She scurried off to the bathroom to do some damage control and pee. After scrubbing her face clean and using her finger to brush her teeth as best she could, she grabbed his robe off the back of the door and decided to face the music and do the morning after thing.
Walking down the stairs, she found him in the kitchen wearing flannel pajama pants, bare chested, Blackberry in one hand, coffee in the other, a smile brighter than the sun when he looked up and saw her coming his way. “I like the look of you in my house, Red. I certainly do.” Damn, she took his breath away.
Blushing, she turned to grab a coffee cup and busied herself preparing a cup. “I like being in your house.”
“Well, the roads are closed, we’re under state of emergency and the offices are closed today. They’ll decide this afternoon about tomorrow. So we’ve got the day to ourselves, and we’re stuck here, for a while at least, is that going to be okay?”
“Why wouldn’t it be okay? Even if it wasn’t it’s not like Ringo can go anywhere, you’re stuck with me I’m afraid.” A shy smile brightened her face as she looked up at him. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you planned it so I got stuck here.”
“Ringo?”
“Yes, my Beetle, Ringo,” she said before hiding behind her coffee cup again.
“Well, you caught me, I ordered three feet of snow, when we were only expecting six inches so I could trap you in my house and do wicked things to you all day long.” He waggled his eyebrows as he stalked towards her.
Plucking the cup of coffee out of her hands and putting it down on the counter, he pulled her close and kissed her softly. They were trapped alone all day, they have time for all sorts of things.
“I’m going to build another fire and then we’ll make some breakfast. I can hunt around and see if I have something for you to wear while we throw your clothes in the washer if you’d like.” Talking over his shoulder as he headed through the dining room on his way to the fireplace, it’s cold down here, a fire is definitely in order.
She opened the fridge. “I’ll make breakfast if that’s okay with you? You cooked last night, it’s only fair.”
“Just don’t tell my mother that I let you cook while you were a guest, she’d kick my ass.” A chuckle escaped his lips, kissing her on the top of her head as he passed her on the way to his coffee feels as natural as breathing. If he had his way they’d be trapped Blizzard of ’78 style for two weeks of close quarters and getting to know you.
“Are you really going to tell your mother you had an overnight guest? Or just brag to your buddies?” Opening and closing cabinets, she found the tools she’d needed to make a simple breakfast. “Eggs and a hash made from leftover steak and potatoes okay with you?”
“What my mother doesn’t know won’t hurt her, and if you keep offering me meals like that I’ll never let you leave. As for the bragging, I don’t kiss and tell Cora, honest.” Topping off his coffee, he sat back at the table and watched her in his house.
After breakfast, Dan headed out to shovel and Cora, at Dan’s insistence, went up to soak in a bath.
After an hour, he found her on the sofa, her e-reader in hand, curled up under the throw reading. The day passed in quiet comfort, Cora called Mr. Smith downstairs to ask him to feed Gwennie and checked in with Kaelyn and her mom. The snow had started to fall again and they settled in for at least another day of being snow-bound.
Chapter 22
That night after they’d cleaned up dinner and shared some more wine, Cora took Dan by the hand and led him up to the bedroom.
Pulling the tie on the robe, she’d been wearing all day she let it fall off her shoulders and pool at her feet.
“I don’t want to go slow anymore, this is kind of our third date, isn’t it?” She looked him straight in the eyes as she said it, her voice strong and even. He didn’t see any fear, or shyness, or reluctance. She was here, and she was his, and tonight he would lay her out, worship every inch of her skin, and make her body sing.
As he laid her out on the bed and then stripped his clothes off, he took a deep breath, thinking for once, maybe he was more nervous than she was. Last night was easier, it was foreplay the pressure so much lower key, this meant so much more. He opened the drawer, put a couple of condoms on the bedside table, and then lay down beside her.
