A Week in the Snow (17 page)

She listened to the first one. Sure enough, it was filled with apologies. Gene actually sounded sorry for the way he had acted, and for a moment she let herself feel badly about the whole situation. She could almost believe he meant what he said. The second message and the third were much the same, but with the fourth they got more heated. By the time she reached message number ten, he was yelling into the phone, cursing at her for being such a bitch, for making him worry and not returning his calls. According to Gene she was a childish brat who had gone off on a fit of pique when her boyfriend dared to question her actions, and she could just hang with the little boys until she grew up and wanted a real man.
She stopped listening at message number twenty, and deleted the rest. She had heard more than enough to know her decision had been the right one.

Richard stood in the doorway and watched her going through the messages. She had no idea he was there, and he studied her reactions with every one. Her shoulders slumped, she gestured in the air, then she started to get mad. She punched the air with her fist then, and said more than once into the phone, “Yeah, well, fuck you, too.”

When she hung up the phone, she turned and saw him standing there. She blushed hard and shrugged.

“Gene had a lot to say,” she explained.

“Anything worth listening to?”

“Not a single word.”

Richard smiled and held out his hand. “Your chariot awaits, darling.”

Driving out of Crispin that afternoon, Rebecca felt like she could breathe again. The scrutiny of the town had got to her, no matter how much reassurance Richard had given, and she was sure it had got to him too. The word of his fight with his mother had spread, no doubt told over and over by Janette herself, and now the town was abuzz with what might happen next. Rebecca was happy to be leaving the microscope. She squeezed Richard’s hand as he drove, hoping her gratitude was clear.

Richard felt liberated, too. He was going to another town, a place where he was not likely to be noticed. They would be just happy faces in the crowd, not the objects of speculation. He was looking forward to feeling like a normal man in a normal relationship, not someone with a wife hidden away God-knew-where and a girlfriend his whole family wouldn’t accept.

They pulled into Clinton and found the first hotel that looked good. The room was simple but clean, with a huge bed and a view of a snow-ringed parking lot. Richard took advantage of the bed as soon as they arrived, pulling her down on it with him and unbuttoning her jeans.

“What are you doing?” she giggled.

“I’m making you happy.”

Her words slipped away when his hand pushed between the denim and her skin, heading straight for her pussy. She had had plenty of time to get revved up during the ride, and now she was soaked with desire. He found her clit and twisted it gently between his thumb and forefinger. She lifted her hips to him and looked into his eyes as he played with her. His smile was content and his eyes calm as he worked magic between her legs. Finally the orgasm came upon her and she closed her eyes, bit her lip and let out a long moan of surrender.

When she opened her eyes, he was licking his fingers. She blushed at the sight of it.

“You’re much better than Chinese,” he said, “but I’ve got to get some real food in me before I perform sexual acts of any kind.”

She eased off the bed and headed to the bathroom to clean up. Twenty minutes later they were in the restaurant, their waitress a demure Chinese woman who walked with tiny steps and bowed with every other word, and Rebecca wondered if the woman could see any of their secrets. Could strangers tell she had just come? Could they see it in her eyes or feel it in her very presence, like a vibration of passion around her? Could any of them see the way she looked at Richard and tell that she was falling in love with the man in front of her?

That thought made Rebecca’s heart pound. She looked at him over the steaming hot cups of tea and wondered how he felt. Was it possible to fall in love with someone over the span of a few glorious days? Was she really capable of giving her heart so freely to someone she had just met? But it felt absolutely right, perfectly sane, as though she had known him forever and was just waiting for the chance to make a go of a relationship with him.

Richard stared at her, having the same thoughts of his own. She was so beautiful sitting there, with her cheeks flushed and her hair not quite right and her lips swollen from his kisses. Her eyes were wide as she looked back at him, as though she had just seen something beautiful and delightful, and was on the cusp of sharing it with the rest of the world. He wanted to know every thought that was flowing through her pretty head.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he asked, and she shook her head, then reconsidered.

