Snow Job (9 page)

Elyce stood a moment and watched him walk over to join his brother by the fire, then turned and walked in the other direction, not sure where to go, feeling like she needed something to do with her hands. At a loss for another alternative, she joined Emily by the tree, picking up a blown-glass orb and looking for an empty branch to hang it on.

“So…is there something we should al know?” Emily asked immediately, though her attention stil seemed focused on the tree. “I couldn’t help but notice…”

Blushing, Elyce fiddled with the wire hook on the bauble in her hands. “Uh, that was nothing. Karl being an alpha male or something, I don’t know.”

Emily glanced at her then back at the tree. “Okay.”

“Real y. It was nothing. Just…your brother can be a real ass sometimes.”

“You’re the one who married him,” Emily said, and looked up longer this time, searching for something in Elyce’s eyes. Elyce had to wonder what it was, and whether she found it there.

* * * * *

It was too strange and too familiar, huddling there in the dark under the lofty goose down duvet. The bed was situated to take ful advantage of the view from the picture window, and Elyce had always loved fal ing asleep to the sight. The stark beauty of the surrounding landscape behind the house presented sleepy eyes with a soothing palette of silvery light over purple shadows, the inky black of the nearest treetops and the furthest peaks etched against the impossibly clear, star-spangled sky.

The only downside to the room, and a feature that had always been a source of some amusement between them, was that the children al slept in the large, open loft area directly adjacent. Not only did Elyce and Karl have to step over sleeping bodies to get to their door if they stayed up late, they always had to be quieter than usual. There had always been a certain amount of giggling and shushing, a whispered quality to any encounter at the cabin that lent its own sort of charm and excitement. Elyce had always said the view was worth it. For the past five years, she and Karl had shared that same room several times a winter, and she had never grown tired of looking out the window.

N o w Elyce stared out into the postcard-perfect landscape as though it might hold the key to finding the sense of proportion she seemed to have lost. It was beautiful out there, but dangerous in its way, and every bit as cold as it looked. She felt panicked as she lay in the bed, waiting for Karl to finish in the bathroom and join her.

bed, waiting for Karl to finish in the bathroom and join her.

It had been just eleven months since the last time they shared a bed, and that occasion had also been the last time they’d had sex. Now she could stil feel Karl’s hand on her arm and his lips against hers, hours after the kissing incident had happened. Stil feel an echo of the heat he’d conjured from her so easily. It was nearly as overwhelming as the heat of her anger, flaring up al over again as she thought of his presumption in handling her that way.

The sound of running water ended in a creak of pipes, and then Elyce was momentarily blinded as the door swung open. Karl turned off the bathroom light as he came into the room with a murmured apology at her complaint. A moment later Elyce felt the bed dip at his added weight and she pul ed the blankets tighter around herself, as if it would help, as if it would offer her some sort of protection. She was only beginning to suspect it wasn’t real y Karl she needed protection from, but herself.

“We’re hitting the slopes right after breakfast. Did you ever get your binding fixed?” Karl’s voice was unexpectedly casual and just inches from her ear. As if they were stil a couple, and lying together in the dark was the most commonplace event imaginable. Once upon a time, it had been.

“Yes, it’s fixed. I went skiing with Veronica and a few other people last February.”

“Over the Valentine’s Day weekend. Yeah, I remember.”

“You do?” Had she even told him she’d gone?

Veronica had spent that whole trip trying to fix Elyce up with a cousin of hers who was visiting from New York. Although Elyce hadn’t real y been interested, she had enjoyed the feeling of being admired, of flirting with somebody instead of fighting.

“You’d been planning to take Astro for that weekend.

You cancel ed so you could go on the trip, and took him the next weekend instead.”

“That’s right. I’d forgotten about that.”

“I hadn’t.”

She had to stop herself from bristling at his curt, accusatory tone, and from raising her voice beyond the almost-whispers they were limited to with a room ful of children on the other side of the door. “I doubt he minded al that much.”

Karl’s fingers were firm and accurate, sliding straight over her waist with no awkward fumbling in the dark, pinning her hip close to his when she would have pul ed away. “I minded. You weren’t just there with Veronica.”

Even in the chil y, dim blue light of the room, Elyce suspected Karl had no trouble reading her look of outrage.

“How dare you check up on me? What I do in my own time is my own busi—”

He let her get no further, taking her mouth in a kiss that bordered on brutal. Elyce’s body felt the instant tug of need that Karl was always able to pul from her, and she found herself torn between responding and finding a way to slap him. She had never wanted so badly to hit somebody, though violence was inherently too far from her nature to fol ow through.

And in the interim between wanting to strike and realizing she couldn’t do it, Karl found her hands, pinning them down with his own as if he’d read her mind.

She channeled the feeling into the kiss instead, nearly biting as she fought back against Karl’s impassioned onslaught, knowing only too late that her fervor was having the opposite of its intended impact. When Karl groaned softly and shifted his leg between hers, she found herself parting her thighs automatical y. Her hips rose to his as if it hadn’t been nearly a year since the last time.

Elyce knew it was also not in Karl’s nature to force her.

If she genuinely tried, if she said “no” even once, he would let her go. But the lure, the compel ing fit of their bodies together even after such a long time apart, was too much to resist. It had been too long and Karl knew too wel how to make her respond to his touch. He hadn’t been her first, but aside from a few halting earlier efforts at sex, he was real y the only serious lover she’d ever had, and he had spent patient years instal ing al the buttons he was currently pushing with such confident expertise.

Elyce was intoxicated by it, and hardly knew when he’d released her lips, moving downward to worry at her neck.

