His Frozen Heart

“Sure,” she agreed, but there was a slight tremor to her voice making me feel like I still had more ground to make up in the way of an apology.

“You made dinner, I’ll make us some drinks.”

I walked to the cupboard and pulled out a bottle of red wine, a drink I stashed away for the moments when I needed a taste of my old city life. Then, I drank wines that cost over $2000.00 a bottle. This bottle was from the local store. Almost undrinkable. I poured it into a pan. There wasn’t much left, a half of a bottle between us. I put the pan on to the stove and dropped in a bag of spices. Putting it on a low heat setting I left it to slowly warm the wine.

“I’ll be right back,” I called and went outside.

Putting some kindling on the fire pit I got a campfire going. It would be nice to have our wine around the fire and look at the moonlit scenery. Also, that would be a lot easier than sitting inside the cabin stewing in her scent. That would be more than I could stand. I needed to cool off physically and figuratively.

I took a couple of dry logs from inside my workshop. The ones stacked outside were too damp to start a fire easily. I thought about the fire between Katrina and I. It wanted to burn. Maybe the fire is only from my side. Maybe I’ve just been out here too long for my own damn good and the sight of a gorgeous woman is making me feel the warmth of flickering flames. But maybe she doesn’t feel that.

“Hey,” she said from the open door of the cabin. “Whatever you got cooking on the stove smells really good, but it’s about to boil.”

I blew underneath the flame to agitate the kindling and light the logs well and stepped back to the cabin. She stood in the doorway looking at the fire, forcing me to work around her in close contact. I came through the doorway and her chest brushed against my abs. I paused against her and saw the reflection of flames in her eyes and I felt such a burning heat inside no amount of freezing wind and snow could cool me.

She turned to me and I slipped into the cabin shaking with desire. The power she had over me was astounding.

“Yeah, let me take that off the heat. It’s not supposed to boil. We don’t want to burn off the alcohol,” I said as coolly as I could.

“So, what is it? Surely hemlock doesn’t smell that wonderful.”

I ignored the jibe. “Mulled wine. Ever had it before?”

“No, never even heard of it.”

“It’s perfect for a snowy night like this. I thought we could have a glass or two around the fire outside. Can you handle the cold?”

“Well, I think so. As long as I’m near the fire I’ll be fine.”

“Here.”

“Huh, a real wine glass. And you have two of them! Now, this is special! Where did you get two wine glasses from?”

I didn’t answer her question and blatantly ignored her sarcasm. I poured myself a glass of the warm, spicy wine and went out to tend to the fire.

“Oh, bring the stool,” I said.

“Um, sure.”

She expected me to carry it for her. The problem was I fucking wanted to. But being openly nice and charming will only get me into trouble. It was hard enough keeping her at an arms distance when all I really want is to wrap them around her for the rest of this night and several after. I can’t imagine ever getting my fill of the taste of her. I went to the back of the cabin and found an old stool to sit on. It was a bit shaky, but it would do.

“This is nice,” she said when we were seated and sipping. “I feel privileged to be out here having this experience in the wild. I mean this is truly wild, off the grid living.”

“If that’s your opinion, does that mean you’ll eat trout tomorrow?”

She laughed.

That got me. Her laugh is truly the most enticing laugh I’ve ever heard. It made me want to drop down in front of her, part her thighs, and just look at her sweet cunt. I wanted to press it warm, fleshy, and wet against my naked skin while I sucked her tongue. I wanted her to arch her back and lift her breasts to the sky so that I could lick them and listen to the sounds that escaped from her.

“Yeah, I’ll eat trout if that gives me an authentic experience of living in the wild. Not that I knew I was looking for that this week, but hey, I’m here. Let’s go with it.”

My pants already felt tight. I pulled my crazy thoughts back to the easy conversation. “So, whatever I catch tomorrow that’s what we eat.”

She grinned. “Ok, it’s a deal. You have some steaks in the freezer if I don’t like it though, right?”

“You eat what you’re given, city chick. But, yes, I have deer steak in the freezer.”

“Did you just smile?” she asked. “Well, that’s a first. Never seen a smile from you before. You should do it more often. It looks good on you.”

I didn’t answer. True, I had smiled at her. A real smile hadn’t crossed my face in the last two years. I was struck by the fact. How did she make me do that? For so long I felt as if I wasn’t even allowed to smile anymore. A blister of guilt popped inside me. I threw the rest of the spiced wine down me and went in for the rest of it in the pan.

“So, deer steak …”

She filled the silence I’d let drop like a lead balloon. Once my glass was full to the brim I refilled hers too and tossed the pan in the snow still pissed off at myself for the smile.

“You know, I saw a deer when I was out hiking today, after I swam in the hot spring. You really have to come swim with me. It was glorious. I did think about you while I was up there. You know that you shouldn’t miss out on what’s so close to your cabin. That’s all.”

“You saw a deer?”

“Yeah, a doe. She spooked at something behind me, so that’s when I came back down to the cabin.”

“Do you know what it was?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t see anything and I didn’t want to wait around until it showed itself. I just took that as my cue to get the hell out of there. If it’s not good enough for Bambi, then I want no part of it either.”

“The saying is that if there are deer around, a mountain lion is close behind. There was probably a mountain lion tracking that doe. You must have put yourself between them.”

She smiled happily. “Oh well, I got out of there. That doe and I will live to see another day. No harm done.”

“That’s a hell of an attitude to have out here. One that will get you killed for sure. Do me a favor and don’t go anywhere by yourself again. My house, my rules.”

“Alright, fine.” She sipped her warm wine. “How many more days do you think we’ll be snowed in?”

This would be a good time to tell her she won’t be staying with me, but Beau. “No telling. Snow’s coming again tonight. We’ll wake up to fresh lay in the morning.”

“Will my car be buried?” she asked with a frown.

“Oh, I can dig it out. That’s the least of our worries. It?

?s the mountain that will be unforgiving. The mountain says when we can travel here. Her house. Her rules. I just follow them.”

She grins again. A big genuine smile that would melt any man’s heart. “Ok, I get it. I won’t go off by myself again. It’ll be more fun if you go with me anyway.”

Fun? It’s been a long time since I heard or used that word. I just don’t know if I’m ready for fun yet. Especially with her.

Katrina

I woke up in the morning feeling like I was made of lead from a terrible night’s sleep. The cabin was empty. Cade must have gone fishing to catch our trout breakfast. It can’t taste that bad, can it? I put my clothes back on.

Before going to bed, all by myself, I had undressed with faint hope I would have a visitor to my pallet on the floor. But somewhere in the night, my hope of a real man’s moving body on mine died, and turned to my usual habit of running through my list of worries and adding a few extra ones I never knew I had.

I put the coffee on and looked out of the window.

Outside were the stark reminders of our evening together. What had seemed like a romantic interlude in the night looked very different in the cold light of day. The pan Cade had tossed aside was covered by fresh inches of snow so only the handle jutted out, the stools sat too wide apart for coziness, the extinguished embers by a pile of wet snow gave the scene a look of desolation rather than romance.

I didn’t know where it all went wrong last night. Things were going well, or so I thought. He got intense for a while, then he went into his own mind, and climbed up to his bed never saying a word.

Not that it stopped me from hoping and waiting. I think I was restless and unable to sleep from being near him. I couldn’t stop thinking about how his hardness had brushed against my breasts. The way my nipples had instantly become hard. God, I wanted him so much.