Snowfall (6 page)

This time he did slow down. The broad, hard head of his shaft nudged into her folds, parting her easily and just breaching the entrance. Ashley clenched on it and watched as he hissed through strong white teeth, fighting his inclination to plunge. Sweat beaded on his brow and she saw the war he was waging to slow down and savor this first time.

Ashley clenched again, she flexed her pelvis, bringing him deeper. Jake yelled and turned his head into his shoulder, squeezing his eyes shut. He took a deep breath, adjusted her leg higher and surged slowly forward. He was huge, his flesh filling her to the point that she wondered if she could take it all.

Ashley felt herself glove every inch of him with a greedy viselike grip. He kept going ’til she felt his tightly drawn sack against her. He held there, and Ashley circled her hips. She gloried in the friction on her clit as well as the way his shaft tunneled inside her.

It was the last thing he could stand and he reared, only to pound home. His hips thundered into her with a force that shoved her across the slick floor with every stroke. He used her leg to pull her back each time and Ashley helped by hooking her other leg around his thigh. Her hands dug into his shirt to hold on. Harder and faster he pumped, the sounds coming from deep in his chest raw and animal. Ashley’s whole body sang with each ramming thrust. She arched her hips into his strokes and clenched her stomach muscles as hard as she could, bearing down on him as the slapping, wet sounds of their sex filled the room.

Just when she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, that the pleasure was too great and she was going to break, she heard his gruff whisper. “Ashley, watch me.” When she managed to open her eyes, he brought one hand up and sucked his middle finger deep into his mouth. Then, still staring into her eyes, he put his hand under her and with tantalizing slowness, slid that finger all the way into her ass. The nerves there were inflamed and rich with her arousal and Ashley screamed then kept screaming as the most powerful orgasm of her life blew through her body like a nuclear explosion. Everything in her went silent. Her vision went cloudy white. She was only vaguely aware when Jake started coming, his seed filling her depths with sizzling warmth. His hips and his finger kept going, pumping in time with the bursts from his shaft.

It seemed to last forever, but eventually he slowed and their bodies gradually folded in on each other. Ashley was having a hard time breathing, and Jake seemed as though he couldn’t breathe at all. Ashley didn’t care, this was the best sex of her life and if she had to gasp like an asthmatic in payment for feeling like this, she’d happily make that payment. Every single day.

Jake shook his head as he levered his upper body off Ashley. His vision was a little murky and his lungs were still working like a bellows, but he finally felt like a few brain cells were firing again. The first thing he noticed was Ashley completely and gloriously naked. Scratch that, he thought with a grin when she stretched and he saw the jeans tangled around one foot. Almost naked. He let his gaze wander lazily up her body, one thought chanting through his sex-addled brain—mine. Mine. Mine.

She was slender and toned thanks to the life she’d chosen. Her body was sleek with muscles and strength, where most women were soft. No amount of work would change the womanly flare of her hips though, or the modest handful of her breasts either. She was stretched beneath him like a feast and all he wanted was to gorge himself again.

An aftershock hit him with a shudder and he hummed in pleasure, rubbing his hips in small circles where they were still connected. Ashley hummed back and he cursed with a moan when she clenched on his still-erect shaft. She smiled up at him and did it again. “Damn, woman,” he said, “you keep that up and we won’t be getting off this floor for a very—” he kissed her nose, “—very—” he kissed her chin “—long time.” He kissed her luscious mouth and kept kissing it as his hips took up a lazy rhythm.

She was drenched and hot inside, his cock gliding in and out of her felt like heaven. Just when he started getting serious, his gliding turning to actual thrusts, something cold and wet nailed him right in the middle of his ass. With a curse and yelp, he sat back, sending Grover—
who else?
he thought—scrambling out of the way.

Ashley was smirking at him, “Well, at least they let us finish the first time.” He wasn’t positive that was true. She’d gotten him so crazed before for all he knew Grover could’ve joined them and he would have been none the wiser.

