CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 

"I need ties and I'm not cutting up my Grant plaid blanket for assholes like you." Rock sounded imminently reasonable as he yanked the man's vest off none to gently.

Virgil yelled, "Amos has got some of them zip ties in his back pocket."

Rock went still, his features going stone-like. Deborah felt sick to her stomach at the implication of Virgil's words. The last fifteen minutes reframed quickly in her thoughts to something a lot more sinister.

Amos chose that moment to stir.

Something came over Deborah, rage and the need to do something. Before she knew it, she was rushing toward the big, bearded man. Without thought or hesitation, she swung her foot. It connected with a satisfying thud and his head snapped back. He fell backward, going limp again.

Rock came up beside her. "Damn, hot stuff, remind me not to piss you off."

"He has zip ties in his pocket, Rock." Just saying it made her sick.

Rock nodded grimly, then knelt down and retrieved the restraints and used them to make sure that the next time Amos woke up he wouldn't be doing anything but a centipede style crawl. He went back over to Virgil and did the same thing to the other man, though Virgil begged him not to, promising he wasn't going anywhere with his knee and arm out of commission.

Rock stared down at the man and asked in a deadly voice. "Just how much mercy did you show the people you used those zip ties on?"

"They was for our game, that's all."

Rock secured the man's ankles amidst a lot of loud cursing and yelling. "You've got to be a better liar than that if you expect me to believe you, Virgil."

Deborah didn't know about Rock, but Deborah preferred to think about the two men hunting game rather than people and said so.

Rock's gorgeous mouth twisted in a grimace. "Baby, men don’t hunt game with a Glock."

"There is that." Deborah sighed. "So, Sheriff Sutherland should be here soon, huh?"

"He will be."

"You're not going to get in trouble for breaking his arm and whatever it is you did to his knee?" She didn't know how much a force a civilian was allowed to extend to protect himself.

"It's his wrist I broke and I hyper extended his knee. He'll survive. And no, I won't get in trouble."

She hugged herself. "I can't believe you went after a man holding a gun."

"I wasn't going to let them hurt you." He cupped her face, as if emphasizing his point, but didn't let go right away, just kept their gazes locked.

She swallowed, her eyes burning, though she didn't know why. "He could have shot you."

"He didn't."

"But he could have."

"It wasn't likely. Men like that. They don't expect you to fight back."

Deborah spun away from Rock, immediately missing the warmth of his hands on her face. She turned back to face him and glared. She glared up at him. "But he could have, Rock. He could have shot you. You know he could have."

Rock didn't answer. He just grabbed her and pulled her close, wrapping his arms tight around her, like he knew that was exactly what she needed so she wouldn't feel like she was shaking apart.

That's how Sheriff Benji Sutherland and two of his deputies found them fifteen minutes later. Rock was still holding her tight against him, promising her it was alright, it was always going to be alright, telling her he was fine, that she was fine, that the bad guys were trussed up like turkeys for the authorities.

Something about his methods worked, because when the sheriff arrived, she was able to step away from Rock without feeling bereft. She was able to talk without her voice shaking and her shivers had stopped.

The officers made quick work of searching Virgil and Amos. They found one wallet between the two men which identified Virgil as one Virgil A. Jerome, two Bowie knives, a package of six condoms and a set of truck keys.

"We'll need your statements," Sheriff Sutherland said to Rock, his gaze shifting to encompass Deborah.

Rock nodded once. "We'll follow you into Cailkirn."

Deborah would have protested but they couldn't put it off to tomorrow. She had to work.

The statements took much less time than she expected.

"The benefits of small town sheriff's department," Rock replied when she brought it up on the way back to his place. "Benji wasn't going to make us wait until he'd processed Virgil and Amos to take our statements."

"He's a nice man, but kind of quiet." Intense too, but she didn't need to mention that.

"He's young for a sheriff, but he gets the job done."

"You said he's a vet."

"He served two tours in the Middle East."

"And he came back to Cailkirn."

"It's home."

"He's related to the man who owns the Northern Lights Lodge?"

"His grandson. He's cousins with the mayor too."

"Small town connections."

"Not like LaLa Land."

"You'd be surprised at the unexpected connections you find in LA politics, police and other public service agencies." Her lips twisted cynically. Sometimes it was downright incestuous.

"I suppose."

Her fingers drummed a random pattern against her thigh. "That was crazy."

"It was." He flicked her a sidelong glance, but she couldn't tell if there was concern in it or not.

"Are you going to tell Carey and Marilyn about it?" Carey would make a meal of it for sure. Marilyn…well, Deborah wasn't sure how Rock's sister would react to news of her brother facing down gunmen.

Rock let out a bark of laughter that didn't sound so much amused as cynical. "If I don't, I imagine you will."

