Ready For Love Read online

  Ready For Love Book 1 & 2

  Published by Katelyn Skye

  at Smashwords

  Copyright © 2013 Katelyn Skye

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be constructed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental. All characters depicted are 18 years or older.

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Ready For Love Book 1

  Stupid. Incredibly fucking stupid. There was no other way to describe what she was doing, and Candace stared at the white coated trees surrounding her, wondering how she had gotten herself into this mess.

  The snowshoes were tangled around her feet, how could something that seemed like such a no-brainer be so damn hard? Her hands were frozen and her breath frosted the air, nothing looked familiar, unless snow was familiar, and the wind had picked up, cutting right through her coat.

  Candace cursed roundly. Her words struck the air and hung there as sharply as the icicles hanging from the tree branches. She scanned the area, trying to remember which way she had come from, hoping to see a wisp of smoke from the chimney of the lodge but there was nothing at all, just the deep muffled silence and the snow.

  Panic set in and she began to flounder through the snow, her legs churning up white frosted trails as she went. The snowshoes stuck and sank, she fumbled at the knots and released them, thinking she would be better off without them but that was a mistake. Immediately she was plunged to the tops of her boots into the cold stuff she had been almost walking on top of.

  She sat in a snowbank, tears freezing on her eyelashes as she struggled to re-tie the snowshoes. What had she been thinking? She had been bored and restless; tired of the endless pots of tea and hot chocolate and sappy romance books she had stuffed into her suitcase for company.

  Actually, she knew what she had been thinking, she had been thinking she would get out for the day and get a little exercise—clear her mind and work off some of the pounds of Godiva she had inhaled over the last few days.

  The small bed and breakfast offered several things: skiing, she had never skied, snowboarding, that looked downright dangerous, ice skating on a frozen pond, what if she drowned? And snowshoeing.

  Snowshoeing had won out and she had grabbed up the unwieldy things and headed out, determined to live again, to get herself back in fighting shape for when she returned to the city. She was going to need that, after all her fiancée had left her on their wedding day! She had been left standing, almost literally, at the altar while Todd had taken a slinky little waitress from the Village on the honeymoon that was supposed to be Candace’s.

  If it had not been for Todd she would be sitting in Aruba right now, getting a tan on her long lean body, sucking down drinks from a coconut and watching the waves hitting the shore. She would be wearing a rock on her fingers instead of mittens.

  Her anger got her back on her feet. The wind howled down, shattering the silence and she shuddered, her entire body clenching with cold. There had to be a way back to the lodge, she just had to think.

  Time passed as she struggled to find her way, she had no idea of how long but it felt like an eternity, a swaddled and frozen eternity. Her mind had begun to shut down and she was no longer able to think, she was just putting one foot in front of the other when she ran into the tree and clung to it, her legs suddenly too weak to support her.

  Lucas saw her standing in the copse of trees and for a moment he was certain he was hallucinating. Nobody in their right minds would be out in this weather in that ridiculous getup. She had on brand new bright pink ski bibs over what looked like jeans, a wool coat and scarf and a knitted hat. Her blonde hair hung to her waist in long loops and curls that were liberally dotted with snow.

  Her snowshoes were twisted beneath her, she had no idea of how to use them and all it took was the sight of the deep hole nearby for him to know she had tried walking without them.

  Fucking city people, they came up for the quaint little bed and breakfast a few miles away. They cooed over the rustic lodge with its broad beams and stone fireplaces and the tiny little bungalows situated around it then went home feeling like they had gotten away from the city and done something amazing. Go figure today of all days one of them would land at his feet, just when he was in a hurry to get back to his cabin.

  He would have ignored her, just kept going, if she had not tumbled face down into the snow, and stayed there. He stared, wondering if she were trying to make a snow angel or something equally preposterous but when she stayed still he knew she was in trouble.

  Candace muttered when a pair of hands yanked her up. She had grown warm, oddly enough, for a moment and she wanted to go back to that place. It had felt like down comforters and warm pillows…

  A man’s voice cut through the fog in her brain.

  “Get up or you are going to die out here.”

  Candace’s teeth chattered. She allowed herself to be lifted and she stared up at the man holding her: gorgeous did not come close to describing him. He was dark, incredibly so: black hair and dark brown eyes, heavy straight brows and a thick fringe of eyelashes. His nose was long and straight, his mouth sensually curved and full.

  “Stupid,” she got out.

  “Yeah, really stupid. The storm is coming up fast. Where are you staying?”

  He smelled like wood smoke and soap. It was masculine in the extreme and her pussy gave off a wet throb. That surprised her but her mind was too dulled by cold and fear to really register that or anything else right then. “Eagles Lodge and Inn.”

  “Of course. It’s too far, we will never make it. How did you get all the way up here?”

  Her head drooped toward her breastbone. Lucas swore and picked her up. She was tiny, her head barely came to his shoulder, and very slim so he was able to toss her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

  Her snowshoes thumped into his back but he ignored it. They were a mile from his cabin and he had to get them to it or they would both freeze to death. The storm was howling down and it had turned into a blizzard with terrifying suddenness.

