Fire & Ice

by A. M. Hartnett

  That bashful expression faded as he looked down her body, and then back at her.

  ‘There have not been many women,’ he said, and lowered his head to speak against her lips. ‘They buzz around like flies, but I don’t take so many to bed. When I do, there is little talking.’

  A giggle stuck her like a pin, and Mick snuffed it out with a kiss so hard and hungry it knocked the wind out of her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and parted her lips, and as he thrust his tongue against hers she lifted her hips.

  The hard column of flesh against her hip throbbed as he rubbed his fingers through the swollen folds of her pussy, pace matching the swirl of his tongue around hers. She wanted more, so much more, yet as she tried to draw him on top of her he resisted.

  He had her where he wanted her, she realised, and there was nothing to do but to give in to the torturous patience he inflicted upon her.

  Mick broke the kiss and regarded her. The monochromatic streaks on his face were joined by the red pricking his cheeks, though Julia couldn’t imagine his flush was half as hot as her body as he watched what he did to her.

  Two fingers crooked, one either side of her clit. As pleasure throbbed where he touched her, Julia only let it out in little whimpers: some just sounds, others forming his name or a plea. He didn’t deviate from his pace except when she reached low. Only then did he stop long enough to catch her wrist before she could make a fist around his cock. He tucked her hand by her side and then resumed that hot, slippery exploration.

  ‘Music is loud,’ he murmured and raised a brow. ‘No one will hear you but me.’

  Julia bit her lip, and he gave her a scolding look. He shifted just slightly to half-cover her, and with a twist of his wrist he filled her with two fingers.

  As he went deep and twitched his thumb around her clitoris, a moan rattled from the back of her throat and leaped off her tongue.

  His victorious silence was as intense as his stare as he fucked in and out of her pussy. Trapped within that gaze, Julia turned to liquid heat as he stoked that sweet spot as though his body had known hers for aeons.

  ‘Mick,’ she whispered, but whatever thought she had planned to unleash into the atmosphere was gone as he provoked intense little vibrations through her abdomen.

  He bowed and kissed her, sucking and licking around her tongue as one desperate impulse after another cascaded from her chest.

  ‘You talk to me,’ he whispered, his mutterings barely audible through the blood rushing in her ears. ‘How do you want to come? On fingers? Or are you ready for tongue?’

  How he expected her to answer while he rubbed those wicked circles over the underside of her clit, Julia couldn’t imagine.

  A spasm too intense to be endured quietly rocked through her and she bucked up. As the ripple subsided, she turned her face away from his and laughed breathlessly.

  ‘There is absolutely nothing wrong with your dirty talk,’ she said, her last word stolen by a gasp as a second charge went through her.

  Mick’s sinful laugh skittered along her ear and filled her head. ‘No need to sound like porno movie when simple is best. You did not answer.’

  ‘Tongue,’ she said quickly before his fingers robbed her of the ability to speak, and rose up to taste the organ in question. She dropped back and loosened her grip around his neck. ‘I’m ready for your tongue.’

  His fingers remained where they were, keeping up that wicked cadence, as he scuttled down her body.

  ‘Open,’ he growled, and with her obedience he settled and pressed his free hand to her mons.

  Julia couldn’t bear to lie back and close her eyes. She pushed up on to her elbows. Meeting his gaze as he lowered his head, she held her breath and shook with the anticipation of his mouth.

  Fingers spreading her open, Mick’s tongue created a whirlwind amidst the hot suction of his mouth. Rocking in tune with the perfect rhythm of his tongue, Julia forgot about everything, about the party below, about her earlier insecurities, how to think and how to breathe.

  She just gave herself over to that rising tide of ecstasy brought on by his hot mouth and his gluttonous sounds. Her vision blurred as she watched him suck her, and only when he closed his eyes and broke their gaze did Julia allow herself to do the same.

  No one will hear you but me.

  She doubted that very much as she let it all out, one moan after another bursting from the back of her throat with every flick of his tongue against her clit and every bump of his fingers against her inner wall.