Hadn’t he been honest with her this morning? Hadn’t he made his feelings clear every step of the way? It was her turn to take that leap.

“I was just wondering how long it takes to fall in love.”

Richard blinked at her. He was stunned by the words but even more stunned by the fact that he knew the answer. There was no doubt in his mind, none at all.

“A week in the snow,” he said.

Tears sprang to her eyes. She reached across the table and his hand was waiting there, palm up, inviting her. She placed her fingers gingerly on the bandage, the place where glass from her vehicle had marred his skin. The cut wasn’t even close to healed yet, and already she was in love?

“A week,” she mused.

“Snow makes people do crazy things,” he whispered.

They didn’t say another word until their dinner arrived, piping hot plates of chicken and seafood on beds of noodles and rice. They sipped tea and soup, ate small bites of fiery hot food and didn’t take their eyes from each other. Rebecca was already thinking of the hotel room a few miles away. Richard was thinking about flight schedules, and when he could visit Miami. She was right here in front of him and already the thought of her being so far away made him feel almost sick.

When the dinner was over they walked hand in hand into the cold night. Before Rebecca got in the truck, Richard pulled her back to him and cradled her against his chest like a fragile prize he had just won. She went willingly, tipping her head back for a kiss, and instead just breathed in the scent of him. Together they stood until the wind became too strong and the cold became too much.

In the truck, neither of them spoke. The drive to the hotel seemed to take forever, and they hit every red light on the way. Rebecca rested her hand lightly on his thigh, feeling the muscles move under his jeans every time he hit the gas. His arm was around her shoulder, pulling her tight against him while he drove with one hand and cursed the traffic.

At the door of the hotel room, her hand shook when she tried to use the keycard. He stepped forward and took it from her hand, gave her an indulgent smile, and opened the door on the first try.

Once that door closed behind them, all the words they hadn’t said in the restaurant tumbled out of them, a frenzy of talking, even as they undressed each other with impatient hands.

“I’m falling in love with you. I had no idea…”

“I knew I loved you the moment I kicked my mother out.”

“I think it was the night at the hospital…”

“I don’t want any of those nurses.”

“I want you right now.”

“Hurry.”

Soon they were naked and their hands everywhere, their lips following, and then he was on bottom and she was above him. The bedside light was on, and her skin glowed under it. She moved like a cat, scratching his chest with her nails, staring seductively at him through dark, feral eyes. Her hair fell in disarray around her face and her cheeks were flushed with heat. Her nipples were hard as little rocks and her chest heaved with every tortured breath. Richard lay underneath her and wished he could capture that moment forever, the sheer beauty of her.

She smiled down at him and bent low to give him a kiss. As she did, he took the very breath from her, breathing the air she breathed out. “I love you,” she said into his mouth.

“I love you, too.”

She sat back up and started to ride him hard, a punctuation mark on what she had just said. He grabbed her hips and held her tight against him, making her grind instead of thrust. The emotion and the angle made it quick. Rebecca came with a scream, and Richard pushed his hand against her mouth, lest she send the hotel staff running to see if he was fucking her or killing her.

Rebecca slumped over him for a moment, but when his cock twitched inside her, she realised he hadn’t come with her. She ground lazily on him, slowly picking up speed. When he was on the edge of an orgasm, she climbed off and gave him a grin.

She crawled between his thighs and sucked his cock into her mouth. Richard exploded into her, arching his hips as she pushed her hands underneath them. She held him where he was until the last of his cum had disappeared down her throat. She crawled up beside him and was surprised when he grabbed her face between his hands, kissed her deeply, and then murmured in complaint, “Why didn’t you save some for me?”

“Next time, I will.”

“I need a shower,” he said. “After I get some sleep.”

“Wake me up when you get in there. I’m going, too.”

“Ever made love in the shower?”

She thought of the first night at his house, when he was sleeping upstairs and she was under the water, thinking of a fantasy man who would do all the wicked things she wanted. She smiled now as she realised that fantasy man had been upstairs above her that whole time.

“I’ve never made love in the shower with anyone else.”

