And that was when she saw it. There, fluttering down through the tangled limbs of the forest ceiling, snowflakes fell. Large, white particles of snow blew through the swaying limbs, spewed from the bowels of the dark clouds overhead.
“Snow? In the tropics?” She couldn’t help but croak it out loud. The sight of it, along with the white-puffed condensation of her own breath, stunned her into a catatonic state.
“I’ll be goddamned.”
She jerked her gaze down to find Vince standing right behind her. He stared up at the falling flakes, his hands planted on narrow hips. She watched, mesmerized, as the snow rained onto his handsome, upturned face. That naked chest rose and fell, his breath puffed out in plumes of white and she thought of a dragon, prepared to breathe his wrathful fire. A thrill went through her, warming her skin so that the sudden, below-freezing temperatures that surrounded her, heated to boiling. She dragged her perusal from those hardened nipples of his, remembering with crystal-clear clarity the tightness of them on her tongue, the salty taste of them. She rolled her fingertips together, almost feeling one of his taut areolas between her fingertips. The swift memory of them abrading over her own nipples drew a whimper from her pursed lips, and she tightened her thighs together as a gush of stickiness filled her crotch.
“It’s fucking snowing,” he groaned. “What the hell is going on here?”
* * * * *
She knew their protégés couldn’t see or hear her, so Jennie Sebastian Slayton shrieked with delight and spun in a circle. Suspended above the island where the couple stood in the forest below, Luke at her side, she fell into his arms and giggled.
“I just love snow, don’t you?”
Luke never failed to give her libido a charge. His aqua eyes bathed her with lust and eternal love, even as he shivered with the biting cold. “Uh, no. It’s why I moved from Denver to Florida to start my business all those years ago.”
She pinched his cheek. He flinched, but she growled with satisfaction when his hot hand slid down to cup the cheek of her ass. “Come on, master. Get in the spirit.”
“I’ll get in the spirit, all right,” he warned, sliding his other hand into the deep vee of her toga dress.
Jennie moaned and her head fell back when he shoved aside the sheer fabric and claimed an already hard nipple. He sucked it into his mouth and played havoc on the very tip with his scalding-hot tongue. She could smell the swift scent of their mixed arousals. Carnal heat engulfed every cell of her immortal body. Luke could never fail with her, she thought on a pant. And the dampness that flooded her pussy only reaffirmed that.
But she had a job to do.
With a discipline she was still learning to control, she yanked his head from her breast with a resounding pop.
“What?” His dilated pupils nearly wiped out the entire circle of the blue of the irises. And at that moment, with his lips all moist, his eyes glazed with passion and his hardened phallus pressing into her abdomen, she thanked the gods that she’d been banished to that bottle all those centuries ago. It had been a long, lonely journey, but it had led her here, to reign over Earth’s Carnal Island, to have purpose and meaning in her eternal life. And it had led her to this man whom she loved so very much, that it almost frightened her at times.
He’d been ordained immortal after her sister, the Queen of Xanthus, had removed his mortal heart and replaced it with immortality. Their love for one another had sustained them, brought them together forever and placed them back here on Luke’s Carnal Island to complete an ongoing mission. As the God and Goddess of Carnality, she and Luke would handpick and choose Earthlings, and summon them to the resort. They would guide and teach them about the importance of nurturing carnal needs, something essential in the makings of their final goal. Everlasting love.
“What?” he asked again, crouching slightly to grind his thick rod against the sticky lips of her nymphae.
“Remember our job here?”
He blinked and slid a reluctant glance down at the couple arguing below them. “Oh yeah. Carnality, love and all that.”
“All that?” She stepped away from him, immediately feeling the biting cold rush between their bodies. “Luke Slayton, are you already tiring of your honorable position of God of Carnality of the Xanthian realm?”
His eyebrows slanted down in a large U. “Of course not. It’s just that…” He shifted his stance and reached for her hand, sucking her index finger between his lips. She nearly buckled right then and there at his feet, but complete devotion to her cause had her merely biting her lip when he nipped at her fingertip.