"You imagine right." And it wasn't because she was a gossip. "Their brother is a hero."

"I'm just a man, beauty. I've never been a hero." Was that a blush showing through Rock's blond stubble?

"Oh, I think both your brother and sister would disagree with that statement before I ever tell them about what happened today."

Rock was the kind of man who saved people without ever standing in the limelight to take the credit. He'd raised his sister and brother, saving their family, saving their childhoods. He'd stepped up to the plate even more when their parents died, and then after. Who knew what all he did behind the scenes even now for others?

She'd bet he was on the board of a bunch of charities no one knew about. And the stuff he did for his small town? Deborah had no doubts it was as numerous as it was unacknowledged.

Rock was that guy. The larger than life hero who pretended to be normal, who acted like making a fortune out of a small insurance policy and a lot of hard work was nothing special. A man who considered using that fortune to take care of his siblings as well as a tiny dot of a town in Alaska to be nothing anyone should consider special.

Rock made a disbelieving sound. "You're nuts, beauty, but you turn me on."

"You can't be thinking about sex."

"Can't I?" he asked in that tone that never failed to send her mind in that direction too.

"Aren't you exhausted?"

"No."

She laughed. Well, that was definitive. Come to think of it. She wasn't as tired as she'd first thought when leaving the Sheriff's Office either. What was it about this man that made her think about making love even after the kind of afternoon they'd just had?

She smiled over at him. "Well, you just might be able to convince me."

 

Rock listened to Deborah recount their afternoon, making him sound like some kind of damn Kung Fu expert with a heavy dose of action adventure hero thrown in.

"I disarmed a couple of idiots who crashed our picnic. Story over." Rock glared at his siblings, daring them to keep making a meal of it.

Neither seemed impressed with his ire.

Marilyn's eyes filled with tears. "You took on a man with a gun? Was it loaded?"

"Damned if I know if it was loaded. I didn't check."

"I bet it was loaded," Carey said, his voice filled with awe.

Well, shit. Now his brother had that hero worship thing going on. It wouldn't keep him safe in Cailkirn though, would it? No, Carey would be headed back to the bright lights of Los Angeles just as soon as this movie was done filming.

"It was loaded," Deborah said, her voice quiet and serious. "I asked."

"So, he held it on me for about three seconds."

"Long enough to pull the trigger." Marilyn was definitely crying now.

Rock gave Deborah a look that let her know who he blamed for this situation. "We couldn’t have waited until tomorrow to tell them about today's adventures?"

Like when he'd be working and the sister's tears could fall on Deborah's shoulders without his knowledge?

"You would not have put off telling us!" Marilyn smacked him on the arm. Hard.

"Damn, girl. Are you trying leave the bruises they didn't get a chance to?"

Marilyn's eyes went wide and then she burst out with a sob and threw herself and him. Feeling that panic that always hit when his sister went all emotional, he caught Carey's gaze. His brother looked back with the same panic Rock felt.

No help there.

Rock patted Marilyn's back. "Come on, sis. It's fine." He looked at Deborah with appeal. She was a woman, damn it.

She'd initiated this meltdown; she could do something to mitigate it.

But her eyes were bright too, her face filled with emotion he didn't understand.

"Shit. Carey, do something," Rock demanded.

"Well, did you have to take on armed gunmen?" Carey asked with annoyance.

"You think I should have let them hurt Deborah?"

"No, of course not."

"Besides, armed gunmen is redundant. If he's a gunman, he's armed."

"That's really beside the point here, big brother."

Marilyn sniffled and hugged Rock tighter. Deborah's breath hitched alarmingly and a stray tear spilled over. Rock let a word slip that he rarely said.

His sister reared back and stared up at him. "Rock!"

"What?" he asked, feeling a hell of a lot more stressed than he had staring down the business end of a gun earlier.

"You said fuck. You never say fuck."

"And if you think you're too old to have your mouth washed out for saying it, you're sadly mistaken Marilyn Kathryn Jepsom."

She gave a watery laugh.

Which had not been his intention, but he would totally take the win. He handed her off to Carey. "Take her into the media room and put on The Quiet Man. Watching that always makes her feel better."

"I don't know why. She spends half the time yelling at John Wayne and the other half at the long dead producers and directors."

"It's still a good romance," Marilyn declared staunchly.

She and Carey argued as they walked away toward the media room.

Rock turned to Deborah, who still looked on the verge of emotional melt down. Damn it. He did the only thing he could think of. He walked forward, swept the woman up into his arms and started up the stairs.

She caught her breath in shock, then demanded, "What are you doing?"

"Showing you just how okay we both are."

"I know I'm fine, Rock."

