Frigid women didn’t wear stockings and garters and sexy black lace bras.

They didn’t travel more than three thousand miles in search of sexual release. Quinn admired Kay’s courage more than he could say, and he was even more determined to help her find pure pleasure.

Quinn hauled her across the seat toward him, wrapping his arms around her. His body ached to be joined with hers. He wanted to be buried inside her until she became a part of him.

Kay was as eager as he. Her lips parted in anticipation, her breathing sped up. “And you want me?” she whispered.

He guided her hand to his rock-solid erection. “You tell me.”

Then without warning, she scooted her tush across the seat until her hot body was flush with his. She pressed those sweet, honeyed lips to the pulse at his throat and lightly bit down.

“What are you doing?” His voice was so husky, so soaked with desire, he could scarcely hear his own words.

“Take me home with you,” she whispered. “Make love to me right now.”

He shook his head. “We can’t. Because you’re still not ready.”

MILLS & BOON

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Dear Reader,

Last year it was my good fortune to travel to Alaska. Never have I been so awestruck as I was by our great forty-ninth state. On my journey I met many colorful, vibrant Alaskans. It takes a special breed to live in the land of the midnight sun, where extremes of temperature and light challenge even the most hearty souls. For weeks after my trip I couldn’t stop thinking about the place.

From the northern lights to the breathtaking glaciers to the quaint little tourist towns, Alaska got into my blood. And I began to ask myself What if? What if there were four very handsome, very studly Alaskan bachelors who really wanted to get married but couldn’t because of a shortage of women? And what if those bachelors decided to advertise for wives in the lower forty-eight states?

And so the idea for THE BACHELORS OF BEAR CREEK was born. Some of the bachelors were funny guys, some very sensual. Clearly they fit in two camps. So I wrote the books as a cross-line miniseries between Blaze and Duets. Look for Sexy, Single and Searching and Eager, Eligible and Alaskan. I can only hope I’ve done justice to the great land of Alaska and the wonderful people who live there!

Lori Wilde

Books by Lori Wilde

HARLEQUIN DUETS

40—SANTA’S SEXY SECRET

50—I LOVE LACY

63—BYE, BYE BACHELORHOOD

—COAXING CUPID

A TOUCH OF SILK
Lori Wilde

TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

To Birgit Davis-Todd,

who gave me the chance to write about my wild, sexy

Alaskans. And to my inspiration—the great state of Alaska.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

1

THE PANTY HOSE were killing him. Cutting his gut clean in two. Whoever invented the torturous things should be strangled outright. No mercy shown.

Sheer, black, tight. They clung like second skin to the most exquisitely shaped pair of legs he’d ever seen. Narrow ankles, smooth rounded calves, supple knees and firm thighs.

She crossed her legs and the panty hose murmured a soft whisper. Swish.

And what about that dark seam running up the back? Simply sin-sational!

Lord have mercy on an Alaskan man’s soul. He’d never witnessed such sights in his hometown of Bear Creek. For a second there Quinn Scofield thought he would have to ask the flight attendant for an oxygen mask.

Boldly he peered over the top of his Wilderness Guide Monthly at the blond, sleek-haired, Charlize Theron look-alike. She sat in first-class seat 1B, one diagonal row up from his position in 2C. She and her dynamite hosiery, presumably on their way to JFK, had boarded the plane during the layover at O’Hare, but not once had she glanced behind her. Instead, she had been studiously typing into her laptop computer for the past thirty minutes.

This one was too cool for school and she knew it. Polished, classy, undeniably an urbanite, she was definitely not the kind of woman he was searching for. But man, did she ever rev his engines. Without the slightest provocation, he could easily imagine those fine, gorgeous limbs wrapped around his midsection or slung over his shoulders in the throes of serious sex.

“Real hottie, isn’t she?” his seatmate, a paunchy, middle-aged businessman who’d had one too many whiskey sours, slurred, and nodded at the woman.

“She’s very attractive, yes,” Quinn agreed, but kept his voice low so she wouldn’t overhear.

Unfortunately the other man’s volume control had been affected by his alcohol intake. He leaned close in a confidential manner, nudged Quinn in the ribs and winked boldly. “I’d do her in a New York minute. Know what I mean?”

Slowly Charlize turned and pinned them both with an icy glare. Quick, like a little boy chastised, the businessman looked away. But Quinn didn’t flinch. He’d been dying for a glimpse of those eyes, and he wasn’t going to let his seatmate’s bad manners deprive him of the thrill.

Their gazes met.

And he wasn’t disappointed. Her eyes were as compelling as the rest of her. Sharp, slightly almond-shaped, the color of dark chocolate.

His heart did a triple axel, then dropped, ker-plunk, into his stomach. He’d always had a weakness for brown-eyed blondes. Quinn smiled, giving her his best George-Clooney-on-the-make imitation.

Charlize didn’t return the favor.

“Hi,” he greeted her boldly. “How you doin’?”

For a minute there he thought she might speak.

Her lips parted. Her eyes widened. A hint of a smile hovered.

Come on, sweetheart, give it up.

His hopes lodged in his throat. Suddenly his imagination transported him back to the fifth grade. He remembered sneaking off during recess to play spin the bottle with his classmates in the basement of Seward Middle School with the singular hope of kissing Mindy Lou Johnson.

But then Charlize cruelly shattered his dreams. Without a word, she flicked her gaze away, as if he was of no more significance than a pesky fly, and went back to her laptop.

Snubbed! Okay, that’s what he got for daring to speak to the Queen of Cool.

Quinn tried to focus on his magazine, but he couldn’t concentrate. Eventually, his gaze found its way back to those legs. Eighteen months without the comforts of female companionship was a far stretch to go.

That’s how long it had been since his ex-girlfriend Heather had turned down his marriage proposal. She’d told him that no matter how much she might love him, she could never be more than a fair weather Alaskan. The winters were just too harsh.

Heather begged him to move to Cleveland, but Quinn figured he must not have loved her as much as he thought. He had not yet met the woman who could convince him to leave his home. Alaska was in his blood, his heart, his soul. But man alive, sometimes those long, dark winter nights got really lonely.

Some of his friends had told him he was too stubborn, letting his love of Alaska overrule his heart. They said if he didn’t learn to compromise, he’d never find true love. But others had congratulated him on sticking to his guns. He was an Alaskan man, and only a woman willing to become an Alaskan wife could make him happy.

At thirty-two Quinn was ready for a family of his own, but he knew it would take a very special lady to make her home in Bear Creek. Elegant thing like Charlize Theron there, with her fancy panty hose and her hundred-dollar haircut, would be crushed by the regal brutality of the Alaskan landscape. Nope, pretty she might be, but he needed someone tough and strong and resilient. Someone like his younger sister, Meggie. Or at least how Meggie used to be before she married Jesse Drummond and moved off to Seattle to fulfill her dream of becoming a city girl. Trouble was, in Bear Creek, men outnumbered women ten to one.

In the meantime he wasn’t opposed to studying Charlize for sheer enjoyment. He tried to imagine her in Alaska and had to smile. No Broadway theater. No champagne-and-black-tie charity events for cultural enrichment. In Bear Creek if you wanted to raise money for, say, the volunteer fire department, you threw a salmon bake, got a keg of beer, slapped some hard-driving music on your CD player and let it go at that.

