Ice (18 page)

Startled from her daydream when Maggie walked into the room, Alex blurted, “Do you play cards?”

“Sure. Why?”

Godsends can come in all shapes and sizes. They can be as important as a heart finally found for a patient awaiting a transplant, as welcomed as a root cellar stocked with food, or as simple as a box of playing cards.

Alex had found them at the bottom of one of the totes filled with towels several days earlier. At the time, more concerned with Maggie’s fever than a deck of cards, she had tossed them aside without giving them another thought, but thoughts had now become the issue. In hopes of keeping her mind occupied with something other than lascivious fantasies involving Maggie Campbell, Alex suggested that they play cards to pass the time. Maggie eagerly agreed, and for the next two days, they filled their time with endless games of Gin.

***

As the fire crackled in the hearth, Alex took a deep drag of her cigarette and then blew the smoke above her head in disgust. She hated solitaire. She hated the fact that she couldn’t sleep, and she hated that her hormones were about to reign supreme.

In the privacy of her home, Alex had no issue with taking matters into her own hands. A drawer full of toys in her bedroom proved that, and as far as she was concerned, masturbation served a purpose. It relieved tension. It released endorphins, and it felt bloody marvelous. The only problem was tonight her thoughts weren’t of some nameless woman, or an actress she had just seen on the television. Tonight, her body’s demanding throb had been caused by the woman sleeping in the next room, and Alex knew that if she didn’t answer its call, she was in for a long, uncomfortable night.

Climbing off the sofa, she crept down the hall, carefully stepping over the squeaky floorboards until she reached the bedroom door. Listening intently, she smiled at the sound of Maggie’s soft snore, and with the knowledge that she was sound asleep, Alex headed back to the kitchen to get a drink. Filling a cup with scotch, she dimmed the oil lamp sitting on the counter and returned to the sofa. Gulping down the liquor, she relaxed across the cushions, and knowing that relief was minutes away, she let out a long breath as she closed her eyes and loosened the tie on her sweatpants. Shifting slightly, she pushed her hand underneath, and as her fingers threaded through her shortened curls, she sighed again. She was so ready for this.

Drenched with desire that had been building for days, Alex purred softly as she slid her fingers through her thickening folds. Rubbing here and rubbing there, she smiled in the darkness as more passion flowed from her core, and shifting a bit, she opened her legs wider. Without hesitation, she dipped a finger inside, and arching her body, she filled herself completely.

“Yes,” Alex said in a breath, clenching her walls around her finger. “Oh, yes.”

Enjoying the solitary foreplay, Alex took her time as she pleasured herself with skilled fingers, adding a second when the need demanded. Again and again, she stroked herself, arching and relaxing as she drew them in and out. At last, turning her attention to her rapidly hardening clit, she massaged lazy figure eights over the nub, changing her tempo from fast to slow and back again, relishing the feel of the orgasm building within her.

Her imagination soared as thoughts of Maggie filled her mind, and as each flash of the Scottish temptress appeared in her head, Alex’s fingers moved faster. Biting her lip as she increased the tempo even more, she slipped her other hand into her sweatpants. Sliding a finger inside herself, she curled it upward, and with one hand pleasuring her core and the other ravishing her clit, it only took a few more seconds before there was no turning back. It was the most primitive of needs, and Alex gave herself to it totally.

As she knew it would be, the orgasm was intense, and a low, throaty groan escaped her lips as it crashed over her. Stilling one hand, she clenched her legs around the other and felt each tremor as it ebbed and flowed inside of her. Several minutes passed before she raised herself to an elbow, and drinking what remained of her scotch, Alex lit a cigarette and relaxed again. Sleep would come soon.

***

The next morning, after breakfast and a few games of Gin, Alex announced that she was going for a walk. Forced to stay close to the cabin for the past few days because of the wound on her leg, with the infection now gone and the gash healed over, she could finally put some much-needed distance between Maggie and herself. Grabbing her coat and boots, she left the cabin without saying another word. The cards had helped for a few days, but fifty-two pieces of plastic-coated paper weren’t enough to keep her mind off of Maggie Campbell for long.

