This Winter Night Read online

“Scout’s honor,” he said with a straight face.

  She seemed to be satisfied with his answer. “Okay, then. What happens here stays here.”

  “Done,” he promised.

  “You can’t tell anyone.”

  “Understood,” he agreed. “That goes for you, too. Not even your girlfriends.”

  “Not even your boys,” she countered.

  “Not even your priest,” he said.

  “Not even God,” she said with a smile.

  “I think He already knows,” said Colton as he backed her against the wall and planted a sensual, bone-melting kiss on her sweet mouth.

  Bodies pressed closer and warmth ensued shortly afterward. By some silent consensus they agreed that this seduction would be slow and deliberate. When they came up for air from that first kiss, their eyes met and they smiled. It was confirmed. They were a good fit. She unbuttoned his shirt, curious to know whether his chest was hairy or smooth. She was rewarded with a hairy, muscular chest and a washboard stomach.

  He was patient as she ran her hands over his pectorals and admired his biceps after she had finished removing the shirt. “I like your guns,” she said.

  “Speaking of guns, you don’t keep yours under your pillow, do you? I don’t like those kinds of surprises in bed.”

  She laughed sexily. “No, it’s back in the safe. The only thing exploding in my bed tonight will be you.”

  After that there wasn’t very much talk. She took him to her bedroom, which was two doors down from his. When he walked in the room, he saw that her bed had been turned down already, and there was a book on it. She had obviously planned to read until she fell asleep.

  He watched as she began removing her clothing piece by piece.

  First, her jeans, revealing long, shapely legs and a see-through pair of panties. Then her blouse, under which she wore a lacy cream-colored bra that matched her bikini panties. Her body was lush and feminine yet athletic and she had an ass that a man like him would love to hold in a fit of passion.

  After she’d gotten down to her underwear, her gaze fell to his lower half. He unbuttoned the jeans he wore but did not pull them past his hips. “I’m not wearing anything underneath,” he warned.

  “I’m a grown woman,” she told him. “You haven’t got anything I haven’t seen before.”

  She removed her bra to make him feel more comfortable. Her breasts were full and everything he desired, not too big, nor too small, just right for palming in his big hands, and the erect nipples were ripe for licking. His mouth watered.

  He pulled the waistband of the jeans down past his hips and heard the audible intake of breath from her. He was well-endowed, but not monstrously so. It was nice to know she liked what she saw.

  Lauren, suddenly faced with the manifestation of her wanton desire, was having second thoughts. She was pretending to be someone she was not. Adam was the only man she’d ever made love to. She had made it seem to Colton as if she had more experience with men than she actually had. Adam was not nearly as blessed as Colton was when it came to sexual “equipment.” She wasn’t sure if she could accommodate him.

  Too much time had passed with Lauren staring at him for Colton’s comfort. “Lauren, is something wrong?”

  “No,” she denied.

  He walked toward her, totally naked, his muscles flexing enticingly, his manhood semi-erect. She couldn’t help it. Her body reacted to the sensual image he made. The man was sex personified, and she’d been too long without a lover, a good lover. She was beginning to wonder if Adam had ever been a good lover. After all, she had nothing to compare him to.

  There was only one way to find out.

  She removed her panties, tremblingly. Colton stopped in his tracks and took all of her in. He sighed with satisfaction. She was not one to mow the lawn, so to speak. She was beautifully natural, which was refreshing as far as he was concerned.

  There seemed to be nothing separating them now as he pulled her into his arms, and they fell onto the bed. She molded her body against his. He was fully erect now, and their bodies, his skin a darker cinnamon than hers, wrapped themselves around each other. Their kisses were deep. The taste was like a drug, and her body writhing beneath his worked him into a sexual frenzy.

  The smell of her, the silkiness of her skin fed his need. When she opened her legs to him, somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembered condoms. He didn’t know if she had any. He hadn’t even thought about them until now. But it wouldn’t do. No matter how much he wanted her he wouldn’t risk getting her pregnant just to satisfy his needs. “Do you have any condoms?” he asked huskily.

  “They’re in the nightstand drawer,” she said with a gesture of her head. He got up and looked in the drawer she’d indicated. Once he had the condom in his hands he tore it open and put it on. He looked back at her to see that she was watching him. He supposed he should feel self-conscious. They were strangers in every sense of the word, especially in a physical sense, but this felt natural.

  But he was a man who’d been brought up right. He was a gentleman. So when he pulled her into his arms once more, he looked into her eyes and asked, “Are you sure about this?”

  “Yes,” she breathed. The expression in her eyes left him no further doubt.

  Her willingness pleased him, and his penis grew harder at the thought of penetrating her. But first, her pleasure. He got on his knees and pulled her toward him to the edge of the bed. Her legs were splayed wide, and it was apparent that she was ready for him from the wetness of her sex. He’d been wondering what she tasted like and now he bent his head and devoured her. His tongue moved slowly around her clitoris, inciting a current of electrically charged sensual pleasure throughout her body. She felt it down to her toes. Her moans were low at first and grew louder as her impending orgasm drew nearer.

