Two Alone (18 page)

He took the tube from her and rolled
t
h
e
stick of lip balm out. He seemed pressed to make several comments, but said none o
f
them. She laughed at the awkward way he applied the gloss. When he was done, he handed the capped tube back to
her.
She gave him the razor. "Be my guest."

"Thanks." He turned the razor over in his hand, studying it
f
rom every angle. "You didn't by chance sneak some hand lotion,
t
oo, did you?"

She held up her hands. Like his, they had been ravaged by water, wind and cold.
"Do
these
look
like they've seen any lotion lately?"

His smiles were so rare that her heart melted beneath the one
he
flashed her now. Then, in what seemed like a reflexive gesture,
he
captured one of her hands and lightly kissed the backs of her
f
ingers with lips made soft by shiny gloss.

His mustache tickled her fingers. And in a bizarre correlation that made absolutely no sense, it tickled the back of her throat as well. Her stomach executed a series of somersaults.

Suddenly realizing what he'd done, he dropped her hand.
"
I’ll
use the razor in the morning,"

Rusty hadn't wanted him to let go of her hand. In fact, she'd
bee
n tempted to turn it and cover his
m
us
t
ache and lips with
her
palm. She wanted to feel their caress in that vulnerable spot.
H
er heart was pounding so hard she had difficulty speaking.
"
Why not shave now?"

"There's no mirror. With this much stubble, I
’
d lacerate myself."

"I
could shave you."

F
or a moment neither of them said anything, only filled the
n
arrow space between them w
ith leaping arcs of sexual electr
icity. Rusty didn't know where the impulse had sprung from. It had just popped up from nowhere and she'd acted on
it be
fore thinking-—maybe because it had been days since they'd
touched each other for any reason. She was feeling deprived. As
t
he body gets hungry for a cer
t
ain food when i
t
needs the vitamins and minerals it contains, she'd unconsciously expressed her desire to touch him.

"All right." Cooper's permission was granted in a ragged voice.

Nervous, now that he had agreed to her suggestion, she clasped
her hands at her waist. "Why..
.why don't you sit over there by the fire. I'll bring the sniff."

"Okay."

"Roll the collar of your shin in and tuck a towel inside," she said over her shoulder as she poured water from the kettle on the stove into a shallow bowl. She pulled a chair up close to his and set the bowl and razor on the seat. She also got her bar of soap from the shelf, and a spare towel.

"I'd better soak it first." He dipped the extra towel into the bowl of hot water. "Ouch, damn," he cursed when he tried to wring it out.
"
It
’
s hot.
"

"No foolin'?"

He juggled the scalding towel from one hand to the other before finally slapping it against the lower portion of his face, letting out a yelp when he did so. He held it there, although Rusty didn't know how he could stand it.

"Doesn't that burn?" Without removing the towel, he nodded solemnly. "You do it to soften the whiskers, right?" Again, he nodded. "I'll try to work up a
gaud
lather."

Tentatively she wet her hands in the bowl of hot water and picked up the cake of soap. Cooper watched her every
move
as
she rubbed the soap bet
w
een her hands until they were cove
red
with honeysuckle-scented suds. The foam looked rich and creamy as she slid it between her palms.
It
oozed between her fingers, looking intensely sexy, although exactly why, he didn't know.

"Whenever you're ready," she said, moving behind him. Gradually Cooper lowered the towel. Just as gradually, Rusty raised her hands to his face. Gazing down at him from her position above and behind him, the planes and ridges of his face looked even more harsh, more pronounced. But there was a vul
nerability
to his eyelashes that gave her enough courage to lay her palms against his prickly cheeks.

She felt him tense up in reaction to her touch. She didn't move
h
er hands at first, but kept them still, resting lightly against his cheeks, while she waited to see if he was going to tell her that (his wasn't a good idea.

It was a given that it wasn't a good idea. She just wondered which one
of them was going to admit it fi
rst and call a halt to the proceedings. But Cooper said nothing,
an
d she didn't want to stop, so she be
gan to rotate her hands o
ver his cheeks.

The sensation of that scratchy surface against her palms was enticing. She moved her hands to encompass more area and found that the bones of his jaw were just as chiseled and rigid
to
the touch as they looked. His square chin had a shallow indentation in its center. She slipped the edge of her fingernail into
it
but didn't investigate it nearly as long as she wanted to.

She ran her hands simultaneously down his throat, smoothing on the lather as she went. Her fingers glided over his Adam's apple and toward the base of his neck, where she felt his pulse
p
ounding. Dragging her fingers back up his neck and over his chin again, she encountered his lower lip and, beyond it, the brush of his mustache.

She
f
roze and drew in a quick, hopefully inaudible breath. "Sorry," she murmured. Removing her hands, she dipped them in the water to rinse them off. She leaned forward and inspected her handiwork from another angle. There was a speck of soap on his lower lip and some bubbles clinging to several of the blond hairs in his mustache.

