The Stranger in Her Bed

by Janet Chapman

  The little vixen actually smiled up at him. "You're not very adept at this, are you?" she said, her eyes sparkling in the flickering lamplight. "Except for your very competent mouth."

  Ethan took the hand he was holding and lowered it to where his competent mouth had been, pressing her fingers intimately against her. "Do you think you could keep yourself occupied for just ten seconds, Segee?" he ground out. "While I try to get my act together long enough to protect us?"

  Her scowl quickly turned into a gasp of surprise, then into a moan of pleasure as he slowly worked Anna's fingers against her sensitive bud. Ethan forgot all about the condom, becoming utterly mesmerized by her response.

  Holy hell, what had made him think taking Anna to bed would put her out of his head once and for all? The way she was coming alive, he'd never get enough of her.

  "Hurry, Ethan," she entreated, shifting her hips directly beneath his and lifting them up, her hand brushing his scrotum— sending a shudder through him so powerful, he nearly lost it there and then. "I want you inside when I come."

  He started to sweat and his hands shook as he tried to slide on the condom, and he actually shouted when her delicate fingers suddenly rolled it down around him. She did not, however, have to show him what to do with his safely packaged package. Ethan captured her wrists to hold her still long enough to position himself, but she suddenly used his grip to pull him down on top of her.

  He'd barely started to ease inside her when she crested, her body arching against him. He'd been trying to be gentle, but she blew his noble intentions to hell with her long, keening cry— which immediately cut off all the blood to his brain and sent it shooting straight to his shaft, buried deep inside her. At the first pulse of her orgasm, he began thrusting into her contracting heat with mindless need.

  She not only matched his enthusiasm, she braced his shoulders and used her legs wrapped around his to better his angle, her hoarse, breathless cries of approval competing with the deafening rain drumming the roof. He fought the urge for release, desperate for the powerful sensations coursing through him to last; but when she suddenly crested again, Ethan drove deeply into her and went perfectly still, letting her contractions of pleasure pull him over the edge, pulsing so powerfully that every muscle in his body shook with the force of his release.

  It was a long time before the blood started flowing back to his brain. The first thing he noticed was Anna softly caressing his sweat-beaded chest; the second was the satisfied, smug smile that reached all the way to her shining eyes.

  He closed his, back to wondering if he was lucky or crazy— because although he was feeling quite smug himself, he doubted Anna was going to let him enjoy the glow very long.

  "Say something, Ethan."

  "I think my ribs really are cracked."

  Her fingers dug into his chest a tad too much, and he leaned down and kissed her mouth, gently pulled out of her and rolled free, and folded one arm over his forehead. He stared up at the ceiling in silence, trying to find the words he knew every woman needed to hear… after. But what could he possibly say that wouldn't go straight to her beautiful head? That was mind-blowing, Segee. The absolute best I've ever had. Can we do it again in ten minutes? The possibilities as well as her responses snapped through his mind with the same fury as the rain on the roof, his loss for words stretching long and awkward between them.

  "Your sled won't start because I unplugged the ignition wire," she finally said, her voice barely audible over the drum of the rain.

  "Thanks for the heads-up."

  "What were you doing over here tonight?"

  Okay, small talk worked for him. "I thought your ghost might take advantage of my being gone, and that I could pay the rest of my rent by finding out what's so intriguing about your mill."

  "Thank you."

  Was she thanking him for checking up on her or for screwing her brains out? Better to stick with the small talk. "Now we know a couple of things we didn't before," he said. "One, there's two ghosts; and two, they're searching for something specific."

  He felt her turn her head on her pillow to look at him. "How do you know that?"

  "I'd been listening to them for maybe twenty minutes before you showed up. They're hunting for something they think Samuel Fox had hidden someplace in camp."

  "They didn't say what?"

  "No, but they thought it might be in an old mason jar or plastic bag. They just knew they were looking for a waterproof container. Apparently, they'd already done a thorough search of your house shortly after Samuel died, before you arrived. That's probably why your home hasn't been bothered."

  She rose up on her elbow to face him. "Are they looking for money, do you think?" she asked. "Could Samuel have hidden cash someplace in camp? I know older people often prefer mason jars to banks."

  Ethan forced his gaze from her lovely breasts to her face. "It could be money. Or they could be looking for a document. A deed maybe, or a will. Do you know if Samuel had a will?"

  She nodded, her forehead wrinkling in thought. "He had a will," she said, lying back on her pillow, affording Ethan a wonderful landscape view of her chest.

  He saw her shiver and rub her arms, and he immediately rolled to his side, removed the condom, and held it over the edge of the bed, undecided what to do with the damn thing. He finally dropped it on the floor, reminding himself to take care of it later— wondering if there'd be a small pile there in the morning or just the one.

  He got up, pulled back the thick down comforter, and picked Anna up and set her down on the flowery flannel sheet, quickly climbing in beside her and covering them.

