That's how she felt—shredded, diced and freezer-burned— shivering to death in the snow melting off her clothes, glaring at him from under the ice-caked curls hanging over her forehead like crystal dreadlocks. Until Gus swiped a hand down his jacket, flipped beef and broccoli off his fingertips and leveled a livid, hot-eyed scowl on her.
Gulp,
said her little voice.
“What do I get for a cracked nose, sprained ankle and busted toe?”
“How about a fat lip to go with them?”
He had her by the lapels of her blazer and drawn up on her toes before she saw him move. Nose to nose in the dark, Cydney's breath caught by surprise in her throat, the snow
glowing through the stained-glass panels bright enough to show her the muscle leaping in his jaw.
“I've never been so goddamn mad or so goddamn turned on in my life. The more you yell at me the more I want to rip your clothes off.”
“Oh Gus.” Cydney flung her arms around him and clung to him, frozen cheek to frozen cheek, stretching to reach him, tears squeezing past her icy lashes. “All those terrible things I said to you.”
“Say 'em again.” He swung her off her feet, one arm around her shoulders, the other beneath her knees, his mouth barely an inch from hers. “Only this time say 'em like you mean 'em.”
“You rude, insensitive jerk. You sleazy, self-absorbed prick.”
“Oh baby, that's the one.” He closed his eyes and quivered, his nostrils flaring. “Remember that one.”
He had her up the stairs, through his office and in his bedroom before she stopped laughing. Before she could draw a breath he had her on the bed, his cold hands under her sweater, his shivery mouth on hers.
“You're freezing,” he said in her ear. “You need a hot bath.”
“I need you.” Cydney locked her arms around his neck, afraid to let him get up. She could say the wrong word and start another fight. He could trip in the dark and break something vital. Like her heart, which he probably would before this wedding was over with, but she wasn't going to think about that. “You warm me up. Right here. Right now, you big-mouth know-it-all.”
“Ooh, smut talk.” He grinned and ripped open the zipper on his jacket, yanked it off and threw it across the room. “Your turn.”
Cydney tossed what was left of her blazer on top of his jacket. His sweater followed, then hers, his boots and her Keds, their socks and his jeans. Last, her black twill pants, so stiff with ice he had to peel her out of them like a banana, fol-
lowing the fabric as he freed her of it with his mouth, touching off little fires where he kissed and licked her.
The inside of her thigh, a long, slow glide along her shin that left her flushed and quivering. The bruised spot on the back of her knee she worried might blossom into a spider vein. Thank God it was dark, barely light enough to see the outline of the bed in the glare of the snow cover gleaming through the big window on the far wall.
Her black twill pants came off at last and hit the floor with a wet plop that made Cydney's stomach jump. So did the flicker in Gus' eyes as he crawled onto the bed with her— hunger, need and just plain want that made her knees go weak and open to let him slide between them. He stretched himself on top of her, raised her arms over her head, laced his fingers through hers and settled in the V of her thighs. The hot, hard pulse of him made her shiver and melt with a moan he caught in a kiss.
Her Angus Munroe fantasies tried to creep in when he rolled her over so he could pull the bedclothes out from under them.
Wait a minute, he's doing this wrong. He should peel you out of your panties first and worship you with his eyes. Can't this guy follow a script?
Cydney wrapped her arms around Gus and pulled him down into a searing open-mouthed kiss that sent her fantasies yelping out of her head.
She didn't want them anymore. She didn't need them. She had the real thing in her arms, the weight of him on top of her again when he rolled her back on the sheets and drew the covers over them. He drove his tongue into the hollow of her throat, arching her head back against a pillow that had magically appeared beneath her.
Heat flared where his mouth touched. Her throat, her shoulders, cupped in his hands while he nuzzled her breasts. His thumbs hooked her bra straps and tugged her nipples free to be kissed and licked while his hands slid lower and pulled her panties past her hips. His fingers feathered her hipbones, his mouth still pulling on her breasts, tugging and sucking while Cydney gloried in the scrape of his beard on her swollen nipples. She held him against her, clutching his hair
as his mouth moved lower, flushing heat up from her belly where he nuzzled her curls.
When he rose over her, tracking wet kisses up her torso, she felt him reach for the waistband of his boxers. She helped him slide them off, her fingers brushing his erection and making him shiver as he kicked the boxers aside and covered her with his body, her mouth with his and pushed against her, testing, hard and throbbing.