  Too much pleasure hit her too soon, and she reached down and grasped a handful of his thick hair. She couldn’t bring herself to push him away. Instead she ground against him, begging in half-sentences broken by cries that were stifled at the back of her throat, until she couldn’t say another word or draw another breath, until she couldn’t do anything but ride that hungry mouth through her fever.

  She pushed him away as the pleasure became too much. She lolled, useless and trembling, as Mick kissed along her belly and onwards. He covered her as he turned his attention to the tickling plane of her neck. His cock rested against her thigh, the drum of the pulse in his veins a reminder of his own live need.

  Julia lazily returned his smile as she slipped her hand between them, and Mick followed with his gaze as she slicked her palm with the moisture that coated the tip.

  ‘This is what I want now,’ she whispered. ‘I want you to fuck me.’

  ‘And you are ready for a fuck,’ he returned huskily.

  In the midst of that delirious haze she found herself clinging tight to his neck and her ass supported by his hands as he rolled her on top of him.

  He fell back and stretched his arm out for the condom. ‘You put it on.’

  Julia plucked it from him. ‘It might take me a little while. I’m easily distracted.’

  He slid one hand along her thigh and cupped her ass, and grinned as he gave her a stinging tap. ‘I know. That is why I want you to do it.’

  Julia settled once more against his thighs and tore open the condom, but set it aside as she grasped his cock.

  ‘How do you want me?’ she teased him with his own words as she smeared the moisture she had gathered around the dark crest.

  Mick frowned. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, once I’m done playing with you: on my hands and knees, or bent over the edge –’

  ‘On your back so I can ride you,’ he hissed, and rolled his eyes up as she jerked the slick head. He clamped down on her thighs and dug his fingers against the muscle, and after a long moan he released her.

  Looking down between them at the shining crest peeking out above her fist, Julia ran her tongue across her upper lip. She shuffled down and ran her tongue across the tip, and with his groan she puckered her mouth around him.

  He muttered something once more in Russian. The string of unfamiliar words became more and more distant as the pulse in her ears drummed louder. She followed its rhythm, bobbing her head and swirling her tongue in tune with that urgent tattoo.

  Mick released her and threaded his thick fingers into her hair. The power she held over him was just a facade. He lifted his hips and she let him take over the momentum. Whether he followed the beat of his own rush of blood or tried to meet hers, she couldn’t tell and she didn’t care. She closed her lips around him and took as much as she could, meeting the urgent thrust of his hips.

  Still those words came, as gruff and strangled as a groan, until they suddenly made sense and his gentle but firm thrusts stuttered and he pulled her up.

  ‘Put it on now,’ he said, and Julia burned under the heat of his gaze as she unfurled the condom over his dick.

  True to his word, Mick put her on her back once more. He hooked her knees into the crooks of his elbows and looked down between them.

  His brawny chest heaved as he pressed the sheathed tip against her slick mouth. Fingers and toes curling, Julia moaned as she was corked. One thrust of his hips and he glided easily and to the hilt. />
  His gaze remained where their bodies joined as he pumped her. For just a few moments Julia felt as though her existence amounted to nothing more than the velvet clutch she gave him. It made her two-faced, contented to simply be a thing made for pleasure, but also desperate to be acknowledged as the vessel for the warm, wet squeeze that captivated him.

  Shoulders flat on the mattress, Julia pushed up to match his rhythm. He flashed his gaze upon her, red-hot and ravenous, and his grip went from her thighs to her ass.

  ‘Most nights I think of doing this to you,’ he said, and with those words he dug his fingers into the soft flesh and began a hard and fast rhythm.

  Julia closed her eyes and hung her head back, delirious laughter mingling with the cries that hot friction evoked. The heat in her cheeks had as much to do with what he had just said as what he did to her.

