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They’d flown into the bison ranch just as the sun was inching up over the horizon. The shaggy beasts had stood in majestic contrast to the white landscape. “It was a sight to behold, wasn’t it? All the bison against the snow?”
The whine of snowmobiles sounded in the distance. A chickadee fussed noisily one tree over. The faint scent of wood smoke punctuated the cold air.
“Yeah, it was pretty incredible. Thanks for inviting me. Dwight was really nice.”
Well, just how damn nice did she think he was? Jealousy knotted low in Knox’s gut. What the hell was wrong with him? First off, he’d known a moment of the green-eyed monster when Trudie had talked about going fishing with that Jeremy whatever his name was and then she’d seemed to smile a lot at Dwight, the bison ranch owner, today.
So? She was a free agent...and a damn nice person...and a damn pretty woman and smart and fun to boot, so why wouldn’t she be looking? And why wouldn’t Dwight or her new fishing buddy or any other guy be looking back? And it seemed to Knox that Dwight had definitely been interested. Not that the rancher had been out of line or acted a fool, but a man knew when another man found a woman attractive.
It had never been a problem for Knox before, but he suddenly found that it was—a big load of a problem.
He wanted her. She’d been there all along, right in front of him, and he’d been too stupid and too blind to see. Now he saw, but was he too late? Was she willing to really know him again? Would she want him as a man, as a lover, not simply as a friend? Despite the explosiveness of last night’s kiss, or perhaps because of it, she’d been friendly, but guarded, today.
“You gonna stay up there all day or what?” she said with a cheeky smile.
“Smartass.” Knox laughed. “Maybe I will just stay up here for a while.”
“Suit yourself. I’ll wait in the truck because I’ve got some sense.” She grinned in the direction of his vehicle parked on the side of the road. “But feel free to sit up there and freeze your butt off.”
He dropped to the ground with a thunk, the deep snow cushioning the impact. Nonetheless, it threw his balance off. He reached for the first thing in front of him—Trudie—at the same time she reached out to steady him.
Knox fell backwards into the snow. Trudie landed on top of him. All the air seemed to leave his lungs. It wasn’t the impact of the fall, but the press of her against him. Her eyes widened and her lips parted. Her warm, fragrant breath mingled with his. Her lower body pressed intimately against his. Want...need...hunger...arced between them, bound them.
He was lying in a bed of snow and he was on fire for her. He’d wanted just this thing all day.
“Trudie...” He wrapped his arms around her, securing her even tighter and harder against him.
“Knox...” she seemed to breathe his name on her exhale. He could swear he felt her heart racing against his chest through the layers of their clothes and jackets, which was just plain damn crazy...almost as crazy as what he was about to do...what they were about to do.
He cupped the back of her head in his gloved hand. She might say she didn’t want them to kiss again but she damn sure wasn’t making any move to get up. He pulled her head down to his. The smoke of their breath mingled as she drew closer. Her warm breath gusted against his face. The rest was up to her—what she really wanted was about to be known. His hand still rested against the back of her head but those last few inches—it was up to her to bridge them.
He looked into her eyes. Her dark pupils mirrored him. He opened himself to her, letting her see how much he wanted her. He also let her see his uncertainty.
Their lips were cold but the kiss was hot. The cold began to seep away until there was only heat and her soft pliant mouth meeting his.
This time it was Trudie teasing her tongue against his lips, seeking entry. He groaned and pulled her closer as her tongue swiped against his. Fire licked through him, between them.
Nothing else existed for him. It was simply the feel of her, the fit of her curves against his body, the press of her pelvis between his thighs, her taste, the reverberation of her moans, the velvet stroke of her tongue.
And it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough. Frantic need pulsed through him. He wanted to know her intimately. He wanted her naked in his bed where he could explore the texture of her skin with his hands, his mouth, know the taste of every inch of her, hear her moan his name in the throes of passion. He wanted to see her eyes alight with a fire stoked by him and subsequently quenched by him. He wanted her—all of her—every inch of her. Fire...want...need...consumed him.
