Forever and a Day (13 page)

“Thank Christ they do not. It is why I practice, though. Garen flies too. He and I simulate emergencies, and we work our way through them.” As if on cue, Lars’ phone jangled. He pulled it out, tapped the display, and said, “
Ja
?”

The conversation was short and one-sided; less than a minute passed before Lars disconnected and pocketed his phone. Tamara wanted to ask about it, and about why he hadn’t let her use her own credit card at the bank kiosk, but they’d finally moved to the head of the queue.

“How can I help you, sir?” The car rental representative smiled blandly. Though young, she appeared tired. Blonde hair hung untidily about her face and her uniform shirt had come untucked.

“We would like a one-way rental. Four wheel drive, please.”

“Very good, sir. Where will you be leaving our car?”

“Jackson Hole.”

Tamara kept her mouth shut until they were in a full-sized SUV, following directions from its dashboard navigation system. She peered at the map on the car’s navigational display and zoomed out so she could get some perspective. “It’s a long way,” she ventured. “Two hundred seventy-five miles. Let’s see, that would be just over four hundred kilometers.”

Lars reached across the console and grasped her hand. “We will be driving through some of the most beautiful country in the world, unfortunately it is growing dark. Our journey will not take long. Maybe five hours. We are meeting Garen tomorrow at noon at the Jackson Hole airport.”

“Sure and I wondered why we were going to a ski resort.”

“Depending on what you’d like to do, I had thought we could stop for the night in Riverton. That is just over a hundred sixty kilometers.” He glanced fondly at her, his strong-boned face illuminated by the dash lights. “That way, the most stunning part of our drive will occur in daylight.”

“And we’ll have a few hours to ourselves.” She squeezed his hand. The idea of spending the night with the man beside her thrilled her beyond words.

“Yes, if you wish it.” A formality sat beneath his words, as if he didn’t want her to think he was taking anything for granted. Disappointment pricked. She wanted him to…to what? Bleed enthusiasm? Somehow, she suspected it wasn’t his style.

She leaned back against the well-padded leather seat, inhaling its rich scent. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do,” she raised his hand to her lips, kissed the back of it, and took a chance, “or anyone I’d rather be with.”

Breath whistled from between his teeth. “You will have to be patient with me. I know little of wooing a woman.”

She snorted. “Not that I’m any great expert in the wooing department. I’m guessing we can help each other.”

He pulled into a well-lighted shopping center. “I like the sound of that. While it would be charming to talk of love and courtship, I fear we must discuss less pleasant things.” He paused for a beat. “Garen will have alternative identification for us. That will not help us tonight. Whoever is after us has probably figured out we are together.”

“Is that why you wouldn’t let me use the money changing machine?”

“
Ja
. It is bad enough I have been leaving a trail a mile wide, but I cannot help that. I had planned on flying from Nice back to Germany in a twin engine prop plane I left at the airport.”

Tamara considered the implications. “Is Lars your real name?”

“One of them. I fear it has lost its utility.”

“What would you like me to call you?”

He caressed her thigh. “Does it really matter? I am who I am regardless of labels.”

She thought about it. “So long as I can call you something and you’ll be answering, that’s probably good enough.” She glanced at brilliant neon signs. “Why did we stop here?”

“We need a few things. If we wait until we get to Riverton, all the stores will be closed.” Lars got out of the car, walked around to her side, and held her door open for her. He offered his hand and she took it, just before she wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder. He pulled her against him. The heat of him seared her, even through her clothes. He tilted his head and kissed her, lips barely brushing hers, before he stepped away and closed her car door. Once he’d hit the clicker to activate the door locks, he took her hand again and leaned close. “I would like nothing better than to hold you in my arms for hours, explore your body, but we are far from safe. Let us purchase a few items and then we shall put a bit of distance between us and Caspar, Wyoming.”

She matched her whisper to his. “Do, um,
they
know we’re here?”

