Fueling Her Fire (4 page)

He was single, she remembered Al mentioning, and alone—like
she was—on Christmas Eve. And she
did
have a bottle of wine and a warm
fire…until she ran out of wood, that is. She found herself growing excited at
the prospect of Mr. Dalton Run Reclamation coming to visit her on that snowy
night. She lost herself for a moment in a lumberjack fantasy…

“I don’t know,” he said, his voice was hesitant, but Kip
sensed an edge of playfulness. She pounced.

“I’ll pay you double the cost of a normal delivery. Think of
it as a Christmas bonus!”

He sighed, “Well, I guess I have to—I won’t sleep well
tonight knowing you’re out there in the woods by yourself without anything to
keep you warm… ” Now she was sure he was flirting with her too. She smiled into
the phone, looking down at her socked feet. She wriggled her toes on the
kitchen linoleum. Her problem was going to be solved and, as a bonus, maybe the
firewood guy would be handsome and lonely.

They agreed on a price and he made a plan. “I was just
heading out to some friends’ house for dinner—I’ll have to skip it now. Let me
swing by their house and drop off some presents and then I’ll load up the truck
and be on my way. If I hurry, I can get the wood stacked with the last bits of
light and be in bed before Santa comes.”

Maybe you won’t have to go far…
Jumping into bed with
a complete stranger was not normally Kip’s style, but she’d made the decision
to reclaim her sexual self and she was willing to explore anywhere that might
take her. A lonely lumberjack might be just what she needed on that cold, snowy
night.

“Thank you so, so much!” She didn’t try to hide her relief.
She would not be spending Christmas Eve alone in a cheap hotel room…
hallelujah!

He laughed genuinely and she felt it down to her toes.
“That’s okay,” he said, “maybe Santa will bring me something special for being
so nice.” Yeah, he was definitely flirting with her. She gave him the address
and he seemed to puzzle over it for a moment.

“Up Clay Ridge Road? Like, toward the top of the mountain?”

“Yes, will that be a problem?”

“Shouldn’t be, but you’re lucky I have snow tires on my
truck, otherwise you wouldn’t be getting wood up there in this storm.”

“Well, I’m thankful for those snow tires, then. See you in…”
She let the sentence trail off, looking to him to finish it.

“In about an hour,” he finished. “Try to stay warm until I
get there.”

They hung up and she realized her heart was beating quickly
in anticipation of the wood guy coming to rescue her.

Geez, this is pitiful.

Apparently after dating “executive” William for so long, the
prospect of spending time with a man who owned a tool belt got her hot and
bothered. A man like that would be so unlike from her ex. She wondered if he’d
also be different in bed. Would he be more adventurous? More accepting? Totally
enthusiastic about pleasing her?

Now
that’s
what every woman should get for
Christmas,
Kip thought,
a man who is wholeheartedly devoted to her
orgasm.
She laughed out loud.

Now that the crisis was over, the chill on her legs reminded
her that her pants were soaked through from sitting in the snow on the porch
stairs. She hadn’t expected any company during her solitary stay at the cabin
and had planned on lounging in her PJs the whole time, so they were all she’d
brought other than the wet clothes she was wearing. At least she had a long
cardigan to throw on over her loungewear. Besides, her pajamas were cute and
maybe the wood guy would need to come in and warm up…

Kip bounded up the stairs, feeling giddy. She giggled,
thinking she was going to be really embarrassed when he showed up and had no
teeth or was eighty years old. He
sounded
handsome though, if that were
possible. She stripped down to her panties and pulled on a soft blue tank top
and plaid flannel pajama shorts.

She looked in the mirror and was thankful she had the
cardigan. She wouldn’t mind the wood guy noticing she wasn’t wearing a bra, but
only after she got a look at the wood guy first and decided she’d let him
notice. Her breasts were a little too full to go without one, but she thought
they looked pretty good in her thin tank, softly rounded against the soft
fabric. She threw on the long, cashmere sweater and hugged it around herself,
smoothing it against the chilled skin on her arms.

Studying her reflection, she thought about how her future
had been so sure just yesterday and now it was completely open and unplanned.
Her stomach growled, setting her back into motion and she headed downstairs to
make her Christmas Eve dinner of chili.

