Fueling Her Fire Read online

  Fueling Her Fire

  Piper Trace

  Lonely and frustrated with her love life, Kip’s decided to spend Christmas alone in her family’s cabin in the mountains, rediscovering herself and not thinking about men…until a last-minute firewood delivery brings her face-to-face with the grown-up version of the sexy football star who broke her heart eight years ago.

  Kip’s never stopped thinking about Dylan, but the memories are both searingly hot and brutally painful. When they find themselves snowed in together on Christmas Eve, neither can deny the passion that still smolders between them. If they can overcome the past, they can let the flames ignite at last.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing

  www.ellorascave.com

  Fueling Her Fire

  ISBN 9781419937613

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Fueling Her Fire Copyright © 2011 Piper Trace

  Edited by Meghan Conrad

  Cover design by Caitlin Fry

  Photography: Curaphotography; L. Watcharapol; Loriklaszlo/Shutterstock.com

  Electronic book publication December 2011

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  The publisher and author(s) acknowledge the trademark status and trademark ownership of all trademarks, service marks and word marks mentioned in this book.

  The publisher does not have any control over, and does not assume any responsibility for, author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  FUELING HER FIRE

  Piper Trace

  Chapter One

  Kip stared at Dylan Johnson’s personal page on the social networking site. A photo of a dilapidated barn stared back at her from the left corner of the page where Dylan’s handsome face should have been. A terse announcement in the middle of the screen boldly implied she should reach out to him. “Dylan Johnson only shares his information with friends. Do you want to connect with Dylan Johnson?”

  Kip had only been curious to see a recent picture. She pressed the cancel button and threw the phone on her passenger seat in frustration. Do I want to connect with Dylan Johnson? Hell yeah. She could only imagine what her high-school crush must look like now, all grown up. He’d been a stud at eighteen—good-looking, athletic and universally swooned over—but now at twenty-six, with eight years more experience? He could probably completely blow her mind.

  Even now all these years later, her memories of him had the power to provoke a reaction in her—a quickened heartbeat, shallow breaths—if she dwelled on them long enough. And when she felt as lonely as she did now, she tended to dwell… She remembered his strong, capable hands and a part of her wished she could feel them on her again.

  He’d had big hands. His unfailing grip on a football helped make him a varsity star in their small West Virginia high school. She closed her eyes and thought of what his hands might feel like now, cupping her breasts, lifting each one in turn to draw her hardened nipples into his mouth, his raven-black hair falling over his forehead and his cobalt-blue eyes looking up at her through long lashes. She imagined him moving his other hand under her ass to pull her slowly and deliberately against his obvious erection.

  And she knew his hands weren’t the only big thing about him.

  Kip shook her head. She couldn’t believe thinking of Dylan could still get her hot, eight years later. She was a woman now—no longer the eighteen-year-old geek letting the high-school football star feel her up after school. Amazing though, how just heading toward the little Dalton Run town line made her feel like she was still that girl.

  Throwing her luxury SUV into reverse, she backed it out of the Christmas tree lot, her tires crunching in the gravel, a tall blue spruce secured to her roof by the helpful staff. She knew she was only feeling sorry for herself for being alone at Christmas and that isolation and self-pity were causing her to crave the comfort and heat of an old flame…but she also was smart enough to know that such thoughts were really stupid.

  Especially because he wasn’t just any old flame—he was the old flame to whom she’d never found an equal. The old flame who, despite what he had done to her, still made her pulse pound more than any man since. The guy about whom she’d fantasized over and over again when she was alone and taking care of herself, or when she wasn’t alone, but in bed with her sorry ex-boyfriend.

  Geez god. What was she thinking? She’d been fighting the urge to look Dylan up ever since she’d left that morning. Waiting for the staff at the Christmas tree lot to secure the tree to the top of her truck had given her the few minutes of boredom it took for her resolve to crack.

  She made an exasperated noise, mad at herself for looking Dylan up on the site and fueling her foolish memories. Especially now, when she was heading back to her small hometown to spend a miserable Christmas Eve completely alone, the day after she’d dumped her cheating boyfriend. Really, this was the worst day to be dredging up those memories.

  No, she would not connect with Dylan on that site. Or anywhere, ever. Because of the other memories she had of him—the memories of shame, of humiliation.

  “Hey Kip, how much do you charge?”

  The stares and giggles in the hallways of the high school. The jeering voices. An unidentified female voice yelling “Whore!” during her valedictorian speech and Kip’s resulting stumble over her well-memorized words. Not able to recover her composure, Kip finally cut her speech short and fled the stage in tears.

  Turning on the radio, she tried to shake off the old, familiar feelings. She was determined to have a nice Christmas, even if she was back in Dalton Run and even if she was alone.

  Kip Parker, why the hell did you think this was a good idea? She chided herself, using the name she couldn’t seem to shake from her past—the name they knew her as in rural Dalton Run.