  Candace had a dim impression of heat below her body. Some fragrant aroma—maybe pipe tobacco mixed with apples—came to her and she closed her eyes. The muscles of his shoulders moved below her belly and that wetness slicked her inner folds once more.

  Lucas made the mile in less than seven minutes, not bad for a man carrying a full grown woman and two plump ducks. Still, he had barely gotten the door to his cabin closed behind them when the blizzard kicked up to full blow. Snow covered everything, even the small shrubs outside his door and blanketed the outlines of the small barn he had built the year before.

  Lucas knew that his horses were well-fed and warm in there, they had a week’s worth of hay and alfalfa, and the water would come from the snow that would melt off when it came through a corner of the ceiling left blank for that purpose.

  The barn, other than that corner, was solid. The horses had stalls that had been built with winter in mind and they were filled with fresh bedding. The chickens were likewise fine in their coop, which he also could not see but he knew where it was anyway.

  He laid the women on his bed and she moaned, her eyes fluttering open to reveal sky blue irises dotted with gold. That was so strange that at first he wondered if the fire roaring merrily in the stove was playing tricks on him, then he thought perhaps she was wearing contact lenses. Her pert snub nose was red and her cheeks pale. He touched her hands, even through the mittens they were icy.

  He began to strip away her clothes and she protested, muttering something about a waitress and Aruba. He filed those mutters away for later consideration and got her out of the wet clothes.

  She was stunning. In her clothes she had looked like a small child playing dress up, without them she was decidedly womanly. She had lush curves of hip and breast, her waist was narrow and taut and her ass firm and high. Her nipples were the same pink color as party streamers and the narrow strip of curls between her thighs proved that the hair on her head was the color she was born with.

  Despite the situation Lucas’ cock grew rigid inside his jeans. The head nudged at the buttons on his fly and he turned away, grabbed a heavy comforter and dumped it on top of her. He had not seen any deathly pale patches on her skin—other than the ones on her cheeks—so he was sure she had escaped frostbite.

  The color was coming back into her face, and she burrowed into the covers like a tiny mouse. Her hand came out from under the covers as she rolled to one side, her elegantly slender fingers brushed against his thigh and his prick gave an even more demanding twitch just to ensure that Lucas was paying attention.

  Lucas wanted to touch her, to trace the curve of her breast and run his fingers through her pubic hair to see if her lips were as soaked as they had appeared to be while he was undressing her.

  He turned away, infuriated with himself. What kind of guy touched a girl who was basically unconscious? Not any kind of man he wanted to be. Still, she had looked both pink and wet and inviting…why the hell had she not been wearing panties? He would have left her panties on if she had just had enough sense to wear some!

  He wanted to go outside and work off some of the tension, may
be shed it out in his sweat lodge but the wind rattled the windows so severely he had to draw the shutters tight to save the glass and keep in the heat. There was no going anywhere—not then.

  With nothing else to occupy his mind—except for the staggeringly sexy blonde on his bed—he turned to the ducks he had shot. He had not meant to bag two but he had, one had startled up near him and he had squeezed the trigger by instinct rather than need. He hated waste, and people who shot animals only to leave them lying so he had brought the extra bird with him, and now he was glad he had.

  He plucked and cleaned then dressed the birds, stuffed them and stoked the fire in the wood stove. He mixed up a pan of grain and vegetables and then set a tea kettle, battered and dented, on the burner atop the stove.

  Candace slowly came back to wakefulness. She could feel the warmth and smell food, and her first thought was that she was on her honeymoon with Todd after all and everything that had happened had been a bad dream. Her second thought was that she had frozen to death and she was dead.

  The man who stood over her was anything but ghostly though. He was virile and, if that bulge in his jeans was to be believed, incredibly red-blooded. His face was lit up orange and gold by the flames in the stove and lamps that hung about, a hard cramp of desire hit her.

  Todd was nothing compared to this man. Todd, with his perfectly foiled hair and pinstripe suits and neatly folded Italian silk handkerchiefs looked like a pale and silly boy next to him.

  Who the hell was he anyway?

  “Can you speak?” His voice was slow and rich, it gave her Goosebumps and her nipples tightened.

  “Yes,” she nodded as she spoke then blushed. “I am sorry, who are you and why am I here? This does not look like Eagle’s…”

  “It isn’t.”

  “Then where am I?” She made to push away the covers and sit up, but realized halfway up that she was naked, and promptly snatched the covers to her chin and backed up against the headboard of the bed.

  “You are at my cabin. I’m Lucas.”

  “Candace,” she squeaked out. “I was lost in the woods.”

  “Those damn people that run that motel…”

  “It is a bed and breakfast,” she said. “I would never stay at a motel.”

