Fire & Ice

by A. M. Hartnett

  Chapter Five

  ‘It is stupid,’ Mick announced from the bedroom. ‘How does talking about why Stanley Kowalski is big asshole who beat his wife help outside of classroom?’

  Julia laughed from behind the safety of the bathroom door. He’d been in a foul mood since coming home, worse than usual. After almost an entire semester at the university, Mick professed to enjoy every minute of it, save for introductory English. He excelled at composition – he had always been better writing than speaking – but he loathed the study of literature. He’d frothed through Pride and Prejudice. He’d spit and sworn through Faulkner. Now it was Tennessee Williams who was the object of his disdain, and Julia was thankful that it would be his last foray into English literature before he could move on to more welcome academic studies.

  One full year stood between him and entry to the veterinary programme. He had already been accepted, but had delayed his start; he needed a few more credits before he could begin the core programme. The latter half of the year was loaded with electives of his choosing, mostly history, but he was stuck with English for another few weeks, and Julia was stuck with his fury.

  She could handle it from the comfort of the bath. Stretched out under an island of bubbles, she listened with a half-smile as he went on and on about how pointless it all was to dissect the motivations of a pathetic bully, his enabling wife and his mentally unstable sister-in-law. It was entertaining enough to hear him talk, to froth and froth and froth, and wait for the moment when he would take a deep breath and settle down.

  It had been three months since she had moved into his house. Having finished her studies, Kris had taken a teaching job on the other coast to decompress before starting on the final leg of her career as a student. Julia, too, had reached the end of the line and had started a regular nine-to-five job with municipal government.

  Mick didn’t go back on the ice last season. He suffered vertigo frequently in the months following his concussion. Not only had the physical activity he was used to been limited, but so had his mental activities. One half-hour of television, fifteen minutes of reading, and no sex. He was plain rotten to be around, but Julia was just so relieved that he was all right that his infuriating moods didn’t bother her. Her patience paid off doubly when he got the all-clear from the doctor and came right to her door. He made up for months of inactivity by putting a crack in the slats of her bed.

  The Dragon had taken his leave from the ice, but he found a new dominion now that Julia was between the sheets with him every night.

  She turned her head and glanced at the outfit she’d left hanging behind the door. The Dragon was about to meet his match that night.

  Clearly having heard her giggle, Mick barked from the other side of the door. ‘Is not funny. It is a big waste of time. What does anyone care why that imbecile is shouting at bottom of stairs?’

  A small thump preceded his sigh, and Julia could picture him resting his head against the door as he sighed.

  ‘I am going to fail the final.’

  ‘You’re not going to fail your final,’ she assured him, and hauled herself out of the tub. He’d burned out his rage, and now there would be that wonderful lull before he fell into sleep.

  She wrapped herself in a towel, then opened the door a foot. Mick still looked exasperated, but as he glanced down at her damp body his next sigh was filled with longing.

  ‘You make me feel better and let me dry you off?’

  ‘No. I’m going to finish my bath and you’ll just have to wait until I’m done.’

  Mick groaned and tipped his head back, then dropped to his knees and clawed at his T-shirt. ‘Juliaaaaaaaaaaaaa!’

  Julia slipped her hand through the crack and gave him a push, leaving a wet mark on the front of his T-shirt.

  ‘You’re going to make me feel better by getting undressed and getting in bed so when I come out the first thing I see is a gorgeous naked man.’

  She closed the door on his scowl and reached for her outfit.

  Ten minutes later, Julia leaned against the door jamb. He had done as she asked and undressed, his broad back and the lightly furred hump of his ass on display. He’d put on quite a bit of weight during his recovery but had lost most of it over the summer, but there was some thickness that remained that suited him.

  That naked backside tempted her, and she almost abandoned her plot to bring down The Dragon by stripping down and getting close as quickly as she could.

  She cleared her throat, and Mick twisted towards her, paperback in hand.

  His mouth puckered as he drew in a quick breath, and then he smiled and laughed. ‘What is this?’

  Her skirt was short, her blouse was low cut, her heels were high and her garters had teasing little bows where they grabbed her stockings. She slapped the wooden ruler against her thigh and slid her black-framed glasses down to the end of her nose.

  ‘All this complaining about English takes me back,’ she confessed, tapping a little rhythm against the bare skin between her skirt and stocking. ‘Something Kris said the night I watched you play hockey. She suggested you had a naughty-teacher fantasy. I always wondered about that afterwards.’

  Mick let the paperback drop and flopped on his back. ‘This will not make me hate English any less.’

  ‘You’re on your own with your hatred of Streetcar,’ she told him, and sashayed away from the door, still drumming the ruler against her skin. ‘I just want to test that theory.’