“I want to be a little slow, too fast won’t be fun for either of us, Red.” His hands stroke over her skin, leaving gooseflesh in their wake. Kissing her lips, then her cheeks, her eyes, her neck, working his way lower, laving her nipples, tugging and plucking them with his lips, peppering kisses down her abdomen. His lips followed his hands down her body until his palm rested over her mound, he pressed and gave a squeeze and he shifted to come between her legs, pressing her thighs open with his shoulders. He smiled up at her, ah there was that blush. “You really are a redhead, aren’t you?”
“Dan,” his name a gasp, and the only coherent thought she had as he lowered his head and spread her open to him with his thumbs. As the tip of his tongue flicked across the bundle of nerves, her back arched up off the bed. Teasing, tasting, nibbling, he brought her up, up, up; and then when she was close he’d pull back a little, when her breathing started to level, he’d start all over again. By the fourth time, she was begging in incoherent phrases and sounds and as she came closer and closer to her climax he didn’t stop. He sucked firmly on her clit at the same time he pressed two fingers deep inside hooking, reaching for that spot inside to drive her wild, and with that she came apart in his arms, under his hands, with his mouth. Her desire nearly drowning him, as he suckled and lapped up her arousal, more drunk on her taste than any wine he’d ever had. Her noises, her words, feeding him, she would probably be blushing up a storm if she were coherent enough to remember everything she’d said.
As he kissed his way back up her body, she reached for a condom on the nightstand and placed it in his hand. “Are you sure?” he asks, looking in her eyes.
She pulled him down into a kiss, tasting herself on his lips, as they drew apart she opened the packet and rolled the condom over his erection. He took her mouth in a fiery kiss as he settled between her thighs and slid deep into her. Their pleasure at coming together, this first time overwhelmed them both, their kiss broken, their eyes locked as he was seated as deeply as he could be and slowly began to pull back and press forward again.
He was overcome. “I promise, next time we’ll take this nice and slow, but you feel so good, I can’t hold back.” She was so fucking tight, hot. It was driving him wild. He wanted to mark her, rut at her, claim her.
“Then don’t.” She lifted her hands to either side of his face and held his eyes as his tempo built, her hips rising to meet his thrusts, wrapping her legs around him, settling her heels into his lower back holding him close.
There were no more words, at least nothing that made sense outside of the moment. There was just overwhelming passion, and as he stilled and found his release she tumbled right down after him. Collapsing on her, trying to catch his breath, trying to form a coherent though, time lost meaning.
She winced a little as he pulled away from her and turned to dispose of the condom. He pulled her close to his side, and like last night held her as close as he could, kissing her and murmuring sweet loving words over and over. Her hand splayed across his chest, his heart pounding, the beat of it saying more than either of them could articulate.
They drifted off to sleep again, tangled up together, their own slice of heaven.
Around one a.m. he woke her with insistent kisses and took her again in a slow, sleepy passion, their release a slow build, and when they reached the top, and she arched off the bed and cried out his name, her voice hoarse, everything shifted for them.
Chapter 23
*beep beep beep beep*
She really needed to buy Daniel a new alarm clock, that buzzing crap had to go was her first thought as she rose from her dream into consciousness. Her second thought was holy crap, I’m waking up next to Dan
again. Only he wasn’t next to her so she stretched and slapped at the clock hoping that would shut it up.
Padding back to bed on bare feet, he crawled back into the cozy bed with her.
“We get one more day’s reprieve. I figure it’ll be an hour or two before the plow heads through here again and clears the road then my plow guy will come for my driveway and you should be able to head for home.” He pulled her up close; he didn’t want her to see the look of disappointment on his face that she would be leaving.
She sighed, “Yeah, I suppose I’ve got to go home at some point, the cat needs me and I don’t have any clean underwear.” With a small kiss over his heart, she pulled away and headed off to the bathroom; she needed a little space right now, she needed to try to sort her mind out.
As she sat on the edge of the tub in the bathroom, she relived the last ninety-six hours in her head. So much had changed, they’d made love, that wasn’t just sex, certainly not the second time, she had to fight back the emotion in her state of half consciousness. She caught herself before she murmured words of love. She was so in over her head, she needed to get out of here.
