Strangers in the Night (23 page)

H
ope held him, murmuring to him, trying to get him to talk to her. If she could get him awake enough to drink some coffee, the heat and caffeine would go a long way toward rousing him, but trying to pour hot coffee into an unconscious man was a good way to both choke him and burn him.

He moaned again, and sucked in a quick breath. He made a sharp movement with his head, dislodging the towel. The heat had dried his hair; it was dark, glistening with bronze lights in the glow of the fire. Hope tucked the towel back around his head to keep him from losing any of the precious body heat he had gained, and stroked
his forehead, his cheeks.“Wake up, honey. Open your eyes and talk to me.” She whispered to him, unconsciously using endearments to both reassure him and entice him to respond. Tink's ears perked up, because he was accustomed to that sweet tone being used when she spoke to him. He moved down to the man's feet, crowding against them when he lay down again. Maybe he could feel their chill through the blanket; with his thick fur, that would feel good to him. Or maybe it was instinct that led him to warm the man. Hope talked to Tink too, telling him what a good dog he was.

The faint, occasional shivers began to intensify. They wracked the man's body, roughening his skin, contorting his muscles. His teeth clenched and began chattering.

Hope held him through the convulsive shaking. He was in pain, barely conscious, groaning and breathing hard. He tried to curl into a ball, but she held him too tightly.“You're all right,” she kept telling him.“Wake up, please. Open your eyes.”

Unbelievably, he obeyed. His lids half lifted. His eyes were glazed, unfocused. Then they closed again, dark lashes resting on his cheeks. His arms
swept up and locked around her, desperately clinging to her warmth as he was wracked by another bout of uncontrollable shaking. His entire body was tense, shuddering.

He was as strong as an ox; his arms were like steel bands around her. She murmured soothingly to him, rubbing his shoulders, pressing as close to him as she could. His skin definitely felt warmer now.
She
was hot, sweating from exertion and being swaddled in the heated blanket. She was exhausted from the effort of dragging him inside and wrestling him out of his clothes, as well as from the stress of knowing he would die if she didn't get him warm.

He relaxed beneath her, the bout of shivering over. He was breathing hard. He moved restlessly, shifting his legs, shrugging the towel away from his head. The towel seemed to annoy him, so she didn't replace it. Instead she folded it and lifted his head to slide the towel underneath, giving him more padding between his head and the hard floor.

At first he had been too cold, and the situation too urgent, for her to notice, but for some moments now she had been growing more aware
of the sensations produced by his naked body against hers. He was a tall, well-built man, with a nice hairy chest and even nicer hard muscles. Good-looking too, now that his features weren't pinched and blue. Her nipples tingled from the rasping of his chest hair, and Hope knew it was time to get up. She pushed gently against him, trying to rise, but he groaned and tightened his arms, shivering again, so she let herself relax.

The shaking wasn't as violent this time. He swallowed and licked his lips, and his eyes flickered open again, just for a second. Then he seemed to doze, and because he was warm now, Hope wasn't alarmed. Her own muscles quivered from exhaustion. She closed her eyes too, resting for just a minute.

Time drifted. Half-asleep, warm, boneless from fatigue, she didn't know if a minute had passed, or an hour. His hand moved down to her bottom, curving over one rounded cheek. He shifted beneath her, muscled legs moving, sliding between her thighs. His engorged penis prodded at her exposed opening.

It happened so fast that he was inside her before she was fully awake. He rolled, pinning her
beneath him on the blanket, mounting her, squeezing his penis into her and driving it deep with quick, hard shoves. After five years of chastity the penetration hurt, stretching her around his thick shaft, but it felt good too. Disoriented, unbelievably aroused, Hope arched her hips and felt him prod deeply, nudging her cervix. She cried out, gasping, her neck arching back as the sensation rocketed through her nerve endings.

There was no finesse, no lingering arousal. He simply began thrusting, his heavy weight holding her down, and she wound her arms and legs around him and met his thrusts with mindless ones of her own. In the mellow light of fire and lamp she saw his face, his eyes open now, very blue and still dazed, his expression set in the hardness of physical absorption. He was operating solely on animal instinct, his body aroused by the closeness of hers, by the naked intimacy that had been necessary to save his life. He was aware only of being warm and alive, and of her bare body in his arms.

