TRAPPED UNDER ICE (ROCKING ROMANCE COLLECTION)

by M. J. Schiller

  “Detroit, I think,” he murmured.

  She nodded her head, but said nothing. Without warning, she turned on her heel and rushed toward him. “I’ve got to go,” she barely got out, reaching for the car door handle. “I’m sure there are some girls…but I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  He tried to make sense of her words, but the only thing he understood was that her voice was shaky and she wasn’t making eye contact with him. Catching him off guard she quickly slid into the car seat and closed the door behind her. He sat for a minute with his fists on top of the car’s roof, peering down through the glass at her, but she didn’t look up. When the engine started, he backed up a few steps, and then she was gone.

  He turned away from that last image of her. “Dammit!” He let the old, comfortable rage fill him again. Striding forward, he kicked a tree’s trunk, forgetting he wore tennis shoes, not his boots. He swore again, this time under his breath, remembering his friends were sleeping. He yanked on the door of the bus, stormed in, and poured himself a scotch.

  ***

  Beth was grateful for the long ride back to the hotel so she could collect herself before Cassie saw her. Why was she so crazy emotional tonight? She trudged tiredly down the narrow hall to her hotel room, surprised to find the lights off when she entered. She saw the lump she knew was Cassie on the far bed. She followed the lone light into the bathroom where she found a note on the hotel stationary.

  Sorry I couldn’t wait up, Mom.

  Long day. Hope your date went

  well.—Cas

  She could see Cas’s mischievous grin as she wrote the last line.

  Beth glanced up to catch her reflection in the mirror. The makeup hiding her bruises had worn off and her exhaustion made her skin paler, her few wrinkles deeper. I look like hell. Thank goodness Cassie is asleep. She would know I was upset in a heartbeat.

  Leaving the relative comfort of the lighted bathroom, she crossed the room to the sliding doors that led out to the balcony. She opened the curtains a little bit to gaze at the moon. Her heart felt heavy. Eventually, she ventured out onto the balcony. She was relieved Cassie hadn’t stirred with the cold air rushing in. She leaned against the high railing and gazed out across the Mississippi.

  Why am I letting myself get so worked up over this? You’d think I was thirteen again or I hadn’t gotten asked to the prom. Only I did get asked to the prom, sort of, but I couldn’t bring myself to go. Being in Chad’s arms felt so good; it transported her to another time, another man’s arms. She loved Paul with her whole heart, and now, somehow, the good feeling of being in the arms of a man got wrapped up in the anguish she felt when Paul died.

  She paced back and forth in the small confines of her balcony, becoming angry. What’s wrong with me? Am I never going to love again? Am I too afraid to try? With a sudden conviction, she reentered the bedroom and wrote Cassie a note. It read:

  Be back shortly.—M

  She could think of no reason for her to be out at this late hour, so she hoped if called upon, an inspired answer would come to her.

  ***

  As Chad sat on the steps leading up to the bus’s door nursing his scotch, he suddenly found himself framed in headlights. Who the hell would be out this late? I thought Keith was in the bus. He was in no mood for company; that was for sure.

  He set his glass on the steps, raising a hand to shield his eyes. He squinted, peering into the darkness. As it got nearer, the car cut its lights, cut the engine, and rolled slowly to a stop. He got to his feet as she exited the car. Beth stood for a few seconds, messing around with her keys. Then, she ran to him, dropping them in the grass.

  Without thinking, he pulled her off her feet and swallowed her in an embrace. He laid a cold cheek against her warm one and squeezed his eyes shut. “You came back,” he spoke huskily into her ear.

  “I had to,” was her only reply.

  They stood there like that for several minutes, not letting up on their embrace for fear of losing it. Finally, he set her down.

  She peered up into his face. “I want to stay with you, Chad.”

  Normally, he wouldn’t need to be asked twice, but he stood there frozen for a second or two.

  Beth gazed at him, her brow furrowing. “Did I make a mistake?”

