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She knew he meant to do more than simply wash her and excitement sizzled in her belly. He took his time, dragging the washcloth over her already sensitized skin. He touched her everywhere, in places nobody else had ever explored, but only lightly teased in the place between her legs where she really wanted him. By the time he shut the water off, she was breathless, desperate for more, but he still didn’t stroke her with those clever fingers. He gently dried her off, wrapped her in a towel, and then carried her into the other room.
Her head was spinning.
Ellis laid her down on the bed and pulled the towel off like he was opening a gift. She had a moment of that old fear, a quicksilver return of that old self-consciousness, but then he was kissing his way down her body again and she didn’t care. He stopped between her legs and tasted her and, yes, that was another thing she’d never done with anyone. With each caress of his tongue, she thought she was going to explode off the bed into billions of sparks.
And then she did.
The orgasm was like nothing she’d ever experienced before. For a few precious seconds, she vanished from herself in a blast of heat and light. No self-hatred. No worry. No fear. She was a being of feeling, nothing more.
She came back to herself in time to watch Ellis sheath his length with another condom. He propped himself on his elbows and slid into her slowly, began a gentle rocking motion that was somehow more intimate than anything else they had done together. He captured her head in his hands and took his time kissing her.
Oh, God. He was going to more than hurt her when he went back to L.A. He was going to destroy her.
Bree swallowed back the sudden lump in her throat and hugged him tightly, burying her face in his shoulder. They rocked together until a final lingering climax swept them both away into sleep.
24
Bree woke up in complete darkness. Chilled, but more relaxed than she ever remembered feeling in her life. She was curled up next to Ellis, her back pressed against his side, his arm a comforting, heavy weight across her waist, holding her to him. As much as she wanted to stay like that forever, the fire had died, and the room was freezing. Goose bumps covered his arm and, although she knew he was all right, she couldn’t shake the nagging worry for his health. He didn’t need to be cold so soon after his brush with hypothermia.
As quietly as she could, she extracted herself from his embrace and padded over to the wood stove, pausing for a moment to look out the window. It was nearly seven a.m. but still dark as night outside. The sun wouldn’t rise until almost ten, and nobody was out on the snow-blown street below. It felt a little like they were the only two people in the world at that moment and she loved it. With her nail, she sketched a happy face into the frost on the window, then knelt to check on the fire.
Luckily, it hadn’t gone out completely. A few bright orange embers still glowed inside the stove’s belly. She stirred them with the poker, then put on a fresh log with some kindling and watched it spark.
“Aren’t you cold?” Ellis spoke in a husky, half-asleep voice that reached out like a caress. She didn’t stay cold long. Heat spread from her belly, her body awakening with memories of their lovemaking. She glanced over her shoulder at the bed. In the brightening glow of yellow light from the fire, she could see him nestled under the blankets with only his eyes peeking out. She laughed.
He pulled the blanket down enough to scowl at her. “Ice queen.”
Without thinking, she spread her arms wide and did her best impression of Elsa the ice queen, belting out a few lines ofLet it Go. She loved all the songs from Disney movies, but that one was her favorite. It was like the writers knew her innermost thoughts and put them to music. She wanted nothing more than to let it all go and to be unafraid of herself.
As she sang, Ellis bolted upright and stared at her with huge eyes, his mouth hanging open. She trailed off and dropped her arms as embarrassment burned over her skin.
God. Why had she done that? And while naked, no less?
She didn’t sing for people. Hadn’t sung in front of anyone but her dogs since she was nine years old and the world as she knew it disintegrated.
“Wow,” he said after a long, stunned moment. “You can sing.”
She grabbed a blanket from the nearby chair and wrapped it around herself. “I sing sometimes.”
He climbed out of bed and winced a little when his feet hit the cold wood floor, but that didn’t stop him from crossing the room to her. “No, I mean you cansing. With that voice, you should be famous.”
She stared down at her toes. “I don’t want fame.”
“But you did at one time, didn’t you?” He cupped her face in his hands and tilted her gaze up to meet his. “When you were a kid, you wanted to be a singer?”
She wanted to hate him for the probing question. Wanted to push him away, shut him out, and crawl back into her comfort zone with her tail tucked between her legs. But she couldn’t find it in herself to do it.
She was tired of always being alone.
She wanted to talk to someone about the exhausting internal war she was always battling.
She wanted someone to trust.
Let it go.
Ellis smiled faintly and closed the distance between their lips. “Talk to me, Bree,” he whispered between kisses. “I want to know your story.”
She pulled back enough to study him in the flickering yellow light of the wood stove. If she couldn’t open up to the man she’d just slept with, the man she—whether or not she wanted to admit it—had given her whole heart to tonight, then was there any hope for her?
