Snowbound Hearts (6 page)

“Audrey, when we go back inside—what we talked about earlier—we don’t have to do that, if you don’t want. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want. I’m sorry I forced you to kiss me.”

“Forced me? Honestly, Stephen...”

“Coerced you then. I talked you into doing something you didn’t want, and I’m feeling ashamed of myself.”

She turned toward him and raised her gaze to meet his. “Do you really think I would have kissed you, if I didn’t want to?”

Stephen ran her words through his mind, not certain that he had heard her right. “So, you liked it?”

A broad grin spread across her face, and she chuckled. “I didn’t say I liked it.” She rolled her eyes and chuckled harder. “I said I wanted to do it.” She slapped a hand to her knee and broke into a hysterical laugh. After several failed attempts, she finally regained enough control to finish explaining. “They’re two completely different things.”

His fledging hope faltered and crashed to the ground. “Oh, so you didn’t like it.”

She tilted her head to one side and quickly raised her eyebrows as her grin slowly faded away. “I didn’t say that, either.”

“Well, exactly what are you saying?”

Audrey stepped up to him and grasped the front of his jacket with both hands. “I’m saying we can kiss again, if you want.”

Stephen pulled her to him and pressed his lips to hers. Her eagerness caught him completely off guard. She drove her tongue into his mouth, gliding it over his in a long, heated caress that sent tingles crawling across his skin. Even the ice water soaking his groin wasn’t enough to keep it from swelling. Audrey wrapped her arms around his waist and flattened her body into him. She thrust her pelvis against his crotch again and again, sending erotic impulses racing through him. Stephen slipped his hands down her back onto her bottom and squeezed. He pulled her hard into him to intensify the effect of her pelvic impacts. She gasped and giggled and kissed him even more intensely.

Audrey turned her face away, panting hard, and rested her head on his chest. He wondered if the pounding of his heart sounded as loud through his coat as it did in his ears.

“Come on, Stephen. Let’s go inside.”

They rushed through the door, removed their snow-covered shoes, and hurried over to the wood-burning stove. Stephen grasped the zipper of his coat, but Audrey clasped her hand over his and shook her head. She took the zipper from between his fingers, pulled it down, and yanked his coat off. Stephen unfastened the buttons of her coat and pushed it off her shoulders. She shook her arms free and let it fall to the floor. She tore open his flannel shirt and tugged it out of his pants. Stephen whipped it off and flung it away. He grabbed the hem of her sweater and jerked it over her head. She tucked her hands into the waistband of his jeans, unfastened the button, and zipped open his fly. Stephen grasped the front of her pants but hesitated with his fingers dipping inside while he gazed into her eyes, looking for any sign of disapproval.

“Go ahead, Stephen,” she whispered, voice trembling. “Take them off.”

He worked the button loose, dropped the zipper, and tucked his hands in at her sides, being careful not to catch her panties. In one smooth motion, he pushed her pants to her feet. Audrey stepped out of them and kicked them aside. She shoved his jeans to his ankles, and he pulled them the rest of the way off. She stood gazing at the wet spot in his boxer briefs as a broad smile brightened her face.

“Looks like
someone
had an accident.” She giggled and ran for the blanket on the sofa, flopped down, and covered up.

Stephen put his hands on his hips and glared at her. “Mine are wet because of sabotage. That doesn’t explain the wet spot in yours.”

Audrey tucked her head under the blanket for a moment, then gazed warily at him. “How could you see that?”

“I couldn’t.” Stephen grinned and climbed under the blanket with her.

“Jackass. You tricked me.” She turned away and pulled the blanket off him.

“So, you’re going to let me sit here and shiver because I got you to admit something you didn’t want to admit?”

She raised the blanket and rolled over to face him. “All right. I enjoyed kissing you, Stephen, as is evident by my damp undies, but was it really necessary for me to say it out loud?”

He pulled the blanket over himself and wrapped his arms around her. She swung her legs up, and they stretched out together along the length of the sofa. “It’s pretty obvious when a woman gets a man excited, but it’s not so simple for him to tell if he has the same effect on her.”

