Fall From Grace(94)

I tried to wrench free, but he held me tight against him with one hand on the small of my back and the other grasping my neck through a fistful of hair.

He gently tugged my hair back and pulled his head down to mine, kissing me once on the lips.  He brushed his lips along my cheeks to my ear and whispered with the heat of his breath, “Go ahead, Grace, ask me what dreams I wake from at night.”  He pulled his head back and his eyes assaulted me with his fierce intensity.  “I wake up with you as the last thought in my dreams.  I dream about your lips, the smell of your skin and hair, and the freaking fire that burns inside of me to be inside you.  I want to bury myself inside you and never climb out, my sweet death.  Grace, I’m f*cking in love with you.”

I stopped struggling and let him hold me.  One, I was freezing because I had left my coat in the Jeep and two, well, for a minute; I so badly wanted this to be my real life.

I blinked back tears.  “In another life, Shane, if I was anybody but me, I would have loved to be loved by you.”

Shane stood there holding me, eyes pleading, when we heard the roar of the snowmobiles.  Finally, one of our messages got through!

Shane stepped away from me and raked his hands threw his snow covered hair.  Two snowmobiles appeared out of the blinding whiteness and skidded to a halt in front of us.

Tucker lifted his visor to exclaim that my Superman was finally here, giving me a wink.

Blake lifted his visor and rolled his eyes.  He jumped off and reached out his hand out to me.  I took it and he helped me straddle the snowmobile, then he got on behind me.

Rage shadowed Shane’s features and his hands balled into fists.

Tucker looked rejected.  I cared about neither at that moment. All I cared about was Blake.

With a disgusted sigh, Shane waded through the deep snow back to the Jeep and yanked the passenger side door open.  I watched him effortlessly pull our packs and jackets out and sling both our guitar cases over his shoulders then climb back over the snowdrifts to our waiting snowmobiles.

Glaring angrily into my eyes, he handed my jacket to me when he passed, “Here you go, wouldn’t want you to get any colder than you already are.”

The words stung, because I knew he wasn’t talking about the temperature. He was just stating how cold of a person I was.  He was right, but I had no other choice.

After I pulled on my coat and zipped it up against the wind, Blake wrapped one strong arm around my waist and the other on one end of the handlebars.  He took off without even waiting for Shane to jump on Tucker’s snowmobile.




Chapter 15

Blake skidded to a stop near an enormous wrap around porch where Lea, Conner, Ethan and Brayden sat together waiting.  When I climbed off Blake’s snowmobile, Lea flung herself into my arms, “Oh, thank God, you’re okay!”

I looked back toward Blake, “Thank you,” I said.

He grinned back at me. “Get inside and warm up, we’ll talk later.  Then we can think of a way you can properly thank me.”  What?

“Come on, let’s go inside.  We’ll get you warmed up and changed, and then we’re going to the bar at the resort. I need a drink,” Lea said, moving me away from Blake.

I was shuttled away from Blake as he drove away blasting snow out of his path.  Lea dragged me by the hand through the front entryway of an enormous log cabin style ranch.  When the warmth of the inside hit me, I realized how wet and cold I was.  My jacket was soaked through, and so was the shirt and jeans I wore beneath it.  It felt as though a layer of ice was forming on my skin.  I began shuddering uncontrollably.