Shaded Lines

by Lilia Moon

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Callum

  I head into the dark slowly, following my guide. The footing under our feet changes as the walls do. It’s dim, even with the overhead lights and the underwater ones. Enough to navigate by, and to appreciate the rugged, wet beauty of the place I’ve just entered. We’re in a tunnel of sorts, the water no more than waist deep, with rock curving over our heads. There’s a current of much warmer water moving through, and the air smells of a place where things of the earth are born.

  I reach a hand out for the rough wall, touching the mineral deposits. They’re hard, except for the layer of water trickling over the surface, some of which detours to my fingers. I can see rivulets of deeper colors, one that looks almost like blood. A place that makes me feel my Irish mystic rather deeply, and adds a sense of earthy fertility to the play I intend in here. Not yet, however. I follow Daley’s slow walk, watching her as her eyes roam the intricate textures of this place. Filling up her artist.

  I can see a bend up ahead, and the sounds of more trickling water.

  Daley rounds the corner and pulls me into the wall beside her. She reaches for a small flashlight hanging on a hook on the wall and points it into the corner opposite. “This is where the hot spring emerges.”

  There’s a small stream of water running down into the larger river we walk in, flowing over and between rocks that look as if they’ve come from some alien fairy tale. I put my hands into the water, feeling the swirling heat. “It’s like watching lava flow, or ice cracking. The feeling that you’re watching the Earth remake itself.”

  “That’s exactly it.” She tugs me down into a pool of light in the water. “Usually there’s a line moving through here, but tonight we can stay a while.”

  A line would have rather foiled my plans. I find a seat of sorts and tug her into my lap, both of us facing the watery rocks of creation.

  Fortunately, my Irish mystic knows just what to do with such energies. I slide my hand down the back of her swim bottoms as I nuzzle into her ear. “I plan for this one to take a while longer than the last. Tip your head back against my shoulder and meditate on what you see a while.”

  She makes a sound of token protest and growing pleasure as my fingers find her pussy.

  I chuckle. “Silent meditation, sweetness. I’ve heard that sound carries very well in here.”

  I get a snort of questionable obedience as her ass tries to wiggle back against my cock. Sadly for him, I’ve an arm in the way. I seek her ear for a last few words. “No one walking by will see what I’m doing. And their presence won’t stop my fingers.”

  Her nipples harden just under the water.

  I grin. I’ve a fondness for this kind of tantalizing exhibitionism, and it seems I’ve found a likeminded playmate. I let my fingers roam her folds. The outer ones this time, seeking the places she used when she pleasured herself. I let the faint whimper as I find one of them slide. I don’t imagine we’re the first to get up to such antics in here, and she was remarkably silent out in the snow.

  She shifts, frustrated by the weightlessness of the water, as I find a second spot that taps nicely into her arousal. I wrap my free arm around her waist, holding her more firmly in place as I press on the two spots I’ve found, adding minute vibrations over nerves already nicely primed.

  Her head falls back against my shoulder. Her hair has shed enough water to begin to curl again. Refusing to be tamed, just like the waters we watch—or the fire I touch.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Daley

  I have no idea how he knows exactly where his fingers should be, but he’s found those reliable places that my own hands use, the ones that can pull an orgasm out of a cranky day or an exhausted one. Or an erotic and uncomfortable interlude over his lap.

  The memories of how that felt merge into this one, just like the stream of hot water pouring down from the rocks. There’s an answering heat inside me. Not spurting flames under falling snow this time. Lava. Heat strong enough to melt rocks and reshape them.

  I hear voices making their way down the cave toward us, but I’m in a haze of not caring. Lava doesn’t give a shit if people watch.

  They turn the corner and skirt around us, a young couple giving us no more than a quick smile as they walk past. I chuckle a little. I’m as aroused as I’ve ever been in public and they were sweetly clueless. There are upsides to the silver hair. People make foolish assumptions about age and propriety.

  Callum’s fingers don’t hesitate at all. They keep up their merciless rocking, pressing into points that aren’t on any acupressure chart I’ve ever seen, but totally should be. It’s getting much harder to stay quiet, but I can still hear the young couple who passed us. Settling down in the next corner, probably. Drinking in the primal energy of the waters just as we are.

  And perhaps the primal energy of the old folks messing around just out of sight.

  It amuses me, the idea that we might be contagious. I rock a little on Callum’s fingers, stirring the water around us.

  He nibbles my ear, but says nothing.

  I tip my head to give him better access and sink into the skilled micro-movements of his fingers. There’s a confidence in how he touches me that’s utterly sexy—and makes me feel known. I breathe in the steamy, earthy air. I’m close, so very close. The blood isn’t pounding in my head quite the same way as before. It’s moved lower down, uniting with his fingers, becoming something pendulous and heavy and unstoppable.

  “Hold the sound within you, sweetness.” The warning comes as his fingers change their movements just enough. The heaviness in my hips ignites and tries to escape out my throat. I swallow it down and it sets my nipples on fire instead, my thighs, the valley between my legs.

  His hand slides out of my swim bottoms and I arch shamelessly back against his cock, needing the friction as I try to land this thing he’s set alight.

