Hot Point (14 page)

“Made love to you when we were both too tired to remember it afterward?”

This time a smile helped him read her expression. “Yeah, something like that. So, you want your evil way with me?”

“Oh my God, yes!” Vern couldn't believe they were having this conversation. They were sitting a foot apart, separated by fifty thousand dollars of electronics, talking about how much they wanted each other.

“Oh.”

“Oh? That's it? Just ‘oh'?”

She nodded, hesitated, then nodded again. Without looking at him again, she slipped out the door on her side of the helicopter. Too dumbfounded to move, he watched her circling around the nose of the Firehawk, coming around to his side.

But she didn't.

She stopped right in front of his position and stared at him for a long moment through the windscreen. Then, ever so slowly, she turned her back on him until she was facing the lake. She may have smiled the moment before she fully turned her back on him.

There, in full view, Denise Conroy began to undress. Boots, vest, pants, bra, underwear. In moments, they were folded and piled neatly on the hard stone that made up this part of the lakeshore.

The sun was off to their right, low in the west. It shone off her mane of hair and her skin as if sunlight had been created for no other purpose. The tan on her face wasn't from living and working outdoors; its gentle golden-butter tone covered her from head to toe.

With an easy motion, she reached over her shoulder and swept her hair forward. Finally seeing her full shape for the first time was a revelation that made him wish that his mother's art lessons had found a more adept student. Denise's shoulders had the strength of her vocation; her waist, hips, and legs had been custom designed for Eve to help her launch the race of humankind—pure woman.

She again twisted her hair into a thick French braid, bent down—which was an astonishing sight in itself—and fetched a clip from a jeans pocket, and tossed her hair once more over her back.

“So, are you just going to sit there?” She didn't even bother to turn as she asked, her voice clear in the perfect silence. Then she walked away from him toward the water.

His paralysis broke the moment she reached the water's edge.

He jerked sideways to get out of the chopper and was brutally slammed back into place by the harness he had yet to release.

She was in up to her knees by the time he fought his way loose.

Her waist by the time he managed to remember how to unlace his boots.

Her neck and swimming before he too was naked.

He ran across the sun-heated rock and did a racing dive out into the water. He emerged in time to see her disappear beneath the surface in an elegant move.

And perhaps the echo of a laugh played in the ripples from her dive.

* * *

Denise had left Denise back on the shoreline. It was the only way she could think to explain herself to herself.

She'd never stripped naked in front of a man strictly to make him crazy. Actually, she always undressed in the dark or slipped off the last items after she was under the covers. She'd never been naked out of doors. And she'd certainly never been skinny-dipping.

The sensation was intense. She loved to swim, but the water, the sense of motion through it, was always held at a distance by the swimsuit. Even the few times she'd worn a bikini—she was more of a one-piece gal—it hadn't felt like this.

The warm lake water embraced her. When she swam, it stroked her entire body from face to toes in a single long slide that set her nerves alight, all at once. As if she were a helicopter's main data bus suddenly overwhelmed with information, the sensations poured through her, too vast and wonderful to comprehend.

Then she heard the sharp splash of a dive.

A glance over her shoulder told her that Vern would be coming up on her and fast. She laughed for the sheer joy of it and dove.

She went deep and doubled back to meet him, but he swam right over her, racing to her former position.

He shifted to tread water.

Rising silently to surface behind him, she took a deep breath and tapped him on the shoulder. When he turned to face her, she drove a great palm-blast of water into his face and dove back under.

His hand brushed down her thigh, grabbed her calf, but slid off her ankle as she kicked down and away.

This time she went for distance.

When she surfaced, he was looking right at her across a hundred feet or more of water, two rotors he'd call it. Vern bellowed like an enraged bull, alarming several ducks into flight, and drove toward her.

He was as magnificent a swimmer as he was a pilot. She lost crucial seconds admiring his form, the way his shoulders rippled with muscle as he shot toward her.

Her squeak of alarm was too late in breaking her momentary hypnosis.

One of those long arms managed to snare her about the waist, and in moments his kiss crushed down on her mouth.

Flesh to flesh, nothing between them, not even water. How she had craved this, dreamed of it over these last days. But it had never felt this good, not even in her imagination. They each kicked their legs to stay afloat, but that was the only concession.

Denise gave back every bit as good as she got. With their mouths locked and their tongues exploring, she raked her hands over his back and shoulder muscles, wanting to learn every curve, every nuance as fast as she could.

Vern had one hand dug up into her hair and the other cupping her behind to keep them close. He was so powerful; it felt as if he could hold up the world to keep her close.

They both became so lost in the sensations that their legs stilled and they slid beneath the surface.

In moments they were apart, back on the surface, and both sputtering and choking.

“Hell of a place to be making love to someone,” Vern observed, clearing his throat once more.

Denise let herself slip momentarily back below the surface to cool her flaming cheeks. “Make love to someone.” The few guys who ever said something like that actually just meant sex, not understanding the difference between sex and love. Not that she'd ever experienced the latter, but she had a good imagination.

Vern's voice sounded as if it knew exactly what it meant, which made the blood roar in her ears once more.

Back on the surface, she wanted to tease him. Teasing was an unheard-of practice in Denise's experience, but she still wanted to try.

“If you want to make love to me, you'll have to beat me to shore.” They'd crossed most of the lake.

He grinned and opened his mouth to reply, exactly as she'd expected. She drove another faceful of water at him and set off at a racing crawl toward the distant bank while he choked and spluttered.

Again, that roar of need resounded from behind her, and she used its energy to drive herself ahead even faster. She'd never had such an effect on a man. Not Denise Conroy.

Don't think. Swim!