“Well, you see…” he went on, dragging the pad of his tongue across her palm so that her breath clogged and tumbled straight into her cunt. “I can’t think when you’re around. I want you. I need you.” He kissed her wrist, then her inner forearm, and stars twinkled behind her eyelids as they fluttered shut. “I love you and I want to fuck you again.”
She whimpered. “But we just made love an hour ago, master, right before we went to seek them out.”
He yanked her into his arms. Heat engulfed her once again, and she sighed at the contentment that soaked her soul.
“And we’re going to do it again”¾he kissed her, drawing her bottom lip in between his teeth¾“and again” ¾he reached down and cupped her ass ¾ “and again.” One hand stabbed into the hair at her nape and he slammed her mouth tight against his. His lips covered her protesting, tight mouth. She struggled to ignore the wine-flavored taste of his kiss, the expert sweep of his tongue, the musky scent of him. And the tempting grind of his tool against her wet sex lips.
Power, she silently coaxed herself. She must use power and restraint to keep herself, and even Luke, on the right path they’d been gifted with. “Luke…” she panted against his mouth.
“What, love.” It came out ragged, desperate, and it made it all the harder for her to toss up her hand and throw up a protective wall of magic between them.
He pressed his hands against the invisible wall. “What d’ya do that for?”
She righted her clothing and smoothed her hair. “Look, just take a look.” With a trembling hand that itched to touch Luke once again, she pointed down at the couple. They shivered in the snowstorm as they flung their arms up at one another while in the midst of a heated conversation. Their voices carried boisterously on the wind, while the green of the tropical ground quickly turned to white around them.
“They need us,” Jennie said with a sad tone. “It’s what we’re here for. It’s why I conjured up the snow in the first place. Please, Luke. We must help them before we…help ourselves.”
He sighed and flashed her a smile that devastated her almost as much as his kiss had. “You’re right. My old college buddy always did need help when it came to women.” With a clearing of the throat and a quick adjustment of his crotch, he asked, “But how does the snow figure in, babe?”
Joy filled her heart at his approval. Almost automatically, she flicked her hand and dissolved of the wall. Throwing her arms around his neck, she purred, “Because, my lover, she’s obviously avoiding him, and he’s struggling with his attraction to her. What a better way to bring about our goal than to force them to survive together, to make them seek out one another’s body heat and assistance in order to stay alive. Get it?”
His eyes shone a potent mixture of pride, passion and love. He gathered her closer. “You know what, Goddess?”
“What, God?”
“I’m a lucky man to be strapped to the likes of one meddling, brilliant, hot genie for eternity.”
She squealed with satisfaction and smacked a kiss on his stunned mouth. “And I’m a lucky woman to have the likes of one horny, handsome, good-hearted genie for eternity.”
He smacked her ass. “Hot damn! Let’s get started and teach those two the importance of lust.”
“And love,” she added with a note of sternness.
“And love,” he returned softly, cradling her in his arms with a tenderness that had
nothing to do with fornication and everything to do with just that.
Love.
Chapter Three
If it wasn’t for the twisted sort of erotic picture she presented, Vince would have choked her. This woman, whoever the hell she was, was the most stubborn, bull-headed chick he’d ever encountered. She’d rejected every suggestion he’d made, and obviously had no intention of staying with him for her own safety—if her awkward retreating trudge through two-foot-deep-and-rising snow was any indication.
“Jane, goddamn it!” He had to shout above the moaning, whistling winds. “Will you just get back here and listen to me?”
He watched as she spun so quickly, he feared she’d spiral right down into the sand beneath the snow. Her eyes blazed through the torrent of white, blustery weather, twin green flames amplified by the lenses of her ugly glasses. And he thought he’d never seen a more interesting woman in all of his life.
