Keepsake (True North, #3)

by Sarina Bowen

Who could forget him? Zachariah was a thing of beauty.

“Audrey, no!” Kyle argued. “You can’t leave! Griff is going to be a grumpy bear for the whole harvest season. Do you even know what you’re doing to us?”

I would work on this farm and share meals with these people. I would smile and act normal for as long as it took. Until acting normal seemed normal again, and the dragons in my heart forgot to blow their fire.

Since I’d already been caught staring, I didn’t bother looking away. I couldn’t have, anyhow. Lark was the most enchanting woman I’d ever met.

Funny how I never really appreciated the bible until I got free of the people who’d taught it to me.

During the day I could hold it all together. But when darkness closed in and I let my guard down, my dragons shook their chains and began to roar.

Damn, he was a fine specimen. I was the kind of girl who appreciated a tattoo or ten on a guy, but there was something pure and beautiful about the golden, unadorned expanse of Zach’s rippling back.

When he smiled again, his cheeks pinked up a little. God, he was cute. I loved a man who blushed easily.

I’d never met anyone whose looks were so…golden. He almost shimmered with health.

I grinned at him because I just had to. All that male beauty, and it was smiling at me.

He was all golden skin and shapely muscle, from the biceps visible at the sleeves of his T-shirt to his broad, sturdy hands.

One in a row—the start of a streak.”

This girl made me feel like a guilty teenager again, the one who was always praying that nobody around him could read minds.

I’d never thought of myself as the damsel-in-distress type. But apparently, getting kidnapped turns you into a needy little bitch.

“Didn’t you ever hear the phrase, ladies first?” “That’s only true in bed,” Kyle said, reaching for another cracker. Griffin snorted. “At least you have manners somewhere.”

Nightmares don’t have any respect for a person’s dignity. Just when I’d decided Vermont was my salvation, I had another awful night.

“They don’t get that I have as dirty a mind as anyone else. Just haven’t put it to recent use.”

Paradise Ranch was the worst place on earth, and yet I hadn’t been good enough to stay.

There was no way to rewind my life to a time when I hadn’t been to Guatemala. The old Lark was long gone. The new one couldn’t recognize Lark 1.0 at fifty paces.

“Who are we going to find for you, Zachy?” Your best friend? “Uh, I don’t know if I’m dating material.” “If my brother can find someone to love his grumpy ass, and even Eeyore here is married—” She jerked a thumb toward Jude, who grinned. “—then it’s really astonishing that you and I are single.”

My family. A small, mythical crew of people who got excited when I came in the front door from work. Pretty hard to envision, really.

My senses were overwhelmed with all things Zach—his sunshine scent and the rough pad of his thumb on my cheek. And his taste, which was like beer and hunger.

The first taste of his hunger was magic, setting off an electrical charge throughout my body.

“Looks like PTSD, doesn’t it? Just like Zara’s other brother—Damien. Did you know he did two tours in Afghanistan?” I nodded. Damien turned up at the Gin Mill sometimes, and I’d seen his dog tags. “The guy didn’t sleep right for two years after he came home. Told me he still sleepwalks sometimes. He woke up once on his couch, holding a kitchen knife.”

I always felt relaxed with him, because he already knew I was a wreck. I didn’t have to pretend. And he seemed to like me anyway.

Chemistry was something I hadn’t felt in a long time. It was even nicer than I remembered.

I might have kissed her then, in front of God and everybody. I was that far gone for her. But I was saved by the distraction of a bolt of lightning which somehow shone brighter than my lust.

With one smooth thumb she brushed water off my cheekbone. The sweep of her skin against mine was at once familiar and electrifying. Whenever she touched me, I felt as if I’d loved her my whole life.

My body did its best impression of a brush pile catching fire. Whoosh. Giving in to the urge I’d been fighting every minute of the day and night, I reached for her beautiful face with both hands.

Parting her lips with my own, I got the first heady taste of her. All logic and reason fled the building as I took sip after sip of her mouth.

I didn’t even know my own name. All I knew was the ache she made me feel. The need. My hunger was like a devil on my shoulder, urging my hands to coast down her back, pulling her hips against my eager ones.

God, I loved her. What a scary thought that was, but it was entirely true. I’d never felt about anyone the way I felt about Lark. Like I’d walk through fire for her.

“Zach,” Lark whispered. The bed moved as she lay down again, too. “Is it egotistical of me to ask whether I’ve ever made it into one of your best dreams?” In Leviticus, it says, “You shall not lie to one another.” The temptation was strong. But I spoke the truth. “They’re all about you.”

Zach was beautiful on his worst day. But a horny Zach was the thing of fantasies.

Zach wasn’t just a guy I happened to be attracted to. He was special. Zach was a better person than…well, just about anybody. He ought to be handled with care.

He tasted exactly as he should—of the cool night air, the outdoors, a hint of sweat.

Desire thrummed through me in earnest. With his enthusiastic kisses, Zach stoked the embers of my libido into flames.

Everything about Zach was finer than on a normal person.

Our kisses went wild, and I lost myself inside my own senses in a way that I hadn’t done in a long time. For this beautiful moment, there was no fear. There were no nightmares, and no darkness hovering over my heart.

Our next kiss was so hot and eager that I felt myself floating along on the pleasure of it all. We lay face to face, Zach’s palms skimming reverently over my breasts. Every touch made me a little crazier. It had been so long since anyone touched me with loving hands.

Wowza. Zachariah was beautiful everywhere.

“I wasn’t expecting…” He didn’t finish the sentence. “I know that, okay? I’ve never had sex with someone out of obligation.” “Me neither,” he said.

Right now “ruined” sounded like a pretty accurate word for how I felt. Now that I knew how beautiful it could be, there would never be another moment when I didn’t crave more of Lark.

Somehow I would have to find a way to make this night last forever.

My fantasies hadn’t been nearly this good. It was a sensory overload—the feel of her smooth skin against my own, and the salty taste of her body in my mouth.

The feel of her body underneath mine touched some primal part of me. No user’s manual was necessary.

“Nobody could have a nightmare after that,” Lark murmured. “Just sayin’…” I chuckled into her hair. “You should have said something sooner.”

“Did you…deflower him?” Ugh. “Hello, this is 1865 calling. They want their word back. And besides—virginity is just a construct invented by men to subjugate women.”

“He’s so handsome. And he doesn’t know it, either. Which sort of doubles his appeal, right?” I made a noise of agreement, just picturing him hovering over me in bed. “When he takes his clothes off, it doubles again. I probably have a sunburn from all the hotness that is Zachariah.”

Desire was a lovely drug. I wanted more of it.