Snowburn

by E J Frost

  me to.”

  I reach under her and pinch her ass.

  “Naughty kitten.”

  Her hands scrunch in the covers and her

  grin lights up the darkened room. “You could

  come up here.” She pats the bed beside her.

  “Then we could both—”

  She breaks off with a gasp as I flip her

  over, press her into the bed with one hand,

  and bring the other down on her ass, hard

  enough to sting. “Strike one,” I tell her.

  She scrabbles in the blankets, pulls them

  around her head and moans.

  I bring the flat of my hand down on her

  ass again. Smile at the back of her head when

  she gasps, and grip her ass-cheek to intensify

  the sensation. “That was for calling me by

  my real name.”

  I spank her a third time, putting some of

  the muscle of my shoulder into it. Hard

  enough that she’ll still feel it tomorrow, and

  maybe the day after. “That was for surprising

  me.”

  “Wha-what?” she gasps.

  I turn her back over. Take her hands and

  put them by her sides. Wait until she digs her

  fingers into the blankets before I kneel

  between her knees again and lift her legs

  over my shoulders. I lower my face into the

  sweet space between her thighs and nip at

  the wet, secret skin of her labia. She gasps

  like she’s sprinted for a klick and rolls her

  hips up to me in tight pulses.

  “Kitten,” I say, letting my voice go deep

  and dark with pleasure. I flick my tongue

  over the swollen nub at the top of her slit.

  Lean in and suck on it until she bucks against

  my hold.

  “Oh, God!” she wails.

  I grin against her labia. Close my mouth

  over her opening and push my tongue deep

  between her folds. She tastes salty and

  slightly musky, like real, freshly-baked

  bread. I listen to her gasping moans. Then go

  back to sucking on her clit.

  “Hale,” she pants. “Please, Hale . . .”

  She’s already begging. Spanking

  seriously turns my kitten on. And maybe all

  those nights with Mouse, going down on her

  because she was too damaged inside to fuck,

  have given me some skills. “Rule four,” I

  remind her before I give her a hard nip on

  her inner thigh.

  “Oh!” She jolts at the bite but

  immediately relaxes back into my hands.

  I give her inner thighs some attention,

  kissing and licking, to let her cool down a

  little before I return to the show. I blow on

  her labia, lick her with long strokes. Flick

  the taut nub of her clit with the tip of my

  tongue. Within a few strokes, she’s thrashing

  and moaning again. I slide one hand up to

  cup her breast and thumb that hard button.

  Flick her nipple in time with my strokes

  against her clitoris.

  “Oh, please!” she chokes. “Oh, God,

  please!” Her legs shake against my

  shoulders. Her whole body is rigid with

  sexual tension.

  “You wanna come, kitten?” I lift my head

  from her enough to speak, letting my warm

  breath blow over her labia.

  “Yes! Please! Please, please!”

  I pretend to consider it for a moment.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Ohhhhh.” Her head whips from side to

  side as she fights against her need. Her

  expressive little face is drawn like she’s in

  pain. Her body’s sheened with sweat. I

  lower my head and catch her clit between my

  teeth.

  She goes wild, bucking and straining. Her

  body arcs against the bed. Her hands rise and

  claw the air.

  I flip her over before she has a chance to

  realize she’s broken the rules again. Catch

  her hands and cross them behind her back. I

  pin her wrists with one hand and hold her

  down while I open my fly and shove down

  my pants. Time to fuck. We did gentle, and

  we both enjoyed it, but she loves it rough and

  dirty. And that’s what I want right now.

  “Bad kitten.” I give her a hard spank as

  the little monster bursts free and pokes

  against the back of her thigh. She wails at the

  spank, so I do it again, hard enough to make

  my palm sting. Her ass must be smarting. I

  switch hands and redden the other cheek for

  her. She’ll definitely feel that when she sits

  down tomorrow.

  “Oh, yes,” she moans. She arches her

  back, lifting her ass and rolling her hips as

  she tries to impale herself on the little

  monster. I let it bump along the curves of her

  thighs for a moment while I match up that

  second cheek. Then I reach down and feed it

  into her.

  She’s so wet I slip back out. I grin at her

  back while I position myself again. Sink

  deep into that hot wetness. Groan with

  pleasure. There’s nothing better than this, the

  feeling of burying myself deep in her tight,

  wet body. I lean over and kiss her shoulders.

  Push her soft dreads to one side and nip the

  back of her neck. Whisper to her that I’m

  going to fuck her until she can’t come

  anymore as I begin working my cock inside

  her. Her whimpers rise over the wet

  slapping of our bodies. Her face is turned

  into the rumpled covers but I can see that her

  eyes are open. Her brows drawn tight in an

  agony of sexual tension. She’s more than

  ready.

