Signs of Life

by Sloane Reynard

  But clearly Corinne had not seen the humor in it. He wasn’t sure what about it had made such a peculiar, hurt expression take the place of her attraction, but… it had shamed him. Reminded him that there was more to her than just a potential fuck. He’d thought about that again and again while wading through the snow in search of Leo, and by the time he’d found the dog had been disgusted with himself, convinced she despised him, and rightly so. His fetching her suitcase from the car had been in blatant hope it would help her to forgive him.

  And then he’d seen the light beaming from the cabin’s porch, a beacon held by a woman that he deserved no part of. Looking around, he’d realized he’d been turning away from the cabin, not toward it, and likely would have walked right off the mountain’s steep edge if he’d kept going another ten minutes.

  Instead of despising him, Corinne had worried about him, enough to stand outside with a fucking lantern until she was half-frozen. When he’d finally dragged his tired feet onto the porch, had been able to look into her eyes and see the depth of her relief and longing, it had taken everything he had not to just haul her against him for another kiss, something deeper and longer-lasting than the playful buss he’d dropped on her earlier.

  And she just kept being so damned sweet. He knew, as well as he knew his own name, that she’d have been out there looking for him, and why? For what reason? He’d like to think it was because she liked him just that much, but… no. She was just that impossibly, unrealistically decent, and good, and honorable. She’d have felt it the right thing to do, so she’d have done it.

  There was no way in hell he was good enough for her.

  Fortunately for Wyatt, he’d never denied himself something just because he didn’t deserve it.

  He nuzzled into her hair, enjoying the scent of her: shampoo and woman, no less feminine than any other despite her face and build. Her skin, too, was just as soft as any woman’s, he learned as he ran curious fingertips down her bare arm, just as satiny, with freckles that dared him to try and kiss them all.

  He began touching his lips to her shoulder, her neck, with open-mouthed caresses, licking feather-light over her pulse and smiling against her throat when she murmured and leaned back against him.

  “Wyatt,” she sighed, still asleep, and the fact that she knew it was him, that his name was on her lips even when she was half-conscious, had him hard— harder— in the space of a few seconds.

  “Corinne,” he said softly, right into her skin, punctuated with another kiss, and slid his hand around to her breasts. He gave first one, then the other, a firm squeeze, was pleased when her nipples stiffened into hard points that jutted against his palm. He teased one, tugging and twisting, until her breathing roughened and she began moving against him, arching her chest into his hand and her ass into the curve of his body around hers.

  “Wyatt,” she said again, her voice less blurred with sleep this time. She rolled her head on the pillow, looking over her shoulder at him, and yet again he felt the force of her gaze like a blow. He switched to the other nipple, gave it a good pinch, and her mouth opened in a euphoric gasp.

  He took advantage, covering her parted lips with his own. He’d expected to have to coax her to respond, as he had last night, but the morning seemed to find her done with anything like nerves or apprehension. She kissed him back, meeting his passion and stealing his breath.

  They drew back for air, eyes wide, panting, and then dove at each other again, suddenly ravenous. Wyatt ran his hand down her side, over her hip and inward. But he was going too slow for Corinne; she grabbed his hand and pushed it between her legs, filling his palm with the plump heat of her cunt. The hair was surprisingly silky, and he stroked through it to her clit, circling it with a fingertip and making her jolt against him before he journeyed below it, between slick, fragile inner lips to the soft wet opening he still recalled gripping him so beautifully only a few hours earlier. He wanted to be there again. Now.

  He couldn’t stop kissing her long enough to ask, just withdrew his hand to slide it under her thigh, lifting it an inch.

  “Hmm?” he asked into the kiss.

  “Hmm!” she replied, and he drew her leg up and back, propping it on his own so he could get his cock into position. Her breath hitched when he sank into her, and then she shuddered so hard that their mouths detached.

  “Oh!” Corinne exclaimed, head flung back. “Oh, God!”