“Listen to you?” she shrieked. Flinging her arms up to emphasize each word, she roared, “Do you really think—what was it, Vince?” At his nod, she went on. “That an educated woman such as myself, would really listen to a pompous ass such as yourself, and think that my survival solely hinged on my dependence on you?”
“Well…sure.” He added a hesitant shrug.
“Oh!” Said and released, he thought, with her pretty white teeth clamped as tight as a vise. He watched, fascinated, as her body shivered violently, the previously wet gown now a cone of ice around her body.
“You’re still—” she started to say. “Oh, never mind.” And with that, she balled her hands and started to turn. Lifting one leg, she grunted and pulled.
But apparently, her feet had become frozen in place.
Her dilemma instantly overjoyed him. Despite the frigid, rapidly dropping temperatures and involuntary trembles of his near-naked body, Vince couldn’t help but chuckle. He folded his arms and rocked back onto his bare, frozen heels.
“Just what,” she hissed, her heated gaze rising to snare him, “are you laughing at?”
He cleared his throat feigning innocence. “Uh, the snow?” He looked up into the ice-covered limbs of the trees and palm fronds. “The cockatoos frozen in the trees?” He looked everywhere but at her. “The…the bungalow? That hadn’t been there a minute ago?”
“What?” She swiveled her head, her eyes narrowed like a mistrusting hyena on one of those nature-themed cable channels. Her searching gaze fell upon the tiny little gingerbread cottage tucked back into a group of flowering—but frozen—jacaranda trees. “Where did that come from?”
“Precisely my question.” He couldn’t take his eyes off the snowbound structure. It seemed to twinkle and call to him, the thick swirl of smoke that puffed from the chimney a promise of thawed feet and possible food and water. Paned windows edged with frilly curtains beckoned him to the cozy space within. Without another word, he traipsed through the drifts until he stood at the small stoop, his fist positioned to knock. Slowly, the wood-slatted door swung open with a squeak, yet he hadn’t knocked or even touched the latch. Waves of heat drifted out to him, taunting and teasing, enveloping him with relief and comfort. The scent of beef stew filled his nostrils and his stomach growled in gleeful, anticipatory response. Through the open door to the far wall, he could glimpse a cozy stone fireplace crackling with the makings of a blessed fire. Above the licking flames, a black cauldron hung across an iron bar. A small table sat on one side, a quilt-laden bed on the other.
“Hello? Anyone home?” But for the crackle of the fire, silence met his ears. Though it appeared to be a well-used abode, not a soul emerged to greet him. Maybe they’d gone out hunting and wouldn’t mind temporary guests? Or maybe this was Jennie’s doing, a more probable scenario given the fact the home appeared equipped for cold weather rather than the tropics. What she was up to, he hadn’t a clue, but the fact of the matter was, they needed shelter—and now, he determined, thinking of Jane’s frozen, shivering body in the woods behind him.
“Well?” she shouted, her voice echoing across the thicket. “Are you just going to stand there staring inside?”
So transfixed with his thoughts, he almost didn’t hear her. Turning, he saw her across the tiny clearing, her feet still frozen where she stood. He chuckled to himself. Any other man might march right in and slam the door in her face, ending the snarling comments and scathing anger that, for some unknown reason, boiled within her.
But not Vince Santiago. He might be a learned playboy of late, but he never lost respect for women. Determined, he took the few steps in stride and entered the bungalow. Pleasant heat and the scent of the stew mixed with sugar and cedar filled his lungs. Immediately, his bare feet soaked in the warmth of the floor, melting the blood within and bringing the toes back to life.
“You son of a bitch. Go ahead. Leave me here to freeze to death. I’ll haunt you, Vince Santiago. I swear, I’ll haunt you after I die!”
Vaguely, he heard her rough, raspy voice, the cursed promise carrying out across the forest. But he had to locate some water before he addressed that comment. Swinging his gaze from left to right, he wasn’t surprised to find the large bottle of water sitting upon the table. He strode quickly to it. Lifting it, he twisted off the top and doused his wrist, as a mother might her baby’s bottle.
