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“So you were on your own in the U.K.?”
She’d been on her own for as long as she could remember. “It’s fairly common for families to be scattered these days.” Scattered was a good word. Lost might have been a better one.
She thought about the envelope waiting for her back in the cabin. Last year, the envelope had stayed untouched until February when she’d finally cleared out the bottom of her in-tray.
She was terrified Jackson was going to press her for more details, but he levered himself to his feet. “Are you done? I want to show you the ice waterfall before I take you skiing.”
Deciding that skiing had to be preferable to talking about her family, Kayla finished her drink and followed him to the snowmobile.
He stood steady in the deep snow, legs spread as he pulled on his gloves. “Do you want to drive?”
Remembering the twisty, turning trails and the skill he’d shown maneuvering the snowmobile, she shook her head. “Not this time. I’d rather let you do the work. When it comes to physical effort I’m inherently lazy.”
“So you’re a lie-back-and-let-it-happen sort of woman? That surprises me.” The gleam in those blue eyes made her feel as if she’d stepped off a cliff.
“Are you flirting with me?” She breathed and felt cold air rush into her lungs. Unfortunately it did nothing to cool the heat of her skin. “Because if you are, I’d have to warn you that you’re wasting your time.”
“It’s my time.” His gaze steady on hers, he picked up his helmet. “Up to me how I choose to waste it.”
“Just as long as you know I’m not good at personal relationships.”
“Who told you that?”
“No one. I have impressive self-insight. I know what I’m good at. I know what I’m bad at. I’m bad at relationships. Not just bad, terrible. The truth is I find work more interesting than any man.” There. She’d said it. And he was still standing there. Still watching her with eyes that saw far, far too much.
“Surely that would depend on the man.”
“I’d rather check my emails than go on a date. And if I do go on a date, I still check them.”
“Is that right?” He reached out and tilted her chin, and she froze, but all he did was zip her jacket to her throat and smile at her. “The internet connection is pretty unpredictable up here. You might have to find another way to occupy yourself on a date, Kayla.”
“I don’t intend to go on a date. I’m here to work.”
“So your plan for dealing with chemistry is to pretend it doesn’t exist?”
“Chemistry?” The word came out like a croak, and his eyes creased at the corners.
“Yeah, that chemistry. Seems to me we have two choices here. We can try to ignore it or we can go with it and see where we end up.”
“Option one works for me.”
“That could give me a problem.”
Her mouth was dry. “Why?”
“Because I’m leaning toward option two.” For a crazy, heart-stopping moment she thought he was going to kiss her. Then his smile widened and he stepped away. “The snow is likely to be deep up ahead. Hold on tight.”
That was it? He was going to throw out a statement like that and then just leave it there? Leave her all jumbled up and thrown off balance?
Feeling as if she’d stuck her hand into a naked flame, Kayla climbed on behind him.
She hesitated and then curved her arms around his waist. The hardness of his thighs pressed against hers, and she was torn between pulling back and falling off or drawing closer. In the end she drew closer and found herself pressed against masculine power and strength. Her heart was banging against her ribs, and her hands were shaking so much she was sure he was going to feel it.
And no doubt he’d say something, because he wasn’t a man who backed down from anything. Instead of ignoring the chemistry, he’d addressed it. Instead of being frozen out by her lack of response, he’d seemed amused.
As they traveled along the snowy trail she ceased to think about the forest or work, and thought about him.
She was so lost in the moment she didn’t even realize they’d stopped moving.
“This is it. We walk the rest of the way.”
“Walk?” She slid off the machine, conscious that it was just the two of them. They were alone, and out here in the wilds of the forest alone meant alone. “Just how far away is this ice waterfall?”
“Through the trees. This is as close as we can get on the snowmobile. We have to walk a little way down the trail. It’s groomed so you shouldn’t have trouble.”
She didn’t.
Her feet crunched on the surface of packed snow and soon they were enveloped by the silence of the forest. Jackson was slightly ahead and she was gazing at the width of his shoulders when he stopped suddenly. She crashed right into those shoulders and would have fallen again had he not grabbed her hand and hauled her against him.
“Look.” It came as naturally to him to touch as it did to her to keep herself at a distance, but she didn’t have long to dwell on that because they’d reached a break in the trees and there, towering above them was a cascade of ice, a frozen sculpture formed by nature and cutting between the rocks.
“That’s a waterfall?” She tried to imagine how such a force of nature could ever freeze.
“During the summer the water tumbles down here, but in exceptionally cold winters it freezes over.”
