A Week in the Snow (8 page)

“You did quite a good job yourself,” he said. His body still throbbed with the delicious aftermath of what they had done. He could hardly believe he had come twice. He couldn’t remember the last time he had done that.

Rebecca’s body felt alive in his hands. She watched as he traced a finger down the middle of her chest, going as far down as he could before his hand met the quilt. Then he came back up, trailing that finger over her collarbone and under her neck, pausing to test the pulse at her throat.

“Still pumping hard,” he whispered, and she smiled.

“Are you proud of yourself?”

“Why not?”

Rebecca cuddled closer to him. The clock on the bedside table said it was now one o’clock in the afternoon. Nothing had moved outside. If the phone had rung, neither had heard it. The world seemed to have stopped completely, and all they had was time.

Richard would have been at the newspaper office today, assuming the sheriff wouldn’t have yanked him off the streets as soon as he had heard the roar of his snowmobile headed for the town square. He would have worked on a few articles for next week’s paper, made small edits to the one going to print tomorrow, and spent time doing unnecessary work just to keep busy. He would have been the only one there, and he would have wavered between going crazy with the silence and being grateful for the solitude.

Now he didn’t have to worry about either.

“It’s hard to believe you showed up in my life less than a day ago,” he said to her now. “I’m not the kind of man who does this.”

“I’m not the kind of woman who does this.”

“Snow makes people crazy.”

They grinned at each other, complete strangers who definitely weren’t strangers anymore. She loved the way he looked at her, as if he couldn’t get enough of the shape of a woman. When he slid his fingertip down between her breasts again she stretched, her supple body a canvas before his hands. His eyes roamed every inch of her skin and then his fingertip followed. He smiled when his touch brought forth goosebumps, turning her perfect smoothness into perfect roughness.

“I would much rather be with you right now than with Gene,” she said.

“Gene is his name?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened, anyway? He was your boyfriend last night and today he’s not. How did things change so quickly?”

Rebecca sighed and shifted on the pillows. Thinking of Gene made her feel slightly guilty, but when she recalled his words from the night before, the guilt fled just as quickly as it had come. “He called me names,” she said. “And told me I was an idiot for not listening to him. It was just confirmation of what I already knew, in the back of my mind. He’s not the kind of man who would take kindly to a strong, independent woman.”

“You’re definitely strong and independent,” Richard said.

“You hardly know me,” she chided, realising how ridiculous that sounded, considering they were lying together naked in his bed.

“Anybody who runs their own business has to have those qualities, and then some,” he said. “Man or woman, doesn’t matter.”

“Gene seems to think only a man can do things that require such spirit.”

Richard was now down at her knee, blowing breath over her skin and making her squirm. “How did you wind up involved with him, anyway? Surely he couldn’t hide the way he really felt for long.”

“I was lonely, and he gave good phone.”

Richard laughed out loud, his belly moving against her toes. She reached down and mussed his hair. “Well, it’s true.”

“I believe you.”

He kissed his way up her belly and peered at her from between her breasts. His hands slid up her arms, pinning her to the pillows, as his body rose over her. He was taller than her, perfect for kissing her while he slid into her. She kissed him back and laughed into his mouth when she felt his cock, hard, ready to go again.

“So,” she whispered, “what about your sexual history?”

He grinned. What she wanted was the same thing he wanted, but he had felt it a bit too soon to ask such questions. “I’m clean,” he said, dropping small kisses on her face. “I had a complete physical last year. I had never been tested before. I had always been in monogamous relationships. But when the doctor asked about it I thought, well, why not? So I had it done. Clean across the board.”

She smiled up at him. “I get tested every year,” she admitted. “I mean, you never know, right?”

“So, since we’re both clean…”

“And since I’m on the pill,” she said with a grin.

She opened her legs and he pressed between them, thrusting forward, filling her again. This time the sensation was more intense, the heat of her more evident. His moan of pleasure echoed hers. He began to move, very slowly at first, then picked up the pace.

“Again?” she teased.

