by Ellen Mint
A cough caught in her throat, Beth having to break off even as Tristan whimpered at the loss. She slicked her hand around him, using the natural lube to glide down the length of his cock. All the while his leg hung in the air, the thigh straining to keep in the perfect position for the woman bending back down for more.
This time, she moved her hand in sync with her mouth. Both her head and cinched fist rose and fell, her lock tight and perfect. The pleasure built inside as her sucking increased. She switched up her movements, raising her hot mouth as she slipped her hand down, the tension stringing Tristan up like Christmas lights.
He clenched his toes, struggling to think of the least sexy things imaginable. Anything to keep this moment eternal. Then he darted down to the woman bent over his cock, her soft hair brushing his inner thighs, and those freed breasts gliding against his legs.
In an instant, his fight was lost. Tristan, less than gentlemanly, glanced a hand to her cheek to pull her off. Her gaze swung up, almost wounded, until he tipped his pulsing cock back, gave it one last jerk, and transcended into the orgasm.
“Fuck me!” he shouted, shivering as the pleasure arced through his body. Sticky semen propelled clear across his chest, somehow reaching almost to his nipple despite the long and active day.
There wasn’t much of a load to catch, his balls giving a warning that they were running on empty. But Tristan didn’t care about a little pulse of pain in exchange for the payoff. Beth swiped at her lips, trying to sponge away her saliva, as she stared down at the mess pooling on his chest.
Tipping her head to the side made her beautiful hair cascade off his ransacked sweater. In his pawing, or perhaps her sliding, it’d snagged up, revealing her midriff. “Should I get our lone towel to wipe you off with?”
Tristan flinched, remembering their poor workhorse of a kitchen towel. The last thing it needed was to be sticky with his mess on top of everything else. “We may still need it,” was his response.
“Worried I’ll be put off by the scent of a little man goo?” Beth cooed. She drew her fingers up and down his thighs, the sensation just on the right side of ticklish. His tongue fell slack, his body wanting to lay down as he gave in to her.
“No.” He forced the words out of his exhausted body. “It’s me who isn’t a fan. Try living your teenage years with a dozen different boys under little adult supervision—or cleaning.”
Even Beth shuddered at the thought, Tristan trying to not remember the landmine of stiff socks from his touring days. Though, he’d kill for the stamina of that younger him. This one ached to pass out at her feet, both in worship and exhaustion. But no, she had to stay awake and he had to make certain it was so.
Circling her finger just around the wet spot drying to a flaky mess, Beth shrugged. “There’s always the shower.”
“The cold shower.” He snickered at the thought, but then blushed at remembering the impetus of all of this.
Beth climbed over him, pulling the sweater off her beautiful body. In an instant, Tristan was enchanted by her breasts, the dark tan nipples hardening in the chill. He reached for them as she laid her naked body atop his. Tugging his chin down, she kissed him with the same hot tongue that had pushed him into the stars. With a bat of her eyelashes, she whispered, “I’ll keep you warm.”
Chapter Sixteen
He should be dragging tail, bemoaning his decaffeinated state, and carrying on as if it were the exhaustion apocalypse. But, despite having remained awake the entire night, Tristan couldn’t stop grinning. All right, his smiles were on occasion broken up by scandalous gasps and his lips softened for a taste of hers. God, he could write a song about her lips alone.
Should he?
As the sun crested over the once more new-fallen snow, they both decided it seemed best to dress. This time he watched her delicately slide into her panties, hook her bra on and drape that pale pink silk over her chest. The same one that he’d had pressed against his own for the entire night. Without power, they were reduced to that lost art of conversation, both of them speaking of nothing important but everything vital.
How did three days feel like he’d known her thirty? How did he keep glancing out of the side of his eye, not from fear of her being there, but hoping to find her? How did he become this smitten so fast?
Because you’ve been alone for too long.
Tristan tried to shake off the cold dose of common sense as he reached out to grab her hand. Finishing the last of her shirt’s buttons, Beth slipped to him with her open pants clinging desperately to her hips. He knew the feeling.
