Snowbound with a Stranger (10 page)

She cried out. His mouth moved slowly over her, lightly. But it was as though an electric charge raced from his body into hers. The heat of him flooded through her. It opened her, it swept her up in its current.

She wanted to feel him beside her, along the length of her body, in her arms. She dragged him up, gasping as he moved away from her, and pulled him against her again, lifting her hips to meet him.

He sucked in a sharp breath and took her nipple into his mouth. Soft, brief kisses tightened and wet the hard tip against his lips. His thumb grazed over her other breast and down her belly, between her thighs, to the center of her heat. He stroked her there and slid his fingers inside her.

Dannie whimpered at this hot intrusion and thrust upward against it. He kissed her and caressed her with his hand—long, deep strokes—and she gripped him, her body arched and tensed like a violin string. He kissed her deeply and drowned out her cries. He took her orgasm into his mouth like that. He drank it in, drank her in, and riding the current that shot through her body, he opened her legs.

The moment it took him to find a condom was excruciating, and then the heat of his cock, the weight and thickness of it, drove inside her.

“Deeper.” She could barely breathe. “Lee. Deeper.”

He withdrew for an agonizing moment and pressed her legs together, and turned her sideways on the bed, and entered her again. Tightened like this around him, breeched by the size and strength of him, she came again, pressing hard against his tensed thighs. He grabbed the back of her hair and pulled, and she screamed, her climax deepening, spreading out, exploding.

He rode it. He rode her, driving hard against her again and again: deep, strong, huge.

Dannie backed into his cock, restricting his movements and slowing him down. On purpose. To drag it out for him, to make him as desperate for her as she was for him, to make his release as shattering as hers had been.

She wanted him to let go. To fuck her without thinking, without holding back. When his voice became strangled, when he was gasping for breath and bucking hard against her, she opened her legs and lifted away, to give him free access, to let him come loose.

And he did. Fierce, long, fast strokes deep inside her.

She shifted to her belly, on to her hands and knees, and lifting her hips, stretched out beneath him.

He covered the back of her hands with his hands and gripped tight. “Dannie. Oh, God.”

And he erupted inside her.

* * *

Lee lay coiled around her. In the surging afternoon light, he slept.

His skin against her was hot in the cold air around the bed. Her lips pressed against his chest. His heartbeat was so close it seemed to fill the room.

She knew where the bear had been heading in her dream. She felt its presence still, up ahead, and moved toward it now. Dannie tilted her head back against the pillow and gazed upward.

No matter what happened after this weekend, no matter what became of Lee or what became of her, one thing was clear.

She loved this man. It was reckless and it was irreversible and there were no guarantees that she wouldn’t be hurt.

None.

But whatever else came from this weekend, it would be this: she was in it now. A part of the feeling world.

She might have hovered tensely on the edge of everything else in the world until this moment. Cherishing her precious view of herself as separate, different, an outsider. But here, in this cabin, for once in her goddamn life, she’d jumped in. She’d dived right into Lee. For better or worse. And no matter what happened now, she would not regret it.

She watched the light and shadow play across the ceiling and let herself float into sleep.

Chapter Eleven

Their packs lay propped against the doorway.

The bed was made with fresh sheets, the dishes washed, the fires banked and every toppled pillow set back in its place.

It was almost as though they had never been there. As though the events of the past three days existed outside this space and moment. And at the same time, they were rooted here, in this snowbound cabin a world away from everything they had previously known.

Lee sat on the couch with Dannie beside him, their boots and parkas on.

“Are you ready?” He bit the edge of his thumb.

Her eyes were swollen. So were his.

Eventually they had braved the risk of the bear and ventured outside to the woodpile. A fire had blazed in the bedroom all day, warming the cabin. They’d stayed in bed anyway.

Lee knew every inch of Dannie’s body. The scar on her left knee from a nasty bike accident. The slight jut of her left hip. The fit of her chest and belly against his.

“Ready.”

The front door stood partially open. In the silence the sound of chirping birds outside seemed deafening.

“You have the walkie-talkie?” Dannie gazed steadily into Lee’s eyes. She did not look away.