When the cabin was filled with the smell of simmering chili,
she hauled out the boxes of Christmas decorations. Her family’s ornaments were
the usual menagerie of things, except for her great-grandmother’s glass
ornaments. She’d brought them over to America when she came from Germany. They
had always been Kip’s favorite.

She unwrapped them carefully and was hanging her fourth
ornament when a firm knock at the cabin door made her jump so dramatically she
nearly dropped it to the floor. The wood guy! She smiled wickedly to herself,
flashing back on her lumberjack fantasies.

Now to see if the face goes with the voice…

She looked out the window and saw a truck that read “Dalton
Run Reclamation Company” on the side filled with firewood. Definitely the wood
guy, not a psycho killer…check. She opened the door.

“Thanks again so mu—” Her words cut off sharply as she got
her first look at the tall, handsome man standing at her door. There was no
question that his looks definitely matched his sexy voice, but she knew his
face all too well. He was taller and had put on muscle since she’d last seen
him as a lanky eighteen-year-old, but the combination of stark black hair,
light-blue eyes and that mischievous smile were unforgettable.

Dylan Johnson, the boy who had betrayed her and ruined the
end of her senior year of high school, was standing at her door, his smile
faltering.

He was older, of course, and his face had matured into
something more rugged, but it was definitely Dylan. His eyes went wide and it
was clear from the way the rest of his face went blank that he was as surprised
to encounter her as she was him.

“Kip… ” It came out of his mouth in a whoosh, almost as if
he was exhaling her name from a place he’d kept it pent up for a long time.

Suddenly she was aware of many things at once. She was aware
that the hurt and angry feelings she had toward him were still fresh and
coursed through her even as she stood there staring at him. She was aware that
her heart was beating like it did when she was eighteen years old and in his
arms. And she was aware that her sweater had fallen open and she was standing
there in the thin tank top and no bra, her nipples hard as pebbles in the icy
air and clearly visible against the front of her shirt. She was aware of that
last part because after Dylan said her name, his eyes had swept over her
completely and lingered for a moment at her chest. Kip pulled her sweater
closed over her tank top.

“Dylan. I, uh… Wow. It’s been a long time.”

“Yeah, it sure has.” He regained his charming smile, only
now it was many watts brighter.

“So…you’re the wood guy.”

“Uh, yeah. Yep. That’s my truck.” He gestured to the truck
piled high with wood.

“I didn’t know.”

His smile faded and his voice dropped an octave, “No, of
course you didn’t. You moved away maybe the second we graduated high school.”
He looked down at his gloved hands and then back up to meet her eyes.

Kip suddenly had a crazy urge to tell him everything she’d
still been smarting over for all these years, about how he’d hurt her and how
angry she still was about it because they could have been so great together.

But she didn’t, because she was twenty-six and not eighteen
anymore, and because what she had to say to him wouldn’t matter anyway. It was
eight years ago and he probably didn’t even remember.

“So.” She couldn’t believe she was talking to him again
after all those years. “I appreciate you bringing the wood out to me. I would
have had to go to a hotel otherwise.” She gestured to the stain on the porch
created by the old wood pile, “Please stack it here and let me know when you’re
done so I can pay you.” She started to shut the door.

“Wait!” He put his hand out and held the door open firmly.
“Wh-what are you doing here? I thought your mom moved away.”

Her heart started to pound harder. She wasn’t prepared to
deal with seeing Dylan in person, not in the upheaval her life was in at the
moment. Why wouldn’t he just let her go back inside? She wanted to close the
door against him and all those old feelings of hurt.

“This was my grandmother’s cabin. We kept it. I came here
for Christmas.” She shifted to push the door again, but he didn’t move his hand
and she couldn’t even begin to budge it against his strength. She gave up and
wrapped her sweater back around her.

“Alone? You came back here alone? Why did you do that?” His
voice had a pleading quality, as if he were desperate to have the conversation,
in spite of all her body language saying otherwise.

