An insensitive fool could tell Kay was turning cool. Mitch was not insensitive. Kay was her usual bubbly self, but it was obvious she suddenly wanted to play it light…and it was obvious to him that in some way he’d disappointed her as a lover. Nothing else could be wrong; in every other way they blended like two peas in a pod. And the worst of it was he couldn’t imagine any lover more satisfying than Kay-for him.
He’d felt as touchy as a wounded bear on the drive up. That edginess had only gradually eased on the snowmobile ride; his mood had lifted as Kay’s natural exuberance had broken through her odd quietness of the past few days. Her smiles had made him smile; her daredevil antics on the snowmobile ride had alternately made him roar with laughter and want to turn her over his knee.
“I love it,” Kay announced as her head popped up through the trap door. “Help!”
She handed him foodstuffs, one by one. Coffee, tea, a bottle of wine. Flour. Canned stew, sugar… “We’re having stew for dinner. With homemade biscuits, and I’ll be darned if this doesn’t look like homemade jam. And here are the pickles-”
“Pickles?”
She pushed the trapdoor shut and locked it, then turned to retrieve the food from his arms. “Everyone loves dill pickles,” she informed him. “Furthermore, there’ll be a fruit salad. Not necessarily a fresh fruit salad, but what do you want to bet by the time we get this fixed you’ll be so raving hungry you couldn’t care less?”
The corner of Mitch’s mouth was twitching. “We brought steaks, you know.”
“We’ll have those tomorrow. When I’ve figured out how to cook on the wood stove without destroying everything. You-” Kay pointed a wagging figure in his direction. “Just stay out of my way and let me go.”
He wouldn’t. She should have known better, Kay thought wryly. He started baking potatoes and cooking the steaks before she’d begun the fruit salad; he took the dough for the biscuits out of her hands and set the table before she even found the plates. Arguing with him accomplished nothing beyond having her wineglass refilled and her fanny consolingly patted as he worked around her.
They used the coffee table as their dining room. Seated cross-legged across from each other, Mitch fed her a warm biscuit, dripping with butter and honey, just as if she were incapable of feeding herself. To her total embarrassment, once she’d swallowed the morsel, she yawned.
Mitch chuckled. “Late nights just don’t go with hours in the cold and a little wine, now do they?”
“I’ll wake up,” she promised.
“By the time you get your bath after dinner, you’ll be so sleepy you won’t even appreciate the feather bed.”
“My bath,” Kay echoed vaguely.
“Your bath,” Mitch affirmed.
Kay chewed rapidly on another mouthful of steak, regarding Mitch through feathery lashes. She’d evaded intimacy for days, not from preference but from common sense. You don’t judge the heat of the fire by getting burned up in it. A little distance for Mitch’s sake, and she hoped he’d see they had more than sex together anyway.
She took a sip of wine. “Actually, I don’t need a bath,” she mentioned.
“You’ll love it. Melted snow is so soft that it’s like silk on your skin, and if we drag the tub over by the stove you’ll think you’re in a sauna.”
“Hmm.” There was just a hint of a stubborn cast to Mitch’s chin; she’d never noticed it before. His dark hair had been finger brushed; there was a shadow of stubble on his chin. A red flannel shirt hugged those strong shoulders of his, and in the light of the stove and the kerosene lamps, his features took on dominantly male shadows. Don’t-argue-with-me shadows.
“Is taking a bath a prerequisite to being invited up here again?” she questioned wryly.
“All guests are given a claw-foot baptism the first time they come here,” he explained.
“A Cochran custom.”
“You’ve got it.”
“And have you got another backwoods story for me?” she asked with a chuckle.
As if on cue, she heard the faint piercing howl of a wolf in the distance and started. Mitch, standing up to gather plates, leaned over to plant a kiss on her forehead. “That’s the other reason you’re taking a bath. This is a strange place with scary sounds in the night, and a hot bath will guarantee that you sleep well in spite of yourself.”
“I expect I’ll sleep well regardless,” Kay insisted, which had the same effect as trying to make an arrow pierce through steel.
Snow melted at a very slow rate. Mounds of snow produced very little water. The dishes were long done before the tub was a third filled; she’d lost a trivia game before it was two-thirds filled; and by the time it was full and she was staring at it interestedly with all her clothes on, Mitch seemed to be refilling her glass again-this time with a spiced mulled wine that had the effect of a potent sleeping pill combined with an aphrodisiac.
“You don’t need this sweater,” Mitch remarked.
He was so right. She hadn’t needed the sweater in hours. The wind had picked up outside, but though it whistled around the windows, the inside of the cabin was marvelously warm. Mitch’s hands were marvelously warm as they unbuttoned the shirt beneath her sweater, and then that garment, too, was tossed aside… She stared in amazement; he’d actually managed to hook it on one of the elk’s horn points.
“He was staring at you,” Mitch explained gravely.
Kay giggled. “It wasn’t personal. It’s obvious that he stares at everyone.”
“Not at you. He has no right whatsoever to stare at you. Particularly…”
The bra went, then she felt his hands on the zipper of her pants. Somewhere in the muddled part of her brain, she was saying to hell with it. Mitch’s hands felt good. The look in his eyes warmed her blood, and the moment she slid into the hot water and leaned her head against the side of the porcelain tub, her eyes closed in sheer ecstasy.
She really hadn’t had so much wine; she was simply exhausted, physically and emotionally. The water lapped over her and soothed her weary muscles, and on the far side of the room, Mitch turned down both of the kerosene lamps. Soft shadows exploded in the silence; the crackle of the fire in the stove was mesmerizing, and she only flicked open an eye because for some odd reason the water level suddenly rose.
Mitch stepped in, and when he sank down, the water threatened to overflow. It did splash a little over the sides when he reached out both hands and pulled her to him.
“My hair’s going to get all wet,” she said. Not exactly the most brilliant conversational gambit she’d ever come up with.
“You’re absolutely right. Your hair is going to get all wet,” he agreed.
She caught the hint of a lazy smile before his lips nuzzled down to the hollow in her damp shoulder. She considered worrying about the space in the tub, but truthfully the old thing was huge. She considered worrying about drowning, but that didn’t seem of any particular immediate interest.
He wanted her. Now. Urgency dominated the intimate caresses he lavished on her body; his mouth claimed hers, tilting her head back so that she had the strangest sensation of floating in a dark, warm world of the senses. His skin was so slick, so warm, his chest muscles sleek and slippery against her breasts.
Desire pulled at her, with the lulling promise of a pied piper’s flute; she felt swept along, carried by the power of emotion that vibrated from Mitch. He laid her back, only to slowly propel her legs around his, tucking her around him. As he rained slow, insistent kisses on her face, murmuring to her, she felt the warm, silken thrust of his body inside her.