Two Cabins, One Lake: An Alaskan Romance (14 page)

I shuddered again, feeling suddenly bereft.  Cold and empty.

He fell onto the bed beside me.  I could feel his eyes on
me.

I stared up at the ceiling, trying to figure out what the
hell had just happened.  My
neighbor
had crawled through my
window
and had
held me down
—

It had been unreal.  He was exactly my speed, not too
gentle, not too rough.  He asked first, but still managed to take.  And yet he
gave
.

He leaned over me then, crowding the thoughts right out of
my head.  His finger touched my swollen lips.  I licked his fingertip, and then
pulled it into my mouth.

His eyes flared.

I held his gaze as I sucked him.  I rolled the flat of my
tongue over his sensitive fingertip.  His muscles rippled when I scraped my
teeth gently across the joint.

He dragged his wet fingertip from my mouth, and then leaned
close.  His hand closed on my jaw, doing that controlling thing that I found so
damn sexy.  He turned my head so his lips were against my ear.

“We did your fantasy,” he whispered.  “Next time, mine.” 
Then he let me go, his gaze boring into mine for a breathless moment.

I stared after him as he climbed out of bed, wondering what
the hell he was talking about. 
My fantasy?

He disposed of the condom, and quickly pulled his clothes
on.  With one last glance, he slipped out of my window, blending almost
instantly into the darkness.

Realization came slowly to my sex-addled brain. 
My
fantasy
.  He’d read what I wrote.  He’d read the scene I’d written of him
sneaking into my bedroom window.  He’d
enacted
a scene I wrote. 
Intentionally.

I put a trembling hand over my bruised mouth.

And it had been—beyond incredible.  I’d had the most
fantastic sex of my entire life, with the man who’d burned my blueberries to
the ground… and with my brothers asleep downstairs.

And he wanted to do it—do
me
—again!  This time, it
was
my
hand that muffled a squee of excitement.

Chapte
r Eleven

T
he
next morning, I lay in bed for a good half hour, grinning up at the ceiling. 
I’d imagined what had occurred between us more times than I could count, but
none of it compared to the real thing.  Something about his attitude, the exact
same thing that had rubbed me the wrong way since he’d exploded into my life,
seemed to rub me perfectly right in bed.  Being with him last night had been
amazing—and yes, I’d already checked my nightstand to make sure I wasn’t
dreaming.  The 36 count box of Ultra Thin Trojan condoms was still there.  I
felt my loins heating, just thinking about how much fun we could have with all
those condoms.

When I finally crawled out of bed, I was actually feeling
somewhat chipper.  I got dressed and descended the ladder to find my brothers
beginning to stir.

Zack was sitting at the table, still swaddled in last
night’s blanket, nursing a cup of coffee.  He looked like I usually felt in the
mornings, all dazed and ornery, his blonde hair sticking out every-which-way. 
He was peering at me from under it with suspicion.  “You’re very cheerful this
morning,” he observed.

I grinned at him, so cheerful I thought he actually looked
kinda cute sitting there, all tattooed and grumpy, with a droopy blanket.  Not
so cheerful I couldn’t rub it in, though.  “It’s because I caught such a huge
fucking fish yesterday, and it was so damn much bigger than any of yours.”

“I thought Gary caught that fish.”

I shrugged.  Then I pranced off to the bathroom.

The mirror reflected my crazy grin, along with more evidence
that last night had been real.  My hair was bedhead crossed with freshly
fucked, and a couple red marks decorated my neck.  My nipples were chafed pink,
and my hips and thighs gave that tell-tale next-morning protest as I sat on the
toilet.

I yelped and jumped right back up, because hot urine
splashed back at me.  “What the
fuck
?”  Dripping, I turned to glare down
at the yellow puddle I’d made in the middle of a sheet of translucent cellophane
stretched over the bowl.

Through the door, I could hear my fucking brothers roaring
with laughter.

“You sons-of-bitches!” I yelled.  I was gonna get them back. 
It was just how I operated. 

At the same time, I knew that if this was the worst they did
to me during their visit, I was getting off easy.  At least it hadn’t been a
cherry bomb.

I removed the plastic and finished my business.  Then I took
a shower.

I glared at them over breakfast.

“So what’s the plan for today?” Rory asked, carefully
avoiding my gaze.

“How about we build my shed,” I suggested.  I’d planned one
out to cover the snowmachine in summer, and the four-wheeler in winter, and to hold
non-burnable trash in one corner, with my tools and various necessities in a
low loft above it.  I’d had the materials freighted in last winter.

And that was the agreement:  My brothers could come visit
for a week—if they built me a shed.  I knew it was only day two, but I also
knew my brothers.  If I didn’t make them do it, they wouldn’t.

On cue, Zack grumbled.  “Couldn’t we do it tomorrow?” he
asked.

