Instant Gratification (Wilder #2)(74)

“I blame the kissing,” she decided, her voice a little shaky.

“For…?”

“For me losing my head. Look, you need to back way up.”

He merely smiled and pulled her closer in, and somehow her brain got mixed signals from her body and went with the flow, which wasn’t good. Not good at all. She was going to miss him, miss him so damn much, and that thought wasn’t comforting. She’d miss his humor, his voice, how he made her laugh, the way he looked at her, everything. “Stone.”

“Emma,” he said sweetly.

As if he was sweet! “Okay.” She fisted her hands in his hair. “You know what? Fine. Have it your way. I’m going with my instincts.”

“I like the sound of that. What are they saying?”

“They’re saying we should have sex right here, right now.” She smacked a hand to his chest when his eyes flashed with triumph. “But you should know, we are not cuddling afterwards. Not this time. Not—” She’d been about to say ever, because she was leaving, and cuddling with him messed with her head big time, but he smiled soberly, whispered, “Shh,” and kissed her again.





Chapter 25




Ah, yeah, Stone thought. This. This is what he’d wanted, Emma melting in his arms, her tongue down his throat. Leaning back against the rock, he pulled her with him.

“You should know,” she murmured against his mouth, hands still fisted in his hair, wrapped around him like a pretzel. “This is just instincts talking. Not my heart.”

“Okay,” he said, hoping like hell that was just her trying to convince herself.

Behind them, the thick growth of pines protected them from the breeze. In front was nothing but a staggering view of Lake Tahoe and a three hundred and sixty degree view of majestic, rugged, isolated peaks.

A fact that Stone was most grateful for, especially the isolated part. He nudged Emma down onto their rock alcove, stroked a strand of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear and pulled her neatly tucked in shirt from her pants.

“Really?” She blinked up at him, clearly surprised. “So you believe me? That this is just sex?”

“Hell, no.” He shook his head with a low laugh. “It’s not even close. But I didn’t want to argue with you until I got you naked again.”

She choked out a laugh. “Stone.”

“Now see, I know that tone. It says that if I let you finish that sentence, we’re not going to get naked.” He gently kissed one corner of her mouth as he unbuttoned her top, then the other corner as he slid it off her shoulder.

She cupped his face between her hands until he looked into her eyes. “You know that I’m as good as gone. Tell me you know that.”

“Today?”

“No.”

“Then shh.”

In response, she nipped his lower lip with her teeth, and when he hissed out a pained breath, she soothed the ache by sucking it into her mouth, running her hot tongue over it as she shoved up his shirt.

He was goners. He slid his hands down the back of her pants, loving how she felt in his hands, loving how when he slid his fingers even lower, he found her hot and wet, for him. “Just sex, my ass,” he murmured in her ear.

“Speak for yourself,” she panted, tugging his shirt over his head.

Then she stopped his heart when she spread her legs a little to give him more access.

“It has to be just sex, because…” She stopped to moan as he stroked his thumb over her. “Because I’m leaving in two days. That’s all we have.”

With a sigh, he pulled his hands free of her and met her gaze, somehow managing to speak evenly. “So you’re not even so much as looking back?”

It was a tricky question, one that could have stopped the proceedings cold, but it didn’t. At least not her proceedings. She pressed her mouth to a pec and just breathed him in for a moment. “I’ll look back plenty.” She ran her hand up his abs. “You should know, I’m planning on taking something with me. A piece of you.”

“What?”

“Yeah.” She ran her mouth over his chest, a soft, light, erotic caress. “Your spirit. Your sense of adventure. Your loyalty.”

Unbearably touched, he slid his hands into her hair and lifted her face to his. “Emma.”

“You give yourself, Stone, to everyone you meet. Hell, you’d give a perfect stranger the shirt off your back. I’ve seen you do it.”

“You give yourself, too.”

“No. No, I don’t. My time, yeah, but that’s my job. Outside the hospital…” Her mouth glided over one of his nipples, and he quivered. “Outside the hospital,” she whispered against his flesh. “I’m closed off. I don’t give myself to my stepfather, never have. I don’t give myself to Spencer, much as I say I do. I don’t give myself to my friends. And I didn’t give myself to you.” She lifted her head. “Until it was almost too late.”

He could scarcely breathe. “What changed?”

“You. You offering your heart and soul to everything you do. It changed me. You changed me.”

He stared at her, heart pounding as he realized the truth in that. He’d given her his heart. His soul. He opened his mouth to tell her that, but she kissed him, long and deep and warm, and he lost himself in her. Still goners, he let her unzip his jeans while his hands slid up her belly to her breasts, which knocked a gasp out of her, and a groan from him.