  Wyatt returned his hand to her cunt, cupping it, squeezing hard, and she shook in his arms. He slid a finger down to where they were joined, ran its tip around where she was stretched so tightly around him and she bucked, throwing her hips back to take him deeper. He rubbed the pad of his finger over her clit with every inward stroke and she cried out.

  He wormed his other arm under and around her, bringing his hand up to lightly cup her jaw, pinning her between his grasp above and his pistoning hips below. Corinne began to writhe and keen, shaking in his embrace. Her climax made her flex and clench around him, and that was all he needed to come as well, straining against her, shouting hoarsely, eyes clamped so tightly shut as ecstasy wracked him that fireworks bloomed behind his lids.

  Wyatt came back to himself slowly, relaxed and blissed out, to find Corinne trembling in his arms, panting “oh, God” over and over.

  “Corinne?” he mumbled.

  “Oh, God,” she gasped.

  He untangled their limbs and leaned back, tugging until she flopped onto her back. “Are you okay?”

  She gazed blankly up at him, looking absolutely thunderstruck. Her mouth worked, but no sound came out.

  Wyatt grinned. “You’re fine.”

  It could take a person that way, sometimes, could be so affecting that their mind was blown. He gathered Corinne against him and held her close. Her arms came around him and then he knew the answer to one of his early wonderings about her: how tightly could those arms hold him?

  Very tightly, he learned; at one point, he thought his ribs were creaking but… he didn’t mind. Kind of liked it, in fact. Sure, he’d have bruises the next day, but it was worth it.

  When she had calmed and lay still at last, he ran a hand down the long, long length of her spine and asked, “Are you a breakfast person? Or a coffee-and-cigarettes person?”

  She drew back to give him a hostile look. “I do not smoke.” She looked so offended he laughed.

  “Okay, okay, but my point stands: you want something to eat? Cereal, a bagel… we’d have to cook it over the fire, but there’s also toast, eggs and… I think I have some sausages?”

  She perked up. “Eggs and toast and sausages and cereal? That sounds good.”

  Wyatt blinked. He’d meant one or the other of what he’d mentioned, but… “Sure?”

  She practically bounced off the floor, but the moment she stood up, she remembered two things: she was naked, and her ankle was sprained. Down she went on the mattress, like a 20 pound sack of flour, yanking the duvet back over her shivering form while muttering, “ow… cold… ow… cold…”

  He laughed again and reached over her to grab where they’d flung their clothes the night before. It brought him looming over her, and when he looked down, she was looking up at him, her eyes limpid and clear. The garments fell from his suddenly-limp fingers and he froze, feeling pinned by her gaze. She looked young and impossibly sweet, and he was struck again by the dichotomy between her appearance and her nature.

  Slowly, Corinne stretched up and met his mouth with hers. Her long pale lashes closed and her hands framed his face, holding him carefully as she moved her lips against his. Wyatt did not shut his eyes, though, watching her intently even as he kissed her in return. Knowing he’d teased out that kind of passion and gentleness from such a woman made his chest ache with tenderness.

  It was not a kiss intended to lead to sex, and when it drew naturally to a close, Wyatt could not keep from smiling. It seemed to surprise her, somehow, but she rallied quickly and smiled back, a shy and close-lipped thing at first, then wideni
ng until she was beaming at him.

  Then her stomach growled, and she tilted back her head and laughed, and his heart gave a lurch in his chest.

  A feeling of panic flared to life within him but he clamped down on it. She’d bared herself before him, just now, far more than merely the nudity of her body, and if he jerked away, it would hurt her. But he had to have some time to himself.

  It’s times like these when a Lindstrom shines, he thought, glad for once of his ability to put on a good front no matter the turmoil bubbling below the surface. He used his lightest, most casual tone to say, “I need to wash. Everything is in the fridge, if you want to get started on breakfast.” With a last quick peck on the mouth, he levered himself away and began to pull on the things he’d discarded the night before.

