FLASH WAITED IN the hot tub while Ian found towels for them both. She nearly screamed in shock when her hot bare foot touched ice cold snow, but she managed to make it into the house without passing out from sudden-onset hypothermia. Ian toweled himself off quickly and roughly, then wrapped the towel around his waist. Then he helped her dry off, rubbing the soft white towel up and down her naked legs while she dried her hair. When they were in the house again, warm and mostly dry, he kissed her once on the lips and said, “I have to cover the tub and turn it off. You go up to my bed and warm up. I’ll be there soon.”
“Anything you say, boss,” she said as she pulled the towel tight around her and headed up to his third-floor bedroom.
She sat on the edge of his bed and waited. It made her smile to see that he’d lit the first and second candle in his menorah earlier this evening. The flame had gone out but she could tell from the solidified white wax that he’d let them burn a long time. Ian was a good man. Only a good man would light that candle because lighting that candle honored both her, since she’d made the menorah, and his mother, since that was who Flash had made it for. She hadn’t been here at sunset. Ian had done it alone, on his own initiative. It meant everything to her that he’d lit that candle. She wasn’t even Jewish, and she felt blessed by it.
And now he knew she was in love with him. She couldn’t quite believe she’d told him. She hadn’t planned to tell him, not unless or until he’d told her first. But she could tell it hadn’t been easy for him to ask if he could be inside her without a condom. He’d taken a risk by doing that. She couldn’t let him be the only person in this relationship willing to take a risk. Now she’d done it. He hadn’t said he loved her back and that was fine. She didn’t want him to, not yet, not until she was sure she’d believe him when he said it. But she knew it was okay. He’d been surprised to learn she loved him but not angry or apologetic. She didn’t need him to say it back to her, not when he said her name like that.
“Veronica?”
Yes, just like that.
She looked up and saw Ian standing in the doorway, still wearing the towel wrapped around his waist.
“I’m here,” she said. He stepped into the dark room illuminated by nothing but the little bit of moonlight reflecting off the snow in the evergreen branches.
“You warm yet?” He stepped in front of her and she leaned against him, her cheek against his stomach.
“Getting there. This helps,” she said as he ran his hands all over her back and shoulders.
“What else would help?” he asked as he ran one hand through her hair, slicking it back. She’d never dated a guy who had the same length hair she did. Maybe they could go to the same barber. The thought made her smile. Ian made her smile. She smiled now as he took his towel off and tossed it to the corner of the room.
“That helps,” she said, looking up at him. “That definitely helps.”
“What about this?” He moved to stand between her knees, nudging her thighs apart with his legs. Then he dropped to his knees and pulled her hips to the edge of the bed.
“Warmer,” she said.
He kissed her neck.
“Warmer...” She sighed.
He licked her right nipple.
“Warmer...”
He sucked her nipple into his mouth, gently but deeply.
“Very warm...”
He pressed a long kiss onto her quivering stomach. Then he turned his attention to her left hip where he bit into her lightly and sucked her skin for a long time. When he pulled back he’d left a love bite the size of a quarter on her body.
“Marking my territory,” he said. She held on to his shoulders as he did it again on her right hip and again on the soft underside of her left breast. He left another red and purple bite on her chest under her collarbone and a last one on her right thigh as big as two quarters. The bites hurt and she loved it, loved to watch him leave imprints of his mouth all over her.
“How warm are you now?” he asked.
“Not warm,” she said. “Hot.”
“Hot is good. Burning up is better.” He pushed her onto her back and dragged her legs over his shoulders. He opened her up with his fingers, spreading her folds wide. He licked her slowly from the base of her vagina to her clitoris and Flash shivered and moaned. He did it again, even slower this time, even deeper. She could feel her body opening up to him, growing wet inside, growing hotter. She needed him inside her—the sooner, the better.
“Ian?”
“Yes?” He flicked his tongue over her clitoris again.
“Could you do me one little favor?” she asked.
“Name it.”
“Put your cock inside me.”
She saw his eyebrow twitch.
“Say ‘please and thank you’ and I’ll consider it.”
“You’re going to make me beg?”
“No. I’m going to make you ask for my cock very nicely. Like a lady.”
