Make Me Lose Control

That had to be fixed immediately, she decided with half-drunken logic.

Boarder Bartender—in his own immortal words—was “down with that.” Mere minutes after her whispered aside, a server came from the kitchen bearing a big hunk of chocolate cake topped with a lighted birthday candle. As the room erupted in song, Shay realized she didn’t know his first name.

“Jay,” he said over the loud singing. There was a bemused grin on his face. “You’re crazy, you know that?”

And maybe she was. Or maybe it was the vodka. Whatever the reason, she felt reckless and carefree as they both cozied up to the bar around the piece of multilayered cake. He tried to tell her he didn’t like sweets, which caused her to roll her eyes again, and him to let loose another round of that rough-warm laughter.

They dueled forks for the last bite of cake.

Jay ordered another round of quesadillas, so she had more to eat to counteract the effect of the martinis. The night wore on, the crowd around them drinking freely while Shay switched to sparkling water. From somewhere, the management dredged up a motley collection of games. It didn’t surprise Shay that the king of the jungle snagged the only deck of cards for the two of them.

It was useful to have a predator at her back.

“You would have been good on the Titanic,” she mused.

Lifting those golden eyes from the cards he was shuffling, he glanced around. “Is that what this feels like?”

Shay looked, too. In one corner, some men were playing dominoes with ruthless concentration. In another, a group of middle-aged women, with a bouquet of now empty wine bottles working as the centerpiece for their table, launched into a rendition of Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies.”

“Hmm, maybe Rick’s Café from Casablanca?” Shay suggested.

“I guess I’d rather be Bogie than the kid who turns into an ice cube.” Then Jay dropped his hand to her bare knee and gave it a brief squeeze. “So...what should we play?”

Shay stared down. The large palm and long fingers covered her skin like a warm and slightly raspy blanket. The calluses were a workingman’s, just as she’d guessed. Though she supposed she might still register fairly high on the tipsy scale, the alcohol hadn’t desensitized her flesh. It prickled in reaction to his touch, hot chills rushing from the point of contact northward. Involuntarily, her thighs pressed together, prolonging the small thrilling ache she felt between them.

“Birthday Girl?” he called again.

Her gaze moved up to his. His golden eyes studied her face. She felt it like another touch, a fingertip, maybe, following the arch of her eyebrows and the profile of her nose. He looked lower, and her lips started to tingle, her mouth going dry inside.

Her tongue snaked out to her lower lip.

Jay jerked, his attention jumping from her face to the cards. His hand moved from her and he began dealing them out.

The sexual hum in her body did nothing to help her brain. It only muddled her thinking, which meant while she should have been edging away from him or sliding off the stool altogether and making tracks for her room, instead she leaned closer, her shoulder bumping his.

She intended it in a friendly way, but the tap became kind of a rub, and when he glanced at her there was another charged moment of energy passing between them. An exchange.

A sexual exchange.

Wow, she thought again. He was the most beautiful, masculine man she’d ever met. Her sister’s fiancé, Ryan, was classic-cinema-star handsome—when you looked at him you thought you should have some popcorn on hand. Watching him breathe was pure entertainment.

With Jay, it was different. Shay wanted to watch him move. Or better yet, move things. Do things. He was a man made to operate a forklift or lay railroad ties or rig a suspension bridge.

He’d separated the cards into two piles, one of which he slid toward her. When she gathered them closer, their fingers touched. Again, Jay flinched.

The sexual spark stung her, too.

“What are we going to play?” she asked.

He gave her a grim look. “War.”

Shay sighed. She could have told him it wasn’t going to work. It was completely clear to her, even after chocolate cake, quesadillas and martinis.

There was no way to battle this pull between them.

And at this point, she didn’t want to.

With another forbidding glance, he slapped down the first card. A deuce.

Hers was a king.

Several minutes later, when the game was over and all the cards were piled in front of Shay, she began to stack them neatly.

“Round two?” he asked. There was a tense note to his voice.

Likely because he thought they’d have to sit here all night playing cards instead of having another kind of round two...around dawn.

In her room at the inn.