With her wet finger, she whisked away that speck from his lip, then rubbed her finger over his mustache until the bubbles disappeared.

A low sound emanated from him. Rusty froze, but her eyes flew to his. "Get on with it," he growled.

With his face partially obscured by white foam, he shouldn't have posed any threat. But his eyes were alight. They glittered in the firelight. She could see the flames dancing in their depths and sensed a coiled violence over which he exercised tenuous control. It prompted her to step behind him again and out o
f
harm's way.

"Don't cut me." he warned as she lifted the razor to his jaw, "I won't if you'll be still and shut up." "Have you ever done this before?" "No."

"Tha
t
's what I was afraid of."

He stopped talking as she drew
t
he first swipe up his cheek. "So far so good," she said softly as she dipped the razor in the bowl. He mumbled something, trying to keep his mouth still, but Rusty didn't catch what he said. She was concentrating too hard on giving him a clean shave without nicking his skill

When the lower part of his face was clean, she let out a deep sigh of relief and satisfaction. "Smooth as a baby's bottom."

A laugh rolled up from the depths of his chest.
Rusty
had never heard him actually laugh with pure humor before. His infrequent laughs were usually tinged with cynicism. "Don't start bragging yet. You're not finished. Don't forget my neck. And for Cod sake, be careful with that blade."

"It's not that sharp."

"That's the worst kind."

She swished the razor in the water to dampen it, then placed one hand beneath his chin. "Tilt your head back"

He did. It rested heavily against her breasts.
Rusty
, unable to move for a moment, kept the razor poised above his throat. His Adam's apple bobbed with a hard, involuntary swallow. To take her mind off their posi
t
ion, she turned her attention to the task
at
hand, which only made matters worse. She had to come up on her toes and lean forward to sec well. By the time she'd
s
haved his neck clean, his head was cushioned between her breasts and they were both keenly aware of it.

"There." She stepped back and dropped the razor as though it were the single piece of incriminating evidence in a murder trial.

He yanked the towel out of his collar and buried his face in
i
t. For what seemed like hours he didn't move or lower the towel.

"How does it feel?" she asked.

"Great. It feels great."

Then, he stood up abruptly and tossed the towel onto the
a
ir. Tearing his coat from the peg near the door, he pulled it
o
n, ruthlessly shoving his arms into the sleeves.

"Where are you going?" Rusty asked anxiously.

"Outside."

"What for?"

He shot her a sizzling glance that wasn't in keeping with the blizzard blowing beyond the open door. "Believe me, you don't want to know."

He continued
t
o behave in tha
t
volatile manner until noon the next day. All morning the weather had been prohibitive to beast and man, so they'd been snowbound in the cabin. For the most part, Cooper ignored her. She responded in kind. After several unsuccessful attempts to make
c
onversation with him, she gave up and lapsed into a moody silence that matched his.

It was a relief when the snowy wind stopped its incessant howling and he announced that he was going out to take a look around. She was concerned for his safety, but refrained from persuading him to stay indoors. They needed the breathing space away from each other.

Besides, she needed some privacy. Cooper wasn't the only one who'd been itching lately. The incision on her leg was giving her fits. As the skin began to knit, it had become tight and dry. Her clothing only aggravated it further. She decided that the stitches had to come out. She also decided that she was going to pull them ou
t
herself rather than involve Cooper, especially since their relationship was so rocky and his mood shifts so unpredictable.

He
’
d been gone only a few minutes when she stripped off all her clothes, having decided to use this opportunity to give herself a thorough sponge bath. When she finished washing, she sa
t
down in front of the fire, wrapped in a blanket for warmth. She
th
en
pr
o
p
ped her injured leg over the knee of the other and examined it
.
H
ow hard could it be to clip those stitches and pull them out? Where before, the thought would have given her qualms the size
of
go
ose
eggs, she approached the chore pragmatically. The first
o
b
s
tacl
e
was
t
o find something to clip the silk stitches with. The knife Cooper had given her was too cumbersome. The only thing
in
t
he cabin sharp enough and delicate enough was her razor.

It had seemed like a good idea, but when she held the razor
leng
t
h
wis
e
over the first stitch, poised and ready to saw into it, she realized that her hand was perspiring with apprehension. Drawin
g a
deep breath, she touched the silk thread with the razor.

The door burst open and Cooper tramped through it, snow-shoes and all. He'd covered his head with a fur pelt and was bundled up from his neck to his boots. His own breath had frozen on his mustache, making it appear ghostly white. Rusty emitted a squeak of alarm and momentary fright.

But her surprise couldn't compare to his. She was just as supernatural a vision as he, in an entirely different way. Silhouetted as she was against the fireplace, the flames shone through her hair. One leg was propped up, exposing a tantalizing length o( naked thigh. I he blanket shed wrapped herself in alter her sponge bath had slipped off her shoulder, revealing most of one breast. As his eyes fastened on it, the nipple grew taut with the chilly air he was letting in.

He closed the door. "What the hell ar
e
you doing sitting there like that?"