  The very idea of Mick fantasising about her, the notion that he might have conjured the image of her to the forefront of a dirty mind as he jerked himself off in bed, sitting in front of his desk or on his sofa with his French book spread out in front of him…

  She opened her eyes and, finding his attention moving over her body, gave him the same perusal. Sweat had started to shine where his shoulders and neck met. His dark brows had come together and made his gaze feral, and he pressed that skilled tongue to the corner of his mouth.

  She grasped his damp shoulders and angled for a kiss, but he evaded her and butted his forehead against hers.

  His grin touched her lips and his tongue flicked against hers, but before she could draw him into a kiss he upended her world and pulled her on to his lap.

  Julia clamped down, ready for him to resume that furious pace, but instead he held her in place and filled her slowly. On and on it went, shunting against her inner wall enough to keep her delirious with wanting more of that frantic speed of moments ago.

  ‘Do you want me to beg for it?’ she whispered, wriggling. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll beg for it if I have to.’

  Mick rocked just enough to give her agonisingly shallow thrusts, and laughed as she squirmed.

  ‘Can I make you scream again?’ he teased.

  ‘You can do whatever you want to me.’ Julia laughed with what little breath she had as he slid back and forth over her G-spot. ‘Oh, but that’s good. I like that.’

  She knew better than to trust the calm he conveyed. His shoulders bunched slightly, and with each withdrawal his breath hitched, but his momentum built and it built quickly.

  There was no more teasing, just the raw impact of their bodies crashing together. Julia gave herself over to the euphoria erupting in her. Her surroundings blurred and then burst into the heat that flashed outwards from her core.

  At the same time Mick met his own surrender. Those husky bursts from the back of his throat escalated into resonating grunts that coincided with his every thrust.

  Still trapped in the cyclone of her own climax, Julia found herself jerked up in the fury of Mick’s. He buried deep and groaned. Though his trembling showed his weakness at that moment, his body maintained its dominance over her, holding her in place as he emptied into the end of the condom.

  Julia withstood the lack of air as long as she could, then gave a slippery wriggle and collapsed. Mick rolled away from her with a grunt and sprawled next to her.

  The sounds of the party below were oddly lulling with the warmth of his naked body so close to hers. To keep from falling asleep, Julia rolled and draped herself across his chest.

  Mick tucked one hand behind his head and gave her a goofy grin as he tugged her garter. ‘You are bad ice queen.’

  Laughing, Julia pushed up. ‘How so?’

  ‘You make me hot, not cold. You are a very bad girl.’

  ‘Oooh, I like how that sounds,’ she said in a sigh and leaned down. ‘But, for your information, I’m a queen.’

  Chapter Four

  Mick’s glower was practically radioactive, and it was aimed directly at her.

  ‘Don’t give me that,’ Julia snapped from the dining table. ‘This is part of the lesson, and there’s still fifteen minutes left. Now, combien coute la télévision?’

  Once he turned his attention back to the television screen where she had Best Buy’s website mirrored from her computer, Julia pinched the space between her eyes.

  Goddamn, he was giving her a headache. She didn’t know what the deal was with him today, but he was having none of it. She’d tried to be a cheerleader and remind him that he had an upcoming game in Sherbrooke and could show off his language skills when he was around town, but he’d only made a snorting, growling sound. Now she just dished out the same amount of grouchiness as he did.

  She had to admit that his lessons were becoming more challenging and Mick’s patience with himself was far less generous than his patience with her, but she also suspected the hands-off policy she had imposed during their lessons had something to do with his mood.

  Not that she’d turned him into a sex maniac or anything, but any other time they were together he had freedom to slip his arm around her or steal a kiss. When she was the tutor and he was the student, she was off limits.

  The last two weeks had been glorious. After another hour in the bedroom, they had returned to the party hand-in-hand and hadn’t been separated for long since.

  Nights were spent at Mick’s. Long nights in that big bed, committing to memory every inch of that big body, pushed and pulled across the expanse of the mattress, made to pant, to beg, to scream into the early hours of the morning. She walked through her days feeling exhausted and used, and in spite of the eye-watering yawns that plagued her all day long she was eager to be closed in with him at the end of the day.

