His Frozen Heart

OK, so she was a spunky spitfire of a princess then.

We stared hard at each other, the spunky spitfire Princess and me. I could see she wanted to scream to get something through to me. Well, I had completely different thoughts as I watched her delicious chest rise and fall.

The bubbling sound of the coffee percolator drew our attention out of the heated moment, which left a second longer could have led to either her slapping me or me kissing that delicious mouth. I wasn’t sure which. She stepped away towards the kitchen and opened the cupboard door. I exhaled. I needed to calm down. We were going to be stuck in this damn space for a good few days and I had already allowed the situation to become too volatile.

“There’s only one cup … sorry,” I said, trying to be less harsh with her.

“That’s OK. I’ll put mine in a bowl. I drink a lot of coffee. Plus, it was not so long ago that I was a student. I can drink out of anything. I guess you don’t have any milk?”

“I drink it black.”

“Of course, you do,” she murmured, handing me the coffee cup.

We drank in silence. She was looking at the snow outside the window. I watched her lips blow the steam from the top of the bowl, and how lovely the bend of her hand was around it. In a moment that was surreal, I realized I had run away from all the trappings of civilization, but it had come looking for me.

Because, I wanted her with an intensity I had forgotten I even had. I wanted her thighs around me, her nipples in my mouth. I knew why I was so tense. It made me tense to constantly keep pushing away my all-consuming desire for her.

“I suppose when I go out to use whatever kind of toilet set up you have I will not exactly be cleaning myself up with a quilted toilet paper,” she said, with a lift of her eyebrows.

“It’s not aspen leaves, but it’s not quilted either,” I mocked.

“So when will we be rescued?”

“There won’t be anyone coming out to rescue us. It doesn’t work like that. It’s kind of the point of living out here. I don’t need anybody. Nobody worries about me, and I don’t worry about anyone. Snow melts, roads get cleared, happens every year. You might as well find some way to occupy yourself for a few days.”

I stood and slipped my boots on by the door.

“Hey, Cade, wait.”

She came over to me by the door, pulling her hair around her to one side.

“If we’re stuck here together, don’t you think we should try to get along? Can’t we just be nice until I’m back on the road, and then you can go back to hating, or strongly disliking me, or whatever it is that you’ve got going on here?” Then she stepped closer with her hand extended for a shake and a dazzling smile on her face. “Come on, what do you say? Friends?”

I didn’t trust myself to touch even her hand. The rest of me might follow through with pulling her in, kissing that sexy mouth, and tasting every inch of her.

“Sure, whatever.” Then I turned away and headed to my workshop before I could change my mind about being such an asshole.

Katrina

Cade left me alone in the cabin, and walked to some kind of outbuilding that I could see from the window. He was a tough cookie to crack. I couldn’t believe he didn’t even accept my peace offering. The more he wanted to be alone, the more it made me want to pull him back to people, people meaning me.

Once he disappeared through the door I looked at my surroundings. The avalanche may have sounded terrifying, but the results of the storm and slides were absolutely beautiful.

Snow blanketed everything in sight in great, thick piles of glittery, whipped cream freshness. Seeing my surroundings in the daylight was a mesmerizing experience. The mountains reached up all around us protective and punishing at the same time. Cade had carved himself a picturesque nook of wilderness by the creek to live in. It was absolutely stunning. This kind of natural beauty could sway even the hardest of city slicker hearts. Even mine.

Before my parents divorced, we used to go to mountains to hike as a family, but that all felt like a lifetime ago. My sister and I were the only ones left. Life gave you no guarantees. It could even destroy true love. I saw why someone would choose to live their life out here if they wanted to be away from it all, but I would never choose to live all alone. Almost everything I had had been taken away from me, except my sister, but I would never willingly give up a connection to everyone and everything in my life just to be alone.

This beautiful scenery was making me oversentimental. I turned away from the window.

By nature, I was a doer so I didn’t plan to sit around in a cabin all day waiting for snow to melt. First things first though, it was time to brace myself for the cold and check out Cade’s port-a-potty set up.

Cade’s cabin looked like it had been there for a hundred years or more. The outhouse definitely hadn’t. It looked like it was probably the first thing he built, or at least the first thing that stayed standing up. Bits of freshly sawn wood were pierced together to form planks. They let narrow shafts of light and freezing cold air through as I sat on a wooden toilet seat.