She raised her knees, wet and ready, and let him slide inside her. A slow, easy slide with a shuddered, drawn-deep breath as he settled on top of her, his weight on his knees, his hands gently cupping her head on the pillow. His thumbs brushed her temples while he stroked inside her. Kissed her nose, her eyebrows, her chin, stroking faster when her hips moved and she sucked his tongue into her mouth.
He was big but he was gentle, mindful of her size and her comfort, stroking fast, then slow, filling her gradually, letting her relax and revel and feel and taste, giving her his tongue whenever she wanted it. Petting her, touching her, snuggling his cheek next to hers on the pillow to gnaw her earlobe, rub his whiskered chin along her collarbone and make her giggle, chuckling deep in his throat when she did.
“Like that?” he murmured, or “How's this?” Kissing her again when she sighed,
“Yesss,”
savoring her, warming her, cherishing her. He slowed his pace, then sped, stilled and rose on his hands and looked at her with deep, dark eyes, a pulse hammering hard in his throat, his hair all over his head in spikes she'd put there with her tugging and pulling.
“Ready, babe?”
“Past ready, you arrogant,
pushy
—”
“Oh honey, that's the word.” He drove into her, lifting her knees and her hips higher, arching her head back, thrusting and building heat and heat and more heat till it exploded in the pit of her and she clutched his hips and—
Screamed. Actually
screamed
as the mind-bursting climax ripped through her. She felt it tear up her throat, in her breasts, even in her nipples. It was wondrous. So glorious she screamed again as Gus locked his mouth over hers and sucked
the scream into his throat. His last thrust tore a cry out of him that made her teeth vibrate. She clung to him, let him collapse on top of her and press his forehead to the side of her neck. She rubbed his back, slick with sweat, and felt him shudder, his heart thudding against hers.
“Am I too heavy?” he rasped in her ear.
“No.” Cydney wrapped her arms around his rib cage, hooked her legs around his knees and snuggled. She rubbed her cheek in his chest hair, touched his flat, hard nipple with her tongue and felt him shiver.
He raised his head and smiled, stroking her temples with his fingertips. “Then I'd like to stay here a while.”
How 'bout forever, Cydney wanted to suggest, but spread her arms out instead and smiled. “Make yourself comfortable.”
Gus drew the covers over them and snuggled down on top of her, tucked his arms under her and cradled her, rubbing his nose in her hair, settling her hips deeper into the mattress. He stayed inside her, full and pulsing, her arms around his neck, stroking his hair, feeling his breath slow till he snored, once, softly in her ear.
“He touched me,” Cydney sang softly off-key. “He put his hand near mine and then he touched me. I felt a—a—uh…”
“A sudden tingle when he touched me,” Gus filled in grog-gily. “A sparkle, a glow.”
Cydney laughed at the tickle of his breath on her collarbone, delighted that he knew the words. “I thought you were asleep.”
“Nope. Just resting up.” He wiggled closer and kissed the side of her neck. “Do you like Streisand?”
“Oh yes. Do you?”
“No. I just remember song lyrics. Now George Benson. That man can play the
gee-tar,”
he drawled, sounding like his friend Sheriff Cantwell. “Want to swing from the chandelier in the great room next time?”
“Too high up. I'll get a nosebleed.”
“We've got the house to ourselves. We should enjoy it before your loony—” He pushed up on an elbow. “Whattya say we don't go there?”
“Let's don't. How about the bathtub?”
“Great idea.” He kissed her and rolled to his feet. Cydney heard a lamp switch click and Gus swear. “Power's out,” he said, then she heard a crunch and a yowl, looked over the side of the bed and saw him on the dark, shadowy floor, gritting his teeth and clutching his right foot.
“Oh no,” she mewed sympathetically. “Not again.”
“Whacked the table when I reached for the lamp.” He flexed his toes and winced. “I have
got
to remember to buy gas for the generator.”
“Well, darn. I was looking forward to a bath.”
“There should be enough hot water in the tank. But no heat.” He rolled up on his knees and kissed her. “I'll light a fire.”
“You just did,” Cydney purred, winding her arms around his neck.
“I meant in the fireplace.” Gus chuckled and tucked the covers around her. “Keep warm. I'll be back.”