“I won’t do it.” Flash Redding did not beg for cock.
“Fine. I’ll just be down here eating your beautiful pussy until you learn some manners.”
He spread her wider and pushed his tongue inside her again. He licked her and licked her and licked her until she was writhing on the bed under his mouth, unable to lay still, unable to stay silent. He’d bring her close to orgasm and then back off by pausing to kiss her thighs and hips again. When her heavy breaths softened he started again, lapping at her clitoris and all around it until she was in agony from the need to come.
And still Ian wouldn’t let her orgasm. As her whole body clenched, right at the edge of climax, Ian pulled back again.
“Well?” he asked from between her thighs. “Do you have anything to say to me?”
“Will you please put your cock in me?” Then she added a second “please” for good measure.
“I will. But only because you asked nicely.” He took her legs off his shoulders and stood up. He was fully erect again—halfway between stage three and stage four. Good to see she wasn’t the only one about ready to burst around here.
“Get back on the bed,” he said as he stood up. She scooted back and started to turn over onto her stomach. “No, on your back.”
She looked over her shoulder at him. He crawled across the bed to her. They’d never had sex with her on her back before, always on her stomach or on her hands and knees or like last night, bent over at the waist with her leaning against the wall. He liked entering her from behind and she liked it, too, for the simple reason it made her feel dirtier.
Slowly she eased down onto her back as Ian knelt between her open thighs.
“Still cold?” he asked as he stroked her thigh with his fingertips.
“No. Burning up.”
“You’re shivering.”
“You made me almost come three times and pulled back. You’re lucky I haven’t passed out yet.”
“If you’d minded your manners I wouldn’t have had to teach you a lesson. I run a tight ship around here. No insubordination allowed.”
“I’ll be good from now on,” she said. “Lesson learned.”
“That’s what I like to hear. I don’t ask for perfection, just improvement.”
He lay on top of her and she wrapped her arms around his neck.
“I like you,” she said.
“I know. You told me that in the hot tub.”
“I told you I loved you. I didn’t tell you I liked you.”
“You told me two days ago you didn’t like me.”
“You’ve grown on me.”
Ian smiled as he settled in on top of her. Flash opened her legs and lifted her hips for him.
“I like that you like me,” he said. “I like that almost as much as I like that you love me. I like you, too.” He reached between their bodies and notched the tip of his cock at the entrance of her body, but didn’t go in yet. “Can you tell?”
She nodded slowly, panting, “I can tell.”
He rocked his hips, his cock sliding through her swollen folds. Still he didn’t enter her. He seemed intent on dragging this out as long as possible, delaying the inevitable. He was torturing her, and she loved it.
She moved with him, lifting her hips against him. He was as hard as she was wet. The muscles in her back knitted up with the sweet terrible tension. Ian put his hands on either side of her and rose up over her so that only their pelvises were touching. He rocked his hips again, another time, a third.
“Ian?”
“Yeah?”
“Please?”
He looked in her eyes without smiling, without speaking. Intense eye contact in bed usually made her a little nervous. It did now, too, except it also made her ache in the sweetest ways. This was real, her relationship with Ian. It was real and serious and was about to get much more serious. He tilted his hips and pushed the tip inside her. She inhaled and grasped the sheets between her fingers. Slowly he slid all the way in, filling her, stretching her, opening her, taking her, having her.
“Veronica...” He whispered her name as he penetrated her fully. When he was in, all the way, so was she. In lust, in love and in for good.
He lowered himself on top of her again, stretching out on her—face to face, chest to chest, hips to hips, eye to eye.
“How does it feel?” she asked as he pumped his hips again.
“Incredible.”
“Tell me,” she said. “Please? You made me do it.”
“You really want to know what your pussy feels like on my cock?”
“Yes.”
“That’s asking a lot of a man when his cock is inside your pussy.”
“You made me do it,” she repeated. He laughed softly.
“True. It’s, ah...hard to explain. The first couple of thrusts are the best, especially if you’ve been hard for a long time before going in, like I have been all night. It makes your eyes roll back in your head, which I know isn’t sexy, but fuck, it feels so good you can’t help it.”
“It is sexy when you do it. I like seeing you enjoy my body.”
