Forever's Embrace (Forever In Luck Series Book 2)

by J. Darling

  “Take your hair down,” he said in a hoarse whisper, his hot breath in direct conflict with the cool cabin air.

  Her insides tightened, the intimacy of his request stirring her to the quick. Gradually bringing her hands up, she was about to start removing pins when there was a rattle.

  “Ignore it,” he said, as he continued placing delicate kisses here and there.

  More rattling. She stopped and looked back, his line pulling, the wheel turning. “Jake, you have a fish.”

  “Don’t care, not interested.”

  She chuckled. “Jake that could be supper. I want that fish, plus we need to set up the other two holes.” He stopped and looked at her grumpily, and she gifted him with her best smile.

  “Why should I care about a scrappy fish, when I have a feast right here in front of me, hmm?”

  She giggled. “You got a sample, now you have to wait,” she answered. “Besides, I came to fish, not canoodle.”

  He glared over at the fish hole. “'Noodling’s more fun,” he mumbled, as he stood with her, placing her on her feet. More mumbling, a little growl, then, “First I’m jipped out of first prize, and now the damn fish decide to bite.”

  She laughed as he complained about her ability to stay focused, and couldn’t stop laughing when he referred to her being a taskmaster. Kneeling down by the hole, she watched as he pulled the line up. Soon, there was a halfway decent sized fish coming up the hole, and he reached down and grabbed it by the mouth.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “A bluegill, and a nice one at that. It’s considered a panfish, and a keeper. When you take a fish off the hook, gently comb the body with your hand, starting at the top, until you have a nice grip over the fins and body. Don’t squeeze, be gentle. Then carefully remove the hook.” He demonstrated the technique, then placed the fish in a cooler. Baiting the hook, he set the line for use again.

  Crawling over a little ways, she opened the lid on another hole in the floor. Standing, she grabbed the ice auger and worked on making a hole. He’d made it look easy, but it was a little harder to do than she expected. Turning, turning, turning, she kept at it.

  “Let me help you,” he said, stepping over.

  She ignored him, and kept turning. Finally, after several minutes, she broke through the ice, her arms screaming from the effort. She took several deep breaths, working to slow her breathing. Pulling the auger up, she handed it to him with a smile.

  He was grinning at her. “In other words, you’ve got a stubborn streak, hmm?” he asked, as he raised an eyebrow.

  When her face turned pink, he grinned even more. Shrugging, she said, “Matter of opinion, I prefer to view it as determined.”

  Chuckling, he responded, “Touché.”

  They went about setting up the other holes, and once done, he grabbed her hand and pulled her over to him.

  “Now where were we?” he asked, playing around. “Oh yes, you were about to take your hair down, and I was working on making you moan.”

  “You’re the moaner, not me,” she responded. “I was making you moan with pleasure.”

  Pulling back, he adamantly shook his head. Then in all seriousness said, “Men don’t moan.”

  She tried not to smile. He was definitely a moaner, especially when she ran her fingers through his hair. Absolutely, positively. “Okay,” she relented, trying not to laugh. Just then her line rattled. She pushed out of his hold and scampered to the hole. Grabbing the wheely deely, she stopped the line from unwinding, and as she did, she felt a corresponding tug as it pulled back. “Jake, I got one!” Slowly, she worked on bringing the line up as she turned the wheel, but it kept pulling back hard. “Jake, what am I doing wrong?”

  “You’re doing fine, keep trying,” he encouraged, as he knelt by the hole.

  She tried and tried. Finally, you could see the fish darting around just below the hole. Plunging his hand into icy cold water, Jake reached deep and grabbed for the fish, bringing it up through the hole.

  “It’s a nice one, bebis. Grab it.”

  “No way! I’m not sticking my fingers anywhere near that thing.”

  He laughed, then clucked like a chicken a few times. “Your first catch and you land a walleye, and not just any walleye, but a beauty of a walleye. It must be twenty-one, twenty-two inches, a definite keeper. Now you’ve got to take it off the hook.”

  She stepped back and shook her head.

  “Juuules,” he said, smiling, “Cooome on, give it a try.”