  Lucas knew quality when he saw it. Her clothes were unsuited for the climate but they were expensive in the extreme. “Be that as it may. When old man Wellington still owned it he took care to make sure his guests survived their stay. Back then it was just the lodge, pure and simple. Now everyone calls it something fancy: Bed and breakfast, an inn, the lodge—and they say it like they are capitalizing each word. They should have told you that there was a storm coming but I doubt those dumbasses even knew. Maybe they forgot to watch the weather channel this morning.”

  Candace opened her mouth and closed it again. He had confused her, and she had a feeling he thought very little of her. He did not seem like the type to get lost in the woods, and no doubt he was angry at having to rescue her.

  “I am sorry, I had no idea it would get that cold so fast. If you could just point me in the direction of the lodge I will be on my way.”

  “Good luck. It’s a blizzard. See for yourself.” He reached past her and she shivered; the urge to lean forward so that his arm brushed against her breast was almost too much temptation to shy away from.

  She stared out at the solid curtain of white swirling past the window and when he slammed the shutter back into place she had to take a long breath. If he had not come along she would be out there, in that! There was no way she would have survived.

  “Thank you,” she said softly.

  Lucas wanted to ignore the full curve of her bottom lip, to look away from her hair spilling across her body and down to the sheets and blankets but he could not and he saw her eyes fall to his crotch. He knew that the outline of his prick, plump full and long, was readily visible but he stood still. No sense in hiding it, nature just was what it was. She looked away first.

  Candace was having all sorts of dirty thoughts. She wanted to reach out and stroke that hardness, touch that heated denim and see if he responded to her, she just knew he would not be the kind of lover Todd had been: far too gentle and always too quick.

  “Are you hungry?”

  Was she ever, but she doubted he meant what she did when she said yes. He proved that by tossing a clean but faded shirt at her as well as pair of thermal bottoms. They were far too long, and the shirt was not only too long but too wide—his broad shoulders and strong arms filled his own out nicely though.

  Lucas turned away while she dressed and when she walked over to the table, hesitant and nervous he poured her a cup of steaming hot tea and sat two plates down.

  “I hope you’re not a vegetarian.”

  “No, not at all.” She eyed the juicy, gold skinned ducks as he brought them to the table and began to carve them. “That looks delicious.” It smelled delicious too and her belly gave out a low long growl that made her face go red but if he heard it he ignored it.

  They sat and began to eat. Candace had been living on chocolate and brandy since her wedding day the week before and she had not realized just how much she needed real food and nourishment until she put a fork filled with savory herbs and roasted meat to her mouth and took a bite. She barely looked up until the plate was empty and when she did he silently dumped more meat onto it.

  “Thank you, I don’t usually eat like this.” What must he think of her?

  His lips creased into a grin, “The shame would have been to have rescued a finicky eater who asked for something more in keeping with their figure, say a lettuce leaf and a bottle of alkaline water.”

  Candace choked on laughter. Todd had always been horrified by the way she ate, before she could stop herself she blurted out, “My fiancée once told me I eat like I’m afraid someone is going to take it away from me.”

  Fiancée, of course she had one. No woman who looked like her was going to be free and unattached. “Are you?”

  “No,” she laughed. “I am just always in a hurry.”

  “The world is in a hurry.”

  “Especially the part called Manhattan,” Candace laughed. “But I love it. I could not imagine living without the rush and hustle and…oh, all of it.”

  Lucas poured more tea into their cups and she reached for hers, picked it up and held it. “This is good, what is it?”

  “Tansy and rose hips.”

  If any other man had said that they would have sounded far less masculine than he did. He leaned back in his chair, sipping from his own cup and she had to look away.

  “Is the power off?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are you burning lamps?”

  “Because I do not use electricity.”

  Candace’s mouth fell open and stayed open. “How do you live without electricity? My God, are we going to freeze to death?” The question was pointless; it was warm, bright and cheery in the room. She looked around, seeing it for the first time.

  The cabin had been built for the weather. The logs did not show on the inside because Lucas had used thick sheetrock and then he had used solid pine boards to cover that. The same pine lay on the floor and walls and glowed with a mellow light.

  The main room was an open concept kitchen and living room. His bedroom was tucked off to one side, the bed was a thick mattress on mid-height platform and when she looked around for a bathroom he saw her consternation.

  “There is a bathroom, with running water. I have a well and septic that I dug. There are some things you just have to have. Of course, the water is not heated so in the winter it can be a bitch.”

  Right then he could have used one of those icy cold showers. His prick was so hard it was literally about to rip through his fly and poke its head out, maybe even say hello. Lucas had been too long without a woman in his life but even if he had already bedded one that same day Candace would have turned him on. There was something about her—a mixture of vulnerability and toughness—that just spoke to him.

  “Why?”

  “What?”

  Candace looked down at her emptied plate. “I do not mean to pry but why would you live without electricity? Are you Amish?”

  His laughter was a pleasant rumble, “No, but you will find a few Plain families over the state line nearer to the Berkshires.”