  I pull her hips back into my thrusts. Pin

  her hard against the bed while I work my

  hips furiously against hers. She’s gasping,

  begging, her body heaving under me as she

  tries to rise to each thrust. I wrap one arm

  around her hips, the other under her, across

  her chest, and hold her still as I pound into

  her, fucking her as hard as I can. Held

  captive, forced to accept my wild pace, with

  no other outlet, she screams. Full-throated.

  Woman in ecstasy.

  “You can come, kitten,” I growl, giving

  her permission at last.

  She screams again as she comes. Her

  body clenches frantically around mine. I

  pump hard into her orgasm, feeling her tight

  wetness convulse around my cock. The

  mounting pleasure becomes unbearable and I

  come, locked deep inside her, her pussy

  milking me as I keep rocking in her, coming

  in her, until I’m completely spent.

  I collapse on top of her. Covering that

  slender body with mine. An amazing sense of

  peace fills me. I close my eyes. Shut my ears.

  Lose every sense except the feeling of her

  soft body under me and the contentment that

  envelops us both.

  Finally, the feeling begins to fade. A

  noise breaks through my euphoria. It’s a

  thread of sound. A whisper. Kez’s soft

  voice, saying, “I’m sorry,” over and over.
<
br />   I disentangle one arm and lift off her

  enough to brush her dreadlocks over her

  shoulders and look down into her face. Her

  eyes are closed and there are tear-tracks on

  her cheeks.

  “Shh, kitten. I’ve got you.” I brush away

  the wetness on her cheeks. Did I hurt her?

  She didn’t tense or give any indication that it

  hurt while we were going at it. “Was that too

  much?”

  “No.” Her eyes flicker open. She smiles

  faintly. “It was just . . . intense.”

  Intense is good. I lift off her. Kick off my

  boots as I climb up onto the bed and drag her

  with me. Push one of the towels she’s left on

  the nightstand between her legs and spoon

  her tight into my body.

  “I should get a shirt,” she whispers.

  “Otherwise I’m going to stick to you.”

  She is pretty sweaty. We both are. Best

  way I’ve ever come across to get sweaty.

  With a contented grin, I let her go, watch

  as she rolls to her feet and fumbles her way

  across the dark room to the rack of clothes at

  the foot of the bed. She feels along the rack

  until she finds what she wants. Tugs a lacy

  little top off its magnehanger. The clothes

  pendulum on the rack after she pulls free the

  camisole, and a shape at the back of the rack

  catches my attention. It’s a thick, shaggy

  sleeve. Much too big for Kez. Curly fur

  circles the cuff.

  I sit up and look more closely. That

  sleeve looks extremely familiar.

  “Kezra,” I growl.

  A step away from the bed, she freezes.

  “What?” she whispers.

  “What’s my winter coat doin’ on your

  clothes rack?”

  “Oh,” she breathes. “Um.”

  “Yeah?” I can’t wait to hear this.

  “Well, um—”

  Unbelievable. Little thief. “They should

  call you light-finger, not Lightfoot.”

  “I was going to give it back!” she wails.

  She clutches the camisole to her chest,

  twisting the soft material between her hands.

  “Why the fuck did you steal it in the first

  place?”

  “I didn’t steal it! I swear! You left it!

  You were loading cargo and you took it off

  and you left it on a stack of crates. I didn’t

  want someone else to take it—”

  “So you stole it instead,” I growl. I

  searched for that coat for weeks. Not just

  because it’s a damn good coat, but also

  because it had my DNA all over it.

  “I was going to give it back to you the

  next time I saw you—”

  I lie back and fold my hands behind my

  head. “Which explains why it’s still hangin’

  there.”

  “No, God, I, uh—” She hangs her head

  but even in the dark with her head down I

  can see the fiery blush that’s spread over her

  face and all the way down her neck. It’s

  sweet, and sexy, that blush. Her whole

  obsession with me is sweet and sexy. In a

  marginally psychotic sort of way.

  I pat the bed next to me. “C’mere, kitten.”

  She tugs the top over her head and

  scrambles onto the bed. She perches next to

  me and peers down into my face. I doubt she

  can see my expression in the dark, but I

  soften it anyway. “Are you angry with me?”

  she asks.

  “No, but I’m lockin’ my closet the next

  time you come over.” She cuffs me on the

  shoulder and I chuckle. “When exactly were

  you plannin’ to give it back?”

  “Before winter,” she says. “I know I kept

  it too long. I was going to bring it back to

  you the next day but it, um, it got dirty and the

  place I took it to be cleaned took forever. By the time I got it back, it had been weeks. I

  couldn’t think of any way to return it to you

  without it being completely weird.”

  “How ‘bout, ‘here, I found your coat’?”

  “A month later?”