  Next week would be different. This upcoming home game was his last for a while, and she’d be back to gnawing on her pillow several times a week as he travelled.

  For now, she had to get him through a virtual shopping trip of Best Buy.

  How much is the iPod? How much is the stereo on sale? On and on for another ten minutes, his responses getting testier and his looks filthier until she called break-time.

  His agitation vanished in the sigh he heaved as he leaned back against the sofa. He gave her a longing look across the buffer zone she had put between them to keep temptation at bay.

  Julia giggled and closed her laptop. ‘I’ve got cinnamon rolls.’

  ‘I do not want your cinnamon rolls,’ he purred, and once his expression turned naughty he rose and crossed the divide in long, sexy strolls.

  As soon as he reached the archway, Julia popped out of her seat and scooted to the end of the dining table. ‘No.’

  He grinned and stood opposite her, hands flat on the surface of the table.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Break-time is only ten minutes.’

  ‘We go over ten minutes.’

  ‘No, we don’t.’

  She evaded him, swishing this way and that while he simply paced from one side to another. She glanced towards the kitchen and then at him, and giggled at his warning look.

  ‘Kris is upstairs.’

  His chuckle spoke for him: silly French tutor, crazy-haired woman will not stop me.

  With another giggle, Julia gave up the chase and leaned against the table.

  ‘Vous êtes un coquin,’ she said slyly.

  Mick shook his finger in front of his face. ‘Break-time. No French.’

  ‘If you tell me what I just said, I’ll give you a twenty-minute extension on break-time.’

  As Mick drew closer, the air around Julia went electric. It was as though he was a god who had taken human form but hadn’t been able to shake the storm he brought in his wake.

  ‘You said you are crazy for me,’ he said in that deep timbre that her body remembered vibrating against her in bed.

  ‘Not quite,’ she mustered, but couldn’t remember what the question had been in the first place as he pulled her against him.

  He held her, thigh to thigh and chest to chest, grinning d
own at her as she gave in to the temptation itching in her palms and splayed her hands across his chest.

  As she wiggled the button at his collar through its eye, Mick circled her waist. ‘You also said Kris went deaf in a freak headphone accident and cannot hear a thing.’

  ‘That’s not very nice,’ she said, but fizzy giggles spilled out.

  Mick stuck his bottom lip out. ‘Very tragic. I send flowers.’

  Julia was still laughing as he cupped her ass and lifted her on to her toes. Accepting her fate as a woman with no willpower, she wrapped her arms around his neck and when he raised her up locked her feet around his waist.

  They made it as far as the sofa before Kris swooshed down the stairs, eyeglasses on her face and wrangling her satchel over her torso.

  ‘Hey! Peter the Great, no conquering in my living room,’ she called when Julia wasn’t quick enough to disentangle herself, then added, ‘and make coffee like a normal person and not some over-caffeinated ogre!’

  Busted, Julia settled on Mick’s lap and rested her head on his shoulder. ‘She was up all night grading.’

  ‘I was hit in mouth with hockey stick three months ago, had long and painful dental surgery, and still was in better mood than Kris at ten o’clock in morning,’ he joked quietly, and gave her ass a tap. ‘At least she is leaving soon.’

  She loosened another button, then pulled the shirt away from his body and peeked inside. ‘You do know I’m going to have to give you homework.’

  He tipped his head forward and nuzzled his cheek against hers.

  ‘Why have you not come to my game yet?’ he asked.

  Julia straightened. ‘What?’

  ‘We have know one another for almost two month,’ he said with a shrug. ‘More than friends for one month. You follow my game on Internet but you never come and sit in stands.’

  ‘Oh, I –’

  She couldn’t very well say she’d never given it any thought. She’d wanted to from the start, but every time she gave it serious consideration she backed out. She knew nothing about hockey save for what Wikipedia told her.

  And besides, she wasn’t quite sure she was ready to meet The Dragon.