Chinook, Wine and Sink Her. Morgan Q O'Reilly

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СКАЧАТЬ elbow grease she’d been able to get the tub clean without polluting the creek. Bothered by the rust under the chipped enamel, she’d picked up several cans of enamel spray paint on her one trip back to Fairbanks. Not as good as professional refinishing, nevertheless the inside of the tub was evenly coated with the white paint. Outside, she’d let her creative streak break free.

      Starting with a base of moss green paint to match the forest, she’d then embellished it with hand-painted, free-form wild flowers and trees on the sides. It was quite pretty in a rustic, handcrafted sort of way, if she did say so herself. Overall, the little spot had a very natural, garden bath feel to it. A few of the wildflower seeds she’d scattered were growing nicely and she hoped there’d be flowers in a few weeks. Heaven on earth. Surely both Creed and George would appreciate the more sanitary tub.

      Linnet had a vision of Creed lounging in it with her, and felt a spike of heat ignite in her center and flash outward.

      The double ended tub was the largest of its kind she’d ever seen. Six feet from end to end and nearly three-feet wide. Big enough for her to lie along the bottom and completely submerge. Certainly big enough for the two of them to sit face to face, or back to chest. What was it about him? After only a few hours, how could he intrude on her thoughts this way?

      Annoyed with her fantasy and the longing it created in her, despite reliving her hike-of-horror memory, she splashed both away and reached for her bottle of castile soap. Nothing to harm the environment here. In the woods, she made an effort to be as natural as possible and the tea-tree oil in the soap helped soothe the small scratches and insect bites she picked up on a daily basis.

      Usually she enjoyed the ritual of lathering her hair then standing to let the soap bubbles run down her body while she scrubbed with the brush. She wasn’t so off men that she never thought of them, but her fantasy man had never had a face to distract her. Tonight the image of Creed, with genuine warmth in his eyes, intruded on the experience.

      It was too easy to imagine him using the cloth and brush to cover every inch of her skin, washing away the day’s dirt and aches from work, building new aches of desire. The bristles of her brush became his rough palms in her mind and she whimpered at the sensation of them scraping over her nipples, teasing between her legs. If she was a tad more thorough about scrubbing herself, there was no one to know.

      Knees quaking with the need for release, she sank back down into the water, sliding under the surface to rinse. Thinking it would wash him from her system, she allowed herself to imagine his hands in her hair, loosening the strands, combing the soap into the water.

      She felt like a nymph, her hands skimming across her skin. After writhing under the surface as long as she could, she broke the surface with a gasp. Cool air touched her needy nipples and she indulged, pinching and rolling them, in her fantasy begging her fantasy lover to pull harder. Creed, how easily his name came to her lips, how effortlessly it rolled off the tongue.

      * * * *

      At the sound of his name, Creed nearly broke into a run. It was the tone of the cry that stopped him. Breathless and… what was that timbre? Passion?

      “Yes!” her soft cry carried through the woods. Ah. Passion. A moment of self pleasure while thinking of him? He was ready to make it mutual pleasure. Now. Five minutes ago. He moved to step forward then stopped again.

      He didn’t want to repeat his last several attempts at relations with the female half of the species. There were several positives where women were concerned—they looked compatible to men, and he loved their structural design just for a start. Enough of the baffling creatures came on to him that satisfaction was relatively easy to maintain.

      What happened the next day was another matter. And with Linnet, there would be a next day. And a few more. Plenty of good reasons to think before instigating a merger.

      It had been at least a year since his last local liaison, and with good reason. Usually he didn’t want to see them past the first time he returned to the Slope. By then they clung to him, wanting him to call nightly, pressing for more and more from him as the weeks went on until they exploded in frustration. The harder they pushed, the faster he withdrew. Once past the explosion he rarely saw them again. Or if he did, they’d warned the others of their pack he was afraid of commitment.

      Yeah, he was afraid of being committed to the mental institute if they didn’t leave him alone. He didn’t understand their subtle signals. Much like wolves, they had their own language and most of the men he knew didn’t understand it either. Those who’d married into the pack seemed the most confused.

      Except George. For some reason he always seemed to understand his wife and daughter well enough. Would George understand this situation, though?

      The sound of splashing came to him and he crept forward. He had to see what she was doing. All he could see from this angle was her head. There was another path… Manley’s head swung his direction and Creed gave him the hand signal to stay.

      A few minutes later, he lay on his stomach and inched toward the edge of the rock over the tub. Bushes growing along the edge provided enough cover she probably wouldn’t see him unless she knew where to look, and the sound of the waterfall should cover his movements.

      Perfect. He looked directly down through the clear water and had an eagle’s eye view of the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen. She had the body of a goddess. His hands had already told him that, now his eyes confirmed it.

      Lying back in the tub, dark lashes rested against her cheeks like tiny fans. One hand pinched and pulled at her nipples, light mocha against her creamy skin. Not tanned all over. The other hand combed its fingers through the triangle of dark curls between her thighs. If only she would push her hips up toward the surface so he could see better.

      “Yes!” she moaned and he watched her mouth open, like a bird looking for a meal. The point of her pink tongue darted out to lick a drop of water from her upper lip and he imagined her licking him.

      Biting his lip was the only way he could keep from groaning out loud. Unlikely as it was that she’d hear him, he didn’t want to take the chance. She’d given him more than a handful of mixed signals and he didn’t want to get it wrong this time, since they’d be sharing the cabin for a couple of weeks. Friendly relations on all levels would make life easier and she might even let him move into his own cabin.

      A tent. He was sleeping in a tent tonight. Something he hadn’t done out here since he was ten and had wanted to prove how brave he was. Okay, so it had been Solstice, a time when the sun didn’t go down at all and Dad had spent the night in a chair beside the fire pit. Still, Creed was a grown man now and deserved a rock-hard bunk in a warm cabin over a tight sleeping bag on rocky ground.

      Below him, she rocked her hips against the fingers between her legs. A hand shoved against his mouth muffled his heavy breathing but it didn’t do much for the erection pressed between his stomach and the rock on the other side of his hard metal-toothed zipper.

      “Oh, yes, yes… just… like… that!” she squealed, water splashing wildly from the tub with her gyrations. “Oh… God… Yes!” she cried out again, and his teeth nearly broke skin.

      Good grief. Here he was, a thirty-two-year-old man, spying on a woman in her bath. The sexiest woman alive. It made a difference. This wasn’t an ordinary case of Peeping-Tom-itis and definitely more than a plain case of full-blown, cock-aching lust.

      It was guard duty. A woman out in the Alaskan Bush on her own. Who knew what kind of terrible beast could burst from the trees and try to devour her? СКАЧАТЬ