by Sophie Oak
Peace. Calm. He let her warmth and sweet scent surround him. Now was the time when he would normally get up, go shower, and walk away after a polite “thank you.”
Nell’s cheek nestled against his, their faces rubbing together in a perfect intimacy. “Henry, that was so beautiful.”
She was beautiful. He shifted, hating the moment when his cock slipped out of her body. He rolled to the side, not quite knowing what to say to her.
It struck him quite forcefully that he’d never actually slept with a woman before. Oh, he’d fucked plenty of women. He’d spent the night with a couple. Mostly for work. There were several women out there who he’d screwed for the simple reason that he needed information from them and he’d either gotten it through pillow talk or he’d waited until the chick was asleep and downloaded her laptop or her phone. But he’d never slept beside them.
Not once in his life.
He was a sleeping virgin.
“Should I go?” Nell asked. Her eyes were wide, and Bishop wondered just how long he’d been sitting there thinking about the past.
It would be the easiest thing in the world to help her out of bed, get them both cleaned up, and politely walk her back to her room.
“No. Give me a minute.” He rolled out of bed. No matter what he did, he had to get rid of the condom. He stalked to the bathroom.
“You have a very nice backside, Henry.”
He felt himself blush. Fucking blush. Like a goddamn schoolboy. “Thanks.”
He slipped inside the bathroom and closed the door. What the fuck was he doing? Why was his heart racing? Why did he feel so weird?
Heart attack. He was obviously having a heart attack, and he was going to die right here on Naked Mountain. Would Bill even bother to dress him for the funeral or would he just toss his naked butt in a nice comfy hole in the ground? Did nudists have burial rituals?
He was acting insane. He rolled the condom off and tossed it away. He cleaned himself up and got ready to walk out there and explain to Nell that he’d had a great time, but she should go back to her room. They needed to keep things casual.
Yes, that was what he would do.
He opened the door, ready to very gently herd her out. And his heart did that stupid-ass flutter thing again because Nell’s eyes were closed, and she had an arm wrapped around his pillow while she slept. Strands of chocolate brown hair covered her shoulders and a nipple peeked out.
He turned off the light and slipped into bed, moving her arm so she was cuddling him instead of the pillow. It was nice. Warm. Comfortable. It was better this way. It was her first time. She required some tenderness. He eased down, feeling his every muscle sinking into the bed.
She was only his for a few nights, a week, maybe. Perhaps two. He could stick around for a couple of weeks, but that was all. Maybe even a month. Yes, he could work it so he could have a month.
He could stay here with Nell. Maybe eventually he would get used to sleeping with her.
He yawned. Something about the heat of her body and the soft skin against his own was having a drugging effect, and he was slipping into sleep.
But he was going to have to see a doctor, because there was definitely something wrong with his heart.
* * * *
Nell came awake slowly, turning over underneath the blankets. She felt the sun on her face and blinked in the morning light.
Not her room. She was in Henry’s room. And she was naked. So very, very naked. She reached out carefully, letting her arm creep behind her. Nothing. She was alone in bed.
Had Henry left? She sat up, holding the covers to her breasts.
“Good morning. There’s a pot of hot water over here. I have Earl Grey, oolong, and green tea.”
Henry was sitting at the desk, and sure enough, there was a tray beside him with a white ceramic pot and two mugs. It looked like he’d found some muffins.
He turned in his chair. He seemed to be working on a computer. His lips curved up in a small smile. He was devastating when he smiled. “The muffins are vegan. Blueberry and raspberry. I thought you might like them.”
She nodded slowly, not quite sure how to handle the fact that he was wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants and she was totally naked. Where were her clothes? Should she take a shower? She definitely needed to brush her teeth.
“Nell?” Henry stared at her expectantly. “What tea would you like?”
Tea. He was offering her tea. She loved tea. “Green.”