He shrugged as they walked toward a high rounded arch blazoned with SPORTS AUTHORITY. “It is possible they do not, since our flight plan lists Boeing Field as our destination. After another hour, they will know we did not land there. If they are monitoring an aviation band transceiver, they already know what has happened.” He gestured for her to precede him into the store.

Before she went inside, Tamara turned and raked the semi-dark parking lot, hunting for anything suspicious, her anxiety back in spades. If Chen’s men knew where they were, they needed to get moving straightaway. “What are we buying?”

“Warmer clothing for you. Sleeping bags in case we have an unexplained engine failure on the mountain roads between here and our destination. Maybe a shotgun, but I doubt they will sell me one with my German passport and international driver’s license.” He made a grab for a cart and they worked their way through the store. Because she simply held clothing up to her and didn’t try anything on, they were at the checkout stand in less than half an hour. He’d been right about being unable to buy a shotgun.

She snugged a green, fluffy coat around herself as soon as the checker scanned its tag, grateful for its protection and followed it with a black knitted hat and leather gloves. Monte Carlo had been warm. The temperature here must be somewhere in the minus rating. Quite aside from the ambient temperature, she felt chilled to her core, certain a band of thugs would jump them at any moment.
I’ve got to get hold of myself. Lars doesn’t seem scared.

“Thanks for the clothing. Sure and I wasn’t aware how ice-cold I was, probably because we spent all that time in the airport. How cold is it here?” she asked as they made their way back to their rental SUV.

He glanced at his watch and tapped a few buttons. “Minus seven centigrade, which is about twenty Fahrenheit.”

“Brrrr. It never gets this cold in Ireland. Well, hardly ever.”

“It is early March.” He popped the hatch and tossed their packages inside.

She gave him a long hug before getting back into the car, reluctant to let go. Even better, he seemed as reluctant as she. Where their bodies fit together, she felt the unmistakable bulge of his erection, heard his breath quicken, and felt need in the fingers he wound around her head. “Good thing we got those sleeping bags,” she murmured against his shoulder. “We could be laying them out in the back and—”

He laughed and helped her into the car. “That just might be the most attractive offer I have ever had.” She laid a hand over the belled-out front of his trousers and he leaned into her. “You are not making this easy,
liebchen
.”

“Maybe I’m not trying to.”

“Imp.” He closed her door, got in on his side, and ferried the car back onto an expressway. They left Caspar behind quickly. Time passed, maybe an hour. Lights thinned and then died out almost entirely. As if he divined her thoughts, he said, “We are passing large ranches. This is cattle country, but they grow hay and wheat here as well.”

She grinned. “I wasn’t needing an agricultural lesson. I was looking for a secluded spot we could pull off the road.”

He groaned. Somehow, she knew his erection hadn’t subsided one whit. Her nipples pebbled and she pressed her thighs together. Even if they only had a quickie, it would take a bit of the edge off her hunger for him. She straddled the console separating them. He shoved a hand between her legs and she writhed against his fingers as they drummed a sensuous rhythm atop her vulva. She pressed her hand over his, showing him what she needed until a climax ripped through her. Once it subsided, she slid back into her seat and reached for him, but he captured her hand. “Wait. An exit is just ahead.”

He ferried the car off the expressway, down a frontage road, and into a thick grove of aspen trees, before he killed the engine. “This is risky,” he panted, “but so is life. Slide your pants off.”

With a bit of awkward maneuvering, he ended up in her seat with her kneeling over his lap. She’d been right about him still being hard. He sank his cock into her body and gripped her ass cheeks with both hands. She closed her mouth over his, delighting in their kiss and the feel of his hard, insistent lips against hers. Lars plumbed her with his tongue and his cock. She squirmed against him, jamming her clit against his pubic bone. Another peak began low in her belly. His cock swelled even bigger inside her. She tightened her muscles around him and felt release zing through her, setting every nerve ending on fire. Moments later, his cock pulsated and semen gushed into her. He tightened his grip on her ass and made an amazing sound exactly like a big cat that had just claimed his mate.

They held one another, panting, for long moments before disentangling limbs and body parts. “Sure and maybe someday we’ll get to do that in a bed like proper lovers,” she teased.

