shrugged. ‘Everything?’
Cocking her chin to one side, she demanded, ‘Doesn’t that make it irresistible…for both of us?’
No. It did not. Dios! What was he going to do with this woman—with himself? The fire they created between them was unreal. One minute they were arguing, and the next passion of a very different kind was threatening. Any challenge, or something forbidden to him, had always proved irresistible in the past, but this was Stacey. This was wrong. With no reprieve in sight, the best he could do was put space between them. What a joke talking about consequences where Stacey was concerned. He’d taken her into his home and it was he who had to live with those consequences. According to the latest weather forecast it would be three or four days at least before the roads to the village were passable, so, like it or not, they were stuck together.
‘Lucas?’ she prompted. ‘Don’t you have anything to say?’
‘Irresistible is a dangerous word.’
‘Thank you for your input, Señor Da Silva. I shall bear that in mind.’
He had plenty more to say on the subject, but thought it better now to stare out of the window, beyond which snow was falling again. The hotel across the road had become a vague, insubstantial shadow, a reminder that he’d called every hotel in the village, but they were all full with people who’d been stranded. No one had any room for Stacey except him. ‘Haven’t you gone to bed yet?’ he asked without turning to face her.
‘I’m waiting for you,’ she said.
When he swung around, she gave him one of her looks, and he knew then that even if they went to their separate beds she’d still be on his mind. ‘You should rest and so should I.’
‘I’ll let you rest…in between making love to me.’
‘This isn’t funny, Stace.’
‘You’re telling me.’
To his horror, there were tears in her eyes. ‘Just let it go,’ he advised. ‘I’m a lost cause,’ he added wryly.
‘Okay,’ she agreed with a jerk of her head. ‘That should be easy.’ But instead of moving away, she moved closer. ‘Wow. We really are snowed in…what a cliché. Now I have to share your bed.’
Not so much a cliché as a challenge, he thought as he attempted to ignore Stacey’s appeal, her scent, her vulnerability. ‘Your bed,’ he emphasised.
‘I can take a hint.’
He doubted it. ‘Thanks for your help tonight.’
‘I was pleased to help.’
They stood staring out at the snow, which had started banking up thanks to a strong wind, and was collecting in even deeper drifts around the chalet. He’d dig them out in the morning and ski her down to the lower part of the village, rather than sit around waiting for the weather to change. That was the safest thing to do, plus he had a party to think about. They both did. He laughed inwardly at the irony of trying to avoid someone for their own good, only to have fate bind them together.
‘We’re stranded on a desert island of snow,’ Stacey murmured beside him.
‘No more fantasies, please,’ he begged.
Needless to say, she ignored him. ‘It’s like a different world, isn’t it? No rules, and nothing beyond us and this moment.’
‘It doesn’t take long for your imagination to start rolling, does it?’ he commented.
‘Well, how do you see it?’
‘As a task tomorrow morning when I dig us both out.’
‘Practical to the last,’ she remarked with a laugh.
‘I’m practical,’ he agreed. ‘As you can be.’
‘I do have some good qualities, then?’
‘Stop fishing,’ he warned, but she’d made him smile, which made him want her more than ever. He’d be the first to admit that years of guarding his siblings had made him overprotective. That was what his brothers and sister told him, anyway. ‘You’re no fun any more,’ was a frequent complaint that he supposed might be true, but it hadn’t stopped him enjoying Stacey.
Did he really have to stop?
For her sake, yes.
‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ she whispered, and then he felt her hand on his back… Her tiny hand on flesh he hadn’t troubled to cover since leaving his bed. The sensation was incredible. ‘Get out of here,’ he said lightly, hoping she would, because his willpower had taken just about all it could.
‘No,’ she said flatly, and, rather than obey him, she ran the tips of her nails down his supersensitive skin, sending his moral compass into a spin.
Swinging around, he stared at her. ‘No?’ he queried.
She glanced down. Instantly hard, he was incapable of hiding his physical reactions; thoughts were much easier.
They stared at each other for a good few moments, then he reached out to hook his fingers into the waistband of her pyjamas. As he pulled them down she observed, ‘So you’re not entirely made of ice.’
‘Try me,’ he suggested.
‘I intend to.’
A cry of triumph shot from her throat as he knelt between her thighs.
‘Oh…please,’ she begged as he began to explore her body as if he had never encountered it before. By bending her knees she increased the pressure from his tongue. Working her hips to and fro lazily, she was all too soon wailing, ‘I can’t hold on.’
‘You’re not supposed to, princess.’
And then she screamed out wildly, ‘Yes! Yes… Yes!’ before exhaling noisily in time to each violent spasm as it washed over her.
‘Oh, Lucas,’ she moaned contentedly when the pleasure began to fade. ‘That was amazing.’
Catching her as she collapsed, sated for the moment, he knew he had never wanted a woman more, had never wanted to pleasure a woman more. With all the barriers finally removed between them he swung her into his arms, and carried her to the deep fur rug in front of the fire. Arranging her to his liking, he parted her legs wide and allowed them to rest on his shoulders as he dipped his head and parted her lips to lave her with his tongue.
‘I can’t—not again—not so soon,’ she insisted on a gasping breath.
‘And I say you can,’ he argued quietly, ‘and not once, but many times.’
He proved it by delicately agitating the tiny bud at the heart of her pleasure. It didn’t take much encouragement for it to spring back to life.
Exhaling