"Sure you do, hot stuff. You know I'm fine too. You can see it, but I guess you need some more proof and I know just the kind to give you."

"Just like a man to think sex is the solution."

"I'm a man, so that works for me."

She frowned up at him. "I wasn't giving you a compliment."

"I wasn't worried about it."

"You're so damn confident." She crossed her arms, but the gesture lost its intended effect as it pushed her breasts into prominence and had another impact on him altogether.

After taking a leisurely look at the beauty on display, he winked. "You swore."

"Are you going to threaten to wash my mouth out with soap?" she asked, all snippy.

"I have better things to do with your mouth."

He pushed the door open to his bedroom with his shoulder.

She pressed her hand against his chest her fingers clutching his shirt. "I don't know what I would have done if Virgil had shot you."

"Don't think about that. It didn't happen."

"It's not that easy."

"Let me make it that easy." He laid her on the bed and came down on top of her, letting his bigger body cover her smaller, feminine one completely. "Let me make you forget everything but how much we enjoyed being together today."

Damned if she didn't look at him with a combination of hope and trust he found irresistible.

He kissed her, soft and slow. There would be time for the powerful passion that always rose up between them, but right now she was so darn fragile. She needed gentleness.

So, that was what he'd give her.

 

Deborah wanted to tell Rock he didn’t have to be so careful with her, that he didn’t have to lay her on the bed with gentle movements. Only the words would not come.

She watched in silence as he turned and shut the door, locking them into seclusion where no one could intrude without her or Rock’s permission. A press of his finger against the remote control and heavy drapes that covered the floor to ceiling windows whisked into place, but the still bright sky shone through the sky lights. The sense of expansive privacy grew.

"You’re all mine until seven thirty tomorrow morning, beauty."

She’d had earlier casting calls, but right now she didn’t want to think about how early that could come. "Okay."

"And I’m all yours."

"It was a good day until…"

"Yes, it was." Rock pulled his shirt off over his head, revealing defined muscles only she got to touch.

For now.

His dark blond hair glinted in the light coming in through the skylights, his gaze dark with desire and emotions she wasn’t foolish enough to try to name. "You like what you’re looking at, hot stuff?"

"You know I do."

"And look, not a mark on me." He turned in a circle before flipping the button on his jeans and then lowering the zipper with deliberate, slow movements.

"What are you? A tease now?" Her voice had gone husky, but she’d take it over the shaky whispers of earlier.

"You know what they say." He pushed his jeans down his thighs, revealing an erection already pressing against his underwear. "It’s only teasing if I don’t follow through."

She licked her lips, her mouth suddenly dry, her brain going foggy. "I don’t know about that."

He kicked his jeans away before coming toward her. His expression was so intense, his jaw rigid, his eyes dark with blown pupils, his body sinuous as he made his way onto the bed, each move fluid and gorgeous and calling to her on a primal level she had no hope of denying.

"What if we’d been making love when they came up on us?" she asked, voicing one of her worst fears, hating the sound of tears in her voice, the ones she absolutely refused to shed.

He leaned down and kissed first the corner of her left eye and then her right. "They didn’t. Focus on that truth, beauty."

Then he began undressing her. Slowly. Oh, so slowly. Excruciatingly slowly. Every inch of her skin revealed got kissed. Soft, sipping kisses, some followed by gentle bites, some followed by licks, others the simple press of his lips against her skin before he moved another inch of cloth.

By the time he’d removed everything but her panties, she was no longer thinking about what could have happened earlier. She wasn’t thinking about anything but how she felt right that second.

Her body was on fire, her nipples tight and aching though he’d left them surprisingly untouched when he’d removed her bra, the only stimulation they’d gotten the feel of the fabric sliding away from them and then the sensation of air against them.

He’d sensitized her entire body to his touch. She ached for more; she couldn’t get enough air.

She gasped as he kissed the valley between her breasts, his stubble brushing against the inner swell of her sensitive curves. "What are you trying to do to me?"

If her words came out in disjointed, breathy bits, who could blame her?

"It’s all pleasure here, beauty."

"I want you, Rock." Just in case he’d missed it somehow.

His laughter was low and wicked as he rubbed his stubble right over her nipple, sending so much sensation zinging through her that she cried out. "You’ve got me, beauty. All night long."

"Don’t want to take all night." Her legs moved restlessly, her body shifting against his in needy urgency.

He didn’t speed up his oh so gentle movements but blanketed her body with his, adjusting so he could kiss her mouth. Not deep, voracious kisses like she was used to. Oh, no.

Soft, tender kisses. Kisses that could not be denied, slow, burning kisses, that stoked the fire inside her to impossible heights without taking her over.

Her hips cradled his, both their groins still covered, the fabric no barrier to the feel of his hard flesh pressing against her clitoris. In fact, somehow, it enhanced it.