  He cups my breasts, working my nipples in time with my rocking on his cock. Teasing the fire into lava again, the kind that emerges out the other side of the explosion and begins to cool.

  It takes a very long time.

  I say nothing as I come to stillness. As I stand up and reach for his hand and take one last look at the origin waters that will never be quite the same for me again. I cuddle up next to him as we walk out of the cave, past the young couple who are kissing with impressive fervor and not anywhere close to reaching the kind of place he just took me.

  I smile. They have time.

  Callum chuckles very quietly in my ear as we begin to see the bright lights of the pool. I don’t ask what’s caught his sense of humor. The shapes of this moment need no words.

  The kiss he places on my shoulder sends shivers all the way to my toes.

  I look up as we ascend the steps outside the caves. The snow is falling harder again. I clear my throat, not entirely sure I remember how it works. “Unless you want to explore the overnight hospitality of the resort, we need to head back to the cabin.” Two coolers of food ought to last us even if we get snowed in, and any owner with a whiff of sense in these parts will have a few cans of baked beans stashed in the cupboard.

  His hand strokes down my spine. “An excellent idea.”

  I turn to face him, wrapping my arms around his neck, pressing our chests together. “It’s a perfect night to cuddle by the fire.”

  His eyes crinkle in amusement. “Is that what you want?”

  I push up on my toes for a kiss as my old rules fall away as gently as snowflakes. “No.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Daley

  I step my bare feet into the snow. Gingerly. Then I turn around and glare at the man who’s thrown us out of the house into a snowstorm in nothing more than towels. White, skimpy ones that do very little to cover my shivering skin.

  He grins and closes the sliding-glass door behind us. “A neighbor has fired up the sauna for us. It should be nice and warm.”

  So he hopes. Otherwise there will be two naked human ic
e statues greeting the neighbors in the morning. I hop one foot to the other as they begin to ache. A creature of the winter I am not. Not without woolies and really good footwear, anyhow.

  He looks at me in a way that has my lioness sitting up and taking notice. Very wary notice. He steps in close and runs his fingers along the top of my towel. “I spent a year in Finland a while back. They’ve a delightful habit of rolling in the snow to cool off.”

  I glare at him and back up, which nearly lands me ass-first in the snow. “We haven’t warmed up yet.”

  He laughs. “Your cheeks are still rosy from the hot springs.”

  My cheeks might be. My feet are denying that they’ve ever been warm.

  Callum unwraps the towel from his waist, which has the side effect of rendering me speechless. The man is a work of art, stark beauty in the falling snow. I swallow, my mouth totally dry.

  He uses the distraction to yank my towel away, tossing both of them over the railing behind us. Then he grins at me, and I see visions of Irish warriors of a far earlier time. “Run, love. Or it’s into the snow with you.”

  The need to flee that jumps into my throat is real enough to have me spinning, leaping through the wet snow like a silly city bunny. A snowball smacks into my naked ass, followed by laughter.

  I spin, scooping snow in mid-flight. I might not know how to run through snowdrifts in bare feet, but no self-respecting Canadian loses a snowball fight with a man from the land of green and rain. My return volley hits him in the middle of his chest with a gratifying thunk.

  I grin. Softball-pitching skills don’t hurt either.

  He looks down at the snow still clinging to his chest, and then he’s all scooping movement and lithe, fierce threat.

  I make snowballs as I run, looking for a decent bush to hide behind, but the landscaping wasn’t designed for this. So I do what’s necessary and turn to face him, one snowball in each hand. Winning isn’t about not getting hit. It’s about being the one who doesn’t fall over laughing first, and if I don’t get on this fast, I’m going to lose, badly.

  He stalks toward me, a grin nearly splitting his face, one very large snowball nestled in the palm cocked and aimed behind him.

  I’m a veteran—I keep my eyes on the man, not his weapon.

  Which is my mistake, because the lines of him are fiercely distracting and my artist is not the part of me who knows how to win snowball fights. She just offers a loopy grin as he stalks me, a warrior of night shadows and starry eyes looming over me in the nearly knee-deep snow.

  He lifts the snowball and touches it to one of my nipples, which freezes my brain and causes gushing everywhere else. “If you won’t roll around in the snow, perhaps we can cool you off through other means.”

  I stand there like a love-sloshed fool, one snowball in each hand, as he runs his over my skin. Taking his time. Leaving behind skin that tingles and feels every murmur of the night air.

  He purloins one of my snowballs and travels around behind me, running it down my spine. I’m shivering, but it’s not with cold. Not exactly, anyhow. I’m caught in that place where cold and hissing heat meet, arching into the cold trail running down my spine and into the valley between my ass cheeks.

  He drops to one knee, a hunter still, running packed snow up my legs. Over my inner thighs. Between my legs, holding it there for long enough that my brain freezes again.

  Then he drops the snow and picks me up, a hunter striding through the forest as the snow falls. I tip my head back, catching the last of the cold on my skin.

  I’ll need it to survive what comes next.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Callum

  That was fun.