Richard grinned against her forehead. “Me, neither.”

“Let’s go, then.”

“Sleep first.” His voice was so tired; she didn’t have the heart to tell him she was wide awake. She lay on his shoulder as he slept. She was used to the rhythmic snoring by now, and she liked the way he looked when he was asleep, so trusting and almost innocent. Soon her eyes were heavy too, and though she had been sure sleep wouldn’t come, it did.

Chapter Eleven

An hour later Richard woke to see Rebecca lying sprawled out on her side of the king-size bed. The bedside lamp was off and she was sound asleep, breathing so lightly that he had to press a hand to her ribs to make sure she was breathing at all. He got up and padded to the bathroom with a grin.

“Wake up.” His voice came low into her ear, invading a good dream about a beach. “Your shower is nice and hot, Rebecca. Wake up and get in there with me.”

The good dream of a beach turned into a very real, very good dream of Richard when she opened her eyes. She stretched hard, then sat up on the edge of the bed and looked around, disoriented.

“Hotel room,” he said helpfully. “Clinton, Iowa. Just fucked me an hour ago and about to fuck me again.”

“Oh.”

“You told me you love me.”

“I remember that part.” She smiled and ran a hand through his hair. She could hear the pounding of the water in the shower, beckoning her to get underneath it and get dirty.

She stretched again, revelling in the little aches and pains of a body well loved, and followed him to the bathroom.

The shower was small, but it fit both of them. Richard reached for the little bar of hotel soap and had a hell of a time unwrapping it, especially with one hand not quite up to par yet. “It’s not Fort Knox,” he murmured, and Rebecca laughed as she took the tiny bar from him.

With deft fingers she freed it from the wrapping and turned it over and over in her hand, working up a thin lather. She put that lather on his chest and started to make circles with it, washing his body with slow hands.

“That first night,” she mused.

“Yeah?”

“I got off while I was in the shower.”

Richard threw his head back and laughed, the sound bouncing from the close walls of the shower. “I got off, too. You interrupted me that night.”

“I did?”

“You came up to knock on the door and ask if you could use the phone,” he reminded her, and she looked at him with wide, surprised eyes.

“You were jacking off?”

“I was almost at the finish line.”

“Oh, God,” she laughed. “If only we had known then…”

“I fantasised about you,” he admitted.

“Did you really?”

“It started out with fantasising about a woman at a sex toy store. Just some random chick who ran the counter. My fantasy was being the hottest stud she’d ever seen and she just had to have a piece of me among the dildos.”

Rebecca rolled her eyes. “Uh-huh.”

“Well, I was in the midst of that when you came to the door, and after that the woman in my head was you.”

“In a sex toy store?”

“Why not?”

She knelt in front of him, and Richard gave her a rakish grin. She grinned back and didn’t touch his dick. She set about washing his legs instead.

“Was I good?”

“You were really good.”

“How were you having me?”

Richard’s cock was getting hard at the memory. “You were bent over a display of something. I don’t remember what now.”

“I fantasised about a man watching me as I took a shower, then coming up behind me and fucking me silly while I played with my clit and made myself come.”

“Want to?”

“What?

“Want to let me watch you?”

Rebecca stood up and smiled. “Turn around.”

Richard did so, pressing his hands against the back wall of the shower. She worked her way down his back with the small sliver of soap, paying special attention to his ass.

When she dipped a finger between his cheeks, he let out an embarrassed laugh.

“Are you sore?” she asked sweetly, and he could feel himself blushing.

“Yeah.”

“Do you like it?”

“Yes.”

Rebecca worked her way down his legs. On her way back up, she slid her fingertips between his ass cheeks. He turned around and gave her a mock glare. “Your turn, smarty.”

Rebecca lifted her arms above her head. Richard started with her chin, an excuse to kiss her again, and then started washing her body from top to bottom. He could use only his good, uninjured hand, so the washing took a deliciously long time. When she turned around for him to wash her back, she pressed one hand to the wall, and the other hand snaked down between her legs.