“You,” she laughed, abandoning her own dressing to run her hands around his body. As she wrapped around his back, pulling herself into his hold, she said, “I thought it was your idea to dress.”
“I suppose so,” he admitted, regretting whatever fool of logic traipsed about in his brain. Running his lips against her forehead, Tristan kissed her at the beginning of her hair’s part. All the while, he tugged on her splayed-open pants. The wily hint of the panties he’d peeled off her sang their siren call, but he pulled the zipper up to silence them.
“Just so you know, I can dress myself,” Beth said, even while letting him finish off his work. “But”—her voice dropped into the melting range—“your help is much appreciated.”
“Always happy to be of service,” he snickered, catching the sweet edge of her lips in a kiss. She puckered them as if they were two kids trading their first real peck behind the swings. It was so wholesome, Tristan was about to lean back when Beth knotted her fingers in his hair. Pulling him deep, it was her tongue that plied apart his lips, her hunger overpowering him.
Don’t throw her to the bed. Don’t pull her clothes off.
As much as that hunger inside wanted to, he knew it wasn’t wise. One, there was a chance of rescue today. Two, he didn’t want Barry scolding him in front of Beth and a plethora of plow drivers. And three, he needed to consume a lot more fluids before his testicles desiccated on the metaphorical vine.
Beth seemed to feel the same, her feet falling back to the floor so she landed a head below his chin. Funny, he’d never thought much of short girls, but the way she fit perfectly wrapped between his arms and legs sent his heart racing. Said tiny-but-never-small woman leaned against the bed.
A gulp rattled in Tristan’s throat, his mind trying to make the calculations of how badly another ejaculation could cost him. But she reached for the remote left at the side. Pushing some of the buttons, Beth jutted her bottom lip out in a pout. “All this time here and I never get to learn what it does. Cursed power outage.”
“It shakes the bed,” he said with a shrug as she moved to return the remote. She stared at him, a question hanging inside. “You expected me to not test it out?”
“I’m getting the impression asking you to set a microwave ends in a fire.” Beth chuckled. “All push, no manual?”
That wasn’t strictly accurate. He could be meticulous if he cared, but curiosity and struggling to not listen to the unknown woman typing on her keyboard had driven him to try. “You know,” Tristan whispered, reaching out to hold her hand. Their fingers intertwined, Beth floating over the floor into his arms. As he held her close, he said, “I could make the bed shake for you.”
“Mm, don’t I know it.”
“All you need do—” Tristan drew his fanned-out fingers against her cheek, curling the tips back to rustle through her tamed hair. While he was a bedraggled swamp creature, she’d come out of an all-nighter looking like a fairy princess astride a butterfly. As she tipped her face back, the tiny quirk to her smile increased his rapid heartbeat. Tristan leaned down to finish. “—is ask.”
A bright light erupted from the lamp, the bed rumbling off its box springs as the power returned to them. Both glanced up as if a miracle of magic had brought the lights back. “Oh,” Beth called, stepping out of his arms. “That’s perfect!” She dashed from the bedroom to her once-stilled laptop. The intrepid reporter had to sit cross-legged on t
he floor, her bare feet tucked under her as she plugged her dying computer into the wall.
With a sigh, Tristan leaned down and silenced the rattling bed. You didn’t want to sleep with her, remember? That common sense section of his brain tried to argue with the Id that was kicking a proverbial can down the road. You shouldn’t have slept with her at all.
He flinched at the reminder forever bobbing in the pool of his subconscious. It’d rise every once in a while, trying to rattle him. But then Tristan would glance down at the silky pale skin stretched out across his body and the thought drowned.
As Beth seemed enthralled with whatever needed her, most likely work, as it was technically Monday, Tristan fished for his phone—not for any specific reason. He just wanted to seem busy. Ten missed calls from Barry and a couple of voicemails. He’d even tried texting, no less. No doubt in a panic about something. Tristan dialed up the first voicemail, only for his phone to cry in agony and fall silent.
She glanced up at the sound, a smile highlighting her face as she watched him sigh at technology’s failures. Shaking his head, Tristan lumbered over to plug in his phone.
