feet flew out from beneath her, and with a teeth-chattering thunk, she hit the ice on her most padded spot-her ass-which didn’t make it hurt less.
Cam stopped on a dime with an ease that made her want to knock him on
He flashed a smile and pulled her to her feet, and when said feet would have fallen out from beneath her again, he held her upright.
She’d just been picturing his hands all over her naked body and here he was, touching her. It had her brain’s wiring all crossed, and her nipples went hard.
Bad nipples.
With great concentration, she shoved the sensual images aside, because over the past week since his return, she’d begun to get to know him, and one of the things she knew was that he tended to be a hands-off kind of guy. Stone and Nick were forever shoving each other, and Annie as well. But they were also just as likely to hug, or even just casually touch.
Not Cam.
But he was touching her now, literally holding her up. And looking into her eyes. “You didn’t say,” he murmured. “Were you injured in the bridge collapse?”
“Just a few burns and a broken wrist.” It was her standard reply. Short and to the point, and didn’t encourage more questions. “Could have been worse.”
“Doesn’t always help to know that, though.”
No. No, it didn’t, and a little surprised at his sharp insight, she looked into his face.
He offered a solemn smile. “Ready to learn how to do this?”
She caught the intent in the flicker of his eyes a second before he put his hands on her hips, turning her so that she faced away from him. Before she could process the feeling of being snuggled up to his chest, he’d slipped his arms around her middle, his long legs pressing to the backs of hers. She felt the warmth of his chest; then the muscles in his thighs flexed and they were moving.
Fast. “Oh God.”
“Oh God good, or bad?”
“Good.” But she hadn’t meant the skating. The landscape whipped past them at dizzying speeds, not what was spinning her head. No, that was his hands on her, hard and firm on her belly and ribs as he took her entire weight against him, reminding her how long it’d been since she’d been touched by a man.
Too damn long.
She leaned her head back against his shoulder and looked up into his face. He wasn’t wearing a ski cap tonight, and his light brown hair was disheveled as if maybe he’d used his fingers as a comb. He hadn’t shaved. His scar slashing his left eyebrow didn’t look all that old, and yet the leather band he wore around his wrist did. Her fingers played with it, and at the touch, he looked down.
“From your travels?”
“South America.” He continued to steer her around the lake, the muscles in his body flexing against hers, the heat of him keeping her warm.
As if she could get any warmer. “Does this hurt your leg?”
His expression registered surprised at her question.
“I’m sorry. I’ve seen you limp sometimes.” Plus, he never took the physically taxing trips. Stone or Nick did those. But no one mentioned it, or why.
“It’s my knee,” he said. “But as long as I don’t do jumps, it’ll be fine.”
She couldn’t hold herself up and he could do jumps. She wanted to ask about his injury, about that hollow look that sometimes came into his eyes, about why the others never talked about it, or how they deferred to him, protecting him so much. But she didn’t. She sensed he was tired of questions, tired of a lot of things, and she didn’t want to make him think about it when there was actually a smile on his face. “Then you need to be careful,” she said, then remembered that being careful had never worked for her. “But don’t forget to live. Live as big as you can with what you’ve got.”
His lips quirked, his hands tightening on her. “Is that what you’re doing?”