  She shook her head.

  “Where’s that ‘determined’ girl?” he asked.

  “She was smart, she left.”

  He coughed, trying to cover up his laugh. “You want me to help you do it?”

  She looked at him warily.

  He crooked his finger at her, motioning for her to come over.

  She just stood there, not moving.

  “Ah, you want me to come to you? The line reaches that far you know.”

  She rolled her eyes and took an exaggerated breath, blowing it out as she tried to lift the cinder blocks she called feet. Smarting from the moment’s injustice, she prattled, “Call me a taskmaster? I don’t think so mister. Taskmaster my butt.” Stumbling her way over to him, she looked him in the eye, and said with emphasis, “You’re the taskmaster, making me touch that thing. I thought you liked me?” He laughed at her as she grudgingly stepped closer. Looking at the twitching fish with disgust, she shook off a full bodied shiver. “Bleck!”

  Positioning her within the circle of his arms, he held the fish out in front of her, then said in her ear, “I do like you. I really, really, really like you. In fact, it would be more accurate to say it goes much deeper than that.”

  She froze. What was he saying? Was he saying… She turned and looked at him, as she grasped and grappled with the words he’d said. He placed a gentle kiss on her lips, and she felt her knees go weak as her insides went taut. She gently fell back against him, sliding down a bit in the process.

  He grunted. “Ah, Jules,” he said, his voice strangled. “You’re right where I want you, so let’s focus on this fish, and get it off the hook fast. Cup your hand around it like this.”

  Turning her head, she looked at the slithery blob. Grabbing one of her hands, he put the line holding the fish in it and closed her fist around it, then taking her other hand, he used his hands to place hers where it needed to be on the fish. She let out a stifled scream on contact with the cold, wet, wiggling fish. When it twitched and flapped its tail, she screamed outright.

  “Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!” she yelled.

  Holding the fish with her, he helped her quickly remove the hook. Hurdling her way over the lines and holes to the cooler, she threw the fish in and slammed the lid shut. “Ick! Bleck! Yuck!” Dashing over to a chair, she grabbed a towel and began wiping her hands with vigor. “I am not doing that again. No way! And you can’t make me. I will cut the lines and let them go if I have to. I need hand sanitizer. Where’s my purse?”

  He burst out laughing, a full bellied roar, as he watched her frantic attempts to get rid of the memory, and its corresponding germs. Hopping over to the box he’d carried in, she pulled out a bottle of water and hightailed it over to a hole. Pouring water all over one hand, she switched and did the other. Tossing the empty bottle aside, she shook her hands off and dashed over to her purse, dumping its contents on the table and snatching up the little bottle of sanitizer. Squeezing a generous dollop on her palm, she decided it wasn’t enough and added more, then let loose the bottle, and started rubbing the gel all around with voracity. When she was completely satisfied with the results, she looked his way and calmly said, “I refuse to do that again.”

  Unable to catch his breath because he was laughing so hard, it took a minute or two for him to respond. “Ah, yeah, I think we established that. I’m sure arrangements can be made to help you out.”

  “What do you mean arrangements?” she asked, her voice clipped and her eyes narrowin
g.

  He gave her a sly grin. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Then he wiggled his eyebrows at her.

  “Fooooorget it, I’m done,” she said, in a sing song voice. Throwing her stuff back in her purse, she kept out the Suduko book and pencil she carried to occupy her time during long train rides around the city. Picking them up, she went and sat in a chair, ignoring him.

  With amusement in his voice, he said, “I thought you wanted to catch enough for supper?”

  “I did. My dinner’s in the cooler,” she answered, focusing on her book.

  Chuckling, he asked, “You going to gut it and clean it?”

  Thumbing through the book, she answered, “Nope.”

  “You going to share with me?”

  Looking up at his smiling face, she crowed, “Ohhh, I’m sure arrangements can be made to help you out.”

  He laughed. “You don’t even know what the arrangement was going to be. Aren’t you curious, bebis?”

