Let It Snow... (17 page)

“Uh, no, but much more and I’ll be finished before we get started.” Knox laughed as he caught her and hauled her back up to lie next to him.

Trudie laughed, too. She was glad to know she affected him that way. It was strange to lie in bed naked with a man she thought she’d known so well, and who knew her, and discover so many new things.

He pulled her more firmly against him. “Trudie—” he nuzzled the edge of her neck “—you feel so good, so right.”

“So do you,” she said.

He cupped one breast in his hand, rubbing his thumb over the nipple. She loved the feel of his hands on her, his scent. He circled harder and she moaned.

Knox immediately stopped. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” she murmured, “I like it. Do it again.” She pressed a kiss to the warm satin of his shoulder and nipped him.

“Um, come here,” he said, guiding her up a bit. He nibbled at the turgid nub and she hissed an indrawn breath.

“Knox...”

He captured her nipple in his mouth and suckled her and it was the most incredible sensation. “Yes,” she panted. He sucked harder and at the same time reached between her thighs to tease his finger against her wet folds. She arched her back, eager for more. He did the same with the other breast while he played with her sex. Her last rational thought was that she was an instrument that had finally landed in the hands of its master. He stroked and nipped and teased until she was on the brink of exploding and then he dialed it all back.

And then he started again, working her up to a fevered pitch until she felt as if she would die if he didn’t give her the release her body needed. She hovered on the brink...and yet again he pulled.

She fisted her hands in the sheets, her breath coming in ragged pants. She was frantic with desire for him. “Knox...please...”

“What do you want, Trudie?” His voice was husky with his own need.

“You...now...inside me.”

He rolled away and she heard the crinkle of the cellophane. “Okay,” he said.

She reached between them and smoothed her hand down the length of his shaft.

“Is that what you want?” he asked.

“Yes.” She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him to her, rolling on her back and spreading her legs.

He rose up and cupped her wet folds in his hand. “Good. Because this is what I want.”

Wordlessly she draped her legs over his shoulders in invitation. He nudged at her with his thick head, again and again, going a little deeper each time, until, as before, she was frantic to have him all the way inside. When she thought she might lose her mind with need, he buried his cock inside her.

“Ahh...” It was a sigh of pleasure, of fullness. She closed her eyes and absorbed the sensation.

Knox set up a slow but steady pace that notched her higher and higher, then he gained momentum, thrusting harder and faster. It was pure sensation when her release came and waves of satisfaction pulsed through her, around her, in her.

Knox’s low, guttural moan joined her own as he came.

He collapsed onto the bed beside her and she felt almost as if she was having an out-of-body experience, floating outside herself.

“I love you, Trudie,” he said quietly.

That brought her back to herself. Quickly.

She opened her mouth but the words stuck in her throat. She could say it to herself, she’d said it to Merrilee, but the words wouldn’t come for him.

“You’re important to me, Knox.”

It was the best she could do.

8

A
QUARTER
HOUR
later, having cleaned up and let the dog in and out for a potty break, Knox lay in the semi-dark with his arm around Trudie.

“I feel better than I’ve felt in a long, long time,” he said, the dark inviting confidences. And it was the truth, even if it had been a bit awkward when he’d declared how he felt about her and she’d merely come back with how important he was or some such nonsense.

“Are you okay?” she asked quietly. She was talking about his grandmother. He knew precisely what she was asking.

He plied his fingertips over the soothing smoothness of her shoulder. “I’m getting there. It’s one of those things where you don’t even know what’s going on at the time. Of course, hindsight’s twenty-twenty, isn’t it?”

“You want to talk about it?”

“I’m not sure what there is to say.” And then it hit him that Trudie did sort of deserve an explanation of where his head had been. “For a long time I was just kind of running on autopilot. I thought if I didn’t think about Mormor, if I kept myself busy and didn’t go back to the house, her things, the people that were part of our lives like you and your folks, then I simply didn’t have to face that she was gone. I could just bury my head in the sand, so to speak. It sounds stupid when I put it that way.”

She curled her fingers around his and pressed a kiss to his chest. “No, it doesn’t sound stupid at all.”

Relief flowed through him. He was glad she felt that way. “Now...now, I suppose I’m ready to come to terms with things and move forward. It’s funny, I thought I was moving forward but I was just treading water.”

There was an odd comfort in saying the words aloud.

“Everyone has to deal with things in their own way, and if that’s the way you had to cope, well, you had to do what you had to do.”

Her hair was soft and silky against his finger. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

She gave him another one of those kisses to his chest that seemed to brand him as hers, which was fine with him. “Me, too, but you were hurting.” She brushed the back of his hand with her fingertips.

“I was. There just wasn’t a whole lot left of me for anyone else.”

Trudie offered a small snort and propped herself up on one elbow. “The last time I checked, Elsa was fairly demanding.”

Knox laughed quietly. “It’s all superficial. Everything Elsa requires doesn’t pull too much out of you. Does that make any sense?”

