Bedding Down, A Collection of Winter Erotica (15 page)

“I’ve been dreaming about this for so long,” he murmured, pull-

ing out slowly and flipping me so that I was facedown on the

towel. How could I be imagining this? The terry cloth was so

soft under my skin, and when I put one hand off the edge of the giant bath sheet, I could trace circles and diamonds in the sand decorating the hardwood floor.

But who would go to so much trouble? Who would work so

hard to re-create a world for a lover? That was easy to answer.

I
would. Although I couldn’t believe Jeremiah had done all this for me, I’d spent most of the last twelve months doing similar

crazy things for a man. Why couldn’t my own fairy tale come

true?

That was the thought in my head as Jeremiah gripped my

hips and slid into me from behind. Inch by inch by inch.

“Oh God,” I sighed, loving the way his warm skin felt on

mine.

His body found that perfect rhythm, and he slid one hand

under my waist, parting my nether lips with his fingertips, stroking my clit as he fucked me. The sweet pleasure of almost com-

118

A
lison
T
yler

ing surrounded me. That sensation of being so close, so damn

close, but not quite reaching the finish. Jeremiah knew how to

keep me teetering. He worked his fingertips in my juices, using my own lubrication to twirl and slide in.

“You’re so wet,” he whispered, and I shuddered all over. “So

fucking wet.”

I could hardly breathe from the pleasure, and when he gripped

onto my long dark ponytail and pulled, I came. They say no two

snowflakes are alike, but I’d amend that to say no two orgasms

are, either. This one was earth-shattering, my body trembling

all over, my breath coming hard and fast, as Jeremiah reached

his own limits, as he shuddered hard and called out my name.

“Michelle. My Michelle.”

Ever the conscientious bartender, my new man brought me a

glass of spiked lemonade afterward, then wrapped me in his

strong arms. Together, we watched the snow fall outside the

window. Crisp, perfect, white pristine flakes. For a moment, I

could understand Roger’s nostalgia, his homesickness for this

type of weather.

“It’s not the weather,” Jeremiah said, as if reading my mind.

He drizzled a handful of coconut-scented Tropicana oil on my

belly. “It’s the boyfriend.”

About Alison Tyler

ALISON TYLER, called a “trollop with a laptop”

by the
East Bay Express
and a “literary siren” by Good

Vibrations, is naughty and she knows it. Her sultry

I
t’s
N
ot the
W
eather

119

short stories have appeared in more than seventy-five

anthologies, including
Sex for America (
HarperCollins),
Sex at the Office
(Virgin), and
Best Women’s Erotica 2008

(Cleis). She is the author of more than twenty-five

erotic novels, and the editor of more than forty-five

explicit anthologies, including
Naked Erotica
(Pretty

Things Press). Please visit www.alisontyler.com for

more information or myspace.com/alisontyler to be her

friend. Although she thinks that snow is lovely to look

at, she’s a California girl through and through.

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

by Marilyn Jaye Lewis

The Philadelphia Flyers had come into the new hockey season

ranked down at the very bottom of the Eastern Conference,

but Connor Moore, a die-hard Flyers fan, knew there was still

plenty of time left in the season for them to get back on top. He was determined to get to the arena in plenty of time for today’s face-off—the Flyers were playing the New York Rangers at five

o’clock. Another snowfall was heading toward Hellertown, but

Connor was undeterred. They would make it to Philadelphia

come hell or high water—or even more snow.

Kaylie Moore, Connor’s wife, was less than a die-hard hockey

fan. She didn’t hate it; she simply didn’t love it. But she did love Connor and after three years of marriage and two years of

steady dating, she’d gotten used to his devotion to the Flyers, to his love of the sport. She saw the home games as a way to

spend time with her husband, if nothing else. Still, sometimes

his fanaticism drove Kaylie a little nuts. Here they were, already getting into the car.

124

M
arilyn
J
aye
L
ewis

“Don’t you think that two o’clock is a little early to be leav-

ing, Connor? The game doesn’t start until five. We’re only about an hour away.”

Connor slid into the driver’s seat and pulled the car door

closed. “I’m leaving plenty of time for bad weather and—I

thought I’d surprise you.”

This piqued Kaylie’s interest. “Really? Surprise me how?”

She fastened her seat belt.

“We’re taking the scenic route. I thought I’d take 611 the

whole way instead of the freeway. How does that sound? And

we can stop at that old barn thing you like—that farmers’

market.”

It was a very nice surprise. Kaylie was amazed that he’d even

thought of it—on a hockey day, no less. “I’ll bet 611 will be

beautiful in this snow, but I don’t think the market is open in the wintertime, Connor.”

“Sure they are.” Connor put the car in reverse and backed

down the long graveled driveway to the semirural street they

lived on, Fullerton Way. “There must be something farmers can

sell in the winter. You know, stuff they ship in from California that we could buy cheaper just about anywhere else. It’s the am-biance we’re after here and I’m sure they’re well aware of it, even in winter. Farmers can be pretty shrewd.”

Kaylie smiled in spite of herself. “Pretty shrewd” was her hus-

band’s pat way of describing anyone whose crafts, food, folk art, or furniture were packaged in just the right way to get Kaylie to part with her hard-earned money. The Amish, the Quakers, and

now, apparently, the farmers were all “pretty shrewd.”

“You’re sweet,” she said. “Thank you for thinking of it.”

B
aby,
I
t’s
C
old
O
utside

125

“I just wanted to make sure you knew that I wasn’t
totally
self-centered. I know I’ve seemed like it lately.”

“It’s not that, Connor. I don’t think of you as self-centered.”

“As what, then—afraid? Is that how you think of me?”

“Yes, maybe a little afraid.” She was quick to add, “But that’s okay.”

“It’s okay because I’m a man, you mean? We’re all afraid of

having children?”

