A Night by My Fire

Really? “You didn’t give me a chance to!”

Irritated that the woman always snarled, Stephen sucked in another breath, and glared.

So very tempted to pop him right in the mouth, River curled her lip, leaned forward, and gave the obnoxious intruder his firs

t real kiss. It was soft, the way she ran her lips over the beauty of his. A full lower lip was sucked into her mouth, one tiny swipe of her tongue teasing the flesh before she nipped and let go.

He stared, severely disappointed she’d stopped when River untangled his slack fingers from her sweater, murmuring, “That is what a kiss feels like.”

Rubbing his lips, he sat silent while River grabbed her coat and went out into the storm.

Encased by the zipper of his cargo pants was something aching, something foreign.

Standing so as not to put more pressure on his cock, Stephen looked at the door, annoyed she had left just as his body responded and progress could have been made. In the freezing cold of her bathroom, he reached into his pants, withdrawing pulsing flesh that had not known attention in almost a decade. Thinking of how soft her skin had felt, how strange her lips had tasted, he pumped his fist.

Imagining that same mouth on him again, Stephen came, the strength of the orgasm uncomfortable.

* * *

It would have been easier had she not heard him, the grunts and groans, the obvious noises of the stranger jacking off. But she had. He’d been loud enough she’d heard him over the storm and hated herself for edging nearer.

All that ferocity had been... hot.

Hot wrapped up in nut job.

She’d left the room because things had gotten out of hand, and as usual, they were not communicating on the same level. In all fairness, River had never thought he would actually kiss her—not after days of finding disgust in his eyes. The man who could do a thousand push-ups but had never kissed a woman.

River wasn’t sure if that made her more comfortable, or less.

And now he was grunting in her bathroom, and her ear was to the wall.

That’s it. She was a total pervert.

River thanked God it was below freezing, and thanked him again when the man groaned his release thinking that was the end of it... then cursed herself for listening on to enjoy the extension of his moans. It wasn’t cold enough anywhere for any woman to not get a little turned on by something so base.

Six days trapped in a room was making her crazy. As he was already crazy, he seemed totally unaffected. It wasn’t fair.

Her bad judgment aside, she would have to go back in there.

Everything would be fine, River told herself, letting the cold work on her further.

It would have been fine too, just peachy, except when she opened the door, he was waiting for her, his top half totally bare.

He barked when she halted, “Why did you not retrieve a bucket of snow?”

River just stared, forcing herself to only look at his eyes, acting just as stupidly as he had only twenty minutes prior.

Annoyed, he reached past her to grab the empty bucket. Even stepping into the frigid night to fill it and stomp back inside while she crushed herself to the doorframe to stay out of the way.

The beast disappeared back into the bathroom to bathe accumulated sweat away with the powder, leaving River to clean up all the snow she’d let blow into the house.

When it was done, she went to her chair and felt her back begin to ache again. Darting glances to the still vacant couch, frustrated and vengeful toward the jerk who’d put her in a constant state of tension, she slipped from the recliner and reclaimed her bed.

He didn’t want pity? Well, his ass could sleep on the floor.

The cushions didn’t smell right, or the pillow. They smelled of a man with more physical definition than a Greek god and the personality of mud... mud with very pretty lips she had kissed because she was foolish enough to rise to a taunt.

Mud that threatened subtly and often to murder her.