But still, she didn’t climax.

She felt tension which had become familiar since becoming his lover building inside, her muscles contracting and relaxing in haphazard spasms she didn’t understand.

"Rock! Please…"

"Do you feel alive, beauty?" he asked, his tone as serious as she’d ever heard it.

"Yes. I always feel alive with you." Didn’t he know that."

"Do you feel me? Feel how alive I am?"

A glimmer of understanding pierced the fog of her arousal. "Yes."

"No one that you care about got hurt today, Deborah." His kiss was an affirmation of that fact. "We are both better than fine."

Before she could reply in any way to his words, he pressed his sex against hers, rubbing his hard flesh up and down, sending more and more pleasure through her clitoris. Words were impossible. Any kind of real movement was just as impossible because of the way his heavy body pinned hers to the bed. It felt good, but she wanted more.

He licked against her lips. Finally.

She opened her mouth and met his tongue with hers, tasting, touching, affirming, pleasing.

His body continued to move against hers, giving pleasure, stimulating, but not taking her over into the realm of orgasm.

While it was frustrating and sweat gathered at her temples and trickled down between her shoulder blades, part of her was glad. She wanted him inside, wanted their bodies reaching that pinnacle together as close as two people could possibly be.

The kiss continued, her hands somehow twined with his against the bed above her head, his strength and control both a turn on and a comfort.

How long they went on like that, she didn’t know, she only knew that the pleasure felt never ending, like it could get bigger and bigger with no end in sight. But finally, he broke away from her, pulling off his briefs before removing her panties with deliberate movements.

She put her hand out and grabbed his wrist. "No condom." They’d shared their test results with each other, but they hadn’t taken the step of not using that final barrier of protection yet.

He didn’t ask if she was sure. He just lifted her knees, making room between her legs for himself.

As the head of his sex pressed against her opening, she looked deep into his sherry eyes.

"We’re safe," she whispered.

"We’re safe," he promised. "You’ll always be safe with me."

He pressed inside, the words giving her as much delight as the zings along her nerve endings while his hard-on stretched her vaginal walls.

"I’ve never done this before." She wrapped her fingers around his biceps, everything in her attuned to him.

Her breath gasping out in the same rate as his panting exhalations, invisible arcs of electricity connecting them where they didn’t touch, the sensation of being almost one body where they did.

"Me neither."

She was glad he didn’t make the joke about her not being a virgin. He got the importance of the moment, no matter how temporary their relationship.

He pressed forward, filling her, connecting to her, no barriers between them, nothing but the most intimate slide of skin against skin.

"You’re so hot, so tight, beauty." He groaned as his pelvis settled against her. "So damn wet."

"You spent long enough making me that way."

"You complaining?" he asked, his expression not quite making it to mocking.

"No." There was no room for pretense with this new intimacy between them.

"I didn’t think so." He pulled back and thrust forward again, the movement so delicious it drew a moan from her. "You’re so responsive."

"With you."

"We’re perfectly matched."

"You think?" she asked, her breath hitching and drawing the two words out to four syllables.

"I know."

She should ask why he thought they should end when the movie did then, but she already had one perfect moment ruined that day. She wasn’t ruining a second one on purpose.

Letting her mind shut down and feeling take over, Deborah submerged herself in the lovemaking, reveling in the slow but driving pace he set, wringing every drop of ecstasy from her body’s response to the excruciating copulation she could.

No matter how many times they made love, there would never again be a first time without the barrier of a condom between them. There would never be a moment like this in the silence of the room with Alaska’s twilight coming in the through the skylights, the sensation of being the only two people in the universe.

The knowledge that right then as far as Rock was concerned, even his siblings weren’t registering. Deborah Banes was the only person who mattered to him in this precise second. Her body, her pleasure, her responses.

It was heady knowledge she accepted it as the true gift it was.

Her orgasm came up on her without warning, like she’d been on the edge of coming for too long and her body would no longer be denied. It started with a contraction of her vaginal walls but radiated out until every muscle in her body went rigid, a scream tearing from her throat as her head went back of its own volition, her neck arch impossibly tight.

He drove forward, twisting his pelvis against her swollen clitoris and she screamed again, her voice giving out as the pleasure became too much. She’d never come so strongly, never experienced ecstasy so profound, never felt her body convulse so tightly.

Rock growled her name in a deep, primal tone and heat flooded her insides as he came as well, his body rigid above hers. He jerked his pelvis a couple of times, both their pleasure jolting with aftershocks that made their bodies convulse against each other. But finally, she went limp, her climax and its aftershocks finished.

He was still semi-hard inside her and she was glad. She knew it couldn’t last, but for now, they were still connected.