“I can’t come again,” he admitted. “But there’s nothing wrong with making you come, is there?”

She wrapped her legs around his hips and rocked with his thrusts. This time was slow and easy, now that the desperate need of earlier had been sated. There was no rush, only Richard’s constant motion and her answering one, rising to meet him when he slid in, angling her body so that her clit got attention, letting the orgasm build. She could have hurried it along by touching herself as he thrust into her, but she chose instead to let her body ride the wave of sensation. The orgasm would happen when it happened.

When it did, it was just like their lovemaking—slow, easy, a full-body tingle that made her sigh with happiness. Richard watched her face as she came, and she found it made her feel even sexier than she already did. When she opened her eyes and smiled at him, he let out a long breath and shook his head in appreciation.

“That was beautiful,” he said.

They spent the day in bed, sometimes talking, sometimes watching television, sometimes creeping naked to the kitchen to get a snack from the cupboards. Mostly they touched each other, memorising angles and curves and the things that made goosebumps rise. They finally drifted off when the moon was high in the sky, streaming through the window to fall over the bed that had held only one for so long, but now held two.

The early morning was crisp and cold when they stepped out of the house and confronted the snow. The sun was up and it was bright, but the heat from it did nothing to warm their little corner of Iowa. Richard led her to the garage, where she smiled at the snowmobile. It looked almost alive on the black skis, thrust slightly forward, as if sitting at the starting line of a race and ready to run hard. Richard checked the gauges and added a bit of gas from the container in the corner.

The other vehicle in the garage was a truck, a newer model but well-worn. The tyres were huge and the bed was scratched. The interior lights of the garage glinted off the silver-grey paint. She looked in the window at the wealth of things in the cab—old newspapers, not one, but three travel mugs for coffee, sunglasses and reading glasses on the dash, and a few books with library stickers on the cellophane covers. There was an old blanket thrown on the back of the bench seat. A small rip in the leather showed from under the frayed corner.

“This truck gets a lot of use,” she said. “You sure you’re a newspaperman?”

He smiled as he got on the snowmobile. “I don’t have the patience for farming.”

“But your house sits in the middle of all this farmland.”

“Most of it is mine.” His voice was nonchalant. He turned the key in the ignition and the snowmobile roared before it settled down to a ready hum.

“It’s yours?”

“About seven hundred acres of it.”

In Miami, land was precious. Seven hundred acres was a priceless commodity. “But you don’t farm it?”

“Somebody else does. I lease out the land and by the middle of the summer I’m surrounded by corn and wheat. The newspaper pays peanuts, to be honest. Leasing the land keeps me in the black.” He patted the back of the machine and gave her a grin. “Get on.”

Rebecca lifted her leg and slid on behind him. Her thighs were sore from a different kind of riding, and she groaned as she settled into the seat. She wrapped her arms around him and the snowmobile started to move forward, inching towards the snow-covered driveway. By the time they were out on what had once been the road, Richard had picked up speed, and Rebecca was glad for her coat and the thick gloves he had loaned her. They were far too big for her, but they kept the wind away from her hands, and she was toasty warm as they rode in ten-degree weather.

“In Miami,” she said over his shoulder, “it’s about seventy degrees right now.”

“But in Miami, you can’t do this.”

Richard hit the gas. The world whooshed past them, and she hung on tighter. When they reached an open field, Richard suddenly turned the snowmobile, and they did a perfect doughnut on the white surface. Her heart thudded with excitement.

“Wow!” Rebecca hollered. “More!”

Richard accelerated to an impossible speed, then whipped the big machine to the side. It glided effortlessly, as if it were flying on air instead of snow. The whole world spun, and when it slowed down Rebecca laughed hard, so hard her belly hurt. Richard pulled to a stop and turned to grin at her.

“I know what you want,” he said.

She gave him an exaggerated leer. “I’ll bet you do.”

“You want to rev my engine.”

“How did you ever guess?”

