“Haaank,” she moaned, her fingers digging into his shoulders, her hips bucking against his thumb. He was driving her mad with desire. “I’m going to come if you don’t stop—”
“So come,” he said in a low, husky voice.
She shook her head. “I want to come with you inside me.”
He groaned then, showing her that he didn’t have nearly as much control as he seemed to. He paused in his stroking, and then his hand lifted. She almost cried out in disappointment, but instead, she heard the sound of his buckle coming undone. She lifted her head and leaned back on her elbows, watching as he removed his belt and slowly unzipped his pants. He shoved them and his boxers down to his knees, and then she was staring right at his rather impressive erection.
“Good man,” she told him with an appreciative purr. Luanne was rather pleased that he was big all over. There was nothing small about Hank Sharp. Thank God for that.
He leaned his big body down over the table to kiss her, and she was pinned between him and the unyielding wood, and the sensation was delicious and naughty. She wrapped her legs around him, wriggling underneath him at the feel of his scalding flesh pressed against her own. And as they kissed, he slowly rubbed up and down against her until she was panting with need.
“Inside me,” she whispered.
“You’re a bossy woman, Luanne Allard,” he murmured against her lips, but she felt him slip a hand between them. In the next moment, she felt his cock poised at the entrance of her sex.
“You like that.”
“I do,” he said, and with a surge, he buried himself deep inside her.
Luanne gasped at the jolt. It had been a while since she’d had sex, and the feel of him inside her came as a bit of a surprise to her body. A pleasant, delicious surprise, she decided, her toes curling with desire. She could feel his big length inside of her, filling her, his weight on top of her, and the waves of desire threatened to overwhelm her. “You feel so good.”
“You feel better,” he murmured, rising up until he loomed over her. She imagined how decadent it must look from his point of view, her spread on the table before him, pinned to his body by their joined hips. He grasped her hips and pulled her a bit farther down on the table, and then slowly pulled out, then thrust deep again.
The walls of her sex were so slick with need that the swift stroke sent little pulses of delight echoing through her. “More.”
He obliged, thrusting deep again, and then began a slow and steady rhythm of thrusts that had her reaching backward and clinging to the lip of the table. Each thrust seemed to fill her perfectly, to hit all the right spots inside her. They were made for each other.
His hands gripped her hips tightly and he continued to thrust, the motions becoming rougher and fiercer the longer he pounded into her, and the slow burn of desire began to turn into a raging inferno. Before long, she was crying out his name and demanding that he fuck her harder, and every time she begged for more, he gave her more. Soon, the table was rocking with the force of his attentions, and her legs were curling around his waist, locked tight, and she was babbling his name, incoherent with pleasure.
Her release took her by surprise. She was just about to suggest that he reach between them and touch her to bring her off, when his next stroke sank deep and seemed to rub against something inside her that made her body go off in a jillion fireworks. She gave a small scream, clenching around him, her body spasming with her orgasm. Over her, she heard him swear and then his thrusts became erratic. She felt him spill inside her, his hands clenching her hips tight, and then he slowly fell down over her, pillowing his head on her breasts as he panted and tried to get his breath back.
Her hands went to his hair and she played with it a little. God, this man was sexy. She was a lucky, lucky woman.
After a long minute of cuddling, he pulled away from her body, grabbed some tissue from a nearby box on a desk in the corner, and handed her a few. “Should probably clean up. I’m sorry I don’t have anything better than this.”
“That’s fine,” she said, noticing how bright red his ears were. So cute. He was embarrassed now.
Hank hitched his pants back up around his waist and gestured at the door. “I should, uh, check on the phones to make sure that I didn’t miss a call. It’d be bad if it rang to one of the on-call officers and he showed up at the station to see what was going on.”
“That would be bad,” she agreed in a blissful voice. “And then you’ll be back?”
He stared at her, dazed. And then a slow grin spread across his face. “And then I’ll be back.”
* * *
By the time they’d been dating two months, Hank and Luanne were a definite couple. Emily joked that they were joined at the hip, and most in town figured she was probably right.
After all, it had only taken a week or two of Luanne’s help around the station before Officer Sharp (senior) decided that they needed an office manager to help run the small police station. Someone who was good with computers and spreadsheets, had ideas for how to make things easier, could run the website, and could keep the place running smoothly while the officers went out and did their jobs instead of being bogged down with technical stuff.
It was the perfect job for her, really. It didn’t pay anything close to what her investment jobs had, but that was okay, too. She was happier than she’d ever been, and living with Hank meant that they didn’t have to bring in a ton of money anyhow. Rent was cheap in Bluebonnet, and they carpooled to work. People joked that they acted like an old married couple, living together, working together, and maybe they did. Maybe that was boring to most people, but to Luanne and Hank, it was pretty damn nice. They even went fishing together on a regular basis, and Luanne helped Emily continue her renovations on the Peppermint House, even if she didn’t see the appeal in hanging wallpaper or things like that. She just liked spending time with her sister.
Everyone was content. And if Hank tended to murmur a few “I love yous” over the police scanner when he knew Luanne was listening, the other officers just pretended not to hear them. Or her somewhat risque responses that were designed to make Hank’s ears turn red.
