Snowfire

by Heather Graham

  And he did. Hard clean strokes brought him to her. He backed her against the tiled wall. And then he lifted her high in his arms, and when he brought her down again, it was to impale her.

  A startled “Oh!” escaped her.

  His eyes met hers and he laughed. She wound her arms and legs around him, and he began to move, the pulse and thrust of his body seeming to grind ever more deeply into her.

  The steam rose around them. His lips caught hers, and he kissed her endlessly. Wet and slick, their bodies fused and met and slid sensually against each other. The steam seemed to swirl and tumble, and the reckless need tore through her until a blinding brilliance came to burst through the gray of the day, shattering her with a heat like that of the sun, filling her.…

  Filling him.

  She laid her cheek against his shoulder, gasping for breath, feeling the aftermath of her climax softly tremble through her … again, and again.

  He held her close in his arms, and kissed her cheek.

  “I could really get to like this,” he whispered softly against her ear.

  “This…?”

  “Being with you.”

  He pulled her into his arms and kissed her again. Slowly. His lips parted from hers. Just a breath.

  “Being with you,” he repeated huskily.

  There was no other world, Kristin thought. No other world at all.

  They were encased in a paradise of snow, and there was nothing that could come between them.

  Nothing at all.

  Nothing except who she really was.

  Nothing except for the melting of that snow.…

  Chapter 6

  The days while the blizzard raged and the fires inside the snowbound world blazed were simply paradise. Kristin could not remember ever being so comfortable with one person. Perhaps comfortable wasn’t the word, because Justin could be disturbing, too. He could come suddenly from behind her and sweep her off her feet and comfort would be the very last thought in her mind. He could rouse her to heights, excite her as no other man could. But there was wonder, too, in the way he simply held her. There was magic in the darkness when they just sat before the fire and watched the flames turn color and listened to the snap and crackle of the logs.

  She didn’t want it to end. She was a captive of the storm, but a willing one, in an exquisite playground. They managed to make it through several games of chess. There were a few that they didn’t quite get through, but that didn’t matter. He was easy to laugh with, Kristin quickly discovered. Easy to be with.

  They spent time reading, for he had an extensive library. She was fascinated with his office, with the original manuscripts of his plays. And in the far rear of the house was a game room with a billiard table and Ping-Pong table, and there was always the pool.

  She loved the pool. Loved it.

  She loved to sink back into his arms while the warm water rushed around them and the pale steam rose, fogging the glass enclosure. But beyond the fog she could still see the world outside, so white, so beautiful.

  And they were so very alone.

  And from the pool, it was just a few steps back to the warmth of the fire. They would snuggle up in front of it with a comforter, a few throw pillows and a bottle of wine.

  They were lying there one night when Justin nuzzled her ear and murmured softly, “I don’t want the snow to end. I want it to fall forever.”

  Kristin rolled to her back and looked up at him. “Ah, but all of your batteries will eventually die. We’ll run out of gas for cooking and heat. It has to end sometime.”

  “And what will happen when it ends, Ms. Kennedy?” he asked her.

  She smiled. “Well, I suppose I do need to show up at Roger’s for dinner. But you can come with me.”

  “Thanks. And am I supposed to pretend that nothing happened between us? Pass the peas, please, what is your name? Kristin, oh, yes.”

  She giggled. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’d never ask you to dinner if you didn’t know my name.”

  “Ah, but how does Roger feel about your romantic life?”

  “He’s my cousin, not my father.”

  “But?”

  Kristin sighed, wondering how he had heard the note of concern in her voice. “All right, so he thinks he’s my big brother. We’ll go gently with him.”

  “What if he pulls out a shotgun?” Justin teased lazily. His eyes were half-closed and he watched her like a cat.

  “A shotgun?”

  “Umm. And demands that I do right by you?”

  “I don’t think he’d be quite that dramatic. He probably doesn’t even own a shotgun.”

  Justin rolled over, bringing her beneath him. “Seriously. What happens when you leave here? Where do you go?”

  “Well, Roger is—”

  “I mean after that. Where do you live, what do you do? I’m an open book, you’ve all of me, and I still don’t know anything about you except that you’re Roger’s cousin. Where do you live?”

  “Boston.”

  “Right in the city?”

  “Right in the city.”

  “Do you work there?”

  She nodded, feeling her heart begin to pound and her breath to quicken. Now was her chance. It was the perfect opening. She had to tell him what she did for a living.

  “Would you think of leaving the city?” he asked her softly.

  She nodded, winding her arms around his neck.

  Tell him!

  She couldn’t do so because a sweet thrill was warming her from head to toe. He was asking her about a future. Just as if he was falling in love with her.

  She didn’t want to speak to him. To explain.

  “You like the country here?” he asked.

  “Very much.”

  “I’m so, so glad.”

  And she didn’t say a word.

  She pressed her lips against his and then teased them with the tip of her tongue. A log fell in the fire and the blaze roared up high beside them. His kiss deepened. Her robe parted. His kiss moved slowly down her throat, between her breasts and beyond. Her breath caught, and her mind spun.