  Finding an answer for one of the book’s puzzles, she wrote it in as she responded to his inquiry. “No, it’s irrelevant, as it’s based on the hypothetical of my potential to catch another fish. However, my assertion is based on the fact that I have one large fish, and you will, no doubt, be hungry. Therefore it garners merit.” She wrote another answer in the book.

  Walking over, he stood behind her, then bent and hovered over her shoulder. His breath hot on her neck, causing a shiver to roll through her.

  She stopped. “What are you doing?”

  “Deciding which side of your neck I want to kiss first. Are we having another tiff?

  Just then, one of the lines rattled. They both looked to the hole, then he turned to her and placed a kiss on her cheek. “Guess it ain’t so hypothetical now, is it?” Speaking softly in her ear, he said, “It’s simple. I take the fish off the hook, and you take off your sweatshirt.” Standing up, he walked to the wheel and stopped it from turning, then looked over at her, making a point of waiting.

  Intrigued by this little bit of propaganda, she conferred, “You mean your arrangements are akin to strip poker? Every time, you take a fish off the hook for me, I lose an article of clothing for you, is that right?”

  He gave her a magnanimous smile, chewed on the answer a bit, then said smugly, “Yep, pretty much.”

  Tapping her pencil on her book, she thought about it. “Do I get to pick the clothing item?”

  “Top half first, then bottom after.”

  “When does this ‘arrangement’ as you call it, end?” she asked.

  “Any time you decide it stops, you call the shots.”

  Leaning over, she put her stuff back in her purse. Getting up, she walked over to the tugging line. Grabbing it, she started pulling it in, and struggled. “Jake this is harder than last time.” She bent over, trying to see down the hole. Nothing. Gently tugging and pulling, she worked on getting it in. Finally, she could see a shadow going back and forth. It started tugging harder and faster. “Jake, help.”

  He knelt down, peered in the hole and plunged his hand down into the icy, cold water, then quickly brought it back up with the fish. “Oh, baby, it’s a nice one,” he said, as the fish fought on. “Another walleye, and it’s better than the one before. It must be twenty-four inches. We’re going to be eating good tonight.”

  Taking the fish off the line, he stood and put a kiss on her cheek, before stepping to the cooler. Setting up her line again, she turned to find him watching her. Looking down at her sweatshirt, then back up, he stood there waiting with that smirk of his on his face.

  He doesn’t think I’ll do it, and he’s challenging me, she thought. Being certain she remained covered, she slid one arm out of a sleeve and brought it inside her shirt, then did the other. Slowly, she lifted the sweatshirt over her head as he stood there looking upon her in astonishment. Folding her sweatshirt, she dropped it by her purse, then grabbed her puzzle book, and went to sit in the chair closest to the heater.

  “How many layers do you have on?” he asked, irritated at having been beat.

  “Many. We’ll meet our fish quota without much of a problem.”

  “How can we effectively canoodle, when you’re dressed like an Eskimo?” he asked, exasperated.

  “Eskimos don’t seem to have any trouble, their population rate continues to climb. You’ll have to think on it.”

  “I don’t want to think about it, I’m tired of thinking about it, I want to do something about it.” He came over and knelt in front of her, positioning himself between her knees, his forearms resting on the armrests of the chair. Looking at her, he said “I’m dying to hold you, touch you, to…to…feel you.”

  She chewed on the inside of her cheek. “Why haven’t you said anything before now?”

  “Because we really haven’t known each other all that long, because I don’t want to scare you or push you into something you’re not ready for, because I respect you and want to treat you right, because…”

  Rattle, rattle, rattle.

  “Damn it anyways!” he spat, as he dropped his face to his bicep.

  Looking over, she saw it was his line. Going back to him, she lifted his head with her hands. “Go take care of your line, we’ll continue this when you’re done.”

  He leapt up and started reeling in his fish, just as he got the gillie up through the hole, his other line began to rattle. She tried not to laugh as he looked at it and started cussing under his breath. Going to the other line, he did the same, and smiled when a fish like hers came up, a walleye. In the cooler they went, and he set the lines again. Looking at her, he headed her direction.

  “Wash your hands, please,” she said in alarm.

