Jesus. He was getting old. He and Harley headed toward Nick, and the three of them moved to the porch together. TJ introduced Harley as his co-guide and photographer.
The girls-Shelly, Tandy, Lani, and no shit, Kitty-eyed Harley with varying degrees of disinterest.
“We’re not that much trouble, TJ,” Kitty murmured. “You could handle us on your own.”
Harley turned to TJ and gave him a look that he wasn’t sure he wanted to interpret. “How about it, TJ? Want to…‘handle’ them on your own?”
Shelly-or was it Tandy-smiled. “We’ll be good, very good.”
Harley was still looking at TJ as she deadpanned, “Yeah, TJ, they’ll be good.”
“Excuse us a moment,” he said to the girls. “While I confer with my co-guide.” He grabbed Harley’s wrist just as she started to back off the porch.
No way in hell was she getting away.
“Nick will get you loaded,” he said over his shoulder. “Harley and I need a quick meeting.” He tugged her into the lodge and shut the door.
“Aw, they’re sweet,” Harley said as he tugged her through the main reception area and down the hall, walking fast enough that she had to run to keep up with him. “You can save all that money you were going to pay me and-”
“I’ll be saving nothing. I need the bodyguard.”
Her eyes went to his body. “A bodyguard,” she said doubtfully.
“You have no idea. They tend to think the guide comes as part of the trip. It’s awkward to fight ’em off.”
“Yeah, right. Are we really having a meeting?”
“Yes.” Right past the kitchen was a small pantry/storage area.
He opened the door and pushed Harley in ahead of him.
Harley turned in the small closet area to face TJ. “You always have meetings in here?”
He shut them in, gripped her hips, and backed her up against the door, pressing his lower body to hers, hard.
Apparently he was done talking.
And she promptly lost her ability to think clearly. Hell, she’d given up thinking clearly when she’d first parked and saw him. His look was your basic Gorgeous Alpha Outdoor Guy. Sturdy boots, cargo pants that fit across his butt perfectly, lightweight tech jersey-which looked and fit like a standard tee but was a quick drying, thin, webbed material that clung to his broad-as-a-mountain shoulders-and dark shades. He’d shoved those to the top of his head, revealing a slight sunglasses tan line on his temples and sharp green eyes, which softened whenever he looked at her.
He was drop-dead sexy.
He made her lose control, every single time. She couldn’t even think about it without feeling a rush of heat to her very core. It shocked her, what he could do to her with a simple kiss or touch. If they ever actually got completely naked together, she’d probably go up in flames.
Hell, she might go up in flames right there, the way he had her up against the door. “I take it the meeting is called to order?”
“Yeah. Take notes.” He slid a hand down her back, her thighs, then back up again, pausing to squeeze her bottom with a rough groan before settling a hand at the small of her back to hold her close.
She wanted to wrap her legs around his waist.
“God, Harley. I’ve been on the edge for some time now, and nothing’s worked. Don’t ask me why or how, but being with you works.”
Yeah. Her, too. At least when their tongues were tangling.
“You have a way of getting beneath my skin,” he said softly, spreading his fingers wide on her lower back so that the very tips of them slid beneath the waistband of her pants.
“Something else we agree on,” she said a little breathlessly, extremely distracted by those fingers. “But you’re leaving next week,” she whispered, more to herself than him. “For Alaska. Two jobs in a row. That’s like three months.”
He put a finger under her chin and nudged it up to look into her eyes. “Maybe. And eventually you’re leaving, too. Colorado, remember?”
He was a wanderer at heart, and she was hoping to become one. “I remember.” When he nuzzled his face into her hair, she closed her eyes. “So what are we doing?”
“Not sure, but it feels damn good.”
“Temporarily.”
His mouth worked its way over her jaw. “Sometimes temporarily is all there is,” he murmured against her lips.
It wasn’t a question, but he was asking her something, and she knew what. “You think we could do that?” she asked. “Get involved, then walk?”
“We’re not asking me. We’re asking you.”
Right. He’d made a living out of temporary. But she never had. And yet with him, this…thing, this desperate needy thing, she didn’t want to walk away from, not yet. “I have been wanting to expand my horizons,” she finally said.
A heated smile was her reward, then a gentle bite on her lower lip, which made her gasp. Taking full advantage, he slid his tongue to hers.
The shuddery moan that drifted to her ears was her own, she realized, dazed, as he pulled her shirt from her pants so that he could get beneath to bare skin, both of them sighing with pleasure when he did. He hooked his fingers in her bra and gently tugged the cups down, rasping his thumbs over her nipples, groaning into her mouth when they hardened for him.
She would have collapsed to the floor, but he had a hard thigh between hers holding her up, which was a good thing, because then he shoved up her shirt, bent his head, and took her into his mouth.
Her head fell back and smacked the door. One of his hands slid up her back and cupped her head, protecting it as he worked her breast, teasing her nipple with his teeth, then sucking it between the roof of his mouth and his tongue, hard.
Plastered between his body and the door, she cried out his name, and her mind and body began a countdown to implosion. Her hands were all over him, reaching whatever she could, beneath his shirt, his pecs, his shoulders, his biceps, digging in when he nibbled his way to her other breast.
“God, Harley,” he whispered hoarsely against her skin. “You’re so beautiful. You taste so good. I want-I need-to taste the rest of you.”
He already had her writhing against him, so she was pretty much putty in his hands as he kissed her neck and reached for the button on her pants.
She needed her mouth on him, too. Now. Hell, at that moment, with him sliding a hand inside her underwear to squeeze a bare butt cheek, she’d have happily said yes to anything he wanted.
To everything he wanted.
Someone banged on the door right behind her head, and she nearly went into heart failure.
“TJ.” It was Nick. “The natives are getting restless.”
TJ took his mouth off Harley’s throat but left one hand on her breast, the other in her pants. “Give them another mimosa.”
“Another mimosa and you’ll be carrying them to their kayaks.”
His thumb brushed over her nipple, and she had to bite her lip hard to keep from making a sound. “Five minutes,” TJ told Nick, watching Harley’s face.
They heard Nick’s sigh, and then silence.
Harley hadn’t moved. She’d held herself still as need and panic pulsed through her veins instead of blood.
“Breathe,” TJ murmured, smoothing back her hair to press his mouth to the sensitive skin beneath her ear when she gulped in a breath.
He nibbled at her earlobe, his arms tightening on her as he continued assaulting her senses, one hand sliding farther into her panties. He had long arms, and she understood that was a bonus as he reached even farther, and then farther still. And when he found her wet and ready, he groaned deep in his throat.
“TJ,” she gasped when he slid one of those long fingers inside her. “We can’t-”
He added another finger, gliding them in and out of her, using the wet pads of those fingers to graze over ground zero.