Being with Wade offered a temporary escape from the fast-encroaching reality. Here in her fenced Alaskan oasis, she had a stolen pocket of time before her town self-destructed when everyone woke up and news of the murders spread.
The water swirled faster around her, giving her a second’s warning that Wade approached.
“This is not what I expected.” He stopped beside her.
Underwater, his fingers stroked her spine, caressing with the bubbles until she almost couldn’t separate his touch from the rippling rush. He moved down her back, over her bottom, and along the outsides of her legs.
She sighed with pleasure. “This is probably my favorite place in the whole world. Now I have all the more reason to love it.”
A whisper of worry trickled through her brain like melting water down an icicle. What would happen to her little business, to her haven, to her way of life? It wasn’t as if she could just put a survival school based in a log cabin on the market and folks would come streaming in with big-money offers.
Her feet started to sink and his hands closed around her toes, his thumbs massaging the arches. His artful touch chased away concerns and her eyes slid closed. The feel of his hands on her flesh sent a rush of aurora borealis behind her lids.
“Keep talking,” he said, moving up her body again, between her legs.
Her throat closed up and she worked to push words past. “When I was a teenager, I dreamed of building a place around this spring.”
“Why is that?” He massaged her thighs, higher inch by inch.
“I, uh, missed our gym back in Iowa, and it seemed like having at least a small workout space here would be the perfect way to stay in shape and burn off energy during those dark winter months.” Right now, she was burning off more than energy. Her whole body was on fire from the subtle pleasure of his caress up her thighs.
“Talk,” he commanded, “or I stop.”
She flicked water on him, while clamping her legs around his waist. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Laughter rumbling, he moved closer, his thumbs at the juncture of her thighs, then…
He pressed against the oversensitive bundle of nerves that already ached for him all over again.
“Wade?”
“Let go, just float. I have you.”
And he did. Her arms splayed out and she felt the waters tug her hair out into a fan around her. Her br**sts peeked from the water, her ni**les pulling painfully tight from the cold and desire. She tried to speak, but words wouldn’t come.
Increasing the pressure ever so precisely, his fingers circled, plucked, teased. “All this heat with no electric bill.” He stroked along her cleft, already moist from increasing arousal. “As long as the thing doesn’t erupt underneath us.”
She laughed softly, then gasped as his mouth closed over her, lapping, laving, until the aurora borealis wasn’t just behind her eyes, it was exploding inside her. Wade braced her back and urged her farther, higher, milking every last sensation from her completion. Finally, seconds—minutes, hours, she lost track of time—later, her legs slid down him and she slowly righted again.
Looping her arms around his neck, she sagged against his chest and let him hold her, support her weight, as her legs probably wouldn’t work yet anyway. “I think… I’m having… a heart attack.”
“And living so deep on a mountain? That would make access to a major medical facility tough.” He grazed her cheek with a kiss. “Lucky for you I’m proficient in CPR.”
His words chilled her from the inside as she thought of her sister and wondered not for the first time if things could have been different for her if she’d gotten sick somewhere else. How could Wade help but think of his mother, cut off from help? No ambulance and ER right around the corner to care for her horrific injuries.
Sunny eased from him, her toes touching rocks along the bottom until she was grounded again, the fantasy dimming. She struggled to think of a way to get it back, her eyes lingering on her lover. Moonlight glinted off his short dark hair, slick with a mix of water and hints of ice, while his chest was flushed from the heated water and great sex. She knew his body so well in some ways, and in others not as much.
Desperate to chase away negative thoughts that threatened to steal this fantasy moment from her, she stroked his shoulder blade. “You have green footprints tattooed here.” A strange color that seemed as out of place on his skin as the lights misting overhead. “What’s the reason behind it? Because if it’s a bar story, I’m betting it’s a good one.”
Laughing, he kissed the inside of her elbow, their legs brushing underwater. “It’s a pararescue thing. Most of us have them somewhere on our body. It dates back to the Vietnam War, when the H-3 Sea King was the helicopter used most often to drop PJs in and pull us back out. The chopper was big and green—thus its nickname, the Jolly Green Giant. PJs started getting green footprint tattoos.”
Her fingertips sketched along the rougher patches of inked flesh, her nerves still on heightened alert from the power of her orgasm… orgasms actually, as he’d brought her to completion three times since they’d entered the pool. “Any other tattoos I should know about ahead of time?”
“That’s it. But you’re welcome to look again.” He kissed up her arm. “And again.”
He pulled her closer until she pressed flush against him. The gush of water from the geyser echoed her speeding pulse in her ears. Her ni**les skimmed his chest, his swirls of hair a gentle abrasion. She was definitely too spent to have sex again so soon, and even if she weren’t she knew he was talking about the future. Which wasn’t unreasonable, given the tenuous connection forming in spite of roadblock after roadblock.
He tucked her hair behind her ear, the longer ends floating out around her. “What am I going to do with you, Sunny Foster?”