Turn Up the Heat (9 page)

“Can I get those in to-go cups, please?” Shane looked through the crowded lodge to the spot where Bellamy stood with her friends as the guy behind the coffee counter snapped plastic lids on both cups. When she'd agreed to have coffee with him, her smile had traveled down his spine in a straight shot, overriding the circuitry in the rational part of his brain. Maybe it hadn't been fair to judge Bellamy based on her car, or the fact that she sported diamond earrings that probably cost more than his truck was worth. She had a killer laugh, and while she could've easily flipped the bitch-switch to get Marcus Lawrenson to beat it, she hadn't.

Plus, as soon as he fixed her car, she would head back to the city, no harm, no foul. What could a cup of Joe and a couple hours outside hurt? He took a long swallow from one of the cups, letting it warm him before walking across the room, coffee in hand.

“Ah, to-go cups. I take it you're planning a field trip.” Bellamy tipped her head at the Styrofoam cup he passed her way as she took two packets of sugar from the bowl on the side table. Shane had no idea what she did to her hair to get it all shiny like that, but man, he was tempted to reach out and touch it.

He took a long look at his cup and wondered what the hell was in his regular old black coffee to make a stupid thought like
that
take over his gray matter.

“As long as you're okay with a little off-roading, I figured we could head up to Carrington Ridge,” Shane said, looking at the two other women. “You're both welcome to come. It's not far, but the Ridge is pretty cool.” One of the added benefits of the Ridge was that not a lot of non-locals knew where it was, which made it virtually unpopulated by the hot toddy–sipping jet-setters who frequented the resort. As it was, standing inside the massive lobby, with its blazing fireplaces and yuppie crowds, was giving Shane the sweats.

“That's really nice of you to offer.” Bellamy's friend Jenna gave a genuine smile. “But honestly, I don't think Holly's going to budge from the couch now that she's figured out how much better Irish coffee tastes
indoors
.”

“Sing that,” Holly acknowledged with a nod. “But thanks for the invite,” she added, toasting Shane with her mug.

“I'll be back in a bit,” Bellamy murmured. Jenna flashed her a knowing glance that looked like it might mean something in girl-speak, but then it was gone, replaced by Jenna's dimpled smile. What did he know about complex women-codes, anyway? Guys were so much simpler. If you didn't mess with another man's livelihood or his woman, you were pretty much set.

Bellamy fell in step beside him as he headed toward the exit leading out the back of the resort. “Okay, so what's Carrington Ridge?”

He held the door for her, waiting until their feet were back in rhythm together before continuing. “It's on the other side of the mountain from the resort, facing Big Gap in the east. The resort has the market cornered on skiing and snowboarding, but all of its trails are over here, on the west side.” Shane paused, gesturing over his shoulder. The night trails were lit up like a beacon, dotted with skiers gliding over the largely manufactured snow.

“So it's not part of the resort?”

He chuckled. “If it was part of the resort, it wouldn't be the best kept secret on the mountain, that's for sure.” They walked in perfect rhythm together for a minute before Shane continued. “It's one of my favorite places up here. Most people who know about it go for the great sunrises. They're really something else.” Shane wasn't much of a landscape guy, but if there were words to do justice to the sunrise over the valley at Big Gap, he sure couldn't string them together.

“Looks like it,” Bellamy said as they reached his truck and he unlocked her door.

Shane paused. Maybe she'd gone off the tourist trail and seen it already or something. “Oh, sorry. Have you been there?”

She gave a slight shake of her head, just enough to jostle the waves of her blond hair before she got into the truck. “No, I just assumed it must be something pretty special, judging from the look on your face.”

Shane blanked his expression out of instinct. “Yeah, the view is even better at night.” He went around to the driver's side and got in. As he started the truck, a ripple of something odd made its way up his spine. Shane couldn't remember the last time anyone had pegged his emotions just from the look on his face. It sure as hell hadn't been since he'd moved to Pine Mountain.

'Course, he just had to slip up in front of the prettiest and most intuitive girl he could find, didn't he?

Bellamy cleared her throat delicately. “Okay, I'll bite. How is the view so good if it's dark outside?”

Shane scrambled to catch up to the moment, realizing she'd been waiting for him to continue telling her about Carrington Ridge. “Oh. Uh, well, it's what you can't see that makes it so cool, actually.”

Her puzzled expression warmed him up faster than any heater, but he flipped the thing on high anyhow, watching her crease her brow in thought.

