“Ethan, Ethan,” she said. “You’re quite a man.”

  “It’s not gentlemanly to brag.”

  “And you have so much to brag about.” She knelt between his legs and pushed the two halves of his robe apart. His member had become fully erect minutes earlier. It seemed to realize it was about to get a treat, standing proudly—and very stiffly—away from his body.

  She tipped the pitcher slowly until the syrup left in a narrow stream. It coated the tip of him and dribbled down the sides. Before it got too far, she set the pitcher on the top of the table and bent to slide her lips over him.

  The glorious fucking the night before ought to have taken some of the edge off his lust. This was a whole different world of excitement as he watched her mouth slowly descend over his swollen cock. Even more, when she moved back up, she used a suction that drove his excitement into high gear.

  Damn, but she was good. Over and over, she swallowed his erection and sucked him as if she couldn’t get enough. Then she got really creative, as she’d promised. So gently it was a caress, she dragged her teeth along his shaft.

  He almost shot out of the chair. “Holy shit!”

  She stopped immediately. “Did I hurt you?”

  “Hell no, you didn’t hurt me,” he said. “Where did you learn how to do that?”

  “Just because I don’t talk about these things doesn’t mean I can’t do them.”

  Her meaning somehow penetrated the fog of arousal in his brain. She meant she’d done this for another man. Maybe more than one man. If she did it this well, maybe she’d done it for dozens. Sweet, innocent Laura. The woman he’d denied himself because she’d had too many margaritas to know what she was doing. Maybe she had known what she’d been doing. Maybe she did it all the time. What a chump he’d been.

  “What’s wrong?” she said.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing wrong with this guy.” She pumped him a couple of times. Indeed, his cock’s enthusiasm hadn’t faded in the least. Clearly, his big brain couldn’t solve any mental problems until his little brain had been satisfied.

  “If everything’s okay, I’ll continue,” she said.

  “Everything’s okay.”

  Way better than okay. Everything was splendid, just peachy. She went back to give him head better than anything he’d had in his hottest dreams. Up and down, her mouth moved. Swallow and suck as her hand worked at his shaft. He gripped the sides of his chair in his fists and watched through half-shut eyes as she performed his own, personal adult video at the breakfast table. Only this wasn’t fake. It was real. Laura was loving his cock with enthusiasm that warmed his heart and made his brain feel as if it would explode.

  Only the explosion wouldn’t happen there. Soon, he’d lose the ability to hold back. In another minute or two, he’d come. He’d have to stop her before then. No ugly surprises for Laura.

  At that exact second, she feathered the fingers of her free hand over his sac. He growled. No other way to describe it. “You’d better stop.”

  “Really?” She kept pumping with her fist and rubbed the head of his cock with her thumb. “I’m enjoying myself.”

  “But, baby . . . oh God.”

  “Just a little bit longer.” She resumed the suction of her mouth on him as the wave swelled and crested inside him.

  “Laura, stop!”

  Finally, she had the good sense to obey. Before she could get up and get away from him, before he knew himself what he was doing, he’d hoisted her up and lowered her onto her back on the floor. Her robe fell open, and so did her legs, thank heaven. In seconds, he’d found his position between them and driven himself home inside her. He immediately set to thrusting into her. Savagely. The stubborn woman had given him no choice.

  “Damn it, Laura, when a guy tells you to stop, do it.”

  “Don’t you dare stop, or I’ll have to kill you,” she said.

  How did she do this to him? Normally, he took things slowly, making sure the woman was wild for him even before he went to third base. All he did was touch this one, and poof. Or bang, in this case.

  Wrapping her legs around him, she lifted her pelvis to meet his thrusts. “Ethan, don’t slow down.”

  Slow down? Not a fucking chance. Now unable to speak, he could answer with only his body, so he kept at her as if he could pin her to the floor with his cock.

  “Now. Hard. Please!” she cried.

  Hot damn, she was going to come. He could hang on for that. He gritted his teeth, fighting the tension building in his balls. Just another second and another and another.

  Bless her, her orgasm arrived, her muscles clamping down on him. Then, they burst into spasms all around him, the pressure better than her mouth had been on him because it showed her pleasure. Now, he could give in to his own need. Past any control, he thrust a few more times before exploding in orgasm. Perfect. Absolutely perfect, their voices rising together. It lasted for long moments before he could give no more, and he collapsed onto her.

  A gentleman didn’t sink his whole weight on his partner, but she’d melted his bones, and he wasn’t going to be moving any time soon. She had more strength than he did, obviously, because her hands went to his back, her fingers tracing little patterns over the skin. She should have shoved him off, but she let him stay, his cock still buried in her, heaven wrapped all around him.

  After what felt like an hour but was probably a minute or two, he finally rolled off her. When he left her body, she whimpered as if she couldn’t stand being parted. Amazing woman. Lusty woman. How was he ever going to make love to someone else after having this?