  “Dammit!” he fumed, turning from her and kicking at the dirt. He stood with his hands on his hips, back to her, looking up at the stars as if, for all the world, he expected them to give him answers. He whirled and moved toward her. Her face was lit from the outdoor light of the other bus. He strode forward so purposefully that she took a step backward. “I have to know if you are sure. If this is not right for you...” He couldn’t bring himself to say it.

  “Chad—” she started to answer, but without warning he scooped her up in his arms.

  “Okay, good enough for me.” He kissed her as he carried her back to a second set of steps in the middle of the bus. Balancing her on one knee, he struggled with the door. He deposited her inside, climbed up behind her, and closed the door.

  “Is Keith here?” she whispered.

  “Yeah, his room’s up there.” Chad gestured to the front of the bus. “Mine’s this way.” He grabbed her hand and led her through the blackness, cursing under his breath every now and then as he tripped over something. Finally, he opened a door and reached in to flip a switch.

  The room was flooded with light, and Beth stepped into a surprisingly nice bedroom. A king-sized bed with burgundy sheets sat in the middle of the room, unmade. To the left was a wet bar with a mirror behind it on the wall and a set of three lights hanging from the ceiling above it. On the right was a door she suspected led to a bathroom. As she turned around to see the rest of the room, he snuck past her and subtly tried to straighten the bed. To the left of the door they had just entered through was a large desk with cubbyholes built into the wall above it. Splayed across the desk were sheets of music and packages of guitar strings. To the right of the door was a large, ornately carved wardrobe, which she thought too pretty to hold the t-shirts and jeans she imagined it did.

  Beth turned around, and Chad rose up on one elbow in a casual pose so she wouldn’t see him fixing the bed. It was almost comical, but she kept herself from laughing, considering that when he had kissed her earlier that evening, she cried. If she were to laugh now, when she suspected they were about to make love, it might be a final blow to his ego.

  She still had some doubts as to whether she should be here at all. She didn’t need her teenaged daughter getting mixed signals about where she stood on casual sex, or even sex outside the bonds of marriage. But even though she knew Chad for little more than a day, to her there was nothing casual about what they were about to do. She knew he would be gone the day after tomorrow. This might be the only chance she had to be with him, and she needed to do something with these feelings she had for him, or she would regret it forever. To her amusement, she heard the chorus of their hit song, “I Just Had to Have You Last Night,” running through her head. She strolled toward Chad, her eyes locked on his.

  He flew up to sit on the edge of the bed. As she neared, he reached out and grabbed the back of her thighs, drawing her between his legs without ever breaking eye contact. He rubbed the back of her thighs, anxious, but letting her lead the way. She brought her hands up and brushed the hair back from his face, then brought them forward again to rest against the sides of his face. It felt so incredibly good; this was like nothing he had ever done before. And for a second, as much as he didn’t want to, he stepped out of the moment.

  This bedroom, this bed, on what they all referred to as “The Fun Bus,” had seen its fair share of action. A song lyric ran through his head. He couldn’t even remember what song it was from at the moment. “There ain’t much you can do when they just lay it at your feet.” Was it Seger? U2? It didn’t matter. Oh yeah, Melissa Etheridge. It was true; he’d had his fair share of women, and then some. But they were always gone in the morning, leaving him feeling even emptier than
before. He was involved in only one, what you might call, relationship.

  Julie. A tall model he met in New York. He thought she was fantastic at first, but she ended up being like all the rest, just robbing him of his heart at a much slower rate. Still, there were parts of their time together he didn’t regret, the times he deluded himself into thinking she actually cared for him. Within weeks the relationship subtly changed, and it took months of her being demanding and critical, and eventually belittling him at every turn, before he reclaimed himself and said enough. Although, as he recalled, he yelled it at her, exploding in a bid for self-preservation. He remembered her face, surprised at first, and then turning hard. She released a torrent of hateful words, but they no longer held any power over him. He was finished with his self-torture; despite what his father had told him, he deserved more than that.