“I don't get it,” she admitted, lacing her fingers around her coffee cup and taking a sip.

“You will when we get there,” he said, enjoying the frustrated frown he got in response.

“So you're just going to leave me hanging, then.” The playful edge to her voice teased around Shane's ear, and he reached out to crank the heat down a notch. Man, the truck got hot quick.

Or maybe that was just him.

“You're a smart girl. Figure it out.”

In the dim glow of the dashboard lights, he could see her face, bent in concentration. “How do you know I'm smart?”

“Law school or MBA?” Shane's pulse quickened.

“MBA. But you didn't answer the question.”

He looked at her for as long as the road would allow before returning his stare to the windshield. “Just a guess. Boy, you really weren't kidding. You kinda like it right out on the table, don't you?”

“Yes. You're seriously not going to tell me how we're going to take in this spectacular view in the dark?” Bellamy persisted, not giving him an inch.

She should've been a lawyer.

“Nope,” Shane replied, grinning at her frustration.

“Are you
trying
to get under my skin?”

He smirked and let the question hang. “How'm I doing?”

She arched a pale brow back at him. “You're a natural.”

They rode in silence for a few minutes before he found the turnoff from the main road. Shane angled the truck through the space that would've been nonexistent to anyone who didn't know just where it was, guiding them onto a narrow dirt road.

“Hold on, it gets a little bumpy.” He maneuvered over the back road as far as his aging F150 would let him before pulling onto a grassy stretch of land overlooking the twinkling lights of the valley below.

Bellamy's face was set in confusion as she squinted through the windshield. “Okay. There's nothing here.”

“Or everything. Just depends how you look at it.” Shane reached around to the tiny storage space behind her seat and grabbed the old army blanket he always kept there in case he got stranded in the snow. He'd kept her in the dark, so to speak, long enough, and although he had to admit that the irritation on her face was turning him on like a light switch, he didn't want to piss her off completely. “Come on.”

He walked around to her side of the truck, eyes adjusting to the darkness that came not just from the sun having long since set, but from the fact that there weren't any city lights to speak of for miles around. The tiny town that lay at the mouth of the valley showed itself in a sprinkling of warm porch lights and barely visible streams of shadowy chimney smoke rising to greet the cold night air.

“Are we going far? Because I'll be honest. I can't see a thing,” Bellamy admitted with an unsure waver in her voice.

“Yeah, this is a totally different brand of dark than you get in the city. Here.” He captured her gloved hand in his bare one, just meaning to help her get her bearings.

But the way she squeezed him made him forget his own.

“Sorry.” She laughed nervously. “You probably think I'm an idiot. I'm not normally scared of the dark.”

He commanded his legs to move, leading her away from the truck. “Don't worry. I felt the same way the first time I came up here.”

“Well, sure. You were probably like eight or something when that happened, though.”

Shane's thoughts darted to the first time he'd stumbled upon Carrington Ridge, but quickly stuffed the memory away. By the feel of the hard, flattened grass under his boots, where they stood right now should do the trick. Most of the snow that had fallen the week before had melted, exposing big gaps of frozen earth. Shane stopped about halfway through the field, eyeballing it in the dark shadows. Yeah, this was good. He made quick work of unfurling the blanket, kneeling down to make sure no sharp twigs would poke through and hurt Bellamy when she sat down.

Nope, not even a stray rock or anything below the dirt. This was perfect.

“Okay. This'll do it.” He sat down on the blanket, making sure there was plenty of room for her to sit next to him, but she hesitated.

“You coming, or what?” he asked, jerking his head toward the space on the ground next to him.

“Where?” she asked back, sounding thoroughly confused.

Shane's laughter felt warm and good as it left him. “To see the view, of course. It's been right in front of you the whole time.”

 

 

Bellamy's eyes had finally adjusted to the dark, which now looked less like a pitch black abyss and more like layers of shadow on shadow. At least now she could make out Shane's silhouette against the background of the night around them, with his legs kicked out casually over the blanket he'd put down. He seemed to be measuring her with his look, head tilted to one side, but she couldn't quite tell in the dark.

“So, you think you can trust me for a second? It's better with your eyes closed.”

Bellamy was tempted to retort that of course she trusted him, she'd ridden right into the heart of no-one-can-hear-you-screamville with him, for God's sake, but instead she just gulped. The closest breathing person had to be miles from here. She and Shane were very, very alone together, and he'd just asked her to sit down next to him, close her eyes and trust him.

Oh, God, she wanted him to kiss her again.