That’s how Rebecca wound up behind the handlebars of her very first snowmobile, plunging through drifts and throwing up rooster tails of white. She slid and shimmied and raced through the snow, revelling when she hit a dip and came up out of it with enough speed to make the machine roar. Richard told her where to stay, far away from the fences and low brush that could be so dangerous to a snowmobile and its rider. Between his safe guidance and her impressive driving skills, they were having the time of their lives.

When they were both winded from the excitement and pumping adrenaline, she slowed the machine and turned to Richard. She pulled up his helmet, yanked down his mask and kissed him, her warm tongue sliding between his cool lips. His hands slipped down between her legs and pulled her back, her ass tight against his open thighs, his hand warm on her pussy. He kissed her back, wanting nothing more than to take her clothes off and have his way with her, no matter how cold it was.

“Wanna fuck?” she murmured into his mouth.

“Here?”

“I’ve never fucked in the snow.”

He pulled her tighter against him. He had never done anything like that, even with all the ample opportunity that living in Iowa provided. The closest he had come to making love in the snow was stealing a kiss or two on a doorstep while the flakes came down around them. To take off his clothes—enough of them, anyway—and have sex in the freezing cold was just as new to him as it was to her.

“Someone could see us,” he said, a last-ditch effort at sanity.

“That makes it hotter, doesn’t it?”

He grinned. “You’re going to get me in such trouble.”

She climbed off the machine and turned to face him. Even under all those layers of toboggan and mask, he could make out her wicked grin. “Come get me.”

He turned off the ignition as she took a step backwards. She took another step as he swung his leg over the snowmobile and stood up. By the time he took his first step towards her she was trying to run in the snow, sinking in almost to her knees, making a comical sight if he had ever seen one.

“It ain’t like running on a beach, sweetheart,” he laughed, and started to chase her.

He caught her not far from the snowmobile—his long strides overtook her smaller ones with little effort. As soon as he touched her, she twisted around and fell to the snow, laying back and looking up at him. Her coat was long enough to shield her from the cold wetness, and when she unbuttoned it and opened the sides, it was wide enough to protect him, too.

“Come get me,” she said again.

He wasted no time in kneeling beside her and working the zipper of her jeans. She wiggled out of them, sinking deeper into the snow despite the coat underneath her, and she set to work on his pants. She pushed them down to his ankles and then he was on top of her, their legs bare and freezing, the rest of them warm. He pushed into her and she thrust up, the warmth of her core enveloping him. The cold air rushed over his ass as he pumped into her, his cock warmed by her body, the rest of him already shivering with the exposure to a wind chill that was well below zero.

The contradiction of cold and heat turned him on more than he had thought possible. He thrust into her until they were both breathing hard, then he abruptly pulled out and sat back on his knees. Rebecca watched as he slipped off his gloves and dug a hand into the snow beside them. Picking up a handful of it, he grinned at her before he pressed it against her pussy.

The shock of cold almost drowned the passion. “Richard!”

“Trust me.”

He pushed snow into her pussy with his nimble fingers, then immediately slid his dick in behind it. The icy cold froze her for an instant before his warmth made the snow melt. He held there, felt the trickles of water slip down his balls, and waited until Rebecca’s eyes widened with the surprise of it.

“I’m so sensitive,” she murmured.

“You like?”

“Do it some more.”

He scooped up another handful of snow. He thrust into her a few times, making her hot inside, then pushed more snow into her. His cock followed the way the snow had gone, and this time he fucked her through it, making the snow melt.

Rebecca was melting, too. She hadn’t expected playing in the snow to be so intense. She lifted up her shirt, reached out beside her and grabbed small handfuls of snow, and pressed them to her nipples. They started to melt immediately, even as her nipples hardened under the cold.

“Make me come with it,” she begged.

Richard scooped up more snow, this time leaving a handful of it on her clit as he plunged inside her. Her pussy tingled as the cold overtook her nerve endings, then tingled harder as the ice and snow started to melt. Her pussy was suddenly ultra-sensitive, ready enough that the slightest breath might make her come. The heat of Richard’s thrusting was the perfect contradiction to the cold.