From where he sat, Quinn could only see her profile and those elegant hands tapping away at the keyboard. Her nose was perfectly shaped. Exquisite, in fact. Not too big, not too small. Not too sharp, not too soft.

Her cheekbones—Quinn could see just one, but he knew the other matched—were as high and sculpted as any fashion model’s. Her firm but feminine chin was an artist’s dream. And that mouth! Full, but not overblown like those Hollywood actresses who had their lips shot full of collagen. Lips currently adorned with lipstick the same russet shade as an Alaskan summer sunset.

Oh, this one was a fascinating combination of fire and ice, all right. Her regal demeanor shouted “You’re never gonna get it,” but those panty hose and spike-heeled shoes gave totally conflicting messages. Deep down she was a sensual woman aching to shake off that repressed disposition.

She closed her laptop and settled it under her seat. Her pencil dropped to the floor, unnoticed.

Quinn, never one to let good sense hold him back from something he wanted, seized the opportunity. Leaning forward, he tapped her gently on the shoulder.

“Miss?”

She jerked her head around and stabbed him with a hard, what-do-you-want-from-me-wilderness-boy expression. No doubt she was accustomed to strange men making passes at her, and she’d perfected that “hands off” look to quell even the most ardent admirer in his tracks. A necessary skill for a woman who dressed like that.

“You dropped your pencil.” He pointed.

Her expression softened when she realized he wasn’t hitting on her—even though he was working up to that. The corners of her lips edged upward and she silently mouthed, “Thank you.”

Argh! Her simple thank-you struck like an arrow through the heart.

Yo, Mama, I think I’m in big-time lust.

When she leaned down to retrieve the pencil, she shifted her legs and her skirt rode up higher on her thigh. Quinn almost choked.

He spied the hint of something black and lacy. She straightened, pencil in hand, and reached to tug her skirt down.

But it was too late. He already knew her secret.

She turned her head, met his eyes again and sent him a Mona Lisa smile.

Those were no panty hose.

The audacious woman was wearing a garter and stockings!

KAY FREEMONT casually took a compact from her purse.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t so casually. Maybe she wanted another peek at Paul Bunyan back there without turning around and giving him the satisfaction of knowing she was interested.

Not interested in a serious way, of course. She was trying to untangle herself from an unsatisfactory relationship, not get into a new one. She merely wanted to confirm that the broad-shouldered man clad in flannel and denim was indeed as ruggedly cute as she thought.

Kay might have worried her bottom lip with her teeth, so curious was she about this man, but many years of her mother’s nagging stopped her. Mustn’t smear one’s lipstick. Freemonts had a certain image to maintain.

She feigned using the compact mirror to pat her unmussed hair into place, but she angled it so she could see him. Secretly she’d always been sexually attracted to burly, outdoorsy men. Strong, physical men who played contact sports and repaired their own cars. Men who chopped wood and roasted raw meat over fire pits. Men who’d fight to the death to protect their women.

The fact that her boyfriend Lloyd was a slender, brainy, pacifistic vegetarian who didn’t even own a car, much less know how to work on one, did not escape her. But just because she daydreamed about extremely manly men didn’t mean she coveted a relationship with one. It was simply a sexual fantasy.

Besides some things were more important than sex. Companionship, for instance.

And Lloyd is such a great companion? He works eighty-hour weeks. And when was the last time he made love to you? Seven, eight weeks ago?

That wasn’t fair. She couldn’t lay blame solely at his feet. She was as busy as Lloyd.

And is it your fault that Lloyd has never satisfied you in bed?

Maybe it was her fault. Even though she spent a lot of time researching and writing how-to-improve-your-sex-life articles like “How to Achieve Multiple Orgasms” and “Tantric Sex, The New Revolution in Intimacy,” for the hottest women’s magazine in the country, Kay had yet to experience such lofty sensations herself.

Yes, she read and she read and she read. From classics like The Hite Report and The Story of O to the most up-to-date literature on the subject, she knew them all by heart. Kay understood the mechanics of sex, and she kept thinking that if she just gathered enough knowledge on the subject, one day she’d be able to scale her way to the stars.

Maybe she should see a counselor, instead.

Or maybe you should just have a wild, uninhibited fling. I bet Paul Bunyan’s got what it takes to please a woman. Did you get a load of those hands? If it’s true what they say about the size of a man’s hands and the size of his…

Kay tilted the mirror to the right to get a better look.

Paul Bunyan’s upper arms were as big as her thighs. For some illogical reason, this thought made her shiver. He was so very large and seemed to be constructed of pure steel. He was tall and muscular and solid. She imagined he could toss her over his shoulder more easily than she could pick up a tea bag. He possessed hair the color of aged whiskey and sultry gray eyes that snapped with surprising intelligence.

His shirt was a comforting shade of blue, and he had the sleeves rolled up a quarter turn, giving her a peek of sexy forearms offset by a thick, leather-banded watch. Nice. Very nice. Just the right amount of hair. Kay had a weakness for sexy forearms.

She licked her lips, forgetting all about smearing her lipstick. A weighted feeling settled over her and made her blood flow hot and sluggish as the erotic sensation drifted down to wedge heavily between her legs. She wondered what would happen if she stood up and walked toward him. What would he do if she bent down to his ear and with a seductive whisper invited him to become a member of the mile-high club with her? Tingles dove down her spine.

If she pivoted on her heel and sashayed to the lavatory, would he follow?

She swallowed hard past the lump in her throat. What a tight fit! The two of them crammed into an airplane lavatory. It would require some maneuvering. Kay stared so hard into the mirror of her compact that her vision blurred and she was transported.

He lifts her up on the counter; his eyes fill with heated desire. He takes one of those big hands and, starting at her right ankle, he oh-so-slowly moves it up her leg, past the curve of her calf, to the bend of her knee. She gasps at his touch. His callused fingertips snag her stockings, tearing them until she resembles a lady of the evening after a long night of selling pleasure.

Then his other hand starts its journey up her left leg. He moves closer, and she wraps her legs around his waist. The top of her head is resting against the restroom mirror, and her back is arched. He stares into her eyes, captivated. Clearly he thinks she is the most exquisite creature on the face of the earth.

His right hand goes farther. Moving up her knee inch by inch. Her skirt hikes high. The sensations are incredible. His rough fingers sliding over her bare skin, the cold sink beneath her bottom, the feel of his hard waist against the inside of her legs. She feels a million things at once, and they are all good.

He’s still looking at her, but not saying a single word. He smells delicious, like Christmas trees and woodsmoke and leather. She feels herself moisten with desire. She wants him like a lion wants a lamb.

“Kiss me,” she commands him in a bossy voice.

He dips his head. His hands are on her thighs, palms splayed. He’s so close, but he doesn’t lower his lips to hers. He’s teasing. There’s a naughty gleam in his eye.

“What will you give me for a kiss?” he asks.

His voice is heart-stoppingly sexy. A resonant sound that fills her ears like the loveliest bass instrument. Her pulse throbs at her throat. She’s hot all over. Hot and wet and desperate.

