Bedding Down, A Collection of Winter Erotica (31 page)

Read Bedding Down, A Collection of Winter Erotica Online

Authors: Rachel Krame Bussel

jeans. “I want to hear you say it. No more notes. No more writ-

ten words, promising to come back.”

Had she promised to come back? Not in words, no, but she

remembered then: a note sent her first week from Syracuse. A

note that did promise she wasn’t going forever, that once she

made it on her own she’d come back to him. How could she

256

S
hanna
G
ermain

have forgotten that? How could she have changed so much, and

so little, all at once? No wonder he’d put on his armor, had tried to keep her at arm’s length.

“No more notes,” she said.

He slid her jeans and panties down, only to her calves, not

bothering with her socks or boots. He pressed her legs as far

apart as they would go and trailed his hand between her. She

shivered, again, something she felt in her whole body. Part cold, but mostly desire. Mostly fear at what she wanted, what she

needed.

“Say it then,” he said.

“I’d borrow, burden . . . ,” she said. “For you.”

“No,” he said. He knelt before her and stuck two fingers in

the snow at his feet. He scooped up a handful of it. When he

entered her this time, his fingers were frozen, wet. They burned her insides with cold and movement. She slid closer to him,

wanted more. But he pulled out.

He opened his jeans, slid them down just enough so she could

see his cock, already rising and shiny and beautiful.

“No,” he said again, as he nudged against her. She tried to

open herself, to slide over his cock, but he moved away.

“I want to hear the rest,” he said.

Dulcie’s face burned. Her body ached. “I would . . .” She

couldn’t get the word out. “I’d beg for you.”

“Do it,” he said. His fingers moved inside her, the way her

body opened around him. He circled his thumb on her clit, the

same motion he’d made when he’d showed her how to stir.

“Please,” she said. “Please Travis. God.”

“That’s a start,” he said. He kissed her again, pressing her

S
weet
S
eason

257

back against the tree with his fingers and his tongue, nearly lifting her from the ground. With his free hand, he worked her

nipples through her shirt. “What else? What else do you want

from me, Dulcie?”

“Please,” she said, into his neck. “Please I want you to fuck

me.”

He pulled away from her. “That’s all?” he asked. His grin was all teeth and dimples. “Why didn’t you say so sooner?”

“You’re a fucker,” she said. Her breath came in gasps, her

body already felt wrung out, scraped raw.

“I hope to be,” he said. He pulled a condom from his pocket,

held it up for her like a question.

“Yes,” she said.

When he nudged against her this time, she opened her legs as

far as she could. He held her back against the tree, didn’t let her move as he slid into her slowly, slowly. So slow that she thought she would split apart from wanting. “Please,” she whispered, and she heard him grunt low in his throat. The scar at his eyebrow

was bone-white, and a small vein stuck out on his forehead.

She knew he was trying to go slow for her, but she wanted him

inside her, wanted him to crush her and fill her.

“Pleasepleaseplease,” she said, like a mantra, like she couldn’t stop the flow of her desire, and the sound made him enter her

all the way, made him push her up and back with each thrust

of his hips. He bent his head to kiss her, his tongue thrusting as he did, everything matching the rhythm of their bodies and

bending them.

“I can’t,” he said. “I can’t last.”

“Good,” she said. She grabbed his ass, pulled him into her,

258

S
hanna
G
ermain

bringing him to that final place, so that he growled against her mouth and scraped her back against the bark even through her

jacket.

“Oh God,” he said, as he came and she could only lean her

head back against the tree and feel her own desire coursing

through her, emptying out of her, even as he filled her.

They stood that way after, him softening inside her. “I don’t

want to leave,” he said.

“Me neither,” she said. And from the way he kissed her, she

knew that he understood what she was saying.

He slipped out of her and she was glad the tree was holding

her up. She wasn’t sure she could have stood otherwise. When

he bent down to help her slide her pants back up, she could only grin down at him.

“What?” he asked.

“Oh, I was just thinking I could get used to you down there,”

she said.

“As long as you don’t bean me with a pitchfork, we’ll be

okay.”

He leaned in to kiss her again, his breath warm against the

cold. “Your syrup tastes amazing,” he said. “I had it on apple

pancakes this morning. I couldn’t get you out of my mind.”

It made her smile, hearing that. How some things changed,

and others—the important things like emotions and apple

pancakes—didn’t.

He whistled the way he did, and Agate came running, ears

flopping through the snow.

“Want some help carrying those back to the syrup shack?”

he asked.

“Will I have to borrow or beg for it?”

S
weet
S
eason

259

“I’m sure we can arrange something.”

“Maple syrup poured on my fingers?”

He kissed her fingers, then, his tongue warm against her cold

skin. “Or somewhere else.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal,” she said.

He reached down and grabbed both pails. She could only fol-

low him and Agate as they made way their way back to the sugar

shack. Around them, the trees bowed and whispered, promising

an early spring.

About Shanna Germain

SHANNA GERMAIN
grew up in upstate New

York with a pitchfork in her hand, maple syrup on her

tongue, and more first loves than she can count. Her

poems, short stories, and novellas have appeared in

places like
Best American Erotica 2007; Best Bondage Erotica 2;
Best Lesbian Erotica 2008; Best Gay Romance 2008; He’s on Top;
Dirty Girls;
and
Yes, Sir.
Visit her online at www.shannagermain.com.

About the Editor

RACHEL KRAMER BUSSEL
(www.rachel

kramerbussel.com) has edited over twenty

erotic anthologies, including
Spanked;

Yes, Sir; Yes, Ma’am; He’s on Top; She’s

on Top; Rubber Sex; Caught Looking;

Hide and Seek; Sex and Candy; Spanked:

Red-Cheeked Erotica; Naughty Spanking

Stories from A to Z 1
and
2
; and
Best Sex

Writing 2008
. Her work has been published

in over a hundred anthologies, including

Best American Erotica 2004
and
2006
;

Zane’s
Chocolate Flava 2
; and
Purple

Panties, Everything You Know About Sex

Is Wrong
and
Desire: Women Write About

Wanting
. She hosts In the Flesh Erotic

Reading Series, wrote the popular Lusty

Lady column for
The Village Voice
, and has

contributed to
AVN, Bust, Cosmopolitan,

Diva
, Fresh Yarn, Gothamist, Huffing-

ton Post, Mediabistro,
Newsday, New

York Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Time

achel Kramer Bussel Out New York
, and
Zink
. In her spare time, she likes to blog about cupcakes at

cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com.

R
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive

information on your favorite HarperCollins

author.

Credits

Cover photograph by Lisa Spindler / Images.com / IPN

Copyright

fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled,

reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Adobe Acrobat eBook November 2008

ISBN 978-0-06-172501-2

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1