“You have no idea how much I enjoy your body. You’re really wet right now and hot. A hot wet pussy sort of feels like that soft smooth part of your mouth right inside of your cheek. You know, except tighter and there’s no teeth.”
“Tighter?”
“You’re clenching me again. I can really feel it. It’s not quite like being squeezed by a hand but sort of. You have this one muscle that I can feel when your pussy contracts. It’s like a finger squeezing instead of a whole hand.” He held up his hand and crooked his finger to demonstrate.
She concentrated and clenched her vaginal muscles around him. Ian flinched.
“Yes,” he said. “Just like that. And...” He paused to catch his breath. “It kind of feels like you’re pulling me in deeper when you do that.”
“I am.”
“It’s literally the sexiest feeling in the world when you do that because it’s like your vagina can’t get enough of my cock, and just needs more and more of it, deeper and deeper.”
“It does, Ian.
“Your pussy feels so good with nothing between us. If I cry when I come inside you, just pretend you don’t see it.”
“See what? I don’t see anything.”
“That’s my good girl.”
He pumped his hips again and Flash lay back underneath him with her eyes closed and let it all wash over her. His thrusts were hard but steady, deep and forceful, but not painful. He knew exactly how to fuck her the way she needed and wanted. Her vagina pulsed around him, muscles twitched in pleasure, her breath hitched in her throat and her chest. Ian’s body was hot on top of hers. They were both sweating and the wetness made it all the sexier. The bed creaked underneath them and nothing, not even a bomb going off outside the house, could have stopped them in this moment. She couldn’t stop moving, couldn’t stop writhing. She felt so open and wide and slick and Ian pounded into her with thrusts that took her breath away. She could have lain there taking it for days, it felt so good. She hooked her feet over the backs of his muscular thighs and clutched his shoulders in her hands, wanting to be as close to him as possible. Every thrust into her sent pleasure shooting from her hips to her nipples and all the way into the backs of her thighs. This was full-body fucking, nothing held back from either of them. Sounds escaped her lips—moans and gasps, groans and cries. She couldn’t get enough of his cock, of his body, of his thrusts, of him.
When she lifted her hips into him, he grazed her swollen clitoris, and when he pulled out her pussy ached to be filled again. The next thrust into her met that desperate need and the cycle started all over. She was wild underneath him, pumping her hips in rhythm with his thrusts, her breasts swollen with desire and her nipples hard as diamonds. It was a thousand degrees in the room, a million. She needed air but they couldn’t stop. They’d die if they did. She was so close to coming, so close it hurt. Ian must have sensed it in her movements or her breathing. He shifted his weight onto his knees, held her by the waist and slammed into her, impaling her as she came and came, every muscle inside her body spasming and contracting and releasing only to contract again even harder, clutching at his cock and squeezing it. She felt a rush of wet heat inside her as Ian came with her and inside her and with her name on his lips.
Ian collapsed on top of her and she lay limp and spent beneath him, her pussy still fluttering around him with final tiny contractions.
“Are you crying?” she asked.
“No.”
“Are you lying?”
He laughed softly. She loved feeling his chest moving against hers. They were so close she could feel his laugh even better than she could hear it.
“Maybe.” He turned his head and she looked at him. No tears.
“That was the best orgasm I’ve ever had,” she said. “I thought you should know that.”
“The best?”
“Top five at least.”
“I’d run a victory lap right now but my cock’s still in you.”
“Still hard?”
“No, but I think I’m stuck. You have a pussy like a steel trap.”
Flash rolled her eyes and opened her legs wide. Ian slid out of her and rolled onto his side. They lay facing each other. The moon shone through a break in the tree cover and white light filled the room, enough to see each other by, and enough for Flash to see a dozen red bruises on her breasts, stomach, hips and thighs.
“I can’t believe you gave me hickies,” she said. “They’re all over me.”
“Really? You can’t believe that? It really seems like something I would do. Because it is. Except...”
“What?”
“I think I missed a spot when I was marking my territory.”
“Do not put a hickey on my pussy.”
“I don’t know if that would work, but I wouldn’t mind trying. Hold still.”
“Ian...”
