Love me till the end

Chapter 3

Help her? Luke hesitated. His gaze fell to her exposed flesh. Smooth and soft came to mind. Earlier she'd looked about as shapeless as Frosty the Snowman. Until she'd begun removing her clothes and he'd seen how shapely she was. He'd hoped that when he got her here in a more intimate situation he'd find that he'd been mistaken about her allure. But with each layer she removed he was able to see how right he'd been. Charlie had a nice shape with curves in all the right places.

He didn't want to get any closer to her than he had to. Her being there scared him. He hadn't been alone with a woman in years. And that long, wild hair of hers... For a split second she'd reminded him of someone, the image so fleeting that he let it go. Because he didn't want to remember.

"Are you going to help me?" Charlie put her arms down far enough to poke her head over top, and make eye contact with him. "Please?"

There was no disguising the impatience in her tone. Their gazes clung. She was pretty, even if her face was a little red with windburn. The sparkle in her green eyes complimented the catlike slant of them. They were fringed with the longest, thickest lashes he'd ever seen on a woman. His eyes were drawn to her generous mouth and he wondered if it tasted as sweet as it looked.

It suddenly occurred to Luke that he was going to have to put up with her for the next two months. It would be at least that long before the snow melted enough for him to take the old logging road down the mountain into town. Then he remembered about his truck and frowned. Maybe he could whittle a sled and send her down the peak on that.

It occurred to him they were still standing there, in stony silence. It was clear she wasn't any happier over the situation than he was. Yet in spite of her piss and vinegar there was something about her that appealed to him, reached him on a purely male level. Just thinking about the size of his cabin and what that was going to mean was enough to make him wish he'd never set out in search of survivors. When he'd seen her plane go down the afternoon before he should have minded his own business and ignored it. There were other people living there in the mountains, one of them could have found her. Now he was stuck with her.

He moved toward her reluctantly, his mouth pressed into a grim line. It took great effort to keep his mind on what he was doing. He reached down and caught the hem to the sweat suit, conscious that his knuckles grazed her soft skin. It was warm and satiny smooth. He ignored her soft gasp, and the sudden unexpected lust heating his blood. In one smooth motion he brought the outer shirt up and over her head while she held the other one down. As he pulled the top away from her hair the crackle of static electricity could be heard over the logs snapping in the hearth.

"You do have a vehicle, don't you?" she asked.

He tossed the top onto the sofa without looking, wondering how she was going to react to what he had to say. Did she have a temper? No use beating around the bush. "I have a truck but it's not here."

His words halted the movement of her hands, thank God, which were at the waistband of her pants. Her eyes went round with mild surprise. "Not here? How do you get to town and back? How do you get around?"

She started to wiggle out of the extra pair of sweat bottoms with enough hip action to give a man heart failure. Sweet Jesus! Luke clenched his teeth and quickly turned away from her. His cock was swelling with rapid excitement. What the hell was the matter with him? All of a sudden he was hot, from the inside out.

"I don't," he said tersely. He wished he'd purchased the snowmobile Frank Howard had tried to talk him into buying for emergencies when he'd gone into town just before winter. He could have gotten her there on that.

"I don't understand."

Not until he was safely on the other side of the room did Luke dare to face her again. She'd stepped out of the bottoms and tossed them onto the couch. The look in her eyes revealed her confusion as she gathered her hair into a makeshift bun at the back of her neck. She twisted it into a knot with her lips pressed together, exposing a frustration he could relate to.