Snowburn

by Frost, E J

  She smiles. “You should see them with clyros.” Another native fruit. Fermented and made into a sickly-sweet wine, it’s a favorite of Kuseros’s alkies. “But too many make them sick. And sick bunnies are kind of gross.” She tickles Ronnie’s back with her fingertips. The rabbit hunches a little but doesn’t lift his head from the bowl.

  “Speakin’ of sick bunnies,” I say. Kez looks at me, her brows drawing in to frame a question. “How’s your friend?”

  “Oh.” She shrugs one shoulder. It’s a sad, resigned gesture. “She’s started the coldspiral.”

  I’ve heard about Hex withdrawal, but I’ve never seen it firsthand. “What’s the coldspiral?”

  “Chills, heart palpitations, spasms, nausea. It’ll get worse and worse as she comes down. A big dose of Hex really fucks your body up. It’ll be tomorrow before she evens out. The Naltrex will take the worst of the edge off. Make it bearable. Barely.” She’s silent for a moment, chewing her dessert. “I can’t believe she did this to herself. The baby’s due in eight weeks.”

  It occurs to me again that it might be best for everyone if the baby’s never born, but since Kez has already discarded that idea, I don’t offer it aloud. “That kid, what’s his name, Skylar, is he really the father?”

  “Nev’s told him he is.” She shrugs. Doesn’t meet my eyes.

  “Not a one-man woman, huh? An’ he was awfully quick to sell her ass.”

  Kez rubs the bridge of her nose with one finger. “But they both say it’s true love.”

  I put my bowl on the floor next to the rabbits. They can have the last few slices of fruit. I kneel in front of Kez, straighten out one of her legs, and begin unsealing her boot. “Look like love to you?”

  She watches me, blue eyes full of the shadows cast by the wreck of her friend’s life. When I draw her boot off, her lips part and her pink kitten tongue slips out to wet her lower lip. Her pupils dilate, swallowing the shadows. “Um, what’d you ask?”

  I hide a smile. Shrug out of my jacket so my upper body’s bare. Flex my shoulder and biceps for her as I draw her other leg out straight. “I asked if it looked like love to you.”

  She puts her empty bowl on the floor. “What does love look like?”

  I shrug. I’ve probably seen love more than a few times, but I still don’t know what it looks like.

  “The doctors call it co-dependence.” She watches me closely as I pull off her other boot. “You know what looks like love to me? Don’t laugh.”

  I nod, curious.

  “Ape and Chiara. Oh, I know he’s an idiot. But I think she really loves him. And I know he loves her. You should see the way he looks at her sometimes. It’s like he’s seeing the sun rise for the first time . . . that sounds really stupid, sorry.”

  Not as stupid as wanting to be looked at that way. “So you think they’re the real thing, huh?”

  She nods. “That’s why I haven’t forced Chiara to go home. You think I’m wrong about that, don’t you?”

  I straighten her legs in front of me. Run my hands down them, feeling her firm muscles through her fatigues. I trace the shape of her knees with my thumbs. “Wanna know what I think?” At her nod, I say, “I think we’ve done enough thinkin’ for a while. Let’s do somethin’ else.” Something that involves getting physical, and sweaty.

  She grins. “That sounds good to me.”

  I send Kez for towels, because half the fun of sex is getting messy and I don’t have any more robes handy. Then I drag the bowls of fruit out from under the rabbits’ noses. Ronnie catches the edge of one with his teeth as I pull it away and we have a short tug-of-war, which I win. I put the fruit out in the hall and once Kez returns with the towels, close the door on the fruit-guzzling rabbits and push the chair from her vanity across the membrane. I’m not interested in being interrupted, nor am I putting on a show for bunny-voyeurs.

  Kez watches me block the door with a small smile. “Tigger will get through that.”

  “I’ll move it when we’re done. I just don’t wanna be interrupted.”

  “Why, are we about to do something?” she asks. Her voice is all innocence, but those big eyes are filled with an absolutely wicked light. Naughty kitten.

  “No, nothin’ specific,” I say as I stalk towards the bed. I’ve got something very specific in mind, and from her expression, she’s guessed it.