Breathing in the frosty air, Alex pulled her collar up against the wind and walked in the direction of a stand of trees in the distance. Trudging through the drifts, she mentally scolded herself for what she had done the night before, and frowned because it hadn’t worked. While the orgasm had relaxed her enough to get some sleep, it had done absolutely nothing to cleanse her dreams. She had woken up even more frustrated, and as she plodded through the snow, her annoyance level was building with each step. She needed space. She needed time. She needed cold.

She wasn’t alone.

In her early twenties, Maggie had quit smoking by following three simple rules. Remove the temptation, keep busy, and don’t lose focus on the goal. Cigarettes, she discovered, were a piece of cake compared to Alex Blake.

With the help of an argument which had escalated into a shouting match, Maggie had been able to push Alex from her life, and by doing so, all temptation had been removed. Between her career, and a few night courses she had managed to cram into her schedule, along with the neediness of Glenn Shaw, keeping busy had not been a problem. However, love is like iron, strong and unyielding. Absence and chaos had only bought her a little bit of time. Forgetting Alex Blake was like forgetting how to breathe.

Inside the cabin, Maggie walked from one end to the other and back again, cursing the fact that she hadn’t followed her superior’s directives. Her ankle-high boots had been made more for fashion than for snow, and the trek from the plane had nearly destroyed them. With one missing a heel and the other ripped at a seam, she had no choice but to stay inside. At first, she had tried to remain lighthearted about her quarantine, jokingly ordering Alex out the door when they needed more wood, but in truth, it was beginning to wear on her. Not only did she want to get some fresh air and stretch her legs, but after spending a week with the woman who now haunted her thoughts, Maggie was looking for something -
anything
- to get her mind off of Alex Blake.

Peering through a window and seeing Alex slowly plodding back to the cabin, Maggie shrugged her shoulders and decided to fix some lunch. Grabbing the oil lamp, she carefully climbed down into the root cellar, only to return a few minutes later with more than just lunch in her hands.

***

Stomping her feet on the porch to rid them of snow, Alex opened the door and walked inside. Tossing her coat on the last remaining chair in the dining room, she was about to kick off her boots when she saw Maggie striding from the bedroom with her coat in one hand, and a pair of old rubber galoshes in the other.

“Two questions,” Alex said, staring at the black rubber shoes in Maggie’s hand. “One, where did you find those, and two, what are you planning to do with them?”

“I found them in the cellar,” Maggie said, sitting on the arm of the sofa. “And I’m planning to go outside, get some fresh air and gather some firewood. No need for you to do all the work.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Alex said firmly, trying to grab the boots from her hand.

Pulling them away, Maggie smiled, “Before you even suggest that I might catch cold, colds come from germs not temperature, so I’m going outside and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

With a grin, Alex held her hands up in mock surrender. Debating for only a second, she retrieved her coat and put it back on.

“What are you doing?” Maggie asked.

“It’ll be faster with two, and besides, the snow’s fairly deep, and the wind has drifted over wherever I’ve walked. Don’t want you to get stuck.”

“I’ll be fine,” Maggie said, fastening the buttons on her coat. Stomping to the door, she opened it and was instantly blinded by the whiteness of the landscape. Blinking several times to clear the spots from in front of her eyes, she hunched her shoulders against the arctic gusts and stepped onto the porch. Shuffling to the stairs in the oversized boots, she saw that Alex was telling the truth. Other than a few impressions at the bottom of the stairs, all of Alex’s footprints had already disappeared.

“I told you so,” Alex offered, seeing the look of surprise on Maggie’s face. “It’s windy as shit out here.”

“I can see that,” Maggie replied. Taking a deep breath of the fresh air, she squinted as she looked up into the sky. Rays of sunshine split the clouds, and she smiled at the feel of the heat on her face.

“So, where’s the wood pile?”

Forgetting that Maggie hadn’t yet been outside since they had arrived, Alex pointed to the side of the house. “It’s around there.”

Playfully saluting, Maggie stomped down the stairs and headed toward the side of the house, making sure that when she pulled her foot from the snow, the oversized galoshes followed.

Alex stood on the porch, snickering as she watched Maggie’s wobbly attempt to circumvent tumbling into a drift. Debating on whether to assist, she noticed that Maggie had come to a sudden stop halfway between the cord of wood and the porch. Shouting over the wind, Alex called out, “You doing okay, Detective Inspector Campbell?”

