Two Cabins, One Lake: An Alaskan Romance (19 page)

And they were getting bigger, I realized.  Because he was sucking
me in.  He hadn’t moved; just summoned me with those magical eyes.

I put a hand on his shoulder as I leaned closer, feeling the
warm, firm muscle under the thin cotton of his shirt.  His hand slid up past my
jaw, his fingers threading into my hair as he cupped my head.

I met his lips halfway.  I couldn’t seem to help myself.  It
was like he had a field of gravity, and when I got within a certain range, I
had no choice but to be drawn in.

This entry was a little less meteoric than most.  My lips
brushed softly over his.

A kiss with Gary was more than just taste or texture, so
much more; it was his smell, the warmth radiating from his skin, the tickle of
his breath against my cheek.  It was sheer closeness, an intimacy I’d never
really experienced before.  The muscles of his shoulder tightened under my hand
as he took some of my weight, and I realized it was also a statement of trust.

I flicked my tongue out to wet his bottom lip.  His breath
caught, and my lips curved against his.  I tilted my head, deepening the kiss. 
His fingers tightened in my hair, and he made this little growling noise as his
tongue met mine.  Now it was my breath that stuttered, my body that responded
with a slow burn.

I was in the middle of a silty, freezing river, perched on
the bow of a boat, and I wanted nothing more than to drag Gary down onto it
with me.  Where he was concerned, I just couldn’t seem to get enough.

Next thing I knew, my breasts were flattened against his chest,
my arms wrapped around his neck.  The kiss was spinning out of control, his
tongue thrusting hotly against mine.  His hand skimmed down to squeeze my butt,
and I groaned as he pulled me flush against the hard length of his erection.  The
metal of the boat pressed into my knees, but I didn’t care.

I didn’t even hear the boat engine until it was almost on
top of us.  I tore my mouth away and opened my bleary eyes to glimpse Brett as
he shot by only a few feet away.  He had been glaring, so I was sure he’d seen
everything.

Only seconds after he passed, Brett’s wake hit my boat,
rocking it.  I clutched Gary’s shoulders for balance.  With me hanging off him,
he was stuck in place when the first foot-high wave soaked his feet and legs. 
He grimaced at the cold water, but he just stood, and steadied me.

“Wasn’t that the guy you punched at the barbecue?” he asked,
looking after Brett’s boat.

I nodded.  “Brett.  Ex-boyfriend,” I explained.

“Who’s bitter about the ‘ex’ part.”

“Oh yeah.”

“You gonna tell me what happened?”

I shrugged.  “I have bad taste in men.”

“Ouch.”

“I wasn’t talking about
you
,” I protested.  But
between his cold, wet feet, and me inadvertently dissing him, the mood had been
broken.  I sighed.  “Thank you for helping me find my boat.”

“You’re welcome.”  He didn’t seem to be in any big hurry to
let go of me, though.  He leaned forward suddenly and licked my lip, the action
jump-starting my flagging arousal.  Then he stepped back, leaving me panting on
my knees.  “I’ll make sure you make it back safe,” he said.

“Okay.”  Normally I would have argued, pointing out that
driving this boat around was what I did for a living, and I even had a license
for that shit, but… If you want something from Helly, kiss her stupid first.

Chapte
r Sixteen

I
was awoken the next morning by a commotion.  Naturally, I thought it was Gary.

Until I realized those sounds weren’t sawing, or hammering. 
Mocha was barking, and there were thumps and bangs coming from outside.

I shot groggily to a sitting position. 
Crap,
had I
not let her in last night?  A particularly loud thump, followed by a bout of
frantic barking, actually made the building shudder. 
What the hell?

I climbed to my feet and yanked on the shirt and pants I’d
been wearing yesterday.  From downstairs, I heard one of my brothers moan. 
They’d been drunk last night when I’d gotten back with my boat.  I looked over
the railing, and confirmed that all three were still sprawled out, dead asleep.