On a purely physical level, the pleasure was more intense than any she had ever known. She had never felt more female, never been so acutely
aware of her own body, or of the hard masculinity of a man's. She felt every inch of his smooth, hard shaft as he rocked back and forth inside her, felt the excited, welcoming cling of her inner flesh as each stroke took her closer and closer to climax. She was unbearably hot, her skin scorching, trembling pleasure lingering just out of reach. She grabbed his buttocks, holding him tight and grinding herself as deeply onto him as she could, crying out as the already intense pleasure became even more so. He gave a hoarse cry and convulsed, bucking, hips pumping, spurting hot semen, and Hope dissolved on an agonizing pulse of sensation.

He sank down on her, trembling in every muscle, his heart pounding violently, his breathing hard and fast. As shaken and dazed as he, she put her arms around him and held him close.

Unbelievably, they slept. Wrung out, emptied, hollowed, she felt the darkness descending on her and could do nothing to resist it. He was limp and heavy on top of her, already asleep. She managed to touch his cheek, stroke his dark hair back from his forehead, and then surrendered to the overwhelming need for rest.

T
HE COLLAPSE OF A LOG
woke her. She stirred, wincing as her muscles protested the hard floor beneath her, the heavy body weighing her down. Confused, at first she thought she was dreaming. This couldn't be real, she couldn't be lying naked on the floor with a strange man, who was also completely naked.

But Tink was snoozing in his accustomed place, and the howling wind, the gently flickering lamplight, recalled the blizzard. Everything clicked into place.

And just as abruptly she realized he was also awake. He was lying very still, but every muscle was tense, and the penis still nestled inside her was growing thicker and longer by the second.

If she was confused, she could only imagine how disoriented he was. Gently she touched his back, smoothing her palm up the muscled expanse.“I'm awake,” she murmured, her touch telling him she was there because she wanted to be, that everything was okay.

He lifted his head, and their eyes met. She felt an almost tangible shock as she stared into those blue eyes, eyes that were completely aware and revealed the sharpness of the personality behind
them, as well as his comprehension of the situation.

Hope blushed. Her cheeks heated and she almost groaned aloud. What should she say to a man she was meeting for the first time, when she was lying naked beneath him and his erection was firmly lodged inside her?

He trailed one fingertip across her lips, then lightly stroked her hot cheek.“Do you want me to stop?” he whispered.

The first time had caught her unawares, but Hope was always brutally honest with herself, and she didn't allow herself to pretend she had been unwilling. This time, however, they were both fully cognizant of what they were doing. She didn't stop to analyze or question her response; she simply gave it.“No,” she whispered in return. “Don't stop.”

He kissed her then, a kiss as gentle and searching as if nothing had ever passed between them, as if he wasn't already inside her. He wooed her as if it were the first time, kissing her for a long time until her mouth slanted eagerly under his, until their tongues twined together. His hands were tender on her breasts, learning how she liked to be touched, teasing her nipples into tight peaks. He
stroked her belly, her hips, between her legs. He licked his fingertips and stroked them over the ultrasensitive bud of her clitoris, drawing it out, make her gasp and arch her hips upward. He grunted at the resulting sensation as she took him even deeper.

She thought she would die from sensual torment before he finally began moving, but she enjoyed it so much she didn't urge him to hurry. She hadn't realized how hungry she was for this, for a man's attention, for his body, for the exquisite release of lovemaking. Even her frustration earlier, in the bath, hadn't prepared her for her total surrender to sensuality. She reveled in every kiss, every touch, every stroke. She clung to him and returned the caresses, trying to return some of the pleasure he was giving her, and judging from his groans she succeeded.

The time came when they no longer needed the gentle touches, when nothing mattered but the pounding drive to orgasm. Hope let herself get lost in the urgency of the moment, let her body drown in pure pleasure … and then he aroused her again, whispering, “Let me feel it again, let me feel you come.”

His self-control held, barely. When the pulses of her third climax began, he made a deep, helpless sound in his throat and shuddered over her.

