Bedding Down, A Collection of Winter Erotica (6 page)

O
ne
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ight in
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inter

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but now that her body was satisfied, at least temporarily, her

heart demanded the same satisfaction.

“This ‘thing’ between us is more than sex,” he said. “You

know that.”

She nodded, even though it wasn’t a question.

“Now that we’re both free, I don’t think it will wait another

four years to be satisfied.” He ran his thumb over her bottom

lip, swollen from his kisses. “Do you?”

She nipped his thumb and smiled. “No.”

“I know it won’t,” he said. “I won’t let it. I’ve let you go twice without telling you how I felt. I don’t intend to do it again.”

“I leave for Seattle tomorrow,” she reminded him.

“We’ll make this work.”

He sounded so determined, she knew it was true. “I hope

so.”

He leaned down and kissed her. “We will. And I have all

night to convince you.”

Susannah tucked her head against his shoulder and looked

out the window that faced the woods behind the inn. The snow

had finally stopped and the moon shown brightly in the mid-

night sky.

Winter had come early to Minerva and worked its magic—

her heart believed anything was possible now.

About Krishna Wright

KRISTINA WRIGHT
is an award-winning

author who loves writing stories that are emotionally

compelling and sexually charged. Her erotic fiction has

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K
ristina
W
right

appeared in over fifty print anthologies, including
Best

Women’s Erotica
,
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica,
and
Dirty Girls: Erotica for Women
. She also received the Golden Heart Award for Romantic Suspense from Romance

Writers of America for her first novel
Dangerous Curves
.

She holds a BA in English, an MA in humanities, and

is completing a certificate in women’s studies while

entertaining the idea of pursuing a PhD. For more

information about Kristina’s writing and academic

interests, visit her website www.kristinawright.com.

Six Weeks on

Sunrise Mountain, Colorado

by Gwen Masters

The weathered old porch creaked as Fletcher rocked back and

forth in the chair. The moon slowly came up over Sunrise

Mountain, casting its silver light over the cedar and pine. Snow had started to fall hours ago, the kind of snow that turned to

ice as soon as it touched anything on the ground. The trees

were leaning with the pressure on their branches. The road was

impassable already and would remain that way for weeks.

Fletcher was completely unconcerned with time and content

to be snowed in. He went on rocking and listening to the snow

settling on the old tin roof above him. Every now and then he

spotted an owl, rising on white wings, gliding soundlessly over the treetops. The moonlight turned the owl’s eyes into bright

prisms of light for an instant before it disappeared into the

leaves again.

The shape of a small animal at the end of his long gravel

driveway caught his eye. Fletcher calmly reached for the shot-

gun propped up against the porch railing, running his hand

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over the smooth barrel, ready to use the weapon if necessary.

Eventually the animal left the shadows and walked through a

shaft of moonlight, showing Fletcher the distinctive markings

on its face—a raccoon. The little fellow waddled its way up the rocky road that surrounded the cabin and occasionally stopped

to sniff the air, barely bothering to glance at the now-familiar man up on the porch. Fletcher relaxed and let his hand fall from the barrel of the gun.

Up on Sunrise Mountain, all kinds of animals might come

hunting at his doorstep, but it was very doubtful any of them

would be human, and that suited Fletcher just fine. He had

jumped into the rat race at a fresh-faced twenty-two, straight

from college to a high-pressure job in Silicon Valley. By thirty-two, the dot-com boom had slammed with the force of a nuclear

bomb, and he was a millionaire many times over. By the time he

was thirty-five, he was so burned out he didn’t give a damn if he had a dollar to his name, as long as he had some peace of mind.

There was no one he trusted.

It hadn’t taken long for him to realize that the worst preda-

tors were of his own kind.

Fletcher looked back up at the moon. It danced into the snow

clouds, turning the world darker. His ears made up for what his eyes could no longer see in the dim light. Leaves rustled with

the breeze. Tiny animals scurried around the sides of the cabin, bolder now that they were under the cover of night. A mountain

lion howled, and though the sound echoed with menace through

the wide valley between the hills, Fletcher’s confident ear knew the big boy was miles away.

The raccoon was still making its way up the drive. Fletcher

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had taken a liking to his furry neighbor and kept back a bit

of dinner now and again, then set it around the porch for the

raccoon to find. Fletcher liked to watch the pretty creature in the moonlight. It was the only company he had up here in the

middle of nowhere.

He watched as the raccoon stopped in midstride and looked

toward the top of the ravine. Fletcher slowly stopped rocking

and listened closely to the sounds he understood just as well as his own language—the slight tapping of one tree limb against

another, the abrupt silence of a larger animal when it caught the scent of a human on the air, the unholy scream of a hawk as it

dove for prey. The raccoon listened, too, its tiny head cocked to better hear the sounds on the air.

Fletcher heard it then, the sound that was so out of place—a

scuffling, bumbling sound, unlike any of the sleek animals so

accustomed to wandering through the woods at night.

He rose slowly to his feet, staring at the place from where

he was certain the sound had come. The raccoon was down on

all fours again, sniffing cautiously, still as a stone. The sound came again, but the coon wasn’t making a move to investigate,

and Fletcher knew that wasn’t a good sign. That raccoon was a

smart animal. He knew better than to attack anything bigger

than he was.

Fletcher thumbed the safety on the rifle and lifted it to his

shoulder.