He caught her twenty feet from the rocky shore. A big hand came down and grabbed her ankle; her forward progress was abruptly halted. He dragged her back to him. As he turned to stand in the chest-deep water, she had an idea.

She let herself be dragged in until he tried to shift his hold from her ankles to her wrists.

With a quick tuck and twist, she lay on her back with her feet placed squarely on his chest. She pushed off, hard.

He tumbled backward into the water.

She shot for shore.

But he was quick! He snared her ankle again before she got clear.

This time when he grabbed her, she had no interest in escaping. Being a cautious man, though, he didn't give her another chance. He pulled her in, one leg to either side of him, and in moments she was still floating on her back with her knees over his shoulders and her ankles crossed behind his neck. She was helpless to retaliate, needing her hands to keep her head afloat.

He nuzzled the inside of her thigh, a sensation so intense that it rocketed up into her and stopped the last of her struggles.

With a big hand supporting her shoulders so that her head didn't go underwater, he placed his other hand beneath her hips, then lowered his mouth to her.

All Denise could do was watch the shining blue sky, rimmed by green conifers, as she floated. Her cries gave voice to some infinitesimal percentage of the pleasure he sent coursing through her body.

* * *

They'd finally come ashore at full dark.

Vern had only addressed the very beginning of the list he'd been assembling of things he wanted to do for Denise. But while the lake had offered a lot of room for play, it also had its limitations—liking having to constantly avoid drowning.

And how easily the woman slipped away underwater; she swam like a mermaid. Which gave him a few ideas for later.

Ashore, a suddenly shy Denise pulled her clothes back on as he fixed them a scrounged meal from the odds and ends in the cooler and a few of the MREs that sustained firefighters when they had no time to eat.

One advantage of Denise getting dressed was that after dinner he had the joy of undressing her again. It was under the cover of darkness, but it was an experience he'd never forget.

The moon had retreated from the early night sky while they'd been in Montana. Here in the woods, well clear of civilization, the darkness was near complete. Only starlight graced her body as he slowly unwrapped it like the most precious Christmas gift.

What was lacking in sight was more than made up for in shape, texture, taste, and smell. Unraveling her braid and brushing out her hair with his fingers to dry had been an intensely sensual experience all its own.

On a pile of rescue blankets for padding, and beneath an unzipped sleeping bag that they kept having to pull back into place until they gave it up as a lost cause, they explored.

She zeroed in on the ticklish spot beneath his ribs that made him squirm.

He discovered that she possessed many places, which, if nibbled, sent her into a hail of giggles. The wonder of Denise Conroy giggling sidetracked him quite thoroughly.

They had spent days together, but not.

Nights sleeping together, yet nothing else.

He wanted her so badly, but he also wanted it to last. Wanted to take his time, not scare her back into some shy place with his desperate need for her.

She finally stopped him with a searing kiss that he could feel right past his loins and into his toes. When at last she broke from the kiss, she whispered a single word into the darkness.

“Now.”

It might just be the sweetest sound he'd ever heard.

She was the one who'd thought ahead and made a side trip to a pharmacy in Missoula, for which he was deeply appreciative. When she rolled the protection over him, he was even more so.

It took no coaxing on either part; they simply moved together as if locked onto the same flight path. When he finally entered her, it wasn't the frantic conquest his body begged for. Instead, it was a process as slow and silky as unraveling her hair. They built slowly on discovery, moved to exploration, and when he entered her, he found joy.

The sensations were so overwhelming, so intense, that no frantic motion was required; the slightest shift had them both gasping with amazement. No woman had ever felt so good, so right.

Their first time together wasn't about speed or heat. It was about how perfect every tiny motion felt. He drove her upward, one slow stroke at a time, until she arched like a strung bow for an impossibly long moment.

And then her release hammered her.

He wished he could see her. He wished there was light while he drank in her desperate moans. But even broad daylight would have done him no good because the fire in his body flooded outward until he felt brighter on the inside than any mere solar radiance.

He peaked into her and rode down the other side as she wrapped arms and legs around him, and dragged him so close that he'd never escape the heat of the shining fire that was Denise Conroy.

* * *

Vern woke, as he usually did, shortly before dawn. This time there was no question. He knew exactly where they were.

“They.” No thought or consideration. It was simply there in his first thought of the day. It was wholly unexpected and wholly wonderful. He could get very used to thinking of “they” if Denise Conroy was the other part of that.

The last of the stars still struggled against the impending day in a blue-black sky. Perched above them, the Firehawk had watched over their sleep, reaching its rotor blades over them like a protecting hand.

He wanted to close his eyes and go back to last night. They had occupied themselves for hours before finally collapsing into sleep. Not because he was in any way sated. Usually after a good bout of hot sex, he was happily content to sleep it off. After a good bout of hot sex with Denise, he wanted more. There was a richness and depth to their lovemaking he'd never experienced before, like a painting that needed coat upon coat to build up and discover the true image.

First coat had been when he took her the first time.

Second, he had explored her body with his mouth and his hands until he had her writhing once more. Her cries echoed across the lake as she thrust against his hand and mouth. His own release had followed not long after hers.

Third, a midnight swim, her hair pinned atop her head and dunking forbidden. They'd slid across the lake and back with long, lazy strokes and emerged into the cool night air.

Afterward, curled tightly together for warmth and then comfort as the moon finally crept into the circle of stars made by the tall stands of timber surrounding the lake, they talked. They'd talked about nothing: favorite movies, least favorite foods, worst dates. And in some ways, that had been his favorite part of the night.

Finally, they had simply held each other and listened to the night as the stars spun and the moon shadows moved.

* * *

He rubbed his nose in her now-dry hair. Once again she was curled into his chest in her sleep. He'd never been much of a one for tally sheets, but he could easily count each touch, each kiss, each…