  But she was no longer Kip Parker, she reminded herself firmly, she was Kim Parker.

  When she and her mom had moved to Dalton Run to live with her grandmother, some school administrator had made a typing error in her paperwork. The office-worker, not realizing the potential permanence of such a mistake, had mistyped the last letter of Kim’s first name as the first letter of her last name, causing every teacher that first day to introduce her as “Kip Parker”…and it had stuck. It had stuck so thoroughly, in fact, that Kip had actually had to produce a birth certificate to prove her real name to the high school so her diploma wouldn’t come under the moniker they had given her.

  The woods around her closed in as she turned off the highway onto the rural route that wound up the mountain to Dalton Run. The snow that had started falling as soon as she’d crossed the West Virginia state line hadn’t slowed. The fat, fluffy snowflakes we
re accumulating so quickly that the road was barely discernible from the land around it and Kip was thankful she had a four-wheel drive.

  Her thoughts drew again to Dylan, who had never been her boyfriend, but had been the first man she’d slept with. He’d been all Kip had thought about when she’d thought of losing her virginity…and she’d thought about that a lot back then. But her crush had been pure fantasy, because Dylan was high-school royalty and Kip was a geek. He’d never go out with her.

  “And he never did,” she said bitterly, though she was alone in the car. Shifting in her seat, she recognized the familiar anxiety triggered by any memories of Dylan that didn’t involve sex. As much as she tried to only think of him as a convenient subject of her sexual fantasies, the memories of what eventually happened between them sometimes seeped in. It was always the same—anxiety and desire, desire and hurt. “Goddamn it,” she muttered, shaking her head again, her hair whispering over the nylon shoulders of her winter coat.

  She touched her hair, thinking how much longer it had been back then. She’d had pretty hair, but she’d been shy and not nearly as flashy as the girls Dylan dated. The one she remembered most clearly was a beautiful blonde cheerleader named Jackie. It had seemed Dylan was always on-again, off-again with her, though he could have had any girl.

  He’d had striking good looks. Tall and muscular, even at eighteen, he had black hair that fell over his forehead in a casual tousle and eyes blue like an October sky over the mountaintop. In contrast, Kip remembered her looks being common—wavy, dark-brown hair, hazel eyes and makeup firmly categorized as “natural”. Nothing showy, nothing special.

  She tried to concentrate on the road or on the comfort of the familiar cabin waiting for her, anything, but her traitorous mind could not be corralled. She wished, as she had countless times before, that she’d never tutored him. But Dylan had been in danger of not graduating and he’d approached Kip about helping him.

  She’d had a scholarship to an out-of-state college and his dad had lined up a job for Dylan at the local lumber mill. She’d soon realized Dylan was more intelligent than his grades reflected and had encouraged him to consider college, but he’d insisted college wasn’t for him—he needed to be outside in the open air, working with his hands. Back then, even in her relative innocence, Kip had a lot of ideas of what he could do with his hands…

  She sighed. Those were good days. The days before it all went wrong. Those days they’d spent as much time lying on his bed next to each other staring at the ceiling and talking about life as they’d spent studying.

  She chewed on her lip. How could something so good have turned so bad—and so quickly?

  It had been one month before graduation when he’d first kissed her, leaning across his chemistry book, final exams forgotten for the moment. She’d been surprised at the ease she’d felt between her and Dylan and how natural it had felt for them to kiss. When they were alone in his room it wasn’t Dylan the football star and Kip the brainiac, it was just Dylan and Kip, a boy and a girl who liked each other.

  Kip realized she was sitting stock straight in her car seat, her body zinging with tension. She consciously tried to relax, reminding herself she’d probably never see him again. She didn’t even know if he still lived in Dalton Run. Moving a hand off the wheel, she rubbed it up and down her thigh to ease the tightness in her muscles, but it didn’t help to settle her down. Every mile she got closer to that town, the less she was able to keep her mind off him.

  After that first kiss they’d almost never studied. Making out was much more fun. She’d stopped teaching him things and he’d started instructing her instead. She never understood the way things turned out. He’d been so loving the day they’d finally had sex, holding her face in his hands when it was over and kissing her like she was a treasured thing. It had been awkward and quick, but she remember feeling happier than she’d ever felt in her eighteen years.

  How could I have been so naïve?

  She wondered with an honest twinge of jealously if he’d ever married his cheerleader. What if things had been different? What if he’d genuinely liked Kip, or they’d dated and just grew apart when she went out of state for college? If things had been like that, then maybe now when she’d made her last-minute decision to come home to Dalton Run for Christmas she would have felt comfortable looking him up. Maybe they could have even planned to get together.