  He pulled himself back into the moment. With her thumbs, Beth was tracing the line of his eyebrows. He closed his eyes, exhaling all of the pain of the last hour and drinking in her touch like a much-needed tonic. Her hands moved to his lips and she traced their outline with one finger, in what he thought was the most erotic movement he ever felt. He unconsciously sucked in his breath and opened his eyes. They continued to gaze at each other for a moment, the sexual tension mounting.

  His hands seduced, moving up the back of her thighs little by little and over the curve of her buttocks. This time it was Beth who closed her eyes and sucked in her breath in anticipation. She thought it would be strange with another man, that she would at least feel self-conscious about her body. But she knew her body was possibly in the best shape of her life—better perhaps than even in her college days, when her workouts were less feverish and intense, before she was chasing ghosts around the weight room and the track. She knew, without a doubt, her body would respond to him, as it already was.

  Her sex life with Paul was always hot. Beth had longed for him so strongly and often, he had begged off at times, laughingly admitting to being too tired. At first, this hurt her feelings, but Paul showed her how much he wanted her when they did make love. She learned in time to be patient. She thought now about how much they learned from each other. They were just kids when they got married, too young she would tell Cassie, but they loved each other, and love made up for a lot. Their lovemaking started out experimentally; they were both each other’s first partner, and what started out as clumsy fumbling, over the years became an art form of sorts. They became comfortable enough to try new things, became more giving over time, wanting to please the other person, losing the selfishness of youth.

  Beth felt much the same now. As she gazed into Chad’s eyes, she could see his brokenness, the unending pain he hid so poorly. She wanted to take it all away from him for one night, if he would only let her. Beth stroked his mustache and goatee. She thought she didn’t like facial hair in the past, but on Chad it was extremely sexy. Everything about him was extremely sexy. She bent to kiss him, softly at first, but with increasing urgency. His hands slid underneath the back of her sweater, and he caressed her back and sides.

  The skin-to-skin contact seemed to ignite them. She tugged on his shirt and he pulled away long enough to pull it off. She ran her hands across his broad chest and let them explore his well-shaped arms, their hardness, the way she could see each curve of each muscle. Even the thin leather strap across the bare skin of his wrist was enormously appealing. She shimmied her sweater off over her head.

  The exposure of an exponentially larger quantity of skin almost unraveled him. Chad laid his hand flat against her skin, just below her shoulder. He could feel her heart beating against it, could hear her quick breathing in his ears. He brought his other hand up, and with both hands followed the straps of her black, lacy bra. He slipped a tip of a finger under the straps, studying her every curve. Seriousness stole over him as her chest rose and fell beneath his hands.

  Chad brought them down across her flat stomach, past the belly button, and then out to the sides. Beth’s jeans were loose enough for his hands to slip under the denim and explore the curve of her hips. He brought them around to her backside, feeling her cool flesh there. Right when she would anticipate him pulling her closer, he extended his arms instead, giving him room to bring his head down to kiss her stomach. He moved up, inch by terrible inch, drawing each second of their lovemaking out. He felt her quiver with excitement and felt a momentary desire to make it last until she begged him to satisfy her, but then he knew he couldn’t last that long.

  Beth thought she would implode or explode or be shattered in some way if she couldn’t feel him inside of her. She didn’t know who taught his mouth to work that way, and right now, she didn’t care. As Chad traveled across her stomach, she could feel her insides turn to jelly. The way his lips and tongue felt, and the soft brush of his goatee as he moved up…Beth couldn’t take it anymore. She gently pushed him away and unbuttoned her jeans, wriggling out of them. He stood at the same time, moving to the side of the bed and switching the lamp off. He almost knocked it over in his hurry, but steadied it before reaching down to take off the rest of his clothes.

  In the moonlight, Chad could see her crawling up the bed, looking every bit like some kind of leopardess. He slid into bed just as she reached him. He froze, transfixed by her movements as she caressed each calf. She continued to move up until she was lying on top of him. She stilled herself, and all that could be heard in the darkness was the sound of their simultaneous breathing. He could see her eyes in the light from the windows, intensely liquid with desire.