  And she never told him.…

  Not then, not later. Not when they stood in the kitchen and she searched through the cans, found some olives and opened the can to pop one into his mouth. She started to turn, but he pulled her into his arms, and his fingers moved in a tender and passionate motion through her hair. “I really think that I love you, Kristin. I love being with you. I love trusting you. In my whole life, I’ve never met anyone like you. Everyone else has always been out for themselves alone. You’re very, very special.”

  Don’t trust me! she wanted to cry out then, but her face was pressed against his chest. The words came to her lips, but they died away.

  “I was so certain that you couldn’t be real,” he murmured. “That you had only come for that story. And I was even afraid that you’d made love for that story.”

  She felt that she was choking. She was going to tell him. She just had to find the right time to explain things to him.

  Before the fire. After they had eaten.

  But when they had eaten, they watched the weather report on the little battery-operated television. And then another classic movie came on, and Kristin fell asleep in Justin’s arms without ever having said anything.

  And she awoke aroused. Awoke with the heated moisture of his kiss moving down the length of her. She whispered his name, and his fingers curled around hers, but his body moved, rubbing erotically against her own as he edged himself downward and downward. And his kiss teased the inner flesh of her thigh, and then the tip of his tongue moved slowly, erotically, more intimately against her and she forgot everything, forgot the entire world and felt an explosion of sensation with just that first touch.…

  It seemed forever before she could think again. When he left her, she was so sated and exhausted that she fell asleep again. When she opened her eyes, it was morning, and Justin had risen and dressed already. He walked over to her, gri
nning, producing her jacket, boots and clothing, dried at long last, and announcing that there was almost something like sun out, and that he’d gotten the front door open and there was a winter wonderland beyond it.

  The snow had been falling for five days. Inches and inches of it. But now, Kristin discovered, the snow was down to just a few halfhearted spatterings.

  Stepping out onto the porch, Kristin breathed in the icy-cold air. It was almost painfully crisp and clean.

  Justin set his hands upon her shoulders. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  The world was indeed beautiful. Blanketed in white. The sky had lost its angry gray cast at long last, and light, lush shades of blue were beginning to streak across it. The rolling landscape was encompassed in the white snow. The road was gone completely beneath it. Hedges, trees, shrubs, all wore that cloak of glistening white.

  “Let’s see if we can find your car,” Justin suggested.

  Kristin agreed, taking a step forward. She laughed as she stepped knee-high in the snow, and staggered forward, nearly losing her balance.

  Justin caught her before she could fall. She spun in his arms, laughing. “This is deep snow, all right.”

  “Oh, it’s not so bad,” he told her. Taking her hand, he started out. Once she was moving, Kristin discovered that it really wasn’t bad.

  She let go of his hand, and he proceeded on. She thought that she was moving well, but then she plummeted forward.

  Snow covered her lips, her nose, her forehead and her hair. Justin turned back, looked down at her and started laughing.

  “That’s not nice!” she informed him, struggling up to a squatting position.

  “It’s just that—you look like an icicle,” he told her apologetically.

  There seemed nothing else to do. Kristin wound her gloved fingers around a clump of snow.

  It was a big snowball. Nice and wet and loose. She stood up and threw it. It fell against his face with the precision of a major league pitch. Kristin gasped, amazed at her own aim.

  “You want to play it out tough, huh?” he responded, wiping the snow from his face. He bent down in the white fluff. Kristin turned to put some distance between them.

  His first ball sailed harmlessly past her. She stooped to collect another handful, whirled around to throw it. He was almost on top of her. She threw her snowball. He ducked, avoided it and grinned smugly. He started toward her. A little yelp escaped her and she went running forward into the snow.

  His snowball landed smack on the back of her head. She laughed, stopped for another and spun around. He was right on top of her this time, blue eyes glistening and primed for battle.

  “No, Justin, no!” she begged, stepping backward.

  She stooped into the snow herself, watching him warily, her fingers closing over a handful. She tried to hurl the new missile at him, but he suddenly pounced upon her and she shrieked as they both fell into the snow and went rolling in it. She landed upon her back with him straddling her hips, his snowball still in his hands. He grinned wickedly, looking from the huge snowball to her face.

  “Don’t you dare!” she warned him.

  “Challenging me?” he taunted.

  She lifted her nose to him.

  “You should really be nice,” he warned.

  “All right—please, don’t you dare!”

  He grinned and took a little pinch from the snowball and sprinkled it over her face. She tried to leap from beneath him.

  “Be nice, you’re at my mercy.”

  “But I’ve always been at your mercy,” she said sweetly.

  “Now that was pretty nicely said. A sweet surrender,” he said complacently. Too complacently. He wasn’t expecting trouble. She caught his hand, trying to send the snowball flying his way.

  He wasn’t that much off guard. A few flakes hit him, but he turned the tables quickly, and the snowball landed on her face.

  She shrieked, protesting, laughing. “I’m freezing!”

  “I’ll warm you up.”

  And he could do so, she knew so well. His lips touched hers, and they were fire. Their gloved hands curled together. The snow was soaking them, it lay all about them. It was cold, so cold.

  But then there was his kiss.…

  And then there was a voice, a startling, male voice, calling out from across the snow. “Justin? Justin, is that you? Hey, I don’t mean to disturb you or anything, but I’ve lost a relative.”