“But that’s exactly what you’re gonna say tomorrow,” I
said.  “How about we just get out there, get our shit together, and build me a
shed.  Like you said you would.”

They finally caved, and I rounded up everything they’d need.
 I showed them where I wanted it, and almost immediately began to feel
superfluous.

I hung around for a couple hours, but as they started to get
the frame up, I excused myself.  “I gotta clean fish,” I said.

Nobody objected, because they knew if they did, they’d be
wrist-deep in fish guts, and we all knew they’d rather be pounding nails.

I moved down to the dock and kicked open the lid to the
cooler.  Then I flopped the first pike out onto my cleaning table.

As I sliced beautiful fillets, I let myself replay last
night.  The feel of Gary’s hands on me.  The feel of him inside me.  His
sparkling eyes.  I almost made myself want to gag, thinking about his ‘sparkling’
eyes, but there it was.  I’d noticed them, I’d appreciated them.

And most of all, I wondered when we could do that again.

Smiling, I glanced toward his cabin.  There was no movement
over there that I could see, and my brothers were making enough noise that I
couldn’t hear what Gary was up to.

The fish took me a while.  After I got the fillets deboned,
packaged into Ziplocs, and thrown in the freezer, I rejoined the construction
crew.

I fetched them some drinks, and found nails, and held
things…but mostly I supervised.  Rory and Zack were the ones doing most of the
work, with J.D. sort of half-assedly tagging along.

Around noon, I went inside and cobbled together a soup.  I
wasn’t much of a cook, but I figured I could make them lunch.  Since they were
building me a shed and all.

Last in were the egg noodles.  As they disappeared into the
broth, I glanced out my window to make sure my brothers were still out there.
Yup, I was alone.

I called Suzy.  She picked up after a couple rings.

“I had sex with him,” I confessed.

“Wait, Helly?”

“Yeah.”

“Who’d you have sex with?”

I braced myself, took a nice deep breath, and said, “With
Gary.”

“Wait, your evil neighbor Gary?  The Blueberry Butcher,
Gary?”

“Yeah.”

“You had sex with him?” she asked, her voice rising.

I cringed, knowing I was in trouble.  “Yeah.”

She squealed so loud I had to hold the phone away from my
ear.  “Oh my god, oh my God, ohmigawd, tell me.  Gimme the details. 
Nao!
”

I cringed some more.  How did you tell someone a guy had
crawled through your bedroom window, put a hand over your mouth, and then
fucked you silly?  It had been great at the time, but in the light of day…it
sounded stalker-ish.  And weird.  Nobody climbed in second-story windows for
nookie.

“Uh…”

“Helly J. Adderack.  You will tell me what happened
right
now
!  Aren’t your brothers visiting?  How did you have sex with your
neighbor when your brothers are there?”  She gasped.  “Or did it happen
before
? 
And how was it?” she demanded.

My shit-eating grin was so wide it hurt my face as memories
from last night flashed through my head.  “Amazing,” I admitted.

More squeals.  She finally caught her breath enough to ask,
“How did this happen?  Last time you called, you wanted to kill him.  At the
barbecue, you tried to run away when you saw him.  And aren’t your brothers
there?”

“The brothers
are
here,” I said.  I hesitated.  “Well…promise
not to tell anyone?”  I knew full well I was talking to the gossip-monger of
the century.  But she was also my friend, and I knew she wouldn’t blather about
my personal life—as long as I specifically told her not to.

“Cross my heart,” she said.  “Now tell me!”

“We’ve been feuding, sorta,” I started.

“You told me you sabotaged his saw,” she said, and I could
hear her smile.

“Yeah.  But there’s more.  The next day, I was sunning on my
dock, and he splashed me with his jet ski.  So…I might have crashed the jet ski,
and then I might have pushed him in.”

“Crashed—wait, you pushed him in?  To the lake?!”

“Yeah,” I admitted.

“Wait.  That was the day before the barbecue, right?  Why
didn’t you tell me about this?”

“I’m getting to that part.  So, he chased me, and he tackled
me on my lawn—”  I glanced out to make sure my brothers were still busy on the
shed, and not in earshot.

“He
tackled
you?!”  Suzy sounded as aghast as I’d
been when Gary had ‘claimed’ my land.

“And he gave me an orgasm,” I finished.

The silence on the other end was long, and loud.  “He gave
you an orgasm.  On your lawn.”

“Yeah.  There was some grinding, and he had his mouth on me,
and….  Then, the morning of the barbecue, he might have trespassed and almost
kissed me, and made me breakfast, and dumped water on me, and read my stories.”

“Tress—made you—he read your
stories
?”  Suzy sounded
breathless with excitement.

“Anyway, you’ve seen how freaking hot he is.  So after the
barbecue I decided I still didn’t like him, I didn’t want to talk to him, but I
wanted to fuck him.”

Suzy was making these little laughing noises, which made me
smile.