As for the Legend of Jane, well, Jane posted a few more videos and then quietly went away. As attention spans were always short on the Internet, it wasn’t long before the world pretty much forgot about a crazy stunt blogger and her ridiculous ideas. The hits on her webpage slowly trailed off to a trickle, and when the money went away, Luanne took down her page. She thought she might regret it and the loss of income.
But instead, all she felt was an overwhelming sense of freedom.
The only person she ever had to be again was Luanne Allard. Boring, plain, too-tall Luanne Allard. And that was just fine with her. After all, boring, too-tall Hank Sharp liked her just the way she was.
ICE PRINCESS
ERIN McCARTHY
CHAPTER ONE
“I’m going to break an ankle. Or a wrist. Or my face. I must be insane to try skiing.” Chelsea Carruthers was clumsy on a good day, downright dangerous on a bad day. She sighed and opened her eyes, the steam from the sauna clearing her nostrils. “Hello, is anyone listening to me?”
Nope. Not a soul was paying her an ounce of attention because her two best friends were making out with their boyfriends on the bench across from her. Really? Like it didn’t suck enough to be the only single one on this weekend jaunt, now she had to be a fifth wheel to their interpretation of episodes of The Bachelor? Matt’s hand slid in between the bare legs of her friend Lacey, right on under that towel.
Okay. Time for her to head back to her hotel room. Even though she was wearing a bikini and a towel herself, Chelsea felt there was just a little too much steam and near nudity going on in this sauna for her personal comfort level. “Yeah. I’ll see the four of you tomorrow.”
Amy broke off from tongue twirling with Sam to put up a weak protest. “You don’t have to go, Chelsea.”
Because it would be so much fun for her to s
tay.
“I most definitely do. Before I decide to get mischievous and record both of you and put it online.” Which she would never do, but cracking a joke was better than crying about it, which was tempting. She should have canceled her room for this weekend when she and Eric broke up, but she had wanted to prove she was above all that single girl misery.
So here she was, being miserable.
Good plan, Chels. Top-notch. She mentally rolled her eyes.
“You would never do that. If you want to grab a drink we can meet you in the bar,” Lacey said. “We just need to go change.”
Like Lacey and Matt would reemerge in under an hour if they went and stripped their clothes off to change. It was a sweet gesture, though, and Chelsea appreciated it. She did not, however, want to sit by herself in the hotel bar on a Friday night. It was a resort. No one was alone at a resort unless they were a serial killer. Or a fifth wheel. And she did not want to meet either one of those. Being the latter was awkward enough. Forced small talk with a sociopath over vodka tonics while her friends had orgasms back in their rooms was not her idea of a good time. She’d much rather read a book under the covers with her gas fireplace cheerily spewing ethanol into her hotel room.
“No, thanks. You guys have the rest of the night off from Chelsea-sitting. I’m going to order room service and drink alone.”
Amy laughed. “You’re always such a good sport. I don’t think I could make jokes if I were the one flying solo.”
Which was why Amy had never, in the ten years Chelsea had known her, been without a boyfriend. Chelsea, on the other hand, was holding out for a hero. Eric had turned out to be more fire-breathing dragon than anything else, but that was a minor misstep on the rotting rope bridge of life. Being alone didn’t bother Chelsea for the most part. Just when she was stuck in a sauna with the merry make-out maids.
“I’ll see you in the morning when I most likely will die a horrible death, impaling myself with a ski pole or some other equally impossible fatal accident.” Chelsea had no delusions about her ability to participate in high-speed sports. But she was willing to give it a shot. Once. “Please don’t let the mortician put red lipstick on me for my funeral. I don’t want to look Goth in death. It’s too cliché.”
With that, she waved and exited the sauna. After a brief stop in the locker room to pull on a sweatshirt and yoga pants, Chelsea was heading back to her room with damp hair and an even more dampened attitude. She was trying to hang tough and be cheerful and embrace new things, like skiing and winter. Generally speaking, she and winter didn’t get along all that well because she was a klutz and there was ice. Slippery ice. But here she was in Lake Placid, prepared to go all snow bunny, and there was no one to appreciate it.
Or to give her an orgasm. That was really the main problem. She hadn’t realized how addictive regular sex could be until it was taken away. Now she was starting to feel like she might climb out of her skin if there wasn’t a penis inside her sometime soon. Exacerbating the issue was the fact that everywhere she turned people were paired off, snuggling and holding hands and mocking her with obvious indications that they were getting laid. Even as she walked through the halls of the hotel, there were two giggling teens crawling all over an ancient bobsled, and each other, in the lobby. She saw young honeymooners fresh from the Jacuzzi, staring into each other’s eyes. An older couple was sucking face by the elevator. Studiously trying not to stare at them as she waited for the doors to open, Chelsea glanced to the left.
For the love of God. There was even a vacationer’s husky giving it to his female companion in the manner named after his species, right there in the front of the stone fireplace, all casual-like. Like it was doggy date night. Weren’t there health codes? Laws about dogs in public places? This little dirty business was obviously part of the reason why there were No Dogs Allowed, yet in the brief time she had been in Lake Placid, Chelsea had seen dogs in restaurants and stores.