They could do that, though, couldn’t they?

Her heart started beating faster and she could feel her pulse thudding in her throat and at her wrists. She’d never propositioned a man before...but now she wanted to. Really wanted to, and hadn’t she promised Mel she’d have fun? Glancing at the clock on the wall, she noted it was after midnight.

It truly was her birthday now. “You know, there are rooms here...” she began.

His gaze was trained on her face. She had the impression he was counting each and every one of her eyelashes. “I was told there’s no vacancy,” he said.

Shay’s hand crept toward her purse, still hanging on the hook. From it, she pulled out the plastic key card, which she placed on the bar’s surface and then slid toward the man at her right. He was turned toward her on his stool, his elbow on the bar. “I reserved the last one,” she whispered.

Hesitating, she ran her gaze over his rugged shoulders, his wide chest, his powerful thighs. If she scooted closer, she’d be between his legs, surrounded by him. Closer to the clean scent that she’d been aware of for hours.

Shay cleared her throat and reminded herself she was due a present. “The bed’s big enough for two.”

CHAPTER TWO

JACE JENNINGS STARED down at the innocuous rectangle of plastic. Birthday Girl’s fingers touched one edge, the nails short and painted with clear polish. Transparent, the same as her face.

He’d been able to read every expression flitting across it all night long.

At first, she’d been shy. She was younger than he was, by a decade, he supposed, and he’d had no intention of even engaging her in conversation. But then she’d launched into her martinis-and-birthday confession and he’d found himself drawn in...then drawn to her.

When he’d shared that bit about his childhood—and what had prompted him to do so, he couldn’t say—her quasihuffy, amusing response had tickled his funny bone. Not many people managed to do that.

But Birthday Girl and her “gloom balloon”...

Shaking his head, he felt a grin tugging on the corners of his mouth again.

“You’re leaving me hanging here,” she said now.

He glanced up. She was beautiful. That had struck him immediately. Her shoulder-length hair was a mix of red, gold and brown. Her eyes were an arresting shade of pale blue, her skin creamy, with just a faint spray of tiny golden freckles peppering her small nose. As a builder, he had an interest in and appreciation of the bones of things, and those of this woman were both delicate and elegant. Her mouth was lush, though, its unpainted color a pale rose.

“Well?” she demanded.

And he could read her again, the slight truculence a defensive position. “This could be a dangerous habit, Birthday Girl.”

“This?”

“Propositioning total strangers.”

Her mouth dropped, and she yanked the key card back toward her. “I don’t—”

“Wait.” He placed his fingers over hers. “That came out wrong.”

She was staring down at his hand. Jace knew why. The instant they touched, heat snapped like an electrical shock, then ricocheted through his body. He supposed she felt something similar. All night, he’d been half-hard and her flesh beneath his was taking him the rest of the way.

Slowly, as if retreating from a skittish creature, Jace lifted his hand. Her gaze lifted, too, and those blue eyes zeroed in on his face.

“I don’t make a habit of this kind of thing,” she declared.

“I shouldn’t have said that.” And why the hell would he care if she propositioned a new man every night? But for some stupid reason he’d wanted to hear her say she didn’t out loud. He’d wanted to know that this...connection was something unusual for her, too. Different. Special.

Because it felt damn special to him.

Holy hell, she’d bought him birthday cake.

“We don’t know each other,” he heard himself say, though he’d never told anyone else about those daily frigid showers. It was true. His father had believed in cold water as the cornerstone of making a man out of a boy.

“Are you married?” she asked.

“Divorced.” And his ex was dead now, a recent circumstance that had wrought a huge change in his life. Just the thought of that made him toss back the rest of the whiskey that he’d switched to when the cards came out.

“Girlfriend?”

“No.” He paused, then lifted a brow. “Boyfriend?”

“If I had one, wouldn’t he be the one spending my birthday with me?”

Which made Jace think about what he’d been calling her. Birthday Girl. She hadn’t offered up her real name. He hadn’t corrected her when she misheard his as “Jay.”

This beautiful young woman was really offering up no-strings, one-night-only, stranger sex.