  He could have met her at the cabin, helped her set up the tree and sat under it with her next to the wood stove, sipping wine and catching up. The Christmas lights would twinkle, reflected by his icy-blue eyes when he laughed, enjoying their conversation. He’d smile at her, his dark hair falling lazily over his forehead, remembering how much he enjoyed being around her.

  Kip reached over to her dash and turned down her seat warmer. Thoughts of Dylan always got her temperature up. She could picture them sitting on a blanket under the Christmas tree, so close to each other. There’d be a moment of awkward silence when they both realized how much they wanted to kiss, but feeling shy because they hadn’t seen each other in so many years.

  He’d lean in to her, wetting her lips with his, gently at first, cautiously pushing his tongue into her mouth. He’d taste like red wine and she’d kiss him back eagerly, not pretending to need to warm up to the idea.

  And they would both know what they were going to do—what they’d intended to do—catching up in the cabin alone. Besides, she was a woman now. She knew what she wanted and she was not going to apologize for it.

  Kip squeezed her legs together at the thoughts, causing a shiver of arousal to ripple through her. She moved her hand up her thigh, drawn by the lovely pulsing desire that had started between her legs. Pressing her fingers against the crotch of her jeans, she encouraged the growing pleasure there. She’d allowed her sexual needs to go neglected for too long and now she was in a bad way.

  Kip had never touched herself in the car before, but since she’d broken up with her boyfriend she’d been experiencing an interesting side effect. An undercurrent of simmering sexual focus seemed to permeate every moment. Not even two days ago she’d looked in the mirror and privately made the decision to marry William when he asked her. He was a stable and reliable guy…just what she deserved, she’d thought. But marrying William would have meant resigning her sex life to the carnal equivalent of a monotonous road trip along an infinite, smooth-paved desert highway.

  But now? Now she was free again—free to explore, experience and find a new path. And she was excited about it. She wanted hills and hairpin turns and tunnels. Since yesterday, she had found that even the slightest thoughts aroused her…and heading back to her hometown, those thoughts were now all focused on Dylan.

  The snow falling around her SUV created a dreamlike scene against the backdrop of the thick forest, now covered in white, and she was able to lose herself in the fantasy.

  They’d kiss with the passion that eight years of wanting stores up in a person. He’d press her to the floor and devour her mouth with his, leaving her gasping when he moved his lips to her neck. The caress of his tongue and even the graze of his teeth would divulge his greed for her body. Groaning against her skin, he’d barely contain his pent-up need for her. She’d press her body upward to meet his, leaving no question that she was as hungry for it as he was. Pushing her shirt up he’d find her braless, nipples tightened and ready, and he’d take full advantage of her bare breasts.

  He’d cup first one breast, then the other, rubbing them and teasing her hard nipples until Kip was ready to beg him to touch her pussy. She’d pant and sigh, not holding back any noise of pleasure he provoked from her. William had not been comfortable with unrestrained behavior, especially during sex, and especially not from Kip, she’d discovered. But it wouldn’t be like that with Dylan.

  Dylan would press her to the floor and then he’d shift his position so he could lower his lips to her breasts, sucking her nipples into his mouth. She’d vocalize every beautiful sound of excitement
that bubbled up in her, excitement borne in part from having a new man’s lips on an intimate area of her body. The nerve endings in her nipples would be zinging and every lap of his tongue would build her excitement. The tension in Dylan’s body and the hardness of him pressed against her would only fuel her desire more.

  He’d move against her hesitantly, unsure if this was where she wanted to go, and her belly would twist with a desire stronger than she’d ever experienced. Fumbling with the button of her jeans, he might pause long enough to lock eyes with her, searching for permission.

  To hell with hesitation! She’d wriggle out from under him and demand that he get naked, now. No, in fact, she’d peel his clothes off under the Christmas tree herself, like a kid on Christmas morning hyped up on cocoa and candy canes. Kip hadn’t been fucked—really fucked—like she’d wanted it in a long, long time. And, damn it, this was her fantasy and Dylan would be lucky if he got out it without suffering from exhaustion. He owed her.

  She’d lie back down on the warm blanket in front of the wood stove, her nipples still hard from arousal and exposure. He’d lie so his body met hers along the full length of her body, trailing his fingers down the curves of her torso to her pussy. The maddening slowness of his seduction combined with the feverish level of her need would make her tremble underneath his fingertips.

  He’d snake a finger between her moist pussy lips and dip into her, finding her very wet for him. The penetration would make her breath hitch and he’d groan, unable to sustain the languid seduction any longer. He’d lift himself onto her until his erection pressed between her legs, his broad, muscular chest at her eye level.

  Bending in to kiss her, he’d look down at the juncture of their bodies as he rubbed against her, slicking his hot length with her juices from the rounded tip of his cock to the wide base where his balls pressed heavily against her flushed pussy lips. He’d shut his eyes and groan low and the deep rumble of it would send a wicked thrill through her, making her squirm against him, demanding he fill her.