“It’s astonishing.” And it was. Not just the spectacle of an entire waterfall frozen in front of her eyes but the detail, the colours and textures, from opaque to translucent, silver threaded through bright white with shimmers of green and blue as the sun hit the surface.
“Sometimes we climb here.”
“You climb up the ice?”
“It’s fun. And challenging because the conditions change constantly as the outer surface of the ice melts.” His gaze shifted from her face to something behind her and his expression changed. “Kayla—”
“What?” Turning her head, she saw a large moose watching them through the trees. “Oh, crappity crap. That is big.”
His fingers tightened on hers, his hand warm and strong. “Don’t panic. He isn’t going to be interested in you.”
“That isn’t flattering.” Heart pumping, she stared at the moose. “The design is wrong. The legs are too long for the body, the body is too short for the face, and the antlers are the wrong size and shape for anything, but I’m willing to bet they’d hurt if he chose to drive them into someone.” She hoped that someone wasn’t her.
“The long legs enable him to walk through deep snow. Moose are fine as long as you don’t get too close.”
“Do I look like I intend to get close? I’m trying to run, but you’re holding me. Let’s go.”
“No. This is all part of the Snow Crystal experience.” His voice warm with laughter, he slid his arm around her waist, locking her against him. “Lots of tourists come here hoping to see what you’re seeing now.”
What she was seeing was a strong jaw shadowed by dark stubble and a firm mouth that was too close for comfort.
Suddenly the moose didn’t feel as threatening as the chemistry. “With the benefit of many years of experience I can tell you that the moose is not going to be what gets you on the cover of Time magazine. Let’s go—”
“The important thing to remember is that there is no safe way to approach a moose.” He tightened his grip, holding her easily. She was pressed against the hard muscle of his thighs and it wasn’t the moose she was thinking about, but him.
“I can assure you I won’t be approaching it. In fact this might be a good time to show me your love of speed.”
“They’re not usually aggressive unless they’re frightened. It’s one of the reasons we tell people to keep their dogs on leads around here. During the mating season, in the fall, the bulls can become aggressive.”
“Note to self—never visit in October.” She tugged at her hand. “Now can we—”
“Kayla—” he tugged her back to him “—he’s not going to hurt you.”
The chemistry was suffocating. The knot in her tummy wound tighter and tighter.
“You don’t know what his intentions are toward me. He might sense I’m a city dweller and decide to send me back to New York with one kick.” She tried to joke. Tried to do anything she could to cut through the tension that was like a steel wire pulling her toward him. “I presume they kick?”
“Yes. Despite their size, moose are flexible. They can kick in all directions, including sideways.”
“Sounds like my yoga instructor. Can we go now?”
He smiled that slow, dangerous smile, his mouth just a breath away from hers. “Don’t you trust me to protect you?” He was all hard muscle and masculinity, and she no longer knew where the threat lay, but she had a feeling it wasn’t behind her.
“I’ve always preferred to be in charge of my own protection.” She felt weird, and she had no idea whether it was the proximity of the moose or the proximity of Jackson O’Neil. “I guard myself.”
“Yeah, I got that.” His voice was husky, his eyes on her mouth. “And what happens when you let your guard down, Kayla?”
“I don’t let my guard down. I don’t let people close.”
But he was close.
Too close.
And then his mouth wasn’t just close to hers it was on hers, sure and demanding, and his kiss felt as good as she’d known it would. Hunger ripped through her, the sexual chemistry so intense the heat threatened to burn right through them. It was the most erotic, sexually explicit kiss she’d ever experienced, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, lost in it.
“Christ, Kayla—” He groaned the words against her mouth, his voice thickened and rough. He had one hand locked in her hair and the other on her back, holding her hard against him. Pressed thigh to thigh, she was aware of hardness and heat, of the sensual stroke of his tongue against hers, and she grasped the front of his jacket, hauling him closer, wanting more, needing more. The sheer force of the chemistry shocked her because it was as sharp as it was unfamiliar.
She didn’t do this… .
But she was doing it now, her mouth as hungry for his as his was for hers. Her gut tightened. Nothing mattered except his kiss, and the skill of that kiss turned her brain to slush and her limbs to water. Her surroundings faded, and her entire world became this man, his mouth, his hands and the desperate heat burning through her body.