  She leans against my side, but that’s not

  nearly enough contact to satisfy me. I pat the

  bed again and she stretches out next to me. I

  slide my arm under her shoulders, turn her so

  she’s cuddled against my side. She slides her

  thigh over mine. Rests her head on my

  shoulder, her hand on my chest. Nice. I like

  the way our bodies fit together, even when

  we’re not fucking.

  “Don’t think I missed the part about

  gettin’ my coat dirty. What’d you do to it?”

  She buries her face in my shoulder.

  This should be good. “Tell me,” I say.

  “It just got dirty.”

  “Sure, coats do that all the time. All by

  themselves.” She makes a little choking

  noise against my skin. “What’d you get on it?

  Mud? Blood? Come? What?”

  She puts her hand over her face. I catch

  her wrist and drag her hand back down to my

  chest. Kiss her temple. “C’mon, I won’t be

  mad.”

  “Promise?”

  How bad can it be? “Yeah, I promise.”

  “Come.”

  “You let someone come on my coat?”

  That is fairly disgusting. Maybe I don’t want

  it back.

  She thumps my chest. “I came on your

  coat, you idiot!”

  “You came on my coat.”

  “It was an accident! It was a cold night

  and I’d had a bad day and your coat was so

  warm and soft. I could smell you on it and it

  made me feel close to you and one thing led

  to another—”

  “And you ended up comin’ on my coat?”

  “Stop saying it like that!”

  “Like what? How many ways are there to

  say that you juiced on my coat?”

  “You’re making me sound like a

  pervert!”

  I roar with laughter and pull her tight to

  me. Kiss her forehead since she’s hidden her

  face in my neck. “You are a pervert. What

  were you doin’, humpin’ my coat?”

  “No!” she wails.

  She definitely was. She gets so sweetly

  wet when she’s aroused and I can see her

  making a mess on my coat if she was rubbing

  herself against it. “Pervy kitten.” I reach

  down and give her a little smack on the ass.

  “You said you wouldn’t be angry!” she

  cries into my neck.

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t punish you.” I

  give her another smack. Still not too hard

  because she’ll already be bruised from our

  first go-round. And both the idea of her

  humping my coat while she fantasized about

  fucking me and the smack have gotten the

  little monster’s attention, so it’s looking like

  round two is about to begin.

  “I’m sorry!” she wails.

  “You’re forgiven,” I say easily. And

  truthfully. I’m not angry with her. A little

  bemused by her obsession, but not angry. I

  wrap my arms around her and drag her onr />
  top of me. Tip her face up so I can see her

  expression, and kiss her soundly. When she’s

  panting and breathless and sure that I’m not

  really mad, I say, “Now show me what you

  did to my coat.”

  She does. And it turns out that being

  ridden works for the little monster after all.

  She falls asleep on top of me afterwards.

  I’m relaxed but not sleepy, so I prop myself

  up on some pillows and hold her while she

  sleeps. Occupy myself by contemplating

  ways to kill Kison Tyng.

  Chapter 14

  I don’t know much about Tyng, but

  fundamentally all killing is about waiting for

  the right moment and striking when it comes.

  To assassinate someone, you have to create

  the moment. That means getting close to the

  target. If Kison Tyng is like every other

  paranoid drug lord, he’ll have an array of

  defenses to hide behind. So the trick is

  finding a way to cut through those defenses,

  and create the moment.

  Baby Tyng is a way in, but she’s not the

  only one. I’ve got a score to settle with

  Kincaid, too, and I like the idea of killing

  two birds with one stone. If I can get some

  leverage on Kincaid, then force him to get

  me through to Tyng, I can take them both at

  the same time. That has significant appeal.

  And then there’s another option. If Tyng

  wants flesh from Kez, he might be willing to

  come out from behind all those defenses to

  get it. I’m not crazy about using Kez as bait,

  but she’s dangling on his hook already.

  As I’m parsing through the advantages

  and disadvantages of the various routes to

  cutting Tyng’s throat, there’s a knock on the

  door. I lie still to see if Kez wakes. If she

  doesn’t, then whoever it is can wait until

  after she’s rested.

  But she does. She lifts her head off my

  chest groggily. Her hand slides up to my

  shoulder. I catch it, squeeze her fingers

  gently, and whisper, “Someone’s at the

  door.”

  “Oh,” she murmurs. She rubs her face

  against my chest and I smile at her. I like

  how comfortable she is with me. Feels like

  we’ve been together for a long time. I’ve

  never had that sense of ease with a woman

  before, and I like it.

  Kez stretches and cuddles against me,

  sliding her arm around my neck. She turns

  her head towards the door, even though she

  can’t possibly see anything in the dark.

  “What’s up?” she calls.

  “Kezzy?” Chiara’s voice. “Nev’s asking

  for you. Are you okay—?”