He pushed her onto her back and she braced herself for whatever he was about to do to her. He slid on top of her and pressed his mouth to her chest and left a small bite right over her heart.
“There,” he said. “Perfect.”
“Can I mark my territory, too?” she asked.
“No.”
“Why not?” she demanded.
“Because you’d have to mark every square inch of me,” he said.
Flash stared at him through narrowed eyes.
“Challenge accepted.”
Flash jumped on top of him and started biting.
* * *
IAN WOKE UP around midnight and instinctively reached over to Flash’s side of the bed. It was empty.
“Fuck.”
“Already?”
Ian smiled and sat up. Flash stood in the doorway to his bedroom.
“Where’d you go?” he asked. She was fully dressed—jeans, boots, coat, everything.
“Nowhere. Yet.”
“Are you leaving?”
“We are,” she said. “Get up and get dressed.”
Ian eyed her suspiciously.
“Where are you taking me?”
“You’ll see,” she said. “I think you’ll like it.”
“I don’t know about this.” Ian threw the covers off him and started gathering his clothes. “It’s midnight and you’re being mysterious. This is the beginning of a horror film.”
“It is.”
“I knew it. You’re going to murder me and dismember my body, aren’t you?”
“Would I do something like that?” she asked.
“Probably,” Ian said.
“You may have a point there.” She walked over to the bed while he was tugging his socks on. She bent and kissed him on the mouth. “I promise, I’m not going to murder you and dismember your body tonight. Now hurry up. I’ll meet you downstairs.”
“Thank you. Wait. What do you mean you won’t murder me ‘tonight?’” he called out as she walked out of the room. “Does that mean you won’t murder me ever or you just won’t murder me tonight?”
Flash didn’t answer.
He finished dressing and went downstairs. She handed him his heavy winter coat and gloves.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going now?” He pulled on his gloves while she yanked her red wool toque down over her ears.
“Out,” she said. “Out there.” Flash pointed at the patio door.
“Into the woods?” Ian pulled his gray beanie on and down over his ears.
Flash opened the back door and stepped out onto the deck.
“You coming?”
“Fine. I’m coming.” Ian closed the door behind them and followed her down the deck steps and onto the snowy path. “But if a bear or a wolf shows up, I’m letting them eat you while I run away since this was your idea.”
“I accept your terms. Now hold my hand, dammit.”
“Okay, dammit,” he said, taking her hand in his. They trudged through the crunching snow, stumbling over twigs and rocks buried under the white powder. They passed under tree branches thick with snow and ice and scrambled over fallen tree trunks festooned with deep green moss. They worked their way up the hill toward a clearing in the woods. It was slow going in the snow and the cold and walking uphill. Although they’d walked half an hour, they hadn’t traveled far enough to even lose sight of the chalet roof half a mile behind them. They reached the clearing where the tree line thinned and met the edge of a heavy snowpack. His nose was red and running, his eyes were lined with tears and his lungs burned from the thin air and the uphill walk.
And yet...
Above them the full moon glowed bright as the daytime sun and the snow all around them shimmered like white marble and quartz. Away from the city the stars came out—millions of stars, billions of stars, more stars than God could count. Flash was smiling and Ian forgot all about the stars.
“Damn, it’s beautiful out here,” Ian said, squeezing Flash’s gloved hand in his. “I’m glad we came out.”
“I said something mean to you,” she said.
“I probably deserved it.”
“You didn’t deserve it when I said I only wanted to use you for sex. And you didn’t deserve it when I said I didn’t want to hold your hand and go walking in a winter wonderland with you.”
“Is that why we’re out here?”
“I thought it would be a better way to say ‘I’m sorry’ than just saying ‘I’m sorry.’ I do want to hold your hand. I do want to go walking in the snow with you. I want us to have a real relationship. I love having sex with you but I do want more than that.”
“I want that, too,” Ian said. “I’m ten years older than you are so it’s only right that I warn you that I’ll want to get married sooner rather than later. I think I even want a kid—one at least, two at the most. Those things are important to me. And if you can’t see that happening with me—”
“I can,” she said.
“You can?”
“Yeah. With you I can see that happening. It scares me but in the good way, the way I get scared when I get a good idea for a sculpture and I don’t know if I can pull it off or not but I have to try.”