“All out of juice?” she asked.
“Luckily, that can finally be rectified.” He glanced around at the revived lights, a cacophony of them trying to purge the surprisingly blah day outside. When his heart was heavy with regrets, the sky was crystal blue, but when he wanted to fly, it was muck-gray all around them.
So what now, Mr. Harty? That mass of missed calls told him Barry had to be on his way soon. They’d both return to civilization, leaving behind this strangely inviting cabin. What comes next?
She had her stories to file, he a half-assed tour and album to put out. That’d keep him on the road, busy. Far too busy to even think of… Think of what?
Glancing over his shoulder, he watched Beth rocking on her legs as if music danced through her veins. Her fingers swung wildly above the keys as she closed those heart-stopping eyes to think.
You’re thinking of it.
Wondering if…
And what about that article on you? The fact that she is the enemy. Sort of. In league with them, at least. Have you considered that problem?
“Ooh,” Beth squealed in delight, interrupting his tortured monologue. “Oh, you have to see this.” Spinning around her laptop, she pressed Play on a video of a kitten no bigger than a palm. Its eyes weren’t open, but it mewled in impotent anger before a small bottle appeared. Suckling to its heart’s content, the kitten flopped down onto its tiny belly and gorged.
“I was worried. Sometimes Mads, she gets ones that are too tiny, that can’t make it. Try as hard as you do, even knowing the odds, you can’t not care about them.” Beth glanced up from the video of the little kitten growing stronger and healthier. “You can’t not fall for them.”
A flush burst over Tristan’s cheeks and he bent his head as if he had to check on his phone at that exact second. In truth, he needed to breathe, to think.
Do you, though?
“My number,” he mumbled, raising one hand as if to slap the words away. But he didn’t, and glanced to Beth, who must not have heard him fully. “You’d probably need, er, want my number.”
“I…” It was her turn to blush and hang her head. She rose from the closed laptop while taking in his request. “I would. Mine, you’d need mine too.”
Tristan glanced forlornly down at his phone that was gasping for juice. “Probably best if I give you mine and you call me. I really need a new phone.”
A warm smile answered him as Beth pushed a few buttons, then deposited her phone into his hands. The case was an image made up of old newspapers, something he’d scoffed at at first blush but that seemed quintessentially her now. After entering in his private phone number, he returned the phone to her.
She blinked, staring at the screen as if the number was in another language. “What do I…?” Beth gulped slowly, “What should I list you as?”
Client?
Source?
One Night Stand?
Lover?
Or something more?
“Personal,” Tristan gulped, butterflies knocking about in his guts. He wanted to wring his neck while also giggling like a kid. “That’s my personal number.”
Beth raised her phone along with her nod and entered whatever else was required into the index. When those deep brown eyes stared into his, she said all she needed to. “Got it.”
Three days, Harty. That’s it. Not even seventy-two hours yet and you’re acting like a love-addled moron. She gazed out of the front window, where sadly no magical deer chewed through the snow. Tristan stared in rapture at her profile, his heart leaping higher when she pushed a fallen tendril of hair behind her ear.
“You are…” That damn tongue spoke for him, shattering the spell. Beth’s focus homed in on him, her open face clouding as he stood there stoically. Keep going, idiot. You started it, you have to.
Tristan kicked into the couch, stubbing his big toe. It didn’t hurt, but it threw off his balance and sent him scampering toward her. Without a second thought, Beth launched out her arms to catch him. At first, they were steadying. But she slid her hands around his waist, and he wrapped his around her shoulders. “How did…how did you keep your phone charged all this time?”
Coward.
“Oh, that. I always bring a backup battery just in case. You never know when you might lose power while in the field.”
That’s not what you wanted to say. Fess up. Now. “Ms. Cho…”
She snickered at his using her surname, her head tilting to the side. “Yes, Mr. Harty?”
“I was wrong about you.” His lips struggled to voice the words lodged in the back of his throat. “Wrong to—to dismiss you so cavalierly without reason. I never should have—”
“Tristan,” she cut him off, struggling to rise on her tiptoes. “I was wrong too. I underestimated you for no reason, assumed you to be a combatant, a…pain.”