  He left her clitoris and licked the sides of her labia. This made her thighs tremble. She whispered, “Yes, yes, yes...”

  Though he was happy she was enjoying his efforts, he wasn’t satisfied with that reaction alone. He wouldn’t be content until she started calling on a deity. He redoubled his efforts. She rose up on her elbows, “Oh, my God, what are you doing to me?”

  He merely smiled.

  When she climaxed, she not only released pent-up sexual energy, but she also came to the realization that there was a lot she didn’t know about sex, and here was the man who could teach her.

  Colton got up and while she was in that malleable state just after an orgasm, when your mind was blown and sensual pleasures were magnified, he entered her. She was just as he imagined she would be—hot, tight and more than capable of handling him.

  Never had Lauren had such an enthusiastic, energetic lover, one who seemed to give even more than he got. Her body reveled in it. Felt as if it had been waiting for him all her life. She knew that this feeling was what people were trying to describe when they said that sex was the closest thing to heaven on earth. She’d never felt so alive.

  Colton couldn’t believe his luck. This woman was his equal in every way. Not content to lie there and accept his thrusts, she was giving it back to him with as much fervor as he was giving it to her.

  When he came it was a monumental moment for him. He didn’t know if it was because his emotions were so intense tonight after the day he’d had, or there was something unique about Lauren. She was smiling up at him. She looked exhausted but supremely happy. He was glad he’d had something to do with that.

  Chapter 3

  “I’ve done it now,” Lauren said jokingly as they lay in bed wrapped in each other’s arms. They’d gotten up and showered together and climbed back in bed.

  Colton smiled. “What have you done?”

  “I’ve become the Gaines girl who’s not only divorced but who, after the divorce, jumped right in bed with the first availab
le man. I left Raleigh to get away from it all and a hunk shows up on my doorstep.”

  “Life isn’t fair,” Colton said sympathetically.

  Lauren laughed softly. “Darn right, it’s not. I was determined to give up men.”

  He reached out and brushed a tendril of hair behind her left ear. “How long would that have lasted? You’re a vital, passionate woman, Lauren. I can tell that much from the little time we’ve spent together. Don’t let Eckhart turn you off men.”

  “Please don’t say that name,” said Lauren.

  “All right, I’ll just say ‘the asshole’ from now on,” Colton said.

  “Don’t even refer to him at all. I came here to forget he exists.”

  “Then why’d you come to a place you shared?”

  “He was rarely here,” Lauren explained. “He bought the place and came a couple of times, met your parents who, as you can imagine, gave him a cool reception. Then after a while, he stopped coming at all. I didn’t care. What he didn’t know was that I had an ulterior motive when he announced he was buying the property.”

  “Which was?”

  “My granddaddy Beck, my mother’s dad, lives up here near the Cherokee reservation. He owns a lodge. I go to see him whenever I come up here. Grandma died about five years ago and he doesn’t have any family in the area. My sisters and I make sure one of us goes to see him at least once a month. I was delighted when my ex bought this place. And, thanks to you, I got it in the divorce settlement.”

  “Thanks to me, how?” Colton wondered.

  “Because he got no reaction out of you when we moved across the pond from your place, he lost interest and gave it to me without a fight.”

  Colton understood. “So when you come up here, it’s like going home.”

  “Exactly,” she answered with a contented sigh.

  “The only place I’m able to feel that way is my parents’ home,” Colton told her. “I own a home but it’s just a house. A very nice house, mind you, but it has no sentimental value.”

  “Maybe you haven’t been in it long enough,” she suggested.

  “I bought it six years ago,” he replied. He smiled at her. “You’re an architect. Maybe you can come take a look at it and tell me what’s missing about its design that’s preventing me from caring about it.”

  “That implies that we’re going to take this further than this nonreality bubble we’re presently in,” Lauren warned him.

  “Is that what you think is happening here?” Colton asked, the humor gone out of his tone and his eyes. Up until now they had been talking good-naturedly. True, her insistence about keeping this a secret had indicated that she believed this was to be a one-night stand, but after making love he no longer wanted it to be just that. He envisioned seeing her again, slowly getting to know her. He had assumed she felt the same way.

  “Wasn’t that what we agreed on earlier? That this remains our little secret?”

  “Yes, Lauren, but I thought you were thinking of your reputation. I didn’t believe that you were really going to kick me to the curb afterward. Not if we both enjoyed ourselves. And I know you enjoyed yourself.”

  “I did enjoy myself,” she confirmed as she freed her arms from his and sat up in bed. “I simply didn’t want to set myself up for disappointment. I wanted you to know that there were no strings.”

  “Just pleasure,” he said as he sat up while maintaining eye contact with her. “I understand not wanting to be hurt, Lauren. Believe it or not, I’ve been hurt before, too. On the other hand, I don’t want you to sell yourself short. Of course I want more than a tryst in the mountains.”

  “You say that now after sex, but you may feel differently when we get back to Raleigh and to our everyday lives. Plus there’s the trauma you are under due to your father’s death. People do strange things when they’re grieving.”

  “And you’re worried that you might have slept with me just to get your ex out of your system, is that it?” he wanted to know.

