Cold as Ice (Ice 2)

He held her—what else had he expected? he mocked himself. He pulled her into his arms, wrapping his larger body around hers. She was wearing just about every stitch of clothing he’d bought her, thank God, because even so, her body against his bare skin was agonizing in its ability to arouse. What the hell was wrong with him? You’d think he was the one who’d gone three years without a lover. She was just one of a hundred women, a drive-by fuck, nothing special. And she was everything.

He tried to pull away, but she clung tightly, whimpering in her sleep. Since he didn’t really want to let her go he stayed where he was, gently brushing the tears away from her face as she slept on. He was an idiot; he wasn’t the answer to her nightmares, he was the cause of them. If she opened her eyes and saw him she’d start screaming, and that’s what he needed to do, wake her before it was too late, before he was in too deep.

It was even easier to wake a woman than to knock her out, and he used the same trick, just a different pressure point, and a second later her tear-drenched eyes flew open, staring into his.

She didn’t scream, didn’t even speak, her silence more disturbing than any protest as she simply looked at him in the darkened room, so close. Finally, she spoke.

“Nothing special?”

“Nothing at all,” he said, and kissed her, as he’d always known he would. She rolled onto her back, taking him with her, and kissed him back, her arms around his neck, her mouth full and sweet and generous, and he knew he was doomed.

And it didn’t matter. She didn’t say a word as he stripped off her clothes—he kept her mouth busy with his, and even when he wasn’t kissing her they were silent. It was in the dark, a dream, they weren’t doing this. But if they spoke it would suddenly make it real, and the price they would have to pay was enormous.

She didn’t resist when he pulled the last piece of clothing, the plain white underwear that he’d foolishly thought wouldn’t be sexy, down her endless legs. He remembered everything he knew about her, including her sexual history and the things she didn’t like, and he knew she was going to do every one of them and like it. She was going to be on top, and she was going to go down on him, and she was going to tell him she loved him. And he didn’t know what would cost her more.

Her skin was cool against his warm flesh, and it tasted like soap. He kissed the side of her neck, feeling her pulse jump beneath his tongue. He knew his own pulses were racing and he didn’t give a shit. Her breasts were full and taut, the nipples hard against his fingers, and she arched up when he touched them, making a whimpering sound of need in the back of her throat, a sound that changed to a cry when he put his mouth over one, drawing the nipple deep into his mouth, and sucked at her.

He could make her come this way, he realized. He could make her come any way he wanted—she was trembling with need and ready to fall. But the longer he waited the more powerful it would be for her, so he reluctantly lifted his mouth, blowing softly on the wet, distended peak of her breast.

She gasped, and when he tried to move away she put her hands on his face and drew him back to her other breast, insistent, silent, jerking slightly when he suckled her, her hands sliding down to his shoulders, fingers digging in.

He could have stayed there for hours, his tongue exploring the taste and texture of her nipples, and for a brief, dark moment he considering doing just that. Making her come without being inside her, even touching her, making her come with his mouth on her breasts, all the while holding himself away from her, to prove that he could, to prove that she didn’t matter, that he was inviolate. He would be safe again in the ways that mattered most. Not from guns and knives and the uncertainty of a violent life. But safe from the strangling tendrils that had wrapped around him and wouldn’t let him go, apron strings, an umbilical cord, something that tied him to her and wouldn’t let him break away.

He could do it. And once she realized what he’d done, what he’d proved to her, she’d retreat in on herself in silence. Leaving her in Canada would be fast and uncomplicated and they’d never have to think about each other again.

But that wasn’t what he’d come halfway across the world for, and he knew it. He’d come for her, in every sense of the word, and he was going to take her. In every sense of the word.

He bit the underside of her breast, lightly, just a tender nip that made her jump, and soothed the bite mark with his tongue. She had such a lush, rich body he could get lost in it, and he nuzzled against her skin, awash in the taste and the scent of her.

He needed to slow things down. She was trembling, ready to explode, and he wasn’t ready to have her. She really knew so damn little about sex and pleasure— he wondered how she’d managed to live so long without someone taking her in hand and showing her. He could only be selfishly glad the men she’d met were so stupid; he could be the first to taste the fullness of her response, to show her just how limitless love could be.

Sex could be. He pulled away from her for a moment, lying back on the bed to catch his breath. He wasn’t worried that she’d change her mind, kick him out of the bed, run away. She had already gone too far down that road to draw back—he could practically feel the need thrumming through her body.

And then there were words from her. Anxious little words in her slumberous, aroused voice. “Why did you stop?” she asked. “Did you change your mind?”

God knew how such a maddening woman could have such a capacity to make him smile. And he knew what he was going to ask, had to ask, even if she gave him the wrong answer and tore him apart.

“Do you want it?” He’d started this when she was half-asleep, vulnerable, and brought her almost too far to draw back. But she brought out the decent idiot inside him, the man he’d tried to bury long ago, and he had to ask her.

She didn’t answer. Not with words. She put her cool, soft hands on him, and she kissed him. Kissed his mouth, full and sweet, kissed his throat and his chest and his nipples, her tongue swirling against them with agonizing, arousing delicacy. She put her hands on his stomach, and slid them beneath his briefs, and she managed to pull them off him despite the unflagging stiffness of his cock getting in the way.

He knew what she wouldn’t do. What he needed her to do. He didn’t say anything as she put her cool, soft fingers on him, learning the shape of him, the size of him. And then she leaned forward and learned the taste of him, her loose wet hair falling around her face as she drew him into her mouth.

He made a sound of pleasure and despair, reaching down and pushing the hair away from her face so he could wat

ch her as she took him deeply, her lips and tongue closing around him, pulling at him so that the pleasure was almost unbearable.

She was shaking, trembling, her hands holding his hips, and he knew he’d reached his limit. He pulled her up, away, and she clutched at his hips, fighting him, as he pulled her up. “No!” she protested. “I don’t want to stop. I liked it, I want—” He filled her mouth with his tongue as he pulled her over him, her knees straddling his hips, so that she was just above him, ready for him. She could feel him, and all she had to do was sink down and take him deep inside her. If she would.

She was shivering, and he brushed the hair away from her face and broke the kiss, pulling her back enough to look at him, to meet his steady gaze. “Do it,” he whispered to her. “If you want it, do it.”

She closed her eyes and touched him, placing him against her, and she sank down, taking him inside her, slowly, where he needed to be, where he belonged. When she stopped, just short of completion, he caught her hips and pulled her the rest of the way down, so that he was deep inside, and he owned her, belonged to her, and there was nothing else but his cock inside her, her fingers digging into his arms, her eyes closed and her head thrown back as she began to move.

He’d gotten her this far, he couldn’t disgrace himself by coming too quickly, ending before she had even begun, but the feel of her body, wet and tight around him, was a pleasure almost too powerful to bear. She was moving faster now, and he caught her hips, helping her find the rhythm, pushing up to meet her, the thick slide of flesh against flesh, and she was gasping now, clutching at him, reaching for a release that she didn’t know how to take.

But he knew how to give. He took her hand from his shoulder, put it between their bodies and made her touch herself. The effect was instant, electric. She cried out, and he could feel her body clenching, milking him, and he wanted nothing more than to let go.

But she wasn’t finished. He knew women’s bodies, loved women’s bodies, and he knew that even with the power of her orgasm she needed more. He put her hands back on his shoulders, put an arm around her butt and turned her underneath him without breaking the connection, still lodged deep inside her.