He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. He looked very different with his clothes on. He looked almost normal. When he’d been naked, with his glasses off, he’d been superhero hot, but he was back to sweetly attractive. Except his chocolate brown eyes went frosty. He was even hotter when he got his caveman on. She knew it was wrong, but she went all soft and gooey on the inside when Henry went dominant. “What is wrong with this picture, Nell?”
She had no idea. She pulled the blankets up, feeling every minute of her awkwardness. Maybe she should just brazen her way through this. She spied her clothes across the room. Or she could just run to the bathroom and start the shower.
“Nell, I asked you a question.”
And she hadn’t known the answer. She didn’t like not knowing the answer. She always had the answer. She’d been the champion of debate team. “Everything seems fine to me, Henry.”
“Why is that blanket around your neck? I have the heat up in the room. It’s nice and toasty. Come over here and get your tea.”
“Can you pass me my clothes?”
“No. That’s not the way this works. We’re alone so you’re naked.”
She stared at him, feeling a frown cross her face. “You aren’t naked. That doesn’t seem fair, Henry.”
“This isn’t about fair,” he replied, not giving her an inch. “This is the way it is, Nell. I want to watch you walk around naked. When we’re alone, I want to know you’re available to me.”
“Again with the not fair.”
“It isn’t about fair, Nell. And it is fair when you think about it. When we’re not alone, I’ll do pretty much whatever you want me to as long as it doesn’t put you in danger. Why do you think I brought the vegan muffins? I ignored the bacon. I love bacon, Nell, but I think you would prefer I eschew it around you. I prefer you leave off your clothes. It’s a trade.”
When she really thought about it, it was a very good trade. Henry wasn’t a tiny man, and he seemed to have a very good metabolism. He’d eaten two burgers and a whole bunch of fries the night before so she was sure he could have eaten a lot of bacon. She was really saving a pig when she thought about it. Sure, she was potentially scaring him off. He’d seen her the night before, but that had been during sex. Men probably saw a woman differently when they were in the sex mode. This was the tea mode, and he might notice her cellulite.
She had to balance her need to stay sexy around Henry with her deep need to save a pig. Pigs were intelligent creatures, but they were also known to eat just about anything. Pigs weren’t the nicest creatures in the world, but that didn’t mean that they should be horrifically murdered and then cut apart for various meats. But her boobs did sag.
“I would give a lot to know what you’re thinking right now.” Henry’s smile had moved from a little uptick of his lips to a brilliant, sunny thing.
“I was thinking I might be able to save a pig by showing off my boobs.” It was a good cause.
“Yep. You should really get up and come over here and sit in my lap, otherwise I might just go and devour the first pig I see.” He patted his lap. “I’m utterly willing to give up meat to obtain your submission.”
There was a word she’d never liked before. Submission. “I don’t know that I like the thought of submitting.”
“Only because you’re thinking about it the wrong way. You think submitting makes you weak, but I know it takes a strong woman to submit to a real man. It’s an exchange and like all exchanges, you get something out of it. You promise me that when we’re i
ntimate, you’ll obey me. I promise you that just about every other time, I’ll follow your lead.”
That was practically insane on his part. She couldn’t see him in her world. Except she would love having him there. “Henry, I’m into some crazy stuff.”
“Yeah, I know.” He gestured toward the computer he’d been looking at. “Did you really need to protest that kid’s birthday party?”
He had her computer? “That’s private.”
“Nothing is private anymore, Nell. Drop the sheet. I have some questions for you.” He picked up a very delicious-looking muffin. “Come on, baby. You know you’re hungry. I didn’t turn up the heater before we fell asleep so this place was arctic this morning. I woke up to my penis trying to crawl back into my body, but I braved getting out of bed just to feed you.”
