Erotic Encounters (21 page)

He took a steadying breath in an attempt to calm the sudden wave of nervousness that washed through him. “I’ll tell you something I’ve never told anyone before.” He brushed a soft kiss across her lips, then cradled her head against his shoulder. His heartfelt words came out as a near whisper. “Sometimes I do get tired of it. There have been occasions when I wanted to walk out of a board of directors meeting, catch a flight to some exotic place where no one knew me and leave all the headaches to someone else.”

“I hadn’t thought of that before, of the pressure and stress someone in your position would carry on your shoulders. I guess I had bought into the concept that anyone who had a lot of money was leading a life of pleasure, a lifestyle everyone else would envy.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I like the things the money provides. I also like the opportunities afforded to me because of it. But it’s not the same thing as being footloose and fancy free. I could turn my back on everything right now, walk away and be very comfortable financially for the rest of my life without needing to do another day’s work. But I have a lot of people depending on me for their livelihood. There’s a lot of pressure in that type of responsibility and I take my responsibilities very seriously.”

He smoothed a loose tendril of her hair away from her cheek as he delved into the depth of her eyes. “I’ve enjoyed this interlude that the storm brought. No telephones ringing, not being pulled in five different directions at the same time, no one demanding immediate decisions to problems that don’t have any ready solutions.” He placed a soft kiss on her lips. “And most of all I’ve enjoyed being here with you. I’ve never had a more pleasant surprise than what today has brought into my life.”

Her gaze dropped to the floor as the pink tinge spread across her cheeks and forehead and her voice quieted to an emotion laden whisper. “Thank you.” She regained eye contact with him. “This has been quite a surprise for me, too.”

He arched a questioning eyebrow. “A pleasant one, I hope.”

A tender smile turned the corners of her mouth. “Yes, a very pleasant one.”

He emitted a sigh of contentment as he continued to hold her in his arms. “You know what?”

“No, what?”

He pressed his lips to her forehead. “You’re too comfortable to be around. You bring out my hidden thoughts and feelings and that’s bad.”

“Why is it bad?”

“Because it takes away my advantage.”

“I didn’t realize we were negotiating a business deal.”

He tilted his head back so that he could see her face. “We’re not. This isn’t business. It’s personal. But what I don’t know is exactly what—” His mind shut off the words before he could complete the thought. Yes, indeed…she was much too comfortable and he was growing more confused and uncertain by the minute.

He shifted gears into the smooth, practiced outer persona he hid behind in his dealings with everyone. He glanced out the window again. “It looks like only a few isolated flakes falling. The road crews are probably already digging out so they can start clearing the roads. I think we should make the most of the time while we still have the entire lodge to ourselves.”

He nuzzled her neck, then kissed her cheek. “What would you say to some skinny dipping in the pool? Or if you prefer warmer water, we could cavort in the spring fed pond.”

“I think that sounds like a terrific idea.”

****

Afton packed an overnight bag while Gage waited at the door to her room. There hadn’t been any conversation, discussion or even a question. After a steamy interlude in the spring fed pond, they went to her room in the lodge so she could grab a few things before spending the night in his suite. She closed her door. He took the bag from her.

It all seemed so natural, so very right. He captured her mouth with a tender kiss, gentle yet filled with a promise of once again fulfilling her every desire and fantasy. As soon as his lips touched hers the moisture began to seep from between her pussy lips. Her insides quivered in anticipation. Her legs grew weak as they trembled in response to the excitement coursing through her veins. At that moment she wasn’t sure she could even walk as far as the elevator. He gave her hand an intimate squeeze and they walked back to his suite.

He placed her overnight bag on the counter in his bathroom, then went to light the logs in the fireplace. She walked over to the glass wall and gazed out over the landscape. The outside security lights glistened off the snow. She looked up to the sky. The full moon shone through the breaks in the clouds. He had been right. Morning would bring blue sky and sunshine.

And the end to their idyllic hideaway.