They had to discuss Elsa, to get her out of the way, because the specter of her was there with them whether she was mentioned or not. They might as well get her out in the open. Elsa wasn’t an issue for him but he sensed she still was for Trudie, so he’d do whatever it took to convince this woman that she was the only one that mattered to him.

“Not really. How can she be superficially demanding?”

“With Elsa, you just have to show up and look good and tell her she looks good. And I’m not being unkind, I’m just being bluntly honest. You don’t have to think about what you do and you don’t have to feel deep down. There are no deep currents with Elsa—it’s just a float downstream in shallow water. Does that make sense?”

He saw it on her face when everything finally fell into place for her. She understood that while he had chosen Elsa over her that evening in July, it hadn’t really been a rejection of their friendship or of Trudie. His decision had been dictated by his grief, his need to shut down and shut out so he could process his pain.

He’d had to take time to heal. His actions had hurt Trudie and she’d have to have time to heal as well. He’d wait. He’d wait as long as he had to because he had never been so sure of anything as he was sure that the two of them were right for one another.

Something primal and animalistic rose in him. The need to claim his mate the way animals did. He kissed her on the neck and then nipped her. She let out a little yelp of surprise and then laughed low and sexy. “Does that mean you’re not sleepy?”

“No. Sleeping wasn’t what I had in mind yet.”

“Hmm. Well, I seem to have caught a second wind as well.” She turned her back to him and pressed close, rubbing her bare ass against his burgeoning erection. Knox grinned in the dark. He and Trudie had always been tuned in to one another about so many things, it didn’t surprise him in the least that they shared a sexual wavelength as well. And while it wasn’t a surprise, it was pretty damn awesome that not only was she thinking sex but they seemed to be thinking the same kind of sex.

He bit her lightly on her shoulder and she clamped her hand down on his bare ass, digging her fingers into him. “Yes.”

Knox reached around her and played with her breasts. They weren’t overly big but they were plump and round and her nipples were beautifully distended. The more he squeezed, kneaded, and plucked, the more she ground back into him. Neither of them said a word.

Trudie moved into an erotic kind of grinding, thrusting against him with her lush ass. The head of his cock would catch between her thighs, and she turned her head and nipped at him a couple of times. The more she thrust back, the harder he grew.

Both of them were panting as she rolled to her belly and up on her knees in one smooth motion. Dropping her shoulders down, she spread her knees, hiking her ass in the air. Even in the half light, her sex glistened with arousal. She looked at him over her shoulder. Everything about her actions invited him to take her from behind.

His hands unsteady, he rolled on his last condom and mounted her. She was gloriously wet as she thrust back into him. She was so hot. It was a short, intense trip for both of them as he pounded into her and she threw it back at him.

Her cry mingled with his as they both came and then collapsed, still joined, on their sides.

This time the words weren’t spoken but they reverberated in the room, nonetheless.

You belong to me.

* * *

K
NOX
SLEPT
BETTER
than he had in a really long time. He woke up to the press of Trudie against him. For a second he wondered if she was real or if he was dreaming—but she was warm, flesh-and-blood woman.

Oddly he hadn’t realized until his discussion with Trudie just how shallow his relationship with Elsa had been. Elsa wanted to look good. She wanted him to look good. He needed to drive a late-model truck. They needed to be seen in “good” restaurants, vacation at high-end resorts. What he thought or felt wasn’t an issue. And that wasn’t a criticism. It simply was what it was.

He climbed out of bed and stoked the fire. It was cold in the cabin and Trudie would be up soon. Unless her habits had changed drastically, she wasn’t one to sleep in. She might be hardy Alaskan stock, but Knox didn’t want her to be cold.

He opened the front door to let Jessup out for his morning potty break. He started coffee and the dog scratched at the door, eager to come back in.

In a few minutes, Trudie poked her head around the door frame. Her hair was standing up on one side, mascara smudged beneath her eyes. She shouldn’t have looked hot. Her bedhead and raccoon eyes shouldn’t have made his heart thump against his ribs...but she did and they did. Unbidden, he thought he could wake up to this, to that, to her, for a long time to come.

“Morning.” She lifted her nose into the air and sniffed, like a dog catching an airborne scent. “Do I smell coffee?”

Knox grinned up at her, altogether happy for this moment in time. Trudie’s addiction to coffee was legendary. Really, it would take an intrepid or insane man, or a combination thereof, to spend time with her if she hadn’t had her cup of joe in the morning. “I thought it was best not to risk my life.”

“Wise man.”

“I try. One sugar and two creams?”

“Yep. You got that right.”

Ha. He thought about her moans of satisfaction, her noisy orgasm, and grinned. “Admit it. I got a lot right.”

She wrinkled her nose, but grinned, nonetheless. “Don’t get arrogant on me.”

Knox prepared a cup for her and a cup for him. She’d disappeared from the doorway. “Hey, come get your coffee. It’s ready.”

“Come get it? Aren’t you going to serve me in bed?” Amusement tinged her voice.