  LAURA SMILED TO herself as she trudged through, or rather over, the snow, Ethan panting as he brought up the rear. Maybe he could catch a breath if he stopped pestering her.

  “You’re being very annoying,” he said.

  “I am? That’s rich.”

  “It’s a simple question.”

  Perhaps, but the fact that he wouldn’t let it drop said much more about him than it did about the “simple” question. “What was it again?”

  “Where did you learn how to do that?”

  She bit her lip to keep from laughing and stared straight ahead of her. “Do what?”

  He caught her arm and turned her around. That took some doing given that she was wearing snowshoes, but she untwisted her body, lifting her feet until she faced him.

  “Where did you learn to give head like that?”

  “What do you mean ‘where’?” she said. “Do you want to know the exact place?”

  His jaw set into a rigid line. He wanted to know with whom she’d learned, of course, but he couldn’t bring himself to admit it. In truth, she’d only imagined doing it, but she had watched a few adult films in her day, and they gave plenty of instruction. The rest she’d improvised, and the act had been even better than she’d hoped. Good enough to make her horny and wet for him, but she wasn’t about to tell this arrogant male that and swell his ego even further.

  “Have you . . . Did you . . . Jeez . . .” He put his hands on his hips and glanced around as if the snow might help him out of the problem he was causing himself. “Do that for other men?”

  “I wasn’t a virgin when you brought me here,” she answered. “You probably noticed.”

  “Yeah, but did you do that?”

  “I never used maple syrup before.” All that was true in the strictest sense of the word.

  “Oh, brother,” he said.

  Poor guy. She really ought to tell him the truth and end his misery. But a man with his reputation with women had no reason to be questioning her experience with sex.

  “I used to think you were so shy and retiring,” he said.

  “I am.”

  “Now, I’ve created Laura Barber, the sex kitten.”

  She finally had to laugh at that, both at his discomfort and the idea that anyone would think of her as a kitten of any kind. “That was our deal, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ethan, what’s happened or will happen in the outside world has no existence here. For now, we own each other totally and exclusively. When we leave, it ends.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Of course, I am,” she said. “Now, spread your legs.”

  His eyes grew wide. “What are you going to do?”

  “Nothing sex kittenish,” she said.

  “It’s cold out here.”

  “Just, do it, big guy.”

  He lifted one snowshoe and moved it about a foot to the side. That allowed her to approach him and place one of her feet on the snow between his two and her other foot beside him. Finally, she stood close enough to run her arms up his back. “I gather you’ve never kissed while in showshoes before.”

  Circling his arms around her, he took her into a warm embrace. “I haven’t.”

  “We’re both virgins, then.”

  “I like the sound of that.”

  “Virgins?” she said.

  “Kissing.” His frown disappeared, finally, as he lowered his head toward hers. He’d kissed her before, but only as a prelude to coupling. This contact of lips felt more like comfort and sweetness. As his mouth moved over hers, it could have turned into something deeper, but it could also satisfy her without going any further. With the heat of exertion from tramping through the snow fading, his big body provided warmth and a haven of sorts. A place where she could come to snuggle and find safety.

  He appeared to feel the same way because he made no move to get more intimate and no inclination to take her by the hand and lead her back to the cabin. He only ended the kiss and held her against him while he gazed down into her face.

  Damn it all. What was she thinking? She’d seen the Gould charm from a distance. She ought to be able to detect it from this close. Pushing against his chest, she backed away a step. “I guess we know how to get close while wearing snowshoes now.”

  “Okay, what did I do wrong?”

  “Did I say you did something wrong?”

  “Your body said it,” he said.

  “Not much we can do in feet of snow and wearing all these clothes.”

  His brows furrowed. “I can hold you.”

  “Thanks. You did. It was really nice.”

  He glared at her for a moment. “Why do I feel as if I’m back in graduate school?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re giving me that look again.”

  Now, it was her turn to stare at him. “What look?”

  “As if you don’t quite approve of me.”

  “That’s absurd.”

  “I wish I had a mirror so that I could show you your face.”

  He had a point; although, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of admitting it. He’d seemed to skate through things on his looks and ease with people. He could joke his way through class presentations, when she had to work for every graph, every point of logic, every phrase. Sure, his work was good, but he delivered it with an air that suggested he could knock off great presentations without breaking a sweat.

  “You looked the same way when you saw me back in Phil’s store,” he said. “As if you were smelling something off.”

  “I was surprised to see you. Sex kitten stuff aside, I am shy. It isn’t easy for me to interact with people I don’t know well.” She’d leave aside the question of whether coming on to him at that party counted as knowing him well. “People don’t understand that. They think I don’t like them when it isn’t true.”

  “What’s the rest of the world supposed to do with that? All we know is what you put out. If it’s a ‘buzz off’ signal, we’ll buzz off.”

  “Well, what about you? You seemed so damned competent, you make other people feel they don’t measure up.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Name one thing you’re not good at.”

  “Matrix algebra,” he said. “I almost flunked that statistics class.”