“I’ll give you whatever you want,” she whimpers.

“I want you to touch me,” he says. “Here.”

And then he takes her hand and guides it to the bulge straining against the zipper of his blue jeans. She eases down the zipper, slips her hand inside. He’s going commando, no underwear. She touches him.

It’s so big. So hard. So hot. Scalding. He smells of musky male, and her excitement escalates. He groans and closes his eyes.

At the same time as she’s touching him, his hand is busy snaking up her thigh to hook a finger around the waistband of her panties.

She moans. He crushes his mouth to hers.

He tastes too good to be true. Not the finest caviar in her mother’s pantry, not even the most expensive bottle of French champagne in her father’s cellar can compete with his flavor.

Her palm is pressed hard against his erection, which seems to keep growing and growing and growing. His tongue is a menace, dazzling her with moves she never thought possible.

“I want you inside me.”

“No. Not yet. First, I’m going to make you beg.”

She whimpers again.

“That’s right.” He nods. “This has been a long time coming.”

Her nipples tighten. She wriggles her hips. Her panties are whisked off.

“What are you doing?”

“Hush, woman,” he growls. “Hush and enjoy. You deserve everything I’m going to give you and so much more. You drive me wild.”

She glows at his words. Men have told her she’s beautiful before, but no one has ever told her she drives him wild. He’s telling her exactly what she needs to hear, and she loves him for it. She feels incredibly powerful that she’s controlling such a big man with her sexuality.

Then he goes to work with his fingers.

He’s stroking her inner thigh, and then he trails his fingertips inward. He’s doing something that makes her eyes roll back in her head with sheer ecstasy.

Oh, gawd, what that intoxicating hand is doing at the apex of her womanhood!

She writhes against him, clutches his shoulders with both hands, digs her fingers into his flesh through the soft flannel of his shirt.

His movements are gentle but firm. The pressure builds. No man has ever caressed her in quite this way. It’s as if he knows exactly how to make her cry out for more. She’s never been this excited, this desperate, this famished for a man’s body.

“Don’t stop,” she pleads.

He grins. For a moment she fears he’ll stop simply to taunt her. But to her relief he keeps going. And going. And going.

She feels as if she’s riding a roller coaster. Chugging up, up, up. Breath held in anticipation of the rapturous plunge.

She’s close. So very close. Teetering on the verge. One more second. Oh, yes. Yes. She’s just about to—

“Miss?” The flight attendant’s voice slammed her rudely back to earth.

“Yes,” Kay gasped, feeling breathless, edgy and achy.

“Would you care for another beverage?”

She shook her head. The flight attendant moved on down the aisle. Then Kay realized she was still holding the compact. She glanced into the mirror one last time and was horrified to see Paul Bunyan staring right at her.

Their eyes met in the mirror’s reflection. Her heart raced. Her mouth went dry. He gave her a cocksure smile as if he knew exactly what she’d been thinking.

Flushed and flustered, Kay snapped the compact closed and dropped it into her purse. She burned weak, shaky, her entire body swamped in heat. This wouldn’t do. She had to compose herself. Immediately, if not sooner.

Unbuckling her seat belt, she got up, slipped into the lavatory and locked the door. Bad idea. This was the scene of the fictitious crime, and she couldn’t escape her own mind.

She wet a paper towel, pressed it first to the back of her neck, then to the hollow of her throat and took several long, slow, deep breaths. For the past few months she’d been plagued by uncontrollable sexual fantasies. It was quite embarrassing, really. As if she was some kind of X-rated, female Walter Mitty.

Perhaps a fling was in order. Find someone to pop her cork, as it were. Perhaps that would put an end to these persistent flights of sexual fancy.

Kay pinched the bridge of her nose to ward off more blushing. This was simply ridiculous. She had to stop entertaining such unsuitable thoughts about total strangers. She took several more deep breaths, tossed the damp towel into the trash, then ran her fingers through her hair. There. She looked fine. Perfectly normal. Perfectly in control. No one would suspect anything to the contrary.

The plane lurched, jostling her as she unlocked the accordion-style door and tried to shove it open, but the silly thing stuck.

The plane pitched again, throwing Kay forward. She put a hand on the door hinges to brace herself, and the door folded open. She raised her head in alarm.

And found herself tumbling headlong into Paul Bunyan’s arms, as if he’d been waiting outside the door just to catch her when she fell.

2

“WHY, HELLO.” Quinn smiled down into the face of a goddess.

What compelled him to trail her to the lavatory, he couldn’t say. Maybe it was that sassy, controlled walk of hers that hypnotized him. Maybe it was her contradictory aura, pushing and pulling him in two different directions. Or maybe it was plain old horniness on his part.

But now he sure was glad he’d followed her. If he hadn’t been there to catch her, she would have pitched head first into the bulkhead opposite the lavatory and bruised her pretty face, and that would have been a crying shame.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Fine,” she whispered.

Her voice surprised him. One more irreconcilable fact that added to her allure. He’d expected her tone would be more cultured, aloof, cool and reserved. Instead, the sexy sound of her had him remembering all those nights during high school and college that he’d spun records of throaty-voiced female blues singers at his family’s tiny radio station in Bear Creek.

Unblinking, the goddess met his gaze and held it. The impact slugged him. Her sultry eyes, dark as coffee and surrounded by lashes as impossibly thick as paintbrushes, snagged something deep inside him and refused to let go.

In the brief, endless moment he held her in his arms, he noticed everything about her.

The tiny mole at the left corner of her mouth. The smooth, expertly penciled arch of her brow. The erratic throbbing of her pulse in the hollow of her neck. The slim curve of her waist. Her rich, fresh scent that made him ache to bury his nose in her hair and breathe deeply.

And the unnerving realization that beneath her ultrasoft silk blouse and bra, her nipples were puckered.

It wasn’t cold in the plane’s cramped confines. In fact, it was very, very hot.

Had her breasts hardened in response to him? Quinn almost groaned aloud at the thought.

Was he reading too much into this casual encounter? Was his desire for one last fiery sexual adventure before he found a wife and settled down for good feeding into his imagination and causing him to misread her reaction?

Her lips parted, and he could see the pink tip of her tongue pressing against her top teeth. She looked as if she might say something to him, but she didn’t.

Oh, Lord, he could feel her stockings rub against the leg of his jeans as she shifted in his arms.

So many thoughts raced through his brain it seemed as if eons had passed. But it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds since she’d toppled into his embrace.

She raised a hand to her cheek to brush away a strand of golden hair. He tracked her movement, peered into those compelling brown eyes once more.

And stumbled. Literally lost his balance as the plane hit another pocket of turbulence. He tipped backward, taking Charlize with him.

They ended up in the middle of the aisle, a jumble of arms and legs. The fall hadn’t knocked the air from his lungs, but nonetheless, he found it hard to breathe with her lying on his chest.

“Are you okay?” There was that breathy whisper again, uncertain, a bit nervous. And unless he missed his guess, tinged with an acute awareness of him as a man.

“Okay,” he replied, hating for this moment to end.

“Please take your seats,” a flight attendant said sharply as she rushed over. “And buckle yourselves in.”