Cydney peered at his backside as he walked away from her but couldn't see much, just the paler shape he made against the darkness. When he disappeared into the bathroom—she caught a glimpse of the commode—she took her bra off and pitched it toward the clothes pile, hunkered down under the covers and pinched herself.
“Ouch,” she said, smiling at the ceiling she could barely see.
Yep. She was wide-awake. Gus hadn't left her for dead in a snowdrift. He really had dragged her up his driveway, carried her up to his bedroom and made love to her. Next time she got caught in a blizzard she could just lie down in the snow and die a happy woman.
Oh boy. She couldn't wait to write this scene in her book.
Her bones ached and she felt sore spots in her hips that would likely be bruises tomorrow, but on the whole she felt wonderful. Languid and loved, even though she wasn't. Cydney turned her head on Gus' pillow and gazed at the window, at the pewter gleam streaming through the glass that meant the snow had stopped and the moon had come out. Pewter gleam. Ooh, she liked that. She'd have to re
member it. Maybe, she thought, just maybe I do have what it takes.
“You've got what it takes and then some, honey.” Cydney shot up in bed, hand pressed to her heart and blinked at the top of Gus' head over the footboard. The footboard she hadn't been able to see until now. Through its wooden slats, carved in what looked like Southwest Mission style, she saw the flicker of a flame.
“You startled me. Did I say something?” “You said, 'Just maybe I do have what it takes.’” “Oh great. Now I'm talking to my little voice
and
myself.” “Don't worry about it, babe.” She heard wood snap and watched the flame jump. “I've got one of those big-mouth know-it-all voices, too.”
“Really? Do you talk back to it?”
“When I can get a word in, which believe me, ain't easy.” At last, thank God, something they had in common. A weird something, but a common something nonetheless.
The flame brightened through the footboard slats and glowed on the face of a stone fireplace with bookshelves on both sides. It was too dim to see what the jumble of shapes were on the mantel. A couple of baseballs, it looked like, and a Ping-Pong paddle, but she could see the bright reds and golds in the patchwork quilt she tugged with her as she walked down the bed on her knees and sat back on her heels. It was warm at the foot and bright enough to see Gus sitting on the carpeted floor feeding wood to the fire through a partly open black mesh screen.
She didn't feel the least bit shy being in his bed or ogling his lusciously naked body. Maybe because he'd been so tender with her, which was the only thing her fantasies had gotten right. She'd been so wrong about so much else. He glanced at her, held up a cigar and wagged it.
“Do you mind? The only time I want a cigar is after sex.” “Not a bit. Go ahead.”
He lit the cigar with a strip of kindling and poked it back in the fire. “In case you're wondering, this is one stale stogie.” Cydney laughed, folded her arms on the footboard and
leaned her chin on her wrists. “The only time Max Stone smokes is after sex, too.”
“You have read my books.”
“I told you I was your biggest fan.”
“Hmmm.” He puffed on the cigar and squinted at her through the smoke. “I'm not gonna read about this on one of those Angus Munroe fan sites on the Internet, am I?”
“Heck no. I'm saving this for my memoirs.”
“Are you?” He stuck the cigar in his mouth, raised his knees and looped his arms around them. “What are you going to say about me?”
“Well, let's see.” Cydney leaned her chin on her hand and tapped a finger on her cheek, making it look like she had to think about it, which she didn't, because she already knew.
She'd say how much she loved him, how much it meant to her that he'd loved her—once, anyway, at least physically— and what a comfort it was to her, now that she was Bebe Par-rish Munroe's old-maid aunt with a dining room enshrined in her honor. But she couldn't tell Gus that, so she parked her chin on her hand and gave him a wicked smile.
“I'll say you have the best-looking balls I never saw.”
“How can you say that? Didn't we just—”
“The power's off.” Cydney waved her hand. “No lights.”
“I can fix that.” He sprang off the floor, squared himself in front of the brightly burning fire and spread his legs. “Ta-da!”
Cydney clapped a hand over the startled squeak that escaped her and laughed. So hard she shrieked and keeled over on her side, wound in the quilt and howling with laughter.
“Gotcha.” Gus bounced down beside her, chuckling, and gave her a playful slap on the rump. “Now you can't say you didn't see my balls.”