IcySeduction Read online

  Icy Seduction

  Shara Lanel

  Christine convinces cabby Jake to drive her into the Catskills—big mistake, thanks to a slick road and a deep, snow-filled ditch. In the dark, in the middle of nowhere with no cell service, they wait until dawn to walk for help. Letting her inhibitions slide is all in the name of keeping warm and has nothing to do with how hot the cabby is. Right?

  Jake’s “tip” for driving into a snowstorm is a one-night-stand with someone who doesn’t mind a little spanking. Though he’d love to explore his Dominant-submissive fantasies with her, he doesn’t expect to see her again. That is, until he experiences a true psychic connection with her. According to the lore of his people, she is his mate.

  All he has to do is convince a modern woman from another state that she is meant to be the mate of a man she barely knows. Oh yeah, right after he convinces her werewolves are real.

  Inside Scoop: Chains, whips and handcuffs, oh my! Not only does our heroine explore her BDSM side, she does so with a hot werewolf.

  A Romantica® paranormal erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

  Icy Seduction

  Shara Lanel

  Dedication

  To Joy

  Chapter One

  The cab skidded across the yellow line into a snowy ditch and that’s when Christine realized she’d never noticed what the driver looked like. She’d need to hone her survival skills if she was going to hang out in New York City. Unfortunately they weren’t anywhere near a well-populated metropolis. Instead they were on a deserted road at night in the Catskills…stuck.

  Damn.

  “Are you all right?” The sexy male voice seemed far away, making her think that perhaps she wasn’t all right. Perhaps she had a concussion. “Is anything broken? I think I have a first aid kit in the trunk.”

  Christine assessed her body. She didn’t hurt anywhere except for a small spot on her forehead. “I think I bumped the window. I was looking out at the snow.”

  “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  Christine couldn’t see the man or his fingers. She supposed she needed to open her eyes. Aha! She stared up at the flickering ceiling light until a couple of digits blocked her view.

  “How many?” God, he was persistent.

  “Two. And now you added one, so three.”

  He grunted and took his fingers away, apparently satisfied. “Radio’s out. Do you have a cell phone?” Without permission, he snatched up her purse and started rummaging through its contents. She focused on his hands—nimble fingers with a light sprinkling of hair on the back of his wrists. He found her phone, flipped it open, and cursed. “No signal. Damn mountains.”

  Christine turned her head slowly, still afraid it might fall off. A dense layer of snow covered the windshield, probably from the drift they’d slammed into. Out the side windows, she saw nothing but horizontally blowing snow. Zero visibility. And it had come on so fast.

  “Black ice,” the driver said. “Couldn’t tell it was there until too late.”

  “Can you dig us out?”

  “No shovel and it looks hard-packed. I’ll try to back us out. Maybe we’ll get lucky.” He didn’t seem to think they would and after revving the engine with the gearshift in reverse the car rocked a bit, but nothing more.

  The two front doors were caught in the drift and wouldn’t open. Christine finally looked at the driver’s face when he decided to climb over the backseat. He had a solid square jaw, slightly crooked nose and fierce blue eyes. Mighty nice. A ball cap covered his brown hair. The Yankees, of course.

  “I think there’s a blanket in the trunk, but not much else,” he said, shoving open one of the back doors, which let in a flurry of frozen flakes. Christine shivered and fought back a moment’s panic at the thought he might take off and leave her there alone. But she heard the trunk open and things getting tossed around. Then it closed again and the man reappeared at the side door.

  “What’s your name?” Christine asked once the guy had shut out the frigid wind.

  “Jake Bartlet.”

  “Hello, Jake. I’m Christine Vanliev. So what are we going to do?”

  They’d left the airport at ten p.m. and had been on the road for less than an hour. Her parents lived in a small town in the Catskills, upstate New York, and since she’d missed seeing them for Christmas, she’d been determined to reach them for New Year’s Eve. Bad weather had delayed her flight, then her landing, so she’d told her parents she’d take a cab no matter the expense because she had no idea when she’d get in. Now she was wishing she’d booked a hotel room and waited until morning.