“Let me help you up,” Charlize offered, rising to her feet with amazing agility and grace for a woman wearing three-inch heels and a mean pair of stockings.

He almost laughed at the notion of a slender branch like her helping a tree trunk like himself to his feet. But he liked the idea of touching her again, so he put out his hand, which dwarfed hers, and allowed her to tug him.

Quinn pushed against the floor of the plane, and his own momentum brought him to a standing position. The top of her sleek head only came to his armpit. Her hip was level with his upper thigh. She seemed as perfect and delicate as the first butterfly of spring.

Without a doubt she was the most exquisite woman he’d ever met. Her straight blond hair was cut in a polished style and appeared as finely spun as silk. Her complexion was flawless, except for a small scar below her right earlobe. He had an almost overpowering urge to explore that scar with the tip of his tongue.

How he wanted to say something more to her, to do something more with her, but the frowning flight attendant was clucking her tongue and waving at them to take their seats. Charlize scooted past him, her breasts lightly brushing his upper arm, causing a brushfire to leap up his nerve endings, and made her way to her seat.

Kay was practically panting as she clicked the seat belt in place around her waist. Her heart pounded, blood suffused her skin. She couldn’t believe what had just happened and her body’s heated response to a stranger. Touching him had been far more electric, far more satisfying than her wildest imaginings.

She didn’t look up, because she knew he was still standing there staring at her as if he’d been struck with a bolt from the blue. What was the matter with him? Didn’t they have women wherever it was he was from?

“You sure you’re all right?” He squatted in the aisle beside Kay, defying the angry flight attendant, who looked as if she wanted to tie him into his seat but was too quelled by his size to approach.

“I’m fine, don’t worry about me. Please, for your own safety, sit down.”

“If you need me, I’m right behind you.” He touched her wrist with his massive paw, and her blood slipped through her veins like quicksilver. Intense. So intense. If she closed her eyes, she could see the two of them in a forest. Walking. Alone. On a bed of soft, mossy ground. The sunlight flitting through the trees.

Stop it, stop it, stop it. Don’t you dare go into another sexual fantasy, Kathryn Victoria Freemont!

She raised her hand to her face. The hand that had been wrapped in his. She smelled of him. Robust, masculine. Like pine needles, wilderness and soap. A shiver she could not suppress overtook her body. She could easily imagine him back there in his seat watching her with eagle eyes.

What was it about this man that so stirred her blood? What was it that made her feel giddy and girlish and oh-so-happy to be alive?

Kay was kidding herself, and she knew it. Just because he made her feel desirable didn’t mean she was licensed to jump his bones. She didn’t even know the guy’s name. What he made her feel was simply a reflection of her wishful thinking. She wanted rescuing from her life, and he was a convenient escapist illusion.

Because lately, nothing in her current experiences seemed to satisfy her. Not her relationship with her parents, who were pressuring her to marry Lloyd and produce an heir. Certainly not her romance with Lloyd, if you could even call what they had a romance.

Lloyd had proposed to her by e-mail two days ago in a manner as romantic as a root canal. His exact message had been “Your father says he’ll make me partner if we’re married by the end of the summer, guess it’s time to do the deed.”

Whoopee! Sweep a girl right off her feet, why don’t you?

She’d ignored Lloyd’s e-mail, pretending she hadn’t yet seen the missive, because she wasn’t ready to deal with it, and surprise, surprise, he hadn’t even called her in Chicago to see why she hadn’t responded.

And even her job as a reporter for Metropolitan magazine no longer fulfilled her as it once had.

“What happened to you?” she whispered to herself, grateful no one was seated next to her. “In college, you dreamed of writing novels and having adventures and taking a lover that was as kind and considerate and understanding as he was good in bed. Where did that girl go?”

It seemed her entire youth had been spent trying to please Mommy and Daddy and striving to be the perfect Freemont. Her one tiny insurrection had been insisting on studying journalism rather than art history, as her mother had wished.

“Lloyd Post comes from blueblood stock, dear, just like you,” her mother had told her when she called the day before to see if Kay had gotten Lloyd’s e-mailed proposal. Apparently Lloyd had already discussed it with her parents. Would have been nice if he’d talked things over with her first. “Give his proposition some serious thought. You could do worse than marrying him.”

Hmm, what was worse than binding yourself for life to a man who virtually ignored you for weeks on end? What was worse than until death do you part with a man who didn’t even care where your G-spot was located? What was worse than spending the next forty years beside a guy with whom you had absolutely nothing in common other than the fact you were both filthy rich with impeccable pedigrees?

Let’s see, what was worse than marrying Lloyd Post?

Well, owing money to the Mafia had to be a bummer. Being stranded in the desert with no water wasn’t cool. Having oral surgery wasn’t a blast. So yes, Mommy, you’re absolutely right. There are worse things than marrying Lloyd.

But there were so many better things, too.

Like taking that rugged woodsman to bed?

She tried to picture what would happen if she was to walk into her parents’ house on Paul Bunyan’s arm and announce they were engaged. Laughable! Even she, of the overactive imagination, could not conceive of such an event.

Helplessly she found her head drawn to the right, her eyes peeping surreptitiously over her shoulder.

And there he was, just as she knew he’d be. Staring at her and not a bit ashamed of his unabashed appreciation.

He was pure testosterone in a huge package that proclaimed, “I’ll never let any harm come to you.” It was a heady promise. Between his protective attitude and his raw animal magnetism, the man oozed an essential sexiness that called to something wild within her. Like a wolf to his mate. Something primal and elemental she hadn’t known she possessed until now.

She deserved to be happy. She deserved to be sexually satisfied, and she deserved far better than settling for Lloyd Post. In reality she knew Paul Bunyan did not figure into her future, but regardless, meeting him at this juncture had changed her. It was time she stood up to her parents and started living her own life. It was past time she found out what she’d been missing.

QUINN PLANNED to waylay her in the jetway, help her with her luggage, hail her a taxi, get her phone number and ask her out to dinner. In fact, he was so excited about the idea that he’d kept shifting restlessly in his seat, unable to think of anything else.

But when the plane landed at JFK, she leaped from her seat the minute the flight attendants opened the door. Quinn got up to follow her, but an elderly lady sitting across the aisle asked him to retrieve her carry-on bag from the overhead bin. What else could he do? By the time he made his way into the terminal, Charlize had vanished as if she’d never existed.

He looked left, then right, but the crowd had swallowed her. How could she have disappeared so quickly?

Damn!

He hadn’t mistaken her interest in him, no matter how cool she liked to play it. The attraction had been instant and physical. No denying her raspy breathing when he’d held her in his arms, no hiding her aroused nipples. She’d wanted him, all right.

So why had she run away?

Maybe she was married, the thought occurred to him, but he didn’t recall seeing a ring on that delicate third finger of her left hand.

Ah, well. Quinn wasn’t the sort to cry over spilt milk. He took a deep breath and headed for the baggage claim. Nothing to be done about it now. He tried to push her from his thoughts.

But despite his best intentions, he couldn’t help feeling he’d lost out on something pretty darn terrific.