  She immediately snuggled against him, wrapping an arm around his waist and resting her head on his shoulder with a sigh of contentment. Pleased by her response, Ethan smiled up at the ceiling. "Did you happen to notice how many condoms were in the box?" he asked.

  "Five in all," she said, her breath tickling his chest hair as her hand gently massaged his ribs. "Enough for tonight."

  * * *

  Her eyelids heavy and her pulse finally starting to calm, Anna lay snuggled up to Ethan's heat, listening to his heartbeat against the backdrop of the rain and occasional rumble of distant thunder. Making love to the fully grown Ethan Knight was far more exciting than any one of her million dreams of him over the last eighteen years.

  Too bad he was going to be hell to deal with at work now. Although Ethan felt that women were the ones who clung, Anna knew from watching her daddy and brothers that men were far more possessive of women they slept with, often to the point of making complete fools of themselves. Her brother Damon still hadn't recovered from his last girlfriend, who'd dropped him like a hot potato when he'd shown up at her hotel in Toronto unannounced and uninvited when she'd been on a buying trip for her work. It hadn't mattered that he'd been carrying an engagement ring with him; they'd known each other only three weeks and had slept together all of five times. Simone had immediately— and quite accurately— foreseen a future of spending an exhausting amount of energy dealing with Damon's ego and his efforts to micromanage her life.

  But then, all of Anna's brothers took after her daddy.

  Not that she was comparing Ethan to the men in her family. Although he had been rather peremptory during their lovemaking, Anna knew her own take-charge attitude sometimes made men feel as if they'd better wrestle her for control or lose it completely. Ethan wasn't the first lover she'd battled in bed, but he was the first one she hadn't minded conceding to— likely due to her lingering childhood impression that he hung the moon. Then again, it might be because Ethan was the first man she'd met who didn't seem overly threatened by her own healthy ego.

  Or maybe he simply was incapable of feeling too deeply since losing Pamela Sant. After all, Anna had offered him a no-commitment, no-regrets affair, so maybe he was just taking advantage of the opportunity to end his own sexual drought.

  Not that his skills as a lover had suffered for it!

  Anna trailed her fingers down
his ribs with a sigh, smiling when he emitted a warning growl and captured her hand before she could explore any lower.

  "You can't make up three years in one night," he said, kissing her palm before placing her hand on his shoulder with a pat to stay put. "But if you give me a few minutes, I'm willing to help you try."

  "You make me sound like a love-starved hussy."

  "Hussy?" he repeated, lifting his head to look down at her. "That word has to be older than my father. Where'd you get that?"

  "From my father," she said. "He used it in every lecture to me about men, my reputation with them, and the consequences of my… ah, forthrightness."

  He placed a finger under her chin and lifted her face to look at him. "Did you get your propensity for shooting at people from André Segee? Do I need to watch my back for sleeping with his little girl?"

  Anna gave him her sweetest smile. "Probably, if he ever speaks to me again. Actually, it's my brothers you should watch out for. They're just as protective of me as my father."

  "You the baby?"

  "Yup."

  "How many brothers?"

  "Four."

  "There's five Segee men?" he asked in surprise. "No wonder you moved down here. And what do you mean, if he ever speaks to you again? You didn't leave on good terms?"

  "Haven't you wondered why I can't even pay my taxes when I come from a family with enough money to run a small nation?" She lowered her hand to his wonderfully broad chest and started working her fingers through the fine down covering his wonderfully strong muscles. "My father somehow persuaded the president of my bank— which also happens to hold the Segee Logging and Lumber accounts— to freeze my checking and savings." She snorted. "And my beautiful truck is probably parked on some logging road a hundred miles north of nowhere."

  He turned on his side to face her, pulled the comforter up over their shoulders, and held her restless hand between them. "Your whole family disowned you?"

  "Just Daddy," she said with a resigned sigh. "My stepmom, Claire, writes to me regularly and includes money when she can. And though my brothers are siding with Dad, they're still speaking to me. At least I think they are."

  "Then why did you do it? Why throw it all away for some run-down mill that's only going to bankrupt you?"

  "Have you ever felt like you're drowning in love?" she asked. "Like your family is so determined to see you happy that they suffocate you with attention? My father chose the schools I attended, gave me a job in one of his mills the day I graduated college, picked out the vehicles I've bought, and dragged home most of the men I dated. Last summer, he suddenly decided it would be a great idea if I married the manager of our mill in Debec and got serious about having babies."

  "And instead of just saying no, you ran off to Maine?"

  "Quebec is a large province, but the Segee name reaches into all four corners, employing thousands of people in the forests and our mills. It wasn't possible for me to stay there and live my life on my own terms. Your family lives and works together. Haven't you ever felt like telling them to bugger off?"

  He laughed, his handsomely chiseled face softened by the glow of the kerosene flame. "I've been known to pack a sleeping bag and head into the woods for a few days," he admitted. "My father's a lot like yours, though with us being boys he's into scheming to get what he wants, where your dad seems to prefer a more direct approach. How does André treat your brothers?"

