The arm around my waist tightened, and he picked up my arm in one hand, turning it over and running his thumb over the thin skin on the inside of my wrist. “It means darling, for the most part. But more accurately, it means my pulse. My vein.” Lifting my wrist to his mouth, he kissed the spot where my heart beat frantically beneath the skin.
“That’s…I…” I was saved from any embarrassing declaration by the crunch of tires on ice and gravel. Looking out the window, I saw a jeep rigged out for rural mail delivery. “Mail’s here.” I started to search for my shoes.
“I’ve got it.” Brodie picked the package up from the counter and carried it outside to the waiting postman. He lingered by the vehicle as the mail man dug around for something. I followed a minute later, stopping just off the porch to wrap my arms around my middle and look around curiously.
I hadn’t been able to see much the night I arrived, or the dark morning I tried to run away, but had caught enough glimpses from the window to know Brodie had brought me to a small cabin situated at a beautiful intersection of bluff, forest, and water. Out in the open, my breath rising white in front of me, I was in awe.
To my right was forest, evergreens and hardwoods stretching high against a sky that was a vivid blue at the moment. To my left, a gray-blue lake extending from where we were situated on a bluff, remote shores made indistinct by distance. Twisting, I could see similar bluffs behind us dropping down into the lake, forming a sort of monolithic rocky hillside.
Brodie had chosen well. He had informed me that the woods were the fringes of a stretch of vast wilderness. No one would be approaching through them. Likewise, I couldn’t see them scaling the bluff, especially given the icy conditions. The only way in or out was through the road that broke off into the narrow driveway lined with more trees.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I shivered as the cold wind blew. The necessity for such precautions shook me when I allowed myself to think about it. It was unfathomable that someone wanted to kill me enough to hire someone to do the deed. It was cold, not fueled by anger or passion, but by a methodical consideration of their needs and desires over the value of a life. It sent a chill through me to —
A ball of snow and ice hit me in the face.
Spluttering, I swiped it aside and saw Brodie several feet away, laughing as he worked another mass into a ball. “You…!” I wasted no time, running awkwardly away to take cover behind a prickle bush at the corner of the cabin. The second missile hit me in the back just before I made it and I shrieked, shaking my shirt out.
Then I started on my own stash, peeking out around the bush from time to time to see what Brodie was doing. He had disappeared after the second launch and I couldn’t spot him. I really needed a coat. I’d come out in a thin long-sleeved tee shirt and leggings, and now I was cold and wet. More than a coat, though, I really needed to get him back.
Just as there were laws of war, there were rules of engagement for snowball fights, as well.
Keep score.
Retaliate.
Never say die.
I sneaked out from my prickle bush shield, a snowball gripped tightly in each hand, and searched the ground for footsteps.There.They backtracked before turning and moving in a line away from the cabin, in the direction of the woods. But wait…they changed course at the tree line, moving away and toward the truck that had brought us here. I stood and studied the ground in confusion. It was a mess, footprints and swathes of snow sliding around in an uninterpretable mayhem.
My neck prickled an instant before I felt the air move, and then Brodie was on me, rolling and propelling me to the ground. I screeched and my mouth filled with snow as he scrubbed my face into the ground before whipping me around to straddle me and pin my arms. “Say uncle.”
I spit snow and my eyes laughed up at him. “Eat shit, Kidnapper. I am E-4 SPC Emery Lane Bishop, 10-17-98.I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape—”
Brodie’s mouth cut off my litany and I responded immediately, helpless against the instant spark of desire. He sank down against me, pressing me into the snow, and I steamed against it as we ignited together. I lifted my leg to curl around his hip, feeling the scrape of rough denim and unforgiving zipper as he ground against me, his cold hands sliding beneath my shirt to cup my breasts and make me hiss. “Inside,”I panted, shoving my own icy palms beneath his shirt to splay against the hot skin of his back. His jerk was encouragement and I slid them greedily beneath the waistband of his jeans to cup the globes of his ass.
“Jaysus fuck…” he muttered, and somehow lurched to his feet with me clasped securely against him. Plastered together, lips tangling and seeking, we staggered into the cabin and to the floor in front of the fire, where we swiftly divested each other of clothing and any lingering doubts. There, with the flickering heat a brand upon our skin, he was mine and I was his, and we burned each other to ash.