“KAY, COME HERE, you’ve got to see this.” Her editor, Judy Nessler, stood in the doorway of Kay’s office on Monday morning, grinning from ear to ear and crooking a bejeweled finger at her.

Kay frowned and glanced up from the piece she was working on about finding love on the Internet. She’d gone to Chicago to interview a couple who’d met in an online chat room, and she had her notes spread out on the desk around her. Included in the pile were copies of the spicy messages the couple had posted to each other during their courtship. Reading the sizzling missives had her feeling oddly cranky.

“What is it, Judy?”

“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.”

She wasn’t in the mood for Judy’s guessing games. It had been almost twenty-four hours since her plane ride with Paul Bunyan, but she couldn’t seem to stop spinning fantasies about him. How could the thought of one man make her ache so badly?

Nor had she been able to locate Lloyd in order to pin him down for a dinner date to discuss his marriage proposal in person, and he hadn’t yet returned the call she had left on his answering machine.

“I’m in the middle of something,” Kay said.

“Just come with me.”

Sighing, Kay pushed away from her desk and followed Judy down the corridor to the advertising department. As usual, the room was abuzz with activity. But atypically, all the activity seemed concentrated in the middle of room. Centered, in fact, around a skyscraper-size man who had his back to them.

A man clad in red flannel and blue denim. His head was cocked to one side and he was laughing at something one of the blushing assistants had said. Kay’s pulse momentarily stuttered to a stop. She raised a hand to her throat.

No. It couldn’t be.

Judy leaned in close and whispered, “You don’t see guys like him traipsing up Fifth Avenue every day of the week.”

Please, don’t let it be Paul Bunyan, Kay prayed, but in her heart she knew.

Judy took her by the elbow and dragged her across the room like a reluctant puppy on a leash.

“Quinn,” Judy said. “I’d like you to meet Kay Freemont, one of our top writers.”

Slowly he pivoted on one booted heel, an insouciant gleam in his eye. Then recognition hit. His brows sprung up on his forehead and the grin went from free and easy to downright seductive.

It was Paul Bunyan! What an awful coincidence.

Of all the magazine offices in Manhattan, he had to walk into mine.

Why was he here? Was this some kind of a sign, him showing up so unexpectedly? Was the universe trying to tell her something?

“Kay, this is Quinn Scofield from Bear Creek, Alaska.”

She stared at him.

He stared back at her.

Neither of them spoke.

The air around them seemed to vibrate with heat and energy and overpowering awareness.

Quinn. From Alaska. The Mighty Quinn. She should have known he would have a macho moniker. The name fit him like the mackinaw he wore.

Puzzled, Judy watched them watching each other. “Have you two already been introduced?”

“Actually, no.” Quinn didn’t even wait for Kay to offer her hand. He simply took it, and her blood puddled like melted butter in the pit of her stomach. “I’m very honored to make the acquaintance of such a lovely lady.”

Pul-leeze. Enough with the flattery. I just saw you flirting with that assistant.

And yet, a small frisson of pleasure spiraled through her body and lodged with stunning acuity in her most feminine parts. If anything, her attraction to him was even stronger than it had been the day before.

Scary.

When Kay finally tore her gaze from his face, she realized that all the single women—and more than a few of the married ones—in the room were looking at her as if she’d snatched a prized morsel of filet mignon from their mouths.

“Quinn’s come to New York looking for a wife,” Judy said.

A wife? Kay took a step backward.

She jerked a quick glance in Quinn’s direction and saw he was observing her reaction to Judy’s news. Oh, boy, and here she’d been dreaming of having a redhot fling with him. Well, certainly not now!

She’d just about decided to give old Lloyd the heave-ho and to tell her parents she was tired of living her life to suit them. She was ready to stretch her sexual wings and fly. She was not getting involved with a man who was looking for a commitment. No way. No matter how sexy he might be.

“He wants to place this full-page color ad with us.” Judy took the advertising copy from an assistant and handed it to Kay.

Full-page color-ad space in Metropolitan magazine didn’t come cheap.

“The four of us pitched in,” Quinn said, as if reading Kay’s mind. “The bachelors of Bear Creek.”

“Doesn’t that have a great ring to it?” Judy’s eyes glistened. Clearly she was enamored of Quinn, his buddies and their ad.

Kay stared down at the photograph in her hand and sucked in her breath. Pictured were four of the most gorgeous men she’d ever laid eyes on, one of them Quinn. They looked sexier and far more masculine than anything Madison Avenue could have dreamed up. The men wore blue jeans, devilish grins and nothing else, their hunky, well-muscled bare chests on prominent display.

In the photo Quinn was lounging on one end of a black leather couch. He was bigger than she’d even imagined, with the buffest biceps on the planet. Draped across the other side of the couch was a coal-haired, blue-eyed Adonis with a dreamy, angelic air about him. On the floor, perched atop a bearskin rug, sat a dishy blond man with more charisma than a movie star, and another dark-eyed man with a lantern jaw and deep-set brown eyes. All four men were looking straight into the camera as if staring into the eyes of a beautiful woman.

Her gaze went from the one-dimensional, bare-chested Quinn to the fully three-dimensional Quinn standing beside her, and she gulped.

“That’s Caleb Greenleaf,” he said, leaning over her shoulder and pointing to the Adonis. “He’s a naturalist for the state of Alaska. And that’s Jake Gerard and Mack McCaulley. Jake runs the local bed-and-breakfast, and Mack’s a bush pilot.”

But Kay wasn’t thinking about Caleb or Jake or Mack, no matter how good-looking they were. She was completely and totally distracted by Quinn’s warm breath fanning the hairs on the nape of her neck.

Her gut tripped. She inhaled sharply and caught the arresting scent of his subtle aftershave and heated male flesh. That delicious smell sent her senses reeling.

Shaking her head to dispel the sultry cocoon Quinn had woven around her, Kay returned her attention to the glossy paper in her hand. Beneath the photograph of the four very eligible bachelors was the provocative caption: Wild Women Wanted!

“Do you have what it takes to be a wilderness wife?” was the first line of copy.

For absolutely no reason at all, Kay’s heart fluttered. That line shouldn’t have titillated her. She definitely did not have what it took to be a wilderness wife. She considered eating fast food roughing it. She had a low tolerance for cold weather, and she was scared to death of creatures like wolves and moose and bears.

Of course, if you had a man like Quinn to protect you from the cold and the critters, it might make Alaska a little more palatable. Still, a life without four-star restaurants, Broadway shows and department stores was too dismal to consider.

“I love this whole idea,” Judy was chattering to Quinn. “Sexy bachelors forced to advertise in the lower forty-eight states to find wives. It’s romantic. It’s enchanting. It’s a modern-day fairy tale. Our readers will eat it up. In fact, I’d like to run a feature article on the four of you.”

“We could hold a contest,” Kay volunteered, her marketing instincts kicking in, despite the fact that she really wanted nothing more to do with this particular bachelor and his wife hunt. “In thirty words or less tell us why you’d like to win a free trip to Bear Creek, Alaska. That sort of thing.”