Getting up, washing her face, using the toothbrush he found in the guest bathroom and running the comb through her hair she came out of the bathroom to find the bedroom empty again. It was time to get dressed, putting on her freshly washed and dried clothes and warm socks, she headed down the stairs to find some coffee and get ready to leave.
His smile fell as he saw her come in to the kitchen fully dressed, their idyll, their bubble was breaking open and the real world was seeping in. He could hear the plow scraping down the road.
“I’ve really enjoyed being snowbound with you, Daniel,” she said taking the cup of coffee he offered.
“But?” glumly said over his own coffee.
“There’s no but, this was the best time I can ever remember having. It was so much more than I expected and it was perfect. I do need to head home though, you know that place where my cat and all my stuff lives.” She forced a smile, she didn’t want to go home.
After some stilted conversation over breakfast, he walked her out to her car and watched as she drove away.
He called her that night and they talked for an hour, and she fell asleep with the phone next to her head, his voice in her ear whispering sweet nothings.
Then he went to sit down and write her a letter—fuck that—he was turning on the full Lloyd. He was going to win her he had to, she belonged to him, simple as that.
Chapter 24
By Wednesday morning, everyone was trudging back in to work. Cora had not texted or called Kaelyn after checking in on Sunday afternoon, so she didn’t know she’d been snow bound with Daniel for two days, and two nights.
After she’d logged on, returned some phone calls and got through a couple of pressing items she opened up a chat window.
Cora- Can you score the conference room for lunch, or maybe leave the building? I need to talk.
Kaelyn- Everything okay? I’ll get the conference room, I fell yesterday and Tommy is all nervous about me on the ice now so I’m not “allowed” to leave the building.
Cora- Yes, mainly okay, I just need some advice and you are so much wiser than I am, and are you five now? You need Tommy’s permission for stuff?
Kaelyn- It’s good you can finally admit this truth, we’ll catch up at noon
Upstairs Joe stopped in Dan’s office to say good morning, or dig for dirt, either way.
“So, how was the date?” Joe picked up the stapler as a pre-emptive measure.
“Amazing, dinner was great, bowling was fun, the kiss good night was—follow her in to her apartment, kick the door behind me, peel off clothes on the way to hot sweaty sex on the floor—awesome, which I didn’t do, the last part anyhow, the kissing fuck yeah.” Dan sighed, leaning back and tapped his fingers on the desk.
“So… I feel like I’m missing something.”
“It went so well I invited her over for dinner on Sunday afternoon. She ended up stuck at my house for two days from the snow.” A smile passed over his face as he remembered waking up Monday morning with her wrapped in his arms.
“Two days? Did you run out of condoms?” Joe didn’t need to duck, and waved the stapler at Dan. “Okay, really, how did it go?”
“There were a couple of awkward moments but the rest was like she’d always been there, or should always be there, it really sucked when she left yesterday. I know I can’t ask her to move in after two dates but you were right, when you know you know, and I know.”
“So, what do you plan to do about it?” Joe placed the stapler down figuring his skull was safe at this point.
“Well, first I’m going to take her to the company dinner thing this weekend, and then I’m going to do the steady date and heavy woo until she succumbs to my charm. She has some baggage; I don’t know what all of it is. She seemed like she wanted to say something at one point but clammed back up. Quite frankly I don’t care what it is, she’ll tell me when she needs to, nothing she will say is going to be a deal breaker for me. I think we could get on the same page pretty quickly.” Picking up the stapler, Dan fidgeted with it while he was thinking.
“Don’t you think you should ask if she wants to go to the work thing with you? She may not be ready to be out with your relationship at work, and this puts it out there such that taking it back won’t be easy and would put her in an awkward position.”
“Well of course I planned to ask her, and I don’t want to force her to do anything she doesn’t want to do.” He sighed, he wanted it all and he wanted it yesterday. “Why do we go through all this? Tell me it’s worth all of it once you get to the other side.”