  “Unfortunately, I think we’re going to have to huddle under this blanket until morning.” Jake tossed the blanket across her legs, then wiggled toward the front again, messing with the radio. He got static for his troubles but Christine got a nice view of his ass in the obscenely worn dungarees. As he repositioned himself on the backseat, he said, “The car’s jammed deep into the drift with the front wheels in the ditch. There’s no visibility out there and I’m damn sure we’d freeze to death wandering around before we’d find help. If the snow stops by morning, we can try then.” He took off his hat, then finally settled enough to meet her eyes.

  Christine looked away, wondering if she had good reason to argue with his plan, and tugged her carry-on bag from the floor to her lap. She had a sweater, spare underwear, deodorant and a bag of M&Ms inside. She draped the sweater over her lap and opened the M&Ms, wishing she’d packed a bottle of wine instead. “Like some?”

  Jake slid next to her on the vinyl seat. The car’s interior temperature was dropping rapidly, so it was nice to catch a bit of radiant heat from his nearness. He popped a couple of the candies in his mouth. “Thanks, but I do think we’re going to have to share body heat.” He shrugged out of his dark leather jacket. “Let’s put the coats behind us and the blanket over us.” He obviously wasn’t one to waste words.

  “Um.” Was there a way to avoid this heat-sharing thing? He was a total stranger after all, though he did have a nice scent, some sort of masculine cologne.

  He grinned. “I’ll be a gentleman, I promise. This is an unusual situation for me too, you know.”

  He had warned her about the weatherman’s predictions when she’d told him how far she needed to go. He’d also warned her about the fare. She’d said she’d pay it, no problem, so this was definitely her fault. She needed to be reasonable about the situation, though she wanted to run screaming from the car. “Okay, sounds like a plan.” It was the least she could do since he probably would’ve been off-shift by now and home in his warm bed if not for her.

  The backseat was spacious but it was hard to find a comfortable position for the two of them together, even once Jake took off his ball cap to keep the bill from hitting the back of Christine’s head. She wound up snugged between his legs with her back to his chest and his arms wrapped around her. He’d packed the two jackets behind him to insulate the door, then swung the blanket over top of their legs. Christine added her sweater and pulled the layers up over their arms. She didn’t like watching her breath crystallize in front of her face, but she liked it even less when the ceiling light snuffed out, leaving them in pitch darkness.

  “Not the best battery in this old thing,” Jake said, his voice rumbling through his chest and his breath tickling her ear. “We’ll probably need a jump in the morning.”

  Great, so there was no hope of driving out of here.

  After a few moments of silence where Christine listened to Jake’s breath near her ear and counted the thumps of his heart, Jake said, “So where are you from?” He’d picked her up in front of Newark airport.

  “From here originally but now living near Orlando in Florida.”

  “Better
weather.”

  “Oh yeah.” She smiled, but she’d missed the turning leaves in the fall and the snow for Christmas. “Funny how I forget the slush, salt and rusted cars when I’m down south. I just idealize snow, like a Currier and Ives painting.”

  “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

  “I guess, but this”—she gestured in the darkness—“should bring back those repressed memories.”

  A short snort came from Jake. A laugh perhaps? Except for her bared ears and nose, she was feeling downright toasty now in the little cocoon of body heat. Only problem was something stiff pressed against her backside and she was pretty sure she knew what it was. Should she say something? Ignore it? Or snuggle closer? Despite clubbing with her coworkers a couple times a month, it had been a while since she’d hooked up with anybody for a one-night stand.

  Her body sought to remind her of how sad that was because she started to feel the little tingle low in her belly and along her nipples. She tensed. He had to know he had a hard-on, right? Maybe he thought she couldn’t tell?

  “You feel good,” he said. “’S been a while since I’ve had a lady in my arms.”