Ah. Warm, just as he suspected it would be. He reapplied the lid and went directly out the door, down the few stairs and through the deep snow. His feet almost sizzled in protest to the reintroduction of cold, but he ignored it, knowing he must first free her then seek relief for them both.
“What are you doing?”
Her wary tone touched an odd chord in his heart. He looked up at her, and once again, the nagging familiarity assaulted him. Had he seen her somewhere before? No, it couldn’t be. He remembered all women, and especially those who made an impression on him such as this one did.
“I’m going to get your damn feet out of the ice and snow so you won’t be able to haunt me. That is, unless you object like you do with everything else.” Vince twisted off the bottle’s cap.
“You’re…you’re—really?” The relief and faint tone of appreciation in her voice touched him somehow, giving him the hint of hope at getting through the day with this surly woman.
“Yes, really.” First, he poured a drop or two here and there to avoid shocking her skin. Next, he methodically doused both feet.
“Ah!” She threw her head back and sighed. Vince glanced up at her and watched, spellbound, as she closed her eyes in ecstasy. He briefly indulged himself in the vision that they were in bed and he’d just plunged himself between her thighs. But he didn’t fantasize for long. Shaking the loony thought from his befuddled mind, he swept her firm, curvy body one last time with a furtive glance. The guttural, sexy moan, coupled with the hardened nipples through the frozen fabric, had brought his manhood back to life, defrosting its temporary freeze. Which wouldn’t do if he had to spend another moment of agony in the company of the Ice Princess.
As if to emphasize his thought, the winds picked up in force, dumping thicker, more dense snow on them. How in the hell it could snow in the tropics was beyond him, but he suspected it had something to do with this strange dream and the miraculous appearance of the much-needed shelter. And Jennie, of course.
“Come here.” He tossed the bottle into a snowdrift and reached for her.
She stiffened, words of protest poised on her lips.
“Don’t argue with me, damn it. Do you want to get frostbite?” But he didn’t give her time to reply. Tamping down the anger that threatened to spew forth, he snatched her up and tucked her against his chest. Ignoring the soft fan of her breath on his neck and the hesitant rise of her arms around his neck, Vince carried her into the bungalow and kicked the door shut behind him.
* * * * *
Oh, to be in his arms again!
Jewel took in the myriad of sensations, and the oven of toasty warmth that suddenly surrounded her as they entered the quaint, one-room cott
age. Across the small space, the fire sputtered and sizzled, thawing her feet further. The heat that passed from his chest through her gown accelerated the overall lessening of discomfort. The numbness of her arms ebbed as she tightened her hold around his neck. Angling slightly toward his torso as he carried her, she nearly let out a cry of relief bathed by ecstasy as one breast pressed against sinewy muscles. Both nipples sprang to life, tingling, transmitting a delicious current of desire into the very depths of her core. The feel of one strong arm wrapped about her chilly back, and the other hooked under the backs of her knees, had her practically sobbing in bliss. Laced with the scents of saltwater and delicious stew, she could smell his earthy scent, could almost taste it in her watering mouth. And tucked in his wet boxers just below her rear, his penis taunted her. With the exception of the “lifesaving” embrace he’d given her on the beach less than an hour before, it’d been so very long since her pussy had been this close to his cock.
As if to reiterate that thought, the tender folds between her legs engorged with a pulsing fury, hardening her clit.
But before she had time to solidify her resolve and shake the pleasures from her system, he set her on the soft bear rug before the fire.
“Take off your clothes.”
Her gaze snapped up. “Excuse me?”
“I said, take your clothes off.” Nonchalantly, he swung the pot of stew out and began stirring the bubbly mixture.
Ignoring the tightening of her belly at the appetizing sight of food, she replied, “You’re crazy. I’m not getting naked for you.”
Me Tarzan, You Jewel Page 4