  “We all had to struggle with that one. We had a study group. You should have joined it.”

  “I couldn’t. You were running it.”

  He might have punched her in the gut. It hadn’t come out mean. In fact, he looked embarrassed at having said it. “Explain.”

  “You scared me,” he said. “A little.”

  “I couldn’t scare anyone.”

  “You’re so damned brilliant. We were all a little in awe of you.”

  What? She searched her memory for evidence that would prove or refute what he’d said. She’d had friends in graduate school. Not many but a few. The others had been more outgoing, but you expected that in a program that would lead to executive jobs. Most of the students expected to spend their professional lives dealing with people in one manner or another. Numbers people and analysts, like her, had their place, but they were different animals.

  “You must have noticed that things got quiet when you spoke in class,” he said. “We expected brilliance from your corner in the back, and you didn’t disappoint.”

  “I didn’t mean to put people off. I just didn’t fit into social situations.”

  “Well, I’m glad we worked that out.” He smiled again. It seemed more spontaneous now, not something he’d planned. “And I’m glad your hybrid went off the road.”

  “And you got to rescue me.” Well, why not? No one would get through to Henderson because of the storm. The interview would wait for her. “Actually, I’m glad too.”

  “Great. Let me show you something.”

  He started off in front of her, lifting his feet in the awkward way the snowshoes required. She followed. Huffing along like this made a great workout. She wouldn’t miss the gym while she was here. She’d appreciate his cooking too. What a great mini-vacation.

  They went up a gentle rise, stopping at the top. The scene below took her breath away. They actually stood at the crest of a bluff with a valley below them and mountains in the distance. Everything was covered with pristine snow, except for a river that sparkled blue as it rushed over stones and curved through the valley floor.

  He came up behind her, nudging his foot between hers so that he could get close enough to wrap his arms around her. “I love this place.”

  “I can see why.”

  “We should come back in the summer so you can see it when it’s full of wildflowers.”

  Wrong. She’d come here out of necessity and had agreed to share only these few days with him. This wasn’t the beginning of a Relationship with a capital R. When the snowplows came through, they’d go their separate ways. They’d understand each other better. They’d have memories. They were still competitors for the same job. One of them would get it, and they wouldn’t see each other anymore. End of story.

  Chapter Four

  SEX WHENEVER YOU wanted it. What a concept. Laura slid the basket of French roast into the coffee maker and switched on the brew button. They had a couple of hours before dinner with no television or radio. She could read some annual reports, but with a human stud machine sitting only feet away from her, she somehow couldn’t get her mind excited about bar graphs and spreadsheets.

  The man had worked quite a transformation on her in less than twenty-four hours. She’d had always indulged cautiously, choosing men who were completely unrelated to her work and as concerned with discretion as she was. Sensible liaisons. Pleasant and casual—the exact opposite of sleeping with Ethan Gould.

  Hell, not sleeping with. Fucking. She was fucking Ethan Gould. She’d fucked him in the loft and given him head at the breakfast table before fucking him again on the floor. It was a good word. She ought to use it more often.

  So she did. “Fuck. Fuckety-fuck-fuck-fuck.”

  Ethan looked up from where he sat on the couch, reading an old sports magazine he’d found in the bathroom. “Something wrong?”

  “Sensible liaisons are wrong,” she said. “Fuck ’em.”

  He stared at her for a minute as if she’d started speaking Old Church Slavonic. “If you say so.”

  “I do. Sensible liaisons aren’t worth”—What was that expression her brother used?—“a bucket of warm piss.”

  “Well now.” His eyes flew open. “Alrighty then.”

  Maybe she’d gone a bit overboard with that one. Obscene was one thing, gross quite another. “I swear, you’re making me crazy.”

  “Always happy to oblige. Anything I can do this minute to knock a few more screws loose?”

  She bit her lip. “Probably.”

  He got up from the couch and headed toward the kitchenette. “Oh no, you don’t.”

  “Don’t what? I’m supposed to do whatever I want, aren’t I?”

  “Absolutely.” He stopped just inches away from where she stood near the sink. “But you’re supposed to tell me what you want so I don’t have to guess.”

  “Are you ready again?”

  “It’s been hours, and I keep thinking of how your mouth looked on my cock,” he said as he leaned closer. “And how much I want my tongue in your groove.”

  Her skin heated. He’d have to see the heightened color on her cheeks. With any luck, he’d read that as excitement and not residual shyness. This whole fucking thing was still a bit new.

  “Later,” she said. “Right now, I want to do something else.”

  “Name it.”

  “A quickie,” she said. “Fast and dirty.”

  “As if we rushed home for lunch and had only a few minutes.”

  A really naughty idea sprung into her head. How much fun to play out a scenario as someone completely uninhibited? That morning she’d allowed herself to talk dirty with him. This afternoon when could try acting the part.

  “Not lunchtime,” she said. “But a horny college student and . . . say . . . a plumber.”