  Lauren shook her head, but her eyes told a different story. She was undecided. “I’m an emotional wreck right now,” she admitted. “I don’t know up from down. I only know that I enjoyed being with you tonight.”

  “That’s an honest answer,” he said softly as he pulled her back into his arms.

  Lauren smiled again as she got comfortable in his embrace. “Let’s talk about anything except what might happen after we get back to Raleigh. For instance, how old are you?”

  “I’ll be thirty-five in October,” he easily replied. “And you?”

  “I’ll be thirty next month.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “Same as I felt about twenty-nine—indifferent. I’m not afraid of getting old, I’m just afraid of not accomplishing what I want to in life.”

  “Which is?”

  “To be happy,” she simply said.

  “What would make you happy?”

  “To be successful at what I do,” she began. “To have a marriage that is as loving and lasting as my parents’ marriage or your parents’ marriage, for that matter.”

  “They did it,” Colton reasoned. “I don’t see why you can’t.”

  “The world has changed,” Lauren said. “What was important to our parents’ generation isn’t important to ours. Couples get married today knowing there’s an easy out. Couples from our parents’ generation actually did it believing they were in it for a lifetime.”

  “I don’t agree with that,” Colton countered. “I think young people want the same things. We just go about it differently.”

  “The odds are stacked against us,” Lauren said. “Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce.”

  “Is it that high?” Colton asked incredulously.

  “I’m probably quoting old statistics and it’s even higher by now,” Lauren said.

  “You’re seeing the world through newly divorced eyes,” Colton told her. “Give yourself a few months and you’ll see things differently. Now, let’s talk Christmas. You know in a matter of minutes, it’s going to be Christmas Day. What do you want for Christmas this year?”

  “I didn’t even bother to get the decorations out of the attic,” Lauren said. “I’m not in the Christmas mood this year.”

  “Humor me,” Colton insisted with a coaxing smile.

  “Peace on Earth, good will toward men?” Lauren ventured.

  “Okay, besides that.”

  “A warm, sexy man in my bed,” Lauren said, grinning at him.

  “I think Santa already gave you that, young lady,” Colton said and kissed her soundly.

  When they broke off their kiss, she asked him what he wanted for Christmas, “For a moment like this to last,” was his only reply.

  * * *

  The next morning Colton awakened before Lauren and took the opportunity to observe her while she slept. He could barely hear her breathing, she slept so deeply. She had braided her hair after they’d made love last night for the final time and now it fell in a single tress down her back. She slept on her side and was literally hugging her pillow. He smiled. She looked so young in repose, nowhere near thirty.

  He was still watching her when she opened her eyes and smiled at him. “Is it morning already?”

  The sun filtered through the sheers at the window. She squeezed her eyes shut against the glare. “Why didn’t I put up blackout curtains?”

  “You obviously like sunshine in the morning,” said Colton as he swung his legs off the bed and stood up. “I have electric shutters in my bedroom that block out everything.”

  “What are you, a vampire?” she teased.

  “If I were, you would be one by now, as well,” he told her.

  He got down on the floor and began doing push-ups without a stitch of clothing on. Lauren sat up
in bed to watch. This was the strangest man she’d ever met. She stopped counting at a hundred.

  Climbing out of bed, she said, “I’m exhausted just looking at you. The general would love you. I bet he’s out jogging right now.”

  “I’d love to meet him,” Colton said.

  But she was gone. He heard the bathroom door close as he switched and began the sit-up portion of his morning regimen.

  Momentarily, he heard the sound of Lauren brushing her teeth. After a hundred and twenty sit-ups he got to his feet, gathered his clothing that he’d discarded in the heat of passion last night and went to the guest room to shower and dress.

  When he emerged a few minutes later, dressed and ready for his day, whatever it might bring, he heard music and followed the sound to the kitchen where Lauren was cracking eggs into a bowl. She looked up. “There you are. The electricity’s back on and the phone’s working again but according to Grandpa who knows the guy who drives the snowplow, the roads won’t be cleared up here until tomorrow morning. I’m sorry.”

  Before he said anything, he kissed her good-morning. “Why are you apologizing? You didn’t cause the storm.”

  “I thought you might be worried about your mom being alone at a time like this,” she said, concerned.

  For a few hours Colton had been able to allow his mind to rest from the constant assault of grief over his dad’s death. Lauren had given him that, and he was grateful to her. But now it all came rushing back. “My sister, Jade, and her family are home from Miami. They’re with her,” he said.

  “Oh, that’s good,” said Lauren. She turned back around and resumed cracking eggs. “Scrambled eggs and toast all right with you? I don’t have any breakfast meats. I’m not a big eater of bacon or sausage and I wasn’t expecting guests.”

  He smiled gently. “Why don’t you let me cook for you? You cooked for me last night.”

  She readily agreed and moved aside to let him take over. He did appear as if he knew his way around the kitchen. He effortlessly whisked the eggs in the bowl and then placed butter in the skillet. At just the right temperature, he added the eggs. He didn’t cook them too long, turning off the stove before they congealed, and when he put them on two separate plates they were of a fluffy consistency.