He had seen more than a few bear and the occasional moun-

tain lion, but something told him it was neither of those things.

Surely the smaller animals would have run hard for the other

side of the mountain if big game had wandered into his clearing.

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Fletcher quietly walked down the steps and trained his rifle on the spot the raccoon seemed so interested in.

The animal turned its black-masked face up to him, and now

Fletcher was puzzled. Why didn’t the raccoon try to run? Why

was it just sitting there? The expression of pure confusion on its face was almost human.

“Oh God,” Fletcher said.

Just as Fletcher realized what that sound was, he heard an-

other one: the unmistakable report of a branch breaking, a body tumbling, and a very human scream. The raccoon raced across

the yard, away from the sound, finally scared out of its little mind. There was a terrible
thud,
and another scream, cut short on an exhaled breath.

That tore Fletcher out of his astonishment. He broke into a

run.

He found the woman at the foot of the ravine. Even in the

moonlight, she looked pale as a ghost. Blood covered her fore-

head and a bruise was already flowering under her right eye.

Fletcher fought his way through the brush, dropping his gun

along the way—from the looks of her, she wouldn’t be a threat.

When he reached her, she was shivering hard from a combina-

tion of cold and shock. She looked up at him with frightened

eyes.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, ripping at the branches

around her.

“F-f-f-fell,” she stuttered, her teeth chattering.

Snow had begun to fall again, and he watched as it caught in

her hair.

“I have to get you out of here,” he said. “You’re going to

freeze to death unless we get you to the house right now.”

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Her teeth were chattering. Controlling her body seemed to

take a massive effort.

“H-h-house . . .”

“In the house. That’s right. What’s your name?”

A tear ran down her face. It froze on her skin before it could

reach her bruised jaw. “Jan—Janine.”

“Janine?”

She nodded with the slightest motion of her head.

“Okay, Janine. Can you stand up?”

All her movements were slow, as though she were underwater.

Fletcher thought it might have been shock, or worse, a head in-

jury from the fall she took. She balled her hands up into fists and stood up, obviously with more than a little pain. She was shaking hard. His own teeth were chattering from the cold. Once a

cold front rolled in, it came with a vengeance. The temperature had dropped a good thirty degrees since the sun went down.

“Can you walk?”

She stepped carefully, as if her legs might give way at any mo-

ment. The moonlight was just enough to help them make their

way up the lane without stumbling. Fletcher carefully navigated the porch steps, moved around the rocking chair, and pushed

open the door. Once they were inside, he led her to the bed in

the corner, where he admonished her to sit and not move.

Fletcher quickly strode to the fireplace and added more

wood, then more kindling for good measure. The fire flared

and crackled. In its mellow orange light, Fletcher turned and

looked at the woman. She needed a hospital. He had never felt

so inadequate.

“Tell me where you’re hurt,” he said. “Tell me what I can do

for you?”

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It felt odd to talk to another person again. He was accus-

tomed to not speaking for days, his silences punctuated only by his talk to the raccoon, but the sound soothed him now, made

him less afraid.

“I’m so cold.” She was still shivering, despite the warmth of

the fire.

“Your clothes are all wet.” He knelt to the floor and pulled

off her boots, his mind racing. “You’ve got to get them off.”

Fletcher helped Janine sit up. When she struggled out of her

jacket, he saw the shirt she wore underneath it was thin, almost a summer shirt. She also wore a thick black belt, with metal rings and tabs and—

“You’re a climber?”

She was still pale but her voice was a little stronger. “Yes.”

He helped her pull off her socks. “Do you need help doing

this?”

She shook her head, already working at the buttons of her

jeans. Fletcher turned his back as she undressed. Having a naked woman in his cabin should have had the natural effect on him,

but it wasn’t sensual at all. In fact, sex was the last thing on his mind. The only thing he could think about was what damage

was under her skin, what bruises were there that he couldn’t see, and what he would do if she was
really
hurt. How could he get her off the mountain?

When he looked back at her, she was lying under the quilt,

her eyes closed, still as a stone.

“Janine?”

He touched her face. She didn’t flinch. He fought the surge

of panic as he gently shook her and got no response. Her breath

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was so shallow he had to press his hand against her mouth to

feel it. He sank to the floor beside the bed, his hands shaking, his head spinning.

“Don’t you die on me, you hear? Don’t you do that.”

Janine, unconscious and oblivious to the world, didn’t move.

Fletcher stared at her for a while, then went back outside one

more time, to retrieve the gun he had left in the brush. The road glistened in the moonlight, a million sparkles glinting from the layer of snow and ice, and the beautiful yet deadly blanket was still coming down. They weren’t going anywhere.

She slept all night and most of the next day.

Outside the snow had stopped, but not before dropping a

good three feet over the land around the cabin. Most of it was

encrusted with ice. The trees were heavy with it. Every now and then a branch would fall or a tree would explode with frozen

sap, the sound as loud and sudden as a gunshot.

There was no way to get off the mountain. Snowshoes were

useless, and he couldn’t carry her while wearing them, regard-

less. He might be able to use the sled, but the closest hiking

station was a ten-mile trek through bear country. Even if they

survived the elements, the big animals could sense a helpless

human for miles around. Maybe he could make it there and call

for a chopper, but in this kind of weather, the cavalry didn’t

come out unless there was absolutely no choice. Fletcher had