This time she didn't allow herself the luxury of sleep. This time he gently withdrew and collapsed on the blanket beside her. His hand sought hers, clasping her fingers against his callused palm.

“Tell me what happened,” he finally said, his voice low and even. “Who are you?”

An introduction at this point seemed unbearably awkward. Hope blushed again, and cleared her throat. “Hope Bradshaw.”

The blue eyes searched her face. “Tanner. Price Tanner.”

The fire was getting too low. She needed to put another couple of logs on, but getting up and standing naked in front of him was somehow impossible. She looked around for her pajamas and, in an agony of embarrassment, realized she needed to bathe before putting them on.

He saw where she was looking, and he didn't suffer any such modesty. Unfolding his long length from the floor, he stepped over to the stack of wood and replenished the fire. Hope did exactly what she had been embarrassed to let him do to
her, looked him over good, from head to foot. She liked what she saw, every inch of him. His muscles were delineated in the firelight, revealing the slope and curve of broad shoulders, wide chest, the long bulge of strong thigh muscles. His buttocks were round, firm. Even flaccid, his penis was intriguingly thick, and his testicles swung heavily below them.
Price Tanner
. She repeated his name in her mind, the syllables strong and brisk.

Tink looked a little grumpy at having had his sleep disturbed. He got up and sniffed at the stranger, and wagged his tail when the man leaned down and patted him. “I remember the dog barking,” Price Tanner said.

“He heard you before I did. His name is Tinkerbell. Tink, for short.”

“Tinkerbell?” He glanced at her, blue eyes incredulous. “He's gay?”

Hope sputtered with laughter. “No, he's just an eternally optimistic, goofy dog. He thinks the world is here to pet him.”

“He may be right.” He studied the sodden mass of his clothing, the water puddled on the floor. “How long have I been here?”

She looked at the clock. Two-thirty. “Three and
a half hours.” Too much had happened in such a short length of time, and yet she felt as if only an hour or so had passed instead of almost twice that. “I dragged you in and got you out of your clothes. You must have stepped into the lake, because you were wet from the waist down. I dried you off and wrapped you in a blanket.”

“Yeah, I remember going into the water. I knew this place was here, but I couldn't see a damn thing.”

“I don't know how you made it this far. Why were you on foot? Did you have an accident? And why were you out in this weather anyway?”

“I was trying to make it down to Boise. The Blazer slid off the road and broke out the windshield, so I couldn't stay there. Like I said, I knew this place was here, and I had a compass. I didn't have much choice except try to get here.”

“You're a walking miracle,” she said frankly. “Logically, you should be dead out in the snow.”

“But I'm not, thanks to you.” He returned to the blanket and stretched out beside her, his gaze somber. He caught a tendril of blond hair, rubbing it between his fingers before smoothing it behind her ear. “I know when you got under the blanket
to get me warm, you weren't expecting me to jump you as soon as I was half conscious. Tell me the truth, Hope: Were you willing?”

She cleared her throat. “I—I was
surprised
.” She touched his hand. “I wasn't unwilling. Couldn't you tell?”

He briefly closed his eyes in relief. “I don't have a real clear memory of anything that happened until I woke up on top of you. Or rather, I remember what I did and what
I
felt, but I wasn't sure you felt the same.” He spread his hand on her belly and lightly stroked upward to cover her breast. “I thought maybe I'd lost my head, waking up with such a pretty, brown-eyed little blonde naked next to me.”

“Strictly speaking, I wasn't
next
to you. I was on top of you.” Her face got hot again. Damn those blushes! “It seemed the best way to get you warm.”

“It worked,” he said, and for the first time a smile curved his mouth.

Hope almost lost her breath. He was ruggedly attractive rather than handsome, but when he smiled, her heart did a crazy loop. It must be chemistry, she thought dazedly. She had seen
many better-looking men; Dylan had been better looking, in a clean-cut, classical way. But what her eyes saw and her body felt were two different things, and she had never experienced such a strong sexual response to any other man. She wanted to make love again, and before she gave in to the need, she forced herself to remember he had been through a harrowing, physically exhausting ordeal.