“Fabulous!” Judy enthused, and patted Kay’s cheek. “You’re such a dynamo. I knew you’d have something valuable to say. I love the idea. Simply love it. Then we can do a follow-up story on the contest winner. And who knows, if any of the guys find a wife as a direct result of the ad, we can do follow-up articles all through the year. I’ll have to run this by Hal first, but I know he’s going to adore it, too.”

Kay shrugged, playing it cool as always. Freemonts never acted too eager.

“So what do you say, Kay? Ready to pack your bags and spend a couple of weeks in Alaska?” Judy asked.

“What?” She shook her head, thrown off by Judy’s question. “Me go to Alaska?”

“Well,” Quinn said, “late February probably isn’t the best time of year to visit. When I left home, it was ten below.”

“No kidding?” Judy whistled. “That is cold. But if we want the article to run with your ad in our June issue, then there’s no time to waste. Kay can do it. She’s pretty intrepid, aren’t you, darling?”

Ten degrees below zero! Kay shivered at the very idea. “Are you nuts?”

“Come on, where’s your spirit of adventure?” Judy goaded her. “Besides, it’s perfect for the article. You can tell the readers firsthand that being an Alaskan wife is not for the faint of heart. Marriage-minded, handsome, successful bachelors do not come without some kind of price tag.”

Kay shook her head. She was not going to Alaska—it would give Quinn the wrong idea. He might start thinking she was interested in becoming his bride. Besides, she had to settle things with Lloyd. “I’m sorry, I can’t commit to this project right now—I’ve got too much on my plate. Why don’t you ask Carol? I’m sure she’d love to go.”

Was it her imagination, or did Quinn look disappointed? The notion that he wanted her to come to Alaska did strange things to Kay’s insides.

“Don’t give me your answer yet,” Judy said. “I still have to talk to Hal. Then you can make up your mind. How’s that sound?”

“All right, but don’t tell Hal that I’ve agreed to sign on yet.”

“Understood. Now why don’t you take Quinn to lunch? In fact, take the rest of the afternoon off. Show him New York. Since you’re practically engaged, I know you won’t be a threat to his bachelorhood and snatch him off the market before the ad even has a chance to run.”

3

PRACTICALLY ENGAGED.

So that explained why she’d fled from the airplane before he’d had a chance to ask her name. She’d been as attracted to him as he was to her, and very clearly disturbed by that attraction because she was in a serious, committed relationship.

Damn.

And he’d come to New York in person, rather than handling the details of placing the ad over the phone or through the mail, not only because he was considering purchasing new wilderness gear from a sporting goods outfit run by an old friend, but because he’d secretly hoped to have one last sexual adventure before seriously beginning his wife search.

With all his heart and soul, Quinn believed in monogamy. His parents, who’d had a solid, loving marriage for forty years and still counting, provided him with a blueprint. Once he made a commitment to a woman, he’d be hers for life. But until he found her, well, he was a red-blooded male, after all. He had physical needs. Needs that were growing stronger by the minute.

He’d known from the moment he’d watched Kay Freemont board the plane that he wanted her, and then to find her working in the office of Metropolitan magazine—unbelievable! He’d taken it as a positive sign that she was supposed to be his passionate last fling. But now, to discover that she was practically engaged. Where did that leave him? He wasn’t the sort of guy who came between a woman and her almost fiancé.

Then again, what the hell did “practically engaged” mean, anyway? Quinn ran a hand through his hair. Where he came from, either you were engaged or you weren’t. Maybe it was a New York thing.

“Well.” Kay nodded and looked rather uncomfortable with the assignment of baby-sitting him for the rest of the afternoon. “Well.”

Had her boss’s edict to wine and dine him left her at a loss for words? Or was it something more? Was it meeting him again?

Dream on, Scofield.

And yet, that was exactly what he wanted to do. Dream on and on and on of taking her to bed. Seeing her in her work environment, amid people who obviously admired and respected her, looking so professional and self-possessed in that short-skirted purple business suit made him crave her even more. Did she have any earthly idea what those magnificent legs of hers did to a man? Women who were practically engaged and possessed legs like Thoroughbreds should not be allowed to wear skirts like that! There oughtta be a law.

Damn, but the woman blew him away! Her cocoa-brown eyes simmered with a suppressed sexuality that begged to be brought to a boil. When he had turned and spied her beside Judy Nessler, adrenaline walloped him in the gut.

Now, simply standing here next to her, inhaling her scent—a fetching combination of vanilla ice cream and sharply scented cinnamon sticks—his body came alive. To the point where he wished for a bucket of ice cubes to chill his throbbing member.

“Your cologne smells nice. What’s it called?”

“White Heat.”

He angled her a glance. “White Heat, huh? It suits you.”

“Pardon?”

He could tell by the way she pursed her lips that he’d unnerved her. “You’re like white heat. You’ve got this cool, outer demeanor, but inside, there’s a deep, smoldering flame.”

She gulped. He watched her struggle to control her features. She hated giving away her thoughts, he realized, and she’d mastered the art of suppressing her emotions.

How he longed to unsuppress her. To teach her how to open up and say exactly what was on her mind.

“Uh, let me get my bag and coat and change my shoes.” She gestured in the direction of what he supposed was her office. “And we can grab some lunch.”

She dashed away, leaving him to rein in his hormones, and returned a few minutes later wearing a black leather coat with an oversize purse thrown over her shoulder and a pair of Nikes on her feet. He almost laughed at the sight of her in that glamorous business suit and shod in running shoes, but once they were out on the street, he noticed a lot of the women similarly dressed. He commented on it.

“Try walking twelve blocks in high heels. You’d carry a spare pair of sneakers in your bag, too.”

“We don’t even have blocks in Bear Creek.” He grinned.

She gave him a strange look as if he was speaking Mandarin. And it struck him then how different their lives were. He could survive alone in the Alaskan wilderness for weeks if necessary, but in New York City, he feared being unable to survive something as simple as crossing the street. He couldn’t understand how people lived here day in and day out. The pollution, the noise, the crowds. Eventually it had to drive you out of your mind.

Kay stepped off the curb and raised her hand. A taxi glided to a stop at their feet.

How’d she do that? he marveled. When he’d tried to get a taxi to carry him to the magazine office, he’d been ignored. Was he so obviously an out-of-towner? Or did she know some taxi-halting secrets? Then again, if he was a cab driver, he would willingly risk whiplash to jam on the brakes for those legs.

Quinn moved to open the taxi door for her. Kay gave him an odd look, then scooted across the back seat of the cab to make room for him.

“You don’t have to do the he-man routine with me.”

“What?” He stared at her, puzzled.

Kay could tell he had no clue what she was talking about. “You know. First the door to the building, now the cab. I can open my own doors, you know.”

“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend. It’s just habit. My mother drilled good manners into my head. I’ll try to stop if you want.”

“No. Please forget I mentioned it.”

She immediately felt badly for saying anything. She had to remember he was an Alaskan and obviously rather old-fashioned. He probably carried a clean hankie in his shirt pocket at all times in case some damsel burst into tears. Plus, she was accustomed to Lloyd only opening doors for her when they were around other people. Putting on a show to impress his business associates.

Honestly, she’d never met anyone quite like Quinn.