  She sits down on the edge of her bed. Leans back on her elbows. Nice position. It makes her breasts rise and swell against her black tank. As if they weren’t tempting enough.

  “You can put those away,” I tell her. “I was thinkin’ pure thoughts.”

  She snorts. Settles back onto the bed. “So you just want to be friends now?”

  “Uh-huh.” Friends who fuck until they pass out.

  “Okay. We’ll just be friends.” She puts her hands behind her head. Her nipples peak against the cloth of her tank. I need those in my mouth. “I want to be friends with your . . . um, what do you call it?”

  “Whaddo you mean, what do I call it?”

  She grins at the ceiling. “Guys always name their dicks.”

  Like I’m telling her. “I call it my dick.”

  “I bet you don’t.”

  I kneel next to the bed. Run my palm down her body from the base of her throat to her groin. Shaping each swell and dip. I roll the hem of her tank up with my thumbs. Bare her creamy belly. Lean over her and mouth that fine, soft skin. “If it was yours,” I say, slow to watch her eyes dilate further. “What would you call it?”

  She wraps her arms around her head. “The Master Blaster?”

  I stroke my way across that soft skin to the waistband of her pants, unfasten them, catch the stretchy band of her underwear with my thumbs and peel them down over her hips together. “Don’t think so.”

  “Big H?” She giggles. “The Socket Rocket?” I work her clothes down her thighs and the touch of cool air on her skin makes her sit up. “Wait, could we turn off the lights?”

  “Yeah.” I’ll get her to the point where she’s not self-conscious with me anymore. But it doesn’t have to be tonight.

  She wriggles across the bed and taps a panel on her bedside table. The lights dim slowly and finally wink out. I blink a few times while my eyes adjust, then find her soft hips with my hands and pull her back into position in front of me.

  “Can you see everything?” she asks softly.

  I consider lying to make her more comfortable. Discard the idea. I want her to be honest with me; guess I’ll have to give as good as I get. I lean over and kiss her belly. “Enough to do this.”

  “Oh . . . are you . . .?”

  “Am I what?” I move my mouth down a couple of centimeters and kiss the top of her mons. Run my palm over her finely-grained skin. I love that she’s bare there. Nub-hunting through a thicket does not turn me on.

  “Um, I, uh, oh . . .” She shivers and lies back on the bed when I lower my head further and flick the tip of my tongue over the pouty little vee at the top of her labia. “I’ve never done this before.”

  I finish tugging her pants and undies down her legs and toss them over my shoulder. Debate whether I want to get naked now or later and decide there’s something appealingly dominant about keeping my boots and pants on while I go down on her. “Why not?”

  “I, uh, I haven’t had a ton of offers . . .” She grips her elbows and shivers again, harder. “Hale, I . . . I think I need some rules.”

  “Yeah?” I stroke her belly. Something about this is unsettling her. Maybe something to do with the scar on her inner thigh, which is much too close to her groin for comfort. Maybe just that no one has gone down on her before, which is a damn shame. Whatever it is, she needs reassurance.

  “Rule one, your hands stay here.” I pat the bed on either side of her hips. She immediately drops her hands to her sides and digs her fingers into the covers.

  “Okay,” she breathes. I dip my head and kiss her belly, which quivers, but she’s stopped shivering. She’s beginning
to relax.

  “Rule two, dead puppies.” That one should be familiar to her. She nods, relaxing even further under my hands.

  “Rule three, two strikes. You move your hands from there once, you get a spankin’. Move your hands twice, you get the ass-whipping of your life.”

  She wriggles on the bed. “Okay.”

  “Rule four, you can’t come until I say you can.”

  “Oh,” she breathes. She arches her back against the bed and fists the covers. She likes giving up control during sex; delaying her orgasm will be hard for her. It’ll keep her mind off her brother. “Okay, I’ll try.”

  “Rule five, come before I say you can, an’ you spend the rest of the night suckin’—” I punctuate my words with a quick kiss and suck on the soft skin below her navel. “And swallowin’.”

  She lifts her head to look at me. Her pupils are so widely dilated her eyes look solidly black. “I’ll do that any time you want me to.”

  I reach under her and pinch her ass. “Naughty kitten.”