If her thoughts had been confused earlier, she didn’t know what to call them now. What had started as an intense physical attraction and the hottest sex on record had quickly turned into so much more…at least for her. But what about him?

Their interspersed conversations had not been anywhere near as awkward as she thought they would be. At times they had been far more comfortable than she wanted them to be. He had slowly, and it seemed unintentionally, allowed her glimpses behind the façade of the dynamic high-powered business executive who presented himself at the lodge a week ago. Insight into the man behind that public image. A look at the real person rather than the persona.

And she was growing very fond of that person.
Very
fond…if not more.

But what did he feel? What was going through his mind? She didn’t know. Or perhaps she was afraid to find out.

The sounds of soft music reached her ears, then his voice. “A romantic fire, the full moon breaking through the clouds, some chilled champagne…” his words tickled across her ear as he wrapped his arms around her waist, “and a nice big bed. What could be more perfect?”

What, indeed? Her thoughts tried to wander, to find some type of foothold in reality, but the only reality she could find at the moment was the way Gage Brennan set her soul on fire and touched her heart. It was not what she wanted, but she did not have the ability to stop it.

He slipped his pajama top off her shoulders and down her arms until the garment fell to the floor then quickly doffed his pajama bottoms. Bare skin touched bare skin along the length of their torsos when he wrapped his arms around her. His rapidly growing erection reached up between them. Her breasts rose and fell with her ragged breathing. Her puckered nipples pressed against his chest. He ran his hands down the length of her back, then cupped her rear end in his hands and pulled her hips against his. She circled her arms around his neck.

Out of the corner of her eye, Afton saw a light flash against the large bedroom window, then another flash. Her body stiffened and jerked to attention. A sense of urgency bordering on panic filled her voice.

“Did you see that? The two flashes of light? Is there someone out there? Can they see us?” She knew too many questions were coming out of her mouth all at once, but a feeling of anxiety had overtaken her common sense. She quickly withdrew from his embrace and grabbed the pajama top from the floor, pulling it on like a robe. The nervous tension churned in the pit of her stomach.

“It’s okay. Don’t worry. Probably just a couple of the lights downstairs burning out. It might even be one of the lobby lights. The lobby windows are about the location where the flash was.” His voice was calm and soothing, but she could see the concern in his eyes.

“Maybe we…uh, maybe we should go downstairs—”

He placed his fingertips against her lips to still her words. “
We
aren’t going to do anything. I’ll go downstairs and check. I’m sure it’s nothing serious. Even if someone could possibly be out and about, the doors of the lodge are locked and we certainly didn’t hear enough glass shattering for someone to have broken in. I’ll make a quick check of the perimeter just to confirm that it was nothing more than a couple of lights that burned out.”

He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt, stuck his feet into a pair of shoes and grabbed his master keys for the entire building and a flashlight. Pausing long enough to place a soft kiss on her lips, he extended a confident smile. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

Afton had been trying to assimilate what was happening and made a decision. “I’m going with you. Give me a minute to get dressed.”

His smile faded, to be replaced by a stern expression. “No, I’d really prefer that you wait here.”

A little shiver of apprehension darted through her body. She made eye contact with him and held it for several seconds. “Then you do think there’s something wrong, don’t you?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be prudent to be cautious. All I’m going to do is recheck all the doors leading outside to make sure they’re secure. I’ll check in with you from the hotel house phone at the registration desk before I come back upstairs.”

He placed another tender kiss on her lips. “I’ll be right back.”

She watched from the loft as he left the suite. She heard the door click shut. A strange sense of loneliness settled over her. It wasn’t fearful trepidation, but it certainly wasn’t a calm sensation of well-being, either. She closed her eyes and tried to visualize where he was walking, the most direct route to check all the doors. He would have gotten to the lobby, checking the front entrance. She found herself nervously pacing back and forth.

Suddenly she turned and went to the master bathroom where he had placed her overnight bag. She dressed quickly. She didn’t know what to expect but wanted to be ready for whatever might happen. The nervousness continued to churn inside her. She swallowed several times in an attempt to lessen the tightness in her throat and chest.