God knows he didn’t deserve it, but—

“Okay, then.” Birthday Girl slid off her stool and onto her feet. He was close and turned in her direction, so she landed between his knees, and swayed there a moment. To steady herself, one hand reached out and clutched his thigh.

Uh-oh. Those martinis were still in her system.

That thought didn’t stop another piercing zing of heat from rocketing from her hand to his crotch, just a few inches north. And it wasn’t only her touch that got to him. There was that sweet little dress she wore that showed a whole hell of a lot of bare leg in the front, then flowed lower around the back.

“I’m going,” she said, still looking a bit woozy. “It’s up to you whether you come with me or not.”

Jace sighed. Of course he was going with her. Whether he crossed the threshold of her room, well, first he had to make sure she got to it safely. He hopped off his own stool, feeling a twinge as his newly healed left ankle found the ground. “I’m right behind you, Birthday Girl,” he said.

Actually, he took her hand, as well.

That was weird. He wasn’t a toucher. When he was with a woman he didn’t worry about keeping her close. But this one was tipsy, he reminded himself, and though he’d been raised by a distant and unfeeling man, in this instance he wasn’t going to take after the old bastard.

Drawing her nearer, Jace could smell the sweet scent of her hair. Now he went a bit woozy.

“It’s this way,” she said, tugging him toward a steep staircase off the foyer. Judging by the architecture, the Deerpoint Inn had to be about a hundred years old. On the way inside earlier that night, he’d glanced at the framed magazine article about the place that hung on the entry wall. The building had started life as a boardinghouse for area loggers. Now they’d converted the original fifteen rooms upstairs to just six, each with its own bath.

Birthday Girl would have a comfortable night.

She wobbled on her heels as she mounted the first step, causing him to drop her hand and grasp her hips instead. Birthday Girl would have a comfortable night if she could make it to her door.

Jace, on the other hand, had a very uncomfortable few minutes as he was forced to watch the bunch of muscles in each fine ass cheek as she continued upward. He breathed easier when they made the narrow hallway. It smelled of old wood and roses.

With his fingertips hovering a quarter inch off the small of her back, Jace followed her to a door bearing a brass 6. He took the key card from her hand and inserted it in the slot. The mechanism flashed green and he heard a small snick. He turned the knob and checked out the environs over her shoulder, the room illuminated by lamps at each end of a long table centered beneath a narrow window. Papered walls, dark wood floor covered with a thick area rug with a floral design. A night-light gave him the glimpse of a tiled bathroom through a half-open interior door.

Birthday Girl stepped inside.

Jace realized it was now or never.

Hell, she was beautiful. Alluring. Tempting.

But...

He had a pile of regrets on his plate and using the circumstances—birthday, flames, liquor, lust—to get a quickie shag out of this pretty young thing would be just another black mark on his soul. In the morning, he didn’t want to be something she was sorry for.

There’d been enough of that in his life. From his father, his ex and, most likely, his daughter.

Her head tilted, and the room’s light caught the warm fire in her hair. “Well?”

He couldn’t help but lean toward her. She took a half step, getting closer, and then her eyes closed as she offered up her mouth.

Jace’s cock turned to steel at the anticipation of a kiss written all over her face.

She was more than halfway drunk, he reminded himself.

Too young for him.

Too sweet.

And yet...

She was too appealing not to touch one more time. He pressed the pad of his thumb to her lips—God, so soft and lush—and whispered in her ear. “Many happy returns.”

Then he strode away, cursing himself, the constricting denim of his jeans and his suddenly discovered streak of decency.

Downstairs, the management was trying to make the refugees comfortable in the dining room. Jace opted for his SUV instead, reclining the seat and trying to get comfortable on the stiff leather. By leaving that lovely offer of a night with Birthday Girl on the table, at least his conscience couldn’t nag him, he decided.

Except that it could, of course.

There was still the small matter of his daughter to consider. She was mere miles away, at his house situated on the shores of Blue Arrow Lake. Though he hadn’t seen her in a decade, Jace wasn’t as frustrated as he should have been that their meeting was postponed for another day. Truth to tell, he was grateful for the reprieve.