“Um, okay.” Since when did her voice sound all breathy and soft? She sat down next to him and extended her legs toward the edge of the blanket. Bellamy closed her eyes, wishing she'd had the wherewithal to pop a breath mint after downing that cup of coffee. “There.”

Shane was so close to her that she could smell his skin, a combination of woodsy cedar-scented soap and lean, strong man that made her want to breathe him right into her body. “Okay,” he murmured, his clothes rustling as he shifted his weight next to her. “All you have to do is lean back and open your eyes.”

She clutched. “Lean back, like lie down?” Bellamy squeaked. Ohhhhh, as much as she was attracted to him, this might be more than she'd bargained for.

“If you want.”

And then she got it.

Bellamy braced herself with her palms and eased back onto the blanket, keeping her eyes shut but unable to suppress her Cheshire-cat grin.

“Shane?” She tipped her head toward him as she spoke, inadvertently landing her ear on his shoulder.

“Mmm?” he asked, breathing into her hair in reply.

If she hadn't been so preoccupied with one-upping him, she'd be turned on right down to her toes. “Why didn't you cut through all the crap and just say we were coming up here to look at the stars?”

His sexy, no-boundaries laugh spilled out of him again, and it froze her breath in her lungs.

“Open your eyes, spoilsport.”

Bellamy's lids fluttered open. Stars littered the sky like an ocean of diamonds over a velvet canvas, some burning so brightly that they were unmistakable; others, so dim they barely smudged the space with light.

She gasped, eyes flying wide. “Oh!”

It was easily the most stunning thing Bellamy had ever seen in her life, the simplicity of the stars themselves so at odds with the complexity and depth of the way they were strung together in the sky. Tears formed, hot in the corners of her eyes, and mirrored the glitter above them in flashes of starlight.

“
That's
why,” Shane whispered.

As soon as Bellamy's soft sigh registered in his brain and then followed through with a whisper to his anatomy due south, Shane knew he was going to need a cold shower to get out of this hot mess. Still, rendering her speechless was worth it.

He gave her a few minutes before bringing her down out of the sky. “How's your astronomy?”

She didn't move, save for the rise and fall of her chest that sent the breath from her body in small, billowy clouds. “Truth?”

“Of course.”

“Pretty bad.”

Well, at least she was honest.

“Oh! Wait!” Bellamy sat upright, rummaging through her coat pockets. “I've always wanted to use this!”

Shane laughed as she brandished her iPhone with a triumphant flourish. “What are you doing?”

“I'm using the constellation app!” she crowed, swinging the phone upward with glee. “All we have to do is point it up at the sky and it'll tell us . . .” Bellamy's voice faded out on a curse.

“That you still don't get cell service up here,” he finished, shaking his head. “You don't need it anyway.”

Her pout was obvious, even in the dark. “How am I supposed to know what I'm looking at, then?”

Shane crossed his feet at the ankles and folded his arms beneath his head, getting comfortable. “Well, if you'd lie back down and listen up, I'd be happy to tell you.”

She swung her head toward him, probably to glare, and the smell of her shampoo filled his senses like clean laundry on the line. If she lay back down, he was in for a long night.

“Fine,” she grumbled, getting situated next to him, bringing the heat of her body with her.

Long night, for the win.

“Okay.” Shane cleared his throat, willing himself to concentrate on the sky. “See those three stars, right up there, that are kind of in a line this way?” He pointed up at Orion's Belt.

Bellamy snickered. “Shane, there are like six billion to choose from. Can you be a little more specific?”

Looked like they were going to do the Smartasses Guide to Astronomy tonight. He gave her a playfully dirty look, hoping she could make it out in the shadows. “As a matter of fact, I can.” Shane used his right hand to scoop up her left, lining his fingers up under her palm. Extending his index finger lifted hers along with it, and he aimed them right at Orion's Belt.

“Lean your head in and follow the line of my finger straight up. See them now?”

Wordlessly, Bellamy curled her hand around his and did the lean-and-look. “Oh! Those three, in the middle of that hourglass shape?”

Bingo. “Yup. That's Orion's Belt. And you've already got the basic idea of the rest of the constellation from the hourglass. That bright one down there”—Shane dipped their hands lower and to the right—“is Rigel. And the reddish one up on Orion's shoulder is Betelgeuse.”

She peeked at him over her shoulder, then shifted her hand over his. Crap, after having Marcus put the sleazy moves on her earlier, she probably thought this looked just as bad. After all, they were out in the middle of nowhere and he was lying in the dark holding her hand. Not that he hadn't planted a kiss on her himself, but that had been more in the interest of public service. Even though her lips were just as soft as he remembered.

