Jill Shalvis - Instant Gratification

“Yeah.” She let out a breath, not exactly sure he’d gotten hers right. She gave plenty. Ask any of the patients she saw. Ask any of her bosses. “It’s damn California,” she decided. “It’s being here.”

“Well, if that’s true, then hopefully you won’t be staying here too much longer.”

“I wish I knew. My dad’s being…elusive.”

Spence nodded. “And while you’re here, you’re very…preoccupied.”

“Yes, I know. I actually think business is starting to pick up.”

“Yeah, actually, I meant with the expedition guide.” He paused. “Stone Wilder.”

“What?” She laughed, but it sounded forced. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Face it, Emma. There’s something there.”

“Yes, it’s called irritation.”

He looked doubtful. “Uh huh.”

“It’s true. We…” Turn each other on. “Irritate each other.”

“And…?” He sipped his wine and watched her over the glass.

“And nothing else is important.”

“Really.”

“Really.”

“Huh.” Spence set down his drink and pushed away from the counter. “It used to be, Emma, that I could do this…” Leaning in, he kissed her on the lips. “And we’d end up in bed.”

Her heart panged a little. Dammit. “Oh, Spence. I-”

“No.” He set his finger against her lips. “It’s okay. You’re thinking of someone else now. I’ve certainly done it to you plenty of times.”

“I’m not-”

“No?” His smile was just a little sad. “Then tell me if you feel anything when I do this-” He kissed her again, not softly and definitely not sweet, and she went still, utterly still, willing herself to feel the same shiver of excitement she’d felt the night before with Stone.

Nothing.

She opened her eyes and lifted her head, and met the sharp green gaze of the man she’d been thinking about, who just happened to be standing on the other side of the door, visible through the glass. “Stone?”

“See?” Spencer’s eyes were still closed when he sighed. “You’re thinking of him even as I kiss you.”

“No. I mean Stone. Here.” She pulled out of Spencer’s arms and opened the door, but Stone had already turned away and was halfway down the back stairs. “Hey.”

He wore a baseball cap, sweats, a torn t-shirt and a scowl. The material was damp and plastered against his torso. He stopped and faced her, the air between them heavy and awkward. “You’re busy,” he said.

“Not in the way you think, no.”

“Look, it’s no big deal. I was just coming back through town and thought I’d stop by for Band-Aids. I’ll get them when I get home. Carry on.”

“Stone.”

He jogged down the rest of the stairs and was gone.

“Well, that went over well,” Spence said from the open doorway when they’d heard his truck start and take off.

“Dammit.” She sighed. “He must be just off a hike or something. He wanted Band-Aids. Which means he’s hurt.” And hot and sweaty. And sexy. “Dammit.”

“You said that already.” Spence watched her grab her black medical bag. “So you’re really doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“Falling for a big, tough, outdoorsy guy with more testosterone in his pinky finger than most guys have in their entire body.”

She shook her head. “I’m just going to take him Band-Aids, Spence. And see how badly he’s hurt.” With that, she walked out the door, Spencer’s knowing gaze following her.

She didn’t catch up with Stone until she pulled into the driveway at the Wilder Lodge. As she hopped out of her dad’s truck and moved toward his, she found him leaning back against his driver’s door, arms and legs casually crossed. Eyes inscrutable. Expression closed.

She looked him over carefully, her heart stopping at the napkin wadded in one of his hands.

There was blood on it.

She took another closer look, then eyes narrowed, stepped right up to him so that they were toe to toe and pulled off his baseball cap.

Bingo.

The wound on his head was bleeding, and she went up on tiptoe to study it closely. “Dammit, Stone.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Can we go inside?”

“It’s nothing,” he repeated.

“Inside.”

“Fine.” He straightened, shoving his hands into his pockets. Gesturing with a jerk of one shoulder in the direction of a trail next to the lodge, he started walking. She followed him past two small cabins and up to the front of a third. He opened the door, then gestured her in ahead of him.

His place, she realized. He flicked on the mudroom light. The entry opened to a living room which was dimly lit by the single light by the front door, but she could see exposed wood beam ceilings and gorgeous distressed oak wood floors. There was a large comfy looking couch and several chairs facing the biggest TV she’d ever seen, and beyond that, a huge sliding glass door leading out to the black night.

Using only the mudroom light, he moved to the couch and plopped down, kicking his booted feet up onto the coffee table next to an SLR camera and a tool belt.

A study in contradictions. “I can’t figure you out,” she said.

“Ditto.”

She took her bag off her shoulder, set it at her feet, then crouched down to open it up.

“Don’t bother, I’m not letting you re-stitch.”

Glancing up along the length of him-and up, because damn, the man was tall-she wished he’d turn on another light. Especially since his broad shoulders blocked out the glow from the mudroom, casting his face in shadows. “I’m just going to disinfect and put on one of your standard medical go-to’s-a Band-Aid. Okay?”

He said nothing, so she flipped on a lamp herself, then pulled out antiseptic and a gauze. Bending over him, she wiped away the now drying blood. “You know, you ought to think about buying stock in Band-Aids.”

He said more of his loaded nothing. She put on a steri-strip, then straightened and sighed. “Okay, listen. There’s nothing going on between me and Spencer. At least not in the way you’re thinking.”

His eyes cut to hers. “Not that it matters, but your definition of nothing is interesting, considering I saw you playing tonsil hockey with him.”

“You saw him kissing me. He was proving a point.” At his raised brow, she raised one of her own. “That our chemistry is no longer there. How did you get hurt?”

He lifted a shoulder.