He left a mark there, slowly and deliberately suckling at the skin, but when Elyce’s breath hitched at the sudden flicker of pain, he raised his head as swiftly as an animal on alert.

“Three kids in the next room,” he reminded her in a lust-hoarsened whisper, and then held her eyes as he released one of her hands and brought his own down to her breast.

Through the flannel of her nightgown, Karl stroked the sensitive flesh and caught her nipple almost painful y between his thumb and forefinger, pul ing another gasp from Elyce that he stifled quickly with another kiss. Longer this time, exploring and tasting.

Elyce found herself kissing him back and told herself it was habit and convenience, nothing more. Habit didn’t quite explain the sliver of need that lanced through her when Karl flexed his hips against hers, settling his erection squarely against her sex. Even through the layers of winter sleepwear, she felt its heat and firm length, and there was no stopping the rush of desire that left her embarrassingly wet.

When he pul ed away again, Elyce instinctively tried to fol ow, reaching for his lips with hers as though the kiss had her mesmerized. The feel of his fingers tugging at the buttons of her nightgown startled her into paying closer attention.

“Take it off,” he whispered brusquely, pul ing pointedly at the fleecy fabric. Whisper or no, there was no disguising the demand in his voice. “
Now
.”

“Karl, this is insane,” Elyce protested, making a last-ditch effort to regain some sense of order. “This isn’t why I’m here, and you—”

“Elyce, take it off now or I’m ripping it off. Buttons and al .”

For a moment, they stared at each other, Elyce’s eyes incredulous and Karl’s as firm as granite. She glanced at the door to the loft, gauging her chances of making a fuss without waking the children, and then looked back to see Karl stil glaring stonily at her. Although he’d never done anything of the sort before, she somehow knew he was absolutely serious about tearing the garment off and, though she blushed to admit it to herself, there was something intensely arousing about his command.

Shaking with more than the cold, Elyce began slipping the tiny buttons free of their loops and saw Karl’s eyes flash with triumph and then with hunger as she exposed inch after inch of flesh to his gaze.

Scarcely had she worked the last button loose when Karl leaned in again and pul ed the nubbly fabric of the gown roughly down over her shoulders, effectively pinning her arms to her sides as he bared her to the waist. It was the work of a moment, and then he was suckling harshly at one of her nipples, teasing the already-stiff bud into a tight knot of overstimulation. Elyce heard a soft whimper, and realized it had come from her own throat. Karl’s flickering tongue had unexpectedly swept her almost to the point of climax, and she clutched with useless fingers at the fabric bunched at her hips as desire shot through her.

Only because it was so cold did Elyce realize when Karl started working the nightgown off again, inching it farther down her body and pul ing her cotton panties along with it. The chil in the air struck a sharp contrast with the heat of his mouth and hands, the weight of his body as he moved over her again, silently coaxing her into a state of needy incoherence. He worked one hand between them, cupping her damp mound possessively with no prelude, no teasing, fingertips dipping into the slickness at her opening.

It took her a moment to understand he was speaking to her again, that his murmurs were words and not just moans in her ear.

“Who else has been here?”

“Wh-what?” She couldn’t believe he would have the nerve to ask.

“You heard me. Who else have you been with since you left?”

The reality of what they were doing intruded harshly on Elyce’s consciousness and she opened her eyes to find Karl’s fil ed with something like rage. Jaw clenched, lips tight, in the shadows of the chil y room he looked almost menacing, threatening.

“Nobody else,” she said, but not quite candidly. A memory of Andrew flitted by, of leaning into his spare body as he perched on the corner of his desk, tasting her with unconcealed eagerness. Then Karl’s fingers probed deeper, sending a galvanic pulse through her body, slamming her back to the present with startling clarity. “I haven’t been with anybody else,” she repeated, half sobbing the words in her effort to suppress a groan.

sobbing the words in her effort to suppress a groan.

Karl’s loose flannel pants did nothing to hide his arousal, and when he bent to claim her mouth again he arched into her, pul ing his hand away and rubbing boldly against her damp warmth until Elyce thought the friction would drive her insane. When she pushed back she told herself it was unwil ing, merely instinctive, an itch to scratch, nothing more. She just needed to turn the pressure into something more, though it was stil not quite enough. It was almost an ache, a pang of desire that throbbed between Elyce’s thighs, begging to be eased.

The next morning she would find nips of deep red, even faint bruises, where Karl had tasted her. Her neck, throat, the tender hol ow above one col arbone, al would bear the marks of his mouth’s forced march across her body.

Reclaiming lost territory, he planted flags as he went, and Elyce would be angered after the fact at the sheer brutality of it but she would acknowledge that her anger was somewhat hypocritical. In the moment, it only felt essential
right
that he should be almost consuming her. She felt like the human sacrifice she was, her body given up for the time lost between them.

With only enough awareness left to keep from crying out, she gave in to the inevitability of his touch, his determination. Each inch he lingered over, each patch of skin that pricked at his day’s growth of beard, melted into submission under his lips and tongue until Elyce felt limp and insensible and made whol y of need.

When he reached her bel y, shifting to slide farther down between her legs with his eventual destination clear, Elyce had to clutch the sheets to stop herself from reaching for his hair, feeling the soft curls again, pushing his head those few final inches. Her mind might refuse to admit how much she had missed his attention but Elyce’s body was responding despite her best efforts, writhing with the tension of denial as Karl made thorough work of mapping the delicate flesh over her hipbones. His long fingers wrapped around her thighs, parting them farther stil .

Her mind had trouble accepting the fact that he’d stal ed out, with his mouth poised directly over her pussy, until she realized he’d asked her a question and was waiting for a response.

“Tel me again. There’s been nobody else,” he repeated, his whisper sounding harsh against the snowbound silence.