“Even my closest friends call me pricklier than a porcupine,” he confessed, and to his surprise, she laughed at the truth.
“Not a porcupine.” Beth drew her hand back through his hair. He breathed in the tender caress awakening his roots. “You’re more like a hedgehog. With the right touch, your spines soften. And you’re damn cute too.”
A snort shot through his nose. Tristan was unable to find himself cute. But it did stroke his ego to hear her say so. “You are…” Back to this again. “You’re beautiful beyond words,” escaped from him. The songwriter, the poet of music was at a loss for his only wares while gazing at her.
At least he knew one way for his lips to explain. Cupping her cheeks, Tristan tugged her higher for a deep kiss. Beth folded against him, fitting perfectly in his embrace as she tipped her face back for his touch.
Honking erupted from outside. Both whipped their heads to stare out of the window as a line of headlights darted through the gray drizzle of the outside world. “They got through,” Tristan said. He could feel the excitement trying to catch, to send him rushing to the door and throw it open for their rescuers, but he was frozen. Leaving the cabin meant leaving her too.
Beth crinkled her nose, his heart fluttering as he realized he’d been the one to kiss the wrinkles away. “Well,” she said, “good thing I’ve got your number.”
Snickering, Tristan nodded. She moved to slip from his arms, both returning to their requisite squares on the chessboard.
Suddenly, Beth darted to him, her lips tasting his in a kiss. “One more for the road,” she said before turning to find her shoes.
Tristan was about to do the same when the door burst open. It wasn’t some National Guard member, nor a park ranger, or even a Saint Bernard with opposable thumbs. Barry practically ran head first inside, his arms outstretched to plummet around that wayward charge. Not that Tristan expected anything less.
“Kid, thank God, you’re okay!” Barry gasped, his hug less reassurance and more to try to shake some sense into Tristan. “
You didn’t respond to my calls and I…” The jaded eye of the manager drifted to Beth, only seeing her as a reporter. “I feared the worst.”
“Yes, we’re fine,” Tristan spoke. “The power went down—”
“Shit!”
“Which caused my phone’s battery to die. But otherwise, it’s been a mostly pleasant long weekend,” he said, glancing at the woman gathering up her bag.
“Mostly pleasant,” she repeated and her twinkle caught his. Before Tristan could return the look, arms enveloped around his waist, plucking him directly into view of the liver-spotted baldpate of Barry.
“Tris, we gotta get you out of here,” he said, frazzled. No doubt the man’s ulcers had grown ulcers over the past seventy-two hours. But all was well. Better than well for the first time in months. Years. To think, he’d been dreading returning to the music grind, the unending press of being on all the time. He’d never have met her if he’d remained in Bemidji, that was certain. Barry turned a cold glare upon Beth, his hackles raised at her presence.
“In a minute.” Tristan tried to pry himself out of the manager’s grip. “My belongings are scattered about the cabin, and we should have a few minutes before the snow returns. I hope.”
“You just jinxed us,” Beth laughed, bringing a chuckle to him as well. Though the idea of having to share the cabin with his manager was an ice block to the groin.
“Kid.” Barry snagged an arm around the back of his neck, tugging Tristan lower. “You need to get out of here. Now.”
“The schedule, I know.” He abandoned his manager to watch Beth gathering up her mass of notebooks. “I think you left some of them in the bedroom,” Tristan called to her. She waved in gratitude and slipped inside to find them, which was when Barry whacked him in the back of the head.
“What the…?” Tristan gasped, but his manager wagged a finger in his face.
“I thought you knew better than to get…to get cozy with the enemy.”
“She’s not an enemy.”
“You’re the one that called her that, calls all of ’em that. But leave you alone for a couple days and you’re all…I can’t believe you. We need you away from her.” Barry dashed about the living room, cramming what little of Tristan’s things remained into the bag. As he couldn’t be bothered to fold any of it, sleeves dangled from the jammed-open top.