Kay took him to a Cuban restaurant that served to-die-for mahi-mahi with mango chutney, black beans, rice and fried plantains. And as she suspected, he told her that he’d never tasted anything like this exotic fare as the food disappeared from his plate.

He also told her stories about Alaska. About his loyal friends and loving family. Then he asked her questions about New York. He spoke with such open animation, she was helplessly drawn to his enthusiasm. He didn’t play games, he didn’t pull punches. Her parents would probably have thought him too loud and too eager, but she found his down-to-earth candor refreshing.

“So tell me,” he said after he’d polished off the last crumb of key lime pie. “How long have you been ‘practically’ engaged.”

She could tell by the way he said “practically” that he found the notion ridiculous. “Lloyd and I have been dating four years.”

“Your guy’s commitment-phobic, huh? Hasn’t gotten around to popping the question, but you’re expecting him to?”

“No, that’s not it. I mean, well, actually, he did ask me to marry him a few days ago.”

“So you are engaged.” His tone was flat. She saw disappointment in his eyes.

“No.”

“You turned him down?” Hope flared fresh in his face, and the sight of his renewed optimism confused her.

“No.”

He frowned. “I don’t understand. You told him you’d think about it?”

“It didn’t happen that way. Listen, I really don’t feel comfortable discussing my personal life with you.”

“Okay.” He gave an easy shrug, but she could tell by the look in his eyes that he wanted to dig deeper. What she didn’t know was why, but she certainly wasn’t going to open up and spill her guts to a stranger.

Not even her closest friends knew what was in her heart. She’d been taught by her father, the cutthroat businessman, that the more people knew about you, the more they could use against you. Once, when she was a little girl, her father took her to work with him. When his secretary asked her if she’d rather be playing in the park, instead of touring a stuffy old building, Kay had responded with an enthusiastic yes. Her father then jerked her into his office and lectured her until her ears burned about expressing her true feelings to underlings. She never forgot that lesson.

Quinn cleared his throat. The waiter refilled their coffee cups.

“I’m sorry about what I said,” Kay said. “That sounded bitchy.”

“No need to apologize. You’re right. It’s none of my business. It’s just that if I was dating a woman like you, I wouldn’t have waited four years to ask you to marry me.”

“Which raises the question, if you’re not commitment-phobic yourself, how come you’ve stayed single so long?”

“Not a lot of women to choose from in Bear Creek. And most of the tourists that come to town are looking for a summer fling. And who’s to say I’ve never been married?”

“Have you?” Kay lifted an eyebrow. Although she hated answering personal questions herself, she had no compunction against asking them. Enjoyed it, in fact. Perhaps that’s what attracted her to journalism. The opportunity to discover the intimate details of others’ lives without revealing any information about her own.

“Came close once.”

“What happened?”

“Now I’m the one who’s uncomfortable discussing my private life.”

“Whoever writes the feature article on you is going to want to know the answer to these questions.”

“Then I’ll save the interview for that reporter.”

Silence.

“So in general, what qualities do you look for in a woman?” She spoke lightly, but every cell in her body stood at attention as she waited for his answer.

“I don’t really want a career woman. I know it sounds old-fashioned, but I see myself with a woman who’s mainly interested in making a home. I want kids. And I like the idea of providing for the woman in my life.”

“Oh, I see. The caveman mentality. Keep ’em barefoot and pregnant.”

“I don’t mind if she wants to work,” he expounded.

“But the children and I should be her priority. Just as she and the kids will be my top priority, not work, not a job. Family and friends. That’s what counts. Don’t look so disapproving. I’m being honest here.”

“I’m not disapproving. You’re misconstruing my expression. Besides, does it matter what I think?”

The truth was, she’d been thinking that she’d never heard a New York male express such a sentiment or, for that matter, even admit to wanting children. She found it oddly refreshing, even though one side of her wanted to argue that women could have both prosperous careers and happy, well-adjusted children if they learned how to juggle.

His gaze was on her face. He was running his index finger around and around the rim of his coffee mug in a slow, languid motion that made her feel dizzy with desire. “My ideal woman has to be tough. She’s got to be hardy enough to brave winters in Alaska.”

“What about beauty?”

“Beauty’s good, but not really important. I mean, there’s got to be sexual chemistry between us, but I’m not looking for perfection. On the contrary, I think a little sass, a little attitude spices things up.”

“Really?”

“And even though I’m ready to settle down, I’m not willing to settle. When I get married, it’ll be forever. Until then—” he grinned “—I’m up for whatever adventures come my way.”

“Oh.” At this, Kay took heart. Perhaps he might provide that illicit affair she was yearning for, after all.

“So what do you look for in a man, Kay Freemont?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Then how do you know if Mr. Practically Engaged is the right one for you?”

She winced. “Please, I—”

“Oh, right, no personal questions.”

“How long are you in town?” She changed the subject and wondered what she was going to do with the information. Wondered why her heart was pounding.

“I fly out at seven-thirty on Wednesday morning. Tomorrow I’ve got an all-day thing with my friend from Adventure Gear. I’m thinking of switching over to their climbing harnesses, and he’s taking me on a climb upstate.”

“Ah.” Her hopes plummeted. No time for a wild fling.

He reached across the table and lightly grazed her hand with the tips of his fingers. It shouldn’t have been an erotic gesture, but it was.

“You could come to Alaska,” he said, reading her thoughts as clearly as if they’d been etched on her face. His habit of expressing exactly what was on her mind was uncanny and, frankly, a little disturbing. “Write that article for your editor. We could have a lot of fun together, you and I. Why not consider it?”

Astounded by the sensations that surged through her at his touch, she slipped her hand away. She never did answer his question.

After lunch he wanted to see the Empire State Building, so off they went. Quinn moved through the crowd like a redwood among matchsticks. On more than one occasion, she noticed women’s heads turn as they shot him appreciative glances. She felt oddly jealous.

And strangely aroused.

More aroused, in fact, than she’d ever been.

While Quinn admired the view from the top of the Empire State Building, Kay admired Quinn.

She couldn’t seem to draw her gaze from the ripple of muscle in his forearm where he’d rolled back the sleeves of his mackinaw. It was as if he knew how much she loved sexy forearms and was simply taunting her with a view of his.

She studied his strong profile, raked her gaze down his shoulders to his back before stopping to blatantly admire his delectable fanny so prominently displayed in snug-fitting blue jeans.

Raising a hand to her throat, she inhaled deeply, hauling in an unsteady breath. Quinn turned from the railing, a wide, boyish grin on his face. Kay smiled back.

“Wow. So many people. So many buildings. So many yellow-checkered cabs.”

She nodded.

The wind gusted. Shivering, Kay used a pillar as a windbreak. She crossed her arms over her chest and danced from foot to foot.

“You’re cold,” he said, and she found it touching that he’d noticed. He stripped off his mackinaw.

“I can’t take your jacket. It’s freezing up here.”

“Honey,” he said, and she did not take offense at his easy endearment; rather, she found it kind of charming. “Where I’m from this would be considered a heat wave.”

He stepped closer and settled his mackinaw around her shoulders, wrapping her as tenderly as a mother swaddles her baby.

“Thank you.” Her voice emerged as a breathless whisper, and she realized they were the only people still on the observation deck. The cold had forced everyone else back inside.