It seemed that he had been gone forever, but glancing at the clock told her it had only been fifteen minutes. She kept glancing at the phone as if she could will it to ring so she could hear his voice saying he was at the registration desk and would be upstairs in a couple of minutes. But nothing happened. There was only silence.

****

Gage was pleased to find that the private entrance from the outside by his elevator was locked as it should be. It had been his first concern. He moved quietly on a circuit of the ground level—the lobby entrance, the outside entrance to the restaurant, the doors from the outside terraces. All were intact. The elevators from the parking garage beneath the building were shut down. The door to the stairs leading down to the parking garage was locked, too. He entered the kitchen, then came to an abrupt halt.

A quick adrenaline surge hit his bloodstream. His heart beat jumped up a level. The pantry door stood open, and the light shone from inside. He shined his flashlight toward the kitchen door that led outside. The floor inside the door was wet. His senses went on full alert. Someone had entered the building through that door. Then he heard the noise coming from the pantry, as if someone was going through the cupboards.

He glanced around, frantically seeking anything he could use as a weapon. His gaze fell on the large butcher knife. He grabbed it and took a calming breath in an attempt to slow down his pounding heart. He moved stealthily toward the pantry. Before he got half way across the kitchen, a large form of a man appeared in the pantry door.

It was a toss-up as to who was the most startled, Gage or Stuart, the lodge’s head chef.

“Holy shit, Gage. You just scared the hell out of me.”

“You didn’t do my nerves any good, either. What the fuck are you doing here? And just as important,
how
did you get here?” The street must be buried under maybe three feet of snow.

“I only live a couple of blocks away. Once the snow stopped, I strapped on the cross country skies and here I am. I’ve been concerned about the power and whether the refrigeration and freezers were working okay. There’s thousands of dollars of food here, even more than normal because of the grand opening party. I wanted to see how much could be salvaged and start a damage assessment.”

“At this time of night? Why didn’t you just wait until morning? I’m sure the road crews will be working all night to get the main streets in passable condition.”

“I wasn’t doing anything else, and I was bored with television. What are you doing here?”

“I didn’t make it out before they closed the airport. So I’ve been trapped…uh, along with Afton Pendleton.”

Stuart cocked his head and raised a questioning eyebrow. “Just the two of you in the lodge all by yourselves? I’m surprised you’re both still alive.”

“Wipe that look off your face.”

A soft laugh escaped Stuart’s throat. “You misunderstood me. The way the two of you have been at each other’s throat from the day you arrived, without someone to referee, I thought one of you would surely have killed the other.”

“We agreed on a truce.” He tried to suppress the slight grin that tugged at the corners of his mouth. “And we haven’t discussed or even mentioned the grand opening party plans. All and all, the time has passed pretty quickly.”

“So you came down here to raid your kitchen?”

“No, it was a couple of flashes of light that made us wonder if someone was here. I was doing a security check of all the doors.”

“That was probably me when I came in through the kitchen door. It could have been worse.”

Gage couldn’t stop the spontaneous laugh. “Yes, you could have set off the alarm and taken ten years off my life.”

They talked for a couple more minutes before Gage started to leave. He turned back toward Stuart as he reached the door. “Give me a call on the house phone before you leave so I’ll know that the place is empty again.”

“Sure thing. I won’t be much longer. So far everything appears to be in good shape except that it’s cold in here.”

“We never did lose power, but I turned down the heat to most of the building. I’ve got it set at fifty-five degrees. Definitely too cold, but warm enough that it shouldn’t take too long to get all the rooms up to normal. I’ll kick up the heat first thing in the morning. I imagine most of the local employees will be straggling in some time during the day so we can get organized again.”

Stuart threw a sly look in Gage’s direction. “I guess that means you and Afton will be on each other’s nerves again as you gear up for the rescheduling of the grand opening.”