Free Never Too Late by RaeAnne Thayne Page A

with agonizing slowness, down, down and it was all he could do not to whimper.
    He had never been so aroused, never wanted so ferociously. He couldn’t wait, he wanted to consume her. To take her until neither of them could move. Fast, slow, and every way in between.
    “Hunter?”
    The voice came again, more insistently this time. Instead of a warm, sensuous whisper, this time it blew across his skin like the Arctic Ocean had suddenly come crashing over him.
    In an instant, everything disappeared, yanked away with such cruel abruptness he wanted to bellow with rage. The warm sand, the sunshine, the naked and beautiful Kate in his arms. It was all gone.
    He blinked quickly back to awareness, to the inside of his Jeep, to Belle snuffling around in her crate. Instead of warm tropical breezes, snow whirled around outside the SUV, blowing hard across the highway.
    A dream. He was having a dream about Kate Spencer, about making love to her on some tropical beach, while she sat oblivious two feet away.
    Holy hell.
    He drew in a ragged breath, more grateful than he had ever been in his life that sometime while he’d slept she must have covered him with that fleece blanket he’d put behind the front seat in case of emergency.
    This definitely qualified as an emergency. He was so aroused, it was a wonder he hadn’t popped a few buttons on his Levi’s.
    He was sick thinking about what might have happened if she hadn’t awakened him—and if the blanket wasn’t hiding his obvious arousal. In another few moments, he would probably have embarrassed them both, something that hadn’t happened to him since he’d hit puberty.
    He would have had to move away, to another country, possibly another continent. Though he would have hated it, he would have had to break off all contact with his own sister to avoid ever having to see Kate again.
    He had been far too long without intimacy. While on one level it was good to know he was still capable of all the normal hunger he thought had shriveled away during his incarceration, he would really rather not have discovered this salient fact on a long road trip with the one woman he couldn’t have.
    He could only hope and pray he hadn’t said anything incriminating while he’d slept, that he had only done all that moaning and groaning in the feverish recesses of his mind.
    Hunter blew out a breath and tried to focus on anything but the need still centered in his groin.
    Even though the electronic clock on the dashboard read only five-thirty, the sky had darkened while he’d slept. They were approaching the shortest day of the year, he remembered. Outside the window, he saw nothing but snow swirling in their headlights. No house lights, no headlight beams from other traffic.
    It was otherworldly, that total absence of life, as if they were completely alone in their own intimate little universe. His shoulder blades itched and he almost—not quite—forgot about that horrifying dream.
    “Where are we?”
    “On the Navajo Reservation. The last road sign said five miles to Shiprock, so we should be seeing some signs of life soon.”
    “How long has it been snowing?”
    “Right before I hit Blanding.”
    That must have been a hundred miles ago! He couldn’t believe he’d slept that long or that deeply. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept three hours at a stretch.
    Of course, he couldn’t remember the last erotic dream he’d had, either.
    His lingering embarrassment turned him surly. “I told you to wake me up if the weather turned bad. Why the hell didn’t you do what I said?”
    “There was no reason to wake you. I was doing fine. I’m still doing fine. You looked like you needed the rest and I didn’t see any need to disturb you. I wouldn’t have awakened you now except I thought since it’s your vehicle here I’d better check to see if you want to stop in Shiprock and wait out the storm or keep driving onto Farmington or points south. I’ve been listening to weather