“What are you a chicken? You’re not getting to the other side, but yes, the work you put in pays off in spades in the end, honest. Have a little patience Dan, you said it yourself, she’s shy and has some baggage, a person doesn’t move past that in a couple of dates, no matter how awesome your dick is.” Holding his hands up, “Not that I want to know anything at all about your dick my friend.”
Chapter 25
Sitting in the conference room pushing her salad around with her fork, she sat in silence.
“Spill it, Cora, something is bothering you, I thought the date went well.” Kaelyn munched on her pb&j, pregnancy always made her crave toddler foods, she had goldfish crackers and a carton of chocolate milk in her lunch bag, Cora wasn’t completely sure she didn’t have Tommy Jr.’s lunch actually.
“We had dinner at his house on Sunday night as planned. We ended up winding our way into the heavy conversation. He doesn’t really want kids. I, however, didn’t say too much. I had the chance to drop the bomb and lay my biggest baggage to waste and I wussed out.” She took a bite and slowly chewed waiting for Kaelyn to fill some of the silence.
“Well if you didn’t tell him then it wasn’t the right time for you to tell him, it was only your second date, you’ve got time. So how was the rest of the evening?”
“Well it wasn’t an evening, it turned into two days of snowbound. After dinner and some wine, we ended up necking on the couch and then went up and fooled around in bed, no sex, but everyone got to win, it was nice, really nice. Then we fell asleep and when we woke up we were snowed in, spent two days in domestic bliss. On Monday night we did have sex, well the first time I’d call sex, the second time was definitely more.” A dreamy sigh passed her lips and she took another bite and sat back. “I did not want to leave yesterday. I wanted to hire someone to pack up my stuff and bring it all over and never ever leave.” Spearing a forkful of salad, she took a purposeful bite, then another, crunch, crunch, crunch, while she was waiting for Kaelyn to talk. She was taking her damn sweet time.
“Well that’s a lot to process, snowbound, naked time, domesticity. How do you think he felt about you being there, and about you leaving?”
“More than once he said he liked having me in his house, like the look of me there, it was easy, when he walked me to my c
ar yesterday and kissed me goodbye, he lingered. Then he called last night and we talked until I fell asleep.”
“Have you made plans for this weekend?” Kaelyn bit the heads off her Goldfish crackers one at a time, so very cute, so very tiny, so very evil that woman.
“No, there’s the work thing on Saturday, and I wasn’t planning to go to that, and don’t want to pressure him into outing our relationship, whatever it is at this point after two dates and a couple of nights in the same bed.”
“So you are going to sit back and wait for him to make the plans, or are you going to grab the bull by the horns?” Kaelyn’s voice rising as she shook her sandwich at her.
“I don’t know, I suppose it’s my turn.” She sighed.
“Oh crap,” Kaelyn grumbled looking at the clock, “I need to go, I have a meeting at one, you’re Cora the Brave, you answered his ad, go upstairs and make weekend plans. I expect a report before the end of the day.”
Cora gathered her stuff and headed back to her desk, after answering some emails she decided she was heading upstairs to make plans. As she turned in her chair to get up she was startled to find Dan standing at the entrance to her cube.
“Can I sit down?” Looking down at his feet, he shuffled a bit, his hands fidgeting in his pockets.
“Yeah, sure, come on in.” Her stomach fell, he looked like he has something uncomfortable to say, but he wouldn’t dump her at work, would he?
“So I know we’ve had two dates now and our snowbound domestic adventure, and we’re still new at this, but I wanted to sort out a couple of things. I know I should do this later tonight, but I didn’t want to do it on the phone. I have issues with delayed gratification apparently.” He gave her that half cant of a smile, and Cora melted.
“Okay.” She tried to keep her face relaxed.
“I’d like to take you on Saturday to the work thing, if you’re okay with people knowing we’re together. Also, I’d like us to be together, you and me, as a couple, exclusively, you know not dating other people.”
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