She made a rude and exasperated sound. “My mom is on a
cruise. I have an apartment in downtown Chicago, but I didn’t feel like
spending Christmas there, okay? Please, I’m freezing. Can you just stack the
wood?” She didn’t care if she sounded short. She nodded her head toward his
truck, not willing to move her arms, which were now wrapped firmly around her
body. Hugging herself, she tried to bolster her strength against the onslaught
of feelings Dylan had brought with him to her doorstep. Despite the warmth at
her back from the fire, her teeth started to chatter.

“Oh.” Dylan’s eyes swept down to her chest again and she
shifted her arms, wrapping her cardigan tighter.

His voice was soft when he said, “Oh yeah, sorry. You’re
freezing.” He reached out almost unconsciously to touch the bare skin of her
arm, below the cuff of the sweater. She jerked backward before he could touch
her.

“Let me know when you’re done. Okay?” Her tone was sharper
than she’d intended and he stepped backward, a hurt look on his face. Or maybe
she imagined it. She didn’t care—she just wanted to get safely back inside with
him shut outside. After just having dealt with the betrayal of William, she
felt ambushed when the man who’d made her life hell in high school showed up at
her door.

With the door safely shut, she dropped down onto the couch
in shock. She wanted to pull him into the cabin and screw him until she’d had
her fill and just as much she wanted to kick him in the balls and scream
hateful things at him.
Good god.

I will not think about him. I will not think about him…
but
the
thump, thump
of the wood being piled onto the porch was too
distracting. All she could think about was the man stacking it. Dylan Johnson,
after all these years, right out on her front porch. Her heart was fluttering
so much so that she decided she really needed a glass of wine to calm her
nerves. A
big
glass of wine.

Returning with a large glass of zinfandel, she sat back on
the couch, realizing she could see out the window to where Dylan was working.
She watched him, thinking about the man he’d turned into. He was bundled up,
but was wearing jeans and his muscular thighs were obvious underneath the worn
denim. He was strong, throwing armfuls of wood around with ease. His muscles
were the muscles of hard work, not appointments with a trainer. There was
something so utterly sexy about that.

And there was skill in his work style. She found it
fascinating to watch. He was like a machine, powerful and efficient in his
movements. His big hands must be strong and calloused, not soft and unmarked
like William’s, and she found herself wondering how they’d feel on her skin.

Would his rough palms scrape over the sensitive skin of her
nipples with an adrenaline-inducing bite or stimulate them with easy, skilled
strokes, stoking her lust like he would a fire? How would his hard-working
fingers feel if he pushed them inside her pussy? How skillful was he in bed after
all these years? Thinking back to her fantasy in the car, she wondered if he
could easily give her the orgasms she’d been missing. She felt a tingling
growing between her legs.

Dylan stopped working to take his hat off—he must have
worked up a sweat, even in that cold—and looked right at her. Quickly she
ducked her head but knew it was no use—he’d caught her staring at him. Her
cheeks flushed hotly, as if he could read on her face exactly the explicit
thoughts she’d been thinking about him.

She stood up, determined to finish decorating the Christmas
tree, even if it was only to take her mind off him. Carefully unwrapping the
remaining glass ornaments, she hung them all until the tree sparkled in
Christmas finery. Smiling up at it, she thought it looked just like she’d
always remembered it looking, year after year, though maybe a little crooked
this time.

Just one final thing—the showpiece of the tree every
Christmas—the glittering glass star for the top. She unwrapped it reverently,
wishing again that her mom was there—not only had she never decorated the tree
without her mom, but she’d never put the star on without a hand on her mom’s
shoulder for support.

Pushing a kitchen chair as close to the tree as she could,
Kip stood on the chair, reaching slowly for the pointy tuft of evergreen on
which to plop the silver star. She stood on one leg and held the other out
behind her as a counterbalance to her weight.
Almost there
…

She had just touched the opening at the bottom of the star
to the pointed tip of the spruce, her muscles trembling from their controlled
balancing effort, when Dylan knocked quickly twice and walked through the door.
Out of instinct she turned her head to look in his direction, surprised he’d
walked right in, and the subtle shift in her body weight was just enough to
throw off her already precarious balance. She heard herself yelp as she tumbled
off the chair and into the tree. As she fell, she heard Dylan yell, his voice
sharp with concern, and then all she heard was breaking glass.