“Sorry.” Shane replaced her hand down by her side. “It's just the best way I know to show someone the sky.” Maybe this had been a mistake.

“No, it's actually helpful. If you don't mind, I mean.” She paused, inching her hand back toward his. “What else is up there?”

She didn't have to ask twice. Shane pointed out a handful of the bigger constellations, using their entwined fingers to trace the night sky. The fuzzy patches of stars forming the few nebulae visible to the naked eye were easy to make out against the clear canvas overhead, and Shane gave her the
Reader's Digest
version of some of the stories that went with the bigger constellations. They were lucky—there wasn't even a hint of a cloud in the sky. Still, despite the clear weather, the crisp, earthy smell of impending precipitation hung in the air. If he didn't know better from the weather report he'd caught over at Grady's, Shane would swear a decent snowfall was on its way.

“So how do you know so much about this stuff? I mean, the iPhone app isn't exactly going to spit out the mythology you just told me, and you know right where everything is.” Bellamy dropped her arm back down to her side, but didn't let go of Shane's hand.

He shrugged. “My grandfather taught me when I was a kid.”

It was the first thing Shane had said about himself out loud for over a year, and it tumbled out of his mouth before he even realized what he was saying. His muscles pulled taut, freezing the words in place, and the ensuing silence was palpable as it wrapped around them in the frigid air.

“Ah.” Bellamy shivered, sinking down into her coat a little further, but didn't press him for details. Which was good, because he'd already opened his yap more than he should've.

Shane stiffened. It had been a little too easy to bring her up here on the spur of the moment, and it occurred to him that he'd never been up to the Ridge at nighttime with anyone else. Sure, flirting with her had been fun, and yes, she was definitely sexy when she got irritated, but there was no way around the bigger picture. Being up here with her topped the list of very bad ideas, and they really shouldn't stay.

Shane had an exit strategy on the tip of his tongue when she turned to her side to look at him, her face so close to his that he couldn't possibly ignore her.

“Can I ask you something?”

His gut buckled down, and he didn't return her stare.
Just play it cool so you can wrap this up.
“Sure.”

“Why did you kiss me last night?”

He whipped his head toward her, wide-eyed and stunned. “What?”

Bellamy's eyes shone on his, unwavering in the starlight. The girls Shane knew wouldn't have dreamed of being ballsy enough to bring up something potentially embarrassing like that—after all, he and Bellamy had kissed under some strange circumstances, and they'd both been skirting around the issue. But she just stared at him, no-nonsense, waiting for an answer, and all he could think of was how badly he wanted to do it again.

“Truth?” he whispered, and he felt her breath hitch as she nodded.

“Of course.”

“I have no idea.”

Unable to resist the heat of her, he closed the space between them, his mouth on hers as if it had never left. She tasted even sweeter than the night before, warmth drawing him in and keeping him like a secret. Shane parted her lips with his, searching with intensity, and she responded with a deep, drawing sigh.

“This is a bad idea,” he murmured into her skin as he broke from her mouth to trail kisses down her neck. God, she smelled unbelievably good. Shane unzipped the front of her coat to dive lower into the neckline of her sweater, letting his tongue dance across the planes of her collarbone.

How could she taste even better than she smelled?

“Mmm-hmm, I know,” Bellamy groaned, yanking off her gloves to rake her hot, bare hands through his hair. Oh,
shit
, he was on the bullet train right to hell, but Shane didn't care. He could feel her pulse hammering through the vein in her delicate neck as he swept his mouth from the angle of her shoulder back to her lips, and it only spurred him on harder.

“Just for the record,” she bit out on a gasp when he slid his hands to her hips and pulled her in tight to his body, leaving no space between them, “I
really
like bad ideas.”

Shane's smile grew wicked against her parted mouth as he tightened his grasp on her. “Then you're gonna love this.”

In one swift motion, he pulled her on top of him, keeping as much contact with her as possible while he guided her over his body. Even through the layers of clothing, she fit over his body perfectly, and the heat shared between the lock of their hips made him bite back a groan. Unable to keep his hands off her, he sat up to cradle her in his lap. Shane slid his hands into her open coat and wrapped his arms around the soft curve of her back, taking in every nuance of her movement with care that was fueled by raw desire.