“By then we will be so used to odd nooks and crannies, we may need them to heat our blood.”

“Speak for yourself.” She blotted her pussy with tissues from the glove box. “I’ll take as much of that,” she patted his still half-hard cock, “as I can get. Wherever, whenever.”

He kissed her, slowly, tenderly, and then returned to the driver’s seat. Kilometers passed in a companionable silence. She dozed off in fits and starts, satiated from having had him inside her. The sound of his voice called her back.

“Much as I hate to wake you,” he stroked her cheek with calloused fingertips, “we must speak further about unpleasant things. By now, Chen’s men must surely know we did not land in Seattle. It will not take much sophistication in the way of intelligence to discover where we did land, if they did not know already. We need a hotel that takes cash and does not put our identification on file. What that often means is a lower class establishment.” He set the car’s cruise control and reached for a bottle of water in the console between them. She unscrewed the lid and handed it over.

Tamara glanced behind them. The back seat was huge, and it looked as if it folded down. “I have an idea. Why not just spread out those sleeping bags. Then we could get some supper and sleep in the back of the car if we can’t find a hotel.”

“You would be willing to do that?” He stared at her until the car swerved and he was forced to return his attention to the road.

“I suggested it, didn’t I? We did a spot of camping when I was growing up. I didn’t like getting wet, so when it rained, I’d always make a dash for the car—before anyone could beat me to it.”

He chuckled. “It rains a lot in the United Kingdom.”

“It certainly does. It got so Mum just laid my bag out in the car. Said it saved her the effort of moving things around and getting even wetter than she would have if she just stayed in our big, canvas tent.”

“Thank you for your offer.” Lars’ formal tone was back. “It means a lot that you would offer to be uncomfortable just to…” His words faded.

“Sure and I’d do damn near anything to hold you in my arms all night. Are you kidding? It would be fun. An adventure.” She bounced a bit in her seat.

“Good you did not lose your taste for adventures in Monte Carlo.”

Something about the deadpan undertone in his words brought her up short. “Isn’t that the truth. I know this isn’t a game. Do you suppose they’re out there somewhere,” she gestured toward her side window, “following us?”

“It is what I would do in their place.” His words were solemn. “It is also why, no matter where we wait out the night, one of us must have all their faculties about them at all times. Because you lack training, I will watch over you.”

Something sweet and poignant in his words shook her to her soul. “You’re taking care of me.”

“
Ja
. I have been taking care of you ever since I saw your taxi jump the curb.”

So he has.
“I didn’t understand then how much I needed your help.”

“And now you do?” His wry humor warmed her.

“Probably not as thoroughly as you understand it, no, but sure and I’m getting there.”

“We can teach each other,
liebchen
.”

“I like it when you call me that. There are Gaelic endearments, too, like
mo croi
.”

“It does not matter what we call one another.” He raised his hand from her lap and tapped her breastbone before tapping his own. “When one heart calls to another, there is little need for language.”

“That’s beautiful.”

“No,
liebchen
. You are beauty. Your eyes remind me of a restless sea. Your hair is like a shining crown, and your lips are full, kissable, perfect.”

“Stop.” She stifled a pleased giggle. “I’ll become insufferable. For a gent who was clueless about how to court a woman, I’d say you’re doing a fairly decent job.”

“My cat wants to meet yours.”

“What?” She started, astounded by what he’d said, by the rapid shift of topics.

“Did your parents teach you nothing about shifter matings?”

Defensiveness sparred with embarrassment. “It wasn’t Mum’s fault. She tried, but I’d never listen.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t figure I’d ever meet up with another one like me, much less fall in love—” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Whoops.”

“What is between us feels like the beginnings of love. It is why our animal sides must meet.”

“See and there’s another reason for us pulling the car off into the woods and sleeping in the back of it. We could, um, shift and run about for a bit.” Tamara forced herself to stop talking. She’d been babbling because she felt nervous. Outside her immediate family, she’d never shown anyone her animal side.