“You’re welcome.”

Quinn peered down into her face and damned if little Miss Too-Cool-for-School didn’t look nervous. The tip of her tongue darted out to wet her upper lip. Was her gesture an unconscious invitation to kiss her? God, he hoped so, because he wanted to do that more than anything in the world.

“Uh—” she took a step backward “—perhaps we should go now.”

“Why?” His body was so very aware of hers. “Are you frightened?”

She forced a laugh. “Frightened of what? Heights?”

“Of this.”

Then, taking them both by surprise, he caught her upper arms in his hands, raised her to her toes and kissed her the way he’d been longing to kiss her since the moment he’d caught her in his arms on the airplane.

She yielded. Accepted him with ready acquiescence. Complied by parting her lips and letting him slip his tongue in deep to taste the honeyed, warm recesses of her mouth. Languidly his tongue glided against hers.

Lust, swifter, more vehement than anything he’d ever experienced, exploded inside him. And it was just a damned kiss.

His gut clenched hard. He could only imagine how his hardness sliding into her would feel, her slender arms entwined around his neck, her luscious tush cupped in his large palms.

He was not the kind of guy to sit idle on the sidelines. When he saw something he wanted, he went after it. But even he had never moved so fast or wanted anyone so strongly. He had no more control than a moose in rut. That’s what this woman did to him.

Had he shocked her with his boldness? Had he indeed moved too quickly?

But no, she moaned softly and leaned into him. Quinn swallowed the sound, tilting her head back, threading his fingers through her hair. The softness of those silken strands was in sharp contrast to the hardness building inside him.

Incredible. Simply incredible.

He forgot that she was practically engaged. He forgot that he didn’t steal other men’s women. He forgot that she was out of his league. He forgot everything except how wonderful she felt, how good she tasted.

Kay held her breath, dazed and ashamed. Freemonts did not act like this! They didn’t kiss strangers in public. They did not lose control. They did not succumb to wanton lust.

Good. Good. Good. Good.

She was no longer behaving like a Freemont, and it was liberating beyond description.

But what was she getting herself into?

Quinn, the Alaskan man who smelled of wilderness and tasted of mangoes and key lime pie, was giving her the most possessive kiss of her life. Branding her with his tongue, searing her with his passion.

She’d never experienced anything like it, certainly not with Lloyd or with that guy from college. Her heart did a triple backflip before taking on a frantic, galloping rhythm of thrill and response.

Up was down, down was up. Nothing made sense anymore, but it felt so right.

Was she indeed supposed to begin her journey of self-discovery with this man? Or was she kidding herself? Using his willingness as an excuse for acting out her long-hidden desires?

Splaying a hand on Quinn’s chest, Kay thought to push him away, but instead, she let her hand rest there, feeling his heartbeat and marveling that it pounded as forcefully as her own.

Even through his flannel shirt, she could feel his muscled flesh. In spite of the cold, he felt blisteringly hot and wonderfully solid against her palm. She realized he was coiled as tense as a snake waiting to strike. The comparison alarmed her. Did she really believe he might be dangerous? What was she doing? She didn’t know this man.

But that was rigid Freemont thinking, and more than anything she wanted to break free of the constraints of her old thought patterns. She wanted to stop berating herself, wanted to take some risks, inhale the danger, embrace the challenge, not fear it. She wanted to be fully alive. She wanted to replace fantasies with reality.

And Quinn was serving up huge helpings of reality on a silver platter.

Her knees were weak, her breath faint. How could one simple kiss do so many different things to her? Okay, it wasn’t such a simple kiss. It was more like an implosion. His mouth caused her insides to topple and collapse in on themselves.

He tugged her close against his body, bringing her in startling contact with his rock-hard erection. One of his hands slipped underneath the hem of her leather coat to caress her behind.

Oh, my!

Everything she was feeling was so new, so exciting, so unbelievable, and precisely like one of her fantasies.

Quinn pulled his mouth from hers at last, his breath coming in jerky gasps. Her lips felt swollen and wet, her body both tight and liquid at the same time. He rubbed his cheek against hers, setting her on fire. She quivered and he pressed his lips to her ear.

“Woman,” he whispered hoarsely, “I’m so turned on by you.”

In that moment she experienced a unique and exhilarating power. She, cool, poised Kay Freemont, had made this mountain of a man lose control. She wanted more from him, and that was all there was to it.

What would your parents think? What about Lloyd? the nagging voice that made her do all the right things for all the wrong reasons piped up.

To hell with her parents. To hell with Lloyd. She’d been the dutiful daughter for twenty-seven years, and where had it gotten her?

An orgasmless career woman practically engaged to a man who did not even love her.

Marshaling her courage, Kay took Quinn’s chin in her palm and looked him square in the eye. She’d never done anything like what she was about to do, and therein lay the thrill of it. She knew he would be a kind and gentle lover and maybe, just maybe, he would be the one to turn the key of her womanhood and lead her to new levels of physical joy.

His smoky-gray eyes met hers with a sheen of raw desire, and he did not look away. He didn’t even blink. He stared into her eyes as if he could peer right into the depths of her soul.

“Yes?” he growled. This talent he had for anticipating her thoughts was downright spooky.

“Would you like to go back to my place?” she asked breathlessly.

Quinn couldn’t believe his ears. “What? What did you say?”

She cleared her throat. “My place. You. Me. Now.”

He shook his head, unable to comprehend his good fortune. “Are you sure?”

“No. I’m not sure of anything, except that for once in my well-ordered, well-behaved life I need to do something irresponsible and unpredictable and capricious. So let’s go before I change my mind.”

She grabbed his hand and started pulling him toward the elevators.

“Whoa, wait a minute.” He dug in his heels and she couldn’t budge him. “I don’t want to be your biggest regret.”

“Well, you should have thought of that before you kissed me.”

“A kiss is one thing, Kay. Sex is something else entirely.”

“That’s what I’m counting on.” Her voice was husky, her eyes heavy-lidded.

He shook his head again. What was the matter with him? This was his fantasy. So why was he putting on the brakes? Was he out of his ever-loving mind?

“Please.”

Ah, this was killing him.

“You’re a beautiful woman, and I want to make love to you so badly I can taste it. But I don’t break up couples. And you’re practically engaged.”

“No. In fact, I was thinking I might break up with him.”

“You don’t love the guy?”

“I thought I did once. Or what passed for love. But lately I’ve come to understand that I don’t even know what love is,” she said. “My parents like Lloyd. They think we’re great together. They’re the ones pushing for this marriage.”

“You let your parents tell you who to date?”

She took a deep breath, waved a dismissive hand. “Let’s not talk about them. Let’s not talk at all.” She angled him a coy glance that almost brought him to his knees.

She looked so damned appealing standing there with the wind whipping his mackinaw around her shoulders, her golden hair falling across one cheek, her full lips pursed in fervid anticipation of his acquiescence, her hands cocked on her slender hips.

Much as he wanted to say yes, as much as he knew he’d be kicking himself tonight in his lonely hotel room, Quinn knew he had to turn her down.

He heaved in a heavy lungful of chilled air and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Kay, but I’ve got to say no.”

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