“Well, I wouldn’t exactly use the word brother…” she muttered, drawing a breath. Not easy when she was plastered to him, chest to chest, belly to belly, thighs to thighs, and everything in between. “Please, TJ…just let it go.”
He dropped his head close, so close that his jaw brushed hers. The stubble there scraped gently across her skin and gave her a shiver. The good kind, dammit.
“Tell me,” he said in that quiet voice that tended to make people do exactly as he asked.
She curled into him. He smelled so good. So good that she maybe, sort of, kind of by accident, pressed her nose to his neck.
“Harley.”
His low voice rumbled from his chest, a soft warning she didn’t heed, and when she moved against him again, his grip went from gentle to something far more dangerous as he breathed her name again.
Unable to help herself, she pressed her mouth to his neck and felt him stir against her.
“You’re trying to distract me,” he whispered roughly.
Distract him, herself…
And before she gave too much thought to it, she opened her mouth on his throat, scraping him with her teeth, absorbing his rough groan.
And then…
And then he abruptly yanked himself free of her with a soft oath, pushing her behind him. “TJ? What-”
He strode from beneath the protection of the tree to the center of the clearing, his head cocked as if listening for something.
“What?” she said.
“Someone was standing right here, watching us.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.” He turned and pointed at her. “Stay.”
And then he vanished down the path.
CHAPTER 7
Harley waited a few minutes, but when TJ didn’t come right back, she went after him. He was a hundred or so yards down the trail, and when he saw her, said nothing.
Fine with her.
Speaking, sharing, emoting…all waaaaay overrated.
Finally, hands on his hips, looking torn between frustration and acceptance, he spoke. “Nice job on the staying thing.”
“Did you see who it was?”
“No, just a flash. A guy though.”
“The forest service told me I was the only one who pulled a permit for this weekend.”
He was quiet as he absorbed that, not looking happy.
“Back there, at the tree,” she said, “when you realized we weren’t alone, you pushed me behind you.”
“Watching your back.”
“Just my back?”
“I’ll watch whatever you want me to.” His eyes were smiling but his mouth was not. He was done playing. “Harley.”
“Let me guess. You’re sticking to me like glue.”
At that, his smile did meet his eyes. “The better to watch your back.”
They’d put their packs back on and had gone a few hundred yards when he spoke. “You still owe me a story.”
“Once upon a time there was this big, bad wolf who-”
“You know which story, smart-ass.”
Yeah. She knew. What she didn’t know was how to tell it to him.
TJ waited, but Harley walked in silence. He gave in to her silence because he could see that she wasn’t ignoring him on purpose. She was thinking.
“Why now?” she eventually asked. “Why did you kiss me now after all this time?”
The truth was easy enough. She was warm, funny, attractive. But she was also scary as hell. So though he’d wanted her, and had for as long as he could remember, it’d also been far easier on him to stay away.
Something he was going to have a hard time remembering now that he’d had a taste of her.
“TJ?”
“You want to play twenty questions, Harley? Because I believe you’re up on deck first.”
He took her next silence to mean a resounding “no thanks.” His cell phone vibrated, and he pulled it out of his pocket.
“What’s up?” Cam asked him.
“You called to ask me what’s up?”
“No,” Cam said. “I called to see if there’s anything you want to tell me.”
“About?”
“I don’t know. The weather. The Angels game. Or wait, I know. How about the client you cancelled on to follow a certain sexy blonde? Want to talk about that?”
TJ moved away from said sexy blonde for privacy. “No.”
“Everything okay?” Cam asked after a moment of contemplative silence.
“Yes.”
“You haven’t done anything stupid with the one woman in town that hasn’t fallen under your charms or between your sheets, have you?”
TJ gritted his teeth. Define stupid, he thought “No.”
“Do I need to come up there and show you how to catch her, then?”
More gritting of his teeth.
“Okay, then, glad we could clear all this all up.”
TJ shook his head. “Do you have a real reason for calling, or are you just running up the minutes for the hell of it?”
“We switched over to unlimited. And yeah, I have a reason. I wanted to see which of us back here at base have won the bet. See, we’re divided on whether you’ll come back with a just-laid expression on your face or if you’ll be bleeding.”
“Since clearly you don’t have enough to do to keep busy,” TJ said over Cam’s soft laugh. “Do the research on that new climbing gear we were looking at. And I need a detailed mapping for that Yosemite trip Stone wants to pass off on me. Oh, and then there’s a stack of paperwork on my desk-”
Cam stopped laughing, but the smile remained in his voice. “Ah, man, it’s been a long time since you’ve resorted to pussy threats to shut me up. So…you ready to admit you’re crazy about her or what? Inquiring minds need to know.”
TJ closed his eyes. The rain had stopped, and he tipped his head at the quickly clearing sky. “What you need to know is that I’m going to kick your ass when I get back.”
“Admit it. You’re gone over her. You’ve got it bad.”
“Fuck you.”
“Hey, it’s your own fault,” Cam said. “You laughed at love. Like Annie said, you tempted karma.”
“Sideways,” TJ told him.
Unperturbed about his impending death, Cam laughed out loud.
TJ disconnected, shoving the phone back in his pocket as he turned and came face-to-face with Harley.
“What was that about?” she asked as he pulled off his shell, rolled it up, and stuck it through an outside webbed pocket of his pack-because suddenly he felt quite warm.
“A question for a question, Harley. One hundred percent honesty at all times, no exceptions.” He was fairly