Audrey slipped her fingers along the front of his boxer briefs. “Yes, it’s very obvious. The signs are more subtle for a woman. You have to observe carefully.”

Stephen pulled her onto him and lay gazing up into her eyes.

Audrey cleared her throat as she rolled off him. “Our agreement was to get each other warm, not hot.”

“I’ve been hot ever since you walked in the door, but I’m not complaining.”

She jockeyed for position, making him slide over to give her some room. “Are you okay with lying here holding me and not doing anything else?”

Stephen sighed as his heart sank. “If it makes you happy, Audrey, I’m okay with it.”

“Thank you, Stephen. I can’t tell you
how
happy this makes me.”

He closed his eyes, allowing his mind to drift. The frustration of his arousal was compounded by the knowledge that Audrey wouldn’t give him relief, at least not anytime soon. But simply having her in his arms gave him a sense of satisfaction he hadn’t expected when he woke that morning. All things considered, the day was turning out to be one of the best he could remember. There were still many secrets left to discover about Audrey, but she was beginning to reveal one truth: her relationship with her fiancé was not on solid ground.

***

The increasingly dark layer of gray clouds hung in the sky, blocking out most of the sunlight. Snow continued to fall all day, sometimes heavy, sometimes just a few odd flakes here and there. As afternoon gave way to evening, Stephen built a fire in the fireplace. It didn’t put out much heat compared to the stove, but it worked wonders for atmosphere. Audrey had put on Stephen’s flannel shirt, which fit her like a short dress. She didn’t want to get back into her street clothes, but the cabin wasn’t quite warm enough for only underwear. Stephen fished out a pair of long johns and slipped into them, wondering how Audrey could stand to go bare legged, but enjoying the view none the less. He stoked up the wood-burning stove and put two sirloins on a rack suspended between two cast iron frying pans.

Audrey strolled out of the kitchen, holding a bottle, and gazed at his contraption. “What do you call that?”

“It’s not exactly a grill, but this will be better than baking the steaks in the oven or frying them.”

She held up the bottle. “You didn’t tell me you had wine.”

“Where did you find that?”

She dusted the bottle and set it on the table. “It was in the wine rack under the cabinet. Looks like it’s been here a while. There’s no telling if it’s still any good.”

“Well, I suppose we’ll find out. You don’t happen to have a corkscrew, do you?”

She held up a chrome-plated corkscrew and set it with the wine.

When Stephen finished cooking, he lit two oil lamps on the fireplace mantel and a candle on the table, then turned out the electric lights. The soft amber glow of the flames deepened the auburn color of Audrey’s hair. Her smooth, pale skin radiated sensuality. Candlelight flickered in her beautiful brown eyes as she sat across the table, gazing his way. An involuntary tremble on her pouty lips hinted that desire was rising in her heart.

She took a sip of her wine without turning her attention away from Stephen. “Yesterday, if someone had told me that tonight I’d be snowbound in a cabin in the woods, eating steak off a paper plate with a pocket knife, drinking wine from a coffee cup, and winding down the best day of my life with a handsome stranger, I’d have said they were nuts.” She leaned across the table and kissed his lips. The diamond on her finger sparkled as she moved.

“Audrey, I’m totally confused. Why won’t you tell me what’s going on with you and whoever gave you that rock?”

She put her finger to his lips. “Everything is perfect. I don’t want to spoil it by talking about that. Come sit with me. I like being close to you.”

She grasped his hand, coaxed him to the sofa, and maneuvered him into a sitting position. She sat beside him but turned around to face him and stretched out across his lap. Even with a fire in the fireplace, the cabin was still too cool for comfort. He spread the blanket from the backrest over them. The hunger in her gaze had grown more intense, possibly matching his own. As he drew her into his embrace, his body stirred with anticipation. The fire logs crackled, and orange flames licked the air. Wind howled eerily around the cabin, hard gusts pelting the windows with bursts of snow. Stephen tugged the blanket tighter around them and soaked up her warmth. Audrey snuggled closer and pressed her lips to his, but only for one brief moment.

Stephen grasped her fingers and brought her left hand between them for both to see. “This is killing me, Audrey. What are you doing?”