  Her hands scrunch in the covers and her grin lights up the darkened room. “You could come up here.” She pats the bed beside her. “Then we could both—”

  She breaks off with a gasp as I flip her over, press her into the bed with one hand, and bring the other down on her ass, hard enough to sting. “Strike one,” I tell her.

  She scrabbles in the blankets, pulls them around her head and moans.

  I bring the flat of my hand down on her ass again. Smile at the back of her head when she gasps, and grip her ass-cheek to intensify the sensation. “That was for calling me by my real name.”

  I spank her a third time, putting some of the muscle of my shoulder into it. Hard enough that she’ll still feel it tomorrow, and maybe the day after. “That was for surprising me.”

  “Wha-what?” she gasps.

  I turn her back over. Take her hands and put them by her sides. Wait until she digs her fingers into the blankets before I kneel between her knees again and lift her legs over my shoulders. I lower my face into the sweet space between her thighs and nip at the wet, secret skin of her labia. She gasps like she’s sprinted for a klick and rolls her hips up to me in tight pulses.

  “Kitten,” I say, letting my voice go deep and dark with pleasure. I flick my tongue over the swollen nub at the top of her slit. Lean in and suck on it until she bucks against my hold.

  “Oh, God!” she wails.

  I grin against her labia. Close my mouth over her opening and push my tongue deep between her folds. She tastes salty and slightly musky, like real, freshly-baked bread. I listen to her gasping moans. Then go back to sucking on her clit.

  “Hale,” she pants. “Please, Hale . . .”

  She’s already begging. Spanking seriously turns my kitten on. And maybe all those nights with Mouse, going down on her because she was too damaged inside to fuck, have given me some skills. “Rule four,” I remind her before I give her a hard nip on her inner thigh.

  “Oh!” She jolts at the bite but immediately relaxes back into my hands.

  I give her inner thighs some attention, kissing and licking, to let her cool down a little before I return to the show. I blow on her labia, lick her with long strokes. Flick the taut nub of her clit with the tip of my tongue. Within a few strokes, she’s thrashing and moaning again. I slide one hand up to cup her breast and thumb that hard button. Flick her nipple in time with my strokes against her clitoris.

  “Oh, please!” she chokes. “Oh, God, please!” Her legs shake against my shoulders. Her whole body is rigid with sexual tension.

  “You wanna come, kitten?” I lift my head from her enough to speak, letting my warm breath blow over her labia.

  “Yes! Please! Please, please!”

  I pretend to consider it for a moment. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Ohhhhh.” Her head whips from side to side as she fights against her need. Her expressive little face is drawn like she’s in pain. Her body’s sheened with sweat. I lower my head and catch her clit between my teeth.

  She goes wild, bucking and straining. Her body arcs against the bed. Her hands rise and claw the air.

  I flip her over before she has a chance to realize she’s broken the rules again. Catch her hands and cross them behind her back. I pin her wrists with one hand and hold her down while I open my fly and shove down my pants. Time to fuck. We did gentle, and we both enjoyed it, but she loves it rough and dirty. And that’s what I want right now.

  “Bad kitten.” I give her a hard spank as the little monster bursts free and pokes against the back of her thigh. She wails at the spank, so I do it again, hard enough to make my palm sting. Her ass must be smarting. I switch hands and redden the other cheek for her. She’ll definitely feel that when she sits down tomorrow.

  “Oh, yes,” she moans. She arches her back, lifting her ass and rolling her hips as she tries to impale herself on the little monster. I let it bump along the curves of her thighs for a moment while I match up that second cheek. Then I reach down and feed it into her.

  She’s so wet I slip back out. I grin at her back while I position myself again. Sink deep into that hot wetness. Groan with pleasure. There’s nothing better than this, the feeling of burying myself deep in her tight, wet body. I lean over and kiss her shoulders. Push her soft dreads to one side and nip the back of her neck. Whisper to her that I’m going to fuck her until she can’t come anymore as I begin working my cock inside her. Her whimpers rise over the wet slapping of our bodies. Her face is turned into the rumpled covers but I can see that her eyes are open. Her brows drawn tight in an agony of sexual tension. She’s more than ready.