Ashley distracted him by sitting up and running one finger along his jaw, “C’mon, Chief,” she purred, staring at him with slumberous eyes. “Help me clean up the kitchen real fast. If you let me wear your shirt I’ll wear only it and then we can see how good you are at this in a bed.”

He felt everything in him shift focus to her, the beast in him raising its head in interest. “Leave the shirt open?” he asked with one brow arched.

She smiled, big and sweet. “Deal.”

Chapter Ten

Two days later, Ashley was doing something she never in her wildest fantasies would’ve dreamed she’d be doing with a man. She was cataloging poop. She was bent over a laptop entering in dates and categories and size and weight and even the consistency of each poop sample they had. If it hadn’t been so disgusting she would have thought it was interesting. As it was, she had a scented candle at her elbow and still had to bury her nose in her shirt every five minutes. It could be worse, she supposed, she could be the one who was actually touching it.

She looked toward Jake for the millionth time with her nose wrinkled in revulsion. “I’m gonna throw up.”

He chuckled, not looking up from the microscope and his current sample. “No, you’re not.” His voice glided up her spine and melted her insides along the way. “You get past the ick factor and it all comes down to the science of it.”

God, she thought, the man was adorable even when he was talking about poop. There went those professor fantasies again.

“Did you just say ick, Dr. Eagle Feather?” she teased, and Poncho snorted from his station on the other side of the table. “Is that a technical term? You trying to impress me with all those foot-long words you learned in college?” That finally got him to look up and meet her eyes. He winked then went back to work. She tried not to be charmed and failed.

They had turned her kitchen table into a science station with each having their own space and duties. The men had a microscope and a very cool set up of slides, trays, petri dishes and sealed containers. They separated, smeared and did all manner of science-y things. To poop. Ashley shuddered, thinking that even with the butcher paper they’d laid down she was going to bleach her table. Twice.

“Ashley,” Poncho said, “tell us why you stay up here all alone in the winter.”

“Well,” she said, saving her data before sliding the computer back and earning chuckles from both of them when she slid the candle into the computer’s place right in front of her. “I used to love to be around other people. But, well, my mom died when I was ten.” They stopped and looked at her, she shrugged and evaded eye contact, not prepared to meet the compassion and pity that always greeted that statement. “Cancer. We went from hospital to hospital. There was two years of her being sick before she lost the fight. I got pretty sick of crowds.”

She fiddled with the label on the candle, lost to the memories. ”I used to be pretty outgoing and wild, I guess. Mom always said I’d never met a stranger. Seemed like my parents were always yelling at me to settle down and sit. Up until then, that is. After that, well everyone was a stranger. Just another sad but smiling stranger telling me to be brave and that everything was going to be ok.”

With a mental effort that she didn’t know they could see, she forced herself to get it said and done. “Well, after that I hated to be around people. My dad’s a long-haul trucker and for a while he took me on the road with him. I loved it. Of course, I needed to go back to school eventually. So, he worked out a deal with me. During the school year I’d live with my Gran and Aunt LuLu and then I’d get to spend summers on the road with him. It was magic.”

She smiled, remembering those summers of endless road, all the sights and the comfort of being just with her daddy. “So, that’s why I hate crowds and why a whole three months a year without seeing another living soul is my idea of heaven.” She looked at them finally, her eyes dry.

“You know this place was supposed to be my mom’s. Her grandpa left it to her. It didn’t have the cabin or anything. It was just raw land but my Mom and Dad would bring me up here to camp when I was little, and Mom would talk about retiring here someday. In a big log cabin.” No longer able to stand sitting still, Ashley pushed up from the table and went to the kitchen, “Anybody else want tea?” she asked as she ran water into the kettle.

She jumped when Jake’s arms came around her.
Damn stealthy Indian
, she thought with an inner smile. She sighed then and relaxed into the comfort he offered.

“So, how long did it take to get this place up and running?” he asked with his chin nestled on her shoulder.

“Umm,” she was losing the tension now that he was holding her, “About three years.”

“Must’ve cost a fortune,” Jake said conversationally.

“Yeah. Water, septic, electric, not to mention the building and clearing.” Just thinking about it made her cringe. “But, Mom had life insurance and Dad saved it for me. He wanted us to have this. He spends winters here when he can. He’s only missed one other than this.”

