They didn’t make it to the hot tub. At least not right away.
They’d no sooner entered the cabin when their lips crashed together, tongues tangling and desperate hands ripping at clothes.
Even as parkas, sweatshirts, and thermal underwear went flying, their hands were never still. Cole’s mouth plundered, streaking over every bit of newly bared flesh as she strained against him, wrapped around him, her own hands as greedy as his.
“If you want me to stop, Kelli, tell me now,” he said as he yanked off her snowy boots so he could rid her of those pink ski pants that had pooled around her ankles.
“Don’t you dare,” she said breathlessly, lifting her hips as he hooked his thumbs in the lace waistband of her reindeer panties and ripped them away. “I’ve been waiting my entire life for this moment.”
Despite his brain feeling as if it were going to explode, Cole managed to remember the condoms. Which were, unfortunately, in his shaving kit on the bathroom counter.
“Where are you going?” she asked, grabbing his wrist as he started to stand up.
“Condoms,” he managed, thinking that if he had planned a military mission as badly as he had this one, he never would have made it home to be naked with this woman.
“It’s okay. I’m okay. Seriously,” she promised. “And I’m on the pill.”
With any other woman, he might doubt her claims. But not this one.
“Me too,” he said. Which was totally true. He hadn’t had sex with any woman since his last physical, and the Marine doctor had tested him.
“Well, then.” She went to work, pulling the sweatshirt over his head. Just when Cole was certain he’d go insane with hunger for her, they were finally naked, stretched out in front of the fire, not on the fantasized soft bear rug, but on another of his grandmother’s braided rag ones.
Her body was lush and curvy and perfectly made for a man’s hands. And mouth. He lifted her breasts, and as her fingers splayed on the back of his head, he feasted, his teeth and tongue creating a trail down her torso, over her stomach, which quivered as his tongue glided over it, then lower still.
Her short nails dug into his back and she arched her back like a bow as he brought her to the edge. Again and again until finally, with one quick, slick stroke of his tongue, he felt her shatter.
But still it wasn’t enough. Not for him. And not for her.
“I want you inside me,” she said. “I need you.”
Not as much as he needed her. The staggering truth, which hit Cole’s brain like an ax blow, was that he wanted Kelli Carpenter more than he wanted to live.
He pushed her knees up, encouraging her to wrap her legs around his waist.
Although he’d been picturing this in his mind since the boat parade, even as he’d struggled to safely wall off the mental images of sex in a million ways with her, Cole wanted to watch Kelli come.
But he didn’t have to tell her to look at him, because once again, they were on the same wavelength.
Her eyes were locked on to his as he filled her slowly, giving her time to adjust to his size—which her long, happy sigh assured him lived up to her fantasy mountain man—before he began to move.
Faster. Deeper. Until he was taking her, claiming her, watching her incredible eyes glaze over.
When she came, the deep climax ripping a choked sob from her throat, Cole was right behind her, his mind emptying right before he collapsed onto her.
“That was . . . wow,” she murmured.
“Yeah. But . . .” He glanced around at the clothes strewn all over the room. “We didn’t make it to the hot tub.”
“Next time,” she said on another blissful sigh as she cuddled up against him like a warm kitten.
“Which would be now,” he said, pushing himself to his feet, then pulling her up as well.
“Oh. My.” Her eyes widened as they took in the hard-on that, having been deprived for so many months, was ready for round two.
“Forget the lumberjack.” He tried to shield her from the cold blast of frigid air that hit them as they walked out the door onto the deck and he flipped open the cover on the hot tub. “Along with the damn SEAL frogmen and sailors. If you want real stamina, sweetheart, call a Marine.”
“Ooh-rah,” she said as she slid into the hot water.
“Exactly.” He sat down on a bench and pulled her onto his lap facing him as he lowered her onto his erection. “The Marines have landed and the situation is well in hand.”