Maggie could feel her cheeks heat with embarrassment. She was up to her thighs in snow and couldn’t move. Knowing she had only one way out, she shouted, “I’m stuck.”

Unable to resist, Alex yelled back, “I told you so.”

Looking over her shoulder, Maggie couldn’t help but smile seeing the look of delight on Alex’s face. Shaking her head at her predicament, she called out, “Well, are you going to help me, or should I just assume a pose and become a winter statue?”

Laughing out loud, Alex pulled on her gloves and high-stepped through the snow, getting to Maggie’s side in a flash. Towering over the woman six inches shorter than herself, Alex grinned from ear-to-ear. “Technically, you’d be more a statuette, don’t you think?”

With a playful scowl, Maggie said, “Look, are you going to help or just keep making jokes about my height?”

“What exactly would you like me to do?”

“I have no idea,” Maggie said as she once again tried to extract her leg from the drift.

“Hold on, let me try something.”

Alex reached down and began digging through the snow with her hands, and a few minutes later she lifted Maggie out of the drift and aimed her in the direction of the stairs. Dusting the snow from her gloves, Alex said sarcastically, “Now, why don’t you go back to the porch like a good little girl and let the
big
girl gather the firewood?” Without waiting for a response, Alex walked to the woodpile. Removing the tarp, she was about to fill her arms with logs when she was thwacked in the back of the head by a wickedly thrown snowball.

Standing several feet away, Maggie giggled at her direct hit, but the longer Alex stood motionless, the more Maggie began to worry.

Alex slowly turned to face her attacker, and when Maggie saw the payback look on her face, she let out a squeal and tried to run to the porch. Two steps away from the stairs, Maggie found herself being grabbed from behind, and as she was tackled into a drift, she let out a shriek.

Laughing, Alex began shoving snow down Maggie’s coat, totally ignoring the woman’s girly screams and giggles as she tried to fight off the attack.

“You give up?” Alex said, forcing more snow down Maggie’s collar.

“No, never!” Maggie said, trying unsuccessfully to push Alex away.

Managing to grab Maggie by the wrists, Alex forced her hands over her head and pushed them into the snow. Struggling to catch her breath, she smiled down at the woman who had yet to stop giggling.

With her eyes filled with tears of laughter, Maggie gasped for air as she grinned back at Alex. Although she was covered in snow and the temperature was frigid, Maggie had never felt so warm or so happy, but when her eyes met Alex’s,
warm
didn’t begin to describe what Maggie was feeling.

Neither moved as the playful moment became intimate, their breath intermingling in cloudy puffs as they gazed at each other. Entranced in each other’s eyes, both became lost in something neither had ever experienced before.

Alex’s hormones raged with the knowledge that she was within inches of tasting the lips of the woman who had captured her interest years before. She had never been so turned on by simply the possibility of a kiss. Her body pulsed and her breathing had grown ragged, and inside her leather gloves, her palms were sweating as if she was in the Sahara. With her eyes locked on Maggie’s, Alex moved slowly closer to her goal.

Spellbound, Maggie didn’t move. The desire in Alex’s eyes was palpable, and there was no doubt as to what was about to happen. Years before she had done everything in her power to prevent it, but as she lay in the snow, straddled by the most stunning woman she had ever met, Maggie could no longer deny what she wanted. When she felt Alex’s breath on her face, Maggie closed her eyes in anticipation only to open them a second later when Alex let go of her wrists and scrambled to her feet. Confused, Maggie looked up at the woman, and where just seconds before she had seen passion, Alex’s eyes now held only sadness.

Fighting to control her emotions, Alex said shakily, “You should go inside and get dried off. I’ll get the firewood.” Turning on her heel, she disappeared around the side of the cabin before Maggie could say a word.

Maggie knew exactly how many timbers supported the roof in the bedroom, and how many stones were embedded in the mortar surrounding the hearth. She could do her multiplication tables up to twenty times twenty, and had even managed to make it through the alphabet backward more than once. It didn’t help. She was worried, and sleep no longer came easily.