  As Beth gazed down into his beautiful face, she could see his ache for her etched into every line of his brow. She could see it in his eyes, how much he needed her to love him. Chad reached up behind her neck and pulled her to him strongly, covering her mouth with his, and she could feel the power of his need. With one swift motion he flipped her over, his hands already tugging at her lacy panties. She lifted her hips enough for him to slide them down and off one foot, and she kicked them onto the floor with her other. Before she could even bring her foot back in place he was inside of her. She could see him shake his hair out of his face as he began to rock his hips rhythmically back and forth.

  Beth moved her hands to his buttocks, feeling the motion and synchronizing her movements to his. She began to moan, the sensations he created rolling over her in liquid waves. Her lips rested against the skin of his shoulder, parted as she arched, her arms clamped tightly around him.

  Chad could see her face contort, and then finally relax into a smile of supreme pleasure as her body released her from its sweet agony. He slowed till he was hardly moving, letting her feel each muscle relax, and then he began the movement again, this time driving into her with each fall of his hips. Chad buried his face in her neck and his teeth found flesh.

  Beth listened to the signals his body gave, concentrating on her timing, their pulses pounding forward, until they both found pleasure together, collapsed, and slid into the tingling warmth, delivered at last from the strength of their desires. They clung to each other, sealed together in sweat, catching their breath.

  Chad smoothed damp tendrils away from her face and kissed Beth over and over again before moving away. He flipped onto the pillow next to her, wrist resting on his forehead, a smile of contentment on his face. Happily, she ducked under his arm, resting her head on his chest. He brought his arm down around her and rubbed her arm, the motion incredibly soothing in the twilight of their lovemaking. Even this position made her feel too distant from him, so she squirmed closer, wrapping a leg over Chad’s and stretching an arm across his chest to his shoulder. Tired from their exertion and the drama before it, they fell asleep.

  ***

  Beth stirred. How long had she been sleeping? Had it been twenty minutes? Forty? She lifted her head from Chad’s chest and squinted at the clock. 3 a.m. She could only hope Cassie was sleeping soundly. Chad stretched beside her and inhaled deeply.

  “I have to go.” Beth’s voice was as heavy as her heart.


  He hadn’t thought of this. He hadn’t, in fact, thought of anything beyond his desire for her. She shifted and he moved his arm. Chad sat up on an elbow, trying to wrap his mind around the fact she was, once again, leaving him. He saw her silhouetted outline as she sat at the edge of the bed, and he longed to pull her back into bed with him, to make love to her all over again. Beth was fishing around on the floor for something, her panties. She stood and went to the end of the bed, pulling her jeans on, and finally, the sweater slipped over her head.

  Chad pulled up to a sitting position. When she came around to his side of the bed, he could see her lips were tight, brow creased, and shoulders slumped. “Beth—”

  Beth covered his words up with her mouth, one hand on the side of his face. Her kiss held the bitterness of goodbye. She rested her forehead against his, and he could see her shoulders shaking silently. Chad couldn’t understand why she was so upset. His hand trailed down her arm as she turned to go, trying to stop her.

  When Beth reached the door, he called to her again, but the only response he got was the sound of the door closing, followed by the sound of the outside door, followed by her car engine starting, followed by silence. Chad sat in his bed with his head in his hands, trying to make sense out of what had just happened, but becoming more confused by the instant.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  When Beth returned to the hotel room, she found Cassie still asleep. Without bothering to take her clothes off, she climbed into bed, first leaving a note telling her daughter she wasn’t feeling well and asking to let her sleep in as late as possible.

  And it wasn’t a lie. She wasn’t feeling good. No matter how hard she tried, her mind tortured her with images of Chad: singing with him on stage, dancing onboard “The Mississippi Queen,” and every second they shared inside his bedroom. She ran fingers over her lips, remembering his kiss. She was glad she made love to him, but knew she could not go back to him. She would want to leave in the morning rather than prolong their goodbye. It was enough to say goodbye now; a second night would kill her. She fell asleep shortly before Cassie woke up.