  The cabin’s interior was frigid, and more so the further from the fire he went. In the bathroom, the toilet seat lid was icy even through his sweatpants when he sat on it and buried his face in his hands, elbows on knees.

  It was one thing to like her, to have sex with her, but there was no way in hell Wyatt was going to let himself fall in love with her. He hadn’t gone half-crazy extricating himself from his previous life, and building a new one, only to go right back to where he’d been before. The idea of returning to live in a city, which his father and Kaylee would take as a tacit announcement that he was theirs to use and manipulate once more, made a frisson of panic ripple through him.

  No.

  They’d get the generator running, then he’d clear out the satellite dish and tell Tyler to figure out a way to get Corinne from the cabin to the bottom of the mountain, or over to the next mountain, or anywhere else on the planet besides Wyatt’s cabin.

  He stood and ran the tap, lathering up a washcloth with soap and frigid water, wincing when it touched his skin. He hurried through it and redressed— his fourth outfit of yesterday had hardly been worn so was practically pristine— then went out to the main room to find Corinne had stoked the fire into a blaze that was already making inroads on the low temperature. Leo was nowhere to be found, so he assumed she’d let him out.

  Dressed again in the thing she’d borrowed from him the day before, she looked up from the cereal she’d been devouring to smile sheepishly. “I wasn’t sure how you wanted to cook everything, but didn’t think you’d mind if I got started…” She gestured with the spoon toward the bowl. “I’m really hungry in the morning.”

  He couldn’t hide his smile. “No, go ahead. I have a spider around here somewhere.” He went to the kitchen and began digging in one of the corner cupboards.

  “A… spider?”

  “Came with the cabin,” he said, halfway crawled into the cupboard before his hand grasped what it sought. Dragging it out with a series of clangs as it banged against other items, he finally extracted himself from the cupboard and held up his prize. “I use it when the generator’s out, which is hardly ever, but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”

  They both looked down at it. Cobwebs clung to the legs, there were several rust spots, and it looked like a mouse might have nested in it, at one point.

  “It’ll need a scrubbing,” Wyatt conceded, “but it’ll get the job done.”

  “A good scrubbing,” Corinne murmured absently, swiping errant cobwebs from his hair.

  Wyatt’s hand clenched tighter around the spider’s handle to keep from reaching for her, because he had a powerful urge to drop the three-legged skillet and kiss her and strip off her sweatpants and lift her to the counter and wrap her legs around his head and lick her to a screaming orgasm. She’d still taste of him— as she should, as he wanted her to— and her hands would be in his hair, tugging as she writhed against his mouth and—

  “Wyatt?”

  He blinked and realized she was watching him curiously. “Sorry. You just made me think of something.” He angled the spider so it blocked her viewpoint of his groin. Bad enough he felt like a sex maniac, with her around; he didn’t want her to think he was one, as well. “What were you saying?”

  “That I’ll go wash up, if you get breakfast started, and then if you show me where the chainsaw and tools and parts are, I can get going on the generator.”

  “Oh. By yourself?” At her surprise, he continued, “I thought I could at least hand you things, like a nurse for a doctor during surgery.”

  Now she looked more surprised, not less. “You’d do that?”

  “…yes?” What kind of assholes was she used to dealing with, that would just abandon her to a big job like that? Especially with an injury?

  She smiled at him again, that same big crooked smile that had made his heart twist. It twisted again, and Wyatt knew that even if Tyler had a helicopter arrive at that very moment, if she walked off his mountain and he never saw her again that— it would be too late.

  Oh, hell.

  Chapter 8

  Corinne disappeared to clean up a bit. Wyatt occupied himself with using steel wool to scour the spider clean. A squawk came from the bathroom and he couldn’t hold back his laughter.

  “D-don’t laugh!” she shouted from a crack in the door. “The water is s-so cold!”

  “It’s bracing!” he shouted back. “Don’t you want to be a pioneer woman?”

  Her lack of answer seemed to indicate that, no, she was happier with all the modern conveniences.

