“Is it crazy that I believe you?” she says. “Because I sort of do, Wayne, even if every single PSA I’ve ever seen is telling me I shouldn’t.”
It’s because we’re meant for each other. It’s because Rusty led me here for a reason. I never believed in fate before I met you, but now I do.
My manhood pulses as I drink in the sight of that made-for-child-bearing body.
But to get to the child bearing, there’s got to be a lot of dirty, downright fucking indulgent sex, the sort of sex where I paint every inch of her with my tongue, sense every quiver in her body and respond accordingly, play her like a goddamn instrument until my mouth is full of her creamy come.
“You’re welcome to stay at my cabin for the evening,” I tell her. “In the morning, I’ll drive into town and arrange a tow for you. Otherwise I can go and get my car and we can try and get you to town this evening. It’s up to you.”
She bites her lip, stroking Rusty as she cradles him close. My dog whines in pleasure and laps at her face again.
“This might be the craziest thing I’ve ever done,” she says. “But yes, Wayne, I’d be grateful to stay at your cabin for the night.”
My heart hammers.
My manhood stirs.
My lips prick in anticipation of her sex, the wetness of it, the eagerness, the tight hotness, a glorious contrast to the lashing winter blizzard.
Chapter Three
Winter
I trudge through the forest at Wayne Wakefield’s side, searching my mind as I try to remember where I recognize him from.
This is silly, of course, walking out here with a man I just met. This is exactly the sort of behavior that New York is supposed to beat out of a person, skipping off into nowhere land with a man I don’t know at all.
And yet there’s something about Wayne that makes me trust him.
Which is exactly what a man intent on doing harm would cultivate, a voice whispers in my mind. An aura of trust.
I glance at him as we walk, Rusty padding ahead, his chocolate-colored tail stuck right up in the air as he sniffs each tree we pass, stopping to make his mark occasionally.
He’s a giant man, at least seven feet, and through his heavy winter jacket I can tell he’s huge, muscular. The jacket doesn’t hang baggily from him. It clutches onto his behemoth muscles. His hair is swept to the side, short and silver-shaded. His jaw is square and his eyes are a stark, penetrating deep brown, the color of oak. His lips smirk or rest in an expression of quiet confidence.
I was lost after about two minutes of walking into the forest. Now, sticking close to Wayne is the only way I can make sure I don’t get completely stranded. Which is, when you look at it objectively, a silly position to put myself in.
And yet…
I don’t know. Maybe it’s crazy. But when we were staring at each other across the broken husk of my car, I felt something stir inside of me, this deep pulse telling me it was okay to trust this man, okay to open myself up to this man.
It felt deep, like primal-deep, as though my womb or something was sending me a soothing signal. That’s the sort of mystical craziness I’d never normally believe in, but there’s something, something—just something about Wayne that assuages all of that.
“So, what are you doing all the way out here?” I ask.
“Taking a break from work,” he says, as my legs burn with the incline, a subtle change in gradation that’s getting steeper every moment. “I haven’t taken a break in, Jesus, it must be at least twenty years.”
“Wow, your job must be important,” I say.
He nods. “I’ve got a lot of people relying on me not to mess up. It’s a lot of pressure. Which I enjoy. I like pressure. But sometimes a man needs to get away from it all, to remember what it’s like … Hell, I don’t know, Winter. I’m no poet. Maybe sometimes a man needs to feel what it’s like to be in the middle of nowhere surrounded by snow and winter, eh?”
Warmth infuses me at his words, at the way his deep browns track over the snowy landscape. There’s humility in him, but also strength, fierce strength, mixing together to make something unique and appealing.
The sort of material fathers are made of. Husbands are made of.
I push the crazy thought down.
Whoever this goliath of a man is, he’s handsome and confident and experienced. He’s a silver fox with the muscles of a bear, the suave self-assuredness of a jungle cat and the casual strength of a lion.
I’m, let’s face it, not exactly the sort of magazine-cover girl men like this go for.
So I need to cut off thoughts like that ASAP.
“So what exactly do you do?” I say, panting hard now as the hill gets even steeper, my thighs aching and burning.
Wayne strolls casually ahead, not even breathing hard, and Rusty skips faster toward what I assume is the direction of home.
“This and that,” he says.
“Oh, Mr. Mystery over here. Fine, be like that.”
I mega-pout at him, which only makes him chuckle. He looks more carefree when he chuckles, less like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. Crazily, I imagine him standing over a barbecue and laughing just like that, except in the fantasy the sun is shining and our children are running happily all around him.
Down, girl.
“What about you?” he asks. “What brought you to be stranded in the middle of nowhere, less than a mile from my cabin? What are the chances of that?”
He glances away from me, but I catch something in his expression. For a moment, I think he’s going to mention fate, but then the moment passes and we keep walking.
Fate.
Something I’ve never believed in.
I really need to get it together.
As we walk, I tell him about visiting my sister for the Christmas holidays, getting a break from my job as a barista so that I could come up early and work on my writing.
“Heck,” I snap, interrupting my own story when I trip on a hidden root and almost fall.
Wayne glides toward me quicker than I would’ve guessed a man like him could move, catching me in his arms and hugging me close. I feel the scorching heat of him through his jacket, like he has a star trapped in there, and then he leans so close to me that I can feel his breath on my face.
“We’re almost there,” he says. “There’s no shame in asking me to carry you.”
“Carry me?” I laugh, though the notion sends a sizzling sensation through me. “You’re joking, right?”
“No,” he says. “Not in the slightest.”
“Um, I’m not a baby. So no, I don’t need to be carried.”
He moves closer, our eyes staring right into each other.
“You’re proud,” he says. “You’re strong. You’re sassy as fuck and you won’t ask for help. Fine. Then give me a signal. Just blink twice if you want me to carry you.”
I can’t help but laugh, resulting in an answering yip from Rusty, who’s now on his hind legs leaping around our feet.
It’s innocent, right? Being carried? There’s no undertone?
It is a steep hill.
I blink twice.
I let out a squeal of delight as Wayne lifts me easily off my feet, as though I weigh nothing, as though I haven’t always been the shapely girl wherever I went.