Karen Rock - His Last Defense

He paused at the door outside, lifted their hands and rubbed hers lightly against his chest, sending sizzles of excitement shooting through her. His voice deepened.

“Somewhere I can actually talk some sense into you.”

* * *

OUTSIDE, THE CHILL shimmered off the frozen ground but did nothing to tamp down the heat Nolee’s nearness stoked inside Dylan. Dressed in a blue fleece and faded jeans that outlined her delectable curves, and work boots that underscored her tough-girl persona, she drew his eye. Kept him looking as they tramped across the icy parking lot.

A ragged plume of air escaped him. Being this close to her, alone, was playing with fire. He was having a hard time keeping his hands to himself. Yet he needed to make her see reason.

And satisfy the drumming hunger to have her to himself for a few moments, one last time, before he shipped out of Kodiak.

“My truck’s over here.”

Nolee spotted a red pickup that must be his, and she looked at him directly. The wind lifted and tossed long dark strands of her hair across her lips, luring his attention to their fullness, making him remember the soft feel of them against his yesterday. Driving him to want another taste.

“Okay.”

A moment later they were seated on the plush seats, the ignition purring to life. Heat blasted from the vents and an old-school thrash band tune thumped in the dark, intimate space.

“I remember this song,” Nolee mused, shooting him a sidelong glance.

When she rubbed her gloveless fingers together, he raised his hands to hers, touching them, and then, more firmly, enclosing them within his own. He brought them to his mouth and blew on them, unable to resist the impulses pounding through him.

Her liquid eyes rose to his and the challenge in them made his stomach muscles tighten, his whole body respond.

It took every ounce of strength to tamp down his desires and focus on what he’d brought her out here to say. What he needed her to hear.

“There’s a difference between calculated risks and recklessness,” he began. His voice emerged husky, low. She was so close he could feel her breath. Her body was rigid, listening, her fingers now laced in his. Her cool skin was blistering.

“We both like putting everything on the line. Admit it.” Her mischievous smile kicked up his heart rate by several blood-pounding notches. She smelled like an ocean sunrise and he breathed deep.

“Not true.” He lowered their joined hands to her lap. She was wrong. He wasn’t the wild risk-taker his parents saw him as—she really was that way, not him.

“Come on,” she scoffed in that tone that’d always called him on his bullshit. “Remember the time we jumped from Jagged Rock Falls? You took my dare.”

He nodded mutely, recalling that twenty-foot leap into churning waters, her body pressed to his afterward, behind the roaring falls. The material of his jeans tightened around his swelling groin. “I could never say no to you.”

He brushed a thumb along her knuckles and a visible shiver passed over her skin.

“You should have,” she whispered against his cheek, straight into his ear. His whole body hummed with unleashed hunger for her, not heeding the warning reminder in her words when he damn well should have. He forced himself to let go of her hand.

The music shuffled to another one-hit wonder hair band tune and she tensed beside him. “Is this the...”

He gritted his teeth to keep the telling admission from escaping. Then she snapped her fingers beneath his nose and shot him a knowing look. “It’s the playlist I made for you for your nineteenth birthday. Why are you still listening to this?”

“Some things have a way of sticking with you.”

The teasing look in her eyes faded and she blinked a little too swiftly before she dropped her gaze.

They sat in silence for a moment and he stared out the windshield at the point where the black sea met the sky.

“You didn’t object when I dared you to jump in our ice fishing hole, either,” she said after a moment.

“We nearly froze to death.”

“We warmed each other up,” she countered.

The buzz of blood in his veins at that wicked memory seemed to throb along to the thumping beat. “We made good use of that fishing shack.”

He caught the quirk of her lips in the gloom. “Though we didn’t catch a single fish. Not that we cared.”

No. He’d only cared about Nolee back then. Had insisted, over her objections, that he would give up everything, his dreams of joining the Coast Guard, of leaving Kodiak, because she’d been what mattered most.

And she hadn’t felt the same way.

The windshield began to fog and he flipped the heater to defrost. A couple of snowmobiles whined in the distance and a memory resurfaced. “We stole that ski-doo.” He felt himself smile at that crazy day that’d nearly landed them in the ER and jail.

“Borrowed,” she clarified, shifting, her knee bumping his. He was aware of the press of her against his side, hip to hip, leg to leg, arm to arm.

“We didn’t have permission.”

She sighed. “The real crime was Mr. Strout never riding the damn thing. Plus, I didn’t hear you complaining when you did donuts with it. You had us going fifty miles an hour.”

“That was kid stuff. This is real life.”

“Exactly, Dylan. It’s my life. I call the shots in it. Only me.”

“You came way too close to losing it yesterday,” he growled.

She reached a hand to his cheek. Laid her palm flat against it. His breath lodged in his chest and his mind went blank. “But I didn’t.”

No. He was acutely aware of just how alive she was here beside him, short-circuiting his brain. His defenses against her were running low. God knew, he was trying his damnedest to do the right thing and save her from her worst instincts before he left Kodiak.

“What if you hadn’t been rescued in time?”

“Then I would have died doing what I love. Isn’t your motto So Others May Live?”

“That’s different.”

“Is it?” She angled her head and her dark eyes met his in the dimness.

“I risk my life to save other people’s lives. You’re risking yours for profit.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Then what?” He stroked a hand through her mane of straight, glossy black hair, the strands running through his fingers like a silken waterfall, her eyes closing in pleasure.

“I want to be independent. Free,” she murmured.

He watched her breath quicken and he felt the barrier he’d erected between them start to crumble.

“We’ve both always wanted that,” she added.

Something inside him shifted. Loosened. “Nolee. I don’t want anything happening to you.”

She raised her face, lips parted, as if in a question, and put her hand to the scar above his brow, tracing it with her fingertips. “The worst thing that could happen to me is nothing.”

He groaned at the brush of her mouth against his jaw. In an instant he had her in his arms, his heart pounding against hers. It was only a few seconds, but it was as much as a man on the edge could take. He stripped the hat from her head and tossed it on the dashboard, while his lips descended to hers.

And he kissed her with all the longing that had been plaguing him since he’d laid eyes on her again.

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