“Shane.” His name escaped from her lips on a velvet sigh, and she kissed him hungrily, fingers tight on the back of his neck, keeping their bodies entwined. Thick need shot through him, screaming to be acknowledged, and the way she arched into him in all the right places did nothing to make him want to deny it.

Bellamy curled her legs around his waist from where she sat, balanced in his lap, and sent a path of hot kisses from his ear to his neck. Her tongue flickered and teased over his skin, heightening the raw want building within him. A slide of her hips over his cock brought a sigh from her lips, and the thrust Shane gave in response turned it into a moan.

“
Oh
my God.” The rhythmic rise and fall between them grew faster, more urgent as she dug her fingers into his shoulders, grinding against him in a graceful frenzy. She caught his mouth with hers in a greedy, searching kiss, the ache between his legs reaching epic proportions as she tightened her thighs around him and let out another lusty sigh. The kiss intensified, and Shane wanted nothing more than to linger in her and take her all at the same time.

But if Bellamy didn't stop kissing him like that, not only was he going to keep kissing her back, but he wasn't going to be able to resist the magnetic grab of her until they were pared down, raw and vulnerable and very naked in the back of his truck.

She had to stop.

“Bellamy.” Shane cupped her face between his palms, pulling away. The skin on her cheeks was flushed with dewy warmth, and he resisted the urge to return to kiss her slightly puffy lips. Pushing her away like this was wrong, he knew. But not more wrong than what was bound to happen if they didn't stop, because he didn't have any intention of seeing her again after the last bolt on her transmission was tight and ready to roll, no matter what kinds of ideas his body had to the contrary.

“What's the matter?” She froze against him, and even though every fiber of his body roiled against his brain's command to do it, he slid her carefully from his lap back onto the blanket.

“We can't . . .” He broke off, raking a hand through his hair. “I'm really sorry, but I never should have brought you up here.” God
damn
it. There had to be a way to say this without hurting her feelings. “It's not—”

“If you so much as
imply
the words ‘it's not you,' so help me God, I will scream,” she said, cutting him off with the steady, controlled whisper of a hiss.

Ah, shit. Of course she was going to be pissed. She didn't seem like the kind of girl to go the weepy route, after all. “Well, it's . . .” Shane stopped midsentence at the flash of unadulterated anger in her eyes, the only thing he could make out in the glow cast down by the sea of stars over their heads. He tightened up and cleared his expression to a blank slate before finishing.

Better for her to think he was a jerk, anyway. Hell, right now, she wasn't far from the mark.

“I should get you back.”

Bellamy had snatched her gloves off the blanket and whipped them over her hands before he could even register her movements, springing up from the blanket in one nimble motion to find her feet beneath her.

“That would be great,” she said, her tone hollow, and she started walking without pretense toward the truck. The fine line between sweet and sexy that she'd been straddling all night was gone from her voice, with nothing there but the memory of it to make Shane feel like a complete jackass.

It was better this way, he reasoned. For both of them. He wasn't interested in opening up to anybody, least of all a top-shelf city girl, no matter how good the sex might be. And like it or not, something about the sinuous curve of Bellamy's body and the dulcet inflections when she said his name told him she was more than he'd bargained for.

And he'd learned the hard way that being a betting man was a bad idea all around.

 

 

Ruined pride still ran deep, and Bellamy got all the way through the terrible, silent ride back to the resort before hers crumbled. She mumbled a good night to Shane before turning on her heel to march away from his truck, and he refused to answer her or even meet her eyes, the coward. At least Derek had been able to deliver the stupid “it's not you” line with a little bit of feeling.

Shane had delivered it like a lie.

Bellamy inserted her key in the door to the suite and tiptoed into the darkened main room. Jenna and Holly were passed out cold on the couch, with the remnants of the guacamole she'd made in a big bowl next to a near-empty bag of tortilla chips and a Lifetime original movie on the TV, volume down low. Normally, this would crack a smile over Bellamy's face, even after a crappy date, but tonight she just couldn't muster it.

She bit down on the tears that threatened to fall, refusing to give them the time of day—or night, as it were—as she went into her bathroom and started running hot water into the luxurious, claw-footed tub. Peeling off her clothes, she pinned her hair into a loose knot on top of her head and sank into the blanket of bubbles that rose up to meet her.

Yes, it had been impulsive to run off with Shane in the first place, and no, she didn't know if she'd have had the nerve to actually sleep with him right under the stars after knowing him for all of two days. But still. Getting the “it's not you” speech before she even had to make that decision had caught her completely off guard. And it stung. Hard.