  He smiled, turned, and did as she asked. When he turned back to her, he stopped dead in his tracks. She’d taken off all her tops with the exception of her bra and one thin strapped, lacy camisole tee over it. “This is as far as I’m willing to go as of right now.”

  Then she reached up and began taking the pins out of her hair, the locks falling in waves around her shoulders, down her front and along her back. He moaned as she ran her fingers through it searching for missed pins, making her stop and look poignantly at him as he did. He swallowed hard, and she heard it. When she finished, she bent and placed the pins on a little table, no doubt giving him a tantalizing view of some cleavage.

  Standing, she crooked her finger to him and wiggled it. He was there in a flash, his hands trembling as they came up. Reaching for her, his fingers threaded through her hair, tangling in the mass. Using it as incentive, he brought them closer when he tugged on the long mane, causing her head to fall back and her spine to bow, throwing off her center of gravity. Surprised, she reached for him, as her mouth fell open in anticipation. Seizing the opportunity, he kissed her passionately, demanding her attention, as he stole her breath and pushed her into a hazy oblivion.

  They’d kissed before, and it had been nothing short of sensational, but this, this was different. It was deeply passionate, overwhelmingly strong, and yet, achingly tender. It was like he was a dying man in a desert, and she was the first drop of water he’d seen in a week. Struggling to slide her hands up his muscular chest, she wrapped her arms around his neck, and went up on tiptoe in a bid to be closer, as she returned his kiss with fervor. Threading fingers through his hair, she gently teased and pulled. He broke the kiss, and moaned in her ear, then started kissing her neck with voracity.

  Tipping her head to one side, she made more room for him, as he kissed and sucked on her neck with varying degrees of intensity. Gasping, he pushed her to the edge of the unknown, and she leaned into him, one of her knees bending as she slid her leg up his. He moaned louder, grabbed her knee and reached for the other, bringing her up and about his waist. Shoving one of the chairs over, he reached and grabbed a metal ring on the wall and pulled, bringing down a bed. Kneeling on it, he stopped, his chest heaving.

  “What’s wrong?” she whispered, as she looked at him, then kissed him.

  “The be
ds cold,” he answered hoarsely. “I can’t stand the thought of you on it when it’s like a brick of ice.”

  Taking his face in her hands, she kissed him passionately, then said, “We were making good use of the bench earlier. You know, just until this warms up.”

  He was up and over there within a few steps. Getting them settled, he started kissing her shoulder when one of the lines rattled. His forehead fell to her shoulder as he labored to breathe.

  “Go fix the line, I’ll check this bed thing over, pull back the covers and try to get it to warm up faster.” His head snapped up, and he kissed her before standing and setting her on her feet.

  Pulling back the covers, she shook them out, then grabbed a sleeping bag they’d brought, laying it over the cold mattress. Looking around, she pondered her dilemma. “Ah, Jake, where does one go to the bathroom?”

  He smiled and pointed to a bucket.

  “You’ve got to be kidding, right?”

  He didn’t answer, just kept on smiling.

  “Seriously? Honest to Pete, the things I’ve endured just so I can say I caught a fish.”

  Finishing up, he stood and looked at her.

  “If you think I’m going to the bathroom in front of you, you’re crazy. Out. I’ll call you when I’m done.”

  “Shy, bebis?” he said, more than he asked, as he grabbed his jacket and put it on.

  “Yep,” she snapped.

  Stepping over, he gave her a quick peck. “I need to cool off anyways. You’re kisses burn they’re so hot.”

  She blushed. “Out.”

  Needing to take down several layers, and caught in the bundle, she teetered and tottered over the bucket trying hard not to make a mess. Definitely a design choice for men’s use, or viewing pleasure, she thought perturbed. There was a tremendous rattle from a line as she was finishing taking care of business. One of her lines was running away, yanking and rattling like crazy. Finishing up fast, she pulled up her long underwear, then kicked off her two pairs of jeans and sweatpants, shoving them to the side. She yelled for Jake, as she leapt for the wheel, stopping the line. It pulled and bent, vibrating the reel as it fought. The door opened, and she heard Jake come in.