  I pull her hips back into my thrusts. Pin her hard against the bed while I work my hips furiously against hers. She’s gasping, begging, her body heaving under me as she tries to rise to each thrust. I wrap one arm around her hips, the other under her, across her chest, and hold her still as I pound into her, fucking her as hard as I can. Held captive, forced to accept my wild pace, with no other outlet, she screams. Full-throated. Woman in ecstasy.

  “You can come, kitten,” I growl, giving her permission at last.

  She screams again as she comes. Her body clenches frantically around mine. I pump hard into her orgasm, feeling her tight wetness convulse around my cock. The mounting pleasure becomes unbearable and I come, locked deep inside her, her pussy milking me as I keep rocking in her, coming in her, until I’m completely spent.

  I collapse on top of her. Covering that slender body with mine. An amazing sense of peace fills me. I close my eyes. Shut my ears. Lose every sense except the feeling of her soft body under me and the contentment that envelops us both.

  Finally, the feeling begins to fade. A noise breaks through my euphoria. It’s a thread of sound. A whisper. Kez’s soft voice, saying, “I’m sorry,” over and over.

  I disentangle one arm and lift off her enough to brush her dreadlocks over her shoulders and look down into her face. Her eyes are closed and there are tear-tracks on her cheeks.

  “Shh, kitten. I’ve got you.” I brush away the wetness on her cheeks. Did I hurt her? She didn’t tense or give any indication that it hurt while we were going at it. “Was that too much?”

  “No.” Her eyes flicker open. She smiles faintly. “It was just . . . intense.”

  Intense is good. I lift off her. Kick off my boots as I climb up onto the bed and drag her with me. Push one of the towels she’s left on the nightstand between her legs and spoon her tight into my body.

  “I should get a shirt,” she whispers. “Otherwise I’m going to stick to you.”

  She is pretty sweaty. We both are. Best way I’ve ever come across to get sweaty.

  With a contented grin, I let her go, watch as she rolls to her feet and fumbles her way across the dark room to the rack of clothes at the foot of the bed. She feels along the rack until she finds what she wants. Tugs a lacy little top off its magnehanger. The clothes pendulum on the rack after she pulls free the camisole, and a
shape at the back of the rack catches my attention. It’s a thick, shaggy sleeve. Much too big for Kez. Curly fur circles the cuff.

  I sit up and look more closely. That sleeve looks extremely familiar.

  “Kezra,” I growl.

  A step away from the bed, she freezes. “What?” she whispers.

  “What’s my winter coat doin’ on your clothes rack?”

  “Oh,” she breathes. “Um.”

  “Yeah?” I can’t wait to hear this.

  “Well, um—”

  Unbelievable. Little thief. “They should call you light-finger, not Lightfoot.”

  “I was going to give it back!” she wails. She clutches the camisole to her chest, twisting the soft material between her hands.

  “Why the fuck did you steal it in the first place?”

  “I didn’t steal it! I swear! You left it! You were loading cargo and you took it off and you left it on a stack of crates. I didn’t want someone else to take it—”

  “So you stole it instead,” I growl. I searched for that coat for weeks. Not just because it’s a damn good coat, but also because it had my DNA all over it.

  “I was going to give it back to you the next time I saw you—”

  I lie back and fold my hands behind my head. “Which explains why it’s still hangin’ there.”

  “No, God, I, uh—” She hangs her head but even in the dark with her head down I can see the fiery blush that’s spread over her face and all the way down her neck. It’s sweet, and sexy, that blush. Her whole obsession with me is sweet and sexy. In a marginally psychotic sort of way.

  I pat the bed next to me. “C’mere, kitten.”

  She tugs the top over her head and scrambles onto the bed. She perches next to me and peers down into my face. I doubt she can see my expression in the dark, but I soften it anyway. “Are you angry with me?” she asks.

  “No, but I’m lockin’ my closet the next time you come over.” She cuffs me on the shoulder and I chuckle. “When exactly were you plannin’ to give it back?”

  “Before winter,” she says. “I know I kept it too long. I was going to bring it back to you the next day but it, um, it got dirty and the place I took it to be cleaned took forever. By the time I got it back, it had been weeks. I couldn’t think of any way to return it to you without it being completely weird.”