“Let me guess. You went to Moody’s and once again got beat up by three women?”

A corner of his mouth quirked, and he let out a breath. “I helped TJ on a climb, and as it turns out, our client is an idiot.”

“You should probably try harder to weed those out in the selection process.”

“We do try, but sometimes they get past us.”

“Huh.”

He slid her a look. “Hey, even you have to treat the assholes of the world.”

“Yes, but I don’t have to put my life into their hands. What happened?”

“We were roped together and he screwed up on a grip. Kicked me in the head as he fell. He’s lucky that I have fast reflexes and caught him anyway, or we’d both be bleeding. Or dead.”

She stared at him. With those surfer boy good looks and that throwaway charm he exuded in spades, she kept forgetting how easy it was to underestimate him.

She’d underestimated him.

Because no matter how much he looked like a slacker, he was nowhere close. “I’m really not sleeping with Spencer, Stone.”

“Anymore.”

“Anymore,” she agreed. “I’m not sure why I feel the need to tell you this, but it’s the truth. And, as long as I’m opening a vein, I’ll tell you I haven’t had sex in nine months.”

“Long time.”

“At about the six month mark I stopped missing it.”

“How is that even possible?”

“I’m a girl. We aren’t programmed to think about sex 24/7 like guys do.”

“We don’t think about it 24/7. It’s 20/7, max.”

She smiled wryly. “I keep telling myself it’s not nearly as good as I remember it.”

He tugged her down to the couch with him. Those broad shoulders of his blocked out most of the light. His eyes were very dark. “It would be with me.”

Oh boy.

He shifted closer, then closer still. “Tell me one more time why you were kissing Spencer.”

“To see if there was a spark.”

His hands settled on her arms as he slowly but inexorably pulled her up against him.

He looked at her mouth, his eyes heavy and sleepy, and she shivered, anticipation racing down her spine, branching out into all her good parts, of which there were many more than she remembered.

Way more.

She could feel his hard chest against hers, the easy strength in him as he held her. He was still looking at her mouth as he dragged his teeth over his bottom lip, like it was taking no effort at all to hold her, but plenty of effort to hold himself back. “Do you feel a spark now?” he asked silkily.

If she felt any more sparks, she’d burst into flame.

Stone absorbed the bone-melting sensation of Emma’s arms winding their way around his neck. “Do you, Emma? Feel a spark?”

She pressed even closer, letting out a hum of desire that went straight to his head. And parts south. Far south.

“It’s too soon to tell,” she murmured in his ear.

“Liar.”

“Okay, fair enough.” Her lips were brushing his earlobe with every word, and he was hard as a rock. “I think…I think I feel an entire set of fireworks.”

“Good.” He nodded, definitely feeling the same fireworks. He’d nearly made those fireworks work for him the last time they’d been alone together, when she’d nearly given it all up for him. Nearly…nearly…and then TJ had shown up and he’d been shit out of luck. Suddenly, he had hopes that tonight would end better. “Let’s make sure.”

“How-”

Which is all he let her get out before he leaned over her, pressing her back down, down, down to the couch. Towering over her, he looked into those fathomless eyes, letting the anticipation drum between them before bending low to kiss her.

Together they sank further into his comfortably worn couch as she opened her mouth for him, gently sliding her tongue to his. Oh, God, yeah, that worked, and he tightened his hands on her, apparently the universal sign for more, please, because with a little gasp of breath, she made room for him between her legs and arched up to rock against him. “You sure yet?” he asked as the both of them panted for more.

She blinked up at him, lips wet, eyes wide. “I’m sorry. I lost all track of our conversation.”

With a ragged exhale, he pressed his forehead to hers. Pressed up against him, she undulated her hips against the hard-on he’d had since she’d driven up to the lodge. “Okay, it’s definitely safe to say I’m sure I feel something,” she murmured.

With a low laugh, he pressed the “something” up against her. “Not what I meant, Em.”

“I feel it.” She cupped his face. “It’s been so long that I almost didn’t recognize it, but I feel it.” She touched his hair, his jaw, nothing but a touch, and he nearly melted on the spot. It’d been awhile for him too, at least awhile since he’d felt so moved. As in earth rocking, foundation slipping, dizzy from the emotions moved. He was still trying to gather his wits when she whispered his name in a low, shaky voice that said she was with him on this. Unnerved, unsure, but with him.

Slowly, he lowered his head and kissed her again; a deep, long, wet kiss that shut down what little brain power he had left. She tasted warm and sweet and innately female. She tasted like the solution to his restless loneliness. She tasted like she was…his. “I want more than Spencer got,” he murmured. “I want more than the kiss. Tell me right now if you don’t, before this goes any further.”

“That elusive word more again…” she whispered, staring at him as she pulled his head back down. “Kiss me, Stone. Take what you want.”

He would. He did, taking what he wanted without apology, showing her what he was beginning to realize he felt. A fact that amped up both his heartbeat and the mood, which went from calm and lazily aroused to hot-as-hell wild frenzied as they went at it, their hands fighting for purchase, tangling in each other. She was letting out those helpless little pants as she tried to get under his clothes, the sexiest breathy sounds he’d ever heard, which were going to make him go off so he grabbed her hands and pressed them high above her head. This brought his entire weight down on her, which she welcomed by spreading her legs even further and wrapping them around him, bringing him in tighter against her. “God,” he murmured, his mouth on her throat now. “God, Emma.”

“I know,” she gasped, latching her mouth onto his shoulder. It was crazy how fast the air changed, how fast it sparked, and lit fire.

Crazy. Take what he wanted? He wanted it all.