  “Any particular reason for that?”

  “Workin’ all the time. Two jobs to keep my son in private school and pay the bills.”

  “How old’s your son?” And did he have a wife to go with that son?

  “He’s thirteen.”

  “Are you married?” If he was, that made what she was feeling—the first stirrings of desire—all the more wrong.

  “Not anymore. I was up until Dean turned three, then she met someone ‘with more prospects’, as she put it. Luckily, she didn’t even try for custody.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She really wanted him to move against her, to rub his cock against her back, maybe because that would give her an excuse to do some moving of her own. He’d been keeping one arm stiff against the backseat while the other wasn’t touching her at all, but abruptly he circled both arms around her waist, tucked up under her breasts.

  “Much warmer,” he murmured.

  Oh yeah. Much. She relaxed her head back to his shoulder and he balanced his chin atop her hair. The snow muffled any sounds outside the car and the inside was silent except for their breaths. Christine concentrated on Jake’s breathing, which she could feel as well as hear. She noticed it caught a couple of times and when it did, his heart sped up too.

  “Your hair smells good,” he said after they’d sat in silence for several moments. “Fruity.”

  “Kiwi shampoo.”

  “Nice.”

  His thighs, wrapped around hers, felt very solid, muscular. His stomach and chest seemed quite trim too, from what she could tell, and his arms were very definitely strong, sturdy. A tickling sensation on the back of her ear alerted her to the fact that he’d lightly licked her. She gasped but didn’t draw away. The lick turned into a nibble on her lobe. Then a quick lick behind her ear and down her neck. Wow. Beams of pleasure shot through her body. Her breathing changed at the same time his did, perhaps because he realized she wasn’t saying “no”. He gently sucked the back of her neck, which was the most sensitive spot on her entire body, she decided. His lips were warm, his tongue wet and circling, and around them was a cocoon of snowy silence. Christine didn’t want to break the spell. It was rare for a guy to spend time on foreplay before rushing to the main event but Jake seemed quite content tasting the top of her shoulder, her cheek and her jaw.

  “I think I’m forgetting my gentleman promise,” he murmured.

  “Me too.”

  And finally, she felt his hips move just a bit, bucking his cock against her back. When he did so, he barely stifled a moan. He palmed both of her breasts as he traced his tongue along the back of her neck to the other side. “I like your short hair,” he said. “Easy access.”

  “Mmm. Some guys complain. They want long hair, like a cover model.”

  “Gets in the way.” He slid his hands from her breasts, down her stomach, to the hem of her shirt. Sneaking beneath the fabric, his fingers brushed against her stomach. “Lean your head more.” She did, feeling as if she was baring her neck to the fangs of a vampire, but Jake didn’t bite her. He pressed his lips firmly to her skin and sucked, a favored method for making hickeys. When was the last time she’d had a hickey? High school? She should tell him to stop. A hickey would be visible in the morning. All the world would know she’d made out with someone between the airport and her parents’ house. But God, it felt so erotic. She closed her eyes and lowered her palms to his thighs to stroke.

  He stopped the suction with a nibble. His fingers discovered her bra and explored a bit until they found the front clasp. Pop and the bra was unhooked. Palms quickly brushed the satin aside and he once again cupped her breasts but this time skin to skin.

  Whoa! This was happening too fast…wasn’t it? Christine stiffened and Jake, as if sensing this, slid his palms to her stomach. She hadn’t protested or told him to stop, but he seemed willing to let her be. Despite his chivalry, his dick pressed against her, harder than ever, and his breath shuddered against her neck. And just listening to the rough breathing sent a bead of wetness into her panties and stoked her nipples to attention. She was kidding herself if she didn’t admit to being massively turned-on.

  “Go slow,” she murmured.

  “Are you sure?”

  She leaned her head back in the nook under his chin. His stubble grazed along the outer rim of her ear with the movement. “I’m sure.” But what was she giving permission to? How far did she plan to go with this stranger? She didn’t want to think that far ahead. She just wanted to feel scintillated and alive.