“I’m not cheating, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“You’ve made a promise to another man, but you’re driving me out of my mind, making me want you. That’s cheating.”

“Trust me, it’s not.” She gazed at the solitaire on her finger. “Nothing is set in stone.”

Her words made no sense. An engagement was just about as set in stone as a relationship could get. Either Audrey’s definition of a relationship ran completely contrary to his or something had gone so terribly wrong between her and her fiancé that arousing another man didn’t qualify as cheating. Nothing short of a breakup could account for that, except—maybe the guy had cheated first and she was taking revenge on him to even the score before they got married. “Do you want to clarify that?”

“It means the situation is fluid, in dynamic motion, not permanent.”

“Yeah, I was asking for details specific to you.”

“I know you were.”

“You have to give me something, Audrey. Am I even in the running?”

She jerked her hand from his grasp and sat up, glaring at him. “Okay—okay, you’re right. I guess I owe you an explanation.” She hesitated for a moment longer as the irritation on her face gave way to resignation. “Do you believe in the idea of soul mates, that everyone has a perfect partner who is an exact match only for them?”

Stephen flopped his head onto the backrest and gazed at the flickering fire. “It’s a romantic notion I’d like to believe in, but I know too many people who are in bad relationships with someone they thought was a soul mate.”

She fished around under the blanket until she found his hand and grasped it tightly. “I think most people never find their perfect partner and settle for someone convenient, but I also believe that sometimes fate brings people together who
have
to be together. Sometimes it’s for a higher purpose, like having a child who will change the world, and sometimes it’s just to increase the quantity of love in the universe.”

Stephen shifted his position to get more comfortable. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles, then let her go. “That’s a beautiful idea, Audrey, and I’d like to believe it. If you’re trying to tell me that this pertains to us, somehow, just come out and say it. I’m not the type of guy who is easily frightened. I mean, you showed up on my doorstep out of the blue, for God’s sake and you’re...” He couldn’t tell her she was a dead ringer for his dream girl, not so soon anyway. “Sorry, finish explaining. I want to hear this.”

Audrey rubbed a finger over her solitaire, gazing intently at it. “There’s a man, and the moment I met him, I was sure he was the one I’d spend the rest of my life with. The trouble is, I thought I was in love with another man before him, but things went wrong that nearly ruined my life. So, no matter how I feel about this man in my heart, I’m terrified that something will go wrong again. I need to know for sure that he’s the one for me before I make our relationship permanent. I think you’re a really nice guy, Stephen, and I need you to help me figure out if I should follow my head or my heart.”

Stephen covered his eyes with his hands and leaned his head backward over the sofa, not wanting to believe what he was hearing. “So basically, you ran into me and decided that I’d be a good test dummy to help you sort out your feelings for your fiancé?”

“Jesus, Stephen, you’re making me sound like a heartless bitch. I’m not like that. I knew it was a mistake to try and explain my situation. If you knew all the details of what I just said, you’d understand that I’m a good person and you’d help me.”

“Then give me the details, Audrey. I want to understand.”

She frowned deeply and shook her head. “All I can do is ask that you
please
trust me. If you’re willing to do that, then hold me close and don’t question my morals.”

He grasped her ring and began sliding it toward the tip of her finger, but she closed her fist before he got it off. “
Dammit
, Audrey.”

Her eyes began to glisten. “I can’t, Stephen, I’m sorry.”

The disappointment in her voice told him what her words didn’t say. Of all the times for him to screw up, this was probably the worst. She was offering him the opportunity to convince her that her fiancé wasn’t her soul mate, but he had blown everything with two words. All the wounds from his recent breakup had begun to heal because of this stranger who appeared out of nowhere, and he had hurt her at the first opportunity. Stephen left her sitting on the sofa, slogged into one of the bedrooms, and closed the door.

He trudged over to the bed and flopped lengthwise across it, letting his head hang down toward the floor. A paperback novel lay covered in dust between the leg of the headboard and the wall. Stephen fished it out and dusted it off. The title read:
Two Studs for Ms. Tart.
He tossed both pillows together, sat back against them, and began to read.