LITMIR.BIZ

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weeks and never told me your real identity. What in God’s name makes you think I would have put myself out there to be slapped down again? You hurt me, Kieran… badly. And when I found out a baby was on the way, it was all I could do to hold things together. If you had at least contacted me, who knows what might have happened. But you didn’t. So forget the postmortems. What’s done is done.”

      “I want to tell her I’m her father.”

      “No.”

      “I have legal rights.”

      “And you have plane tickets to Timbuktu at the end of the summer. Telling her would be cruel. Can’t you see that?”

      “She needs me. A girl should have a daddy to spoil her and teach her how to ride a bike.”

      “And you’ll do that via Skype? Is that what you had in mind?”

      “God, you’re cold.”

      “What I am is a realist. We’re not talking about how much Cammie needs you. This is really about you needing her, isn’t it? And if you’ll stop and think about it, the mature thing to do would be to walk away before she gets hurt.”

      “I want her to stay for the whole summer.”

      “She would fall in love with you and then be crushed when it was over. Absolutely not.”

      “We’re getting nowhere with this,” he groused. “It’s a circular argument. I have a proposition. My cousin Annalise is returning tomorrow. She’s great with children, and Cammie will love her. I have to make an overnight trip the following morning to New York to meet with a charitable board about the September project. I want you to come with me and we’ll see if we can work this thing out.”

      “There’s nothing to work out.”

      “Let me put it this way… either you agree to go to New York and hash things out on neutral ground, or I tell Cammie the truth when she wakes up in the morning.”

      “You can’t.”

      “Try and stop me.” He was beyond pleasantries, fighting for his life, his future.

      Olivia leaped to her feet and he grabbed for her wrist. “Be careful, damn it. You’re too close to the edge of the cliff.”

      She struggled instinctively, and then froze when his words sank in. “Take me back to the house.” Unmistakable tears thickened her voice.

      He stood up and backed them both from the precipice. “Don’t make this so hard, Olivia,” he murmured, sliding his hands down her arms. “We’re her parents. Together. I don’t want to fight with you.”

      “But you want to torture me.”

      “Not that, either.” Her nearness affected him predictably. “I want to make love to you, but I don’t have a death wish, so I suggest we get off this ledge.”

      He steered her down the winding, narrow path until they were once again cloaked in the pungent forest of fir and pine. When he halted and slid his hands beneath her hair to tilt her face toward his for a kiss, she didn’t protest. But her lips were unmoving.

      His thumbs stroked her cheeks, wiping away dampness. “You have to trust me, Olivia.” He could feel the tremors in her body as he pulled her closer. “I won’t hurt Cammie. I won’t hurt you.” He said it almost like a vow, but as the words left his lips, he realized the truth of them.

      Traditional or not, Olivia and Cammie were his family… as much or more than Gareth, Jacob and Victor. He would protect them with every fiber of his being, to the death if necessary. If he could make Olivia understand how deep his feelings ran, how desperately he wanted to take care of both the women in his life, perhaps she would be more inclined to believe his sincerity and his resolve.

      With aching slowness he claimed her mouth, tasting her, nipping at her tongue. At last, her arms circled his neck and her sweet lips dueled with his. There was less tenderness tonight, more unrestrained passion. Frustration and conflict segued into ragged hunger and rough caresses.

      He jerked her shirt over her head and fumbled with the bra, dragging it down her arms and tossing it away haphazardly. Red-hot desire hazed his vision, and he trembled as if he had a fever.

      Her lush breasts took on gooseflesh in the night air, and her nipples pebbled into small, hard stones. He took them in his mouth, one after the other, and suckled her, dragging on her tender flesh with his mouth and plumping her breasts with worshipful hands.

      Olivia moaned, a sound that went straight to his groin and sent scalding heat to scorch him alive. He ripped at her jeans, shoving them down her hips only enough to touch her between her legs. She was damp and ready for him.

      Freeing his own eager sex, he fumbled in his pants pocket for a condom, rolled it on and then lifted her and braced her against the nearest tree. It was animalistic and raw and absolutely necessary.

      With a grunt of determination, he thrust up and into her warm, hot passage. The sensation of being caressed by wet silk made him groan aloud. “I can’t get enough of you,” he said, the words muffled against her neck. “God, you make me burn.”

      After that, conversation evaporated in the white-hot conflagration of his drive to completion. Olivia’s fingernails bit into his shoulders as she clung to him in desperation. He gripped her ass and lifted her high, angling his hips to fill her more deeply.

      She cried out and trembled, heart pounding against his as she climaxed wildly, her inner muscles milking him. Her release triggered his. Keeping his hands under her ass to protect her from painful contact with the tree, he thrust recklessly, not caring if his hands suffered in the process. Nothing could have separated him from her in that moment.

      She kissed him softly, and the simple caress was his undoing. Shaking, breathing hoarsely, he came with a rapid fire punch of his hips, feeling his strength drain away as he reached the end.

      Legs embarrassingly weak, he went down, rolling onto his back in a sea of pine needles, settling Olivia on top of him as they both recovered. “Stay the summer,” he begged.

      She put her hand on his lips. “Stop. Let it go for now. I’ll travel to New York with you. That’s two more nights, total. After that, Cammie and I have to go home. I have a project to finish, and she has play dates scheduled with friends. We have a life, Kieran. But I’ll consider returning later in the summer for a visit. Don’t push me on this.”

      It was hard to be angry when she laid on top of him, every voluptuous inch of her his for the taking. Lazily he rubbed her firm, generous ass. She was the most intensely female woman he had ever known. As though her entire body was created for the purpose of male fantasy.

      His erection was already perking up, but he had only brought one condom. Bad mistake. Instead of feeding his own hungry obsession, he reached between them and touched the tiny bud of nerves that made her quiver and pant. Deliberately he brought her to the brink again. She tried to fight him, but her body defeated her.

      “Come for me, baby,” he urged, relishing the feel of her dew on his fingers. He might ache, unappeased, for hours, but it was worth it to hear her call his name as she spiraled into bliss and then slumped onto his chest.

       Eight

      Olivia wanted to remain in the dark. Deep in the woods, she could pretend that she wasn’t scared of repeating mistakes that should have been far behind her.

      She wasn’t lying to Kieran when she said she didn’t want Cammie falling in love with him only to experience a child’s broken heart when he left. But that was only half the truth.

      Olivia couldn’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t fall in love with him again, either, and that’s what was bound to happen if she remained on Wolff Mountain for the summer. Though she’d die rather than admit it, Kieran

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