  The rough pads of his fingers slid along her skin underneath the layers of fabric, from her stomach, higher to the bottom curves of her breasts. His thumbs lifted, his fingers molded. Hands cupped her breasts while her taut nipples rubbed against her shirt fabric, hypersensitive. The seat creaked as he pushed his hips upward and the second after that thrust, he gasped.

  “Damn, this feels too good.”

  “Too good?”

  “It’s gotta be wrong, doesn’t it? To get pleasure out of being stranded?”

  “Not if we both want it.” And she wanted it more and more because his thumbs stroked back and forth across her nipples, just the lightest of touches, torturous and unsatisfying, stimulating and crazy. She bit her bottom lip, holding back a sound. What sound? A moan maybe, a cry, a demand for more? She was afraid to let him know how needy he was making her.

  His right hand left the program, started a lazy trek down her stomach and lower still. She heard the snap of her pants and the rasp of the zipper going down. His palm pressed one side of her pelvis, lower to that ticklish spot by her leg joint. His fingers crooked down along her inner thigh and then cupped her center shockingly hard. She bucked against his palm, wanting more pressure, wanting him to search inside her pants since he’d already unzipped them. His chuckle against her ear told her he was teasing her.

  She released her lower lip and moaned, “Oh God.”

  “Have you ever done this before?” Jake asked.

  She didn’t want to have conversation. “Which part? Snowstorm? Cabby?”

  “Let a stranger touch you like this.”

  “I have a vague memory of making out with some guy in the back of a nightclub when I was drunk. My friend rescued me before it went too far.”

  “You’re not drunk now.”

  “No.”

  “But you want my fingers inside your pants, don’t you?”

  She bit her lip again, afraid to admit how much she wanted them there.

  “Say it. Tell me you need me to touch you.”

  “God yes.”

  “Not enough. Tell me all of it.”

  Christine squeezed her eyes shut. Something about saying it out loud made it seem more real, more wrong. If they didn’t talk, she didn’t have to face up to her own role in this. But she was an adult making choices—er
otic, wild choices—but choices just the same. He’d accept her refusal. He’d made that clear. Licking her bottom lip and clearing her throat, she said, “I want you to touch my clit and my…hole. I want to feel your fingers all over me. I’m so wet for you.”

  Shit, she’d never spoken to a man like that before, not even a lover. It ramped up the heat in her body until she was boiling.

  “Fuck, that’s the hottest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.” He plucked her nipple with his left hand, twisted and pinched it, while forcing his right hand into her tight, pants. She wiggled too and finally decided to push the jeans down her thighs herself, just far enough to give his fingers plenty of access.

  His tongue played on the back of her neck again but then she felt his teeth scraping the sensitive skin. His fingers pinched her nipple at the same time his teeth clamped onto her neck and his finger pressed down on her clit.

  She rocketed. Emotions fireworked all over. Sensation spilled across every part of her body along with fiery heat. The bite and the pinch should hurt but it was a searing pain that actually felt so good. She couldn’t explain it, but the pain and the pleasure collided and the result was the ultimate orgasm.

  “Holy fuckin’ shit,” she gasped.

  But he didn’t stop and let her catch her breath. He slid his hand to the opposite breast and played. He dipped his fingers into her wet hole and pushed upward as far as he could reach and he moved his lips from the back of her neck to her shoulder and his teeth clamped down again. Hard. She couldn’t control her body. Her hips circled, aching to feel something larger and deeper inside her. Her nipples peaked, begging to be pinched again, and every bit of her skin felt every thread from the shirts between them, the blanket over them and the pants tight against her thighs.

  “My God,” he said, low, amazement clear in his voice. “You like pain.”

  A sudden panic welled up. “No. Don’t hurt me.” Her voice sounded childlike, scaring her even more. She was weak with desire, and this panic…it was an aphrodisiac.