Vivian Arend - Rocky Mountain Heat

He kissed her nose, kissed her cheek, touched a finger to the moisture escaping from the corner of her eye.

“I could go on and on about how you care for my family so tenderly it makes me ache inside in the part of me that needs family to be number one. I can’t just love you, Jaxi, I’ve got to love my family. I’ve got so much more to learn there about how to really be there for them, but the way you fit in and belong with us all is incredible. So important.”

Her heart was full to overflowing. She closed her eyes to stop the tears from escaping.

His voice scratched. “Thank you for being stubborn enough to force me to see you belong with me.” He lifted her to a sitting position across from him and clasped her hands again. She stared into his eyes, and he took a deep breath.

“Jaxi, I want to—”

A series of giggles broke the intimacy of the moment, and Jaxi snorted in disbelief.

“Miss Jaxi? You gonna come hand out the awards for the colouring contest?” A trio of children traipsed over the ridge to surround Blake and Jaxi. One of them crawled into her lap, another into his. The oldest of the three glared at Blake in disapproval.

“You’ve been kissing her, haven’cha?” he complained.

Blake nodded slowly and solemnly. “I have.”

“Ughhhh. Doncha know girls got cooties?” he whispered in Blake’s direction.

“Children, come back. I’m so sorry, I didn’t know they were looking for you until a minute ago.” Cari tried to round up the strays and shoo them away, even as she checked the details of the setting with interest.

Blake laughed out loud as the tyke in his lap wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him. “Well, it’s fine, Cari. I forgot Miss Jaxi was supposed to hand out awards. I guess we need to go and do that right now.”

He rose to his feet and shifted the little girl to his hip, reaching a hand to Jaxi. Guilt at ruining his wonderful surprise rushed her, and she tried to make it better. “We don’t have to go, Blake.”

A chorus of disappointed cries rose from the children, and his playfully stern headshake brought more tears to her eyes.

“Of course we have to go. This is important, handing out prizes. Come on, kids, show me where we need to take Miss Jaxi.” He nodded at Cari, and she winked before moving to pick up the blanket and basket. He lowered his voice conspiratorially to the little boy waiting. “You see, I haven’t been in a colouring contest for a long time, and I can’t remember where they hold it.”

Jaxi ambled slowly, a child in her arms. Beside her Blake listened to the running monologue of the little waif, nodding and aha ing at appropriate times.

If this was what a family felt like…

Bring it on.

Blake looked around the table with mixed emotions. Jesse and Joel had came home for a weekend visit. Ma and Dad were missing, out at the hospital for a check-up and X-rays for the afternoon. They had friends staying with them to drive them home in the evening. With their folks gone, Travis’s absence was expected, but there wasn’t much he could do at this point other than wait for his brother to come around. Blake turned to talk to Daniel about a new furniture order, the quiet conversation peaceful in the room. A soft touch brushed his groin, and he flicked a hand at it, thinking one of the cats had gotten into the house.

Jaxi’s foot rested in his lap.

He jerked up quick, checked to see if Daniel had noticed anything, then snuck his chair in a bit tighter before he looked her way.

She talked quietly to Jesse, not a single indication anything naughty was happening. Certainly not something like her bare foot rubbing back and forth over his crotch until it was damn near impossible to concentrate on the conversation he was pretending to hold with Daniel.

A hand waved in front of his face, and Daniel snickered. “You need more sleep. Jaxi asked if you wanted dessert.”

He turned a hot glare on her that made her gasp.

“I’d love some dessert. I’ll help serve.”

He shoved back from the table and marched around to haul her from her chair. He didn’t care it was clear he sported a hard-on he could hang a horseshoe from. She’d started the game.

He was going to finish it.

“You need any more help there?” Jesse called as Blake shouldered through the door to the kitchen with Jaxi hanging from his arms.

All the boys laughed and Matt complained, “I bet we don’t get any dessert until it’s gone cold.”

Cold would be good right about now, because Blake was headed for spontaneous combustion. Having kept his hands off her for this long, he was ready to break. He dropped her by the sink and looked her up and down slowly, his gaze taking in the long length of her legs, all the way from her bare feet to the hem of her sundress.

“What’s for dessert?” He circled her slowly, a finger trailing over her waist, over her hips. Up her back and along the bare skin exposed on the edge of the neckline.

Jaxi swallowed and dropped her head to the side. His hand rose to support her neck. Blake wrapped himself around her until she had nowhere to go but hard against him.

“Jaxi? You’ve got a bad habit of not answering questions.”

“I was distracted…”

Blake kissed the beating pulse in her neck. “What’s for dessert, and did you know that’s a very sexy dress?”

Jaxi smiled. A mischievous expression that told him she’d remembered their first conversation about sexy dresses. “Apple pie and ice cream, and if you’re asking if I’m wearing panties, you’ve got to find a setting a little more private than the kitchen.”

“What’s the matter? You never been naked in front of a crowd before?” he joked, smoothing his hands over her ass. No panty lines, but she might be wearing a thong.

Since the picnic he’d been scheming and plotting to get her alone and been frustrated at every turn. He’d almost given in to temptation and snuck into the guest cabin with her, but that wasn’t how he wanted to finish this. Before long, he wanted to take them to the next stage.

It was time to move on. Oh hell, it was past time.

Jaxi slipped from his arms and served slices of pie onto plates. She had a little smile at the corner of her mouth, and Blake stopped even as he reached for the ice cream scoop.

She couldn’t have.

“You never answered my question. You ever been naked in front of a crowd before?”

She stole the scoop from under his unmoving hand and added servings of ice cream to the plates, her smile turning into more of a smirk by the minute. He tugged the scoop out of her hands, picked her up and set her on the counter.

Eye to eye he looked at her. Leered, to tell the truth.

“Tell me.”

“I took a modeling class to learn how to dress nice in something other than jeans all the time. I got asked to pose and there was—”

“You posed? For a Sears magazine or a—?”

Jaxi pressed her finger to his lips. “I posed for a group of artists. Nude.” She grinned at him. “It was a really lucky circumstance because I wanted to take a dance class and one of the artists turned out to be an exotic dancer. I went to her studio and she gave me private lessons.”

Blake was growing hotter by the minute, the ice cream in danger of melting to puddles from simply being in the same room. Holy shit, she knew how to exotic dance?

Did his dad know about this? Is that what he’d meant by “interesting” classes?

Blake pulled her off the counter and handed her a couple of plates of pie. She had no idea what she’d just let loose. The tentative plan running through his mind was okay, but this beat anything he could have devised, even with weeks of setup.