They were creating enough heat to melt the frozen waterfall, and yet still she wanted more. She wanted to climb all over him, rip off his clothes, get to see those muscles without the clothes, she wanted to—
He powered her back against the nearest tree and she would have lost her balance had he not steadied both of them. She felt the roughness of the bark pressing through the thickness of her jacket. He rested one arm above her head, caging her, and still he kissed her, as if he couldn’t stop, couldn’t help himself, and she moaned his name because she couldn’t help herself, either. She fumbled with his jacket, pushed her hands inside and felt the hard swell of male muscle against her seeking fingers. The smell of pine mingled with the tantalizing scent of him. A shower of snow thudded onto her head from the branches above, but she barely registered the sudden cold because his fingers were on her zip, too, and when he cupped her breast she felt herself shiver. She moaned, twisted as the heat pooled low in her pelvis. She felt the skilled drag of his fingers over her nipple, the erotic slide of his tongue in her mouth and the only sounds were the pumping of blood in her head and the shallow rasp of their breathing.
All around them was silence, a mysterious magical silence as the snowbound forest cloaked their illicit moment of passion in wintery whiteness.
And then he lifted his head. Slowly, reluctantly, as if he were locked in a battle between willpower and desire, and Kayla opened her eyes, too, dazed and disorientated.
Maybe it was because they were standing in the shadow of a tree but his eyes seemed dark, an almost midnight-blue, and for once there wasn’t a hint of a smile on his hard, handsome face.
And then he gently eased himself away from her and slid up her zip, protecting her from the cold. “So now we have the answer.”
“The answer?” Her lips, still tingling from the pressure of his, could barely form The question. “What answer?” She didn’t have the answer to anything, least of all why she’d done what she’d just done. He’d started it, but she’d been right there with him. The only difference between them was that she wouldn’t have stopped.
“The answer to what happens when you let your guard down. If you feel the need to check your emails, go ahead.” A slight roughening of his voice was the only hint that he was affected by what had happened.
“Emails?” She stared at him dizzily, wondering how a man’s kiss could blitz her brain so completely.
“Yeah. Those things you check when you’re bored by the man you’re with.” He paused long enough to let the words sink in. Then he stepped back and glanced over her shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll be relieved to know the moose has gone.”
Moose?
She hadn’t given a single thought to the moose since he’d started kissing her.
In fact she was fairly sure that while Jackson’s mouth had been on hers a whole family of moose could have stampeded right over her and she wouldn’t have noticed. She was surprised to see the snow still thick on the trees and deep underfoot. She’d half expected to find herself standing in a pool of meltwater.
As reality slowly reasserted itself, so did the panic.
She never did this. Never felt this.
But maybe this happened to Jackson O’Neil all the time.
Judging from the way Brenna had hugged him that morning, she obviously wasn’t the only one affected by Jackson O’Neil. The thought cooled her more effectively than the shower of snow.
“Does Brenna mind you kissing random women?”
Those blue eyes narrowed. “I’ve never asked, but I’m fairly sure she’d tell me to go ahead and kiss who I want to kiss.”
Confused, Kayla stepped back, but he locked his hand in the front of her jacket and dragged her back to him. “I’m not with Brenna.”
“I’m not interested in your love life, O’Neil—”
“Yes, you are. You saw her hug me and you wondered, but you don’t need to wonder. You could have asked me straight-out, of course. For the record, that’s the way I’d prefer it, because then there are no misunderstandings. But seeing as you insist on pretending none of this is happening, I’ll answer the question you haven’t asked. Brenna and I are friends. We’ve been friends a long time. If it was going to be more, it would have happened long ago.” His hand was still on her jacket as he held her toe-to-toe with him and the power of the chemistry almost blinded her.
“Fine.” Except it wasn’t fine. None of this was fine. “I just have no idea why you kissed me, that’s all.”
“No?” A slow smile spread across his face. “You’re a clever woman. I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Failing that, why don’t you ask yourself why you kissed me? That ought to give you some clues.” With that, he released her and walked back to the snowmobile, the view of his powerful shoulders leading her to decide that Jackson O’Neil looked as good from the back as he did from the front.
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_5b7fa896-269b-5de0-aaed-9f5696dd409e)
JACKSON ENDED THEIR snowmobile tour at his favorite mountain restaurant.
“We’ll have lunch here.”
Kayla pulled off her helmet. Her gaze was fixed on the view, which could have been because it was spectacular, but he had a feeling it was because she’d rather look at just about anything but him. “I’m grateful for the offer of lunch, but what I’d really like is to go back to the resort and do some work.”
She was running from him.
The kiss had shaken her, and he had some sympathy with that because it had shaken him, too.
For a brief moment in the forest, she’d thawed. Under his hands and mouth, Kayla Green had transformed from ice machine to warm, soft woman, but now she was frozen again, the layer of ice between her and the world thicker than ever.