The most revealing thing about his little, rustic john was that he had hung with twine a bouquet of dried lavender for freshness. The guy was not as tough as he put on. I laughed out loud when I saw the herbs. Truth was I liked him. He said it like it was. There was nothing smarmy about him. He projected a grizzly, salty persona, and yet, I got glimpses of tenderness and magnetism inside him. The two opposites were attracting me to him to an almost uncontrollable degree.

I tore off a few rectangles of toilet paper and cleaned myself. It was not quilted, but it was not too rough either. This was definitely the most bizarre situation I’d ever found myself in with regards to a man.

I was supposed to do this one last job and then I was throwing it all out, to start again so it didn’t make any sense why I was dithering around like an idiot for that bad-tempered man. It was no wonder he was jumping into freezing creeks first thing in the morning. He probably had ice water running in his veins. I had really meant it when I tried to make ‘friends’ with him.

It could be because I found him to be almost pulsating with power and a tightly leased sexuality. Seeing how big and angry his cock looked this morning didn’t help either.

‘Get over yourself, Kat. Go be useful.’ I scolded myself aloud, as I pulled my pants up.

Katrina

I spent the rest of the morning cleaning up the cabin. Not for Cade like some kind of 1950’s housewife, but because I was the one sleeping on the disgusting floor with bits of wood everywhere and dust bunny balls. The stove and coffee pot needed a good cleaning too, so I went over those. Before I knew it, I’d gone over the whole place. The cabin looked sweet and cozy with wool blankets, comfy cushions, lanterns with candles inside, and logs stacked for the fire.

At home, whenever I did a big clean I liked to leave so that I could come back later and be surprised by how nice the place looked. It was silly, I know, but it was the little things you had to enjoy.

The pale winter sun reached the highest point in the sky, so I set off for an exploration trek of the area. I wanted to fill my lungs with fresh mountain air before the snow kicked in again. I walked towards the trees and higher up the mountain.

At the back of the cabin I noticed a large boxed-in contraption. I unhooked the metal door latch, swung it open and discovered a wonderland of frozen food. There was meat, vegetables, some fruit, and even long-life milk. So it wasn’t just canned soup and trout. The bare-faced liar. If he thinks we’re eating another dinner of canned soup he’s got another thing coming. I may have to cook it myself, but tonight we’re having a feast.

The walk was pretty slow going given how deep the snow was, and the steep incline as I climbed higher. I went over boulders that would have been shoulder high but with the thick snow cover only came up to my knees. After about twenty minutes of steady walking I’d warmed up from the inside. I came to a clearing where there were very few trees. It opened up in

a cut between two mountains and sloped out to a flat section. As I got closer I saw steam rising. I’d heard about people hiking these mountains in search of the two-dozen natural hot springs. This must be one of them. I felt a rush of excitement, like I’d stumbled upon a treasure. It had small boulders along the edge on the downside of the mountain. It was nature’s version of an infinity pool.

I dared myself to get in. It would be absolutely freezing to stand here undressing, but it had to be absolutely glorious once I got in the water. Besides, how else am I going to take a bath today? Other than rubbing a bunch of lavender from Cade’s commode all over me I wasn’t going to have a chance to clean myself for the next few days. My clothes would be wet on the hike back down, but I could get them dried by the fire. The water looked really inviting.

I was going in.

I giggled to think of anyone other than a bear coming along and getting a pretty good shock to find a naked chick bobbing in the water. The layers of clothes came off as fast as I could possibly get them off. The less time I had to stand nearly naked in the biting wind the better. Coat first, sweater, then all my layers apart from my bra. I undid the laces on my winter boots and stood on one of the rocks at the edge of the hot spring pool. I peeled off my leggings, piled everything at the side, and about leapt out of my bra and panties and straight into that delicious pool.

I sunk to my shoulders and groaned with pleasure. The bottom of my hair got wet, but I laced my fingers through my hair at the back of my neck and lifted it into a knot to keep it dry. I didn’t want to get wet, but it looked so inviting I just couldn’t stop myself. I stood to see how deep the water was. My breasts were exposed to the air as the water hit me just across the rib cage tightening my nipples. Re-submerged, I kept myself in up to the chin and blew across the surface to push the steam along. It felt glorious, like a hot bath on a cold, cold day.