Jake kissed the tender spot just behind her ear and whispered, “Why did he miss this year?”

“I think he’s got a girlfriend and doesn’t want to tell me.” She smiled and thought of Pat, the petite brunette with big bedroom eyes and a rear end that her Daddy couldn’t stop staring at whenever they visited her diner. She hoped so. He deserved to be happy again.

“So, tell me again what we hope to learn from all this poop?” Ashley asked, heading back to her spot at the table.

“We learn a lot, Slim,” Poncho answered, stretching his arms wide and rotating the kinks out of his neck. “Like we know now why they’re so damn big up here.”

Ashley gave him big eyes. “Really? You know that now? Just from poop?” Jake chuckled and tugged on her hair as he went back to his station and answered her.

“It’s called scat, Slim, although I don’t mind hearing you say poop like that.” When she blushed and shrugged he continued, “Cougars are generally smaller here than they are closer to the Equator. Their size is in direct correlation to their food source. It’s call MWVP. Mean Weight of Vertebrate Prey. Putting it simply, it means that the larger the prey, the larger the cat.”

He looked at her with that professor intensity again and she couldn’t help but get caught up in what he was saying. “They are opportunistic hunters. They’ll eat any meat they can catch. And what they are catching on your mountain is some big-ass elk and moose. That makes for some seriously big cats.”

Chapter Eleven

Jake walked into the bedroom he now considered his and closed the door behind him. He shook his head ruefully with a smile as he started to undress. The girl was always leaving doors open in her wake. As he toed off his shoes, he looked toward the bathroom where he could hear the shower going. It was actually a trait he was growing to love. He stood in the doorway naked and watched through the wavy glass door as she ran her hands over her body. He now considered that his too.

He was content to watch for the moment. She was lovely, all wet and her image blurred by the glass. As her hands ran over her arms and legs he felt a welcome curl of desire start to build. When those hands smoothed over her flat stomach and cupped her breasts, it curled a little tighter. She had her neck arched and her delicate fingers were squeezing and sculpting the mounds with a firmer and firmer grip.

Jake swore in a harsh whisper when those hands slid in a straight, sure line between her thighs and her whole body jolted. She had no idea that he was there watching. He should have let her know, but he was mesmerized by her beauty and by the soft moans that he could hear above the rush of water. Her fingers on one hand glided in and around the folds between her legs. All the while her other hand caressed and squeezed the mounds of her breasts. She was as beautiful as any mythological creature in that moment, and he felt blessed by the gods just to be standing there.

He held back until she was almost there. He came into the bathroom on silent feet and left a packet of condoms within easy reach of the shower. Her movements getting rougher, her sighs sharper. Just when he judged she was going to go over, he stepped in behind her. He didn’t give her time to be embarrassed or surprised, he just plastered his body to her back and slid his hands over hers. He groaned at the feel of her core gripping and contracting against not just his fingers, but hers too. He kept her rhythm, using her hands trapped under his and pushing her beyond everything but the need for release. He ran his open mouth up her neck. “God, you are so fucking hot. You have no idea what it did to me to see you like this.” He groaned, almost overcome when the next clench of her sheath gripped him even tighter, “Do it. Do it, baby. Come, come—now. Ah, fuck yeah. That’s so good, baby. God, you feel so good. Again.” He started pumping again, needing her next release as much as he needed his next breath.

He almost fell over when Ashley told him no and wrenched away. Ashley sank to her knees in front of him. All thoughts abruptly left his brain. She knelt, wet hair plastered in golden ringlets across her shoulders and her mermaid eyes gazing up at him. When she spoke, it was with a smooth and sultry voice he’d never heard from her and the sound just as much as the words themselves went straight to his cock. “You watched me, now let me watch you.” Her candy-pink tongue flicked out and teased the straining head of his shaft and she said, “C’mon, Doctor. You’ll be my first. I’ve never seen a man touch himself before.” Then she closed her luscious lips around the head for one magnificent second before she pulled back.