A lousy night’s sleep seemed a fitting punishment for that.

At first light, when he smelled coffee emanating from the inn, he climbed from his car. His muscles were stiff and he limped inside, his left foot not long out of its soft cast and not yet completely normal. His head ached, too—though not like it had after the debilitating concussion he’d suffered that had made focusing on paper or screen or even spoken words sometimes impossible—and reminded him he’d downed plenty of beer and whiskey the night before.

He wondered how Birthday Girl was faring.

And then he saw her, the back of her anyway, sitting on the same stool she’d occupied yesterday evening. She was dressed in jeans this time, but her auburn hair was unmistakable. Jace paused, uncertain how to proceed. He looked for an open spot at one of the tables in the restaurant, but it wasn’t a big space and some of the patrons were still sleeping, stretched on two chairs.

The only seat free was the one beside her. Why not take it? He’d done the noble thing, hadn’t he? It would have been much more awkward to wake up on the neighboring pillow, after all.

As he approached, his gaze caught that of the bartender’s. He signaled the need for java by miming a mug to his mouth and then he slid into the empty place beside Birthday Girl.

Though she didn’t glance his way, her body stiffened.

Jace hesitated again, his gaze focused on the gleaming wood grain in front of him. Good manners dictated he should at least look at her, not to mention express a friendly “good morning.” But during the course of the night in the SUV, he’d begun to rethink the hours they’d spent sitting together and the unprecedented appeal she’d had for him.

It was just some birthday cake and card games, he’d told himself and the moon, its beam shining through the windshield. Too much booze. In the light of day, she probably wouldn’t be as pretty as he’d thought.

The intense attraction was likely overblown in his mind as well, Jace had decided then. And...

And for some reason right now he didn’t want confirmation of that.

Stop being ridiculous. Just get out a greeting and let reality assert itself. “Good morning,” he finally said, sliding a look at her.

Her face turned toward him. Icy-blue eyes. A faint flush obscuring the tiny freckles on her nose and edging her fabulous cheekbones with a delicate pink. Her rosy lips pursed. “Really?” she said, her voice frosty.

Okay.

Okay, fine.

The booze, the fire and the cake had not caused him to exaggerate anything. She was just as beautiful as he remembered.

Just as sexy.

She made him just as hard.

But the disdainful expression on her face communicated clearly that she was no longer as sweetly dispositioned as she’d been before he’d rejected her generous offer and left her with only the touch of his thumb at the door. He winced. “Birthday Girl—”

She slid from her stool and, with her coffee in hand, stalked off. He stared at the insulted line of her spine and the angry sway of her hips. Oh, yeah. She still made him hard. Very hard.

Jace sighed, shifting on his stool to adjust the fit of his jeans. Damn.

And he’d thought taking her to bed would result in regret. Instead, he’d learned that being a good guy left him feeling no more satisfied than being a bad one.

* * *

HALF HORRIFIED AND half humiliated, Shay escaped toward the stairs that would take her to her room. She glanced back at the bar and saw Jay still in place, his head turned to watch her go.

Another wash of heat rose up her neck and burned her cheeks. In the morning light he wasn’t any less masculine. Still had that charisma in spades, too. She could feel the pull even from here, as if he’d lassoed her waist and was steadily drawing on a rope held between his big capable hands.

The hands she’d wanted on her last night.

But he’d refused her.

Whipping her head around, she stomped up the steps. Until she was free to head back to Blue Arrow, she’d hide out between the four walls of her room at the inn. Inside, she flipped on the television and found the channel offering fire coverage. At the bar, she’d learned the road closures were still in place, but there could be better news at any moment...

Ten hours later, nothing had changed.

Not her confined circumstances, not her humiliation over last night’s rejected overture.

She bounced on the mattress, she punched a pillow, she flung her body across the bed and hung her head over the side. The actions didn’t alter the news on the television—but they did serve to underline her restlessness. If she didn’t get out of this room—soon—she’d go stir-crazy.

But he might still be downstairs. The jerk.