  ‘That I like naughty school teacher?’

  At the foot of the bed, she pushed her glasses back up and tossed the ruler on to her place in the bed, then knelt and wiggled the skirt up enough to show off the white lace of her panties.

  ‘Do you?’ she whispered, and set free the first button of her blouse.

  He took in all of her as he rolled on to his back. ‘I need closer look.’

  Julia was amazed that she didn’t fumble with her unbuttoning as he guided her to sit astride him. He brushed her hands aside and rolled her buttons free, and his lips twitched as he split open the shirt.

  ‘If I say I do not like this naughty school teacher, what will you do?’

  ‘Are you suggesting I use the ruler on you?’

  His laughter shook the entire bed as he cupped her bare breasts. ‘I would like to see you try.’

  ‘Oh, you smart-ass!’ She caught his wrists and threw her weight against him. It would have been so easy for him to best her; he’d done it countless times before, just flipping her on her back and eclipsing her. Instead he let her win and pin his arms to the mound of pillows behind him.

  ‘Have I been bad boy?’ he teased.

  Julia couldn’t keep a straight face as they tussled. Though he gave her dominance of his upper half, he wriggled his legs beneath her.

  ‘This must be what riding a bull is like! Stop – stop!’ She let go with one arm and reached for the ruler, only to see it plucked out of her reach.

  ‘Have you been bad girl?’ he asked, right before he snapped the wood against her ass.

  Blowing out a frustrated sigh, Julia sat up and rubbed where the sting had started to set in. ‘This is not at all how I imagined this going. I take it this is doing nothing for you?’

  ‘It always does for me. You always do for me.’ He drew the ruler between them, tapped it against his chest and crooked a brow. ‘You want another?’

  To say she wasn’t tempted would be an understatement, and it was written all over his face that he’d relish giving her another crack if she asked for it, but she’d spent days plotting this little seduction. She wanted to at least give it a shot.

  She plucked the ruler from his fingers and tossed it on to the floor.

  ‘Why don’t we just put this away? I’ve never been a believer in corporal punishment, anyway.’ Drawing his open hands along her ribs, she straightened and let the glasses slide down once more. ‘I seem to remember you always did better with a bit of positive reinforcement.’

  With an approving gru
nt, Mick filled his palms, lifting and squeezing as Julia rocked back and forth, rubbing the silky barrier of her panties against his cock.

  ‘You’re not going to fail your final,’ she went on breathlessly. ‘You want to know why? Because you can spit and snarl all you want, but when you’re sitting in that exam room and you find yourself staring at a blank page, you’re going to think to yourself, “Hrmm, what was that Julia said while she was touching herself for me?”’

  Leaning back, Julia anchored herself with one hand on his wrist and slipped the other between her legs. The skirt she wore was like an elastic bandage, stretching with her body as she wriggled it up to her waist. Behind her, Mick drew his knees up to make a seat for her, and his gaze followed the exploration of her fingers over the damp wedge of her panties.

  ‘You’re right. No one needs to know that crap in the real world, but you do need this credit. You’re going to take all your notes and memorise them, and when you sit down to that exam you’re going to tell the professor exactly what she wants to hear. You’re going to ace that exam and pass the course, and then you’re going to come home and thank me properly for putting up with your pissing and moaning for three months.’

  Mick glanced at her face, brows coming together, and threw his arms out around himself like a persecuted idol. ‘That is rude. You need ruler again.’

  ‘You sure about that?’ She watched him try to hold his gaze on her face while she wriggled her fingers into the waistband and met the wet heat of arousal. The glasses slipped down to the tip of her nose again, and Mick reached up.

  ‘No more schoolteacher.’ He plucked the glasses from her face and set them on the nightstand, then slid his hands over her hips. ‘Just Julia. My Julia.’

  Her fingers stilled, and for just a moment she enjoyed this moment with him, quiet and smiling, until he brushed her hands aside.

  ‘Touch me,’ she whispered, and settled back for his exploration. ‘Remind me of why I put up with you.’

  ‘Because I know how to win an argument,’ he muttered, and stole her retort by circling his middle finger around her clitoris.

  He did know how to disarm her. Every damn time. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d successfully conquered him. In fact, she couldn’t remember if he had ever let her win at all. Just like when he had been master of the ice, Mick picked his moments to loose The Dragon from his bondage.

  Until then, there was nothing to do but wait.

  Julia closed her eyes and tipped her head back. Without the support of his knees against her back, she would have sunk back and been left hopelessly contorted, hopelessly at his mercy. Instead he had made her the perfect throne to recline upon and enjoy his worship.