She glanced out the window. The world was covered in white. The storm Stella had predicted had come in, and she bet the room had been mighty chilly before Henry turned the heat up. And she noticed that she had been carefully tucked into the blankets. Henry had put another blanket around her body while she’d been sleeping, making sure she was warm and comfy. He might be a rat fink computer thief, but he’d been incredibly tender the night before, and, it seemed, this morning as well. And he had it all toasty and warm in the room which she would usually protest, but this morning she was feeling a little selfish. She had Henry all to herself for this brief time. The earth would forgive her.
She let the sheet drop and held her hand out for the muffin. There was something deeply intimate and loving about eating breakfast in bed naked with her lover. Henry Flanders was her lover. She took a deep breath because tears were threatening. The last thing she wanted was to mar this time by crying. “I will take a raspberry muffin, thank you. And I wasn’t actually protesting that boy’s birthday. I was protesting the way the zoo treated its bears. When the conservancy that the bears came from gave them to the zoo, they also gave the zoo a large donation that should have gone toward a new, larger environment for the bears, but the zoo used the money to put in a carousel. I was protesting the carousel, which also happened to be the site of one Austin Jacobson’s fourth birthday party. I also might have mentioned to his mother that the balloons she had bought would kill a ton of birds. Conversely, I performed the Heimlich maneuver and saved Austin’s dad when he nearly choked on a hot dog. That wouldn’t have happened with a vegan substitute.”
Henry’s lips turned up again as he passed her the muffin and started to pour her tea. His eyes briefly found her breasts, and he sighed as though enchanted by the sight. “All right then. He probably isn’t the one who broke into your cabin.”
She took the tea mug. “You’re looking through my e-mail to try to find the crazy gentleman?” Wow, that was sexist. “It could be a female. Females can be just as crazy as males.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, baby.” He turned back to the computer. “And yes, I’ve been combing through your e-mails to see if anyone had sent you threatening letters. I was surprised at the volume.”
She’d kind of gotten used to it. People tended to not like it when she protested their businesses or housing developments or zoos. She’d become accustomed to nasty e-mails and letters and the occasional phone call. “I get it a lot. I just ignore most of it. Except for the box that looked like a bomb. I had to call the sheriff for that one. But the Farley brothers promised me that it was so poorly constructed, it would never have actually gone off. They’re so smart. They’re just kids, but they were so much more informed about bomb making techniques than their elders.”
“Someone sent you a bomb?” Henry was looking at her, and the temperature in the room seemed to have dropped again.
Maybe she should have kept that part to herself. She choked a little on the muffin. “Uhm, it wasn’t a very good bomb. I also have gotten the occasional box filled with poop. Those didn’t explode, either, thank god.”
His face was flushed, his jaw a hard line. He seemed to take control of himself, his voice so much softer than his expression, as though he was working hard to try not to scare her. “Nell, sweetheart, I’m going to need the names of the people who sent you those packages.”
“Oh, they don’t tend to leave a return address.” Henry seemed a bit naïve. Nell munched on the rest of her muffin. He probably didn’t get a lot of threatening letters as an academic.
“But the sheriff tracked them down, right?”
“Law enforcement is pretty laid back here. It’s kind of a no-harm-done thing.”
Henry said something about harm under his breath, but Nell didn’t catch all of it. His eyes closed briefly. “All right, then. We’ll start fresh. Do you know where the skinny kid lives?”
“Logan or Seth?” They didn’t really like to be called kids, but she was sure that was who Henry was talking about.
“Seth.”
“He’s spending winter break with his grandfather. He lives on the outer edge of the valley. Logan’s place is two doors down. You can’t miss Logan’s place. Teeny and Marie like gnomes. They’re kind of everywhere. Seth and Logan will be either there or at Seth’s place. They’re pretty much always together though.”
“Good.” Henry stood up. “I think Bill told me he has a couple of snowmobiles. I would like to have a talk with the young man. I think he might know a thing or two about tracking someone down with a computer.”
She passed back the napkin. “Thanks for the breakfast, Henry. It was delicious.”
“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t had any yet.” The temperature in the room shot right back up. Henry was staring at her like she was the best-looking muffin in the world. “How sore are you, baby?”