Several times between last night and this afternoon she’d replayed their moments together: her nervous chatter, his birthday cake, the card battle. Too bad the hangover she’d been suffering from hadn’t obliterated her memory. For hours, she’d had a dry mouth and an aching head, as well as instant recall of his amused smile at her half-drunken ramblings, the heat in his gaze as he’d stared down at her before his “many happy returns,” his calloused touch against her upturned mouth.

Without thinking, she pressed her fingertips there. It was as if a brand still pulsed on her lips.

Damn man. He’d walked away from a tipsy stranger and likely considered himself the hero in the scenario.

Jerk.

Her conscience tried to reason with her ire—in truth, wasn’t it actually a decent-guy move?—but she shut down that part of her brain. It was her birthday and a girl should get a pass on logic for at least one twenty-four-hour period a year.

Still, she had to get some fresh air. In her jeans, a simple T-shirt and a pair of sneakers, she crept down the stairs, a bottle of water in hand. The bar and dining room held a scatter of refugees, but no Jay. On a sigh of relief, she pushed open the front door and set out along the quiet streets of the tiny hamlet surrounding the Deerpoint Inn. While she’d never been to the town, which was little more than a crossroads, she’d seen enough of the fire coverage to have gained a general sense of direction. She took every turn uphill and hiked along the narrow roads while committing her route to memory.

Though she didn’t actually venture far, she was moving steadily upward, surprising chipmunks and squirrels who skittered across the asphalt to ascend the trunks of the towering conifers lining the road. Black ravens sailed among the top limbs while blue jays flitted at the lower levels. If she wasn’t used to elevations that were over five thousand feet, she might be laboring for air. As it was, she appreciated the cool breeze on her sweat-dampened skin and welcomed the chance to pause when she came to a break in the trees that offered a glorious view.

From here, there was no sign of fire. The wind must be carrying the scent of it away, too. And spread out before her were miles of craggy pine-covered peaks and a slice of blue that signaled one of the many local lakes in the distance. She breathed in double lungfuls of the air that was just starting to come down from its afternoon high temperature. It had probably been seventy-five at some point today.

Already she felt calmer, she thought, as she took in more fresh oxygen. She might not have true Walker blood in her veins, but the mountains were still her place. The foundation beneath her feet.

A twig snapped, the sound loud enough to make her whirl and her heart jump to her throat. She put her hand there as she stared at the man who last night and this morning had been seated on the neighboring stool. “You,” she managed to choke out. “Did you follow me?”

Jay held up both hands. “Not exactly. I wanted to stretch my legs. I thought by trailing you I could have a guide of sorts.”

“Unwilling guide,” Shay muttered under her breath.

“Yeah. Sorry.” He paused to suck in air, then half turned. “I’ll go.”

“Wait.” Narrowing her eyes, Shay took a closer look at him. His breath was more ragged than it should be for such a fit man. Altitude, she thought. Clearly, it was getting to him. Stifling a sigh, she held out her unopened bottle of water. “You need a drink.”

He inhaled sharply again. “I think that’s where one or both of us went wrong yesterday.”

Ignoring that comment, she stepped closer. “Seriously,” she told him. “You need water. You’re feeling the effects of the elevation.”

He took the proffered bottle but his expression was dubious. “It wasn’t that long a walk.”

“We’re near seven thousand feet here. Where you came from...?”

“Sea level.”

She nodded. Beach. His tan already announced it. Glancing around, she saw a fallen log a few feet away and gestured to it. “Sit down. Drink. Rest a little.”

He didn’t look happy as he followed her direction.

Shay shook her head, reading his mood. “Don’t worry. Your macho will bounce right back once you descend a few hundred feet.”

“I don’t know,” he grumbled. “Last night I lost at War. Now this.”

His disgruntled tone made her almost smile. “I’m lousy at gin rummy,” she said. “If we played that it would shore up your ego in an instant.”

He glanced over as he settled on the log and stretched out his long legs. “You’re offering another round of cards? Thought you were mad at me.”

Shay shoved her hands in her pockets. She was mad at him—except when her conscience reminded her that he’d done the more honorable thing by refusing her. She’d been under the influence of birthday and booze.