“Well, I’ve got to be in town in an hour and if you’re in bed and I bring it up there...well, I’m not so sure that I’m going to leave on time.” Now that he knew her in a different sense, well, it was impossible not to think of her, see her that way, want her. Lolling about in bed with a cup of coffee would inevitably lead to other activities that would throw him off-track.

“Okay,” she groused, her smile belying her feigned grumpiness.

He handed her the cup and then reached up to smooth her hair down. His fingers lingered against the slight wave, the silky texture. Up close and personal, she smelled like a combination of Trudie his old friend and Trudie his new lover—her familiar shampoo and sex.

“So, I’ve been thinking,” he said. He had a proposal for her. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

“Scary,” Trudie said, and then paused to take a sip of coffee. “Decent.”

“Thanks.”

“You’ve been thinking....” she prompted as she curled up on the end of the couch closest to the wood stove’s warmth and tugged a tattered quilt over her. She was forever wanting to burrow under or next to something. Last night, it had been him.

“You could stay with me for the rest of Chrismoose.”

She was quiet, staring into her coffee cup as if some secret was lurking in the dark depths. “I...I don’t know.”

“I see.” He could read her body language, the withdrawal into herself.

She laughed but didn’t sound particularly amused. “What is it that you see?”

What he saw was that he was pushing for too much too soon. What he said, however, was altogether different. “That you’re a traditionalist and you want to sleep in your own bed.”

She sat there silent for so long he was beginning to think she wasn’t going to answer. Finally she nodded slowly. “Busted.” He wasn’t exactly sure what was going on in her pretty head but she was about to lighten things up and that was fine. “You can go ahead and give me my next present if you want to.”

He’d roll with the tone she set. “You’re a shameless gift-grubber, Trudie Brown. How do you know I have another present for you?”

“Because if you gave me the first two, that means there are ten more to follow. There
are
more to follow, aren’t there?”

“Since you’re so eager to talk about presents...where are mine?”

“Patience, grasshopper. In due time. Meanwhile...” She held her hand out, palm up, expectantly.

“Gift-grubber.”

“Of course. Now hand one over.”

“It would serve you right if you didn’t have anything else coming your way.”

“Save the sermon.” She glanced pointedly at the kitchen clock. “You’ve got to get ready to go soon.”

Knox gave up and finally just laughed at her show of avarice. Trudie had always loved getting presents and it had never mattered whether they were expensive or not. Just hand over something wrapped in paper topped with a ribbon or a bow and she was a happy camper. It made him realize how much he’d missed her.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re behind by one present already. I’m holding out until you catch up. So, when I get my gift from yesterday...and the day before...then you’ll get today’s gift.”

“Isn’t it better to give than to receive?”

He was a guy and oral sex immediately came to mind. He damn near choked on his coffee. He pulled his mind out of the bedsheets and back to the matter at hand. Flirting with Trudie was fun. He’d have never had this conversation with Elsa primarily because Elsa didn’t have Trudie’s sense of humor or the capacity to poke fun at herself...and that was precisely what Trudie was doing, laughing at herself. And as for giving rather than receiving...

“Exactly, Ms. Brown. So where’s my gift?”

Knox realized how relieved he was that even though they’d slept together they could still laugh and tease one another. He really hadn’t known whether Trudie would get all flippy dippy on him once their relationship had taken a sexual turn.

“You’ll get yours tonight,” she said with a sultry look.

Yes, he would. And he was already looking forward to it.

* * *

T
RUDIE
FINISHED
up her shopping for Knox. It hadn’t been easy with so little to choose from, but she’d enjoyed the challenge.

Good Riddance was packed since it was the first day of Chrismoose. The dog sled races, one of her favorite events, was right after lunch. And she didn’t even care that Elsa was officiating—the one to drop the flag and start the race. Trudie was still going.

For as much as Elsa had stuck in Trudie’s craw for the last two years, now the woman simply didn’t matter. Deep in thought, she was caught unawares when her mom linked her arm through the crook of Trudie’s elbow. “Hey, there, stranger.”

“Hi, Mom. You guys got here.” Trudie looked over her mother’s shoulder. “Where’s Daddy?”

“He was heading over to Donna’s.” Donna’s was a small-engine repair business that essentially had become a hang-out center for all things automotive. Donna had once upon a time been Don and no one seemed to care a whit. As Trudie’s dad had said on more than one occasion, Donna had forgotten more than most men would ever know about engines so who gave a rat’s ass if she was a chick who used to be a guy. “They’re all doing last-minute things to get ready for the snowmobile races tomorrow. Men and their toys. Want to grab some lunch?”

“I’m starving!” She’d skipped breakfast and all of that amazingly great sex last night had left her famished. “Do you think we’ve got a chance to snag a table at Gus’s?”

Her mother linked her arm through Trudie’s and started down the sidewalk. “Oh, sure. The moose cook-off is going on down at the community center.”

Trudie had been so wrapped up in present-buying—and thoughts of her incredible night with Knox—that she’d forgotten all about the cook-off. “Right.”

“I’m thinking you’ve got a couple of other things besides a cook-off on your mind.” Her mother’s sly smile spoke volumes...but how could she know?