  ‘Oh,’ she said in a puff of air, over and over again, as he stroked her. She squeezed the hem of her skirt in her fists as the steady, delicate touch made her light-headed, as those decadent rings coiled outwards from the tip of his fingers.

  He was hard against her, his erection pressing her inner thigh as though to remind her that after the soft would come the hard, after the sighing and trembling there would be moaning and clinging.

  She opened her eyes and smiled to find him watching her. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve secretly mastered the art of getting my panties off without my having to get up.’

  ‘Sorry, no, but I can fix it.’

  He uprooted her and turned her on to her back. The panties were discarded and the skirt followed, and the unveiling continued as he splayed his hands on either side of her slit and parted the slick folds.

  This time Julia found herself subjected to a torture she knew and loved. He pushed down on the inside of her thighs, pinning her and spreading her at once, and the slow glide of his tongue’s ascent to her clit commanded her attention. She tried to hold her breath to enjoy the symphony of wet sounds that filled the bed, but she knew that Mick’s method of making noise was to drive them from her.

  She couldn’t stop squirming, but no matter how much she tried to spur on that frenzy she craved, Mick kept his pace. He was a maestro of her body, the point of his tongue plucking her, and when his fingers joined against her G-spot he created the perfect trill. She had no choice but to sing.

  ‘Close,’ she puffed out, and pushed up only to be pushed down again, and so she wriggled up on to her forearms and looked down at him.

  He paid her absolutely no attention. Eyes closed and brow furrowed, he consumed, unrelenting, until she could take no more. She grasped the duvet and arched up, rendered breathless as that steady tune he strummed ignited her.

  Head pounding, Julia retreated from that wicked tongue and at the same time pushed against the top of his head. He rose up on to his knees and wiped the back of his hand across his crooked grin.

  ‘I win argument,’ he said, his voice a little froggy.

  Julia sucked in a deep breath and blew it out loudly, then threw her arm across her face. ‘Were we arguing? What were we arguing about?’

  ‘Not important, except I win. I will remind you again when you forget.’

  ‘I’ll start working on a fight to pick as soon as I can see straight again.’

  He crawled over her and propped himself up, fists against the mattress, and the entire bed shuddered as he laughed. ‘Sometimes I miss my tutor. Not talking about naughty teacher, but clumsy woman who pretends she does not think I am hot.’

  ‘I told you I wasn’t really a klutz. Just…’

  He bowed and kissed the corner of her smiling mouth. ‘Head over heels?’

  ‘I’ll never admit it,’ she whispered, and as his lips skimmed along her neck and over her shoulder, Julia mustered her energy and wiggled around.

  An approving sound clicked close to her ear, and gooseflesh rose as he kissed a trail along her spine. Another purr as he nuzzled just above her buttocks and then he rose and kneaded the halves.

  ‘Head over heels, on your back, on top – I like all of your positions.’ He ran one hand down to her lower back and nudged. ‘I like this one best, though.’

  Julia struggled against gravity to get into position, then sighed as he went deep in one stroke.

  As steady as before, Mick moved his hips and let that hot length work its magic against her slick inner wall. Yet, unlike the last time, he couldn’t keep his patient cadence. He grasped her hips, pushing and pulling her back.

  She bowed low and welcomed every stroke with a moan. Each pass over her G-spot sparked a little shiver that shot through her. Though she was paces ahead of him thanks to his adept hands, Julia found her body in perfect synch with his.

  My Julia. She heard that soft endearment in her head even as the smack of his body against hers rang out. She reached out, lost in time as she sought the rungs of her old bed and instead found the varnished wood of his bed.

  ‘Oh, fuck,’ she breathed out, and with nothing to hold on to she pushed up.

  Mick barely missed a stroke as he hauled her into his lap, one thick arm braced across her torso, and Julia gasped as he reached between her legs once more. Still sensitive, she placed her hand over his to push him away, but her purpose was stolen by the sudden dual pleasure that quaked through her.

  Resting her head against his shoulder, she found her balance by reaching round and digging her nails into his hips. She couldn’t catch her breath as the centre of the bed became a monsoon that seemed to suck in all the energy in the world between them.

  His wet mouth against her shoulder as he groaned, Mick clamped down and held her tight through the blitz of their combined climax. She was grateful for his embrace, for the strength of his body against hers and the vulnerability his trembling revealed.

  Separating in a daze, they flopped across the bed, facing one another. Breathless, they stared at one another, drank one another in. Julia felt small and safe as he tucked his hand behind her and held her close.

  ‘I admit it,’ she said sleepily. ‘I’ve always been head over heels, and that’s my favourite position.’

  Mick smiled she
epishly and swatted her ass. ‘Mine, too.’

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