Outside, my dog yelped.

“Motherfuck,” I said.  I scrambled down the ladder and flung
myself out the door.  I got down my steps, turned to the right, and came to a
sudden halt.

There was a brown bear next to my chest freezer.  The bear’s
butt was in the air as it swiped at something under my cabin.  Beside the bear,
my freezer was askew, the lid’s edge dented upward and torn.

The bear was pawing at my dog, I realized, as I saw a flash
of grey under the cabin, and Mocha began to bark again.  I didn’t even think—if
I’d been thinking, I would have brought my shotgun out with me in the first
place—I just reacted.  I picked up a length of 2X4 from the shed project, and I
threw it at the bear.  It thumped against its butt and clattered to the ground.

“Get away from her, you ass!” I yelled.  “Git!”  Funny me, I
know.  When I’m personally threatened by a bear, I clam up, but threaten my
dog, and:  I picked up another board, and heaved it at the brute.

The bear finally noticed something was batting at it.  It
turned around.

And, looking into its beady eyes, I realized something:  This
was the same damn bear that’d menaced me on the trail a couple weeks ago.  The
one that had been advancing on me.  The one that wasn’t afraid of people.

He still didn’t look afraid.  And he was even closer today
than he had been then.  I felt rooted, my blood running cold as he looked
across the dozen feet separating us.

Just like before, he took a step toward me.

Mocha zipped out from underneath the cabin to put herself
between us, barking wildly at the brown bear.  The bear hesitated.

Taking my opportunity, I dashed up the steps.  I don’t know
if the bear had some psychic knowledge that I was about to ruin his day, but he
turned around and tore into the woods.

I snatched up the shotgun, and swung back outside—but he was
already gone.  Swearing, my heart thudding with the remnants of fear and now a
growing anger, I stood there panting, glaring into the woods.

I refused to be threatened on my own land.  I didn’t feel
safe with that bear around, and it was obvious he was here to stay.  He now
knew I had food, and I got the feeling he thought I possibly
was
food. 
Thus, something had to be done.

I stomped over to my brothers—still mostly asleep, damn
them—and I thumped Zack in the shoulder with the toe of my boot.  The heathen
was sprawled out on the floor in front of the couch, looking none the worse for
wear for not having a mattress of any kind.

“Hey,” I growled.  “Wake up!  All of you.  Wake up!”

“Hel-ly,” Rory moaned.

“Don’t give me that,” I said.  “A bear was just out front. 
It tore open my freezer and was trying to eat my dog.  So
wake up
!”

“A bear?” J.D. asked, squinting as he sat up on the couch.

“Do you guys have hunting licenses?” I asked.

“I do,” Zack said.

“Me too,” said Rory.

“Well, then get the hell up, ‘cuz I have a job for you.  I
want you to go hunt down that bear, and
bring me its heart
.”

My brothers sprang to their feet, obviously feeling
motivated now that they had something to hunt, and shoot, and kill.  I snorted. 
Men.

As they got dressed, I fetched three rifles from my closet,
and armed them.  “Brown bear,” I said, “Pretty good-sized one.”  I showed them
what the beast had done to my freezer, and then pointed out the trail of
snapped branches it had left when it fled into the bushes.

Making macho noises, my three brothers hiked off into the
woods after the bear that had dared menace their sister.

My dog tried to follow them, but I managed to call her
back.  She squirmed as I ran my hands over her, checking her for injury.  She
was fine, no blood anywhere, not favoring any of her paws.

“Good girl,” I told her, rubbing behind her ears.  She might
not have been a cuddler, but she’d been willing to take on a bear for me. 
“Good girl.”

I went to the freezer and assessed the damage.  The lid was
bent, but it still opened.  It looked like the bear’d gotten its paw in there—a
few of the bags were sliced and torn.  Miracle of miracles, it looked like the
giant pike had been shoved into the back corner, and was entirely intact.