Just like that her heart tripled. One look from Henry and her whole body went soft and willing. “I’m good.”
He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it aside. “Good, because I’m very hungry, Nell. Spread your legs and let me have some breakfast. I need some honey.”
Nell lay back and started the morning out right.
Chapter Six
Bishop hopped off the snowmobile and stared at the small cabin in front of him. It was covered in snow, but someone had painstakingly shoveled the walkway from the front porch to the driveway. Three cars were parked along the circular drive, a tiny VW bug, a big-ass SUV, and a truck that had seen better days.
And everywhere he looked, he saw the evidence of the aforementioned gnomes. Their pointy red hats stuck up out of the snow. Bishop would bet that during the summertime, this yard was filled with flowers and ceramic gnomes would rule the valley.
His mother had kept a small garden in the back of their house. The tiny home he’d spent his first years in had been in a trashy part of his hometown, but she’d been proud of it. She kept it clean and she’d made a little playground in the back for him. It hadn’t been much, just a ratty old swing set she’d bought secondhand and had to clean rust off of, and a sandbox she’d dug herself. He would sit there and watch her as she worked in the garden. His mother’s hands had been so callused from work, but she’d been the tenderest woman in the world.
Nell’s hands were callused. Nell worked.
Bishop took a long breath and banished the unwanted memories. He wasn’t sure why they had surfaced. He’d grown up in the heat of Houston. He’d never seen snow until he joined the military. But something about the cabin in front of him took him right back to that time when he’d been safe and warm and loved.
“Hello! Can I help you?” A small woman peeked out of her door. She was thin and warmly dressed, her graying hair in a neat bun. She had a slightly hooked nose, giving her an almost birdlike appearance, but the woman in front of him wouldn’t be a hawk or an eagle. She was a little dove. “Come on inside. It’s freezing out here. I have some cider warming.”
He nodded her way, pocketing the keys to the snowmobile Bill had given him not twenty minutes before along with his promise to watch after Nell. He made short work of the distance, eager to be inside. The world was to
o cold, too white. Even dressed and away from the resort, he still felt a bit naked, as though all that pristine snow couldn’t cover up the fact that he didn’t belong here. A man needed camouflage to survive, and there was none to be had in this town. This woman proved it. She just noticed a strange man in her front yard and invited him in for cider.
He thought about giving the older woman a stern talking-to. He could be a serial killer. He could be an Amway salesman. He could be just about anyone. But it wasn’t his place. If Logan’s mom wanted to get herself horrifically murdered, then that was her business.
But damn that cider smelled good.
Bishop pushed through the door of the cabin. There was a small wreath hanging on the door. Underneath was a painted sign declaring this home to be the Green-Warner Homestead. Bishop wasn’t sure if the woman currently heating up cider was a Green or a Warner, but she turned in the kitchen and motioned him in the door.
“Come in. Come in, and sit a spell. That was a nasty storm last night, wasn’t it?”
The cabin was warm inside, a fire raging in the fireplace illuminating the space. Bishop shrugged out of his coat, settling it on a peg beside the door. “It seems that way to me. I’m not from around here. This could be perfectly normal and I wouldn’t know.”
The older woman placed a mug on the bar and gestured Bishop to join her in the kitchen. “We get one or two big storms a year. My wife and I like to refer to this as snuggle weather. So you’re Bill’s friend. Where you from? Mr. Flanders, isn’t it?”
Perhaps the lady wasn’t looking to be murdered. He’d forgotten that small towns thrived on gossip. It was on the tip of his tongue to say Houston. It sat right there in Bishop’s brain that he could talk about his house in Houston and how the cabin reminded him of his childhood. But that was Bishop’s childhood. Not Henry Flanders’s. “I’m originally from Ohio.” It was a suitable Midwestern state. His accent was flat and could be mistaken for any number of Midwestern states. “Now I work at a small university in Washington State.”