  "Strictly hands off." She shrugged one shoulder, but couldn't catch the comforter when it slipped down because he wouldn't let go of her hand. Hey, if the man wanted to ogle her chest, why not? Maybe it would restart his engine, because dammit, she wanted to feel him inside her again.

  "Since my brothers are exactly like him," she said to answer his question, "Daddy doesn't feel compelled to tell them what to do, how to do it, or who to do it with. If it wasn't for my stepmom, I'd have headed for the loony bin years ago." She nodded toward her bureau. "You have Claire to thank for my sexy undergarments. She was so tickled to have another female in the house, she took me shopping in Toronto and New York every chance she got."

  Ethan lifted his gaze from her chest to her face. "If I ever meet your stepmom, I'll have to thank her personally," he said thickly.

  Deciding she'd given him more than enough time to recover, Anna suddenly threw her leg over his hip and pushed at his shoulder, straddling him in one fluid motion. His hands immediately went to her breasts, and she made a tiny sound of pleasure as she leaned into his touch— while reaching down to fondle him intimately.

  He yelped in surprise and brought his knees up, trying to buck her off. Anna fought valiantly but lost the battle for who would be on top for their next round, finding herself pinned to the mattress five minutes later, panting with laughter.

  "I also had brothers to wrestle with growing up," he said, and she was pleased to see he was just as winded as she was. "Am I going to have to sleep with one eye open?" His gaze traveled down to her chest again, which was rising and falling as she tried to catch her breath.

  "If I let you sleep at all," she said. "You might want to open the four remaining packets now, and just line them up on the nightstand." She jutted out her lower lip in a pout. "Unless you're not in as good a shape as you appear."

  "I'm starting to feel sorry for your father and brothers," he said, lowering his mouth to hers but stopping just short of making contact. "Come for me like you did before," he whispered, the deep timbre of his renewed desire reaching all the way to the pit of her stomach, "and maybe I'll let you be on top next time."

  And so went their salacious battle of wills far into the rainy night, though the lamp had long since burned out, dawn had come and gone several hours earlier, and they were down to their last condom before Anna finally got to straddle his hips and make him beg for mercy. Or was that her voice crying uncle as she collapsed on top of his heaving chest in a quivering puddle of bliss?

  Chapter Eleven

  The storm must have started up again, and for some strange reason the thunder sounded as if it were yelling her name. But Anna didn't open her eyes— she couldn't have moved a muscle to save her soul.

  Ethan managed to lift his arm enough to prod her hip. "Wake up," he muttered. "You have company, and they've let themselves in."

  "Anna!" came the shout from downstairs. "Come on, ma belle enfant! I've brought you a surprise."

  Anna bolted to a sitting position with a horrified gasp. "Damon!" she yelped, rounding her eyes on Ethan. She shoved him hard enough that he nearly fell off the bed, his eyes snapping open with a growl. "Get up!" she hissed, rolling toward the hall door. "You need to get out of here!"

  "Anna!" Damon yelled again as she heard his foot on the bottom stairs. "Where are you? It's nearly noon!"

  "Stay downstairs!" she called out, holding her bedroom door open a crack. "I'm getting dressed! I'll be down in a minute."

  "What are you doing in bed in the middle of the day?" he asked, sounding as if he had stopped halfway up the stairs. "Are you sick?"

  "I got dirty working outside. I'm changing my clothes," she said through the crack, glancing briefly at Ethan to see him on the other side of the bed, smiling like an idiot as he stuffed something in his pants pocket— when he should be stuffing himself into them! She closed the door, silently locked it, and gave him a warning glare as she strode to her bureau. "Hurry up," she demanded in a whisper, pulling underwear out of the top drawer. "The last thing we need is for Damon to find you up here."

  He straightened from putting on his pants. "Exactly how protective is dear brother Damon? Better yet, how big is he?" he asked, scratching his chest as he gave a lazy yawn. "Because I don't think I have enough strength left to defend you, much less myself."

  "He's five-ten and a full-blooded French Canadian woodsman, which means he's compact and lethal," she said as she slid her camisole over her head. She jerked opened another drawer and pulled out a sweater and jeans. "And your halfhearted offer is sweet, but I don't need defending from
my brother. Unlike you, Damon would cut off his arm before he'd put so much as a scratch on my body."

  While slipping into her sweater, Anna was suddenly spun around, and when she popped her head out, she found herself facing a rather foreboding scowl.

  "I didn't know you were a woman when I punched you."

  "And last night when you tackled me? Did you know then?"

  His expression turned sinister. "Which time?" he asked in a growl. "Before we hit the sheets or after?"

  She reached up and patted his still naked chest— which she'd gotten well acquainted with last night— and smiled. "Damon will take a shotgun to you, and he won't be aiming in the air when he pulls the trigger."

  "You're twenty-nine years old, Segee."

  "And the only girl in the family, and the baby." She slid into her pants. "It's your funeral. But if I were you, I'd crawl out the window, hike to my snowmobile, and book it for home."