A sudden loud barking startled them apart. Jessup stood staring at them, apparently unsure if they were okay, definitely baffled by Trudie on top of Knox and the moaning and groaning going on.
Trudie raised her head, breaking the kiss, pushing away from Knox. He loved his dog, but this was twice now....
She scrambled to her feet, visibly shaken. Knox staggered upright as well, feeling drunk from kissing her. His legs weren’t quite steady beneath him and it didn’t have a damn thing to do with the cold. Conversely, it was all about the heat.
Trudie looked at him, panic flaring in her eyes, her lips full and red from their kisses. “Why did you... We shouldn’t... That was a mistake.”
They might go down a path, but it wasn’t going to be that one. “No, it wasn’t. It was a lot of things, but it was not a damn mistake.”
She couldn’t have changed that much in the last year and a half. The woman he knew didn’t kiss casually and she damn sure wouldn’t have kissed him with that kind of passion if it wasn’t what she was feeling. Some women kissed by rote—like the paint-by-number kits they’d used as kids. The picture didn’t really matter, you just filled in the blank with the color listed.
He had finally figured out Elsa operated that way. Their relationship had never been personal, which made breaking up all the easier to do. She hadn’t particularly seemed to care when he told her he didn’t want to see her anymore. Elsa required a passably attractive man at her beck and call. Hence, she’d wanted Knox to accompany her to Good Riddance. It really had nothing to do with him—he was just the color needed to fill in the blank spot on the canvas.
That, however, was not the way Trudie operated. She didn’t simply make out for the sake of doing it. Everything with Trudie was personal. So, when she kissed him like that, when he felt the press of her thighs against his, it wasn’t just blind lust speaking, but desire for him. There might not be a hell of a lot that he did know about her these days, but he knew that much with unwavering certainty.
Trudie wrapped her arms around her middle and for a second he thought she’d turn her back to him. She didn’t. She faced him, eyes flashing.
“It was a mistake for any number of reasons but first and foremost because you have a girlfriend and I don’t sneak around kissing some other woman’s man behind her back.”
Knox caught the shimmer of tears in Trudie’s eyes. He didn’t know if they were tears of frustration or anger or self-loathing, but the one thing he damn well couldn’t stand was the thought of Trudie crying when he could so easily change that for her. To hell with blowing Elsa’s “cover.” He’d put her before Trudie once before, laid his loyalties in a way that had hurt Trudie, and he’d be damned if he’d hurt her that way again.
“I’m not Elsa’s man,” he said.
“Right.” Arms still wrapped around her middle, she turned her back to him.
He approached her rigid form, lightly putting his hands on her shoulders, turning her to face him once again.
“Trudie, I know I’ve hurt you but you know I’ve never been a liar...or a player. How I feel about Elsa aside, I would never disrespect you that way—making you a side dish. And I’m not made that way. I wouldn’t kiss you if I was still involved with Elsa.”
Wariness gleamed in her eyes. “Then why are you here with her? This isn’t making any sense. Help me understand what’s going on here because I’m confused and I just don’t need this.” She took a step away, shrugging off his touch.
“I told Elsa over a week ago that it was over.” He shoved his hands in his pants pockets. “She took it well enough, but she had this gig coming up and asked me to escort her.” He shrugged because it really hadn’t been a big deal and he’d been ready to come back to Chrismoose. “I wanted to come anyway. It was short notice for her to find someone else. I agreed to escort her and keep my mouth shut so the whole town wouldn’t be buzzing with our breakup.”
Her lower lip trembled and more tears shimmered in her eyes before she looked away from him. Puzzled, he rubbed the back of his neck with his gloved hand. He didn’t know what it was, but something had just gone terribly wrong. This was not the reaction he’d expected. “What’s wrong?”
“So, you told her more than a week ago that you and she were done?”