I straightened the freezer lid as best I could.  I took a
hammer to it, trying to pound it back into place.  I got it reasonably
straight, and stacked some rocks on it to help keep the seal.  It was
temporary, of course; I’d be needing a new freezer.

Once that was done, I went back inside.  I showered and made
myself breakfast.

I had been intending to just wait for my brothers to come
back, but as I finished the last slice of honeydew, my gaze caught on the
neighbor’s cabin.  I’d heard him sawing things as I jerry-rigged the freezer.

He was over there.  And my brothers were gone.

My heart started to beat a little faster as I considered. 
Making my decision in all of two seconds, I pulled off my underwear, and put on
the skirt.  I knew my time was limited—my brothers could come back at any
minute.  I slipped on a pair of shoes (which probably looked completely silly
with a skirt and no socks, but just then I didn’t care) and jogged over.

My heart was racing as I walked around his front porch, my
pussy already growing heated and moist.  Really, all I had to do was think
about the man, and I was ready to go.

He was inside, cutting something with a chop saw when I
rounded the corner.  I stood for a moment, just watching him as the saw blade
screamed.  He was wearing those clothes again; a pair of canvas work pants and
a plain T-shirt that stretched across his shoulders.  His tanned forearms
turned and flexed under a light dusting of sawdust, and I was enthralled by the
easy grip of those strong fingers.

He turned, board in hand, and finally saw me.  He stopped.

I didn’t have to guess at what he saw; I knew.  When loose,
my hair reached down to my breasts.  The breeze tugged at the drying strands,
and the sun glowed off it, and I met his gaze boldly.  My nipples tightened
under his slow perusal, until they strained against the fabric of my shirt even
through the restrictive layer of my bra.  The skirt hugged my hips and swirled
around my knees, and he followed the long curve of my calves down to my scuffed
shoes.

My chest felt tight as I watched him take me in.  He was
just so damn fine, and though we couldn’t seem to hold a civil conversation—or
maybe because of it—the man made me feel things I’d never even imagined
possible.  Sex with him was like a bonfire compared to all the candle flames
that came before it.  I was so wet, moisture began to trickle down my thighs,
just from holding his gaze.

I could tell from the look in his eyes, he knew I wasn’t
there to borrow a cup of sugar.

He set the board down.  He took the pencil out from behind
his ear, and set it atop the sawhorse.

Then he lifted an arm, and crooked his finger.  A wave of
awareness went through me, making my whole body feel tingly and alive.

Holding his gaze, I stepped up into his cabin through the
open wall.

We hadn’t even touched yet, we were still a few feet apart,
and yet my heart was thumping, my face was flushed, and there was a hot, wet
ache between my legs.  His eyes were glued to me, and his chest was rising and
falling faster with his breaths, giving me the strong suspicion I was having
the same effect on him.

His voice, when he spoke, was deep and low, scratchy with
arousal and pitched for my ears alone.  “Is that the same skirt?”

“It is,” I said, taking another step toward him.  My knees
wobbled, already weakened with lust.

His fingers twitched as though he wanted nothing more than
to grab me.  “And…what do you have on underneath?” he asked.  He held his
breath, and I knew exactly what he wanted to hear.

I was happy to tell him.  “Nothing,” I whispered.

He groaned, and he looked down at me, searching my face,
eyes sweeping across my hair.  “Do you have any clue how fucking gorgeous you
are?” he asked.

I took another step toward him, a step that put us so close
that our toes almost brushed.  I lifted my head, staring up at him, feeling
like I’d entered his atmosphere.  It was warm here, the colors bright, the air
thin.  “No.”

“I didn’t think so.”  His hands lifted, and my skin prickled
with expectation.  Gooseflesh shivered along my arms as he gently shackled my
wrist.  He pulled my hand across the space between us, and laid it over his fly.

My breath caught in my throat as I felt his steel-hard
length, straining beneath the stiff canvas.  Arousal punched through me,
tightening my grip on him.