“This feels real, what you and I are doing,” he said. “I need it to be real. I don’t want to dick around. I don’t want to screw this up. I want the real thing with you and I want it now. We’ve waited long enough to get serious with each other.”
“I feel the same way,” she said. “It’s a relief to hear you say it.”
“How would you feel about me giving you the key to my place?” he asked. “That way it won’t be breaking and entering when you wait outside the bathroom while I’m in the shower.”
“I think I like that idea.”
“What do you think about moving in with me up here?” Ian tensed. He knew he was pushing things with her but right now with the snow under their feet and the stars over their heads like an umbrella, he felt like he could say anything to her.
“Are you in love with me?” she asked.
“You know I am.”
“Say it.”
“I’m in love with you, Veronica Redding. I am deeply in love with you. I spent the last six months trying not to be in love with you, and there were days when it was physically painful to be around you and not tell you what I feel. It felt like I had a vise clamped on my heart and now it’s finally off. All the pain in my chest is gone. I know it’s kind of soon to mention all this, but I’ve spent six months not being able to take a full breath because of you and now I can breathe again and all I want to breathe in or out is you.”
There was that smile again, that smile as rare and lovely as a rose blooming in winter.
“I can’t move in with you,” she said. “I want to. I do. But I can’t afford it.”
He laughed. “You think I’d charge you rent? I don’t want or need your money.”
“Yes, but I want and need my dignity. I’m not going to mooch off you just because you can afford it.”
“But—”
“I can’t,” she said again. “And I swear, it’s not you. I’ve been in love with you a long time. You asking me to move in with you feels like Santa Claus showed up and asked me if I wanted a new Lincoln Electric torch kit and two tons of scrap metal. Of course I want it. But I’m not sleeping with Santa Claus. I can’t take charity from the man I’m in love with. I love it when you play the boss when we’re in bed together, but when we’re not in bed, I need us to be equals. I can’t be in your debt.”
“I get that, I do,” he said. “When I was in my twenties, I lived in a whole series of shitty apartments because I wouldn’t take money from Dad, and I didn’t want to live at home. But you already told me you’re going to be making the same amount at Clover’s nursery as you were at Asher. Does that mean we’re never going to live together?”
She sighed and blew a cloud of smoke all the way up to the moon.
“How about this?” she said. “How about we wait until I sell a sculpture? I only have to sell one and I can afford to pay my fair share of this place for at least a year. Then I can move in and not feel like a gold digger.”
“I only make two-fifty a year. It’s more like a bronze digger.”
She laughed. “You know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean. Okay, it’s a deal. I don’t want to wait but I can. For you I can definitely wait.”
“The Morrison Gallery is doing a big show and a nightly gallery hop the week before and on Christmas. I might sell something. You never know.”
“And then you’ll move in with me?”
“And then I’ll move in with you.”
“You promise?”
“I swear.”
“And you said I can’t buy one of your sculptures?”
She shook her head. “No cheating.”
“Fine. No cheating.”
With her hand in his, he started to pull her back toward the path, back toward the house. He couldn’t wait to get her into bed again and make love to her until morning.
“Wait,” she said. “Look.”
She pointed at the sky and Ian followed her finger to where what appeared to be a small meteor was streaking through the cluster of stars and toward the horizon.
“Make a wish,” she said.
Ian made his wish.
“What did you wish for?” Flash asked.
“For you to sell a sculpture.”
She laughed softly. “You want me to move in that much?”
“I want you to be happy,” he said. “And I know that would make you happy.”
He looked at her and saw tears rimming the edges of her eyes. They glowed white in the moonlight.
“You’re trying to get me into bed, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Is it working?”
“It’s definitely...” Flash took a step back. Her eyes went wide. Too wide.
“What?”
“Ian,” she whispered. “There is a giant fucking bear behind you.”
“Shit, what?” He whipped his head around and saw nothing, absolutely nothing.
Then he heard footsteps running in the snow.
And laughter. So much evil laughter.
“Made you look!” Flash called back.
“You are in so much trouble!” he yelled, and started chasing after her.
He heard Flash laughing all the way back to the house.