  Kristin could hear a crunch of footsteps coming closer and closer.

  Justin had drawn away. He stared down at Kristin. She felt a fierce trembling rake through her as Justin’s eyes touched hers. A lopsided smile touched his lips, a smile of regret.

  It was over. Their time of being so alone together was over. In a way, paradise was lost. Roger had come.

  They had both known that it would end. That the special, exclusive time between them would end.

  It wasn’t that anything was over between them; they were falling in love, Kristin thought. Justin had to feel the same way she did.

  But this particular and very special time was over.

  And Kristin just hadn’t expected it to end so soon.

  “Justin—”

  Justin rose, pulling Kristin up with him. “You lost a relative?” he said lightly. “Damned careless of you, Roger. I think I’ve found her, though.”

  Roger Doria was bundled into heavy jeans and a leather jacket. He was a few inches taller than Kristin, with the same gray eyes and dark hair. He was lean and handsome, with a fine sense of humor, and he had always been her favorite cousin.

  Until now.

  He stared at her blankly, then stared at Justin again. Then he frowned. “You’re all covered in snow, Kristin. And you, too, Justin.”

  She would have laughed if Roger hadn’t been quite so disturbed.

  “We’ve been having a snowball fight,” she told him.

  “So I see.”

  Kristin could tell that while he wasn’t sure quite what he saw, he didn’t approve one bit. Well, she was certainly over twenty-one, and he was her cousin, not her father.

  “How did you find me?” she asked him, wanting to end the uncomfortable silence that had been growing. “And how did you get here?”

  “Snowmobile,” he said briefly, pointing down the expanse of Justin’s lawn to what should have been the road. “Two of the teenagers down the road from me had been out yesterday. They saw the top of your Cherokee.”

  He was staring at Justin again.

  And Justin wasn’t about to explain himself. He might know and like Roger, but at the moment, the two men were definitely antagonistic.

  Kristin was shivering. She’d gotten soaked playing in the snow, and standing here now, she was very cold. There was no warmth coming her way right then.

  “The Cherokee stalled out on me on my way to your house,” Kristin said. “Justin helped me out of the blizzard.”

  “I see,” Roger said.

  Justin was still silent.

  “Can we go in? I’m freezing.” Kristin said.

  Justin came back to life, but kept a wary eye on Roger. “Sure,” he said.

  But going in was a mistake, too. They couldn’t just stay in the entryway. And Roger seemed to know the house. He walked on into the living room, rubbing his hands together for warmth. He was heading straight toward the fire.

  But the comforter and the pillows were still strewn on the floor in front of the fireplace. And an empty bottle of wine was there with their two glasses. And there were towels thrown on the white bricks of the patio floor, just by the door to the pool.

  Roger stared from the comforter and the sheets to Kristin.

  She shrugged.

  Roger glared at Justin. “You seduced my little cousin, Justin!” he said flatly.

  “He didn’t seduce me!” Kristin protested. “And I’m not your little cousin, I’m an adult.”

  “She is an adult, and I don’t think that I actually seduced her. I was under the impression that it
was a mutual thing,” Justin said.

  Roger looked back and forth between the two of them and shook his head. “Kristin, do you know who he is?” He didn’t let Kristin answer that. Red-faced, he turned quickly to Justin. “Lord, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by that. I just wanted her to know, can you understand?”

  “Sure. I understand,” Justin said dryly.

  “I know exactly who he is,” Kristin told him.

  “Well, then…” Roger murmured. He sank down to sit on the granite ledge before the fireplace. He looked back to Justin. “Have you got a beer?”

  “Yeah, I’ve a few stuck out in the snow just outside the patio door. They should be nice and cold by now. I’ll bring in a few.”

  “I can go—” Roger began, rising.

  “I’ll get them,” Justin said.

  Roger sat down again. He stared across the room at Kristin. “Did you have to get snowbound here?” he demanded as soon as the door had closed on Justin.

  “I was lucky I got snowbound here!” she exclaimed softly. “Roger, that storm came so suddenly. If I’d been stuck in my car, I’d be dead by now!”

  “I know, I know, we were worried sick,” Roger said. “All right, so you were lucky to get stuck here. Did you have to—to get so involved here?”

  “I never realized that you knew him before, but from the way he talks about you, I assumed you were his friend!” Kristin said.

  “I am. And that’s why I never talked about him,” Roger told her flatly. “He wanted to be left alone, and I was careful never to mention where his house was. He’s had enough media crawling over him for a long enough time.”

  “Then, if you’re his friend—”

  “His wife was murdered here, Kristin.”

  “Not by him.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Roger demanded.

  “Because I really am his friend,” Kristin said stubbornly.

  Roger stared at her indignantly, then smiled. “I stand corrected. But it happened here, Kristin. And he’s a playwright.”

  “Is there something that I should know about playwrights in general?” Kristin asked him quickly. She could see Justin coming back across the patio.

  “No! But he was married to Myra Breckenridge. Probably the most beautiful woman in the world. And theater people live a different kind of life,” Roger warned her hastily.