  I set my very attractive burden down on the small deck in front of the sauna, just high enough to get our feet out of the snow. I join her on it with some alacrity. We brought a nice head of steam with us from the hot pool, but it vanished right about the time the last of the snow in my hand ran down her inner thighs.

  I tug on the simple leather cord that unlatches the door and herd us both into the heat that billows out. The owner has a lovely arrangement with a neighbor knowledgeable in the ways of temperamental saunas, and she fired it up for us some hours ago. She added some lovely romantic touches as well. There are candles swimming in small bowls of water, ringing a sauna that in Finland would be a cozy fit for a dozen or so. North Americans like a little more space when they’ve unveiled themselves.

  Daley picks up a copper dipper and drizzles water over the hot stones, which hiss and fill the air with steam. She dips into the water again, turning the dry heat into something far more humid. I inhale deeply. The cedar wood used here has a different smell than the spruce of Finland, something uniquely of this place and building on what the earthy smells of the cave began.

  I look at her, admiring the way the candlelight plays on her skin. She tips her head back, eyes closed, inhaling deeply. I move in closer. We’ve cooled off enough to have some time in here before we need to visit the snow again, and I’ve got plans. I herd her closer to the hot stones, setting them to hissing with another dipper of water. Then I lift her hands to a very convenient overhead log rail, one I scouted earlier that generated some suspicions as to what the owners of this cabin might do in their free time. Given that they know Rafe, it’s not an altogether wild guess. The positioning is perfect, bending Daley just slightly over the protective railing that surrounds the stones without inconveniencing her shoulders.

  Almost as if it were made for just this purpose.

  I smile, watching Daley’s face as she works out where she’s landed. She eyes me, interested, but wary.

  I hold up one of the tools I tucked away under a bench earlier. “It’s traditional to use a bundle of sticks to warm up the skin and get the blood circulating. I thought we might try this instead.”

  Her lips quirk. “Cedar boughs work quite nicely.”

  I laugh and settle the strands of the flogger on her shoulder. This is a tiny one, better made for petting than pain. “I’ve not got such good technique with tree branches.” I slide the strands down her back, and then flick them against the curve of her ass as they tumble. “Whereas this puts a buffet of options in my hand.”

  She’s quite still. Assessing.

  Fair enough. I repeat the motion, sliding the strands down her back and letting them thwap gently against the back of her thighs. Her belly and her breasts, nicely lit by the candles around the stones, are already covered in a lovely sheen. I dipper more water on the fire.

  She inhales deeply.

  I tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “What color is your traffic light, love?”

  She arches a little over the fire. “Green.”

  Green and clearly a little surprised by that. I smile. Floggers come laden with baggage, but they’ve some lovely enticements to offer too. I land mine a little more freely, lightly falling strands of sensation, working over her shoulders, down her back, over her ass and thighs. Her hair, put up on the back of her head after our swim, is out of my way. I’ll let it down later.

  She makes a sound, one of hesitant desire, as I increase the weight a little, traveling in a figure eight over her ass cheeks. She rocks against the railing at her hips, her body more certain than her mind.

  I trail the strands between her thighs, leather butterfly kisses.

  The next sound out of her coalesces into something far less conflicted. More sure. More needy.

  I smile. We’re on our way.

  I’ve hunted her lioness, tempted her. Now I want to hear her roar.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Daley

  Heat steams up from my belly toward my face and rivulets of sweat run down, strange counterpoint to the hundred narrow fingers on my back. Leather spaghetti, wielded by a man who clearly knows as many ways to use it as I do a hunk of charcoal. Soft touches and sharp ones, teasing ones that go nowhere and ones that suddenly veer somewhere enticing—or catch a ride on my hopeful breath and then jum
p off again.

  It’s very clear I’m not in charge of this drawing.

  I’d be crankier about that, except I’m awash in sensation. I glance over at Callum in the steam and flickering light. What rides in his eyes isn’t charming or gentle or sophisticated. Those are the eyes I caught dimly in my drawing. The ones I told to show up and ask something of me.

  The strands keep falling on my hypersensitive skin, the strokes and lines of a man on a mission. One that tempts and pleases him as much as it teases at me, and while I want to pretend I don’t understand how that’s possible, I do. Art pleases the creator as much as the audience, it just does it very differently.

  Tonight, I’m the audience.

  I whimper as the hundred tendrils of leather land more sharply on my ass, but they’re traveling again before I can let him know I need him to stay there a while. Up to my back, where lighter strokes speak of cedar boughs, waking up my skin. Which is all well and good, but there’s something that comes with the deeper intensity he was raining down on my ass, and I want more of it than the quick soaking of a passing cloud.

  I arch my back, trying to get my ass back into his area of fire.

  He chuckles. “Ready for that, are you?” The strands of leather head back down, landing sharply, not falling like rain anymore. I let my skin absorb the sensation. He’s laying down the shadows, not with the softest, darkest charcoal any longer, but one with a little more bite. Marks that will stay where he puts them, although I don’t imagine they’re the visible kind. My skin sees them, though. The gray deep. The birthplace of what will emerge next.

  The heat trails down the back of my thighs, leaving sunburned desire in its wake. I whimper a protest. That’s the wrong way.