“So I went over to his place and threw five gallons of water
on him.”

She still seemingly had nothing to say.

I sighed.  “It made sense at the time, I swear.  After I
threw the water on him, he picked me up and threw me in the lake.  And then he
jumped in after me, and there might have been almost-sex in the lake, and
then—my brothers flew in.”

“In the
lake
?” Suzy asked.  She took a deep breath,
and then said, “Tell me how you managed to have sex with him with your brothers
there.”

I cringed a little.  What Gary had done sounded
semi-reasonable in the dead of night, but it seemed so angsty-teenager in the
light of day.  And to admit it to my friend over the phone? 

Ah well, I’d already told her about all the other crazy shit
I’d done.  “He climbed in my bedroom window,” I admitted.

She was silent a long moment, probably trying to digest
everything I’d just told her.  Suzy knew I wasn’t exactly conventional—she
wasn’t either—but I still found it difficult revealing details that betrayed
the extent of my neurosis.  Maybe it was just me not being the best with
people, but I’d always had the niggling worry that she was finally going to
decide ‘This bitch is crazy!’ and wash her hands of me.  Not that I thought she
was the type of person to do that.  It was complicated.
 I
was
complicated.  Obviously.  Just look at my sex life.  Or usual lack thereof.

“Helly, let me get this straight,” Suzy said.  “This is a
man that chases you down to give you orgasms, jumps into a lake after you
to—to—”

“Finger me,” I supplied, shutting off the heat on the soup. 
The noodles were done.

“And he crawls in your second-story window to give you
amazing sex.”

“Yeah…”

“Helly, you’re not gonna wanna hear this, but…he sounds
perfect for you.”

I yelped as I burned myself on the pot.

“I mean, how many men would understand your method of
seduction by five gallon bucket?  How many would dare climb in your window,
with your three crazy brothers downstairs?  How many would climb in a window,
period
?”

I’d been stunned speechless by her original statement, but
she was starting to make a certain sort of sense.  How many men would grab me
and kiss the hell out of me when I was holding a dead fish and a sharp knife,
and was covered from neck to knees with slime?

How many would tolerate the damage I’d done?  I’d broken
into his cabin and cut the cord to his saw; trespassing and vandalism, right
there.  And then I’d crashed his jet ski.  He could have called the police, but
instead, he’d played my game.

“I’ve never seen you go for a nice, normal guy.  Not once. 
Some guy says hello, nice to meet you, and you yawn and walk away.  If he’s
persistent, you might use him for sex—”

“Or his mechanical skills,” I muttered.

“—but then he’s outta your life forever,” Suzy said.

“Now this guy, this Gary, he’s living next door so there’s
no real way you can ditch him, and he’s not nice, and you had a water fight,
and he climbed in your window, and you had sex!”  Damn, her voice was getting
high again.

Suzy continued.  “I think this guy may be on your
wavelength, which is…well…have you considered keeping him?”

“What?!  No!  I hate him!”

“No you don’t, quit being a dweeb.  Ooooohhh, I’m so excited
for you.  Don’t fuck this up, Helly.  This guy’s the one!”

Where the hell had this conversation gone?

“I…gotta go,” I said.  “Lunch is done.”

A
fter
lunch, J.D. sidled up to me.  “So Helly, you wanna learn a move or two?”

“Right now?” I asked, looking up at Zack and Rory climbing
around on the growing structure.  I loved it when J.D. showed me his self-defense
tricks—which he did pretty much as often as I saw him—but I really wanted that
shed, and if me ‘working’ alongside my brothers was what got it done, then…

“Oh go ahead,” Zack growled from where he was sticking up
behind a wobbling rafter.  “You two are pretty well useless when it comes to
building anyway.  We’ve got this.”

Practically clapping with excitement, J.D. tugged me over
onto my patch of grass.  My crazy younger brother loved to fight.  And he loved
to share his favorite hobby with others.  Usually more gently with me, than
with the others.  Usually.

“What do you wanna learn first?” he asked.

“I have no effing clue,” I said.  “Show me something.”

He’d already shown me how to throw a punch, and a kick.  He
observed me doing each of these, and then he tweaked my form.  I did a few
more, and then we reviewed where and what to punch and kick.  Then I got to try
a few on him, which was my favorite part.

The truth was, if you hadn’t guessed yet, I had an angry
streak about a mile wide.  So I really got into it, attacking him like he’d
been aggravating me for weeks.  The nice thing about J.D. was, I couldn’t break
him; no matter what I threw at him, he’d block it, or dodge it, or bounce it
off his rock-hard abs. 

And then he’d turn it into a lesson.  “You see what I did
there?” he’d ask.  Then I’d get the chance to try and brain him again, so he
could show me what to do when someone tried to hit me like that.  Or sometimes,
instead, he’d point out that I passed up several vulnerable areas, and lost
precious moments going for an out-of-the-way target.