Though until now none of them had been making it like a seventies porno. She checked the fireplace mantel for wineglasses, expecting a slow R and B tune to start playing any second now. Sheesh. It was so not fair.
The teenagers noticed the dogs getting it on and shooed them apart, laughing as Chelsea stepped onto the elevator. She felt a little better. She shouldn’t be the only one suffering from sexless-itis. That was the medical term for it. She should know, being a nurse and all. It was a valid condition experienced primarily by hormonal teenage boys and thirty-year-old women who broke up with their lame boyfriends and refused to date online.
It hurt.
That was the bottom line.
Chelsea found herself hoping the shower jet was fairly substantial as she keyed open her door. A little water therapy might do her good because the sauna certainly hadn’t helped relax her.
Unfortunately her room was about a thousand degrees, rivaling the sauna for heightened temperature. “Oh, my God.” She didn’t like to be cold, but this was like walking in New Orleans in a wet suit. Turning the thermostat down ten degrees, Chelsea tossed her wristlet and the room key on the bed and went for the sliding glass door that led to a small balcony. She cracked it open a foot and stuck her head out into the night air.
Better. She could breathe again. Her room overlooked Mirror Lake and she was surprised to see that there were people out on the ice. She wouldn’t trust that ice not to give way, but there were two girls cutting a clear path across the lake on figure skates, and a man running a dogsled team. Intrigued by the beauty of the moonlight on the ice, Chelsea stepped outside, a shiver rippling through her as the crisp winter air hit her overheated body. It felt good actually, and that surprised her. Normally she didn’t like to be cold, but this felt refreshing.
Maybe there was something to this embracing-winter thing after all. These people looked like they were having fun. All day long, men, women, and children had looked like they didn’t mind wearing goofy hats with flaps and boots that were virtually impossible to walk in as they strode around town. It was almost like they enjoyed it. Very interesting.
Worried she was going to cool her room down too much, Chelsea closed the door behind her and leaned over the balcony railing, the snow crunching beneath her elbows. She’d never been to Lake Placid before, and she never would have been the one to pick it as a destination, but the irritation she’d been feeling disappeared as she watched the graceful glide of the skaters, their skates cutting across the ice with a sharp sound that resonated in the silence of the mountains.
But it was cold, no denying that.
Feeling better, she turned and went to open the door, blowing on her hands to warm them.
Only it wouldn’t open.
Yanking it harder, Chelsea felt the stirrings of panic. “Holy shit.” It wasn’t locked, that was obvious. The door was stuck in ice on the runner. Bending over, she tried to scrape it away with her fingers, which promptly turned beet red and went numb. The door still wouldn’t open.
She pulled as hard as she could. She rocked it back and forth. She kicked the doorjamb. She blew on it, hoping to melt the snow. Nothing worked.
Great. She wasn’t even going to make it until her first ski lesson before she died.
Peering over the railing, she gauged the distance to the ground and decided this wouldn’t be happening if she had a sex life.
* * *
Brody Durbin stepped out into the cold night and took a deep breath. His sister meant well, but her pointed questions were driving him insane. He only saw her a few times a year since she trained for the pro alpine circuit in Utah, so why did she have to spend their time together grilling him about his knee injury, his future career plans, and his lack of a girlfriend? It would be nice if they could just sit and talk. Shoot the shit. Instead he felt like a presidential candidate being interviewed in the middle of a national crisis.
So he’d lied and said he had to go in to work early, and he’d ditched the hotel bar where Tracey was staying. On impulse, he’d ducked outside for a
calming glance at the lake before he went home, and he felt like a jerk for leaving on such a dumb excuse. He didn’t want to hurt Tracey’s feelings. But neither did he want to explain that he was spending the majority of his time growing facial hair and studiously ignoring the Black Diamond trails, even when he wanted nothing more than to have a good run. A big middle finger to the doctors on a ride down the slopes. Which he never did, because it would be stupid.
With a sigh, he went down the sidewalk, intending to walk the circle around the lake that the skaters had cut with their blades before heading out to the parking lot and his truck. He loved Lake Placid, was born and raised right on the side of the mountain, and the lake held special memories of pickup hockey games and dogsled races from his childhood.
But most of his time had been spent skiing. That had been his love, his passion. He’d never loved anything else with that kind of intensity, not even a woman.
The moon was out and a few skaters were fooling around, but other than that it was quiet. He enjoyed the relative silence as he breathed deeply.
Until he heard a muffled, “Help.”
It sounded more breathless than urgent and he glanced around for the source, not overly concerned. He felt his eyes widen when he saw that a woman was dangling from a second-floor balcony, her arms wrapped around the railing, her sweatshirt riding up so a sliver of her back above her waistband was exposed.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked, totally baffled as to why anyone would be hanging there like beef jerky in the smoker. She was only wearing one shoe, and a glance down showed the other in a drift below. The lack of coat, hat, and gloves concerned him a bit, too. It couldn’t be more than twenty degrees outside.
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