still quivering with an ebbing tide of passion.
“We can stop here,” he said quietly.
She shook her head. They’d gone past the place of turning back.
Doss opened his trousers, reached under her skirt and petticoat to take hold of her hips. Lifted her onto him.
She slid along his length, letting him fill her, exalting in the size and heat and slick hardness of him. She gave a loud moan, and he covered her mouth with his, kissed her senseless, even as he raised and lowered her, raised and lowered her. The friction was slow and exquisite. Hannah dug her fingers into his shoulders and rode him shamelessly until satisfaction overtook her again, convulsed her, like some giant fist, and didn’t let go until she was limp with exhaustion.
Only when she wept with relief did Doss finish. She felt him erupt inside her, swallowed his groans as he gave himself up to her.
He brushed away her tears with his thumbs, still inside her, and looked deep into her eyes. “It’s all right, Hannah,” he said gruffly. “Please, don’t cry.”
He didn’t understand.
She wasn’t weeping for shame, though that would surely come, but for the most poignant of joys.
“No,” she said softly. She plunged her fingers into his hair, kissed him boldly, fervently. “It’s not that. I feel…”
He was growing hard within her again.
“Oh,” she groaned.
He played with her nipples. And got harder still.
“Doss,” she gasped. “Doss—”
Present Day
Sierra awakened with a start, sounding from the depths of a dream so erotic that she’d been on the verge of climax. The light dazzled her, and the muffled silence seemed to fill not only her bed room, but the world beyond it.
She lay still for a long time, recovering. Listening to her own quick, shallow breathing. Waiting for her heart beat to slow down.
Liam peeked through the doorway linking her room to his.
“Mom?”
“Come in,” Sierra said.
He bounded across the threshold. “It snowed!” he whooped, heading straight for the window. “I mean, it really snowed!”
Sierra smiled, sat up in bed and put her feet on the floor.
A jolt of cold went through her.
“It’s freezing in here!”
Liam turned from the window to grin at her. “Travis says the furnace is out.”
“Travis?”
“He’s down stairs,” Liam said. “He’ll get it going.”
A dusty-smelling whoosh rose from the nearest heat vent, as if to illustrate the point.
“What’s he doing here?” Sierra asked, scrambling through her suit cases for a bathrobe. All she had was a thin nylon thing, and when she saw it, she knew it would be worse than nothing, so she pulled the quilt off the bed and wrapped herself in that instead.
“Don’t be a grump,” Liam replied. “Travis is doing us a favor, Mom. We’d probably be icicles by now if it wasn’t for him. Did you know that old stove down stairs works? Travis built a fire in it, and he put the coffee on, too. He said to tell you it will be ready in a couple of minutes and we’re snowed in.”
“Snowed in?”
“Keep up, Mom,” Liam chirped. “There was a blizzard last night. That’s why Travis came to make sure we were all right. I heard him knock, and I let him in.”
Sierra joined Liam at the window and drew in her breath.
The whiteness of all that snow practically blinded her, but it was beautiful, too, in an apocalyptic way. She’d never seen any thing like it before and, for a long moment, she was spell bound. Then her sensible side kicked in.
“Thank God the power didn’t go out,” she said, easing a little closer to the vent, which was spewing deliciously warm air.
“It did,” Liam informed her happily. “Travis got the generator started right away. We don’t have lights or anything, but he said the furnace is all that matters.”
She frowned. “How could he have made coffee?”
“On the cookstove, Mom,” Liam said, with a roll of his eyes.
For the first time Sierra noticed that Liam was fully dressed.
He headed for the door. “I’d better go help Travis bring in the wood,” he said. “Get some clothes on, will you?”
Five minutes later Sierra joined Travis and Liam in the kitchen, which was blessedly warm. Her jeans would do well enough, but she’d had to raid Meg’s room for socks and a thick sweat shirt, because her tank tops weren’t going to cut it. “Are we stranded here?” she demanded, watching as Travis poured coffee from a blue enamel pot that looked like it came from a stash of camping gear.
He grinned. “Depends on how you look at it,” he said. “Liam and I, we see it as an adventure.”
“Some adventure,” Sierra grumbled, but she took the coffee he offered and gave a grateful nod of thanks.
Travis chuckled. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll adjust.”
Sierra hastened over to stand closer to the cookstove. “Does this happen often?”
“Only in winter,” Travis quipped.
“Hilarious,” she drawled.
Liam laughed uproariously. “You are enjoying this,” she accused, tousling her son’s hair.
“It’s great!” Liam cried. “Snow! Wait till the Geeks hear about this!”
“Liam,” Sierra said.
He gave Travis a long-suffering look. “She hates it when I say ‘geek,’” he explained.
Travis picked up his own mug of coffee, took a sip, his eyes full of laughter. Then he headed toward the door, put the cup on the counter and re claimed his coat down from the peg.
“You’re leaving?” Liam asked, horrified.
“Gotta see to the horses,” Travis said, putting on his hat.
“Can I go with you?” Liam pleaded, and he sounded so desperately hopeful that Sierra swallowed the “no” that instantly sprang from her vocal cords.
“Your coat isn’t warm enough,” she said.
“Meg’s got an old one around here some place,” Travis said care fully. “Hall closet, I think.”
Liam dashed off to get it.
“I’ll take care of him, Sierra,” Travis told her quietly, when the boy was gone.
“You’d better,” Sierra answered.
1919
Hannah knew by the profound silence, even before she opened her eyes, that it had been snowing all night. Lying alone in the big bed she’d shared with Gabe, she burrowed deeper into the covers and groaned.
She was sore.
She was satisfied.
She was a trollop.
A tramp.
She’d practically thrown herself at Doss the night before. She’d let him do things to her that no one else besides Gabe had ever done.
And now it was morning and she’d come to her senses and she would have to face him.
For all that, she felt strangely light, too.
Almost