“You do that to me.  Everything about you—your wide blue
eyes, your beautiful blonde hair, the way you look when I make you angry.”  He
leaned in so he could whisper in my ear.  “You’re gorgeous.”

I whimpered, wanting him so bad, it hurt.  I took that last
step separating us, and pressed myself against him.  “Please,” I said, sliding
my fingers into his belt loops, pulling him closer.

“Please what?”

“Please fuck me,” I said.  With him looking at me like that,
I was shameless.  I would have told him anything, done anything for him, because
I knew it would only bring me pleasure.

“Oh, is that what you want?” he teased.  His thumbs traced my
hip bones before he slid his hands around the small of my back.  He molded me to
him, making his fly press into the gentle curve of my belly.

Then his hands slid back down, and squeezed my buttocks. 
Hard.

I thrilled inside even as I gasped and pushed up on tiptoes. 
I loved his unpredictability, how he combined gentle and rough so perfectly. 
We’d be going along, everything feeling incredible, and then he’d go and do
something like that—and I was lost.

“How do you want it?” he asked, beginning to gather up my
skirt.

I clung to the front of his shirt, feeling each brush of his
fingertips through the material, a cool breeze as my skirt rose.  I pressed my
cheek against his collar, breathing in the clean scent of his skin.

“How?” he asked again, and then his fingers were beneath the
skirt.  They were on the lower slope of my ass, and sliding inward, just around
my upper thigh.

I couldn’t speak.  His hand had my complete and utter
attention.  I pushed up even higher against him as those fingers found me from
behind.  I gasped, my cheeks clenching as his fingertips brushed my anus.

He made a sound of impatience, and then he pulled my knee up
around his hip.  The canvas was rough against my inner thigh, and my shoe
struggled to contain my flexing foot and curling toes as I felt the cool air on
my naked flesh, the hot slide of his hand between my legs.

He leaned in closer, his mouth near my ear.  “I love the
feel of you, so smooth and soft.  Always so fucking wet for me.  The way you
shake with need.”

I wanted to argue with that one, but the truth was, I was
trembling in his arms.  My knee was practically knocking, and my breath
stuttered as his fingers found me again.  He only touched me lightly at first, barely
tickling along my curls.

His breath rasped in my ear.  It felt like he surrounded me;
his arms around me, the hot length of him against my front.  I could feel the
thud of his heart, and the hard press of his erection, and all else faded in
importance.  I only wanted more of him, to have him closer.

His fingers delved in further, tickling my sensitive,
swollen bud.  Then he slid on by, finding the sopping entrance between my inner
lips.  He groaned as his fingertips dipped into me.  I shuddered, tilting my hips
for him, desperately wanting the full length of his fingers—but he didn’t give
them to me.  He just traced, and tickled, and just barely dipped, and then did
it again.

I made a sound of frustration.  My leg tightened around him,
and I pulled on his shirt.

“How do you want it?” he whispered, his lips brushing
against my ear.

I groaned as he did it again, the barest brush and tickle. 
I lost my breath completely as his slick fingers wandered back and stroked my
anus.  I felt excitement bubbling up in me, a great rising pressure of it.  He
was touching me like he had every right, like he owned me, and… was it weird
that I loved it?

His fingertip pressed in a little harder, and my nipples did
their damnedest to stab him in the chest.  I reached up and looped my arms
around his neck.  And then I lifted my other leg, and wrapped it, too, around
his waist.  I hitched myself higher, until I had the bulge of his erection
exactly where I wanted it, and then I sealed my lips to his neck.

I made a helpless sound against his skin, and we both
shuddered as my body finally eased and began to let him in.  His fingertip slid
in through the tight ring of muscle, the squeeze only emphasizing the aching
emptiness of my pussy.

“Gary,” I gasped against his neck.

“What?” he murmured.  He’d wrapped his free arm around me,
and he clasped me tight as his finger slid into me.