“No, I didn’t say that.”

“Then it’s not the children we’re afraid of, per se—” Connor

drove east on Fullerton Way, past the old filling station that

was now called Rosie’s Bar & Grille. “It’s the
cost
of children, the permanence, the unending responsibility of them; that’s what

we men are afraid of, right?”

Kaylie looked away from him and made sure not to sigh.

Sighing usually made Connor feel guilty and then this never-

changing discussion they seemed to have almost daily now

would morph into an argument, and Kaylie didn’t want that,

least of all today, when he was trying so hard to be a good egg about everything.

“You’re allowed to respond, you know, Kaylie; you don’t have

to sit there and just stare out the window. We can talk about

this, can’t we, without getting into a fight?”

It was such a loaded topic that Kaylie couldn’t help but sigh.

“What?” he said, sounding exasperated already. “I know you

want to have a baby.”

She looked at him. “
We
want to have one.”

“Right.
We
want to have one. Just not—” Connor caught

himself before he said it but it was too late.

126

M
arilyn
J
aye
L
ewis

“Just not now.” Kaylie finished his thought for him.

“I didn’t say that.”

“What are you saying then, Connor? Just tell me.”

“I’m thinking about it. That’s all.” Kaylie thought this was either very promising news—that he was seriously thinking about

it, about being agreeable, finally, and trying to make a baby with her—or it was merely another stalling tactic. She decided to

think positive and leave well enough alone for now. No reason

to push him if he was indeed trying to be agreeable. “Thanks,

Connor,” she said. And she thought it would be best to change

the subject for a while. “So how are the Rangers ranked right

now?”

“Third.”

“Wow. This should be a good game.”

“It sure will,” Connor agreed. “I’m excited.” At the flashing

yellow traffic light, he veered left, toward 611 and the Delaware River; it would be the river and trees and then pastoral foothills from here on out, and all of it, except the madly rushing river, was frosted with a light layer of still-white two-day-old snow.

Kaylie loved snow, and she loved taking the scenic route any-

where. She hated freeways. She especially loved taking 611, following the bends in the river. In the early days of their marriage, she and Connor used to take a lot of drives along the Delaware, stopping for picnics or to take hikes along the old canal. They hadn’t done anything like that in a long while. Now, seeing it

all dusted with snow made Kaylie’s heart happy; her perspec-

tive freshened on everything. And it brought back memories, to

boot.

“Remember that time—” she began.

B
aby,
I
t’s
C
old
O
utside

127

Connor cut her off. “Yes,” he said, smiling. “I do.”

She smiled back at him. She was feeling her hormones stir-

ring but she didn’t want to say anything about it. She was ovu-

lating; it would be sure to lead to a huge argument as soon as

he found out. Better to change the subject again, but she didn’t feel like talking about hockey. She wanted to have a baby. In all honesty, it was all she thought about anymore.

Not privy to his wife’s thought processes, Connor was still on

the topic of memories. “We were pretty bold that day, weren’t

we? I mean, even for us.”

“I guess so,” Kaylie replied distractedly.

“You
guess
so? Jesus, Kay, that’s understating it. You know, I think about that day from time to time and I still get off on it.”

This took her aback; she thought she’d been alone it that

secret pleasure. “You do?”

“Yeah, I do. That was so hot, don’t you think? I get a lot of

mileage out of that memory. You were such a wild little girl that day. Not that you aren’t all the time,” he added playfully. “You just outdid yourself that time—and in public, no less.”

“It was hardly ‘in public,’ ” she said, suddenly feeling shy

about it. “We were simply outside.”

Connor reached over and squeezed her hand. “Hey, you’re

blushing.”

“I am not.”

“Yes, you are.”

The simple touch of his hand on hers gave Kaylie that spark,

ignited somewhere between her heart and her belly, and the sud-

den clarity of the memory overwhelmed her in its intimate de-

128

M
arilyn
J
aye
L
ewis

tail. They’d been walking along the towpath of the old canal

that day; it was late spring, warm enough to be walking without jackets for the first time that season. The sky had been that

perfect shade of blue; the clouds, puffy and bright white. The

air was filled with the scent of the first May blossoms and the river itself had smelled of spring, a thing alive and fresh and full of new promises. It had made Kaylie feel hungry for life—

insatiable for it, in fact. One minute, she’d been kissing Con-

nor; the next, she’d felt ravenous for his tongue. They were
really
kissing then—passionately, right there on the old towpath, out

in the open. She was clinging to Connor’s neck and his hand

was up under her T-shirt. The feel of his fingertips grazing her nipple, even through the lace of her bra, had set her on fire. She’d practically dragged him to the ranger station—a very small, very old clapboard house just off the main path—and thrown him

down onto the grass behind the building.

For a mere moment, she’d confined herself to lying on top of

him in the grass and kissing him like crazy. But it wasn’t long before he had her shirt pushed up, her bra tugged up over her tits and her tits exposed to the air—her tender nipple suddenly in

his mouth and swelling from the intense pressure of how fiercely he was sucking on her.

She couldn’t stand it then. She’d reached behind her and un-

clasped the bra but even that had felt too constricting. She managed to pull the T-shirt and then the bra off completely. It had felt so liberating, she remembered; that was the exact feeling, to be suddenly topless in the warm spring air, with Connor so

eager to devour her nipples. It had become quickly obvious that they were going to have to fuck—there was no doubt about it.

She was too worked up.

B
aby,
I
t’s
C
old
O
utside

129

Her hands were at his belt, unbuckling it. Abruptly, his

mouth was off her. “Kaylie,” he said. “What are you doing?”

“You know what I’m doing,” she insisted—hurriedly, as she

fumbled with his buckle.

“Not really.” He was mildly alarmed when he felt his zip-