“Got it. Stevens will be halfway up the trail by now.”

“We should go. I don’t want him to come here. I want to meet him…out there.”

Lee took her hand. “Dannie.”

“Yeah?” The tenderness in her voice made the floor tilt out beneath him.

“I knew what I was doing, after Caroline died. I just kept pushing forward. I knew I was hiding in my work, trying to absolve myself of something. I knew I was pushing everyone away. But I couldn’t stop.”

“I know. It’s okay, Lee.”

He tightened his grip on her hand. “I want to stop now.”

She closed her eyes, briefly, and then opened them again. “I want to stop too.”

“Okay.” Lee leaned his head back against the couch and met her solemn gaze. “So let’s.”

In the mountains, trapped in this cabin, there had been no one for them to help but each other. No one else’s pain to hide behind. Only their own, to look in the face and not run away from.

If you ran, it only chased you anyway.

“I’m thirty-eight years old, Lee.”

“Yeah?”

“How old are you?”

“Forty-two.”

“It’s not like we’re kids.”

“No.” Lee smiled. “We’re not kids.”

“Remember when the whole thing stretched out in front of you, and it was all potential, and you thought you could be whatever you wanted, do whatever you wanted?”

He snorted. “Barely.”

“What the fuck happened?”

“God. I don’t know.”

He took Dannie’s hand and pulled her closer, as he had done once before on this couch, what seemed like a lifetime ago. And as he did then, he kissed her. Only this time it wasn’t a shy kiss. It wasn’t the kiss of two people who didn’t know each other yet. She knew him now; impossibly well after only three days. She knew him, maybe, as well as anyone ever had.

She kissed him back as though their lives depended on it.

And maybe they did.

Lee stood and held out his hand. The imprint of her mouth on his lips still vibrated. It still sang. He did not want to leave. Not yet.

But it was time.

She took his hand.

He held on to her, tightly. “Thank you, Dannie.”

“No. Don’t say that.”

He pulled her in and kissed her again. “Don’t tell me what to say, lady.”

She laughed and tried to push him away, but he held her firmly in place.

“We might not be kids. But I’m okay with that. I’m old enough to know what I want. I’ve fucked up enough in my life. I’m not about to fuck this up.”

Whether Dannie stayed in his life after this or not remained to be seen. But he’d be damned if he would go home and lose what they had helped each other learn here.

Lee leaned back and regarded her. “Are you scared? About the bear?”

Dannie blew out a breath, considering. She shook her head. “She has as much right to be here as we do. Maybe more.”

“True.” He smiled at her, and headed for the door. Beside their packs, he turned back. “Hey.”

A gust of soft wind blew the front door open wide.

“Yeah?” Dannie moved toward the cold air and smiled back.

“Will you go on a date with me?”

She made an inarticulate sound and a coil of feeling unfurled inside him. “Where?”

Lee shouldered his heavy pack and helped Dannie into hers. He crossed through the door. “I know this great pizza place on Henry Street.”

Outside the world was bright white and new. Lee stepped out into the snow. He walked down the path through the woods, with Dannie beside him.

* * * * *

If you enjoyed the emotional journey of
Snowbound with a Stranger,
we recommend you try the first book in Rebecca Rogers Maher’s Recovery series, available now.

I’ll Become the Sea

Jane Elliott is a success story: a survivor of abuse who has dedicated her life to teaching, she’s also engaged to marry Ben, an ambitious filmmaker. But focusing on her students and her relationship with an absentee fiancé conveniently keeps Jane from feeling too much. This safe existence is threatened when she meets David. At first Jane can deny her attraction, but when events force her to overcome the past, she must rethink the present—and take a risk on love.

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About the Author

Rebecca Rogers Maher is a writer, teacher, mother, feminist and working-class hero who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She published
I’ll Become the Sea
with Carina Press in 2010.
Snowbound
is her second book.

www.RebeccaRogersMaher.com
www.twitter.com/RebeccaRMaher
www.facebook.com/AuthorRebeccaRogersMaher

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ISBN: 978-14268-9380-3

Copyright © 2012 by Rebecca Rogers Maher

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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.