  Once the pan was spotless, he dried it and put it in position over the fire, then added the sausages. While they sizzled, he stepped into his now-thankfully-dry boots and ventured outside to the branch that had tried its best to flatten his generator.

  It was still overcast, the clouds above seeming so low Wyatt almost felt like he could reach up and touch them, a solid expanse of and unbroken gray. But the snow had slowed to light flurries, and there seemed an end in sight for the storm.

  He snapped off two sturdy twigs just as Leo bounded up, caked in snow and grinning wildly. Wyatt knocked as much snow off the dog as possible, but he still tracked in a wet trail. Wyatt chased him with a towel, drying off both dog and floor so Corinne didn’t slip when she finally emerged from the bathroom, then dashed to rescue the sausages, which had started to smoke a bit in the spider.

  Slices of bread went on the twigs; he propped them near the flames and concentrated on both cracking eggs into the skillet and keeping Leo— who didn’t mind his food well-done— from the sausages.

  When Corinne joined him, she was flushed, her hair damp and her face fresh-looking. She plopped down next to him, in front of the hearth, and took one of the twigs.

  “I feel like I’m back in camp,” she said with a wry smile.

  What should have felt like a hassle ended up being being far more fun than Wyatt had expected. Everything ended up a bit more charred than ideal, but Corinne kindly insisted that she liked her toast a little burnt and Leo happily accepted anything they judged inedible.

  Wyatt provided her with several elastic bandages and helped her to securely strap her ankle, though she said it felt much better after a night’s rest. When it was supported enough for her to walk outside without too much discomfort, they bundled up and headed for the generator.

  The chainsaw roared to life, and Wyatt stood back to watch Corinne dismantle the immense branch with supreme confidence and skill. After it lay in a heap of fireplace-sized logs and kindling-ready sticks, she switched it off and turned to him, not even slightly winded.

  Her face was pink from the cold, her eyes sparkled, and she looked— happy. Happy to be doing something, happy to be of help.

  “Got the tools? And the parts?” she asked as she handed the chainsaw to him.

  He’d arranged everything in a row on a nearby stump he’d cleared of snow. She pried the dented cover off the generator and peered inside, humming to herself as she evaluated the damage.

  “This isn’t bad at all!” she announced at last. “Just some things knocked out of position, maybe a little hammering back into shape needed…”

  Her voice faded away as she became immers
ed in her work, buried to the elbows in the generator’s guts. Every few minutes she’d hold out a grimy-gloved hand for a wrench or screwdriver, and at one point she took a mallet and just started whacking with abandon at something, creating a terrific noise that sent Leo scurrying away so quickly he sent up little clouds of snow with each footstep.

  Wyatt watched, and helped as directed, and by the time she was done, cold-reddened face beaming in satisfaction and smudged in grease, his body was alive with desire. He wanted to throw her down on the trampled snow and make love to her right there, among the wood chips and discarded pliers.

  He opened the door and gestured for her to precede him inside.

  “Don’t you want to switch it on, see if it works right?” she asked, confused.

  “No,” he said pleasantly, “I want to fuck you until you scream.”

  She froze, completely shocked. Wyatt’s patience waned rapidly.

  “Unless you want to do it here. Chilly, I’ll grant you, but there’s not a neighbor for miles.” He glanced around. “Okay, up against the wall with you.”

  She permitted him to press her against the house and bury his face against her throat. She quaked in his arms as he busied himself unzipping her coat, then yelped when he ran cold hands under her sweater and over the smooth, sculpted planes of her midriff and sides.

  “Inside, then,” she said breathlessly as he kissed up to her chin.

  Wyatt grinned, snatching her hand and pulling her behind him. They left a wake of clothing as they stripped on their way to the mattress, still on the floor before the hearth. They fumbled in their eagerness as they strove to get into position, to get him inside her—

  Ah, it was good. Fast, clumsy, but no less satisfying for all that, and Corinne did indeed scream. More than once.